"No man is useless while he has a friend." -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Earlier this week a friend of mine called me and asked me to be at another friend's (Cameron's) house to meet him at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening. Unfortunately, I had a prior, extremely important, commitment. It was something I could not get out of for any reason. It was a meeting I had been committed to for weeks. He told me that he didn't ask for favors very often so I should do whatever I could do to be there, even if I had to be a bit late.
This friend, Rosie (short for his last name), is one of the most loyal friends I have. He flakes out sometimes like all of us do, but when I was going through the worst of my times this spring, if he didn't hear from me, he would stop by my house and drag me out of my funk. I certainly don't deserve this sort of loyalty from him, yet he gives it anyway.
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing."
- E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
I first met Rosie back in the spring of 2000. The previous fall, a hurricane had come through the area while my wife was attending a wedding in Buffalo, NY. The predictions were for Hurricane Floyd to make landfall as a category 5 hurricane right about where my parents live. My father, ever the stubborn Dutchman, always refuses to leave for storms. The last one he left for was Hugo back in 1989. That probably saved my parents' lives. Finally, my mother and I talked him into at least going as far inland as my house. Being about 15 miles farther inland, on higher ground, and a house instead of a mobile home would be safer. As the forecast grew more and more dire, we finally decided to drive even further inland, about 45 miles further, just to be safe. It was a frightening night even that far away.
When the storm had moved on, we drove back to my house to find most of my town flooded and without power. Schools were closed for the entire week. My parents' house had been spared when the storm had weakened and turned north. At landfall, it was only a category 2 and we got the weaker side of the storm. While they were completely spared, my only damage was that a small oak tree (still about 30' tall and the cause of one of my strange injuries when it fell on my shoulder while we were cutting it up and clearing it - left shoulder has never been the same since - pinched nerve) in the back yard had fallen near the house and ripped the power lines out of the house. Power crews were swamped all over town and I was told that I was very low on their priority list, so I stayed there without power. We brought in a generator to run the refrigerator and a single lamp, but that was it. As a result, I spent most of my time at a local gaming store called The Dragon's Lair.After spending so much time at the store, I got to know the owner fairly well and he was looking for a DM (Dungeon Master) to run a D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) game in the store that spring, so I volunteered. What did it matter if I hadn't played in a little while... it had only been 8 years. I could do it.
When I arrived at the store for my first night of running the game, I had 17 players show up for the game. That was way too many. It's difficult (nearly impossible) to keep track of more than 8. The next week, we got down to a more manageable 13 players (plus myself) and I determined that I could handle this number. One of the players that showed up to those gaming sessions was Rosie. We had never met before, but he had gamed with a colleague of mine, the drama teacher at my school, who was also in the game. She talked him into showing up, convincing him that I was a great guy and a good DM. So, a hurricane had brought us together. The rest, as they say, is history.
"The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we met, Rosie was a 25 year old firefighter and he and his wife had their first baby on the way. Now, Rosie and his wife have two children. I stopped playing D&D when things got bad with my job, but we have stayed relatively close. His knee gave out from the constant abuse it received from his job a few years ago, so he too had to give up his chosen career. Fortunately, he received disability benefits, but is now hoping to return to firefighting full-time and has recently been cleared by his doctors to return to work. We have been through a lot together over the past seven years.
"Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it." - Cicero
When my meeting ended on Wednesday night at about 7:45, I called Rosie and he told me he couldn't wait any longer, but would be at my house on Saturday (today) at 7:00 p.m. and that if I wasn't there, he would track me down. Rosie has a way of tracking me down. He is persistent. He does not take no for an answer.
Needless to say, I was home when he arrived. We actually spent most of the afternoon tidying up ("Ulla tidy ooop!" - The Producers) the house for his visit. He refused... absolutely refused to tell me what he wanted or why he needed to see me so badly. He also instructed Cameron to do the same.
Promptly at 7:00 p.m. came the sound of the doorbell and I walked to the door and opened it. Rosie stood there smiling, so I invited him in. He took about a step and turned around. Then, from around the corner came Snapper. Snapper is another one of our dear friends, actually Rosie's best friend. Snapper was also at that first gaming session back in 2000. The catch here is that Snapper has been off in Afghanistan serving his country as a member of our National Guard. His full-time job is as a police officer for the county, but he has been on active duty since last August. He is scheduled to come home in January, but he and Rosie surprised me, since they told none of us that he would be home on leave. He goes back to Afghanistan on July 19, so this was a short visit, and probably the only time I will get to see him while he is here, but it was a great surprise.
We talked for about an hour and a half and caught up with each other's lives. Rosie knew a little about my career decision, but not the whole story, so I brought them both up to speed on that and they were very supportive. I look forward to January, when Snapper is back in town full time. Also, we decided that for Rosie's and my birthdays (mine is April 10th, his is April 11th), we're going to see Spamalot on April 12th in Greenville, SC.
Friendship is an amazing thing. When I was in high school and college, I had a close-knit group of friends. There were about 14 of us in the group in college. I had a mini-van at the time, and we would often all pile into the van and take road trips. We would usually leave about 8:00 at night. Yes, everyone would be in my van... mini-van. I had a television in a custom console that my dad built (he made his own conversion van out of an appliance delivery van once when we still lived in NJ), so people could watch TV while I drove. One of the most amazing trips was when we went out to find snow. We had heard that it was snowing farther to the northwest, and my girlfriend at the time (she's my wife now) wanted snow for her birthday (which was that week), so into the van we went. We drove for hours. Our first stop was Asheville, NC. There was some snow on the ground, but we decided we could do better, so we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and drove until we had to stop at a barricade that said the road was closed due to hazardous conditions ahead. We got to see our snow. We also got to stop the van on the side of the road and walk out to a frozen waterfall. We broke icicles off the waterfall and ate them on the way home. We got home just in time for 8 a.m. classes the next morning, which some of us had to attend, myself included. These trips were just something we did together as friends. It didn't matter how crazy it seemed, or that we had to be up all night and then go to classes the next morning.
"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” - Oscar Wilde
I think that as we get older and more entrenched in our lives, we are more hesitant to make friends and establish close relationships. We start to guard ourselves more closely against "outsiders." We get down in the trenches and push along like good soldiers and the spaces in our lives we used to fill with our friends, we fill with work and maybe, if we're smart and fortunate, family. Nature abhors a vacuum. The spaces in our lives will fill with something; better to fill them with friends and family.
It took a hurricane to bring Rosie, Snapper and Cameron into my life. A few years ago, we assimilated another group of friends into our circle of friends. I was starting a new D&D campaign and was looking for one or two new players. I went to a few gaming forums online and placed ads looking for gamers in the area. Someone replied to those ads and attended a few sessions, then asked if he could bring his friends to the game. Thus, we added 5 more people to our group.
"A sympathetic friend can be quite as dear as a brother." - Homer
The question of whether or not "online friends" count as real friends seems to arise quite often. I think with every new piece of technology, we get the unique opportunity to widen our circle of friends. People have been making and maintaining friendships through postal services since almost the advent of reliable long-distance mail. When the automobile was invented, it enabled people to visit friends who lived farther away. The invention of the telephone then allowed us to keep in touch with those distant friends, or become friends with people we met while traveling. Sometimes, friendships have even sprung from wrong numbers. The next big piece of technology that enabled to widen our prospective circle of friends has been the internet. Is someone who we have to travel by car to see still a true friend? Of course, we don't even question that, because the technology has been in place for so long. Is someone we have to talk to by telephone still our friend? Once again, I believe the answer is yes. Why then, would it be questionable whether or not a person we talk to only, or primarily, online is a "real" friend? I believe it is only because the technology is relatively new. One of the great technological advances for online friendships is the combination of voice chat software and a microphone headset. I sometimes use Ventrilo or TeamSpeak to talk to friends online. It's inexpensive (no longer distance charges - only the cost of a headset) and allows you to hear your friend's voice just like a telephone call.
Through this wonderful hobby (addiction?) of blogging, I feel that I have met many wonderful people and have made a number of new friends. I think this intimate sharing that we all do is made possible by the impersonal task of typing it into a computer. We are more free to share intimately when it seems less personal. It is less threatening that way. We can become closer more quickly without feeling like we're giving ourselves away. We share things that would be harder to say in person. I'm sure that some of us at least, would feel secure enough to welcome each other into our homes, or at least meet on neutral ground somewhere if we were ever in close proximity to each other.
One of the gaming forums I participate in is a great community as far as fellow participants letting each other know when you are going to be traveling and organizing meets if any of the posters live in the town or city you're going to. A few years ago, several of us just happened to be traveling to New York the same week, where several of the regular participants lived, and a meet was organized in a gaming store in Manhattan. You would've thought these people had been friends for years, and I guess that was the truth of it. Even though we had never met in person, we still shared common interests, some history through our conversations on the forum, and the bonds of friendship.
I believe that is true of many of my fellow bloggers. We check in with each other every day. We are genuinely concerned about each other. We care about each other. If one of us went away, we would be missed and our blogging friends, our faithful readers, would worry about us. We support each other and help each other through the tough times. Sometimes checking in with each other is all we have to keep us going when things look especially bleak. That, as far as I'm concerned, is what friendship is all about.
Some of you may be wondering about my choice of the Jackson Browne title quote. What does it have to do with a post about friendship? Well, it's simple, really. When I told Snapper about my career situation and how the stress of my career had affected my life and my health, both mental and physical, he fully supported my decision to leave the job and the career. He said (and I paraphrase here), "It sucks because you did it for so long and enjoyed it so much, but you have to take care of yourself because no matter how much you're getting paid, you can't spend your paycheck if you're dead." Well, that career, that identity, those dreams may be dead... but I'm alive.
"When the road looks rough ahead
And you're miles and miles
From your nice warm bed
Just remember what your old pal said
Boy, you've got a friend in me.
You've got troubles, well I've got 'em too
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you
We stick together and we see it through
You've got a friend in me."
- Randy Newman, You've Got A Friend In Me
