phullphilled's Journal

As I have wrote about before, at times my brain (Flops), races from one thought to the other and as he races from one thought to the next, I usually loose the previous thought that I had. A few of them do hang around and I keep going back to the important ones thoughts that I evidently need to pay attention to. This morning, while I was taking a shower, an email I recently received popped in to my head. Now taking a shower has nothing to do with his name and the email has nothing to do about me taking a shower!!!!! That was a Phil thought, nothing to do with Flops. The email keep coming back into my thoughts as I bouced from the many activites I want to get done today. I have forgotten most of what I thought I wanted to get done today and they may or may not get done. The email was from Wayne, who I would call a life long friend that has stuck with me no matter what life's struggled I developed during my life time. He is what I call a true friend and the longest friendship I have had over my life time, unless you call family members as friends and for some reason our society have one name for family members but usually do not describe them as friends. I guess maybe family members are closer and more involved than friends, it is toooooo confusing for me to try to even go there. Back to Wayne

I first met Wayne when he was a college room mate with one of my older brother's, Jim. I really did not get to know him to well at that time. I went to work at Prudential insurance company and worked there for a while and sure enough, Wayne at some point in time ended up at Prudential. First of all I want to tell a little bit about Wayne today before I get into what our friendship was like in the first years of our friendship.

Today Wayne is a very successful businessman. Has been married to the same wonderful lady, Linda, for many years. Not sure if they have hit 40 years on not but I know they have to be close. Now this is no big deal to most people. Wayne has dedicated a lot of his last few years (over 20 years maybe more) to being a Lion Club member. I am sure most people have heard of the a local chapter of a Lion's Club in their area. Like any other organization, they have people that get involved in the many charties and fund raisers (for the life of me I can not spell that word correctly- Hug Flops moment). Wayne is one of these people. For a few years before I moved to Arizona, Wayne and I did not keep in contact for a few years and unknown to me, he was getting very involved with the wonderful work of the Lion's Club orginazation. I think maybe he did get involved before I moved from our home town (Auburn, IN) to South Bend, IN. Anyway Wayne is one of those very active member's that gets involved and promotes the many causes of the Lion's Club. As the years went by he become one of the people that become a leader of the organization. (I am having a very difficult time with my spelling, sorry) He has been honored with a very presitigous honor by our state governor with the recogination of a person in the state of Indiana that goes beyond what a person my do for any orgainization that he is very passioninate about. A lot of people give their time and abilities for good causes. Then there seems to be a few that take it a step further. The governer of Indiana (who ever it is) can bestow this on anyone that may be the special person that goes way beyond just giving time and service to others. This person usually goes beyond that. The name of the recogination award it the "Sagamore of the Wabash" not sure how it got its name but I do know it is not a think that happens every year. It just is given to someone that over a period of time has given way more than most other people. Not sure how many individuals have been given this award and Wayne Madden is one of the people that has been given this recognition. I am honored to call him my friend and even tho I do not have a daily contact with him we still keep in touch and he writes me often encouraging me to keep doing what I am doing and we just share a little of our lives together. It seems us men do not really let other men know how much they me to us over the years. Well a good part of having Alzheimer's is that I have decided when something goods pops into my head I am going to do what I am thinking about. Today was one of those moments. When Wayne's name popped into my head and his last email came into my thougths, I thought I need to respond to his last email. Then I thought, our friendship deserves more than that and most of all my respect for Wayne needs to be acknowledge on a higher level, so I thougth write it in my journal then email it to a group of people I send a lot of my journal entry's to all the family and a few other people.

I guess at first I was going to tell a lot of fun wonderful times Wayne and I had over the years. I guess that is for another time, maybe. I know Linda did not appreciate tooooooooooooooo much some of Wayne's and mine adventures so maybe it is best to just leave this journal entry as it is and more than likely I will not tell "The Rest of the Story" as Paul Harvey would say. The only thing I will say is an adventure about the time Wayne, another agent from Prudential and myself, earned a much deserved trip to Florida for a convention. So the 3 of us and our wives rented a motor home and made the trip down and back in the motor home. Now I must tell you, I am not a tall person at all maybe 5'1" or 5'2", the other man is maybe 6'2" or so and I am not going guess how much he ways and lets just say Wayne is a little bigger than either of us. I think he is 6'7". Anyway having the 6 of us in the motor home for the few days down and back, plus the convention was a little trying to some of the group. Now I loved every minute of it. For some funny reason, none of us got together for a few weeks after that trip. Just do not know why that was. I type that with a big smile :) and a lot of joy in my heart. God Bless Phil and Flops