As far back as I can remember, on the first Saturday of every month, right throughout the year, John and I went to the Lazy Daisy Diner on Upton Street, which was about 2 miles from where we both grew up. It didn’t matter if it rained, snowed, or if there was a typhoon, we just knew we would we had to show up at exactly 8am on those Saturdays.

Our favourite waitress, Evelyn, was always there to greet us. It was as if she knew we would be there and dammit, so would she. Evelyn was a character, as was everyone who worked there or frequented the diner, regardless of the time of day. I guess they thought that John and I fitted in very well with the other characters, that either worked or frequented the diner.

Ever since I first met my friend Andrew 35 years ago, I always felt there was something not quite right with him. For instance, he would show up for classes which generally started at 9, around 7.30 in the morning. And when I made the mistake of asking him why, his answer was baffling.

“That’s it! I’m done! I’m out of here. It’s like I’ve been living in a wind tunnel for the last 4 months.”

Those were the last words said to me by my very good friend, Tom, before he left the high school track where we walked and jogged on and off for the last 25 years. I never heard from Tom again, until I received a letter from his attorney letting me know that Tom had suffered a fatal accident. He had fallen off a cliff in one of his Blue Zones.

Upon reading the letter I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry. Seriously. I knew Tom better than anyone else in this world. Better than his wife or his seven children. Better than his dog, or mine for that matter, even though we used to go on long walks up in the hills. just he and I and our two dogs, Butch and Cassidy.

Growing up in a family of high performers Stuart changed his mind on a daily basis as to what he wanted to be when he grew up. His siblings, he was one of four, two girls and two boys, made it their daily chore to come up with a new job in order to one up their other siblings. Stuart unfortunately was the youngest and so he had to wait his turn to see if he could come up with a job that outdid the others.

As he grew older, his choice of a profession became more and more exotic, until he reached his final years in high school and his favourite teacher one day asked everyone in turn to stand up in and tell the class what it was they were going to do in life. One was going to be an astronaut, while another a teacher obviously hoping that by saying that they would get extra marks on the final exam and nope, it didn’t work they still failed. Another wanted to be a vet and treat all the sick animals in the world for free, that got several rounds of applause from the other students while David, who was Stuart’s best friend decided that everything everyone said before was pie in the sky and that he was the only one to come up with something more practical.

“When did you last go on vacation?”
I thought for a second and then let out a laugh. “Not for a long time.”
“How come my friend?” David asked when we met together at the ice cream parlour that he and I frequented on most Friday and Saturday nights while we were growing up.

There wasn’t much else to do in the small village of about 500, all of whom could trace their ancestors back a group of lunatic Vikings who refused to get back on their ships after burning most of the villages in North Eastern England.

“No, it wasn’t!” I said rather dramatically. “That’s ridiculous! I’m amazed you actually wrote that in your book and neither your editor, nor your agent or your publisher for that matter, caught that stupid sentence.”
I was about to throw the book my friend David had written and which had, much to my amazement, climbed the charts of best sellers and was sitting at the top. “There’s no history in this, only garbage,” and this time after a moment of hesitation slammed the book down on his desk.

The electricity went out. My wife and I were in the bathroom getting ready for work. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Brushing my teeth,” I replied adding, “why?”
“Because you’re brushing my teeth, not yours.”
“Then you shouldn’t be standing so close to me.”
“Well, you’re closest to the window and it’s the only source of light, right?”
“Are you sure I’m brushing your teeth?”
“Yes, and I don’t like the toothpaste you use.”
“Oh damn,” I replied, “sorry about that. I was wondering why it was taking me so long to finish up. Would you like to gargle, or should I?”
“Well, I should because you didn’t brush your teeth.”

I grew up in the jungle. My parents clung to the hippie lifestyle when it was no longer fashionable to have extremely long hair, straggly beards, showers once a year and only when it rained, and ate vegan before vegan was a word. Grass stew, magic mushroom dessert, and river water left out overnight, so it could collect bacteria from the surrounding coconut trees. It was then left for a few hours to ferment and subsequently drunk by the adults, who were just my parents because everyone else from the colony had moved on to real jobs in places like Wall Street and insurance companies making oodles of money.

When Ellen was in Mrs Smith’s kindergarten class, she decided on her path in life.

“I’m going to be a zoo attendant,” she proudly stated and the entire class of 6 year olds looked at each other and then naturally wanted to know what an attendant was. Zoo, they knew. Attendant they didn’t.

Mrs Smith pondered the question she had been asked for a few minutes before answering. “What Ellen is saying class,” she began forcing a smile where no smile should’ve been forced, “is that,” she continued, “when she grows up she wants to work in a zoo as an attendant.” Well, that didn’t go very well. The entire class of 6 year olds looked at each other as if the teacher was crazy.

One of the benefits of being an old man and by that, I mean a really old man, is that by the time the bell tolls for you, you’ve seen everything there is to see and do in life. And that’s exactly how Ryan felt the day he got out of bed and said to himself, “nah I’m not going to make my bed today, I don’t think I’ll be needing it anymore. The only thing I’m sorry about is I won’t be able to take my favourite pillow with me.”
Now you have to understand something about Ryan. His favourite pillow has been his favourite pillow since he was still sleeping in his cot in his ancestral home. People who knew him well would ask what the brown stains were on his pillow, not the case, but the actual pillow and he would tell them they were drool marks he made when he was a few months old, and he never was able to get them out and then he would explain further. “It was a huge bone of contention between my mother and father, when it came to washing clothes. A battle my mother unfortunately for all of us seven children, she won and won quite convincingly. My father insisted that we use Bright All washing soap, but my mother insisted on La La Land biodegradable drool and stain remover because she said it was better for the planet.”

My best friend John and I had been sitting on my deck for the last 5 hours drinking and staring out at the forest that surrounded my property. Why we drank may become evident during this story, but please don’t chastise yourself if it doesn’t. You have to know us to love us, as someone other than Shakespeare reportedly said.

We had begun the morning around 7 when the two of us had woken up. John had spent the night at my place because he was in no condition to drive and his wife who had offered to drive, couldn’t get him into the car. I tried as did my wife. He was so full of alcohol that as we tried to lift him, I could actually hear the liquor slosh in his stomach and as soon as we had him in the car he slid out onto the ground.

Jessica drank a lot. However, if you were to ask why, she would correct you.

“No, I do not!” she would spit out at you if you dared to point out that drinking one or two bottles of wine a night was a lot. “If you look at all the literature and especially religious literature, it’s nearly on every single page. They drank, she drank, he drank, there it is, go look for it. So, all I’m doing is carrying on that tradition.”
“But Jessica,” I pleaded with her on our second date. I was trying desperately to go on another date with her, but when the waitress brought over the second bottle I found it quite difficult. Even the waitress had to bite her tongue when she came out with the second bottle of cabernet.

I will never forget the first time I met Cynthia. It was at the annual dinner dance held by the company I worked for. It was a way for those who owned the business to say that they did something nice at least once a year for the employees, while the employees on the other hand felt it was the only night of the year, where they could get plastered, eat too much, puke their guts up on the marble floors of a high class restaurant where the function was held, and never lose their job. Every other night of the year they had to behave themselves.

Janet is one of those women they write books about.

Growing up in a family of high achievers, she had no alternative but to become a high achiever herself. She really didn’t want to be one, but there was really no viable alternative. Her brothers left home when they were barely in their teens. John left home at 12 to find himself and hasn’t been heard from since. While Richard never did want to find himself, he was very confident as to who he was. But because John left at 12, he knew he had no alternative but to leave as soon as he was 13. The only problem was that he had no place to live and so ended up in the French Foreign Legion, where he did extremely well. Janet’s last brother, Gordon, when he turned 11 brought his family together one cold winter’s evening while a roaring fire was threatening to burn down the house and told his parents and Janet who was still living at home, that he wanted to be a fireman when he grew up.

Mildred Ulrich, Midget’s grandmother, was considered one of the wisest people to ever live. Not only did she knit body armour for her grandson when he became the executive chef of Viking Horde number 12, but she was also known for her prognostications. And thus she acquired the nick name the ‘Oracle of Lapland.’

Even before Midget joined the Viking horde on their very first mission to India, each chieftain of a horde sought an audience with her where they would pose basically the same questions.

“Oh Oracle of Lapland,” they would begin bowing low, throwing money into her tin, which was an old cigarette can that had washed up on the shore of Swedonia, before it was renamed Sweden because the Swedish kept forgetting the name of their country, while Mildred sat crossed legged outside her cave in the scared mountain of Or, depending upon the weather. They would continue with their request once she had counted the money and determined it was enough to pay her rent or groceries for the upcoming week. “Oh Oracle of Lapland. I and my horde will be sailing tomorrow at dawn for who knows where, and before we leave I need to know whether or not I’m going to come back alive and whether where I’m going is a fool’s errand.”

Midget Ulrich, all 6 feet 11 inches of him, a man of someone’s dreams though I have yet to meet someone who believes that, had numerous fetishes. This isn’t something that should come as a surprise to any reader or those who line up outside the kitchen tent for one of the meals he has cooked on one of the Viking hordes’ numerous battles. Needless to say, his fellow compatriots, the ones who take him along on their conquests, don’t care what idiosyncrasies he has, as long as he keeps turning out dishes like pelican stew on high holy days or sweet potato pancakes laced with maple syrup, which they had just been introduced to in Columbusland, or Caviar from Russia.

“Dammit! Where’s Misty?”

“No idea, your Excellency. The last time I saw him he was going to the bathroom behind that bush,” replied Rudy pointing to a bush in the distance that appeared to be on fire.

“I hope not,” said Moshe King of the Vikings, “because it’s on fire.”

“Oh no, your Excellency. It’s not on fire. It just appears to be because of the way the sun’s rays are dancing on it.”

Moshe looked at Rudy and shook his head. “I damn well know the difference between a burning bush and a bush that appears to be burning, and that bush over there is burning. So please don’t question me. Go over there and see if Misty is behind it.”