As I grow older, I find that many of my early friendships, which I was always at great pains to maintain through phone calls, visits, correspondence, etc. have withered or fallen into a state of suspended animation. There is just one person I have known since kindergarten that I am still on any sort of speaking terms with. It is to be expected that friends grow apart over the years--expected, but always somewhat painful. My BEST friend--or who I thought was my best friend--who I met on the first day of kindergarten almost 36 years ago, has become someone I no longer recognize or even much like. At one point, philosophically, we passed each other going in opposite directions--he went from being a Hippie to being a Yuppie, and I went from being Conservative to being Countercultural. When I was the reactionary (as some children are) we got along fine--though he took delight in teasing me and putting me down. As I reflect on it now, I think I liked his FAMILY better than I liked HIM. His mother was the sweetest human being who ever lived--I still miss her. But he laughed at my witticisms, listened to my rants, and was, well, THERE. There is that old chestnut about being able to pick your friends, but not your family--and to a great extent it is a lie. Our friends are basically the people we're thrown together with in life--it's all proximity.

I think that friendship really started to go sour after his parents died, and his wife (who reminds me of Margaret Dumont, from the old Marx Bros. films) began to mold his tastes. One evening he started talking about WINE--the whole Yuppie oenophile spiel. But what changed our association most was when he took the small business begun by his father and expanded it. It was a small shop, and his father treated the men working for him like members of his own family. All the Christmas parties were held at the shop, with beer and tomato pie being consumed on the same floor as the machinery. ("Old Fezziwig" comes to mind.) Under the new regime, the parties were held at the Ramada Inn--more for the clients than the workers. His wife showed up in an elegant evening gown--and the workers appeared in their jeans, their thick boots, and their flannel shirts. (You can imagine Margaret Dumont's expression at such impudence.) When the business began to grow, and modernize, the old artisans could not adjust to the new computer controlled equipment--and were assigned custodial positions by the new shop manager. One such, "Vern," who had a position of some authority before the "improvements," and was a close friend of my friend (who teased him mercilessly) quit rather than being demoted to janitor. At this writing, none of the old gang--the old "shop family" are working there. My friend is making bushels of money--but the old camaraderie is gone. It must be very lonely there, with no Vern to tease.

"Why does a man work? To help those he loves." -- Alfred Dolge (1848-1922)