In the Year of our Lord 1996, I walked into the newest restaurant in my hometown of Wooster, OH—a bagel shop cleverly called Woogels, I’ll give you a minute to appreciate that one—and asked for a job. I worked there for a year before running off to Pittsburgh to learn how to cook, but in the meantime, I became fast friends with the owners, Dave and Tracy Hoag.
About six years my senior, the Hoags and I shared a lot in common—music, food, beer, movies, books, favorite cities, dumb, sophomoric humor, etc. Despite leaving town and nearly everyone and everything I’d ever known behind to pursue interests elsewhere in the Rustbelt, the Hoags and I stayed in touch. Today, they’re two of my oldest, dearest friends.
When Dave, Tracy, and I get together, even all these years later, we fall into our old roles as the structure of our long friendship settles around us. Dave's the impish class clown with seemingly endless energy. I'm the sarcastic and permanently exasperated straight man. Tracy is, as she's always been, the brains of the outfit. My wife observes from the outside, amused, like a researcher watching three monkeys hoot and holler and hit each other with sticks. We’re grown people in our late-40s and early-50s, mind you. I find that it’s important to never grow up despite growing old.
So, why am I bringing up this ancient history? Well, see, at the beginning of this year I realized that it’d been years since my wife and I had seen Dave and Tracy. The physical distance between Columbus and Detroit, combined with a falloff in our family trips, Covid, the general events of 2020, and gestures helplessly at everything, meant that we hadn’t seen them in person since about 2017.
