The beginning of my Riverside era clipped the end of someone else's Riverside era.
The end of a marriage brought me to the town on the River. It is the hometown of a person that I met shortly after I arrived.
Now that I’m settled in to my new home, my friend is leaving his. Leaving the town that he was raised in, raised his kids in...
...for the mountains of his twilight years in Colorado.
The highlight of Covid was sitting up on the balcony and out of the blue, my friend would drive by and honk his obnoxious truck horn and yell up, “just checking up on you Mr. Shepley!”
That truck stopped in the Divorced Dad District last night for possibly the final time. The farewell “checking up on you” that ended with a goodbye hug.
My friend told me to keep being a great man and a great father and invited me to visit. Then he drove away in the dusk and fog of a late January evening.
Good friends come and go in our lives. The circumstances of living bring paths together and often moves them apart. Yesterday was a move apart day.
I haven’t traveled very far in the last five years and probably won’t in the next five. That was probably the last time I saw the man that I shared many breakfasts with at Michael’s Pancake House.
At least for the time being.
Today’s quote is an Irish farewell for the dear friend moving to the retirement of pine trees and ski slopes.
This is the full version:
“There are good ships And wood ships, Ships that sail the sea, But the best ships Are friendships And may they Always be!"
Now we go from Illinois to Colorado and from Irish goodbyes to Scottish poets.
Today is Burns Night as we celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Burns… you sing a song he wrote every New Year, Auld Lang Syne.
Today is the last Thursday of January. Go enjoy friendship, the rarest and most important part of life.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot…. Best of Joy and Love to you Mr. Foley.
