Old friends and new beginnings
Curmudgeon’s
Corner
IVAN RACONTEUR • EDITOR
I spent a recent Friday evening with some old friends.
As I looked into their faces, I could still see the people they
were all those years ago when we were just starting out.
We didn’t stay out all night the way we used to. There
was no run to a cheap restaurant at 4 a.m. to acquire the
coffee and hash browns that suddenly seemed so essential
after hours of consuming beverages that were not coffee.
In the old days, 4 a.m. often marked the end of the
night, but these days, some of us are getting up at that hour
(whether we like it or not).
Despite these changes, things remained remarkably
the same.
The girls are still as hot as they were in college, and the
guys still make me laugh the way they always have.
During that evening, we shared some stories of our re-
cent adventures, and added a few new threads to the fabric
of our common experience.
There is an old proverb that reads “A good friend will
help you move. A great friend will help you move a body.”
That applies to old friends, as well. There isn’t much we
wouldn’t do for one another.
We have been through a lot together, these old cronies
and I. We have been through marriages and divorces,
births and deaths, and all of the other milestones that make
up a life.
Most friends will help us out if we ask. Old friends don’t
wait to be asked. They just appear. They are always there
when we need them, sometimes before we even know we
need them.
They make the good times better, and the bad times
bearable.
They are with us not just for the celebrations, but to help
us with the tough jobs, such as preparing for a funeral or
sorting out the belongings of a relative who has died.
Old friends are comfortable, like a favorite old shirt.
There is no need for pretense, and they are not offended
if we forget to call.
They know us, and we know them. They have seen us
at our best and worst, and by some miracle, they still keep
hanging around.
Good friends will tell us we are being stupid when we
need to hear it, and overlook our mistakes when we don’t.
My old friends and I don’t get together often these days.
Months might pass between visits, but when the time
comes, we can slip them on again like that old shirt, and
take up right where we left off.
We don’t need the detritus of the day-to-day to fi ll in the
gaps. We share history, and that bridges the gaps just fi ne.
It has been said that good friends can grow separately
without growing apart, and that is certainly true in our case.
As I watched and listened to my old friends the other
evening, it made me smile to think of some of our previ-
ous encounters. We aren’t stuck in the past, but somehow
having a big old basket of shared memories helps us to
appreciate the present and embrace the future.
10
Some in our group are facing the fi rst pangs of empty-
ing nests. Their kids, who are now blossoming into young
adults, are going off to college and leaving home. They are
reaching the age that we were when our group made the
incredible transition from a collection of individuals to a
cohesive unit.
We call ourselves the Cheezeballs (our own spelling),
after a little game we used to play using a snack item that
was popular at the time. The product was discontinued
years ago, but we are all still together.
I don’t know how it happened, these kids growing up
behind my back.
It wasn’t so long ago when their parents and I were
young and free and just itching to take on the world.
Then, there were the years when little bundles of what the
parents claim was joy began to appear in our gang. These
bundles seemed to scream a lot, and I couldn’t for the life
of me imagine what anyone could see in them, but the par-
ents seemed attached to them, and that was enough.
Later, the bundles began to display their own budding
personalities. Eventually, the kids got old enough for me to
teach them some bad habits with which they could torment
their parents, and that made the kids fun for me, too. I was
fi nally able to see the benefi t of having them around.
Now, these young men and women are fi nishing their
school years, and far too soon, they will be embarking on
new careers and starting families of their own.
The best thing that I could wish for them, as they set
out down the road of adulthood, is that they fi nd a few
friends who are half as good as the friends their parents
have been, to travel down that road with them.
I hope that a few decades from now, they will be able to
get together in some crowded kitchen with their old friends
to share a laugh and a story, and remember the good times
that they have shared.
There are a lot of things in life over which we have no
control. There are setbacks, and obstacles, and just plain
bad luck that can disrupt our best-laid plans.
If we have a few good friends to keep us company along
the way, however, there is nothing we can’t overcome, and
it makes the journey much sweeter.
My old friends and I have been scattered by the four
winds since our college days, and we are spread about as
far apart as we can be without actually leaving the country.
That doesn’t matter, though. That’s just geography.
One thing I have learned after all these years is that
closeness has nothing at all to do with miles on a map.
Note: this column was originally published by Herald
Journal August 16, 2010.
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