{"id":2539,"date":"2019-07-28T20:04:21","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T03:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2019-07-29T05:14:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T12:14:58","slug":"you-cant-make-old-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2539","title":{"rendered":"You Can&#8217;t Make Old Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150121.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2328\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150121.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>In 2013, country music legends Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton released what, in their minds, would be the last of their many hit duets. It was named, appropriately, \u201cYou Can\u2019t Make Old Friends.\u201d \u00a0Written by Ryan Hanna King, Caitlyn Smith and Don Schlitz (the latter wrote \u201cThe Gambler\u201d), the piece spoke movingly of the kind of relationships unique to old friends (for instance, they can \ufb01nish each other\u2019s stories).<\/p>\n<p>I \ufb01rst heard the song a year into retirement, and it struck a nerve. So I forced many of my old friends to listen, too. It\u2019s the best way I could \ufb01nd to tell them what they meant to me, and what I hoped both to give and receive from them in the future.<\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white; margin: 0in 0in 15.0pt 0in;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #47425d;\">Since then, I seem to run into old friends more and more. Happened on vacation when Charlotte and I visited with Ray and Denise in Purgatory, Colorado, and again this week when I had coffee in Amarillo with Eugene. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white; margin: 0in 0in 15.0pt 0in;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #47425d;\">It\u2019s been one of the best surprises about publishing this book\u2014all the old friends\u2014the ones who share my stories\u2014with whom I\u2019m reconnecting. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white; margin: 0in 0in 15.0pt 0in;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #47425d;\">Too cool. \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n<p>*The first two paragraphs of this blog are excerpts from my book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Best-Yet-Be-Discovering-Retirement\/dp\/0578533790\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mike+bellah&amp;qid=1561929553&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Best Is Yet To Be<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>**Here\u2019s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=chBNBzE35EI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">official video to Kenny and Dolly\u2019s song<\/a>:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2013, country music legends Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton released what, in their minds, would be the last of their many hit duets. It was named, appropriately, \u201cYou Can\u2019t Make Old Friends.\u201d \u00a0Written by Ryan Hanna King, Caitlyn Smith and Don Schlitz (the latter wrote \u201cThe Gambler\u201d), the piece spoke movingly of the kind [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2545,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}