Friendship Over Hill and Dale
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. Even the maxim that declares there are only two definites in life probably needs to be adjusted from “death and taxes” to “death and taxes … except for the people who can afford to fly their fiancé and Katy Perry to outer space and kill editorials on Donald Trump because Democracy Dies in Broad Daylight.” In such a world of tumult, it can be difficult to find happiness in our day-to-day existence.
An ongoing study conducted by Harvard University has shown that the number one factor in overall health and wellbeing is the quality of our friendships. The study has found that having hundreds of friends on Facebook is not the same as having close friends who you interact with on a regular basis. Liking the lasagna of the woman from high school, who might have been the girl who did not dress out in your 11th grade gym class, is not quite the same as going to Curitiba for drinks after shopping for purses and tobacco cards at the Card Cellar.
I recently read an article by friendship coach Danielle Bayard Jackson outlining five important ways to maintain friendships and deepen them. (Kudos to Jackson for defying all those high school guidance counselor profession questionnaires that never listed “friendship coach” as an option next to “plane driver.”) The article allowed me a moment of reflection to see if I was being a good friend and if I had room for improvement. Bayard Jackson listed five evidenced-based ways to develop and deepen connections:
Say “thank you”: I have a good friend who I will refer to as Freddie Childs because that is his actual name. During the pandemic, Freddie played a lot of disc golf with Tyrone and me. Often, after walking 18 holes, we were thirsty and needed to replenish the carbohydrates we had lost. We tended to prefer playing disc golf at courses that were near microbreweries. Unfortunately, most of these establishments did not accept Apple Pay. Freddie, inevitably, only ever travelled with Apple Pay which meant that Tyrone and I were usually paying the tab, so whenever we found a den of iniquity that accepted Apple Pay, we were sure to say “thank you” to the bartender or waitress and order another round of the tallest beers they had.
Desire, Express platonic longing: This is a difficult one to parse and not only because platonic derives from Plato who would express his platonic longing by having intimate relationships with men. However, I believe the author’s intention is to make your friend feel desired without necessarily acting out that desire physically. I think I adequately did that at Tyrone’s induction into the Chancellor High School Sports Hall of Fame when I contacted a number of his former coaches and teammates who expressed amazement that he was being inducted for athletic achievement and not because he had died horribly and people were sad. On one of the biggest nights of Tyrone’s life, I made certain he knew that many of his former coaches and teammates desired that he not be dead.
There was also a happy hour a few years ago when Tyrone was experiencing some gastrointestinal distress, and I expressed a willingness (not quite longing) to administer an enema. Fortunately, the situation did not develop to require such drastic measures nor further blurring the boundaries of platonic desire.Openness, be vulnerable: See above reference to openness in willing to administer an enema to a man who was listed as 6-2, 250 pounds while playing defensive tackle at James Madison University. Nothing deepens a friendship or builds trust more than a liquid inserted into the openness of a rectum to help relieve gastrointestinal distress.
Reliability, build trust: One of my oldest and dearest friends, Rob Epler, is a Latin scholar. Rob attended Mary Washington College and went on to get his post-graduate degree from the University of Georgia. While at Mary Washington, Rob once asked Professor of Psychology, Dr. Chris Kilmartin, a question that has continued to confound scholars and psychologists. Dr. Kilmartin was discussing tests that were performed on rats where the rats’ brains were exposed and hooked up to electrodes to monitor brain activity. When Rob slowly raised his hand on that momentous day he sent shock waves through the world of Psychology: “How do they keep the wood shavings that line the bottom of the enclosures out of the rats’ exposed brains?” The question confounded Dr. Kilmartin on that day and continues to plague equally great minds 35 years after it was first introduced in Chandler Hall.
I recently relied upon Rob, as a noted Latin scholar, when I asked him if “groceries” was an old-fashioned term that meant “a bag with different things in it” as declared by non-Latin scholar Donald Trump.
“Groceries derives from the Latin adjective crassus which literally means “thick” or “dense.” It does not mean a bag with different things in it, but when used in regard to our current economy and its prime mover, it does weave nicely into the original definition of crassus.”Experience, spend time together: My long-time friend Dale, the miracle bartender of Laudenbach Brewery in Stafford, recently asked me if I would spend time with him participating in a 20-mile Mammoth March at Pocahontas State Park. At first, I thought Dale wanted me to drink a Pocahoptas beer with him which we could certainly do without marching 20 miles. I offered that we could spend that quality time together at J. Brian’s which has Pocahoptas on tap, and, if it made him feel better, we could “march” a few blocks from his downtown house to J. Brian’s. Alas, he was insistent on the march being 20 miles, so we did not spend time together on that Saturday morning nor did we spend quality time together in the back of the ambulance that was called in to take him to the emergency room after he collapsed at mile 10. (He is fine, and we plan on spending some time together soon at J. Brian’s.)
The truth of the matter is I have long known how important friendships are to me and to happiness in life. I am thankful and grateful for each and every friend I have in this world, but this column allowed me to further one friendship in particular and that is with Dale’s wife who asked me if I would please memorialize how much of a dumbass her beloved husband was in trying to march 20 miles with no preparation other than buying new “hiking” shoes and a pair of thick socks. The power of the pen!
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