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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Yup, Me and Him, We Be Friends

As if there are not enough challenges in my life, I've decided to accept the summons to engage in a blog roll and be accountable to fill up my web log journal every day for a month. You might have discovered by my last three posts (which have barely covered my commitment) that the theme for daily blogging in January is 'Friends'.

Most of my friends have come into my life for only a season, although there are one or two who have been brave enough to stick around for longer. One has stayed for a lifetime. He has seen me through the best and worst days of my life, and his friendship goes far beyond the stereotyped friend. 

Contrary to the quips and quotes about friendship, my lifetime friend DOES give advice whether I want it or not, offers solutions whether I accept them or not, and clumsily tries to fix it when there is no 'fix-it' to be found. 

We have ridden the roller coaster of life together, sometimes wobbling like Weebles when our feet hit the ground, and in spite of a few brushes with the dirt, neither of us has stayed down for the count. 

Our friendship began forty-one years ago. I was sixteen the day we met. It was a rainy day in April, Good Friday to be exact. The year was 1969, and the number one song that month was Aquarius - Let the Sun Shine In. It was more than sunshine that came through my door that day. He arrived wearing blue jeans, and a perfect smile. His zip up jacket matched blue eyes that captured the ocean's depth and color. 

He had heard from his friends that I owned a couple of horses and they all decided it would be a good day to go horseback riding. Not one of them had ever been on a horse before but at least he showed promise. Long story short, I turned seventeen in October, we married in November,  and we've been the best of friends and the worst of enemies ever since. 

All in all I'd say we're a success. We started out with nothing and still have most of that left. We've survived ownership of three houses and five children, a myriad of pets and problems, and the resetting of broken dreams and relationships. We've seen hard times where we couldn't even afford the tuition for the school of hard knocks, and kept a stiff upper lip for so long, rigor mortis has set in. We have learned to live in contradiction and wholeheartedly agree that our marriage was made in Heaven along with lightning and thunder. 

I, am a profoundly neat and organized person who has never needed clutter counseling. Although the dust balls, lined up evenly under the bed, may suggest a bit of compulsive behavior, my wash cloths are not folded in the shape of swans and my toilet paper does ROFL. 

My friend, on the other hand, copes well with clutter. He is a loser. He loses everything. If he's not dropping his cell phone in the toilet, or under the wheel of our car, we might find it in the sofa, or slipped through the hole in his jacket pocket sleeping peacefully in the lining. Now that he's entering the age of bewilderment, I got a little worried so I bought him a dog tag that bears his name and address just in case he follows someone else home.

My old friend isn't big on giving me gifts but for forty one years he's given me something he's made himself...it's called money. Along with that we share some memories that others never will. Among them are little coke-shaped bottles made of wax with colored sugar water inside, soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles, telephone party lines, P.F. Flyers, Rollerskate keys, and blue flashbulbs. 

I expect someday down the road we will move either separately or together from our old memories, and 'our old house' to Shady Acres or our Mansion in Glory. Either way we'll be packing light and we'll still be friends

 

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