I was out for a springtime jog a few days ago, and I found myself daydreaming, as I do during exercise. It’s been a long, cold winter, and everyone is euphoric with the increasing temperatures and sunlight. The birds are singing, and I can see tiny fish darting through the dark water at the edge of the lake. It’s a magical time, and everywhere, I can see tiny buds appearing on the trees. This leads to the next step in the stream-of-consciousness jogging daydream.
It occurs to me that the word bud, or buds, has been a vein running through my life. But it has evolved every ten years or so.
When I was a kid, say, early teens, my buds were my friends. The guys with whom I would hang out, play basketball, and check out the girls.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going into town to hang with my buds. Get off my back!”
This lasted up until high school, at which point buds were actually Buds, as in cans of Budweiser, the King of Beers. A medium-bodied, flavorful, crisp American-style lager. Brewed with the best barley malt and a blend of premium hop varieties, it is an icon of core American values like optimism and celebration.
“Hey, throw me one of those Buds! Ow!”
“You’re supposed to catch it with your hands, not your face.”
This exchange was between me and one of my homies, formerly known as my buds.
“Throw me a Bud, homie.”
“Homie don’t play that.” *See “In Living Color,” ca 1990.
So, my homies and I continued to grow, fueled by large amounts of flavorful, crisp American-style lager. As we passed into college years, we became too snobby to drink American-style lagers, even ones which are medium-bodied, flavorful, and crisp. We switched to Fat Tire and Sam Adams, and other “microbrews.” Now, when we used the word bud, it referred to herbal cannabis, or marijuana, consisting of the dried flowers and subtending leaves and stems of the female Cannabis plant. *Wikipedia, which itself referenced a bunch of other fancy scientific papers.
“What are we doing this weekend, bro?”
“We are partaking of some glorious bud.”
“Righteous!”
Homies were now bros and buds were clusters of cannabis, and beer was bitter, overhopped microbrews, not that pisswater that the bourgeois Americans try to pass off as beer.
“I can’t believe you drink that pisswater, bro.”
In the twenty-some years since college, I have given up smoking the bud, as it is illegal, unhealthy, and mood-altering. There is some confusion regarding the legality, as some states have declared recreational cannabis use to be legal. However, as far as I know, it is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, which is still a good deterrent. My friends are once again my friends, and I tend to stay away from microbrews, due to their high caloric value. 45-year-olds prefer to drink watered-down beer to stave off love handles and kidney stones.
And now, the buds in my life are the tiny, fragile bulbs growing from tree branches in the spring, bursting into life, and growing into leaves.
“Did you see the buds? They are appearing everywhere!”
“I did! And I love them, because, like you, I am an old, boring turd who now gets excited to see leaves growing, and seasons changing, and tiny birds flitting from branch to branch.”
“We sure are old and boring, aren’t we?”
“We sure are.”
But we weren’t always so. Once upon a time, we were cool. We were shallow, goofball kids who hung out with our buds downtown, checking out the girls and trying to figure out how to get ahold of some Buds and some bud. I wouldn’t go back for the world. Youth was fun, but it was painful too. Why do you think we were constantly trying to be inebriated?
And now, as a middle-aged man with a lot of years behind me, I sit on my deck and watch the buds grow, and the birds fly. And I crack open a Bud. Well, a Bud Light. I can’t drink that flavorful, crisp American-style lager. Too many calories. After all, I’m not 20 anymore.
That is so accurate. Thanks for the memory.