Best Friends

I have been fortunate throughout my life to always have a best friend with whom I shared everything and spent most of my time. My first best friend was named Sun, although most others called him Hung. He was from Vietnam and we met when we were in first grade. I remember playing Atari games at his house and playing with paper airplanes. Whenever I got a chance I tried to eat lunch or dinner or a snack while I was there, because Vietnamese food is amazing. His parents never liked it when I ate their food, though. Sun had an older sister named Gna (pronounced like the word "gnaw") who was always way too serious and used to watch these hilarious Vietnamese soap operas featuring men with long hair and robes and swords shouting at each other constantly (at least, that's how it seemed to me). Sun wasn't LDS and his uncle who lived with them smoked. One day I found his pack of cigarettes and when no one was looking I threw them in the garbage. When he went to look for them and they weren't there he was furious. I don't think my attempt to make him quit smoking worked :) That same uncle was always washing and waxing his car, a yellow Pontiac Firebird that he was obviously the pride of his life. The first time I walked into a Thai restaurant it smelled exactly the way Sun's house had when I was younger, and it felt like I'd stepped back in time. In general I don't remember the end of a friendship, probably because there's rarely any kind of final decision or discussion involved but rather a gradual drifting away. Around 4th grade that happened with me and Sun, so I started spending time with Marc, a Hopi Indian with a hilarious sense of humor. Marc loved sports and although his family owned a Nintendo I could rarely convince him to play it because he always wanted to be outside playing soccer or football or basketball or baseball. We went through one phase together where we said "mooooooo cow" really loudly to everyone we met. Later we worked the word "wonton" into every sentence. Marc also introduced me to combing my hair, which I had never done until I met him (my mom just cut it so short that I didn't need to comb it). He also introduced me to the wonders of hair gel. When I was 13 I went with Marc's family to a ranch near Snowflake Arizona for their family reunion. At one point the two of us went "hunting" in the woods, which is something neither of us had ever really done before. Marc had a 12-gauge shotgun and when we spotted a bird he took aim and fired. I don't think he actually hit he bird, but he hit the branch it was perched on and the bird fell to the ground and then the branch landed on it, killing it. We walked over and looked at it lying on the ground and both felt so sad that our careers as hunters began and ended that same day. After the family reunion we went to Winslow, Arizona to visit Marc's grandma. While we were there we went to swimming hole near Camel Rock and jumped off a high cliff (probably 20 or 30 feet) into the water. It was really fun. I moved across town and didn't see Marc much after that, but he worked at the same company as me for a little while and came to my oldest daughter's first birthday party. After living in Arizona for many years he moved back to Utah recently and my wife and I joined him and his wife for dinner. After spending only a few minutes with him I could totally understand why the two of us had been such good friends. When I was 13 a boy named Seth moved in two houses down from me. I was riding my bike back from the church after a scout meeting and saw him in the front yard mowing his lawn. Here is the content of our very first conversation, word for word: Me - "Mow the lawn, man." Him - "Go to scouts, man." (Both statements were said with a lot of attitude.) From those humble beginnings began one of my most memorable friendships. Seth was the least judgmental person I have ever known, a quality I have worked hard to emulate in later life. We skipped a lot of school together and got into trouble sometimes, but by high school we were headed in a better direction and he joined the swim team with me. I was with him when I met Brenda at an outdoor ice skating rink. Brenda was with a friend named Angie and Seth and I decided to skate circles around them because we thought they were cute. I was wearing a Timpview shirt and Angie said to me, "so you guys are from Timpview?" From there we began a conversation that lasted until well after closing time and resulted in me getting Brenda's phone number. When Seth died in a gun accident two years later Brenda was the one who got me through that difficult time. She and I were like family, and I practically lived at her house. Her brother and I both had an interest in computers and her sister was a deep thinker who used to ask me questions I still can't answer. Her mom cooked amazing meals and I developed a taste for skim milk, which is what they drank at their house. I also remember visiting Brenda's grandma several times, once even going there by myself because I was passing through Heber after a day of skiing in Park City. She was one of the kindest people I have ever met.