Friends for 50 years

When I was 18 years old I worked at a fabric/stitchery shop in Torrance, in a small strip mall. Big malls were not yet the rage (although Torrance did claim to have the largest mall in the world for a couple of years, the Del Amo mall, just in case that is of interest to mallrats) but small strip malls were a great source of commerce. In that strip mall was a deli/liquor store where I would sometimes get a sub sandwich. And in that store I met Flip.

At the time, I thought Flip was a couple of years older than I was, but I was easily swayed by anyone who pretended to be anything other than what they were. I was then and am still fairly gullible. Plus Flip was not anything like the pasty-faced white surfer boys I sometimes dated in those days.  (HA!  "Dated" is such a euphemism for "had sex with.")  Flip was another mix, sort of Hawaiian and maybe Samoan or something, who knew, I didn't care. He was a little brash and a bit wise-ass and a tad wise. He was not a pasty-faced white surfer boy. He asked me out, I said yes.

Flip introduced me to the Los Angeles fine dining scene, what there was of it in 1968. He had a way of making waiters bow differentially and back off when they questioned if I was of drinking age. (I was not.) (As it turned out, neither was he!)  He ordered bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape wine, which were lovely. (I was 18 and knew nothing about wine except the sweet kind.)  We went to the Sunset Strip in LA and got into places we had no business being in. We would drive down the coast, talking and talking, stopping in some Mom-and-Pop restaurant for cheap pasta and house red wine served in old jelly jars. We made out in the back of my small red car, always coming up for air before we got too far into the sex thing. We decided that being friends was more important than fucking, so we never did.  Flip covered for me in 1969 when I needed him and he was at my wedding in 1971, although he arrived late. I was at his first wedding the following year. 

Flip was in SF this week with his new wife, Tina. (He has had more than a couple wives in the past 50 years, just saying.) Tina is a perfect match for Flip: she is smart, honest, direct and fun. Like me, she is a voracious reader of books, which I always take as a positive sign of a person's character.  I think Flip and Tina are going to do well together.

It is amazing to have a friend for more than 50 years.  There have been times when we called each other every two weeks and there have been times when two years go by without talking. But out of it all, I know that if I needed him, if I called and said "I need you" he would be on a plane within the hour and be at my door ASAP. I would do the same for him.  I remember once I was in a small hotel in Paris and the phone rang (which never happens, of course) and it was Flip calling, just to surprise me and to see how I was. How he found me in that small hotel I still can't figure out (and he won't say) but it spoke of how much he cares for me. And he still does. And I do back at him.

As I said in a blog post a month ago, the thing that matters is just this:  we love.  This is what I said then:  It doesn't matter why or how, it matters that we love. It matters that we love, even if it is messy and difficult because it is also special and sometimes remarkable. More often than not it is simple and easy while also complicated and annoying. But that's all part of the process and part of why and how we love. That we love, there is the meaning.

I love Flip, I always will, he loves me and he always will. I am so, so happy that he has this new life and I cannot wait to visit Tina and Flip in Hawaii.  Life moves on. Sometimes life is good.

xo