Rick Smith/Columnist
Reconnecting with white-haired friends is like opening a time capsule. Or uncorking a magnum of seasoned stories. Stories that awaken emotions and entice us to look upward, reflect inward, take in a deep breath, exhale, and say things like, “Lord, have mercy. I haven’t thought about that since, well, since God knows when.”
Reconnecting goes back over paths. Well-worn paths best memorialized as, “Well, that’s one for the blooper reel,” – pause – “but, in my defense, I was young.”
Reconnecting is waxing nostalgic, questioning, “Whatever happened to, oh, you know who? She was married to” – blank stare – “that guy. The one with the hair.”
Reconnecting is pondering the what ifs of our lives, thanking the Good Lord that our deeds didn’t always demand a pound of flesh.
A couple weeks ago, I reconnected with an old Houston friend of some 20 years. He had relocated to northwestern Louisiana, just across the state line, about 30 minutes from Jefferson. We met at Taste of Caddo, and over fried catfish, began to catch up.
Tragedy struck his family about a decade and a half ago with the untimely death of his sister from cancer, leaving two small children to be raised by him and his wife. And then 2½ years ago his 80-year-old father passed. Shortly thereafter, his mother was diagnosed with dementia. The dementia, along with other health challenges, had taken a toll on the relationship between him and his mom.
“So, how are you handling all of this?” I asked.
“Lessons from the chicken coop. That’s how,” he replied.
“The chicken coop?”
He explained that he had sold his Houston business so he could be closer to his parents. Shortly after moving back home, he built a chicken coop and began raising chickens “to occupy my spare time.”
“I needed something to keep me sane. I didn’t know the first thing about raising chickens, but I was willing to learn.”
He told me about introducing young hens and two juvenile roosters to his mature flock of hens. Upon returning from a quick road trip, he found one of the roosters dead and the other one hanging onto life by a cock-a-doodle-doo. He removed the surviving rooster to a separate coop adjacent to the large coop and nursed it back to health.
“What had happened?”
“The hens were establishing a pecking order, a natural way of maintaining harmony and stability within the flock,” he said. “You’ve heard the term ‘hen pecked?’ Well, there you have it.”
“Like you said – lessons from the chicken coop,” I offered.
“Yep, I get upset and then I’m reminded to not get my feathers in a ruffle. I sit. I watch. I learn.”
Before we knew it, several hours had passed. It was time for my friend to get back home to check on his mom.
“You have no idea how much this has meant to me,” he said. “Times like this have been as scarce as hen’s teeth.”
I smiled.
“Let’s do this again in a couple weeks,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve even ‘scratched the surface.’”
Rick Smith is a Jeffersonian and can be reached at theriquemeister@gmail.com.
onian and can be reached at theriquemeister@gmail.com.