My first best friend would have been David Sandison - back in Regina. I lived down the street from David from 1967 to 1972, and saw him a couple of times when Laura and I lived in Saskatoon (1982-1988).
Another friend in the same neighbourhood - and the same time period - was Rod Anderson. So lets call this 5 years for David and Roddy (I called him Roddy). Funny enough, Rod's parent's remain good friends of my folks (they lived next door in Regina).
We moved from Regina to Prince Rupert in 1972 and I formed a whole different set of relationships. A few of those friends have stayed in touch. But we only see each other once a year - if we're lucky. I would say Doug Lenuik and Pat Roper were my best friends in high school, and I've seen Doug a couple of times in the last 30 years (I haven't seen Pat since 1979). Let's call the Rupert years 1972-1979.
The only friend that's held up from childhood through today isn't even mine. Laura and Sherri met in high school, and I met THEM BOTH at BCIT in 1979. We see Sherri and her husband Dave a couple of times a year, but we do keep our fingers on the pulse of each other's lives.
We've retained one relationship through most of the moves - the Devall's in Calgary (Mike died in 2010, but we still see Kelly often). We met Mike and Kelly when I started with HP in 1984, and have remained good friends since (so, 31 years so far).
The point of all this is that Laura and I have friends now that we never really knew until we moved to Vancouver as adults and parents in 1995. And we've had that same set for 20 years now. We see them all the time.
Our closest friends, the ones who would do anything for us (and we'd do anything for them) are people we've met later in life.
Is this an artifact of people that have moved a lot?
PS: I know I'm simplifying this a bit, as there are a few friends we met at BCIT (Al, John, Mo) that we still see pretty frequently.
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