Old Friends and Memories of First Grade

Make new friends, keep the old. The one is silver, the other is gold.

How many times did you hear that growing up? I have tried to find the author, but no one seems to know.

Most of us follow that advice. We have a few friends left over from childhood. We constantly make new friends. They are all valuable. Some come into our lives and quickly go. Others leave footprints on our hearts and we are never quite the same.

Probably the person I have known the very longest who is still living would be John Furry. He was born one month before me and we went to the same church so we must have been intro...