It's the smoke

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Everyone deserves the kind of friend you call at 2 a.m. and the first word out of their mouth is either:

• How much do you need (for bail)?

or

• Do I need to bring you a shovel too?

Hope you have some people in your life like that.

I think back to growing up and I pretty much always had one or two such people in my life until I hit college. Then my world changed. Foreshortened horizons suddenly reached into those places where "here be monsters." While I have always been unique (and likely always will be), I found in college a number of people who heard the same music I did, to horribly twist a phrase.

Welllllll, I might.

All of a sudden, if I needed a spare shovel, I had a cadre of people there.

Upon leaving college, I lost touch with nearly of them. One I kept up with - The Old Man and I have stayed in contact. Thanks to the internet I've found a few others. Some remain AWOL - Priscilla, Gary, Hope, Dennis, Keith, Taka, and Mike come to mind.

In the intervening years, I have found a few more folks who fall into the 2 a.m. phone call category. Sadly as I have aged, they have too and some of them are no longer around to get or give a 2 a.m. wake up call.

If you are my age or older, none of this is a revelation. For you younger folks, the day is coming when you have a renewed appreciate of these words.

I tell you this because of a discussion I had this weekend. In talking with this person, I said "I'm not an easy person to get along with." I meant it too. The person I was talking with disagreed.

When I pointed out this person is not exactly objective on the subject, the person replied, "I'd like you even if you weren't."

Then, smoke got in my eyes.

I can hope this person's opinion does not change in the coming years. It certainly may. This road we call Life carries us to place we never expected to visit and changes us in ways we never thought would happen. Opinions, attitudes, outlooks and perceptions change. Compound this by some hard decisions this person and I will have to make in the coming years. It is within the real of possibility we'll eventually wind up not speaking to each other. I've seen it happen to other people.

Arg. Smoke again.

Regardless, I am not easy to get along with. Repeating that statement in case you missed it the first time. For those people who do put up with me and answer my 2 a.m. phone calls (and vice versa), just know that as much as you appreciate me, I appreciate you.

You have my number.