Pocket Historical
Markers:  Address Books
written by Lane Hudson

The time has come to purge and update my personal
address book for the first time in nine years.
Deciphering the lines is confusing when I try to read
the blue, red, and black entries that are crossed out and
inked over.   

Transferring the names, addresses, phone numbers
(and now email addresses) really shouldn’t take long,
but it does.  Each name must be studied to decide who
to keep and who to leave behind. There are some names
and phone numbers exchanged at first meetings, but
never really followed through.  Fortunately though,
most names are of my tried and true friends who have
survived several translations of my address books, even
if years have passed between contacts with them.

I have to visit with each entry, the way one reads an
historical marker. This is why the transfer of
information takes so long.

For instance, there’s David Butler’s name.  He and I
were in our early 20s when we became college friends.
We wore shoulder length hair, beards, and sandals,
vowing never to trust anyone over 30 or work for the
“man”.  So I was really surprised when he joined the
National Guard as full-time recruiter after college.  
When I do see him, I laugh as he strokes his required
buzz cut and wears his uniform.  He laughs at my
thinning hair and absurdity of me being a college
professor.

Then there’s Jimmy Howard’s name.  He literally roared
into my life 30 years ago when I had to jump off the
sidewalk to avoid being hit by his Harley Davidson Hog.  
As he charged up our fraternity house steps with a big
wad of tobacco punching his cheek out, he spit and
proclaimed:  “I’ve come looking for a woman to ride my
Harley with me.”  

Well, instead of a motorcycle mamma, it was a demure
coed who stole his heart, convinced him to trade his
Hog for a sedan and three kids. Today a Methodist
minister in Rock Hill, if he thunders half as loud as his
Harley did, no one could sleep through his sermons. I
definitely will keep his address and phone number. I
might need him some day to pray for me.  I’d like for
him to do my eulogy.

The names in the address book are normal names:
Tommy Hudson, David Coe, Warren Baker, Al Taylor,
Jimmy Propst, Paul Cargil, Paul Wright…all with
stories, some fit for telling, some better forgotten. Some
legal.  Some illegal. Everyone has such names in their
address book, and stories, written somewhere, if only in
memory: just personal historical markers.

Well, it is almost midnight and at this speed, I’ll never
get this task done. I do know I’ve got some catching up
to do with some old friends: need to dust off some of
those markers.  Besides, they will probably like to hear
that I’m still good for the beer money I borrowed from
them so many years ago.