Old Friends

Two Old Friends, by George Underwood

George Underwood, born in England in 1947, grew up friends with David Bowie and initially entered the music business. He made his chops working there after deciding that music wasn't for him and has hundreds of illustrations and book covers, album covers and the like to his credit. He began working in oils along the way and now has many shows in museums and other venues to his credit as well. David Bowie and he continue to be old friends to this day.

Old Friends

I did walk with you
the rocky places drawn out
by small or large steps
along the paths we chose
without knowing how we chose
and all this so long
before time began,
our stars rolled out from behind
the drapes of heaven.

Know it is all just.
Know it is so, just like this.
Know I love you now.

March 4, 2010 4:55 PM
small modifications ‎February ‎17, ‎2012

There's a postscript...I have been on FaceBook for a while. At one point I decided to look for a man I knew once as a boy, me in third grade, he in fourth. For a short time in those days (but a long time in kid years) this man was my best friend. In the summer between third and fourth grade my folks took advantage of the post World War II situation and turned themselves into teachers in the California school system, both high school teachers, and ultimately my Dad went into Administration. They moved us out to the valley so they could go to teachers college at the College of the Pacific in Stocton. We lived in a small town on the way to the Sierras called Oakdale, where I spent fourth and fifth grades. My friend of course was left behind in Berkeley, and this separation was an exquisite pain for me, one that would be repeated more than once through my life, but this was really my first time. I never really got back together with him again, though I learned something of him later and my knowledge helped me when I searched for him on FaceBook. I found him.

Now I have an old friend, a friend of fifty nine years... I believe that's correct. We email and talk frequently and it's as if we never parted really. He lives in Minnesota. Once we lived on opposite sides of the same block in post war Berkeley and LeConte Elementary School where we both attended was new. I have Googled my street. The school is still there. My house is too, but it has been gentrified. I lived in the house next door as well. That house has been completely rebuilt. Both places were apartment houses in the war years and after. My folks were poor as poor can be, living in shabby apartments. That of course was fine with me. A Nobel prize winning scientist (the prize still in the future in those years) lived around the corner, this neighborhood being one that some University of California at Berkeley students and teachers would choose.

FaceBook is amazing for this sort of thing.