Friends
I have fewer friends than I have fingers on one hand but those I call my "friend" are loyal and true. Being a Bigfoot is synonymous with being a loner simply because it is our nature to be content without having someone else around. Some call this an antisocial behavior disorder but I call it being myself and heartily disagree with the stigma that goes along with the word "disorder". I suppose it could simply be how I define what a friend is because many people I know call any and all of their acquaintances "friends". Then there are people that either have to be around someone or talking to someone all their waking hours. Take my Mom, she is the only person I know that can wear out a telephone by talking. There have been many times that she has called me and talked, then when we hang up the phone will ring and it is her again and says "Lester? I'm sorry I thought I was calling someone else." To Mom one of the world's best invention was the push button telephone dial.
But Lester keeps his circle of friends tight, very tight. Oh sure, there are people that try to squeeze in but are turned away. I hate pushy people and find them unworthy of my friendship. I only have one female friend besides my wife. I won't mention her name but she is a great person, intelligent, and I have to be careful should someone say something snotty to me because she'll take their heads off without a second of hesitation. Intelligence is a prerequisite to join my small circle, idiots need not apply. I don't mean they have to be a rocket scientists and a whiz at calculus but rather they need to have some common sense. I don't like arrogant people very well, especially a narcissist. On the other hand, I realize most people don't like me either but instead of bothering me it makes it easier to keep my circle small.
I was always a loner, never ran with any crowd in school. When I see someone that I knew in school they never recognize me, rarely I should say. But since I never graduated with my class I guess that is not abnormal. Being my friend is like contracting Herpes, you never get rid of it. All of my friends would make great sacrifice for me if I were to ask, and I would do the same for them. One of the things that makes me angry is when an acquaintance tells someone "Lester Sasquatch? Oh he's a good friend of mine!" or "Lester? Oh yes, we were good friends in school." If we were good friends in school, we are still good friends.
My best male friend, one of the best persons I have ever known, died two weeks ago. Jack lived life to its fullest and would drop everything to come to the aid of a friend was in need. I hadn't seen Jack in a while, he was working full time and was selling off his old business of military surplus when he came over on the 15th of this month with his truck and drove down to Jasper to haul a pallet of wood pellets to my house to heat this winter and to return a shotgun he borrowed for deer season last year. We spent the afternoon looking at pictures he had taken when Jack and his family went out West on vacation just two weeks earlier. Jack was very proud of his little two year old granddaughter and she was in about a third of the pictures. Jack lived in Knox County, out near the river, and about 30 miles away. The next Monday he had an accident in his four wheeler and suffered a skull fracture. Jack's wife is a nurse and knew it was bad so she called in the Life Line helicopter and they flew him to Evansville where he passed away on that Thursday morning. Someone called me Wednesday night and told me she had heard Jack had an accident and was in the hospital. I searched the Internet and read all the local news sources but found nothing. I called his cell phone but it was turned off. The only information I could find was from a Facebook account of one of Jack's relatives, a preacher.
Even then I tried to deny the obvious, there must be many Jack Masons in the US I told myself. Finally, in an act of desperation on Saturday night I paid a dollar for a day's subscription at the Vincennes newspaper, the bastards won't even let you read the obituaries for free, and there it was, his obituary and the funeral was earlier that very day. I missed my best friend's funeral and it tears me up. Yesterday I saw a car out in the back driveway in the camera monitor and my wife was outside talking to them. She came in and handed me a book that Jack had borrowed that Friday he spent with us here. It was a woman who worked with Jack's wife and she said that Tonjia was coping with Jack's death as best she could. I hope the family can get some comfort but I know they must be devastated. I am sure someone tried to call but the way my last name is spelled is so unusual that most people assume I have an unlisted number.
Anyway, I am glad I have very few friends because I don't like the grief I am going through now. All carbon based life forms die, it is inevitable, but my friend was taken too early and quickly. A friend of Lester is a friend for life and beyond, so RIP Jack Mason, you will be greatly missed but I am sure one day we will meet again.