In 1994 a new classmate arrived to my 6th grade class, a pint sized kid named Niall O’Reilly, whose father was transferred for work from the verdant outskirts of Dublin to the equally green Willamette Valley. Little did I know at that time that my love affair with Manchester United was about to begin with a lunchtime kick-about on the soggy tennis courts of Western View Middle School in Corvallis, Oregon. An immediate friendship around playing the game of football evolved into asking for lifts across town to watch Saturday games at the O’Reilly home, where I was brought into the world of Kanchelskis, Keane, and Cantona- and the Mancunian soundtrack of the Gallagher brothers, in spite of their football affiliation.
Never more than a middling talent on the pitch myself, I played through my high school years, and continued to follow through the good years and the more recent years, too. I’ve been lucky enough to see United in the Champions League in Europe but had never actually seen a match at Old Trafford.
So, some 30 years after the first early morning Sky satellite broadcast, I still felt like a kid watching Bruno, Casemiro, and Cunha put Villa to the sword in front of the Stretford end. Sharing the memories with my nephew @paddymac08 , his dad @jchower and his uncle (and my former teammate) @lewishower is something I will never forget. Football is a beautiful thing. @manutd
Studies in Spring.
-
Six years ago and seven thousand kilometers away, I made a very similar picture - in a completely different time and space in life. There is something wonderful in the fact that I feel the same draw and impulse to capture the emergence of vernal optimism- whether in a silent temple in Kyoto or a raucous playground in the Salish Sea.
My mother’s father, who died just before I was born, used to say that in life you will count your true friends on one hand.
I am grateful to count Tristan McAllister as one of those friends. It dawned on me recently that our friendship is old enough to order a drink at a bar- and somehow Tristan looks almost the same as when we met.
The best part- even with the passage of time, and longer pauses in between visits as our lives spread across coasts, and relationships, and all the other shit that gets in the way- the conversation just picks right back up with a natural, timeless red thread - the liminal spaces filled by a deeper, intrinsic connection.
For that, I am profoundly thankful.
@tmcallister
