When I refer to old friends, I am not referring to their age.  Old friends are people who've known me for a long time.  We don't have to explain our past to each other because we know it already.  We can be apart for a long time, but when we are together, we can pick up our friendship right where we left off.

I think of the children's song,

Make new friends
But keep the old
One is silver,
And the other's gold.

For the first time in a week, I turn on the television and a game show is on instead of the news.

Sadness

I'm feeling rather withdrawn.  Perhaps it's because of the events of Tuesday...  I almost wrote the bombings of New York City.  The scenes shown on television definitely look like a war zone to me.  My Dad wrote me a nice e-mail today.  The message I got from it is, don't panic, accept what's happened.

Still I feel like staying indoors, not that it makes me feel any safer, just that I have no desire to venture outdoors.  The crashing of the jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon haven't changed my world view any.  I never did think the U.S. would be immune to the terror that other countries have been dealing with already.  There's no way that anyone can protect us from a madman... or mad men, except God, of course, and at this time He chooses to allow mankind unimpeded use of their free will.

I don't like to think about the loss of life.  The sadness that is accumulating in New York and D.C. would be overwhelming for me to accept.  Right now, I choose not to think about it too much.  I can't see where getting more depressed will help anyone.  I feel distracted and empty headed today.  Even with enough hours of sleep, I feel drowsy.  I'd like to go to sleep and wake up and find out that the whole horrible mess is just a bad dream.

After dropping off the computer to be fixed, I had lunch at Burger King on the corner of Old Steese Highway and Minnie Street (that turns into 3rd Street Graehl).  Right next to it is the old Crafton's building.  The furniture store went out of business and now Play It Again Sports has moved into the building.  Isn't that a nifty name?  The store sells used sports equipment.  I bought my 10-pound free weights there at half the price of new ones.

Today I saw an old friend that I hadn't seen in almost ten years.  Our children grew up together and now they are scattered all over the U.S.  She proudly showed me the pictures of her daughter's wedding and her granddaughter.