Just ONE more!

I have recently been doing some “come-sit-by-me-in-the-bar” research* and found that on average guitar owners have about nine guitars (actually the number came out to be 8.7, but I’m not sure what a .7 guitar is, unless maybe a banjo…) of which they play regularly about 2.5 of them on a two times a week basis.

That led me to my next thought: which is, if we’ve collected so many and play so few, why waste all that good wood, when thanks to the Lacy Act we’re running out of some of the very best woods at the current time. To be sure in about 25-30 years the Brazilian rosewood will be back…but I for one do not wish to wait that long to buy my next guitar. So there is a bit of a hording/moral question here, but I will leave that to each individual.

Some guys responding to the research said they got by with one guitar.  (Maybe two— an acoustic and an electric model.)  And they specialized on that ax. I was somewhat jealous of them. There is a purity in that answer. A commitment. Like to one woman to be your wife. Forever. Scary, ain’t it?

A good friend of mine, David Grosvenor from the Hill Country in Texas reminded me that it is not how many guitars one owns, it is how sweet the music one produces from the ones you do play.  (That is a rough translation of his much more elegant statement…but so be it. You get the idea.)  It is not what you collect that matters, it is what you produce.  And music should be the end game here, not a 401K substitute.

With that in mind, I returned in thought to that first guitar…I mean really good guitar…I bought for the first time.  My father had delivered to me a Mexican market guitar that was about as refined as a rattlesnake in heat.  (This was about the 7^th grade if memory serves me correctly…and thanks to marijuana it usually does not serve that well at all.) The strings were so far from the fretboard that you had to virtually stand on them to make a sound.  Forget bar chords. I longed for a guitar that smelled like rosewood and when I strummed it a beautiful sound would emerge from that sound hole and fill the room with sweetness.

I visited showroom and showroom.  Shop after shoppe.  From high end Martins to lower-costing knockoffs like the then Takamini (which looked just like a Martin, right down to the script type face on the head of the guitar.  (A court of law later ruled that they had infringed on Martin’s look and therefore the trademark and Takamini and others had to stop the copying practice.) Then one day, I was in a guitar store in East Texas and I came across a Yamaha dreadnaught that filled all the bells and whistles for me. I do not recall its number or ID.  But it was beautiful.

And for a kid, it was expensive.

In those days, I was mowing yards to make enough money to buy anything.  A bicycle was top on my list.  A ten-speed in those days.  (My dad always wanted to know what the other nine speeds were for.  He wouldn’t have understood my fifty-one speed racing trike, I guess.) So, once the bike was purchased and parked safely in the garage, I began saving every dime I could muster to buy that Yamaha.

In the interim, a buddy of mine lent me his Silvertone Achtop (made for Sears).  It was a tobacco stained beauty with a matching set of “f” holes and a sound so sweet it would make your heart hurt.  The strings were like silk compared to my Mexican imposter. I learned to really play on that guitar.  I learned to save my money, too.

For soon I had enough to purchase the Yamaha.  (A lesson of life hit me squarely between the eyes in the business transaction, which ensued.) The Yamaha was listed for something like $250. I had $251. I marched in, put my money down and pointed to the beauty hanging on the wall and announced that I wanted to be the owner of that guitar. The merchant nodded, took it down, and put it in a cardboard guitar case, after wiping it down with polish that brought out the most pleasing odor a nose ever did inhale.

With TAX… $265.

What?  Tax?  I should have joined the Tea Party right then and there, but of course was already a member of the Young Republicans. TAX?  I had not calculated that into my plans. I wasn’t going to get the guitar that day.  I would have to go back to my mother, who was waiting patently in the car outside for me, her air conditioning running wild to drive away the scorching Texas heat. Embarrassed, I turned to leave when the old guy behind the counter said.  “You’re good for it. Bring me the $15 next week or two.  Go enjoy this guitar.”

That man could have run for dictator of the world and I would have voted for him at that moment. It took me exactly two weeks to get back to Longview to pay off the TAX bill of $15, but when I did, he threw in a set of Black Diamond strings, because “You’re a man of your word, son.”

A Yamaha dreadnaught.  It wasn’t a Martin, but in my eyes and at that time, it was heaven.  It felt so good. It played so beautifully (even bar chords were possible) My dream guitar.  I played it at school, at church, in my bedroom, in the city park…everywhere.  It was a part of me. It was everything I wanted in a guitar.  Until…

And now you get (as Paul Harvey used to say…) the rest of the story.

My eye spotted and Aria in the hands of a good buddy…It glistened like woman;s ruby lips. I had to have her. So, we traded cash and guitars.  Then a Takamini. Then a Gibson. Then a Martin. Then a Fender and a Les Paul (first an Epiphone then later the real McCoy made in Nashville.)  I added to the collection guitars from Guild, PRS, G&L, SCGC, Taylor, Eastman, a few more Martins and Gibsons, A Jose’ Ramirez, another Takamini. Hofner –both Bass and six-string.  An ES 335, an ES 175, and on and on and on it went. Gibson begat Collings, which begat Benedetto which begat a twelve fret program my wife has me on now. I am not allowed into a guitar store without the aid of a friend firmly holding onto my credit card or other fiduciary controls or a person who is already in the witness protection program for GAS. (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome.)

The number of guitars grew and grew and soon surpassed 35. At first I called them my good luck seven.  Then there was the sweet sixteen.  (This was long before the NCAA copied my nomenclature.) 21 was a lucky number. I stayed there for a few months. Or was it weeks? 

35!

They were stacked in three rooms, hanging on the walls taking up sofa space and  spilling into the bedrooms. I even found myself in the ownership of a Yamaha just like the one I had purchased in Longview back in junior high school. I had come full circle. Through a series of marriages and kids and different houses, jobs and crisscross ventures from one coast to the next, I slowly whittled down the number to fifteen. Then to ten. And finally today it stands at 5 (Although I have just seen a #six lurking in the window at a high-end acoustic store…)

I am not sure I am making any better music now than I used to. But I am trying.  I practice on those five all the time. Daily.  Sometimes hourly.  And I am sure that #6 would make me a better player…

* If you are not familiar with that term, it means I asked my friends and friends of theirs to answer a couple of questions.  Very little scientific demographic profiling here.  Just some basic information. But it gets us in the ballpark  (or on the stage) as it were.

Five members of the U.S. Supreme Court just sent the Constitution backwards two hundred years.

Here is an article from Moyers and Company.  It says it best.  SCOTUS missed this one as badly as Citizen's United.God save the Union!

A Blistering Dissent in ‘McCutcheon’: Conservatives Substituted Opinion for Fact

April 2, 2014

Supreme Court Justices, from left, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justices of the Supreme Court Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan applaud State of the Union Address,12 Feb 2013 (Rex Features via AP Images)

Central to the Supreme Court’s campaign finance decisions in the John Roberts era is that the government’s only legitimate interest in this area is preventing direct, quid pro quo corruption — a donor demanding that a specific law be passed, or killed, in exchange for cash — or the appearance of direct corruption.
In the McCutcheon decision announced on Wednesday, the court struck down a limit on how much cash an individual could give to all federal candidates during an election cycle. The five conservative justices allowed that the rich showering friendly candidates with unlimited amounts of money might drown out the voices of the majority and distort our fragile democracy, but not blatantly enough to justify the spending limit.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “government regulation may not target the general gratitude a candidate may feel toward those who support him or his allies, or the political access such support may afford.”
The conservative majority passed on an opportunity to strike down a limit on how much a donor can give to an individual candidate — perhaps because in Citizens United, they’d accepted the proposition that unlimited donations to “independent” third party groups didn’t lend the appearance of corruption — but Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion, wrote that “limiting the amount of money a person may give to a candidate does impose a direct restraint on his political communication,” and moved to strike that provision down as well.
The court’s four-member minority issued a blistering dissent, written by Justice Stephen Breyer. He charged that the majority’s “conclusion rests upon its own, not a record-based, view of the facts.”

Its legal analysis is faulty: It misconstrues the nature of the competing constitutional interests at stake. It understates the importance of protecting the political integrity of our governmental institutions. It creates a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign.

Taken together with Citizens United, Breyer writes that McCutcheon “eviscerates our Nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.”
He goes on to dissect the claims on which the court’s ruling rest. He first takes issue with the idea that the government only has an interest in preventing a direct exchange of cash for votes.

In the plurality’s view, a federal statute could not prevent an individual from writing a million dollar check to a political party (by donating to its various committees), because the rationale for any limit would “dangerously broade[n] the circumscribed definition of quid pro quo corruption articulated in our prior cases.”
This critically important definition of “corruption” is inconsistent with the Court’s prior case … and it misunderstands the constitutional importance of the interests at stake. In fact, constitutional interests—indeed, First Amendment interests—lie on both sides of the legal equation.
In reality, as the history of campaign finance reform shows and as our earlier cases on the subject have recognized, the anticorruption interest that drives Congress to regulate campaign contributions is a far broader, more important interest than the plurality acknowledges. It is an interest in maintaining the integrity of our public governmental institutions. And it is an interest rooted in the Constitution and in the First Amendment itself.
Consider at least one reason why the First Amendment protects political speech. Speech does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, political communication seeks to secure government action. A politically oriented “marketplace of ideas” seeks to form a public opinion that can and will influence elected representatives….
The First Amendment advances not only the individual’s right to engage in political speech, but also the public’s interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters.
What has this to do with corruption? It has everything to do with corruption. Corruption breaks the constitution­ally necessary “chain of communication” between the people and their representatives. It derails the essential speech-to-government-action tie. Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard. Insofar as corruption cuts the link between political thought and political action, a free marketplace of political ideas loses its point. That is one reason why the Court has stressed the constitutional importance of Congress’ concern that a few large donations not drown out the voices of the many….
The “appearance of corruption” can make matters worse. It can lead the public to believe that its efforts to communicate with its representatives or to help sway public opinion have little purpose. And a cynical public can lose interest in political participation altogether.

Breyer then wonders how the conservatives could square McCutcheon’s narrow definition of “corruption” with its conclusion, in the 2003 case McConnell v. FEC, that money — and the access it purchases — has a pernicious influence on the political process.

The Court in McConnell upheld these new contribution restrictions under the First Amendment for the very reason the plurality today discounts or ignores. Namely, the Court found they thwarted a significant risk of corruption—understood not as quid pro quo bribery, but as privileged access to and pernicious influence upon elected representatives.
In reaching its conclusion in McConnell, the Court relied upon a vast record compiled in the District Court. That record consisted of over 100,000 pages of material and included testimony from more than 200 witnesses. What it showed, in detail, was the web of relationships and understandings among parties, candidates, and large donors that underlies privileged access and influence. The District Judges in McConnell made clear that the record did “not contain any evidence of bribery or vote buying in exchange for donations of nonfederal money.”
Indeed, no one had identified a “single discrete instance of quid pro quo corruption” due to soft money. But what the record did demonstrate was that enormous soft money contributions, ranging between $1 million and $5 million among the largest donors, enabled wealthy contributors to gain disproportionate “access to federal lawmakers” and the ability to “influenc[e] legislation.”

“We specifically rejected efforts to define ‘corruption’ in ways similar to those the plurality today accepts,” writes Breyer.
He then takes on the conservatives’ second rationale: that the problem the aggregate limit was supposed to address — huge donors funneling money indirectly to a candidate in order to get around the limit on contributions to a single campaign — isn’t an issue today.

The plurality is wrong…. In the absence of limits on aggregate political contributions, donors can and likely will find ways to channel millions of dollars to parties and to individual candidates, producing precisely the kind of “corruption” or “appearance of corruption” that previously led the Court to hold aggregate limits constitutional. Those opportunities for circumvention will also produce the type of corruption that concerns the plurality today. The methods for using today’s opinion to evade the law’s individual contribution limits are complex, but they are well known, or will become well known, to party fundraisers.

He offers three concrete examples of how a wealthy donor might be able to get millions of dollars to a single candidate without running afoul of the law under McCutcheon.
But perhaps the dissent’s most withering criticism of the ruling is that, as in Citizens United, it was decided according to the majority’s beliefs, rather than the factual record.

In the past, when evaluating the constitutionality of campaign finance restrictions, we have typically relied upon an evidentiary record amassed below to determine whether the law served a compelling governmental objec­tive. And, typically, that record contained testimony from Members of Congress (or state legislators) explaining why Congress (or the legislature) acted as it did….
If we are to overturn an act of Congress here, we should do so on the basis of a similar record….
Determining whether anticorruption objectives justify a particular set of contribution limits requires answering empirically based questions, and applying significant discretion and judgment. To what ex­tent will unrestricted giving lead to corruption or its appearance? What forms will any such corruption take? To what extent will a lack of regulation undermine public confidence in the democratic system? To what extent can regulation restore it?
… For another thing, a comparison of the plurality’s opinion with this dissent reveals important differences of opinion on fact-related matters. We disagree, for example, on the possibilities for circumvention of the base limits in the absence of aggregate limits. We disagree about how effectively the plurality’s “alternatives” could prevent evasion. An evidentiary proceeding would permit the parties to explore these matters, and it would permit the courts to reach a more accurate judgment. The plurality rationalizes its haste to forgo an evidentiary record by noting that “the parties have treated the question as a purely legal one.” But without a doubt, the legal question—whether the aggregate limits are closely drawn to further a compelling governmental interest—turns on factual questions about whether corruption, in the absence of such limits, is a realistic threat to our democracy….
The justification for aggregate contribution restrictions is strongly rooted in the need to assure political integrity and ultimately in the First Amendment itself. The threat to that integrity posed by the risk of special access and influence remains real. Part III, supra. Even taking the plurality on its own terms and considering solely the threat of quid pro quo corruption (i.e., money-for-votes exchanges), the aggregate limits are a necessary tool to stop circumvention. And there is no basis for finding a lack of “fit” between the threat and the means used to combat it, namely the aggregate limits.
The plurality reaches the opposite conclusion. The result, as I said at the outset, is a decision that substitutes judges’ understandings of how the political process works for the understanding of Congress; that fails to recognize the difference between influence resting upon public opinion and influence bought by money alone; that overturns key precedent; that creates huge loopholes in the law; and that undermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance reform.

The Hobby Lobby case is wrong for America

The current case before the U.S. Supreme Court involving Hobby Lobby's claim that the owners' religious beliefs trumps federal law about providing comprehensive health insurance to cover ALL women’s needs (read, contraceptives) raises some ugly questions and even uglier opportunities in America.

If the court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby, a precedent is set for business to discriminate in any manner and base it on their religious beliefs.  Image that a business is started in Mississippi or Alabama and the owner says that his religion finds black people subservient and therefore he doesn’t have to hire them. In fact he can exclude them from even being considered based on his religion and their race. Fair?  Of course not.  And not equal under the law.  But the court could make it so with this ruling.

Here's another case.  Let's say I decide that women is inferior to men and base it on verses in the Bible.  It is part of my religious understandings and teaching and therefore I can lower a woman's pay; in fact, I can even discriminate against her in any form I wish. The Bible says so to my mind, therefore the government can do nothing about it — if the court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby this would become the law of the land.

So you see, this case is about a whole lot more than Obamacare. It covers a whole lot more than contraception, abortion and all the things what have to do with a woman's reproductive cycle that Hobby Lobby doesn't want to cover. (Funny that they didn't mind paying for Viagra for men.) The point is, with the wrong ruling here, the court can open the door to discrimination based solely on a person's religious beliefs.

Unheard of a few years ago, but we have swung so far back to the right as to allow a vocal minority in our country to create a religious oligarchy that drives our courts and our laws.  It doesn't matter which side of contraception you stand on...this case is wrong for America because it opens the door for allowing religion to trump the law of the land.  It opens the door for discrimination based solely on what a person says they believe.

I for one don’t want to see more government in our hair, but in this case, the law says if you offer insurance to a employees, you can't discriminate against a class of those employees based on their race, creed or gender. Besides, what a woman and her doctor agree is the best path for her health, is really none of the company's business.  None. They are merely providing the insurance for health coverage, not the control of an employee's life.

I hope the court gets this one right.  They missed terribly in Citizen's United. This would be equally dangerous to our democracy and fair play.

For Sale: The United States of America. (Highest bidder wins.)

Let us all give thanks to the United States (less than) Supreme Court for allowing the Kock brothers of Kansas to pour millions (if not billions) of dollars into advertising aimed at repealing Obamacare and getting their slate of nitwits elected to office so their dark arts rummaging about in government can continue uninterrupted. (They want to destroy the EPS.  Fresh water and clean air anybody?)

Citizen's United allowed our democracy to be bought and sold at will.  And the Kock brothers' will is to get their way, no matter how much it cost them.  They are buying America. And I am not talking about the land.  I am talking about the ideal— the vision— the dream.

The United States of Kockdom is what we are going to get.  And we have it all to blame on the five stooges who sit on the right hand side of the not so supreme court.
A single vote cast in an election free and clear of the fear and loathing that these demigods produce will cost them millions. And if enough of us go to the polls we can take an election back from the money mongers, as we did in the last election. (It is said that the lost cost the Kock brothers over 50 million dollars.  They deserve it.)
I think the Kock brothers deserve a voice.  But so too does a young woman in Peoria or a man in San Diego.  Equal voices, not weighted to cash reserves and bank accounts.  One vice. One vote per person.

I think a person should be allowed to give to political causes.  Let’s say a thousand dollars per year. Tops. No more. That would end this buying of government by the extremely rich. It would give back to America and equal playing field. Influence would not be measured in dollar signs but in yard signs and in neighborhood canvassing and leatherwork along the highways and by ways of this land. Get the vote out if you want your candidates and your ideas to carry the day.  But don’t spend trillions on lies and inuendo to force corrupt politics into the system.

Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and George Washington would be aghast at the sight of American politics as it is being practiced under citizen United. It is not what the founding fathers had in mind when they drafted a constitution that was bled over with lives of people who believed in one man one vote. Freedom of speech was designed to give everyone a chance to be heard, not the mega wealthy only.

It is time America stood up to the Kock brothers and their ilk.  Vote.  Got to the polls and vote your own conscious.  In that way you will have taken millions from billionaires who wish nothing more than to rob you blind.

George W. Bush left us a present. The will to say no.

As the GOP in congress wag fingers at President Obama for not taking a harder line against Vladimir Putin and his antics, they run up against a bit of their own history that is making it hard for the U.S. to counter the Russian Bear. Here is a legacy of George W. Bush that radical right-wingers haven't thought about.  His invasion of Iraq and our subsequent near decade-long battle there has created not only a financial ruin within the Federal budget, but a lack of will for more war and more killing among the American public, normally willing to follow their leaders into conflict.



Both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon worried about prolonged wars draining the American will to fight. And they both knew that that very will needed to held in reserve in case we had to face one of the powers from the Eastern Block. They both knew we could not dip too often into the bank and withdraw American support for more war, lest the funds in the bank run dry.



I call this the Chicken Little Syndrome. Remember the foolish foul who kept running around shouting, The sky is falling, the sky is falling."  He did so for so long and so loudly that soon no one believed him any more.  No matter how hard he shouted and how loud he raised his voice nobody took notice.  America is in that similar boat today.  No matter what the moral outcry from the White House and political leaders are concerning the situation in Russia over the Crimea, we just don't care.



We have spent our moral currency on a stupid, trumped-up war in the desert chasing imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction. It was a war with no concrete reason. A war that cost us thousands and thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.  And we, as a people, are not interested in getting into harm's way again anytime soon. Recent polls show that less than 20% of Americans want to get involved with Russia's business. Hell, more than that want to lynch Obama over healthcare.



Russia knows this.  It is why Putin chose this time to act out in his region of the world. I predict China will do likewise with the island disputes with Japan. And America will sit back and do nothing, because we have no more stomach for fighting in foreign places over things that don't concern us.



Don't get me wrong; the people in Crimea and those camped out in the square in Kiev, all have a strong point of view about whom they want to answer to. (Admittedly those to views disagree by 180 degrees...and they both think democracy is on their side.) But Americans see those problems as troubles for Russia.  Not ours.  We don't want to see American blood poured over this regional mess.



So in a strange way, George W is to be thanked for keeping us out of the conflicts popping up around the globe. His ‘attack first, ask questions later’ philosophy has actually turned us to looking inward.   We no longer wish to police the world for the sake of every small time king or potentate's survival or overthrow. 



Feeding our hungry, caring for our ill, building bridges across our own rivers and schools for our children has become more important than foreign affairs.



Foreign affairs have cost us our moral shield...recalibrated out moral compass.  We gave it up when we invaded a sovereign nation back in 2002, then laid waste to their government and infrastructure. We have no truth and righteousness to stand on. Besides, we are sick and tired of war.  


Thank you Mr. Bush.  In a strange way, you gave America what it needed most.  The will to say, "No more war."

A truce (for a moment) in the war.

My little Sandy, our ferocious Chiweenie, found a nest of baby squirrels that had recently been blown out of a tree in our front yard. Normally Sandy is single-minded in her quest to chase every living squirrel from our premises, but when she found these babies struggling to get up on their feet and figure where they were — where their mother was— she backed off and lay in the grass to watch them. No hair stood on her back. No growling.  Just quiet curiosity.

One baby squirrel struggled to climb a short rock wall, which surrounds bushes and a pin oak tree.  It kept getting partially up the structure, only to fall back into the grasp of gravity and the high winds that swept across North Texas. Sandy inched closer.  She nuzzled the young squirrel and pushed it up and over the wall.  It was if to say we will face each other another day. But not now — today we are equals and I will help you.

The other baby was emerging from the downed nest and was looking for a way out of the situation when this crazy part Dachshund /part Chihuahua animal came over and nuzzled it toward the wall that its sibling had just scaled.  The second squirrel needed no assistance in making it over the rocks and into the bushes below. Again Sandy simply watched. Deed done.

Later that afternoon Sandy returned to chasing the bushy, tailed varmints around the yard, but these were adults who successfully avoided her short legs and yelping the lodged themselves in branches just above her head and tormented her with chatter and clicks, while raining pecan shells down upon her.

She sulked back into the house knowing she would fight another day.

Somewhere there are two baby squirrels that are singing her praise, but they too know that the day will come when they too must taunt her from afar with their calls of humiliation.  At least she takes it well.  To her she has done her job. She has kept the yard clear of these pesky, bushy-tailed intruders,

As far as Sandy knows, that is why we feed her so well. What she doesn’t know is that we let the pecans from our trees fall to the ground to keep the squirrels around just for her entertainment.

It must be how God handles Republicans and Democrats. They are each there for each other’s amusement.

I lost four friends in six months

The Internet is a wonderful tool of discovery and research.  It can also lead to some sad findings. Yesterday I was searching for an old friend to try and reconnect only to discover he had passed away in California.

In fact, within the time span of six months I lost four very close friends.  Del Threadgill, Jud Griffin, Paul Miller and Larry Corby. All good buds and all gone.

In the course of six months life changes drastically.  A phone call from a son.  A note form an old friend. A middle-of-the-night text from a business associate. And a lone search on the web.  And they all lead me to the same bit of information. A part of my past has been buried in Mother Earth. Gone, but certainly not forgotten.

Each of these guys held a special bond with me.  Each was part of my life at an important and defining time. Threadgill, Griffin and I grew up together in East Texas under the oil derricks of Kilgore. We attended UT at various times together and they were in my first wedding. We had a bond that went way, way back. The “Threader” and I were even roommates for a while in Austin.

I learned to play the guitar on Griffin’s Silverstone archtop. Also had my first beer with him.  We had a lot of firsts together, I jut can’t remember them all. Same is true with Delmar Ray.

Miller lived with me for a year in Austin and became one of the packrats, as we called ourselves. He and I would get close, then drift apart and then get close again.  Distance would always separate us and suddenly something in life would lead us back together. We were working on a movie-book deal when his life was taken away on a CA highway.

And Corby was one of those people who came along later in life; who inspired me, made me laugh, made me cry and made we want to do new things every day. I propped him up during his divorce and we turned around and offered me the same comfort and strength during mine. My job, my career, my neglect separated us.  The miles and the years between us lead me to wonder what he was up to.  A Google search brought me to tears.  Larry, like the other three musketeers from my life, was  gone.  And it all happened in a six-month period of time.

So my advice to you: reach out and connect with your old friends.  They are precious.  And you’ll never know when they might not be on that other end of the line when next you call. 

Life is that unsure and that perplexing.