I'm not trying to steal a march on autumn with today's title.
It's a line from one of my favorite Paul Williams' songs, "That's What Friends Are For." (You might know BJ Thomas' version better, but I prefer the original. I'm keenly aware I'm showing my age. Mox nix).
To me, the greatest thing about the Internet is how swiftly, almost relentlessly, you can find information, or what passes for information. A week or so ago, I had a thought pop into my head, and acting quickly before it died of loneliness, I typed it into a search bar.
What I had thought about were two friends (and a third person, the brother of one of them), whom I had known a skosh over fifty years ago. I gambled on the wisdom of the crowd and found a Facebook group from the area in Jersey where they were all from. In truth, I haven't thought of any of them in decades (many and multiple) and am not sure why I thought of them when I did.
I joined the group and asked about all three with some hope we might reconnect in some manner, and was crestfallen to learn within a day, from someone I'll never meet, that the brother of one of the friends had moved to California years ago and had since died.
I've never had a lot of friends, either online or flesh and blood. Not searching for pity (I prefer my own company and/or that of my family), just a statement of fact. I like being alone and rarely feel lonely, but in this case, the sense of loss surprised me since the deceased was pretty much a punk whom I tolerated because he was Tom's brother.
That led me to ponder: How Many Friends Do You Need?
Spoiler alert: two.
-bill kenny
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