milo E minderbinder's little corner

Best Friends

I saw Will (aka the Vist) this weekend, and as always, it was great to see the Vist. Will and I have been friends since 7th grade, were best friends through high school and college, and have continued as that even now, 6 years after graduation. Those kind of friends don't come along often ya know, and even though the talks and visits grow fewer and fewer, we never miss a beat when we're together.

So anyway, I got to thinking about how best friends usually have that moment. That moment where you both can look back on and remember when and where you went from being friends to "best friends." Mine and Will's happened on a hot Alabama night in 10th grade.

Vist and I had snuck out of the house - as per usual - and driven down the river where the old famous recording studio was (and by famous, I'm talking about Rolling Stones, Dylan, Skynrd, etc, but I digress). We were sitting on the hood of his black GMC, smoking away on a pack of camels, and had just been shooting shit for a little while.

What we didn't know at the time, is that both of us had the dubious distinction of having "secret" relationships. You know, the classic forbidden high-school lust, errr love. I don't remember exactly how it started, but one of us trusted the other enough to break the ice, and we ended up spilling our guts all night long about who, how, and of course exactly WHAT we did since we were high school boys after all :). So as we finished the pack of smokes and headed home we made a pact that our secrets were "burned to the bottom of the river with the cigarettes."

Sidenote - how cool do you think we thought we were when we came up with that phrase.

Anyway, the truth about my C and Will's J (names are protected to protect the ummm, not so innocent) eventually came to public light - when that happened btw, it almost ruined another friendship of mine, but thats another entry - but the point is that neither one of ever broke our pact and that bond between us had been formed. Many great and crazy nights followed, and there were lots of other girls, smokes, alchohol, video games, and talks. Lots of talks. And just to share a bit, some of my most memorable Will moments were:

• Freshman year of college when I stayed behind with Will after J and I drove to Birmingham at 2 in the morning b/c Will and J had just broken up over the phone
• Being in the car with Vist after he had broken up with Jess, and thinking how perfect it was when he popped in a Dylan CD and went right to Abandonded Love - "Let me feel your love one more time, before I abandon it ...." old Bobby sang out as we sped down I-65.
• Watching Vist almost die as we snuck the car out of his parents driveway, put it into neutral and lost control as we took a turn with Vist desperately hanging on to the back. I'm still laughing at that as I write this - even though it was really scary.
• Going to our first Dylan show together.
• Sitting in Will's kitchen in Nashville, drinking a case of Icehouse (WTF?) and recording what would be known as our first "album."
  
• Sitting almost naked on the couch on his college graduation day - following a crazy week of consecutive daily debauchery - as his parents uncomfortably stood in the living room, afraid to touch anything, and certainly wondering if I had on any clothes at all underneath that dingy white sheet.

Anyway, I could go on for a while, but then I'm sure my reader(s?) is getting bored, so that'd just be self-indulgent.

As I said goodbye to Will this morning, I got a little down and started thinking. Even though we get wiser and more mature as we get older, some things that one would think get easier, only seem to get more difficult. We should be trained for goodbyes at this point, right? Through human evolution, life experiences, and the increase in number of relationships we encounter in our lifetimes, why is it still sad? Why does it hurt to say, "until next time?" We know we'll love others, we know we're probably going to see this person again, and yet logic can't overcome that pain of saying goodbye. We're a weird lot you know - humans. God's definitely got a sense of humor.

Anyway, Vist and I didn't make any new, great memories this weekend, but we had a damn good time reminiscing about old ones. Friends like that don't come along often ya know.

Until next time V ....

posted by miLo @ 7:03 AM