Friendship
With all the holidays during late spring and continuing through the summer, sometimes there are holidays we may miss or forget that they even exist. One I ran across earlier this month was National Best Friends Day on June 8th. Friends come in many varieties, from your spouse, children, or other family members to those special acquaintances we can just put a BFF after their name.
As I see it, here are a few quotes that relate to friendship that ring true for some of us: Aristotle said: “A true friend is one soul in two bodies.” Then there is this one: “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light.” Helen Keller. And finally: “I like friends who have independent minds; because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.” Nelson Mandela.
That last quote brought to mind other thoughts that came to me when I was transplanting some flowers this spring. *Why do we talk so much? Because many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up. *We need to accept the things to which fate binds us and love the people with whom fate brings us together; but to do so with all our heart. *Too many of us are not living our dreams, because we are living our fears. *We don’t see things as they are … we see them as we are.
As I see it, a lot of the above came from talking to people who have read my book and then commented to me on a certain part that they felt related to them. A young man in his early 50’s sounded like he still had “old school” ideas and thoughts about things. He told me he kept a lot of journals to record things that he thought about while mowing the lawn, out for a walk, or just sitting around thinking. He told me his latest journal entries were listings of “Little tools we take for granted that haven’t changed much because they don’t have to. Because they were made right the first time.” He then proceeded to rattle off some of the things on his list:
- Pink pearl erasers
- Tiny eye glasses repair kits (a tiny screw driver, magnifying glass, and extra pointed thing for something he wasn’t sure of)
- Paper clips
- Rubber bands
- Hair binders (for putting up long hair)
- Pocket knives
- Highlighters
- #2 pencils
- Original old fashioned legos
- Clothes pins
- Pencil sharpeners fastened to the wall with a hole for each size pencil and a crank to turn for sharpening with shaving falling into a plastic container on the bottom (and those little sharpeners you hold in your fingers with a different size hole in each end (you had to turn the pencil on your own)
- Miracle Grow Plant Food (not a tool, per se; but a few drops per watering can and your plants love it. And yes, it will last for years)
- Silly putty (if you kids ask your dad nicely, he’ll make a Superman out of it)
As I see it, we should all start writing journals about things like this; lest we forget about the good old days and all the great little things we take for granted; and how they still work if we can just find them in our junk drawer. The alterative items people try to get us to use nowadays just break or don’t do the job the way the originals did. Speaking of “old things” I hope you all find time to come to Richland over the July 4th weekend to help celebrate the city’s 5-year reunion (First city in Keokuk County founded in 1841). Lots of fun for everyone. For further details go to Facebook and search for Richland, IA “Frogtown”.
