Author: Phillip Traum

Hey Buddy. It’s time for my yearly letter. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those idiotic Christmas letters where folks who haven’t thought of us for a year document all the boring stuff they did all year like it’s supposed to matter; talking about people we don’t know like we should care about them, too. You know how I hate those things. This is just me writing to you. Marking an anniversary, I guess.

New York’s winter has barely begun, yet the chill already cuts into my ancient marrow. Daylight drains too rapidly from the sky and while the nights feel unendurably long, my own time feels frighteningly short. But I have yet to know the cold and the dark as you understand them.

On this December day, my thoughts carry me back about seven decades to our once upon a time summers when you, Richie and I, ripped through the neighborhood on our two-wheelers, slamming on our brakes, making semi-circular skid marks on the blacktop, and shouting “We are The Whiz.” I remember those summer days, clearly, as though we lived them yesterday.

Having outgrown those bikes, we’d lift weights in your basement or walk downtown to Proctors to watch war movies. We’d hang out at my house where I told you about this great folk singer, Phil Ochs, and I’d play my small Guild guitar and sing “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” over and again before either of us marched a single step.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve reflected on the last time we saw each other. The scene flashes back so frequently, without reason or rhyme. I see us on a sunny, warm afternoon, only the two of us, uniformed, about to deploy—you for the second time, me for the first—sitting in a neighborhood tavern—The Park Inn, I think was the name (memory’s a bit fuzzy sometime). It was a classy place, on the corner of a pleasant street with neat houses and freshly mowed lawns, across the street from the Little League ballpark—where one would least expect to see a bar. At least I think that’s how it was. But am I remembering, dreaming or fantasizing?

I need to believe that the sun shone bright and warmed the earth that day. That the bartender wore a white shirt, bowtie and vest, polished the glassware, wiped the bar top with a clean white towel, treated us well, and the beer was icy cold. Need to believe that our brass shone brightly like the sun, and we could see our reflections in our shoeshine. That we stood then with spines straight and heads high. That we had hopes and faith in something. Believed in something. If I believe that hard enough it will be true. Because it must be true.

Well, I know one true thing: It’s fifty-six years ago today, a landmine took you out, Quang Nam province, Vietnam.

I’ll try my best to write again next year, but you know better than I how shit happens.

Miss you every day.