Friends, both old and new....

A couple of nights ago a neighbor of mine called and invited me to dinner.  Miss Elizabeth was in Kansas City, and his better half works in Topeka, so we two "bachelors" sometimes decide to take a break from our own cooking and head into town for something different. Neither of us is very hard to please, so long as the meal is prepared by someone other than us. Mexican food sounded good, and it was.

We are roughly the same age, but only became friends after Elizabeth and I moved to the ranch several years ago.  Since that time, however, we've discovered that we have much in common and probably played baseball against each other way back in our teens.  We often talk about what fun we had playing America's game, but mostly we talk cattle, finances, and "men talk", never getting too personal.

There's something that's quite different about two men getting together occasionally than when women friends meet for lunch or dinner.  The conversation is different, somehow more reserved, as if we're protecting ourselves from getting too close to the things we hold dear.  Why is that?  I remember a time when I was a boy that there were no secrets held back from my friends.  We shared everything, and I think that is what etched those memories so clearly in my mind.  It's also, to my way of thinking, why there are no friendships like those that are forged when you are young.

Last week, I had an email from an old high school friend.  He's the organizer of a monthly breakfast gathering for some of us who go "way back".  While I may have generated the idea for the breakfasts, if it wasn't for Ben it wouldn't have happened.  But, I digress.  The email was to inform me that my old friend, and blocking back, might have had a heart attack and was on the way to the hospital.  Damn! 

Memories flooded back.  I've known him since the fourth grade, and we've shared a lot over the years. Please God, don't let this happen to my friend.  He has a good heart, and I would miss him beyond words.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm and all is well with his heart, at least for the time being.  But, we're all of the age when these little "false alarms" need to trigger some life style changes, eating better, exercising more, and not acting like we're still in our teens.  We are no longer young and bullet-proof.

I'm certainly guilty of eating too much Mexican food and too many cheeseburgers.....Sorry Steve, but next time we go to town, it's the salad bar so we can continue to develop a friendship that will take us all the way to those rocking chairs on the front porch. 

If you have friends that you hold dear, take care of yourself and ask that they do the same....It could be the difference between life and death, but what do I know?