Birds Of A Feather

How many friends do you have? Who are they? What makes them your friend? Here I go with questions again. With the singing of Auld Lang Syne this time of year, it caused me to stop and think about my friends.

When you think about friends, it is hard to identify who’s a friend and who is just an acquaintance. I like the definition of a friend that simply states, a friend is someone that will help you hide. A close friend is someone that will help you hide a body.

For the politically correct readers, I have a diversity of friends - white, black, brown, red, yellow and some that are somewhere in between. I even have green friends. At least they were the last time I saw them at a party.

There’s my coffee friend. She’s never been married. She has no children that she knows of. We meet once a month for coffee/brunch and have the best of times. We discuss all the problems of the world and how we would solve them. No, we do not always agree. But that’s okay. She is my friend.

Preachers don’t have a lot of friends. There’s good reasons for that. They can’t afford for congregants to find out they are human. But, my friend whom I call, "The Rite Reverend Doctor wild Bill of the first get down with your bad self Baptist church of what’s happening now" is my friend.

I have a friend I met in the fourth grade. He really gets on my nerves sometimes, but he is my friend.

There’s a friend with a PhD in economics. PhD’s in economics don’t have a lot of friends, but he buys coffee every other time we meet.

And, there’s one that’s a barbeque cook. Who doesn’t want a friend that cooks barbeque?

Then there’s Tom who I truly believe would help me hide a body. He would complain about it, but he would do it.

I might go on, but the point I want to make is that friends may be as different from you as night is from day, but they are friends. Go figure.

It just seems to me that if people from all walks of life and all races can be friends, then why can’t the world get along?

I better mention that my friend the preacher is going to say in my eulogy, "please hold your applause until the end."

Now, that’s a friend.

PMO
©2011