By Jim Studer
BFF, the letters keep popping up in my daily crossword puzzles. What do they mean? Just another meaningless cliche? This spring and summer the concept of friendship gained some clarity for me.
I had lunch with a former teaching and speech coaching colleague. In the last 25 years I saw her every once in a while for lunch or at a speech contest where she was judging or watching her son compete. She switched careers before I retired from the classroom. She moved two or three times, each further away. Yet our two-hour luncheon was smooth and comfortable. We touched on a variety of subjects. It sounded like it was just yesterday I walked down the hall to discuss speech, teaching issues or just to visit. No time seemed to have passed, much less 25 years. Later I thought, yes, that is what a solid friendship is. A few weeks later a former speech and drama coaching friend visited for a few days. I’ve known him for over 50 years. He now lives in Thailand. He moved out of teaching and Minnesota to settle in Iowa about 40 years ago. Three marriages and living in Thailand for years, he and I still visit every few years and talk via the telephone. During his three days at my house, we talked and went out to eat. No baseball games, casinos, driving the countryside as was often our previous habits, we had many good conversations during those three days. I’ll go down to Iowa for a few days before he heads back to Thailand. Again, just a comfortable relationship that might have been a nurturing, every other day occurrence instead of a two year span of not being around each other.
I guess that’s one of the benefits of old age; like fine wine or good cheddar cheese, aging makes a friendship better. I’m lucky I have several such comfortable friendships. Two others are with teachers I taught and traveled with during my years in São Paulo, Brazil. I haven’t seen either in over 20 years, but we still visit via the telephone.
At the last State Speech Tourney I reconnected with a former speech coach whom I have known for many years, but hadn’t seen in the last 15 or 20 years. Again, it was like it was just yesterday that we had visited.