The Month of June

I have an interesting June coming up and as a result I have been thinking about friendship.

On June 4th I will gather with many members of my parish to work our annual “Lobster-Fest” Event which raises funds to send sponsors and our youth to Mission Philadelphia, our annual community service project in Philadelphia. Our 20th year and I have cooked at 19 of them.  This year will mark the first time I will not be cooking with my friend Ian McNeill. Ian passed away in December with his wife Jane in an automobile accident.

Men don’t have very many great friends. Ian is one of mine. He is one of the few men I have never competed with and never confused what was important. I just simply enjoyed his friendship and his company. He and Jane traveled with us and we had perfected hanging out to an art form.  I miss them both, but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share the time we did. I know many feel the same way.

My son, an Ian also by coincidence, will join me this year to help out as will Ian’s son John.  They know the friendship we enjoyed and we will honor the memory of a really good man over the boiling pots.  Ian will always be with us and by being together and carrying on the Lobster tradition we will remember the real meaning of friendship and it will help us in some small measure to continue to heal.  I suspect our band of cookers and crackers will have the same thoughts and the same experience. You learn a bit after cooking 15000 lobsters as a team.

On June 18th I will walk my only daughter down the aisle. She will be marrying Dan and I am delighted for them both. I cry at the Budweiser ads so I don’t stand a chance of being dry eyed for this event. The venue where they are getting married will be where her Mother and I had our first date.  We have been married for 37 plus years so I am hoping the karma of the place is just as good for them.

The cliché is you marry your best friend.  I wish this for Dan and Lindsay. The earned wisdom I would share is you will not know if this is true for years, but it only happens with the hard work of putting your partner first, making the hard calls together, an occasional good laugh, a good talk, and hug often. Based on these standards, I know I married my best friend and I wish them the same.

Without friends life would be so much harder, great ones, be they fellow lobster cooks or your life partner are rare. Cherish them, honor them, and never take them for granted.

I am so looking forward to June, both the events of the month and the reminders it will bring.