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Old Friends

I'm always nervous using the phrase "old friends" because of how the ambiguity is often used to joke about the age of the friends. I am in my sixties though and have some friendships that began in my twenties so I think the phrase is the best descriptor.

One of the members of my department who retired some years ago was the chair when I was hired and I count him as one of my mentors. I know me and how things happen by inertia and decided that I didn't want to drift apart from him as a friend when he retired and asked if he would like to meet for a lunch on a monthly basis to keep up. Both of us being morning people we quickly moved it to a breakfast meeting.  My friend and I started meeting monthly in 2008 and have yet to miss a month.

Some of the things that made my friend a good mentor also make him a good friend; he is attentive and remembers things I have said years later. He is good-humored even in times of adversity, and we share a lot of values that make it possible to move on to deeper levels of conversation without constantly having to lay the groundwork.

My friend is twenty years older than me; in some ways as a confidant he has served as a surrogate father, my own father having passed away early in 2007.

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