Let's Hear It For the (Tom)Boys

If I haven't mentioned it before, I was a major tomboy growing up. Like Kramer told Elaine on Seinfeld, "You're a man's woman." I didn't date much, but I had lots of "guy" friends. We played tennis, worked on cars, watched ballgames, and generally did lots of cool stuff like that. I even helped THEM get a date or two. During my trip back to Arizona, I made a point of seeing a few of those great guys.

This is my friend John. We sat together in Senior English and made wisecracks about anything we could think of. He is also a major baseball fan, and here we are last Saturday at a Diamondbacks game. John is one of those genuinely nice guys who would do anything for a friend. He gave one such friend a kidney.

This is my good buddy Chris. I don't really remember not knowing Chris. He's a year younger than I am, but in school somehow, that didn't really matter. He was a fellow trumpet player and we marched together in band. He also loves cars and we spent a lot of time daydreaming about our ultimate driving machines. In high school he drove a '55 Chevy Bel-Air. It was hands-down THE coolest car in town. Today he works for Volkwagen. Go figure.

This kid here is Tommie. Again, I hardly remember NOT knowing him. Tommie was sort of like my protector (one of the many). Our senior year, there was a certain guy who came along that I really, really liked. I mean like liked. Tommie and another one of our friends, B.J., took this guy out to lunch and laid down the law. To this day, I still don't know what they said to the poor, unsuspecting dude. Well, the dude turned out to be a dud (big surprise) and Tommie saved the day by taking me to the senior prom. Little surprise today, Tommie is serving as the bishop of his ward in Mesa, Arizona. For my non-LDS readers, that means he is the leader of his congregation. In other words, he takes care of and protects everyone around him.

This guy here is Dan. The one I said yes to. The one who embraces my tomboyish ways without the slightest sliver of jealousy.

As an adult, my girlfriends are the ones I lean on, but in my youth, it was the guys who shaped me. On vacation I read "The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency." This quote rang true for me: "You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel."