I was walking between the baseball fields at the Terrace Sports Complex a couple weeks ago,
looking for the familiar Fernley orange and black to find where the High Desert Little League
All-Stars would be playing when I saw a guy with a hooded sweatshirt with his last name on the
back.
I recognized the last name as that of someone I worked with about 25 years ago, and as I got
closer, he turned just enough for me to see the side of his face, immediately, I realized it actually
was him.
“Are you Rob?” I asked.
“Yeah, and you’re Robert,” he said.
I hadn’t seen Rob since 2000, when we worked together at the Cal-Neva sports books in Carson
City. I worked there part time as a second job when I was working for the Mason Valley News
and Fernley Leader-Dayton Courier, out of the Dayton office.
We had a tight-knit group of guys, and one gal, that would hang out together away from work,
often going out for what we jokingly called choir practice. Rob wasn’t one of the ones who hung
out with us very often because he was a younger pup who preferred the company of his
girlfriend.
The casinos in Carson City where we worked catered primarily to locals, which meant we got to
know our customers pretty well, and it made going to work feel like hanging out with friends.
Rob and I reminisced for a few minutes about those old days, then got around to what we’re each
doing now, and he introduced me to his son, who is in high school.
As someone who had never lived in the same place longer than four years until I was 47 years
old, my life has been full of people I knew in a moment, and haven’t seen since those moments
passed.
I went to 13 different schools between kindergarten and high school graduation, and four
different colleges, and other than family, there’s no one in my life I’ve known longer than I’ve
been out of college, and that was a person I met in college.
I often think about people I knew in the past, so running into one of them and catching up was a
special treat.
Right off the bat, Rob said the first thing he thought of when he saw me was that I was always
eating red licorice. The thing about Rob that always jumped out to me was his exuberance, and
he showed that he hadn’t lost a bit of it as he told me about his job and his son and asked about
what I’m up to these days.
When you talk to someone you haven’t seen in years, or in this case, more than two decades, it’s
funny what sticks. Not the deadlines we scrambled to meet or the bets we graded, but red
licorice, funny moments with familiar customers, and memories that were seemingly long
forgotten.
Rob’s energy was the same as I remembered, maybe even more focused now, channeled into
fatherhood and a career that clearly gives him purpose. Time has treated him well.
We didn’t talk long. The game was about to start, but I walked away thinking how cool is to run
into an old friend living a new life.
In a world that moves fast and forgets easily, moments like that feel like a veer inside—an
unexpected shift that reminds you of who you were, and maybe, who you still are.
Old friends, new lives. And sometimes, a little red licorice to bridge the years.
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