When word came not long ago that my long-time friend Bobby Alost died, a piercing African proverb and the pensive words of an old song ran through my mind.
Bobby impressed me as we worked together over the years with his vision. He was a founder of the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts and shaped the school as its first director.
Then he became president of Northwestern. He created a statewide honors college there and established the prestigious Creative and Performing Arts Department. The university thrived on the momentum he built.
The proverb handed down through the ages says, “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground. Alost was a library full of information on bold, innovative education and much more.
Bobby was a multi-faceted guy, and I enjoyed spending time with him. We jogged and battled in racket games. We went to sports events far and wide, listened to country music, found good hamburger joints and went to old western movies.
I thought again when Bobby died as I have often in recent years as so many other good friends passed on about the Kenny Rogers song, “You Can’t Make Old Friends.”
The lyrics are profound. “What will I do when you’re gone? Who’s gonna tell me the truth? Who’s gonna finish the stories I start the way you always do? You can’t make old friends…not the way we have always been.”
There is a picture in my office of a dozen men here in town that I had lunch with every week for many years.
Five of them have died. Other old friends have joined the rest of us, and we continue the lunchtime gatherings. We laugh at some ancient stories and new ones and reminisce sometimes about those cronies who are no longer with us.
As the proverb proclaims, libraries burned down when those five old men died. Their backgrounds and expertise were different, but they all had vast knowledge and wisdom that can’t be replaced.
Tom Murchison, who started our group, was a prominent lawyer and the city attorney for decades. Not many people knew as much as he did about the town and people in it.
He was also an authority on history, music, the Bible and other things. It was a big library that burned when he died.
Randy Webb was president of the university, and his dad had been a professor there. He was an encyclopedia on the school and on baseball and the Cardinals like Tom was.
Robert Crew spent his lifetime in every realm of education. He worked with elementary and secondary teachers and principals and university presidents and professors.
He was an accomplished photographer for numerous special events, and his work is in private collections across the state.
Joe Sampite was the popular mayor of Natchitoches after a long career as a teacher and coach. He knew every kid that came through parish schools and their mamas and daddies. They confided in him, and he advised them about school and life.
Jimmy Long was a good businessman and master politician. He served eight straight terms in the legislature and knew as much about politics and government as anybody in Louisiana.
Those are just the lunch group guys that are gone. Time has run out on too many other good friends in recent years like university colleagues Tom Eppler and Tommy Dunagan, attorney and political consultant Ted Jones, New Orleans journalism buddy Bill Curl and businessman and free spirit Steve Wiggins.
Eppler and I were tennis partners in countless tournaments, and some of my favorite coffee breaks and fishing trips were with Dunagan. Jones and I shared a love for Merle Haggard music and Louisiana politics. Curl saw a lot of stories unfold during his years at the Superdome, and nobody told them better. Wiggins’ passion for life was contagious.
They were all up in years when they died, and I hope their value and relevance were never overlooked just because they were old.
Libraries of intelligence and insight burned each time one of them left us. A lot of us who were close to them realized that we could never make old friends like those again.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES