Friends

Writing homework from the first writing class of this term, which I might add I didn't make last Friday, is to write about some aspect of friendship. It can be analytical, of memoir, or a fictional story. I picked up my class notes from teacher Maria on Sunday. Within the notes there's references from the Bible, a poem by Robert Frost, a sonnet by Shakespeare, excerpts from an Emerson essay and quotes from Benjamin Franklin, Norman Douglas, Seneca, Peter Ustinov and Pascal. My Anzac Day post about my late friend Fred Sargent was also there, due to its topical nature, and any of these could be a starting point.

It's easier for me to start with Fred, whom I first met in 1975. I was working for beekeeper/ honey merchant/equipment supplier Norm Redpath. One day he sent me from Melbourne to Boorhaman to pick up a load of honey. I jumped at the chance as it seemed a nice change and an easy days work. I reached Boorahman around lunchtime (actually Fred lived north of Boorahman about 15 minutes but I can't remember the name of the location, there being no town). We loaded the honey, from memory 70 tins, the square kerosene type tins that held 27kg, then Fred invited me in for lunch. It was no frills cold meat and salad. Fred's wife Beryl had already eaten but sat away little, smoked, and drank tea. She wore the thickest glasses I'd ever seen. Conversation flowed easily and I was as hungry for Fred's knowledge as I was for the lunch.

I left shortly after the post lunch cuppa. I already I had two new friends, who'd welcomed me into their lives telling me to come back and visit any time. Later that year Fred lent me a bee site on the Paterson's Curse over the border in NSW. I stayed the night at Fred and Beryl's a couple of times while up there working the bees. I recall at that site, surrounded by paddocks still purple with curse flower, going to the truck for a break and hearing on the radio that Gough Whitlam had been sacked. I laughed. Fred, a staunch Labour man, wasn't happy when I reached his place.

The next year when I moved to Wangaratta to take up the north east Vic. apiary inspector job, Fred was the only beekeeper I knew. He was a comfort and ally in my first couple of years there. He retired soon after and, to my disappointment as it seemed a radical step to leave his home where he loved the quiet isolation, moved to a house on  aquarter acre in Wangaratta on a busy road. He said he always planned to retire as soon as he reached 65, they told him at Repat after the war that the malnutrion he suffered as a POW would likely reduce his lifespan by ten years. He could get a TPI pension and Beryl pressured him to move into Wang. I guess it was a little lonely for Beryl since their daughter moved away after living in a house that Fred built for her and her hubby adjacent to Fred and Beryl's, the idea being the son in law was to take over the bees. He'd decided beekeeping wasn't for him.

Lib and I were married in January1981 and Fred and Beryl attended our wedding. We left Wang some months later but often visited Fred and Beryl when we were in Wang to see Lib's mum. One time, perhaps a year since our previous visit, when I knocked on the door strangers answered, saying they'd recently bought the house, and they didn't know where Fred and Beryl had gone.

Some time passed till I found out Fred had walked out on Beryl. His old place had come up for sale and he wasn't happy in Wang so he bought it. Beryl wouldn't go with him, she moved into flat in the heart of town. They'd had a running battle over Beryl's chain smoking all the time I'd known them. It got worse in town. Fred was a reformed smoker and he hated it. He spent the next ten years growing trees before his death in 1996. Beryl had died earlier, of lung cancer. On Fred's epitaph there's reference to his partner Flossie, whom I never met, but I'm glad he found a companion in his last years.

That all might sound a bit boring, but thinking about Fred, and Beryl, expands my thinking, understanding and compassion. That's what friends do for you. They are the most wonderful thing about life. I'm reaching an age that means I have many friends who have passed away. I have new friends, old friends, friends that live on other continents, friends on holiday in other countries, friends interstate, men, women, even some children. I have neighbours who are friends, also cousins, siblings, mother, wife, kids. It's a privilege to have them as friends. They are in my mind and heart, close to me always. Regardless of distance, infrequent contact, or death, they belong with me and are with me. They give meaning to life.

Our childhood friends and those of our youth, I would say, give us strong bonds and open our hearts. Then, as the pressure and stresses of making money, career building, raising kids, the burdens of responsibility grow, we lose some of it. Friends help us rediscover our hearts. Friends help us understand.*
Hopefully there are many new friends in my future I'm yet to meet.

*"Only if we understand... can we concieve of the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that people who are afraid of living are especially frightened of death."  (Medard Boss)