While driving down the New Jersey Turnpike earlier this afternoon, I got thinking about the poor slobs for whom the service areas are named. Vince Lombardi: famed football coach who uttered oft-quoted lines about winning and losing and how to play the game. Thomas Edison: inventor of lightbulbs. (Do you know that I really am one of those people who call an electrician to come change the lightbulbs? Many of our fixtures are European and we simply speak different languages.)
And then we have Joyce Kilmer. Joyce Kilmer? Who's she and what heinous act earned her immortality at milepost 78.7? Turns out she's a he, an early 20th century poet; according to Wikipedia, critics "disparage his work as being too simple, overly sentimental, and suggested that his style was far too traditional, even archaic." I hope Mr. Kilmer had a friend like my friend N to turn to for comfort.
I've come to the Jersey shore to visit my archaic friend N (she turned 50 in May). I'm sitting on her deck waiting for her to get home, swatting at mosquitos and stealing wireless from her neighbor. I'm thinking that this will be the first time in probably 10, possibly 15 years that we've had any significant one-on-one time. Our friendship began when we were both single and could stay up all night long chatting and laughing. Time is now a limited resource and when we get together it's often in a large group -- kill two birds with one stone and all that.
I think about one of Vince Lombardi's remarks: "The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have." For now I have a few hours to reconnect with N, who has just arrived and lovingly presented me with boxes of Yodels and Ding Dongs (we're both overly sentimental). The time will come when our children are grown and gone and we can recreate scenes from our youth. Tonight we'll keep it simple, just like Joyce Kilmer.
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