The Accidental Friendship

Once upon a time, in the dark days before Bliz started handling my books, I had Bookkeeper Erin. Erin lasted two months and, much to Erin's dismay, I ended up getting the Arizona Attorney General's office involved with the whole affair.

Erin may never really want to hear my name again.  But then again, she shouldn't have opted to steal from me. I'm just saying...

The single, most wonderful thing that ever came out of the two months of Erin hell was that she recommended Diamond Jim the CPA.

Diamond Jim was born somewhere shy of 70 years ago. He grew up in Las Vegas, with both his grandfather and father working on the Hoover Dam project in the 1930s. At some point in his teen years he spent some time on the Navajo Indian Reservation. And one of closest friends in high school is a former governor of Nevada. He has led a full life.

Diamond Jim has been doing taxes for about 30 years in the Mesa area. He is well respected in the community. He is one of the most dynamic men I have ever met. When we go to breakfast (about once a month) there are at least two or three random folks who come up to shake his hand and say hello. He knows everyone on a first-name basis. Why he hangs out with me is anyone's guess.

Our breakfast chats of business, taxes and real estate are peppered with stories of the antics about his grandsons, grousing over Diamondbacks losses, the Oregon Ducks, politics, history, current events, naturally occurring weather phenomena and our ongoing debate over which book is better, "The Cather in the Rye" or "The Stand".

I find him fascinating and am proud to call him my friend. With the exception of my summer employment, he is pretty much the only reason I am willing to wake up before 7 a.m. any day of the week. Which brings me to the reason we are meeting in a few hours...

Diamond Jim sent me a note last Friday. You see, he has a major dilemma and he felt confident enough in our friendship that he thought he could ask me to help. He had just come back from visiting his grandchildren in South Carolina. While he was visiting, the older of the two boys finished, "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." The younger was reading "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."

Diamond Jim is many things--including completely clueless about Harry Potter. As he said to me Friday as way of explaining why he wanted to meet, "I have until I go back to visit in September to learn everything there is about Harry Potter. Will you teach me?"

Yes. Yes I will. Even though it is 11:54 p.m. as I write this. I will get up at some horrid hour to introduce him to the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione. I will loan him the first audio book and see if I can fill him in enough so that he can be the cool granddad with Timmy and Ricky. After all, that's what friends are for.