Friends for 50 Years, and counting.......!

Two days ago, on Tuesday Morning, I was having a particularly powerful day hiking. It should be noted that a regular day of hiking at St. Mountain (GA) is usually a pretty powerful experience for me. It is how I generally begin my day. It is a combination of spiritual experience, physical exercise and social experiment and it usually leaves me in complete 'awe' of just how good my life is and what a wonderful place St. Mountain Park is! (I get to come here everyday and do this!) Life is Good........

On this particular day, I must have meet 5 or 6 Hikers, whom I had not yet met or had not seen in some time. Among the people that I met, for the first time, were two(2) wonderful women , Thelma and Louise, who had been the best of friends for 50 years...(Think about that for a moment, best of friends for 50 years!) Most people do maintain friendships for 50 days..... These two were taking the time to meet up and travel to special places together. This has become an annual event for them; they meet up someplace and hang out together for a few weeks.
Having both reached the age of retirement, they were able to take leave of their spouses and children and simply enjoy the 50 year old friendship.

We met as I was preparing to take a photo of two other people that I had not seen in a while, Elisha K. and her daughter. As they walked by, they excused themselves from interrupting my shot.

When I finally caught up with them to get a sense of 'Why they were Hiking St. Mountain', I discovered that they were, in fact, doing the 'Thelma and Louise' road trip and that they were long time friends. I also learned that one lived in California and the other lived on the East Coast and that they met up somewhere in the Midwest and drove to Atlanta; stopping along with way to hike and sightsee and visit interesting places.  St. Mountain Park was one of those interesting places to go and Hike!

One of the things that I observed as we walked and talked is that they were two people who were clearly comfortable with themselves and with each other.  There was a certain authenticity about the both of them.  One was a retired Lawyer who worked in the area of Land Use and Planning; the other a former Educator who is also retired and relatively carefree.

I maintain this belief that I developed after reading 'The Celestine Prophecy' by James Redfield; Everyone you meet has a message for you or you have a message for them!  My message from meeting Thelma and friend of 50 years..........Become the kind of person who you would like to have around for 50 years or more!

Happy Hiking!