Fleeting Capture: The Letters of Old Friends

Dial back your time machine to the early 1970's, when I was in high school with two very dear friends - Andy Peavy and Kathy Siebert, both of whom both knew me very well, but not each other, even though we were a small high school. Andy was a relatively late arrival to high school whom I befriended quickly, especially as we built a smoking shelter onto our school (yes - they smoked in school back then) and several, very durable picnic tables as a result of our love for carpentry, and perhaps erroneously, thinking it might raise our manly status with our coveralls, plaid shirts and tool belts. It marginally qualified us for slightly higher than wimpy, but did manifest itself more successfully as set builders for the annual Girls Athletic Association show. Kathy (Krypton was our mutual secret name for her, mine Pluto) shared many common characteristics with me - growing up together, drama class, German class and German parents, and a pretty goofy, fun loving disposition. Not to mention, brief flirtations with what could best be characterized as young love in my red Fiat convertible.

I am relatively certain you all remember you high school "daze" - where everything seems a bit of a blur, but within the walls much happened to form our lives. And never does one think, following that final step off the graduation podium in 1974, that any relationship could possibly last beyond a few years. But last it did, through a magnificent collection of letters between Andy and me, and Kathy and me - letters that were full of angst, wistful questioning, idealism and no small measure of pompous prose, especially from me (some might characterize it as drivel).

Five years ago, on my bicycle adventure across Oregon, on a whim, we agreed to meet in the town of John Day, central Oregon, for a camping weekend, since Kathy lived in Portland, and Andy in Lakeview Oregon. That is where the first batch of letters was revealed between Kathy and me, reassembled in chronological order that started in high school, and continued more or less through college, travels, marriages, children and the passage of time to the advent of email. On that splendid weekend in 2010, the three of us vowed to get together every five years to share experience, memories, hiking, and camping.

Mt. St. Helen's blast zone, Spirit Lake in foreground

Five years was this past weekend.

A steel monument left in place

A mini-raft

35 year old log raft

It has been 35 years since Mount St. Helen's in Washington erupted, a monumental event Becky and I witnessed while in grad school. Andy, and his wife Amy, both retired from the Forest Service, were running around the state camping anyway, and so we agreed to meet relatively close to Kathy in Portland and revisit this somewhat haunting, yet stunningly beautiful spot, to check its progress through time, and ours. Camping at Paradise Creek, we spent a full, very warm day touring the blast zone, seeing the gradual recovery of the forest, but also the 35 year old remnants of blown down trees laying parallel to the blast direction, great graying trunks strewn like match sticks on a faintly greening carpet. Or the massive log raft in the diminished Spirit Lake, a reminder of the blast that to this day is a bleached, floating mass that neither rots not sports a new growth atop. And of course, the location of the now immortal Harry Truman's lodge on a little mat in the lake, and a car that was buried in the ash, its three occupants now a part of Helen's legend.

But Saturday, a hike along the Lewis River, was perhaps the highlight - a beautiful 10+ mile up-and-down ramble in a heavily forested, occasionally steep gorge along the abundantly clear and enticing river on this, one of the hottest days possible in Oregon. Andy, Kathy and me, taking the day to wander, enjoy the sights and sounds of the forest and river, found much to talk about - times present and past.

Midway through the trek, we found a wonderful, perfectly cool, private, swirling swimming hole nestled in a rocky basin to cool off, sans clothing, comfortable in our enduring friendship, with nothing to hide, not our scars (Andy's and mine), or tatoo's of redemption (Kathy). We cherished that moment of togetherness and peace, along with the few friendly nibbles on our quarters from minnows.

Top secret swimming hole

Friends, refreshed (and dressed!)

But those letters! The stories they tell - largely forgotten, triggering memories! This time, we focused on Andy's letters to me (and a few copies I had of letters to him), many pounded out on our trusty typewriters, conveying problems, contemplative thoughts of doom and gloom, and a mutual advice column and cheering section as both of us made our way through college, writing also of the dearth of enduring female companionship that seemed to plague us - until suddenly, we were both married to our present sweethearts, also documented with some surprise, much detail, and encouragement in these letters. And around our fire this time, abundant talk and some fun with haiku

I treasure these letters, and most of all, the endurance and depth of these friendships, a rarity to be sure. Will email be as enduring? Something has been lost in this electronic communication, this power of traditional letters, the surprise anticipation of time-delayed delivery, revealing by the handwriting and text the nature of the writer's feelings and emotions. But not so the power and emotion of the written word in any medium - left now to share in another five years.

From Peter . . .

cherished memories past

captured together, fresh in time

relive, as we live

And from Kathy . . .

Coffee water boils

As ravens rudely harass

Morning in the woods.

Aloha, Hawaii! - when we're 64!