Like it or not, change happens. Families grow up, friends come into our lives, and leave our lives, businesses succeed and businesses fail. We change physically and mentally. The body that once ran only walks now, and the nice head of reddish brown hair now looks like cinnamon and sugar. OK, maybe it looks like sugar with a small amount of cinnamon. There are some changes that are easy to make, while others are difficult.

Paula and I sold the farm in West Texas, and moved to the metroplex of DFW ten years ago. Wow, how time has flown. It is so hard to believe it’s been that long. We left behind a great group of friends. We left behind a wonderful church family, and a group of other like-minded couples in terms of values. We all had the same mind set for raising our kids.

We all had a lot in common.

I had two different sets of friends because we lived in Denver City, but I worked with folks from Seagraves. My friends in DC were church and school related, while my friends in Seagraves were work related. I want to tell you about my friends from the latter group. The work related friends. In particular, my three closest friends.

We did a lot of things together, but mostly, when we weren’t working, we were playing golf. We had some great times. We shared a relationship that allowed us to talk trash like it was going out of style. If we ever said something good about one of the others, the good was quickly backhanded with nice cut down of some sort. Really, they may not agree, but I always kinda looked at us as brothers.

Sheep Dip, Grande’ Patron, Cuervo, and me, Little Caesar. I could write all day about those guys, and the things we did together, but I’ll spare you that trip down memory lane. What I do want to say is that these guys were my friends, and I miss them dearly. When Paula and I decided to sell the farm and move, I called these guys together one Sunday afternoon to tell them we were leaving. They even believed in me, and trusted me so much, that they became my partners in a golf retail business. The business that latter sent me to bankruptcy, and cost them an enormous amount of money. As you can imagine, that kind of thing puts a massive strain on personal relationships.

It’s hard mend strained relationships. It’s hard to totally let go of the memory of a failed business. We’ve all talked about the loss, and the things that went wrong. We’ve all shaken hands, and agreed to forget about the past. We’ve all tried…but the relationships will never really be the same. I hope they can somehow understand that once it became apparent that the store was a failure, I did everything I could to minimize their loss. I did everything I could to make it better for them.

Tom Moseley, Lee Billings, Joe Reed, and me. We were a motley crew.

I love those guys, and I miss them dearly.

Till next time,

Grump