The Little Frog and Duck Boy In The I.E. Part 7

Our shuffle or stumble down memory lane began almost immediately…the catch phrases that we remembered, the bizarre sales experiences, the parties, people we had known all began rushing through our brains. Had it not been for a lot fewer follicles in active production it was just like old times.

Reunion reminiscing can grind to a halt at times and so it is important to keep the machinery lubricated. Preventive maintenance is the key here and Alain had stocked up on some fine New Zealand lubricant. He must have sensed that I might be the weak link in the chain of memory because he immediately put a bottle of New Zealand's finest adult discretionary beverage in my hands. We had joked several times about getting a little outlandish so we felt obligated to begin that immediately.

When old friends reconnect, memories don't bubble up slowly; they are like a geyser, rushing to the surface, pausing perhaps for a few moments then erupting again. Properly connected, two people in the throws of reunion reminiscing don't even need complete sentences to do their mischief….

Someplace in the process the conversation will touch on something that's not so funny and then the stories of harder times begin to unfold. A person doesn't live nearly 60 years without spending at least some of those years in Plan B. Maybe sometimes we are in Plan B and don't even know it. Alain has had his share of time there and so have I.

In some ways, Alain is like one of those children’s blow up punching bag toys. Giving that thing your best shot might rock it back to the floor but it doesn't stay there. To put it in more contemporary terms, “he’s got game.” One of my favorite analogies that I either read or made up is the comparison between how a person looks at life and the operation of an automobile. The windshield is so much larger than the rear view mirror that we should know where our focus needs to be. Alain has one of the smallest rear view mirrors of anyone I have ever known.

As tempting as it is to recount a few of the episodes we re-hashed for you here, I’ll spare you that. You’ve probably all been involved in some sort of a reunion scenario and so you know how it goes. The hilarity of the old days is easily recalled by the participants and absolutely unfathomable to the entrapped observer. There is, however, one exception to the “entrapped observer” phenomenon…more on that the next time when you learn at long last how Daniel became “Duck Boy”.