The Lads

Great friends can sometimes be hard to come by.  Throughout my middle and high school years, I am lucky enough to have developed a group of friends that I know will last a lifetime.  The six of us, the “lads” as we like to call ourselves, have gone through so many crazy experiences together that by now I think we know each other as well as we all know ourselves.  I’ll try to give a small glimpse of everybody so maybe you can understand our little group a bit better.  Let’s start from the right.

First there’s Gerald, or “Swagner” as he likes to go by.  This is one crazy mother fucker.  The best story I can think of to describe Gerald is that he once stole a Christmas tree at 3 o’clock in the mourning and proceeded to attack random people with it.  He’s a blast though.  Swagner is currently playing football at Wooster Poly Tech.

Next comes Curt.  Curt’s that guy who pretty much epitomizes preppy.  He wears Bermuda shorts, plays lacrosse, and pays extreme attention to his “flow.”  Curt’s been there from the beginning and is my regular drunk golfing buddy of mine.  Just kidding about the drunk part.  Or am I?  Anyway, Curt now attends Dartmouth and would consider himself one of those “Dartmouth bros.”

To the left of Curt is David, or “Gesch” as we call him because of his last name Geschwind.  I don’t think I’ve called him David since he first joined our school in sixth grade.  It took us about 2 months to figure out that we lived 2 minutes away from each other and had the exact same Chinese food order from our favorite restaurant Jade Billows.  From there it was destiny.  Gesch is currently starting for the Swarthmore college soccer team and is rockin’ it up in Philly.

Following in the line is Ben Citrin, or “Cit” as I refer to him.  Noticing a pattern here?  Cit’s just an awesome dude.  Don’t really know how else to explain it.  He’s always love Michigan and his persuasion is one the main reasons why I am in Ann Arbor today.  He would be here with me if he wasn’t playing soccer in college, so he’s back east in Bowdoin on the soccer team.  He still texts me every game day though with a version of “go blue.”

I’m next in line, but I hope everyone reading this already knows that so I’ll skip me.  After me is Zak.  We just call him Zak.  Zak was the one in high school with the girlfriend everyone hated.  We gave him shit about her down to the day they broke up about 1 month ago.  It was one of the happiest days of my life.  Zak’s great though, and his mom is just about the best cook in the world.  He’s currently attending Colombia and takin’ on NYC.

As different as we may be apart, collectively we make one group.  I can turn to or talk to any of these guys about anything and I know they will always have my back.  I consider each and every one of them my brother and fully expect our friendships to carry with us until the day we are gone.  I think the point I am trying to make here is that best friends are a special thing and should not be taken for granted.  I am lucky enough to have five of them.