Tuesday, March 31, 2009

My Old Buddy Rick McFadden


Above is a photo of my friend Rick McFadden and his wife Laura. Rick and Laura currently live in Madison, WI with their sons Britt and Brian, both students at the University of Wisconsin.

In junior high and high school, Rick and I were tighter than a pair of thieves. We lost contact with each other when we moved to different parts of the country to pursue our respective careers, but thanks to Google and the internet we've managed to re-establish contact with each other. And that has unleashed a flood of memories. . . . . . .

. . . . . . . like camping out in the woods when we were in junior high. Or like the endless rounds of basketball games------sometimes one-on-one, sometimes five-on-five------in our respective backyards. We raced each other to see which one of us would be the first to get our driver license. (I honestly can't remember who "won.") And I especially remember the basketball games involving Duke, Davidson, North Carolina, etc., that we would see in Charlotte at the old Charlotte Coliseum on Independence Boulevard. And after the games, we'd pull into a Shoney's drive-in for a few late night greaseburgers, followed by a rambling late night drive back home through the back roads of the Carolinas.

It was a lot of fun having Rick as a friend, and it was even more fun when we re-established contact a few weeks ago. I have a lot of great memories of the things we did together, and I'm enjoying recalling them in our frequent e-mails.