A few of my straight shooters…
Have you ever bumped into someone you haven’t seen in 40 or 50 years and you recognize them immediately and then you run into another that you haven’t seen for the same length of time and you have no idea who they are but they know you? It can be exhilarating and embarrassing depending on which side of the equation you are on. I did that today and it was exhilarating for me to see a friend, not a best friend but a friend I knew from school, a friend I knew that was a good person and I respected but they just never crossed over into that “best friend” or even “close friend” category. That best friend category is a tough one to crack into for anyone and it works both ways.
One of my best friends sent me a quote once that said “a best friend is someone that you call in the middle of the night and tell them you need them and without questions, they grab a bottle of tequila and a shovel and head out the door.” Now It was clearly meant as a signal to me that I was considered that type of friend which is very flattering but… No matter how sealed our friendship bond is, I’m probably not going to help you bury a body as the quote implies. I will certainly help you with the tequila consumption and I will even sit with you and offer superior moral and mental support while you are at the police station confessing your crimes. I will even chip in on the O.J. defense team budget, but actually helping you bury a body, no.
Here is the first problem, accessory after the fact is a crime too! You call me in the middle of the night when I am sound asleep and expect me to make life altering decisions when I am at my lowest IQ level of the day? No sir. First off, I could go to prison for proving how solid our social bond is. You may be willing to risk it but I’m just not cut out for prison myself. I’ve seen all the prison shows on TV, I know what goes on in there. I mean the reality is this; I have no tattoo’s, no visible hairs protruding from my nose or ears, I have relatively soft skin for an old guy and on a good hair day, I can look pretty sharp. I would like to think I am tough and could extinguish any flaming desires that someone who is serving a life term may have for me, but again, I go back to those TV shows. Everyone in there lift weights all the time, they can chew broken glass and if they aren’t lifting weights they are taking showers together which is a serious recipe for disaster. Not to mention that these guys have no fear when it comes to hiding a sharp stabbing object inside their backside. Every time I drive by a prison with those ominous walls and all that barbed wire I think, someone is having sex against their will in there and I press a little harder on the accelerator.
I make dopey decisions from time to time and so do my friends. Infallible friends are so very difficult to find these days. I even enjoy the friends that make me scratch my head and wonder about their departures from rational behavior. We all take that occasional stroll away from intelligence hence the term, “hold my beer” was born. Some of ours and our friends “hold my beer” moments have long lasting effects and are still visible today in the form of bull riding. I’ve tried to understand the rationale behind this phenomenon, where a generally healthy, semi-sane man or woman decide to climb aboard a 2000-pound snot slinging beast that would prefer you not be there. I can only imagine a very long time ago when two cowboys were sitting on a fence, pulling on a jug after a long day of doing cowboy stuff when one sees a bull in the pasture and says to the other “I bet you won’t ride that bull.” The other cowboy who has pulled on the jug a few more times than the first replies, “for how long?” which the other replies “8 seconds ought to do it”. I’m not sure if that’s the way professional bull riding started but hold my beer while I find out.
I really enjoy the friend that laughs with you, celebrates your success, enjoys seeing you happy and you feel the same way about them. That type of friend, is also the same friend that cries with you when you are grieving or heart-broken. They put their hand on your shoulder to comfort you, or they hold your hand while you sob. At those tough moments they know they don’t need to say anything, they just need to be there. Those friends are pretty rare and should be appreciated. Everyone should have a few of those types in your life and we should all strive to try and be THAT friend to someone else. Yes sir, those friends are rare but there is an even more rare friend than that one.
The rarest friend of all is the one that does all those things I mentioned above, they can hold your beer or your hand but the one thing that they do for you is tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. The rarest friend of all is the one that tells it like it is and loves you in spite of your many faults. They cut through your façade and get straight to the point. They lay out the facts for you, call you on your BS and let you decide. Be careful with these friends, they can anger you like no other but you need them. Truth be known, there is no person born that can change my mind when my mind has been made up to ride the bull. No sir, they won’t prevent me from jumping on that bull but they will lay out the consequences of my actions before I do it. When you find the friend that does all that for you, hang on to them. They are your best friends, they are few, and God doesn’t send many of them your way.