Regardless of the fact that I have made a number of trips around the sun over the last seven decades, I am still discovering new things.

For example, I just sat down to write a story for tomorrow, which is today if you’re reading this. I mean, what was today is now yesterday, meaning that yesterday’s tomorrow is now today.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. I sat down to write, and Marion handed me a fudge popsicle. We had a long day of driving. It was hot. I put on a pair of shorts to cool off, sat on the couch with my laptop to write, and before I could get a single word written, she handed me this ice cold, frozen treat on a stick.

I wasn’t gonna refuse it. I love fudge popsicles. But I needed to write. I thought about pecking away with one hand, but that’s not practical. I was trying to keep one eye on the keyboard while slurping on the popsicle to keep it from melting into my lap.

So, here’s what I discovered. No matter how good you think you are, you can’t type and slurp on a popsicle at the same time. The popsicle will win.

Another example. We ate at Captain D’s last week. We both had the $5.99 two fish and fries special. I took the cups, got our drinks, and found us a table while Marion visited the ladies’ room.

When the Captain D’s server brought our tray to the table, our plates included two little cardboard boats of extra crunchies. You know what I’m talking about. Those little pieces of batter that break off in the grease and get scooped up when they serve the fish.

I got all excited because I love the crunchies. I don’t care that they’re not good for my cholesterol. I don’t care that the extra grease could potentially come back to haunt me at 3am. I like them. They’re almost better than the fish.

“Look what we got.”

I said this to Marion as if we’d just gotten upgraded from Economy to First Class.

“We got extra crunchies.”

“I know,” she said. “I asked for them.”

“You can ASK for extra crunchies?”

“They’re called cracklins.”

I ignore the technical discrepancy.

“And yes,” she says, “you can ask for extra cracklins.”

How have I lived this long and not known this? How can I have enough information rattling around in my head to balance a checkbook, swap out a toilet valve, sign up for Medicare, change a lightbulb and NOT know that I could have been ordering extra crunchies for the last 50 years?

It turns out that Marion worked at Captain D’s back in the day and has known this all along. Plus, the extra crunchies are free.

This is a discovery worth noting.

Some discoveries are far more significant, like our trip to Athens this week. We visited the Georgia Green Industry Association’s trade show. This is an annual event in which I participated as an exhibitor for twenty years when I was still working. I was on the board with the association for almost 26 years. I was a regular fixture. I was hip-deep in nursery work and industry-wide shenanigans.

One of the benefits of being involved is that it gets a person out of his own little world from time to time. If you stay at the tree farm 365 days a year and never get out, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the day to day grind of your own challenges and setbacks. You can get lost in the isolation and not even know it.

So, for all those years I jumped in with both feet. I got to know other growers from all over the state, and really from all over the southeast. I got connected to all of my suppliers. I met folks inside the University and other state agencies.

I also met a lot of my customers by being at the show each year. When websites and online marketing came along, a few growers started to drop out of the show. “We don’t need the show to sell our plants,” they said. But I never bought into that. I didn’t want to trade a computer screen for the face to face experience of talking to folks. I always liked to shake the hands of the people with whom I did business.

Then one day I retired and all of that went away. Just like that. Poof. Gone with the wind.

I’ve always said that one of the things I miss most as a result of my retirement are the people I got to know over the years. Many of them, I had contact with on a regular basis. I know about their families. Our friendship went beyond horse trading with trees.

And from time to time, I think about those people. I wonder how they’re doing. A handful I still talk to on the phone when I can. The rest, I wonder if they even remember my name.

So, when the Director of the association called me a few weeks ago and asked if I would volunteer to help out with a small favor, I said yes. I haven’t been to the show in several years. I’ve lost contact with a lot of people. I thought, “This should be fun.”

Marion was with me, of course. This was her chance to see a side of “my world” that she never really got to know because we didn’t meet until after I retired. She has some inkling of what tree farm life was like, but this was going to be an eye opener for her.

We barely got inside the building when an old customer of mine called out my name, walked over and gave me a hug. Then, I saw another friend from the UGA Extension service. We stepped into the exhibit hall and ran into Santa Bill, my buddy from Ellijay who ran a nursery up in the mountains. Zeke, Sam, TJ, Gordon, Nolan, Grey, David, Mike; all the guys from the Heart of GA Nursery Group. One right after the other, it felt like old times.

For two hours we walked the aisles of the show, and I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I introduced Marion to that morning. Hundreds of handshakes. Stories told, catching up on time passed. More laughs than a barrel of monkeys.

My buddy, Seth, took us out to eat that evening. A long standing tradition. A young couple, friends of Seth’s, joined us. Ben is the new grower for Froggy Bottom Nursery over in Shorter, Alabama. Fine couple. First class young man who loves what he does. It was a great way to end the day.

I’ve been thinking about this all day. My retirement. The years that have passed. And what I’ve got to say is something I’ve known all along, but it’s worth the effort to discover it new again.

No matter how old I am. No matter how many tomorrows I may have. The friendships made over the course of a man’s life matter.

More than gold.