I guess I was pretty naive,
but I didn't realize, back then,
that we were poor,
or that we lived where we lived
because we were poor.
And I never knew that everyone else
that lived there was poor.
It just never occurred to me.
I never thought too much about it,
but just accepted the way things were,
when you lived in a government project.

Sure, others in school had nicer things,
nicer clothes, some had cars,
and they had a few bucks to go places,
and I didn't have any of that,
but somehow I got by.

One thing I did have,
which I really wonder how many others really had,
of all those who had more than I had....
I had a friend.
Not a buddy, not an acquaintance,
not just someone to hang around with...
a Friend.
Ron was that friend.

Think about that.
Think about what that word means.
Take it to the limits of all possible meanings,
underscore all the words in the definitions,
and understand that those descriptive words
are pearls laid on pillows of purest silk,
surrounding the word...
and that word is so much more...
Truth. And Trust. And Love.
A brother could not have been as close to me.

Funny thing was,
I don't think that either of us really thought too much about it,
one way or the other.
Not then, anyway.
Years later, I would think about it.
and I would remember.
And I would smile, even as I missed those days
when we were, and life was, so innocent.

They say the Sixties were turbulent times.
The world we grew up in was in upheaval.
Everything was crazy.
Yeah, it was all that, I suppose.
And time of growing, a time of learning,
a time of discovering that the world was not like in the movies...
but it was a time of escape for some of us,
and we did,
each in our own way,
and then it became a time of trying to find our way....

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