A longtime friend
Don Coldsmith
Originally published 02:24 p.m., December 17, 2007
Updated 02:24 p.m., December 17, 2007
A few weeks ago, we received a Christmas letter from a longtime friend, Clarke Thomas. I’m sure that I’ve mentioned him before in the column, but not lately.
Clarke is a high school classmate of mine. Our trails have not crossed in person for many years, but we have stayed in touch by mail, phone and by Christmas letters. He has never met Edna and I don’t recall that I have met his wife.
Our friendship goes back to before World War II, to when we were high school students. The major connection was that we were preachers’ kids, “P.K.s,” in the vernacular. A preacher’s kid has a tough time convincing the regular guys that we’re regular guys, too. Some P.K.s try to push it too hard, and they get in trouble with it. This gives the rest of us P.K.s a bad name. Neither Clarke or I every got into much trouble. We’d have been in even more trouble when we got home.
We graduated from high school at a time when we expected to go directly into World War II, and we did. A few years later, after “The Bomb” ended combat, I was in Japan and I’d have a letter from home observing that since Clarke and I were both near Tokyo, they assumed that we had made contact and were visiting frequently. Unfortunately, no one told either of us the least bit of information of what unit and where the other might be. His unit had been in Europe, the last I had heard. It was weeks before we finally got together.
After that, we had considerable luck in making the connection. We would sign for passes at the same time and meet at a designated place to see the sights, travel for the day, all sorts of educational entertainment. The Japanese trains were so well-managed that we could spend a day in the “back country” where they had seen very few Americans. We learned to speak a little Japanese, enough to get by.
We would carry a can or two of sardines and, at lunch time, stop at a police station, identified by a blue light outside. On the stove would be a huge kettle of rice. They’d go in, fill a bowl with rice, take out their chopsticks, and begin to eat, seated on the floor in a circle of 12 or 15. We would join the circle, seated. Then, open our sardines and pass the cans to the man at our elbow, motioning to pass it on. By the time the cans came back, someone would have brought each of us a bowl of rice. We carried our own chopsticks and became pretty proficient in the use of them.
Back at home, we seldom crossed trails again. We both finished college and Clarke became a writer and newsman. No surprise — he had always had that goal. He was even nicknamed “Scoop” because of his literary ambitions.
On the other hand, I had to try a great many vocations before I finally landed, basically as a writer now.
I really think I did a pretty good job on most of them. A writer, I think, has had to first become a reader. I can remember vividly when I realized a fact: Some books are better than others. Translated “Some writers are better than others.” In the “better” category, I find anything I’ve ever read by Clarke Thomas.
So, we now make our annual renewal of comradeship. Clarke’s career has not been blighted by being redefined every few years. On the other hand, I was sidetracked by several other vocations, such as the practice of medicine. Several of my early historical novels were written partly on the backs of hospital order sheets while I waited all night for babies to arrive.
It’s always startling to look at the crowd of descendants that our high school friends have by this time. In the case of the Clarke Thomas letter, this is a collection of highly successful people from all over the world, almost.
But, I’m rambling. It’s always a treat, though, to be able to learn that we and our classmates have actually produced successful and intelligent offspring. Maybe we’ve actually produced some descendants who can help to help some on the status of this old world. At least, we can hope so.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.