LEGENDS IN OUR LIVES

There are places I remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living In my life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers There is no one compares with you And these memories lose their meaning When I think of love as something new

Though I know I’ll never lose affection For people and things that went before I know I’ll often stop and think about them In my life, I love you more

[John Lennon & Paul McCartney]

In My Life is one of my favorite Beetle’s songs: great music, great harmony, meaningful lyrics, and… a near perfect fit for an idea that has been rolling around in my head for a long, long time. And maybe in yours.

People and places fade and disappear, but a select few become personal legends; they meander around the backroads of our minds, occasionally emerging into our consciousness. We haven’t seen them in decades; how long has it been? Ten years? Twenty? Can it really have been forty years? Fifty? Impossible!

We are not talking about myths like Ulysses, or unicorns, or Robin Hood, or King Arthur, or Atlantis, or Snow White, or the fountain of youth or Big Foot. Myths are fictional. Legends are (for the most part) real and long ago. A friend from elementary school who died; a special teacher who made an impact on your life; a love affair that didn’t quite make if to the alter; the fraternity party that got your frat suspended. (Like mine). A coach, a mentor, your best friend in college, that devil-may-care kid who screwed around Freshman year and flunked out; a grandparent you barely remember, a grandma you never knew, an army buddy who disappeared from your radar, the person who brought you into the church; a teammate from your high school basketball team, a friend who became famous, your friend from around the block, the neighborhood bully you would like to confront.

Places are also legendary; they also hold us in sentimental thrall. The small town of your childhood; your neighborhood in Brooklyn; your college dorm, the old farmhouse your grandparents had in Missouri; the summer camp you went to for nine summers; your high school; your dorm room at State; the elementary school with those rows of desks riveted into the floor, the singles bar where you met your spouse.

Most importantly, the legends of our lives were impactful, for better and for worse. We wonder how their lives turned out. They were so special, so interesting, so influential. You drift back while driving; I really should look up Phil. Would he even remember me? He may be a legend in my life, but am I a legend in his, or a long-forgotten blip from college days? Is he even alive? How would he react if I called?

The dictionary defines a legend as “an extremely famous or notorious person, especially in a particular field,” or “a nonhistorical or unverifiable story, a person whose fame or notoriety makes him a source of exaggerated or romanticized tales.”

Our personal legends aren’t famous – but they are famous to us. As time passes, they can become exaggerated, romanticized, or distorted. Eight years ago, I tracked down many of my legends. It wasn’t hard to do. What would have been impossible a few decades ago, was as easy as a few clicks. Every encounter was powerful, often nerve-wracking and full of surprises. It was at once fascinating, heart-rendering, poignant, exciting, uncomfortable, and not particularly pleasant.

I know where they live. I’ve seen their homes on Google Maps. I know how many children they have. I learned about their lives. I found their phone numbers, and in some cases, spoke to them decades later. Some of their lives were tragic while others were unpredictably bountiful and successful. Some achieved beyond their expectations; others found life to be frustrating. Some were megalomaniacs; others pathologically shy. Some found everything they needed with God. Others made gods out of their secular pursuits. One was chief of staff for a long-term New York state senator. Some exerted extraordinary effort to make their lives meaningful. Several found satisfaction in mainstream pursuits: marriage, family, career and a house in the suburbs. One became probably the world’s foremost expert in their field. One never recovered from losing his wife twenty years ago. Two were dying of cancer. One fathered a child in the Peace Corps and never knew it. A best friend from college had no memory of me at all. (The chemo, he said, takes all the positiveness out of life.) One’s kid sister hung herself at home. One became a leader in a black militant organization. Some were discouraged; some stumbled; four died, another took his own life.

Some names have been changed.

It feels like time travel. The last time I saw Davy he was twenty-three; when I called, he was 72. New Years Eve 1967 / 68 was the last time I saw Ronnie in my small Manhattan apartment. Snow was falling on the city. We were twenty-four. When Errol took his life, we were both thirty-nine. Billie, the brilliant and inscrutable sixteen-year-old college girlfriend who tormented me, came and went when I was nineteen. If legends of our lives can be defined as having an impact, then she surely did.

Your personal legends may be anywhere in the past. I had a cluster during my first two years of college. Why that time? Most of us go through the confusion of “coming of age.” Memoirs are surfeited with the years between thirteen and twenty-three, when we navigated through the turmoil and uncertainty of adolescence. The drama, the excitement, the disappointments, coming to grips with who we are, our strengths, our limitations, our first sexual encounters, fear of acceptance, fear of failure, and divorcing parents are difficult, if not painful. We were all thirteen once. We all have egos. We all went through it. We remember. For some, the time passed easily, for others the experience is seared into our souls, and better left locked in the long-ago.

So – where are we going with this? What’s the point? One individual in my cluster of college legends, exemplifies what I have been writing about on Substack: American society in transition. Wars, revolutions, politicians, technology and economic fluctuations, get our attention. But how does a changing world affect us on a personal level?

Ronnie Jones is one of my personal legends. From our freshman year in 1961, to our last edgy confrontation in the waning hours of 1967, American society exploded, sweeping through the land like a swarm of locust, eating away at tradition, language, education, values, styles, morals, norms, parenting, marriage, and personal relations.

The next essay on CRISIS, in about a week, will be about my friendship with Ronnie Jones, another casualty of the Sixties.