Best Friends

I wanted to acknowledge another birthday of my best friend, although belated, Max Carlisle. We've had fun, fun, fun, and a few bumps along the way. As best as I can remember, we met in 1980. I think we were introduced at the Ford dealership where I was working as the service manager. He came in to buy parts for his wife's car. He had worked part-time in college as a mechanic, so repairing his own vehicles was nothing new to him. I'm not sure how it came about, but shortly thereafter he came to the Blackledge City Auditorium to play basketball. We soon found out that we had many interests in common, waterskiing, motorcycles, and pretty much anything that would trigger a surge of adrenaline. There were a few years in the 80s when we both had Mondays off. A lot of times we would go to the Lake, just the two of us, and ski. Back then, we did a lot of slalom skiing and trick skiing. We learned how to deepwater start bare-footing, start backwards on trick skis, and ski around the boat. The last one was the hardest because we had never seen it done, but we had heard others talk about it. Our families have always shared a lot of time together, and I consider his kids as part of my family and I'm sure he feels the same. Last year at Grand Lake Max taught his boys how to ski around the boat. Even watching it is an adrenaline rush.

The one thing that we never really did much together was flying. Max is a pilot, and so is his youngest boy, Blake. I've been up in the air with Max on several occasions and those produce adrenaline. I know for certain that Max's wife, Debbie and my wife, Cheri even get a dose of adrenaline during a flight, but I don't think they consider it a good thing :-)

As you know, and I like a lighthearted ending to my posts. Here's something that's been around a long time, but it still makes me laugh.

Much love, Dennis