Great Old Friends

I just returned from an annual weekend in northern Michigan with a group of friends that I have known since 6th grade. We spent virtually every winter weekend of our youths skiing together and we get together once a year to spend some quality time together. We have been getting together on this trip for the past 22 years in one form or another. The fun begins in December when we begin negotiating the date of the trip, the e-mails are humorous and filled with inuendo.

Once the date is established, things settle down for a bit until about four weeks before the date. At that point things get a little more direct and to the point. There are some members of the group who have less than stellar reputations about showing up after they have comitted. They are abused mercilessly - knowing that if they don't show up they may be subjected to even more abuse on THE weekend if they are not in attendance. We are not beyond calling home and cell numbers at any hour. We don't really try to make points with our families at these moments and hopefully we don't get a spouse on the phone - that's a problem.

Once the weekend arrives, the cottage we stay at is opened by the owner around 9pm Thursday night and we begin arriving from there on. This year, four of us came up together in a van with 155k miles on it. Gregg, the owner, warned me and then the next two guys we picked up that the transmission was making noise and the master cylinder may need replacing - not good news, but he was intent on driving. The transmission began making serious noises as we got off I-75 at Gaylord. We muddled our way across M-32, struggling to get up even the slightest grade. We sort of coasted through the beautiful town of Elmira and tried to keep going. About half way between Elmira and 131 we were down to 10mph, blinkers on and hugging the shoulder. It was 2am!! A guy with Idaho plates stopped to see if we needed help. He looked like the guy from the movie Fargo (the murderer) only with long hair. There was nothing he could do to help us, so we called the cottage and asked them to come pick us up along with all our stuff. This was very much like calling the Stroh's delivery truck - these guys were hammered!! We made it to the cottage, leaving behind a dead 1998 Red Windstar Van. We finally crashed around 5am!! Very late for a group of old men.

We made it to Nubs the next day for an afternoon of great skiing. Followed by dinner at the Mitchell Street Pub in Petoskey. We were all asleep by 10pm that night - old men fade fast some days. Saturday was the St. Patrick's day festivities at Boyne Mt. Everyone headed there but me. I hung out at the cottage and then had a great ride around Lake Charlevoix ending at Boyne mt. It was a lot of fun to ride on real hills. One small directional problem (used the phone book map to figure out where I was going) caused me to ride about a mile on a 'seasonal' road that was very soft. The drunks in attendance at Boyne were scary - the numbers were unreal. There were a couple of MI state trooper cars and Charlevoix county sheriff cars in attendance. Amazing!! Sadly I forgot my camera.

The political discussions were a hoot through the weekend. We are a very diverse group in this area. The beauty of our group is that we can have seriously heated debates/discussions and nobody takes it personally. I am pretty sure that if any one of us was truly in need of help - the rest of us would do what ever was humanly possible to help each other get through their problems.

Great friends are among this world's most precious assets!! Those that you have, you should do what you can within your power to cultivate them and maintain them. We all have lots of acquaintances, but true friends are rare and should be cherished.