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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: I keep losing friends.....
After my wife died in December of 2005, my lifestyle was permanehntly altered. People in the community became family...The only family I had...Two wonderful ladies in the Franconia Post office Wendy and Cathy, who had known my Solveig, were the first to tuck me under their wings. Wendy was worried that I wasn't eating right and taught me to watch Rachel Ray's TV cooking show. It didn't work...I wasted a helluvalot of money cooking stuff a starving savage wouldn't eat. So, we started meeting for a threesome lunch date at the Blue Pearl. When the Post Office started experiencing severe budgetary problems, Wendy got transferred. My IHOP waitress Betty moved to Chicago...My Springfield Family Restaurant sweetheart Ruth Anne married the guy who owns the coin shop four doors down the street....Mr. Bell, the fellow who lost a leg and is the Co-Owner of three Tippy's Taco Houses was away for several months (his last name is Bell, so I call him Taco Bell. He thinks that's really stupid but it amuzes the hell out of me.) The nice Viet-Namese family that owned the WASH N' FOLD, sold it to some other kind of oriental family maybe Taiwanese. I miss the sweet gentle Viet-Namese lady who always said.."Halllow Meestur Armi-strange"...lovely person. They just sold their business and vanished into thin air...no goodbyes. Life has fewer and fewer opportunities to tell people goodbye...They just make professional adjustments and simply leave without the fanfare of goodbyes, hugs and kisses or the traditional handshake and pat on the back. The manager of the Hard Times Cafe was transferred to newly opened Hard Times location....Great guy, I really miss him. The shift supervisor at Roy Rogers returned to Thailand...miss her. People just keep saddling up and hitting the trail...no goodbyes. The closed the Hunan Cafe, my "chink chow" carry-out....I just drove up the other night to get some chicken chow mein, spring rolls, pork fried rice, barbequed spare ribs and sweet5 n' sour pork and found the windows painted over and a handwritten sign reading CLOSED PERMANENTLY....and the florist shop also went belly up. My barber went under....my favorite beer swilling buddies are moving to a better place to cuss hunting and the relative merits of the local game wardens, waitress bust development and bringing down ducks. By the way, the coffee can where I toss my coins (pocket charge) to save up for a 12 guage Mossberg (w/two barrels) is getting fat now. Won't be long until I can go shopping and ducks...LOOK OUT. Sammy the smiling Jordanian who owns and operates MAMA MIAS Pizza...is a really wonderful fellow, with a lovely wife and family. He always calls me by name and grins from ear to ear, he's such a friendly men...he welcomes you like he's never met you before. Mohammed aka "Moh" the owner/manager of the Rolling Road SunoCo is a terriffic guy and takes care of my car like it is his. Neil at Fischer's Hardware can find anything in the store and knows everything about everything when you need speciffic information for accomplishing something new and complicated. They have become my family along with my guardian angel, The Duchess of Lumpy Bumps and my new friend Corabelle. I miss my blue eyed Norwegian but she's left me in good hands and cared for. DEX |
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Old Salt
Posts: 330
| Subject: RE: I keep losing friends.....
Shipmate,
Hang in there...
Edited by Curt 2009-09-09 1:00 AM
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1608
| Subject: RE: I keep losing friends.....
Dex, Your doing good. You must have a knack for meeting people and them becoming your friends. Just keep doing what you do and you'll keep meeting these good kind of people -- I'm envious!! |
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Admin
Posts: 2299
Location: Renton, WA | Subject: RE: I keep losing friends.....
No matter what life takes from us, we are blessed with new opportunities... they are endless... all we have to do is say "Hello" to the right person and a day,week or month is instantly fulfilled. And if we play it right, a lifetime. I like to think that the majority of my friends made here fall into the latter category. It's the stuff of boat sailors... and I can't complain. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: I keep losing friends.....
One thing for sure, Dex, is the memories stay with you. No one can take them away from you. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: I keep losing friends.....
Man, You won't believe this...my damn barber is retiring. First went to him in 65 when I got out of the boat service. Over the years the sonuvabith turned my hair white and made a lot of it die off...rotten barber, don't know why I went to him all those years...he had this damn rubber ear with fake blood on it...used to toss it under his chair, tap the guy in the chair on the shoulder, pick up the ear...show it to him and say."Sorry about that...I slipped. it'll only take me a minute to stop the bleeding and sew it back on." Tom is a great guy...His shop is across from an elementary school...Nellie Custis Elementary. known by the kids as Smelly Nellie....Sometimes there's a lot of traffic and the lady police officer doesn't make it on time and Tom will leave you sitting in the chair while he goes out and directs traffic to get the kids across. The kids love the old rascal...He calls them "the little noisy bastards" but he keeps a jar of pennies next to the Kiwanis gumball machine so the noisy bastards can "shoot it for free" (As I understand it "shooting the gumball machine" means getting a penny, dropping it in the slot, pulling the trigger and watching a gumball fall out...According to Tom, "Ain't like shootin' a damn slot machine, ya git yerseff a winner evuury time." He'll stop cutting your hair to go over and confiscate a PLAYBOY from a wide eyed nine year old and hand him a National Geographic. My most wonderful memory of Tom was when I came in to get trimmed for my Dad's funeral service held in the Walter Reed Army Hospital chapel. "Hey, whurz that cantankerous old bastard that usually comes in with you and gives me a hard time?" (My Dad used to come in and tell the fellow sitting in the chair and getting his hair cut by Tom..."Don't you have any self respect? How do you let that incompetent bastard cut your hair?" The next thing you know Tom would toss that fake ear under the poor devil's chair.) "Tom, the old rascal won't be bugging you any more...He up and died on me." Tom went into the back of the shop where he kept his supplies like the Vitalis hair tonic, Clubman lilac water, guarenteed hair restorer, Busters butch wax, Dixie Peach Pomade and Lucky Tiger....and he came out with an unopened half gallon of Wild Turkey and a stack of those long time ago wax paper cups. He poured all the adult males a very generous shot...stood in the middle of the shop looked up at the ceiling and said, "Colonel here's to ya whurevvur y'are.... gonna miss you...Damn I'm gonna miss you." and everyone gave the Old Man a goodbye "down the hatch." Then he said..."And you git a free haircut instead of the shop sendin' the old bastard flowers." I know Tom, you'll be drivin' down to Southern Pines and "shootin' sum goff." You've earned it...you sure as hell bought enough golfing magazines over the years and watched enough golf on black-and-white TV and that color TV you were banging on all the time. Oh yes, one day about ten years back a bunch of kids from Smelly Nellie came over and dragged Tom over to a school assembly where the kids gave him a certificate from Tripple A for his meritorious service and they made him a Genuine (not that honorary crap) Safety Patrol Captain with his own adult size safety patrol belt and captain's badge. Then the power drunk sonuvabitch started making us refer to him as Capt'n Tom. In your own words "I'm gonna miss you Tom." DEX |
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Old Salt
Posts: 419
Location: Anchorage, Alaska | Subject: RE: I keep losing friends.....
Great memory and tribute, DEX. |
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I keep losing friends.....
