This is a true story and I will keep it brief; for the full version, you will have to get in touch with me. It was back in 1977 probably near the start of the holiday season and I was teaching at the Melrose Day Care Center. A local printer donated some high quality paper, just about the kind used to make greeting cards. So I cut the paper into small sheets, about 5 x 7 or so and put them out with water colors for the kids to paint on. The results were amazing! Each painting was a kaleidoscope of colors with much more depth than the typical white paper or recycled paper we usually used. With my limited knowledge of art, it looked to me that they could have been painted by Picasso. The kids must have made about fifty of them. Realizing how nice they looked, I recognized the potential to fold them in half and use them for greeting cards. So, I admit, I took some home. Back then, I wrote poetry. So, I took a poem I wrote for the holidays and with my shaky handwriting wrote out holiday cards to a small number of friends using these Picasso-like water colors. A few years ago, I got a Christmas card from my old friends, Jeff and Trish and in the card, addressed to an "old friend", they told me that every year at Christmas, they would take out the card and read it. Last month while in New Orleans at my son's wedding, I got an email from my friend Eric; he told me that while cleaning out his attic, he came upon a card that I had sent him many years ago. Eric and I were student teachers at Melrose Day Care and the only two men in the Wheelock grad program in 1975-76. I knew right away what he was talking about. Some of you may have the original (if you've known me since then); hold onto it, it might be worth something! For the rest of you who have somehow found your way into my life, here goes (Happy holidays with love and friendship):
Old Friends
Old friends come home again
As the change of the seasons
And the loving seems to quicken
For a wide range of reasons.
There can be softness in the winter air
There can be quiet in the midst of storm
There is peace with the words of those who care
There are arms in which to feel safe and warm.
In the shadows of the memories
There are simple pleasures
And in the patches of grief
We find strengths to later measure
Wintertime thoughts of spring
Remain a simple treasure.
Old friends come home again
To the cities’ lonely winter reaches
And the loving seems to quicken
With tales in rhyme of distant beaches.
There are scars from other years
And scenes replayed in other words
In worlds of sunset flocking birds
And wondrous highs and vivid fears.
Old friends come home again
To listen close and take your hand
And the loving seems to quicken
With visions of a magic land
Old friends come home again
As the change of seasons
And the loving seems to quicken
For a wide range of reasons
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