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Remembering Carl


Carl was tall and thin with long, strong arms and legs and a confident amble to his walk.   Always with a ready smile, low key and soft spoken he could blend in with the crowd which is what he preferred.  He seemed approachable and open, but he kept to himself and his own thoughts.  Well liked but not really close with anyone.  Except me.  

I don’t know when we became close friends – although memories go back to 5th grade.   Carl and I lived in the same general area in the rural mountains of Pennsylvania.   The bus ride was over 30 minutes to the Jr/Sr. high school we attended and we always sat next to each other to and from school.   We shared many classes together.  Despite my active participation in extracurricular activities and editor of the school newspaper and yearbook, Carl didn’t like clubs but he loved to run.  He was a school standout on the track team and excelled at sprints and hurdles.   Carl loved to read science fiction and super hero comic books and was always doodling extraterrestrial monsters and super hero figures.   

Although we were very different in many ways, we were never bored together.  We sought each other’s company whenever possible – in and out of school.  Most days we had lunch together.   We would look for each other in the hallways between classes.  Weekends we would ride bikes together all over the country side.   Carl was the oldest of three and I was an only child.  We had a big house and I had my own bedroom so Carl often rode the backroads to our house to spend the day or an overnight on weekends.    Given my mom was in the restaurant business and worked nights, we had the house to ourselves and we would just fool around with the dogs, or watch TV down in the rec room or just talk.     I loved going to Carl’s house as his mom grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and made US style potato salad and baked beans, something we never had in our German household.  

We got our first summer jobs together at the local country club as a golf caddy.  It was a job I hated but Carl kept it for summers afterwards as I took a job working elsewhere.    When we could on summer afternoons and weekends we would ride our bikes to a local lake and spend the afternoon laying in the sun and swimming in the cold spring fed water.   We could say nothing or talk endlessly about something.  It didn’t matter.   When my mother went through a divorce and things got rough for me, I could escape with Carl.  His infectious laugh and his easy going manner let me unwind and after a time with him I’d feel better about things.  

Junior year of high school saw both of us getting driver licenses and Carl bought an old 51 green Kaiser Henry J.    Because he was an honor student, Carl could drive his car to school and I often jumped at the chance to skip the bus and go with him.   Carl with his long hair and budding goatee with loose flannel shirts and faded jeans and me with my short hair, pressed pants and cardigan sweaters must have made the unlikely duo walking into school in the morning.    But, to everyone in our small class it was well known that if you saw one of us the other was not far behind.

It was October of our senior year.  Carl was going to get a track scholarship to a local college and he was going to accept it.  I got an academic scholarship and was planning on attending a college far from home.   We were actively debating whether we could find a college I liked and he could get a scholarship to so we could go together.   I was riding the bus to school that day.  I expected Carl to board as well since the Henry J was having some mechanical issues again.     When Carl didn’t board I assumed he fixed it and drove on to school.   When I got to homeroom, my teacher told me to go down to the office for a message.   It was there in the principal’s office that they told me Carl was dead.  The previous night he crashed that old Henry J into a tree with such a force it practically ripped it in two.  Perhaps the throttle stuck as it sometimes did but for whatever reason Carl was driving at a very high speed when he lost control.  At the age of 18 he was pronounced dead at the scene and had to be cut out of the wreckage.  The injuries were disfiguring. 

I honestly do not remember a thing that day until the viewing and the funeral.  It was an open casket and my mother tried to prepare me for that but nothing in my imagination could have prepared me.   I wasn’t used to death and the body lying there was a pale and faint resemblance of my buddy, head turned to the side to hide the disfigurement.   I tried to place my hand on his as I spoke my good bye.  A mistake I regret as it was cold and lifeless.  I was asked to say a few words as his best friend.   Upon the suggestion of my mom, I read a Robert Frost poem.    It was my first life experience with death and I remember despite the support of family and friends, I was like a walking Zombie that day and for many days and weeks after.

Life after October went on as it always seems to do.  I went to Sr. Prom which we dedicated to Carl (although he never would have gone).   As yearbook editor I suggested and it was unanimously approved to dedicate a page to Carl in the yearbook.   One of the staff suggested we print the poem I read at the funeral with the photo.   I smile even now as that poem was so not Carl he for sure would have teased me about it with a laugh and a soft punch in the arm.  That was 1969.     At the end of that summer I got a 63 VW and headed off to college.   They say time heals all wounds and I guess that cliché is true.   As time passed the memories of Carl drifted to the back of my mind to be replaced by other experiences and people. 

But then 21 years later, in 1990 when I was packing up things to move to a new house I came across my senior yearbook.  I opened it to the memorial page for Carl.  I just stared at his photo for the longest time.  The memories of him and our times together came flooding back.  I could hear him, feel him.  It was like his presence was there with me and his arm was around me and I just sat with my thoughts of us and our times together for a long time.       

As I write this 52 years have passed since Carl’s death.   Together, we got through adolescence and family strife and hardships and shared a special bond growing up together.  I wonder about the life Carl may have led, the man he would have become and the friendship and bonds we could have formed.  I’m sad that opportunity was lost, but I believe the time we spend with the people we like and love matters most.    Compared to a life time, that time with Carl was too short.  Too short.  And so, I write this to remember him always.   


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