Lost A Friend Today

         Well, it's official. I've just lost my oldest, dearest friend. I'm cutting all ties to him. He's dead as far as I'm concerned. It's very sad because he's been my ride or die since I was about five years old. At first, he was so exciting to be with, so intelligent and well versed in all things. He knew more than anyone else I knew. We watched sports together and saw plays and movies. He literally grew up with me. He was with me when I first got a glimpse of what Disneyland looked like. He was SF Giant fan too, and we both followed the career of Willie Mays, my first hero.

      Later we both got into basketball at the same time and fell in love with the old school Celtics, you know back when guys like  KC Jones, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, and Dave Cowans were playing. He loved Ali like I did, and Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler.

       We went through the Vietnam era together, and he helped supply me with facts to bolster my arguments when my dad and I fought over politics at the kitchen table. He was also with me in Mr. Montoya's class in the sixth grade when we found out that President Kennedy had been killed.  When I learned about my dad's cancer scare on the same day that we took mankind's first step on the moon, my friend was there too.

         When I was all alone in my house after my wife left, he was the only one who I could consistently rely on to keep me company. We shared many a late night movie with me sitting on couch in my t-shirt and pajama bottoms eating double cream Oreos. He also was the one who kept me company late at night after my dad passed away.

           Lately though, he's been babbling and sounding a whole lot like Pop did when he had full blown dementia. He was remembering things incorrectly and kept recalling things that never happened the way that he said they did. I could handle that, but then he started outright lying to the point I couldn't trust a single thing he told me. It was obvious that he was getting all of his information from someone else, someone who didn't have my best interests at heart. Finally, it got to the point that it was clear that all he wanted was my money, as he kept trying to coerce me into buying things I didn't need or want.

          The last straw though was when he start hanging out with all these evil, nefarious looking people who lied as much he did which was pretty much every time they opened their mouth.

        Yep, it hurts me so much, but after a long 65 year long friendship, I finally pulled the plug on HAL, my television.