"Cousins are those childhood playmates who grow up to be forever friends."
"Cousins by blood – friends by choice."
~Darlene Shaw
Over the years I have lost some of my best friends -- usually by illness and eventual death. I think of them often and spend some solitary time on the anniversary of the day they left remembering all the good times we had. Warren left us November 18, 2015 at the young age of 75. Warren was not only a life-long friend, but he and I were cousins as well.
We were the two oldest of 50 cousins in the William & Grace Hadfield Family. Warren was a couple of months older than me, but his mother, my dad's sister, married an Allen. Since he was an Allen I always teased him that I was the oldest of the Hadfield cousins. We chased together all through Junior and Senior High School, built a motor scooter together before we had our drivers license, worked together setting pins at the local bowling alley, worked at a roller skating rink together during junior high, worked on our cars together during high school days, went on several short trips together, and went on an infamous "California Trip" together to make our living away from home (we lasted about two weeks). We kept in touch regularly after we each married and settled in different parts of the country. I remember him fondly.
"Goodbye to the friends we knew and loved.
Our lives are better for having known them."
Photos below from the left: Warren and I as youngsters; then Neil Painter, Warren and Bob Everton at Junior High age (1953-1954).
