A LIKELY STORY: HARD-TO-COME-BY FRIENDS ARE HARDER TO LET GO

For me, friends seem to come and go. The relatively small number of good friends I have remains constant while only the faces change. I guess, to a degree, it's like that for most everyone.

I remember my first childhood chum, I think his name was Larry. Larry and I used to make mud pies together and play cars. Then he ran off with my favorite rope and while I was mad at him he moved away.

I loved that rope and was right to be mad. It was my Linus security blanket and it made the monster-ridden world of a 4-year-old safe and secure.

I only wish I had something to keep the monsters at bay these days.

Larry may have been the first friend I had but there have been many after him, each staying a while and then moving on to bigger and better things.

Brian and I were friends until the fifth grade at Washington Elementary School. Our friendship survived fighting for a worldly and beautiful 10-year-old girl named Amy. I knew I loved her as I watched her hang upside down on the monkey bars.

I gave her heart-shaped earrings and Brian gave her perfume. The words "Maybe I do like Brian," spoken during recess, broke my heart then made me mad. I punched Brian right in his belt buckle and he didn't know why.

I gripped my throbbing hand and did an Indian dance of pain and then we both laughed. Brian called me stupid and then we laughed some more. What else would I do? He was my friend; she was just a girl.

Shaving as a 14-year-old was Billy's idea and his older sister laughed at us. But Billy swore on his very-much-alive mother's grave that he saw four tiny whiskers on my chin. I told him he needed to shave too, but I didn't really think so.

I count the friends I made in high school as some of my best friends today. These are the people I went through the extremely wild-and-stupid stage with. Many empty longnecks were enjoyed and almost as many hangovers were endured with these people.

Some of them have gone on to better things, but some of them have just gone on. I don't know which category I fit into.

I started working here a year and a half ago, in May I think, and I've met many people that anyone would be honored to count as a friend. And I do.

I thought I was safe but even here friends come and go; jobs that are better-suited and offer more money steal them away.

Two months ago, Marc Powers, whom I had grown fond of and had shared many digressions amid several dozen ounces of barley and hops, left to help get Emily Firebaugh elected. (To which I say, good luck, old friend, you're going to need it.)

And now another of my favorite co-workers, Laura Johnston, is leaving. As many of you know, Laura is the reporter who has written most of the stories on education that you have read in these pages.

Laura started working at the same time I did, almost to the day. For over a year, Laura has been an accurate, thorough, all-around competent reporter.

More importantly, she's also been a good friend. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank her for that, a large portion of which entailed listening to usually groundless complaints and idle thoughts.

That's what being someone's friend is about though, isn't it?

Not that Laura was without groundless complaints or idle thoughts, none of us are. She just conveyed them with more style and diplomacy than I could ever muster. That's another reason I like her.

And now she's leaving. Today, in fact, is her last day. She soon begins her duties at a Baptist newspaper in Florida. I guess they made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

So Laura is joining the Marcs, Larrys, Brians and Billys by exiting, stage left, from our lives and heading out into the world that is not Cape Girardeau.

I guess the only thing left to say is good luck, Laura. Drop us a line from time to time. And we'll miss you. And if you happen to run into a guy named Larry who is carrying a rope, tell him I want it back.

Better yet, why don't you keep it. I hear it's a jungle out there.

~Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.