Friends

Today I have been thinking a lot about my friends, more specifically about the friends I grew up with. It's amazing that those we were so close to not so long ago, are more often than not, people we now only send Christmas cards to once a year.

In my early teenage years I had three very close friends: Hyrum, Mark and Mark. We did everything together from Friday night get togethers, sleep-overs, camping with the scouts, bike rides to the parks, and other times we just plain pushed the limit to see how far we could go without getting into trouble. It didn't always work. We were inseperable. And then one by one they moved away and developed other friends. We tried to keep in touch but that was hard because then we were seperated by states and not just cities.

In High School I developed some other friendships, namely Tom and Brian. We did a lot of stuff together, even though we weren't always in the same classes. After High School Tom and Brian joined the Navy, and I didn't. That caused a rift between us for a while because they thought I was going to join with them as part of the Buddy program. But I had other things in mind, namely an LDS mission that I knew I would serve at some point. I finally did when I turned age 20. But Tom and Brian and I still did things together when we were all back in town together. I eventually moved away, got married, and then finally moved to New York. Now I only see them when I get back to California.

My tie to California has now pretty much gone. My parents both died within about the last year and we are selling the house. I will always remember my friends and the things we did. I hope we always stay close, or at least get a little closer than we have been. We've all been through some tough times but I know we can make it through them.

What brought this all to mind was that my daughter, who graduated from High School in 2005 still connects with her friends from High School on an almost daily basis. Technology has made it so much easier. Between e-mails, text messaging and IM's, and now video mail, they can see and talk to each other daily without the hassle of sending letters through the mail. They get together whenever they come home from break and just finished a New Years Eve visit to a friend in Baltimore. I think they are very luicky to have each other. I hope they are able to keep up with each other when they graduate from college this year. That will be the true test of friendship. I've got to get more "techie" (not trekkie) and get back in touch with my friends again, at least those that are still alive.

If any of them are reading this, please respond with a comment to this post or e-mail me at kevinlane1460@gmaili.com and we'll get together sometime, even if it's just a virtual get together. Long life friendships.