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Did you know that many people celebrate the first Sunday in August as Friendship Day? Some philosophers theorize that strangers enter our life for a purpose and maintain a presence for as long as we need them, and eventually the strangers may become our friends. “Your friend is your needs answered,” wrote Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet published in 1923. 

Friendships that develop early in life can create a bond closer than that shared by some blood relatives. In the pre-Internet days when a best blood-brother-buddy-friend moved far away with his or her family, and you lost touch with that friend, tears flowed for days as you realized that the promise of “Friends to the end” was inadvertently broken. Facebook and other social networks have remedied that problem for today’s generations.

Sometimes a dear, life-long friend dies at a relatively young age. The passing of that person with whom you have shared experiences of school days, dating, marriage and child birth, leaves a void in your heart.

Then, there are a few fortunate people who have friendships that last a lifetime.  In honor of friendship, many wonderful songs have been devoted over the years.  Boomers may remember a tune sung by The Beatles in 1967, “Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.”

In 1975, James Taylor created a hit with “You’ve Got a Friend.”  “You just call out my name and you know wherever I am, I’ll come running.” 

Andrew Gold’s 1978 song about friendship is memorialize as the theme song for “The Golden Girls”, a television program that boomers and even Generation X’ers who watch the reruns cannot get enough of, “Thank you for being a friend, travel down the road and back again. You’re heart is true, you’re a pal and a confident.”

Another touching song about friendship was co-written by Pattie LaBelle and first performed in 1978. “You Are My Friend.” That song has become a staple at all of Pattie’s live performances. “You hold my hand. You might not say a word. But I see your tears when I show my pain.”

Then in 1986, Dionne Warwick and Friends (Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder) crooned a friendship melody that is now heard in numerous musical greeting cards and music boxes. “For good times and bad times, I’ll be on your side forevermore. That’s what friends are for.”

What do Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and golfer great, Tiger Woods, have in common? Both of their wives used a phone connection to stir up a hornet’s nest. Woods got badly stung by numerous hornets. They just kept coming from everywhere until his wife, Elin, decided that she had enough and left their nest. And you can bet a judge’s gavel that baby boomer, Clarence Thomas, wishes his wife, Virginia, had let sleeping dogs lie. Instead she roused the pit bull media when they learned that she called College Professor Anita Hill and suggested that Hill apologize for “what you did with my husband” 19 years ago. Subsequently, Lillian McEwen, a former girlfriend of Thomas has come forward and is buzzing about Thomas’ obsession with pornography and women’s breasts during the time they were dating, over two decades ago.  Ginny please!  Had you nothing better to do when you placed that phone call or did it just seem like a good idea at the time? I’ll bet your husband wishes you had had a V8 instead.

It’s fun collecting things when you are young.  Some folks collect ticket stubs or greeting cards, others collect money-making items like stamps or coins.  I know a lady who collects pens, felt pens, fountain pens, ball points.  One of my aunts collects dolls, another collects bells.  I collect slogan buttons.  I have a plastic box containing over 400 of them in various shapes, sizes and colors.  I started collecting buttons in the 1970s. Several of them have political slogans. The most unique button in my prized collection is a 1960s campaign button reading “John F. Kennedy for President.”  Some of my buttons depict pop stars like Boy George and Michael Jackson.  There is also a Yoda from Star Wars 1977 button, an Oliver North re Iran–Contra button and there’s even a Clare “Where’s the Beef” Peller button.  

When I first started collecting buttons, I bought nearly every button I saw.  If I saw someone wearing a button that I didn’t already have, I’d ask for it. I even had friends bringing me buttons. Some of my buttons have serious messages, others have funny slogans.  There are buttons with witty sayings and racy (X-rated) buttons.  I believe I even have an anti-buttons button.  

As I said, when you are young it is fun collecting things, but when you get older collections sometimes become just clutter.  One day, I asked myself what am I going to do with those buttons that I have tucked in the closet.  It is no longer fun to spread them out on the floor and read them or show them to friends or relatives when they come to visit.  I thought about trying to sell them on Craigslist or EBay, and then I wondered whether anyone would buy them.  Who wants unnecessary stuff like buttons cluttering their home?  We live in a throwaway society, which is probably what will happen to my once treasured button collection.  I’ll throw it out.  Maybe the trash collector collects buttons.  May he will see the plastic box containing my buttons and retrieve them. That would be nice to have someone rescue my buttons.  Buttons.  Who needs them?