Of old friends and old shirts

Old friends are like old shirts. And, no, I’m not bonkers.

Behold the photo above of a shirt that’s garnished my torso for so long I can’t recall when I got it. Twelve years ago, at least.

The shirt is comfortable and colorful – and nice enough for semi-special events, yet sufficiently casual for cookouts. I’ve mowed in it, shoveled snow, dined at semi-swanky restaurants.

We have history, this shirt and I. Only a teensy stretch of imagining gets us to “old friends” status.

Now behold your actual old friends, those special people you’ve known since before kids, careers … paunches.

The best old friends are like that shirt: Comfortable, colorful, easy to dress up with, fun in t-shirts and shorts. And they summon memories like bugs to a porch light at night, both dizzying and dazzling – and always entrancing.

Old friends accept our dings and the occasional bone-headed remark, just as I look past the hole at a corner of my shirt’s pocket.

And that’s how old friends are like old shirts.

Bonkers? Not today, not about my old friends.