True Friendship

It was a cold and rainy October night, I had just gotten home from our football game in Madison. A long, tough, and physical game that had left me drained It was late, around 11:30 or so when we had returned to Oak Hill and all the other players had begun to head home after the long day. I had begun to drive to Cumberland Farms to get some gas and a quick snack before heading home. As I headed to Cumberland Farms it started to downpour. Huge raindrops, the drops seemed to be coming down in buckets. The rain was coming down so furiously the windshield wipers on my car barely had enough time to complete a cycle before my windshield was covered beyond visibility. It was rough going for the short distance I had to travel to the gas station. I eventually arrived at the gas station and started pumping my gas. It seemed like an eternity in the cold pumping out the $25.00 I had prepaid. As the gas was just about finished pumping I got a phone call from one of my closest friends, Kolby Boston. I knew he had been at the game so I originally thought he had just called to talk about the game or to congratulate me on playing well. However, as soon as I had answered the phone I knew that could not have been farther from my original thought. In fact, it was a call to ask for my help. On the way home from the game he had hit a deer head-on on route 126. He was only about ten minutes away from the gas station that I was at so I told him I would come and help him even though I was tired and it was getting late. When I got to where he was on route 126 a cop was already on scene. At this point the rain had come to a slow drizzle, but the effects of the downpour were still very evident. The large puddles on the ground and the huge mud ruts served as the reminder of the torrential rain. The officer was very nice the entire time and was actually very calm considering the conditions. He helped us remove the deer from the hood of the car safely, he helped us make sure the car was in proper working condition, and he even gave us a tag for the deer so we could keep it. At the time of the accident I was driving my uncle’s pick-up truck so Kolby had asked me if I would put the deer in the bed of the truck and bring it to his house. I knew it would be much easier for me to carry the deer in the truck bed than it would be for him to try and tie it down safely on his little car, so I agreed to use my truck and bring the deer to his house. The officer thanked us for our co-operation and told us to drive safely and enjoy the rest of our evening. We drove the remaining fifteen minutes to his house where we unloaded the deer and where I eventually just ended up staying because it was getting really late and the rain had begun to pick back up. We stayed up rather late cleaning and gutting the deer with his father and fixing the headlight on his car. We joked and laughed all night about how neither of us hunts and we still got a buck before his dad who hunts quite frequently. A time in which I was helped by a friend would be when I was moving out of my Dad’s house. The first person I called was Kolby. He was the first person I had asked to help me get the bigger stuff I had owned out of the house and into a storage unit. There was no hesitation at all. He told me that he could help me that day and that he only needed about 45 minutes to get his things together and to drive over to my house. He even offered to bring his dad’s pathfinder and his dad’s trailer so we could haul more of my things at once. It was right at the beginning of summer when I moved out of my dad’s house and it was a very hot day, probably about 90 degrees from what I remember. It seemed like an impossible task honestly. To be completely moved out in one day while the heat was scorching and it was already around noon. It was a hard thing to do, but it needed to happen and I’m glad that it happened in the long run. Kolby immediately came over to help me start packing my things, to help me move my bureau’s, my bed frame, stuff like that. We worked on packing my stuff and carrying things out to the trailer that he had hooked to his pathfinder. It took us about 6 hours to get everything all packed up into boxes, out of my room, onto the trailer, to the storage unit, and off of the trailer and into the storage unit. It was actually a pretty good time. Just a time for me and a good friend to have a very real and meaningful conversation. It allowed us to just be real and talk about the things we were going through. It gave us a chance to further enhance our friendship and create a stronger bond between us. I think that these two events helped us realize that we both had each other’s backs through it all. From late at night accident to a life changing event such as moving out. We were going to help each other out the best we could and as quickly as we could. These two events are just a couple of instances where Kolby and I have been able to help each other out of some sticky situations and I will forever be grateful for everything he has done for me.

Photo on Foter.com