My father and his brother, Dick, were the best of pals. I remember that greeting on so many warm summer Saturday mornings when Uncle Dick would come to our house to have coffee with Dad. They’d sit around the dinette table in our little kitchen and talk about things as friends do. I don’t remember anything very profound in those conversations but I could see the bond they had, even though I was a kid. I guess the most memorable thing was that they were always laughing about something. Mostly, I can’t ever recall a harsh word between them.
I wish now I had asked how that “Hello, Moe” greeting had started or why they called each other Moe, but I’m not sure that I would have gotten a straight answer from those two.
Our families spent a lot of time together because of that close relationship between these brothers who grew up in a very large family. We vacationed together for a number of years at Indian Lake in the Adirondacks. My cousins Susan and Bonnie, were the closest thing to siblings that I had as an only child. I have great memories of those sunny days on the lake and warm nights on the screened-in porches of those cabins. We fished every morning and swam every afternoon, rain or shine. Most days culminated with a bonfire around a small fire ring near the tiny gravel-covered area that was loosely referred to as a “beach”.
Great, long-lasting friendships are few and far between. I believe that you will only have a very few really close friends in a lifetime. Your spouse will be one of them, so that narrows down the list even smaller.
Proverbs 18:2 says “A man of too many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother”. Dad and Uncle Dick had the double blessing of being brothers and best friends. Thank you both for being a true example of what a friendship should be.
