Oldest friend still the best one

Some things you can’t shake, even if you try.

And sometimes, you might just naturally drift away, without much thought to what you’re leaving behind, but you turn around one day and it is still there.

And it makes you smile.

Johnsonville, South Carolina, population somewhere just shy of 1,500 last we checked, will always be a part of me, and I of it.
I have not lived there since 1988.

It is my home.

Ostensibly, a football game brought us face-to-face two nights ago. The graduating classes of 1983-86 had a reunion of sorts during homecoming Friday, complete with food and fellowship.

The only disappointing thing was that more of us could not show up. They were missed. And they missed more than they probably know.

It’s amazing how many memories you can dredge up on nights like this.

I tried my best to remember how long it had been since I went to a high school football game as something other than a reporter. Best I can recollect, it was 20 years until Friday.

Some things have changed at the old football field there.

During most of my years at Johnsonville, the home side was where the visitors sit now.

But back in the elementary school years of my youth, the home side was where it is now.

The shiny, spacious, metal bleachers I sat on Friday night were not even a figment of my imagination when I was 7. Wood and cinder blocks were the building materials of choice.

Bob Rankin, then younger and full of fire — I think he breathed it back then, didn’t he? — stalked the sideline as coach of the Flashes.

And when a football rattled into the stands where we sat on Friday, I looked down and saw my 10-year-old self among a gaggle of boys, with little regard for the mud, making the game-winning catch somewhere in some NFL stadium in the theater of my mind.

It was on the field where the Flashes played Latta on Friday that I had one of the biggest moments of my athletic career.

Johnsonville was rolling that night over some other team — I forget which one — and our coach asked me to go play defensive end, which was a foreign position for an offensive guard.

An assistant gave me a quick pointer: My only job was to rush the quarterback, and always take the outside path so as to keep the quarterback in the pocket.

On the first snap, I almost sacked the quarterback. He hurried an incomplete pass.

I was congratulated.

It’s a big deal when you’re 9.

My football career pretty much began and ended that year, though I did play some in middle school. Some might say it’s because I was too lazy. I really think it was because I wasn’t mean enough for
that sport, and it seriously bit into my fishing time.

Every change at Johnsonville is not for the better. There is no marching band now. I asked why and someone told me the school has had trouble keeping band directors lately and the interest simply is no
longer there.

It was like going to a movie and being told they’re out of popcorn.

Please come back, marching band, if you can.

But even so, it hardly put a damper on the night. I was sitting among some people I had not seen in 25 years, smiling, laughing, remembering.

I hope it is not that long until I see them again.

All friends are special, but old friends are the best friends.

And the oldest one of them all — my hometown — is there for me every day.

I should visit it more often. I owe it at least that much.