A Feast Of Friends, Alive She Cried

By design, Melissa and I maintain few friendships; simply stated, we'd rather spend what little free time we have alone or with family.

Last weekend, however, we had dinner with [excuse the Donnie Brasco paraphrase] friends of mine which have become friends of ours - Crista and Christian.

Crista moved to Wimberley her eight grade year, although we really didn't become friends until our Sophomore year. Her parent taught at the local high school - her mother, English, and her father, History; additionally, he was my basketball coach for three years.

My senior year, Crista became one of my closest friends. Since then, we've always had a sibling-esque relationship that transcends relationships and can withstand long periods of non-attention.

At times, I'm a bit surprised that the friendship remained active in the pre e-mail and text message days since we initially attended separate colleges. A semester or two before she graduated, however, she transferred to the college I attended and we somehow enrolled for the same long-forgotten history class.

After graduation, we again went our separate ways until about eight years ago.

Though Crista and her family live about an hour away, we only see each other a couple of times a year when family activities and travel don't conflict. Additionally, her parents were visiting from out of town.

We always over-extend our visits at their house so I promised Melissa that we would not stay long. Dinner, dessert, and polite conversation - that was all.

I'm not quite sure why I find this phenomenon so interesting, but I can't help but laugh when parties soon segregate into gender based groups. Perhaps because I like it when I'm comfortable leaving Melissa with friends that were mine first who she is still getting to know.

For the past fifteen years, I've been comfortable calling Crista's mother by her first name. And despite the ease of conversation and familiarity with her father, I will never be able to bring myself to call him by any other name than Coach.

During dinner, after catching each other up on goings-on since the summer, conversation turned to what we all know best - politics and sports. While Coach and I debated the finer points of isolationism versus non-interventionism, classic liberalism versus modern liberalism, and the Ron Paul phenomenon, Melissa, Crista, and Bonnie rolled their eyes and gave each other the sympathetic eye roll while they contemplated creating a club for wives of political junkies.

And as usual, we left an hour and a half later than expected.

In several months, we'll meet up again, I'm sure, and the passage of time will be seamless. Conversation will resume where it left off and the remembrance of previous meals shared together will be the newest topic of conversation.

Perhaps it is the rarity of these visits that make their fondness more memorable. Or perhaps it is the fortune of a friendship that has lasted this long.

Either way, I'm thankful.