THE VALUE
OF FRIENDSHIP

A Creative Commentary

By
David A. Archer

02/15/1968

10/26/2006

My ol' man was truly one of the last American Greats!

I'm not talking about one of these manufactured, run of the mill moviescreen type you can find anywhere in our day. I am talking about a true blue son of a bitch.

This isn't to say that he was a "son of a bitch" necessarily. Only that he was a genuine. There won't be any more like him.

The pure poetry in this, is that he was in no way a pronounced "bad ass," or overtly obvious in any other way. In fact, those things were very much not of him as I knew him. He was quite reserved and it took allot to get him to "go off" so to speak. I can't remember ever seeing him "lose it" so to speak.

Those "media" driven ideas about "great," just don't apply.

He was born and raised in East Texas. He was baptized in a creek near where he grew up. He served in the military through several conflicts, having lied about his age to "join up" back then.

The laugh in this knowledge, is that there is a contingency in the modern day that instantly categorizes him and his existence with yet more stereotypes. Usually racism and some form of ignorant brutality which those leveling such accusations usually embody themselves.

He raised me in a small town in Northern Nevada. He was smart about it. Up until around my thirtieth birthday, I still had old photographs of my birthday parties and other activities with friends, which stand as irrefutable evidence against those stereo types.

I grew up in an interracial neighborhood. Most of my "mud puddle" friends were of various races. And I had my own job as soon as I could ride a bicycle, delivering news on a few different routes.

A racist he was not. At least no more than any other person, including those that normally utilize such social aspects as a means to procure things.

We didn't ever lock our front door. There wasn't anyone not welcome, until they proved otherwise.

We traveled allot when I was quite young. All around the United States. I traveled some with my Great Aunt as well in those years.

I could sing most of Hank Williams songs before I was 10 years old, and quite a few of Earnest Tubbs, too. My Uncle Leroy was a Southern Baptist Preacher. I sat on the lap of the oldest MacDonald alive, and even played a few hands of poker with her as well at one of our extended family reunions.

But those aspects aren't all my life is comprised of, and I refuse to live the past as if life never changes. I choose to recognize the progress of humanity, at least.

There is still something about simple three part harmonies that calls to me. Odd that I would spend most of my twenties making music with people that couldn't harmonize if they had a synthesizer.

My old man was smart about allot of things. Including some things that I am only recently finding out about. One of which being how he handled what was to be my portion of a willed estate left by my mother at her time of death in 1974.

All of my other sibling were "of age" or close enough that their "share" was remitted almost entirely at the time of her death. Some $25,000 dollars. Mine on the other hand, was to be set aside until I had reached the age of thirty.

As anyone can find out, and as many know.. the seventies were a time of some rather pronounced growths. Especially in the technological realm.

There was a penny stock offered around that time (several of them), for a little known tech company that grew to become a mammoth to say the least. My old man... being true to his own back ground and insight, managed to make some rather smart investments. Several of them from what I can tell.

Like I said, he was smart in ways people won't ever really know about again given the tendencies in modern society. Most people treated him as if his depth of knowledge and insight in life were some derivative comprised of what a person might expect to find on the public restroom walls in the Emerald City, from The Wizard Of Oz.

Amazing how many people tend to make all of their decisions from their own perspectives, as if everyone else were drawing from the same well of knowledge.

Now that I think about it, I have managed to receive similar treatment as to my own capacity. A laugh really, considering that most of the people posturing such stances, are supposedly of a "better clothe." Most spending their time and energy making sure that someone knows them to be in some position of authority instead of simply existing.

He was smart and he knew people. So much so that all I ever knew of the use of that estate was having seen some of the paper work and the credit card he had gotten in my name.... which of course, I never used. In fact, I never really thought about it again through most of my youth. It could be easily said that others in my community knew more about it all than I did.

This was such a consistency, that eventually people began to think of it as if it were theirs.

Which of course I am sure the old man knew would happen.

I have never seen a penny of it, and don't expect to. Especially considering the things I have experienced and weathered beginning about the time the estate was to be remitted. Near my thirtieth birthday.

All of a sudden, it was if I had drawn the curse of the ages upon myself somehow. It was suggested that I had committed one hideous act or another... but never leveled as accusation, and much less never became any issue serious enough for litigation. Even those having claimed to have documented "evidence" so to speak. Only suggested infractions and gossip, usually coupled with some fictitious stipulation which had "yet to be fulfilled"... suggested as well, of course. The "information age" has definitely added to aspects of sad scams.

I have established for myself that there aren't even any legally binding arguments to many of their claims. Even in regard to the slight of hand in attempting to address their "justifications" from various perspectives, including international standards. Either way, they are definitely unfounded as per their claims given the situation itself, but of course, that only matters if there isn't an ass load of something to be procured.... and just as many people wanting of it.

And then of course came the references to some ill disposition concerning other non-issue things such as racial bias, pre-ordained direction and success in life - some predisposed "unfairness" - directly displaying the ignorance and misinformation that most of these "concerned parties" were about... all sorts of sad displays. Some even being to the level of "celebrity" population from what I can tell, through distant relations that aren't really important. Even a stack of marriage licenses from what I could see and some claim from the direction of my father having been in AA toward the end of his life.. which I have come to refer to as the "Autistic Artists" club. Then the most bazaar of reasoning's being that re-incarnation was a factor. As if I should not be qualified to receive the benefit of said estate, because I would be re-incarnated in another life and would get to have such benefits then. And my favorite which I heard quite a bit.. again as suggestion as if to provoke some response, was that the total "was too much for one person to have."

This, of course, unless that "one person" happened to be one of the "other parties" with interest in procuring the estate. And presumably NOT on the big list of re-incarnation.

How funny! The actual recipient named, being myself, of the estate.. was somehow less qualified to receive the total of it, than were the various social levels of scavengers doing anything they could to get a piece of it. Even to their own worst interests in disturbing what would otherwise remain an incredibly consistent thing.

Further I assure you, there is no suggested "tomorrow" for myself in the regard of re-incarnation. As I have made abundantly clear in many ways, there isn't enough of anything in this world that would make being reincarnated a worth while endeavor.

You could not pay me to be re-incarnated. There are just too many useless areas within existence these days. This sad display concerning a simple estate is one of them.

With the ease of information manipulation in the modern day, I am surprised that anyone waited until the estate was due to be remitted. From what I can tell, some of them didn't. As ifthere were a huge line of people already waiting with their excuses... NOT to be addressed in a court of law, which of course meant that they were deserving of some portion in the estate itself.
Then of course came all of the people deserving of part of it. Like they just crawled out of the woodwork. Most of them not even smart enough to realize they would have benefited more in having maintained the legitimate direction of the contracted estate than in becoming a part of the desperate effort to "make themselves important."

It was as if everyone I ever knew, all of a sudden forgot the particulars of what they actually knew of my person. From what I gather, and given my personal disposition and life's philosophies, I very easily could have lived on nothing but the interest(s) accrued... with plenty left over for those so desperately concerned with "their share" of something they had nothing to do with to begin with.

I am now 38 years old. I figure eight years is long enough to have waited for the simplest of estate agreements to be remitted, though I do not expect it to be done. At least in the manner that was put forward in the agreement.

I don't ever expect to see any of it and it has been long enough since it was due, that I figure all of the messy hack work in the information transfers has been cleaned up.... unless of course the people displaying concerns chose to handle it themselves... then who knows how long it will take such meat heads to cover their own asses. "Meat heads" I discern simply from the tactics and lack of foresight in such interests to begin with.

My old man definitely knew people. He knew different types of people.

He knew that pigs would eat until they fell over and died, if they could.

He knew dogs would do similar things if it were that they could feedthemselves.

I learned allot of similar things growing up.

I know that if you want to keep the rodents and weasels out of the hen house, you don't get a dog to do it... you get a big, gnarly battle scarred cat. An "outside cat" at that, not one of those dainty little indoor upholstery wreckers. You get a big, hungry cat that could be a dragon in their own right.. and then you feed it in the same place every time. You get a female or two as well... just to give it something to be territorial about, and even breed a little to inspire the want to hunt.

Cats won't eat everything you put down for them at once. Even if there are several of them. They only eat what they need to... but they will still hunt rodents even when they aren't hungry.
The dog, you get for the kids. Dogs are great for the kids when they are out and about... they are just as afraid of being left somewhere alone, as the kids would be. It's a great pairing.

Yeah, looking at things... I would say that Sammy Joe really knew people. I couldn't have had a better dad.

He was a great friend as well... and we never even had to discuss it. Even through all of the silly crap that goes down in the average situation... he was a great friend. The kind of friend that taught me with myself, and self discovery.

As far as I am concerned, let the pigs and dogs in society gorge themselves until they fall over dead. Even and especially those which are and/or claim to be of some blood relation to myself.
Let the rodents think they are getting away with something as they sneak around and convince themselves that "no one knows what they are up to."

They can think that all that they want. From what I can tell, they won't ever know what hit 'em.