Tom

When I was in the air force, I had a friend named Tom. We were roommates and drinking buddies. We shared a house in a crappy little town in Idaho for a winter. It was not a happy time for either of us, and we drank a lot: both to drown our respective sorrows and to ward off the cold.

It was so cold that year. We didn't have very much money, and eventually had to choose between buying heating oil, or enough cheap beer to keep us drunk. We chose the beer, and spent most of the winter in front of an open oven drinking Old Milwaukee. This was the year I stole a christmas tree and decorated it with empty beer cans. This counts as a finalists for "lowest point of my life".

We were both discharged the following spring, and went our separate ways. Tom went to Virginia, and I came back to California. We kept in touch sporadically, and planned a reunion "someday".

About 13 years ago, I gave him a call to see what he was doing. I had just graduated from nursing school. He wasn't doing much of anything. He suggested that I come out to Virginia for a while so we could get drunk and reminisce about old times. I told him I had stopped drinking. He was silent for a minute, then said, "Call me back when you start drinking again", and hung up. That was the last time we talked.

I was thinking about him the other day and did a web search. I found him in the obituary pages. He died last year--the same age as me.

Every so often I am reminded of what a gift it is that I was able to stop drinking when I did. I am again reminded of this.

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[Poll #232711]

Oh, that president!

President Bush will call on Wednesday for landing an unmanned spacecraft on the moon this decade to lay the groundwork for humans to return to the lunar surface and eventually visit Mars, administration officials said.

I have no problem with space exploration, but for the money we would spend sending a manned mission to Mars, we could invade and conquer 5 or 6 medium-sized countries.

Picture this...

_chandra asks for.....