Friends

I first started college at a small university in Tennessee called Austin Peay State Univ. It is located in Clarksville, TN. I went up there because I really wanted to play tennis and they offered me a scholarship so I thought why not? While I was there I became more disenchanted with tennis because of the coach and lack of help and overall sense of team unity, so I wanted to branch out. My second year at the Peay I started hanging out with a lot of guys who were in Kappa Sigma. I hesitated to join because I did not know how long I was going to be there and didn't see a point in spending the money. My last semester there most of my friends in the fraternity convinced me to join, but I hesitated until they offered to pay my initial fees. I couldn't say no to that. So I joined and now I talk to maybe a handful of my old fraternity brothers. There are two in particular who I keep in very close contact with. One of them, Miguel, left Austin Peay the same year I did because he needed to go to school closer to home, Brownsville, TN, so he went to Southwest. We hung out all the time last year because he was coming to Memphis a few times a week and occasionally I'd go to Brownsville and stay with him and his family, who always greeted me with open arms and made some of the best mexican food I've ever had, hands down. Well, at the end of last spring he told me he had no more money to go to school or really live and it sucked because I, being a broke college student, could do nothing to help one of my best friends. He decided to go into the national gaurd and it made sense to me. Once he got done with training and all that, he would pretty much get paid to go to school and live. The only drawback is he might have to go to Iraq, or more likely now Afghanistan. I had not seen him for 7 months until last Friday. He finally made it home and his parents threw him a huge surprise party. I, of course, drove up to Brownsville to finally hang out with my friend. He had not changed much, thank God, and was still hilarious and loved to have a good time. He of course had plenty of crazy stories and interesting stories about some crazy drill sgts he had. He starts school in January and I hope we get to have many more good times and that he does not have to get deployed. He is a true friend.