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About 16 years ago I worked with a guy who loved
the outdoors as much as I do. We fished together
in all kinds of weather and thought it was bliss.
We hunted, reloaded ammunition, built rods and tied
flies together preparing for our next outings. He
was there for me when I went through a divorce from
my first wife, a hurtful thing to say the least. A
better friend can't be found anywhere.
Well, Kevin moved back to Florida after he got out of
the Air Force and I lost a fishing buddy in the process.
Recently Kevin started reading FAOL, and we are now in
fairly regular contact with each other. Maybe we'll
get to fish together sometime at a fish-in or a visit.
It would be nice.
We all have old friends like that, don't we? I'm
talking about those people who have stood with you
through thick and thin and remain your friend after
many years apart. I have several friends who now live
far away that were my closest friends and confidants
when we worked together and lived close to each other.
Tom Cuddy, Ken Cox and Bob Banks are the names of several
other friends of that caliber who I still keep contact
with after more than two decades.
That brings me to my point. FAOL is like those friends
in many ways. We are bunch of friends who share a lot
of things in common and often spend time with each other.
Some of my cyber-buddies here I haven't met in person yet,
but I still share time with them. We get together at
least once a week for a couple of hours in the chat room,
or we write on the bulleting board. Life is too short
to not have good friends.
When I think about it, I can't count the times we have
said a collective prayer for a fellow FAOL buddy in a
time of need. I don't remember how many times we tried
to console one of our own over a loss or other personal
disaster in their life. We have laughed together, cried
together, prayed together, mourned together and shared
many other things that only good friends share. The only
link most of us have with each other is an electronic thing
called an Internet, but we are friends just the same.
As with all friends, we also sometimes do a bit of fighting
among ourselves. The coming cold weather and shack-nasties
that arrive with it will test some of those friendships a
bit I'm sure. Call it a brotherhood, family or just friends,
we still have a bond that is firm in most cases. I think
that's important.
I met some new friends in Idaho in September. When the
cold winter winds blow, I will still call them friends
even if I don't feel friendly. In fact, there were a
couple of guys who said some things in March that hurt
me deeply, but I still call them my friends. It's that
family thing I guess. I probably said some things that
hurt them too, but we are still friends, and it can be
that way if we all realize that humans often say and do
things that weren't supposed to come out that way. We do
and did it in our own blood families when we were growing
up, and it happens in our other relationships too.
When that cooped-up feeling comes along in a month or
two, and we want to be anywhere but stuck indoors, I
want us all to remember why we are here. We are here
because we share a common bond. The things we don't
share aren't important to our friendship. I suppose
I've said enough for now, but I want us all to remember
why we are here when the shack-nasties start eating away
at us in a few months. The buddies I mentioned earlier
knew what I'm trying to explain now. The important things
are what we have in common. That's all that really
matters anyway.
~ AC
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