The Start of a Season, The End of an Era

I went to the Cubs game yesterday, as a sort of engagement party for some friends from the days of Yore. We caught each other up on our lives, ate many hot dogs and cheered loudly enough to be deemed "obnoxious." It was a great time, and a great day for a painful ball game. Oh, Cubbies, will you never learn?

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I can appreciate a game of baseball or basketball more easily than I used to. I think I only made two snarky comments. My friends knew I would. That's what friends do. They know and understand, and sometimes, I think they rather enjoy my sarcasm. We've known each other for nearly ten years, most of us having met while we worked together at a Bakers Square in Naperville while some of us were just regulars at the pie-infested eatery.

I love my friends from the Bakers Days. If I had enjoyed high school more, I would have kept in touch with people from high school. But I didn't particularly like high school. I liked working with the Bakers crowd. They taught me how to play euchre and how to enjoy late-night heavily-caffeinated conversations about Nabokov or Fellini (and a number of other pretentious subjects). They taught me how to be a good friend and to expect more from people. They made me appreciate flowers and school. I've kept in touch with them. We meet up every six months or so, catch up, joke around, celebrate and generally enjoy the company without trying too hard. It's easy and comfortable.

When we left Wrigley Field, we gathered up, made plans to go to a bar and hang out for a little bit longer. Then Patrick got a text message. It said something to the effect of, "It finally happened. BS is finally closed." He showed me the text and told me to remember that, "This is where we were when it finally happened." I was stunned. We all were. It was like hearing that your high school had just burned down and was being replaced with a Wal-Mart. Well, if I had liked high school more, I guess that's how it would feel.

I'm still not sure how to let the news affect me. The cursed pie-factory was the nexxus of so many friendships, though we had long-since moved past it with school, jobs, marriages, family, etc. We discovered that the restaurant had been shut down with minimal fanfare and no warning. Just some corporate dickweeds walking in, offering positions to upper management and severance checks for everyone else. Done.

I wonder what's going to happen to the building. I'm also wondering what they're going to do with all those pies...