Up and Coming New Friends

I recently met some fine young folks at T. H. Benton's Coffee/Deli, located immediately across the street form the Bentonville square. Their names are Michelle and Kade. As I'm somewhat prone to do, I started messing with them a little bit before we'd officially met. I told them if the cops came in looking for me, please tell them they haven't seen me. They both came back with something spontaneous and clever and as a result I thought to myself, "Ok, these are not your average young coffee shop Joe's". I could go on but for now I'll just share this thought: if you're in the neighborhood and have time for a cup of coffee and perhaps a sandwich, stop in T. H. Benton's for what I'm confident will be a nice little experience. And if you do, ask the guys and gals behind the counter if they've seen that one old and ridiculous guy who thinks he's a writer. For an added bonus, if I'm there, I'd absolutely be tickled to autograph your shirt or pose with you for a legendary and classic photo. I'd give you a signed copy of my book, however, I'm still working on the first page.

Friendship in a Free Society

Many people unwitingly become friends with individuals whom, in reality, they don't at all match up with. One cause of this issue might be the failure to ever have considered why you became friends in the first place.
 If you find yourself with this situation, you might consider writing down the qualities that are important to you in people with whom you choose to associate. You could then review your list of friends to determine which individuals on the list have or don't have most of the qualities you've determined are important to you.

In the category of friends, one person might list for example, honesty, loyalty, fun personality, sense of humor, conversational, forthcoming, dependable, interesting, sincere, caring, kind and so on. They could then consider how each of their friends (or good acquaintances) matches up with each of these qualities. Based on the outcome, that person would be free to consider making adjustments they deem appropriate or necessary, including adding to or deleting from their list of friends.

When you consider there are approximately 7 billion people on our planet and out of that group, we get to pick our friends, it gives us the option of making adjustments relative to who our friends are as we make the journey through life. The great thing is, we get to do this completely at our individual discretion. As a bonus, we don't have to worry about being wrong, unless of course we make a mistake of adding/deleting the wrong friend. However, even choosing the wrong friend doesn't make you wrong, it just makes you naive.

The right to choose our friends, surely must be one of the great things about living in a free society. And if you don't currently have any friends, worry not : that will be addressed in an upcoming issue of Old and Ridiculous. Thank for tuning in...my friend!

True Friends are Forever

I re-discovered some old friends over the past 4 days and found them both to be exactly as I remembered them the last time I saw them....17 years ago.

We originally met Rick and Martha along with their son's Michael and John the first part of 1993, after Rick had taken a job running a division at our mutual former company. Although he and I had come from different countries and had grown up in substantially different environments, we became instant friends, as did Martha and my wife Sue. 

Over the next 2 1/2 years, we would get together several times outside of work with our families and enjoyed numerous activities together including cook outs, canoe trips, birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, camp fire weenie roasts and so on. Then, about as suddenly as our Canadian friends had appeared in our lives, they were gone, moving back to their hometown of Toronto. To say the least, we were all very sad to see them go. 

We stayed in sporadic contact over the next several years, exchanging occasional phone calls or leaving messages from time to time on the other's answering machine, but we had no actual face to face contact and for some reason, hadn't connected on Facebook or any other social media site.

Fast forward to this past Friday evening and as soon as we saw each other at the airport, it was like no time at all had gone by. Although it had been 17 years since the 4 of us had laid eyes on one another, we instantly took up right where we left off in 1995. We found it difficult to believe our 4 collective children were now 25-30 years old and not 8-13, but everything else in our friendship had remained the same. In short, we had a great time re-connecting with our wonderful old friends.

Early this morning after dropping Rick and Martha off for their return trip home, I drove away from the airport with a smile on my face and a long held belief re-affirmed in my heart: a true friendship should be cherished above all possessions.

Twitter-tainment

I was born with the ability to entertain myself. It's possible that self entertainment is an acquired skill, but I don't recall ever not having it. I like people and there are many sincere, humorous, and entertaining folks who are fun to hang out with. Sometimes those folks, however, aren't' available, which leaves me with the following options:
A) look for ways to be entertained
B) entertain myself.

Option B is the primary reason I have a Twitter account. If someone happens to read something I tweet and it causes them to ponder, smile, or maybe even laugh out loud, it's a bonus. If not, at least someone's getting a kick out of the junk I'm coming up with; even if it's just me.

@rollarustic on Twitter

~A log home creation by Pioneer Log Homes of BC www.pioneerloghomesofbc.com

What next?

My brother Ace recently acquired a pet coon. His name is Jasper and Jasper goes with my brother everywhere he goes. Ace even takes him to work where Jasper spends the day crawling around his office, sitting on his shoulders, and occasionally napping under his desk. My brother also has a dog, but nearly everyone has a dog. From time to time I've thought it would be kind of cool to have a mule, but with just a little input from my super hot bride, I  settled on a dog.
We'll see where the coon experiment ends up. My guess is, Jasper will eventually bite someone's finger off.