I don't know if it's universal, but some people I've known since we were kids just don't communicate anymore. I've stopped emailing/calling, etc those who never contact me unless I send them something. I know they're all approaching 80 and some of them seem to have become fairly unhappy people. Maybe it's a sign of old age. I hear from others on a regular basis. Getting old (or beiing old definitely sucks all around.

OMG, shoot me now. I can't stand old HS people I thought I knew. Almost all of them have their rudder stuck in the sand.

When I turned 60 there was a party for me. One of my oldest friends got in touch with a couple of people I haven't seen in 40 years. It was a fantastic night. We re-hashed old stories and my newer friends got a kick out of it.
I'll probably never see them again but it was good to see how things worked out for them.
I still keep in touch with 3 friends that I've known since the late 70's.

High school was fun. College was a BLAST. I am tired of going over the same ol' stories. Which were epic.

Just went through this last weekend. My three best buddies from college (30 yrs) ago, two of whom are band buddies, flew out to Phoenix to hang for the weekend and come see me sub with a Rush tribute for a big gig. While here we reconnected with a fourth we always knew had been here for a while, but had flaked on us for a previous get together. Turns out he lives less than 10 min. from my house. These guys are serious day drinkers and I am not one (anymore). They bought four cases of beer for the three of them and a few 40s as road sodas. I had band stuff to attend to, but while together we are constantly in tears, we laugh so hard. Whatever years the booze takes off, the laughter adds back on.

Ai-ya:eek:

For the love of god, Milt, I was kidding.

Talk about being stuck in the sand: Lose the anger or type less.

Well, sorry about that, Paul, but you must see some humor in my post as well.

Basically I'm happy. I do love to pull the chain often here on Pelican. It's one of my very few outlets, if not the only one to be cantankerous and snide with a hint of dry humor.

I've seriously tried several other forums and none of them come off as PPOT does. I could go ahead and analyze that but I won't. Let's just say I enjoy being here and very few have told me to go to hell.

Except when I was a moderator. And I did get too serious during that stint. I admit it.

we have this one life to live. i try not to dwell on what i liked and disliked about my past. i used to be really bad at it. then all the men on my dad's side died of cancer.

phack that!! i now choose to (TRY!) to be a more glass half-full kind of person. i dont deny sometimes the stuff in the glass taste like krap tho.

Revisited my hometown, Oregon, Ohio, right next to Toledo, five-ish years after high school (1974) and me and old HS buds went to a bar.

There he was. A high school icon to me. The white dude that was one year older than me and could run the 100 yard dash in 10 seconds flat. Maybe 9.9 once. Beer belly and puffing a cig at 24-ish in a town that offers nothing.

That image stuck with me my whole life.

I don’t have many friends because I don’t trust friends, and I know why. I had a “friend” when I was in the first grade. I didn’t know squat about being friends, so I trusted him. Let’s just say I was naive to trust him. I still have he scar. It’s hard to trust anyone to be a friend because there is no collateral, no quid pro quo, no transaction to friendship, you’re just left out there naked.

I still go to my high school reunions but facebook has pretty much kept me connected to most all of my friends from that era..

Vulnerability. You need to risk it to find friendship.

I went to a party called "Everyone is turning 40" about 18 years ago.
All of my friend when I was in HS in my hometown that I left at 19.
Most of them were still living week to week and getting a bag of dope and a case of beer on payday.
I haven't see any of them since and don't care to.

I know this is a thread about friends and the past but what Patrick said is exactly how I feel abut anyone in business that I need/have to deal with. I've only been backstabbed about a dozen times in my life but I swear I wish them all dead. If they were dying I'd just walk away. I wouldn't piss on any of them if they were on fire.

I hate those kinds as much as thieves because they are essentially the same.

If I was working for someone else and got backstabbed and anything came my way, I was employed there about ten more minutes. I'd walk away from a machine that was running if that's when I found out. Right fook out the door. A few times I never even went back for owed pay if it wasn't much.

I guess I was about 35 when I vowed to never have a boss again. No boss, no peers and few subordinates because they are just as dangerous. As a result I tell no one anything and ask very little.

The wife and I have a 55th year high school reunion coming up in a couple of months. Looking forward to seeing how old all the others have gotten in the last 5 years! A few have passed away in the last five years but we should still have a couple hundred people show up!