An ongoing series for this blog in which Joe divulges stories about the important moments in his life. Not that he knew they were important at the time. Sometimes it took years of self-reflection to realize how important it was. But the moment could still be considered stupid. Who knows. Fuck it, he's gonna write about it anyway. Enjoy.
PART VII
An Unbreakable Tradition
November 23, 2012
This is one of those moments that's only significant because of what happens after. If life were a Shakespearean play, this moment would be an instance of dramatic irony, something that's said, but audience immediately knows that the opposite is true.
Tonight will be the eleventh time my friends and I gather in the old neighborhood for a tradition known as "Turkey Bowl." Basically, in the fall of 2007, in an effort to stay connected even though half of the friend group had gone off to various area colleges, we decided that we'd all get together for a game of football the day after Thanksgiving. After the game, we'd walk over to Kev's house, where his Mother would make us spaghetti and meatballs. At some point we'd go somewhere and drink some beers. The first year was a success.
As most traditions go, this one gradually evolved. The year our tradition really took off was 2010. That was the first year a lot of us were 21 years of age, and so, after the pigskin and the meatballs, we met up again at 7 PM for the "Pike Hike," a bar crawl through Jenkintown, Rockledge, and Northeast Philadelphia. Shit got wild. It was the best night.
By 2012, the train was moving full steam. Friends of friends were starting to come along for the ride. We were ordering T-shirts now to wear as a group. Bars knew to stock up or else we'd drink 'em dry. The FB event from the time indicates that "49 people went," but who knows how accurate those things are. I know that by 2014 there were over 100 people in attendance for the Pike Hike, so 49 seems low to me. But that's beside the point.
The point is something that happened during the Pike Hike during our 2012 crawl. All my friends were there, I was drunk-but-not-too-drunk, the music was blasting at the Rockledge Pub, and I'm squished because it's so crowded but it was only crowded because so many of my friends were there, and I just looked around and had that feeling that I get sometimes when I'm so goddamn happy, that feeling like I'm the king of the fucking planet, and I raised my Miller High Life and proclaimed:
"We're gonna do this for the rest of our lives!!"
And I meant it too. I wanted this tradition to last. I wanted that feeling to last. The feeling that this was exactly where I wanted to be and life was good. I felt so powerful and so free. I wanted to keep coming back here, to these bars, this time every year, with the people I love, and let loose. Doesn't matter where we move to, doesn't matter how many kids we have, doesn't matter if we're getting older or getting sick or dying, I wanted the grand tradition of the Pike Hike to last for the rest of my life.
Of course, life has a tendency to... happen.
The "Turkey Bowl" is still a tradition that occurs every year (so far, anyway). But we don't play football anymore—we're too old, and most people work Friday during the day anyway. We're not meeting up for a meatball dinner this year for the first time ever. The Pike Hike still happens, and people still get drunk and have a good time, but the numbers are trending downward. The energy isn't there. I feel like sometimes I'm holding my friends hostage in forcing them to come to the Pike Hike. Life gets in the way.
None of this is abnormal. Friends, as hard as they may fight against it, grow apart a little over time. It just happens, there's literally no way to prevent it. None of the original Pike Hikers have kids yet, but this will be the last year that's true, and I can't imagine how life is gonna change after that happens (change for the better, absolutely, but change is change).
As true as the maxim is, that friends come in and out of your life, and time presses upon friendships and squeezes them, as true and as inevitable as that is, it still makes me sad sometimes. Nostalgic, I guess.
And it makes me especially sad to look back upon those halcyon days of 2012, when I was so idealistic, when I thought I could live like that forever. When it seemed like I had found the moment in time I wanted to inhabit forever. You can't make time stand still. It keeps moving. And in the blink of an eye, it's five years later, and everything has changed.
I love my life right now. I wouldn't fucking give up a single thing to go back to 2012. But still, I cling to that memory, that moment when I felt all was right in the world, and I mourn that it's gone.
So, folks, this is my last year organizing the Pike Hike. Even without my doing, I hope the tradition continues, as 2012 Joe predicted and hoped that it would. If not, and we're here a year from now and I'm at home on Black Friday, well then, that's how life goes. I'll be okay either way.
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