Back on (Greenwich) Mean Time

"What is it about old friends?" I have written a fairly unsentimental answer to this question. Sometimes it's hard to stay connected to friends or family who are so different from who we are today, so I acknowledge that difference (and the arrogance of either friend in thinking the fault lies with the other) in the first verse. And in the second verse I also completely dismiss the idea that old friends are special because of some inherent specialness about either person; my husband hates that line…:-). In the end I argue that old friends are special because we orient each other to our past, present and future. I use the metaphor of an old friend being like the prime meridian (historically the "brass line" at O degrees longitude at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich England). I had an opportunity to visit the observatory several years ago. While I'd known the observatory had once kept track of time by the sun (and that that standard was used to calculate time for the world), I hadn't known about how important the discovery of how to calculate longitude was to travel (particularly by ship). Ships can navigate somewhat by distance travelled (longitude) and orient by the stars and the sun, but that's not always accurate or reliable (cloudy day or night). The only way to truly know where you are is to know how to measure longitude (distance on the North/South axis) and latitude (distance on an East/West axis). Likewise, friends may travel in different directions (or an old friend may stay in one place while you move to many places), but the divergence actually can help us reorient. Old friends truly are "gold"--to be treasured. For any music theory buffs: I wrote the song in the key of C--kind of like home base for the piano and music theory. Yeah, I know, pretty nerdy….