A New Best Friend

Chapter 7

When I was young I did my best to play hard every spare minute I had. It didn’t really matter to me if I had a friend because my imagination was so broad. However, the friends I had were always ready to play whenever our parents would let us. I was pretty blessed to have the friends I did growing up.
When my older sister Megan started dating her husband Mica I was about ten years old. I have to add this was the height of my pestering ability as a little brother. I have no idea why she decided to bring me into her relationship with Mica’s family but I sure am glad that she did. It turned out that Mica had a younger brother named Hyrum who is two days younger than me. He was a year behind me in school, so at this point I had never met him. They decided to introduce us to each other and see what happened from there.
In the place of a normal invitation to play Hyrum called one day to invite me to go to Provo with his family to visit his Grandma. To this point I had yet to meet Hyrum face to face. It might have been an odd request but my mom was already on board behind the scenes. Hyrum and his family picked me up the following day early the next morning and I rode all the way to Provo squished in the middle of the backseat. We stopped in Park City to shop at the outlets where Hyrum’s mom Susan bought Hyrum and I matching tank tops. This may sound a little weird but neither of us took off the tank tops the entire weekend except to have the spilled spaghetti washed out of them. And that is the beginning of our friendship.
We became basically inseparable from then on. We are still friends to this day. Our friendship has always been more like brothers than just friends. Like brothers we had fun at times and hated each other’s guts at other times. In the end we were always friends the next day. To illustrate this point I would like to share a story that still causes conflict to this day.
Hyrum’s family used to live within walking distance of Kelly Park. We would often go fishing in it’s ponds during the summer, but we never really played on the equipment. One winter we found ourselves in the park and found a stack of pallets. I still have no idea who they belonged to. Upon inspection we decided they would make a perfect fort.
We started to pack the newfound pallets the half a mile to Hyrum’s house. We ended up walking back and forth until we had carried all six pallets to his backyard. These weren’t your average pallets either. They were industrial strength with thick boards. It was actually a lot of work but we did it. On the last trip from the park we sat down to take a break. We happened to choose a spot next to a few fence posts consisting of railroad ties. Like most young boys we started to throw the rocks that weren’t covered with snow at the fence posts. I was seated a little bit behind Hyrum, but I had a clear shot at the post. The only problem I had were the winter gloves I was wearing. I picked up a rock that was a little bigger than the rest and started to throw when I felt the rock slip between my fingers. It then turned into one of those moments when life changes to slow motion. No matter how slow time was going I couldn’t do anything about what was about to happen. Hyrum sat there unsuspectingly when the large rock caught him square in the back of the head.
My first reaction to events like this is to normally laugh first then ask if they are ok. This was the wrong time to laugh, because it made Hyrum think that I had hit him with the rock on purpose. No matter how much I try to explain he to this day continues the feud of the rock that started that cold winter day almost 15 years ago. If we wouldn’t have been such good friends already the rock may have ended our friendship, but it still continues to this day. Maybe someday Hyrum will believe.