Old Friends

         Most of us are blessed with good friends.  Those  we've met in school,  that we grew up with or that we've met through our children or other friends. I thought about that this morning when I went to Mass at Washington and slipped into a pew next to  long time friend, Marge Lee.
     When  daughter number four was born, I was laying in the hospital bed, trying to find a comfortable position to ease my stitches, when two nurses aids came into the room and pulled the curtain between the beds.  One of them said: "Don't put the throw up jar on the bed, it makes Dr. Carter angry because he says his patients never get sick."  Within a half hour, another patient was wheeled into the room.  I could hear them getting her into the bed and  in a couple of of seconds, she began retching uncontrollably.  I don't remember what she was saying but her husband started laughing.  Now I had worked at Caterpillar with a fellow who had that same laugh, so I asked: Is that Kenny Lee over there?"  A dark haired fellow stuck his head around the curtain and said: "No,  but I'm his twin brother."  And that is how I met Keith and Marge Lee.  The interesting fact is that Vern and Keith worked and hunted together and kept telling each other that they should have their wives meet but we never did until Mary and Glenn were born.  
        Marge and I have had many adventures.  We have vacationed together, waited together for our husbands who were on fishing trips or bartending at St. Jude K of C and we have traveled together.  In 1976, my sister, Judy and the two of us traveled across country by car to San Francisco and down the coast to San Diego.  (Oh, the stories from that trip, could fill a book as when Marge blew out the electricity in half of  a San Francisco Hotel)  When we got to San Bernardino, we visited her sister, Berta, and family and Berta decided to travel back to Illinois with us - more stories there - we didn't know it at the time, but Berta had MS and the next year she died.  That was her last time to see her friends, siblings and parents in Bloomington. 
        The true test of friendship, I believe,  is if you are comfortable enough to sit together in silence.  One winter late afternoon,  Marge and I were traveling on Route 116, in that flat prairie section between Roanoke and Metamora.  I was driving  and we were just riding along quietly when I heard her say something.  "What did you say?" I asked.  "I didn't say anything." She said.  "Yes, you did.  You said 'Goodby Mr. Sun."  She started to laugh that infectious laugh of hers and declared she didn't realize she had said it out loud.  She had been watching the sun go down behind one of those flatlander fields so common in this area.  We laughed all the way home. 
        It hasn't all been laughter, Marge and I have struggled and overcome some life shattering events - at the time -  through the years,  most of which are only for us to remember.  There is an old quote: 'Friends are the family, you choose for yourself.'  I am blessed and have chosen some wonderful 'family', some of whom are actually people to which I'm related .