I have a friend here in Las Vegas. An intelligent, interesting guy, who I love to converse with outside the subject of politics. I have several friends, just like him.
He’s a rabid left winger, suffering from, in my point of view, a serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Our views on politics couldn’t be more opposite, and his frequent Facebook posts are acutely insulting to myself and other like-minded individuals. I’m sure we all have similar experiences, and I make no claim to be innocent of passing along a few occasional insults myself. We are all human.
Yet, I still try to separate politics from my personal relationships. Like others, with differing points of view, I still consider him a friend, and a good man in many ways. I value our friendship.
Our national politics has become unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. It seems the gap between opposing viewpoints may be at its widest. It’s the one thing we all can agree on.
With the coming of social media — and specifically Facebook — people who were once friends are no longer. How silly, how short-sided. How pathetic!
Thomas Jefferson had it right.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again. ~~ Groucho Marx ~~
My old friend Al Bello was, to say the least, one-of-a-kind and among my oldest friends. We met in 7th grade dishing out our own brand of trouble to our teachers and others. Al was among my small circle of class clowns, birds of a feather.
“Al” – School Days
In our quest for attention, we were especially brutal to our music teacher, Miss Morgan. I’ve come to realize, the attention we sought was our misguided attempt to make up for other things lacking in our lives. No excuses though. In hindsight I regret how we treated her and by the time I wanted to apologize she was gone. She was a fine, gifted woman and her story deserves a place of its own here in this blog.*
Over a period of 45-years Al and I lived our lives separated by time and distance. He stayed in Maryland while I moved west. We managed from time to time to reconnect, only very occasionally, via phone calls. I had spoken to Al several years ago when I learned he was suffering with COPD. He was the same guy, the same sarcasm and still the jokester I remembered from our times together so long ago. Despite all those years of separation and little contact I remember thinking: losing him would be a bitter pill to swallow.
My son Matt when he was about 8 or 9 years old (I’m guessing) had a best friend named Ethan. Ethan was a scrawny little kid and wore glasses. In many ways he was like me in my youth but not nearly as bad. I too wore glasses and was as nerdy and/or as goofy as they came. the best of them! King Nerd… I have proof!
Me!
Well one day after church and seeing the both of them together, as they normally were, I asked my son (and I’m sorely embarrassed to admit it, even though it was a bit tongue-in-cheek):
“Matt, why do you hang out with Ethan, he’s such a nerdy kid?” Matt’s reply was tainted with a sense of annoyance, maybe even a little hurt. All he said was “Dad! He’s my friend!”Those four written words don’t do justice to how they came back to me. Matt’s response was such that there was nothing more to say. In fact I immediately felt bad, really bad (and still do), that I had misspoken and questioned my son’s choice in who he wanted to be his friend. Matt was a good kid and Ethan came from a great family, his parents were our friends. He was a nice boy.
Fast forward about 20-plus years or so. Matt is married now and although they don’t live close to one another Ethan and he are still the best of friends. They see each other as often as they can and stay in regular contact through email and phone calls as best friends do. Ethan, to say the least, is no longer that scrawny little guy I once knew him to be. He’s a body builder now and I would guess can easily bench-press several hundred pounds. He could clean and jerk me to the floor and have me begging for mercy in seconds! Whenever I see him, I always ask him to flex those massive biceps. All I can ever say is wow! He’s grown up to be quite a man!
More important than all that though, Ethan today is an officer in the United States Army. As I write this he’s serving in Afghanistan, a leader among our American troops. To say the least, I’m proud to know him. Prouder still that Matt had the sense and good-fortune to choose Ethan as his best friend and to set his dad straight — all those years ago — on a decision that was his to make.
Matt was right, I was wrong. Lesson learned? While it’s always good to keep an eye on those your kids choose for friends, don’t be too judgmental, things aren’t always as they seem. Time marches on, kids grow up. Little boys become men. They go off to war. Dads grow older, hopefully wiser.
This is a story about one of my oldest friends. I spent a lot of time with him and his family during all of my teen years over a seven-year period. Through most of them we were constant companions. We were once the best of friends. No matter what, when I hear the words “childhood friend”, I think first of Marcus and all those crazy days we spent together. (Marcus is not my friend’s name. I’m using it to protect his and his family’s identity.)
Marcus and I shared a lot of adventures amidst our active lives. They included attending the same classes in school, working at many jobs side-by-side, the V.W. then the G.T.O, our travels around the beltway of D.C., and the many people, especially the girls we came to know.
All day on Sundays and at least one night during the week we attended church together. Marcus and I were a couple of cut-ups, always laughing and the biggest fans of one another’s comedic skills. I still use lines today that Marcus and I coined all those years before.
For every memorable event we shared together there are probably at least a dozen I’ve long forgotten about. But I do remember when in about 8th grade he was in the hospital. It was bittersweet to get him laughing so hard on the one hand, but then on the other he had the nurse throw me out of his room. Apparently the pain I was inflicting, by getting him to laugh uncontrollably, was just too much to bear as he recovered from having his spleen removed a couple of days before. Go figure!
We’ve seen the cute posters and greeting cards and we’ve all heard those all-familiar quotes about friends and friendship. Here are a few:
– “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and sings it back to you when you have forgotten how it goes.” ~ Unknown
– “I believe that friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.” ~ Unknown
– “No man is a failure who has friends.” ~ From the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
And finally there’s my favorite, tongue-in-cheek definition, which says; “Friends help friends move. Real friends help you move bodies!” (See more below photo!)
Stories I Share With Friends 