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| Joe at back door of his family home when it was up for sale |
Just learned this afternoon that a childhood friend died yesterday at home*. I say 'childhood friend', but though we first met in 1965 and were friends into adulthood, I stopped having anything to do with him in 1982 as he could no longer be relied on to keep his word. Around 2010 we resumed our friendship, but in the interim he'd become addicted to alcohol and 'exotic substances', adding those vices to his chain-smoking. I fell out with him again a few years ago as he'd often be bad-tempered, paranoid, surly, unpleasant, rude, and irritating (too much 'weed') and the occasional fleeting glimpses of the person he'd once been weren't sufficient to enable me to overlook his excesses when they reared their ugly head. His name? Joseph Walter Beattie and he was a year or two younger than me.
We'd lived in the same street in the 1960s and, along with the late Alan Adam Bowie, as teens the three of us comprised 'The Adventurers', a name I'd chosen because of the numerous escapades in which, in the innocence of youth, we became embroiled back when we thought we had forever in front us. Whether Alan or Joe ever applied the appellation to themselves I have no idea, but that's how I envisioned us whenever we were exploring places we had no right to be or were even safe to go or not. Ah, what fun and excitement we had, often escaping the potentially dire consequences of our exploits by the skin of our teeth and living to tell (no doubt with a heavy helping of hyperbole) of our excursions into spectacular situations and scary scenarios. I'll never see days like that again, nor will Alan or Joe.
Perhaps they're both now in a better place, reminiscing about old times and wondering just where their 'leader' is? Given the state of my health these days, who knows - perhaps it won't be very long 'til I join them, but I continue to hope I've got at least another 50 years before that happens. So long, Joe - here's to the person you once were before you fell in with bad company and allowed yourself to be led along the wrong path in life.
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(*Since first publishing this, I've been advised he actually passed away at home so I've amended the post. He'd been in palliative care, but didn't want to die in hospital so returned home for a short while 'til the Grim Reaper claimed him.)
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| Joe in the living-room of his family home when it went up for sale after his mother died. Incidentally, the Moon photo in the previous post was taken in this house's back garden |
