MILES TO MEMORIES (published in At The Bijou)

You wanted to be like Hurley when you were a kid; imagining where life would take you once you grew past the astronaut, cop, and fireman stage of adolescent dreams and desires – when you were told by teachers to picture yourself living in the nine to five world parents inhabited and not the imaginary one of grade school youth. Hurley was a man who seemed to have everything; well liked by others and someone very few would say anything derogatory about, at least not openly. He was different - unlike the fathers of my childhood I remembered seeing on the train platform dressed for the office in their suits, ties, and overcoats, while balancing briefcases, coffee cups, and morning editions of the Times and Wall Street Journal. Men caught up in their spread sheets, cash flow projections, and mergers; too busy for the mundane parts of life.
He was more than that.
It wasn’t something I knew at first, but some things became obvious a few minutes into our conversation. Memories, like long forgotten dreams came back in a rush of emotion and a hard punch to the chest, and in an instant I was just another ten year old kid on the street where I grew up.
Looking for approval, or at least understanding, from someone who didn’t know anything about me.
“You don’t realize how good you got it,” Hurley told me as he finished the last of his Absolut. “None of the pressure and none of the stress that can kill you fifteen years down the road. Things are easy for you right now.”
Nothing I had ever been through seemed easy. Whatever I could say about that I kept to myself.

The full story can be found at:
http://at-the-bijou.blogspot.com/2010/05/miles-to-memories-by-kevin-michaels-of.html