A winter's afternoon spent in search of a safe reentry

There’s a lot to be said about hanging out with guys you’ve known since childhood … and, I mean, a lot of stuff gets said … loudly.

At the outset I should stress one thing: I’ve been gone a long time.

Consequently, I’ve missed a huge chunk of hometown news and views, which places me with my nose pressed against a window pane, looking for a way inside … without seeming, well, too pushy.

So when I found myself in the midst of a Saturday afternoon gathering last weekend, I had to walk a tightrope between seeming withdrawn and overanxious, seeking the proper balance. I’ll admit I probably erred on the side of caution, not wanting to insert myself into the heat of a debate I knew nothing about, but occasionally, I ventured into the fray with more confidence, thinking to myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

That’s sort of been my mantra since my wife and I moved back home two winters ago after nearly 25 years on the Carolina coast.

There’s a scene in “Apollo 13” in which Ed Harris, as a NASA bigwig, upon hearing the crippled spacecraft might not execute a successful reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, asks if alerting the crew to the possibility they could be stranded in space forever would change anything at all about their dire situation.

Advised in the negative, he says, “Then they don’t have to know.”

I think that’s brilliant.

It calls to mind a Nils Lofgren lost-love song, whose refrain goes:

“I don’t want to know, where you slept last.

I don’t want to know; I just want out fast.”

Is ignorance bliss? A lot of older guys might agree, which could explain why so many of us avoid going to the doctor when any kind of malady crops up, preferring to tough it out, to act strong.

Is that a winning strategy? It’s worked for me for 70 years, so …

But that’s one thing I’ve learned since returning to my hometown. It’s a gamble when you mention someone you used to know, however tangentially, because odds are you’re going to hear something bad, and the word “stroke” doesn’t refer to golf.

Standing on the periphery of that lively gathering the other day, I was reminded of Robert Altman, the legendary film director whose cinematic trademark in movies like “M*A*S*H” and “Nashville” was the use of overlapping conversations. It’s difficult to describe in words because the art is in the layering of simultaneous dialogue without it becoming an annoying distraction.

Altman’s fly-on-the-wall technique requires a distant proximity, which may sound contradictory, but it’s rooted in everyday life. If you focus on one conversation, you’re liable to miss out on four or five others. The trick is to observe the way they all come together.

And that’s how a discussion of pig’s feet as a culinary delicacy rolled into an argument over the best fastpitch hurler named “Peter” — Brown, Meredith or Finn — which then evolved to the longest home run ever witnessed, leading to the time cops were called to break up a fight during a ballgame, flowing into lettermen’s jackets and class reunions, all of which somehow boomeranged back to the smorgasbord of taste treats on display.

“You gotta try one of these pig’s feet,” one guy said. “I got a toe.”

“Think I’m gonna stick with the shrimp,” another replied, smiling.

That was the thing that impressed me. For all the grandiose braggadocio on display, the insults and four-letter invectives, the I-can-top-that story inventory, there was, at the heart of it all, tangible friendship, the kind of camaraderie that lasts a lifetime.

I’m not presumptuous enough, nor is my ego so terribly outsized, to believe for a single minute I’m to be included in their fraternity, but I was happy enough to have been invited to attend their traditional first-Saturday-of-the-month gathering.

That was truly a gift, and I’m very grateful to have received it.

When you’ve been gone a while, having lived a beach life for so long, you’re realistic when it comes to making a successful reentry, but it was a start. And no one seemed to mind I spent a lot of time looking out at the backyard through the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, admiring the windblown drifts, untrodden but for the hoof prints of the deer and the peace-sign bird tracks.

All those sunny days spent lying in the sand, listening to the hypnotic crashing of the waves and the laughter of the seagulls, fitting into a lifestyle that would have seemed utterly alien had someone suggested it to me prior to my leaving, I remembered this line from “Acadian Driftwood,” released by the Band in 1975:

“Set my compass north.

I got winter in my blood.”

And with that last bit of wisdom imparted, I’ll be back in a week.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where friends, young and old, come and go as they please, often with much more insight than their host can ever offer.