THAT’S NOT A CONCEALED WEAPON OFFICER, THAT’S HIS HEAD UNDER HIS HAT!

Everyone in this world has a best friend, even me. The difference with my best friend is he is like the brother I never had, and thank God for my Mother's sake!

My best friend and I met in college in our freshman year at NYIT then in Syosset over 40 years ago. It happened in the design class of Mr. Ahn our Korean Instructor.

His name is Phil, he is crazy, a nut, a lunatic, a tease, a pain in the ass, and easy to love, a perfect friend for me. We spent our college days looking for girls and eating pistachio nuts. They would litter the parking lot, and stain our fingers from the red dye.

If Phil has a passion, aside from driving his wife Linda and kids nuts, it is Italian bread. When you first meet Phil he will disarm you, you will meet his lovely wife, greet his beautiful children, and you will walk away thinking nothing of it. DON’T BE FOOLED. BEWARE OF THE DEVIL HIMSELF! I speak from the horrific experience of being his friend, the job given to me by God himself who said to me “Watch him, I goofed. I’ll give you points when you apply to Heaven, I need an earthly presence to occupy his mind until I call him home.”

This prayer I pray every day. When I awake in the morning, before and after each meal and when I retire for the evening:
“Oh Lord, why do you burden me so. Was it something I did? Must I suffer here on Your earth to protect mankind from this human plague?”

Once we were driving in the Bronx, and Phil decided to take a short cut and went down a one-way street the wrong way. Sure as Phil is a scooch, the police spot it and pull him over. It was bad enough that he went the wrong way, but he did it going 70 mph! The cop comes over to the car and says:

"Do you realize that you went the wrong way down that one-way street and that it was a 35 mph zone and you did 70 mph?"

Phil: "Yes officer I do, but being how I wasn’t going back down that street, I thought I’d cover both ways.”

Phil may never make a million dollars, or climb a big mountain, or find a cure for any disease, but he does do one thing very well, he makes me glad that he is my friend, and I will do anything for him, and what is his I will consider important in my life. We shared some really hilarious times together, and some really sad times together, but the key word is “together.” Like my wife and family, I could not conceive of life without Phil.