A few weeks ago, I got a call from my good friend, Aaron Allred. In fact, while I have many good friends, whom I love and care about, if I was forced to name my one best friend (my wife excepting, of course), it would have to be Aaron. Even though we haven't lived near each other for many years, we talk regularly, and try to get together whenever he's in town. That was the purpose of this call. His niece was getting married and he'd be in Grantsville a couple of weeks hence. Would I be available for a Saturday morning run?
That's usually the form that our get-togethers take. Since when he visits, it's usually for specific family event, and I have my own activities and responsibilities, it's often not possible to get together in the evenings. But we seem to usually be able to schedule time for a run early (but not too early) on Saturday morning.
This time would be no different. I was planning to run some miles (7) that morning anyway, so it worked out well. At 8 AM sharp (well maybe a few minutes after because I hadn't accounted for The Willow / Durfee intersection being shut down and had to go back and around) I met him at his parents' house and we took a run around Grantsville. West on Durfee to West Street, then north to Clark, east to Hale, north again to North Street (Grantsville has a North Street, a South Street, a West Street, but no East Street, but it does have an Eastmoor Drive), then east to Maple, south back to Clark, east to Bowery, south to Main, west to Willow, and south back to his parents'. This was a little over five miles, but Aaron had to get back to get ready for the wedding (don't worry, I ran another couple to get in my seven).
While we run, our conversation spreads over many different topics, our families, politics, religion, Grantsville (who currently owns the Drugstore and the BlueBird and if they might be willing to sell), and many other things. On this run, we talked about our friendship. I mentioned that I thought it was interesting that even though we'd grown up in the same small town and had obviously known who each other was for most of our lives (I definitely knew who Aaron was, he was the tall kid who got to be both the Ring Master in the 1st Grade Circus and the Nutcracker in The Nutcracker. I had to settle for a lowly Hippity-Hop and the Mouse King), we hadn't become good friends until our Sophomore year of High School.
In fact, our one interaction I could recall before then was a negative one. My best guess is that we were probably in the Sixth Grade. We were playing touch football at lunch and as time was running out and the score was tied, I urged the other people on my team not to rush the opposing quarterback on this next play. The opposing quarterback was another Aaron (Sweat) and he was very fast. And if we rushed, that meant he could then run, and would likely score a touchdown.
Well that was exactly what happened. Nobody rushed initially, but eventually Aaron (Allred) rushed, Aaron (Sweat) took off running, eluded the rest of our team, and scored. I, who admittedly was overly competitive as a child, was not happy. As we headed back into school after the bell rang, I got in Aaron's face, wanting to know why he rushed when I had said not to (like I was the coach or something) and that he'd caused us to lose the game. Aaron, who was always more laid-back than I was, didn't understand what the big deal was (a much more rational response) and told me as much. I think there was maybe a couple of light shoves and then I up and slapped him across the face. Aaron rightfully mocked me. As I recall he said something like "Oh, you're real cool. You can slap. Can I shake your hand?" I don't remember anything else about the interaction, but obviously we did not leave that confrontation as friends.
But once we became friends again in high school, we were basically inseparable. I spent as much time at the Allred house as I did at my own. We played sports together, did comedy sketches together for different assemblies, double-dated, many movie nights and sleep-overs (Rocky, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Big Trouble in Little China).
My first kiss came on a night when we pulled the old "telling each of our parents that we were sleeping over at the other's house" scam. That ended up being foiled when someone called my house late that night and asked if I was there and my parents took that to mean that something was amiss and my dad came looking for me. As it turned out, we had left the girl's house where we were just in time and got back to my house before my dad found us somewhere else. But I'll never forget pulling into my driveway and seeing my mom sitting in the living room, waiting for us. We lied and said we'd been at Aaron's and left to come to my house and sleep out on the trampoline. The kiss actually happened later that night on my trampoline when the girls we'd been with sneaked over to my house in the middle of the night. And yes, for those wondering, Jeanell was the girl I kissed. I'll let the other girl, who Aaron was dating at the time, remain anonymous.
Aaron thought that the reason we became really good friends once we became friends is that we had similar interests and a similar sense of humor. That's probably true, but another part of it is just that Aaron is a really good guy. He was always someone that everyone liked to be around. He tolerated my intensity and helped me to be a little more relaxed.
A few years ago, I went back east to visit Aaron and attend a BYU football game with him. A couple of things stand out from that trip.
The first is that I flew into Nashville late on a Friday night and we went downtown to get something to eat. I remember going to a restaurant and as the hostess was telling us some of the specials, told us about a particular dish that cooked for eight hours. In near unison, we both said "Oh, well we don't have eight hours." cracking ourselves up by both making the same lame/hilarious joke. We didn't get back to Aaron's house until 2 AM (Jeanell still teases me about that because I am not really a night-owl, so she calls this version of me "Tennessee Rich", but I am quick to point out that due to the time difference it was really only midnight Mountain Time, but now as I think about it, it might have been 1 AM Mountain Time (I can never remember if Nashville is Eastern or Central, but I think it's Central)).
The other thing I remember about that trip is that we went to the BYU pre-game and I was amazed at the number of people there who both knew Aaron and wanted to talk to him. I know the dynamics of BYU fans / members of the Church are a little different in Tennessee, but it was still just amazing to me the number of people who came up to talk to Aaron while we tried to chat and eat our pulled-pork sandwich.
Aaron is one of the good ones. Someone I look up to (both literally and figuratively). Grateful for our 30+ year friendship that I'm sure will continue throughout our lives.
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