Anawalt's Facebook Page

My friend Charles sent me a link to Anawalt, West Virginia's Face book page. Do even dying towns now have Face book pages? I'm not on Face book but I could go back to it from Charles' link, which I might just do when I finish writing this.

I was looking at people I didn't know but then there was a picture of Anawalt's Boy Scout Troop from what must have been 1959 or 1960, cause there I was in the front row between Billy Bridgeman and Kyle Parks, my two best boyhood friends. I stared at the picture for a long time and even made Bern come and look at it.

There were 30 boys in the picture and I could name all but three of them. (People have recently told me I have a remarkable memory--truth is, I often can't remember what I had for dinner the night before but I could remember the names of all those boys and the Scout Leader, Jimmy Newsome.)

Actually I can remember what I had for dinner last night: some flounder I broiled with a sauce of mushrooms, butter, scallions, white wine, dill flakes, fresh parsley and capers that I made, along with steamed green cauliflower and sliced baby cucumbers I splashed with vinegar and oil. It was tasty.

I don't know where Billy Bridgeman is but because of Charles and my old friend Mike Miano, I know that Kyle has been dead for a good decade. I'm sure if I put Billy Bridgeman's name out there someone more adroit with computers than I am will find him for me. Billy is the one I wouldn't have been surprised to discover was dead. Billy was a bit of a rogue while Kyle was the straightest of Straight Arrows. Billy dead from a knife fight or a drug overdose wouldn't have shocked me at all. But Kyle, military pilot and fitness nut dying at 56 from a heart attack--that was devastating to me.

Truth is, I don't know where any of those 30 + people is except Fred Rash, because one of the other pictures was of Fred--white haired and bearded like me--at an Anawalt picnic. He had on a hat proclaiming he was a veteran--Viet Nam surely--and look a bit older than I think I look...but whose to know if the way I look to me is accurate.

OK, I'm going back to that Face book page to find out some more....