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Rules of Engagement
Friends
Brett was probably a better friend than I was. We did a lot of fun stuff together in high school, but I knew he had one weakness. I exploited it shamelessly and often. But it was really, really hard to resist, and I’m not known for my strong will when it comes to humor, especially at the expense of my fellow man. Will Rogers said it this way, “Everything is funny when it happens to someone else.”
So some background explanation will be necessary here. Brett was a kind of new kid at the high school, having gone to another junior high school. I was really only an established kid because I had moved in a year before. So as two newer kids we found each other as friends.
But I learned Brett had been hit by a car when he was in junior high. He said he was hit hard enough to fly 50 feet through the air. I don’t think there was any permanent damage, but when you have flown through the air after a collision with a car, there will always be some psychological scars.
Like when you get ready to cross the street.
The first few times Brett looked both ways about nine times I thought he was just being extra careful. But when I finally asked him about it, he told me about the accident. I felt bad that he had suffered such a trauma, but I should have warned him to be careful what he shared with me. I like to laugh, and sometimes, well, most times it’s at the expense of others.
It may explain why we tell Helen Keller jokes. We aren’t blind and deaf, but we also didn’t start a university and tour the world as one of the most famous people ever. Helen Keller overcame so much it makes many of us feel like slackers, and complaining about our aches and pains makes us seem like whiners. Did you know Helen Keller had an incredible playhouse in her backyard? Neither did she.
See what I mean? I’m trying to praise one of the great women the world has ever been blessed with, and I resort to cheap jokes. No more Helen Keller jokes.
But it was more than I could resist to not take advantage of this incredible opportunity every time we crossed the street. I even got to know the routine so well I could tell just before he was about to cross the street.
Which was when I usually reached over and jabbed him in the side and yelled “Boo!”.
He always jumped, and I always laughed. He laughed a little, too. But he probably didn’t think it was funny. It didn’t stop me from doing it whenever I had the chance.
Sometimes I’m not the best of friends.
You already know about my friend who squirted milk and then soda through his nose. But the really bad thing is I haven’t kept in touch with these high school friends since then. I went off to college, Brett went off to the service, and everyone else scattered the way we all do after high school.
But it hasn’t kept me from making new friends I turn out neglecting later. It’s like the friends I made when I lived in California for a couple of years. When they visited me in Utah later, we decided to run a 5K road race together. It was the beginning of my love of running, and has resulted in my running four marathons; very slowly. But that was the end of the contacts. I probably saw those friends once more since then, and that’s been 30 years.
A similar thing happens with actors. When the cast is together, there is a true camaraderie which makes everyone to stay in touch forever, but then when the show is over, nearly every actor moves on to the next show and the next group of true friends. I’ve been in so many plays, movies and commercials that when I see a familiar face we usually have to go through a list until we find out what we did together before.
These stages we go through might be normal, and passing from one cadre of friends to another may be the way we deal with change. We fall asleep each night and wake to what we think is the same world we were dealing with yesterday. But today is a word that carries change, and as we live each day, we encounter the new, the exciting, the disappointments and a kaleidoscope of difference. We feel the same, but while we slept, we have also changed.
Maybe one day I’ll change into a better friend. But as they say, never try to change a man unless he is in diapers.
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