Me and Dabe have been best friends for 67 years.His real name is Dave, but when telling stories about him, he is Dabe. And when he calls me on the phone, he is Mr Dobie. Stuff like that grows out of a long term friendship. It doesn’t matter what it means, or why or when I call him these names. All that matters is the history of what is behind each of these names, and he and I always know what it means and why.

He sells suits for a high end company. Or, I should say, he is a clothier, providing expensive well made garments that fit you perfectly, and tell people that you know how to dress, and have a clothier on speed dial. I couldn’t do it. He has done ok with it. He admires that I can fix and build things. It is a perfect union.

We grew up together, across the street from each other, in a small neighborhood on the very outskirts of the school district. Mostly woods and farmland around us. We used to play cars in the gravel that built up in the very center of the intersection of Breezy Lane, and Amelia Drive. They didn’t even have stop signs back then. People would just drive around us, two small boys on their knees, in the middle of the intersection. We weren’t taking up much of the street. We would go back into the woods behind the neighborhood. Built forts and treehouses. It, at least on that level, was an idyllic childhood. Me an Dabe. Pals forever.

His dad Ralph, a lineman for the electric company, was a good man. He had 4 kids, with Dabe as the oldest. He was pretty much my other, better dad. He never hit me, and he was always very thoughtful in the answers he gave to anything that I asked. He had more patience with me than anybody else in my life, except for Dabe. He helped us build a clubhouse in the backyard, and made a swingset out of telephone poles, he got from being a lineman, with long ropes where you could go really high. Me and Dabe slept out in that clubhouse for a couple years as often as our parents would let us. Sometimes our other buddy, Big Tom would sleep out too.

Dabe had to stay inside his house and couldn’t play during the times he was practicing. His mom taught him piano, and he was always getting yelled at to do his piano practice. He got pretty good at it, or at least it sounded like it to me, while I sat under his living room window, in the shade behind the shrubs, and waited for him to get free. Somewhere along the way, he learned to play the violin. And you know where that could go, back in the 60’s. Yep, next thing you know, he was playing guitar, and singing them hippie songs, and he put together a band. It was ok, he was pretty good as lead singer and guitarist. He couldn’t hold a candle to the Monkees, my favorite band at the time, but he was ok.

We went to college together at the local branch campus of University of Cincinnati. By then he played the Cello and Upright Bass. We put on a talent show at the college, called Act One, and we both played guitar and sang in it. I was playing guitar by then, but nothing on the level of Dabe. My dad came to the show, an amazing event, but afterwards had nothing to say about it, so I wondered if he had slept through it. Me and Dabe sure had a good time.

Dabe found him a woman about then, and I went away to a different college, and our lives diverged. But all I had to do was be back with him for 30 seconds, and it was like yesterday.

Next thing I knew, he was selling suits. I lived in Little Rock, and then in Shreveport, and then in Austin, and Dabe stayed in Cincinnati. Even so, we get together as often as we can. He came to a suit seller convention in San Antonio, and I drove up to Cincinnati to work on an old house for 7 months. We always find a way to get together, and it is always just like yesterday.

Dabe made a record of original music. He sent me a copy, and I liked it. That boy can play and sing. And write. And fit you with the best suit you could ever wear.

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other, gold. It is great to know that I can reach out with a call or a text, and he will be there, same as yesterday. 67 years of knowing. That is really something.

. Dabe

Friendship