Tell us about an interesting friend of yours

I have yet to post about the third friend I referenced in my first reply. But in the meantime, I thought to tell you that I have a friend who is what used to be termed a "hermaphrodite". The proper term is now "intersex".
 

A woman in our circle, a friend—Janine. In university, she studied biology and environmental sciences. Janine and her husband established a certified water-testing laboratory in my valley. They've run it for decades to test well water, household & agricultural water derived from creeks, and river water. Their lab is known as among those that have the highest standards for accuracy in British Columbia (BC) and Canada. Certain government agencies rely on their data.

Janine has also worked with local & regional environmental groups for over 20 years, and is relied upon as a key networker among them. These are registered residents' non-profit societies that do hands-on conservation & restoration work. She keeps contact with the region's zoologists, biologists, foresters, and hydrologists.

Janine's role exists outside of the corporate world, being a bottom-up commitment to the region's residents and the natural environment. She puts her experience, knowledge, heart, and mind into her role, and there's no one more respected in our valley.
 

This guy Paul and I formed a land surveying company around 1980. Paul told the story of when he was an engineer at the Massachusetts state engineering dept. They didn’t have calculators back then (too expensive his boss said) and were forced to use slide rules and big fat books of calculation tables which took forever and was very prone to errors. His boss was afraid of technology and he had always done it that way and it always worked for him. Nobody could change his mind.

One day the deputy governor of Mass came for an inspection tour of the engineering dept. When he started walking near, Paul pulled out an abacus and started noisily doing calculations on it. The deputy gov walked over, looked at Paul who knew how to use an abacus and whose fingers were flying. He turned to Paul's boss and said for gods sake someone get this guy a calculator. Within weeks everyone in the dept. had brand new expensive HP scientific calculators.

Paul looked like Capt Kangaroo and was an amazing story teller. He would start telling a story (usually about someone he knew) and then halfway through he would suddenly go off onto a tangent and start telling a different story that was somewhat related to the first. Then after a while he would leave that story and go off onto another tangent. I once saw him get four stories deep. He would finish the last story and then he would pop back up to the previous story picking up right where he left off. Then finish that story and pop up again to continue the previous one until he was eventually back finishing the original story.

Then you realized it was one big story and made complete sense. This took over an hour and the stories were riveting. We were at a party with maybe 20 people and the whole room went silent with everyone intently listening to him. I know some good story tellers but I have never seen anyone else do something like that. It was like having my own personal Mark Twain as a friend, he was that good. I miss him.
 
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I have a friend who has the worst luck I've ever seen. Her father named her part of Group 5 (meaning the group that always experiences bad luck). She worked for me and we are still close.

She was once going on a business trip and her purse was stolen out of her cart at Whole Foods. She used another sales rep's company credit card to pay for her trip. She parked her car outside on the street across from the office and it was hit by a van. She moved to a new house and had someone break in through her sliding glass doors. She yelled at him from the second floor and fortunately he left. She was recently leaving for vacation and had a pipe burst in her upstairs bathroom. It flooded the house. She recently had hip replacement surgery, her blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels and she had to spend a few days in the hospital. She is fine now.

She is the most wonderful, empathic person I know but she has such bad luck. Fortunately she laughs about it because it is almost expected.
 
Replying to post #54, where JBR wrote, "Always interesting to hear about someone's esteemed friend."

I don't think I would characterize this guy as esteemed, but I talk to him once or twice a month. He only talks about what he has been doing, where he and his wife go, work they're doing to their house, etc. - He never asks anything about my life, nor even the simple courtesy of "how are you doing?" Sometimes I will tell him something I've done lately, but it seems to go in one ear, out the other.

I stay in touch, since at least he has helped me now and then when my car is out of order, and I have done the same for him, but true friendship means mutual concern for each other.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
Replying to post #54, where JBR wrote, "Always interesting to hear about someone's esteemed friend."

I don't think I would characterize this guy as esteemed, but I talk to him once or twice a month. He only talks about what he has been doing, where he and his wife go, work they're doing to their house, etc. - He never asks anything about my life, nor even the simple courtesy of "how are you doing?" Sometimes I will tell him something I've done lately, but it seems to go in one ear, out the other.

I stay in touch, since at least he has helped me now and then when my car is out of order, and I have done the same for him, but true friendship means mutual concern for each other.
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Hmm... I've known a few people like that. I guess it can be that some persons they know have always seemed keenly interested in what they've done or where they've been lately. But with some they really seem to believe they're legendary... but it's "a legend in their own mind". Some form of narcissism.

Get's a bit tiring, doesn't it?
 
My other interesting musician friend is one I met online 19 years ago when we were both on Eons, the now defunct website for seniors. Tee or Li'l Sis, as I call her, is a musician, composer, music and video producer who has worked with some heavy hitters in the music industry.

She has written songs for ads, including for Intel. She wrote the theme for the children's show Gulliver's Travels. She has also worked in Hollywood and sometimes gives me the 411 on what some celebrities and musicians are really like. One of her best friends won two Oscars for sound for Raging Bull. She had him on speed dial and called him when we met up at the African American Heritage museum in D.C. (2019) to find out where they were displayed.

She collaborates with other artists on their songs and produces videos for them and herself. She produced my live action music videos and also does memorial video tributes for relatives and friends.

When she was younger, she was a classically trained pianist and performed at Carnegie Hall. She is a historian and heavy into genealogy. She has found several relatives on Ancestry, including a couple of our Eons friends, her half brother and cousins from all over the world. She publishes an e-zine that features interesting content about old school performers, T.V. shows and movies. She also writes about some of the younger artists who embrace the old school ethics when it comes to creativity. One of her hobbies is scrap-booking. The other is finding pieces to add to her ever morphing garden oasis.
 
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JBR said:
Hmm... I've known a few people like that. I guess it can be that some persons they know have always seemed keenly interested in what they've done or where they've been lately. But with some they really seem to believe they're legendary... but it's "a legend in their own mind". Some form of narcissism.

Get's a bit tiring, doesn't it?
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Unfortunately that type is usually long-winded.
 
My buddy, Dave, is not the kind of guy who is hankering for the opening night of the ballet. I doubt if he's ever step foot in an art museum. He's a small guy. And during our "drinkin' days", I had to haul him out of bars, because he was "going to take them all on". That said, I would never have thought he was making very realistic wooden duck decoys. He carves these exact duck decoys , even to the point you can tell which duck species it is. He carves wood that looks just like feathers and meticulously detailed. It's unbelievable how lifelike these decoys are, and that Dave made them.
 
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JBR said:
Hmm... I've known a few people like that. I guess it can be that some persons they know have always seemed keenly interested in what they've done or where they've been lately. But with some they really seem to believe they're legendary... but it's "a legend in their own mind". Some form of narcissism.

Get's a bit tiring, doesn't it?
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My friend Hunter, who I referenced in my reply #48 has been called a legend. Being the humble man he is, he asks people please not to call him that. He is as humble as he is talented. Perhaps those who feel they are legends, really are narcissists, as you pointed out...but insecure ones.
 

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