"Body Pain" and a name I can't remember

When I was in college at West Virginia University, majoring in English, minoring in Political Science, earning entrance to Phi Beta Kappa, imaging I'd be a college professor or, 1 out of 10, a lawyer (like my son is) I knew a guy whose name I can't remember.

He had red hair and a red Van Dyke beard and wasn't in my major or minor but we knew each other, probably from a bar somewhere in Morgantown, and I liked him a lot. In fact, he and his girl friend and Bern and I, when he and I were seniors (the only year Bern and I shared at WVU) went to Buchanan to the Forest Festival that is there every fall (even now, I imagine.)

Buchanan is where West Virginia Wesleyan is located where Jay Rockefeller, the last Democrat in West Virginia, was the President of the college before he became a U.S. Senator.

I asked Bern a few minutes ago if she remembered that trip and my friend (Bern's memory is usually vastly superior to mine) but she didn't, so I still don't have a name for my red-haired friend of long ago. (Isn't it a tad tragic what we forget?)

But on that day, sitting on the grass, listening to music, eating lunch, my red haired friend told us about the global nature of what he called 'body pain'. None of us could relate, but he tried to convince us that 'body pain' was just a way of life, something always there, something to live through and move on in spite of.

47 years later, I finally know what my nameless friend meant.

It's the cold that has descended and stayed for a while, I'm sure.

I know 'body pain'. Most all my joints hurt during the day for some time. Ankles are especially prone.

Here's the thing--if red-head was experiencing what I experience now 47 years ago, I hope he found help and I'm glad it took me this long to understand what he was telling me about when we were 20.

Blessings come where they come.

That's one. A 47 year 'body pain' free time before knowing even what 'body pain' means.

A blessing. No doubt.