Lunch With Huff

I won't tell you the stories, and even if I did, you wouldn't believe them.

Everything from being shot at to Zen golf to bachelor parties that movies could be made about...I have two journals full of them.

Tim was my fraternity brother and very good friend almost 20 years ago. I know I'd have taken a bullet for him in those days. In the ultimate compliment of that age, we were in each other's weddings...knowing full well each of us was marrying FAR above our heads.

Then life happened. Children. Careers. The annual meeting at football games slowed, then stopped. I moved 600 miles away. Then the Christmas cards stopped. This was before the proliferation of e-mail and cell phones.

We tracked each other down and made plans for lunch...and we did what old fraternity brothers are supposed to do who track each other down and make lunch plans: We talked a bit about our spouses and children. We talked a bit about our jobs. We talked about the fortunes of the college football team...

...and then we told stories. About two journals full of them. Only this time there was a lot of, "What's that guy doing these days?" to check up on old friends in between the laughs. I laughed for nearly two hours.

But it wasn't the laughs over stories I lived, told and re-told 100 times that was so cool. I was taken aback by the power of community. I mean, we were good friends 18 years ago, hadn't seen each other in 12 years and hadn't heard a word from each other in a decade or so, and it was as if we never really missed a beat.

We lived in the same house for about three years two decades ago. We lived together. Ate together. Played together. It was life lived in community...the girls we chased and didn't get, the intramural sports we didn't take seriously (but, then again, how can you take a team called Mother and the Pus Buckets seriously?), the community showers, the Lonnie Burgers on Friday, the weekend ski trips, the summer quarters with nothing to do but hang out in the house, the formals, the fundraisers, the parades, the road trips, the practical jokes, the real life moments...

...we lived it all in community. We were friends. Real friends.

And community is that powerful (the Church should apply those lessons). So much so that you can stretch out over two decades and pick up right where you left off. The biggest difference is that over lunch, now we fight over who picks up the check rather than fighting over who got what so we weren't paying more than we should've.

And truth be told, I'm pretty sure I'd still take a bullet for Huff. At least in the leg or hand, anyway. I don't have many friends over the age of 25 (occupational hazzard of sorts), and I'm really glad I got back in touch with this one.