Ode To Happy Friday

I remember when when Friday had such significance to me. The weekend was almost upon me like a father's promise of future prosperity. In high school it meant no more classes, possibly a movie, and two nights and two six packs of beer. Hanging out with Heather and Paula, with the sex-starved gang that was slowly degrading into a nudist camp, with George, Danny and Tex. In college almost anything could happen, and often did. We were all living in the moment when we weren't cramming for an exam. Girls everywhere on a campus of thirty thousand, more people than in my home town; all young and looking for thrills. Even the socially challenged had a shot. That was a good thing for me.

Out of school and into the real world, living in a house with three guys from college. We had better parties than either of my fraternities. We were a fraternity, and the au pairs were our sister sorority.

Now I look forward to chores and yard work. Now I am RESPONSIBLE. Sometimes I miss the old life; but the old life is as dead for me as the frogs I sometimes find in the catch basket of my pool filter. Even if I went out and had a few beers, it wouldn't be the same. If I hold the door for a young woman today, she says, "Thank you sir." The kids in my son's kindergarten class call me Mister, even though I tell them to call me Scott. I bitch about the music of today, and think teenagers are going to hell in a hand basket. In other words, I'm getting older folks.

I used to turn on my favorite radio station and listen to the montage of songs in tribute to Friday. My heart raced. Now it's just another day--almost.

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I've decided that Tobias Wolff is my favorite author. I started the audio book over and am going to get more of his work. After choice passages, I rewound and listened as if it were a sweet melody. "It was as if some subliminal sense of cause and effect had taken hold..."

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Have a great weekend!