Throwback Thursday: Regrets

November 10, 2022

Here are two memories, partially for Throwback Thursday. I was scrolling through Facebook this evening and saw this question in a 1960s Memories group to which I belong:

"In your lifetime has a friend ever asked you for a favor that you was reluctant to do but you did it anyways ?"

Here are my two answers. Feel free to tell me your story or stories if you can answer "yes" to that question.

1. Yes, but it wasn't a big deal, though. I had a classmate at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, in the later 1980s who needed a ride home to Springfield, Missouri, so I drove him. It took three hours by car each way. I think he gave me some money for gas, but he ended up borrowing much more money from me that he never returned. One day, he just disappeared. I asked our classmates where he went. They said he went to Alaska. Yeah, I was gullible in my late 20s. I still am. Oh, well. Live and learn. (These days, I cannot even remember his name.)

2. Yes, but I went along with it for fun. My good friend (still) and I, while at university in the early 1980s (in my early 20s), went to a standardbred race horse auction. He suggested that I make the opening bid on this nice, small horse. So, I made the first bid not knowing what it was. A few seconds later, the bid flashed on this big board: $30,000 !!! I obviously didn't have the money and no place to stable the horse. So, my friend and I are laughing until a full five minutes passes without another bid. We start to panic a little. My friend said that he would drive the car home and that I would be riding the horse home. Thankfully there was another bid. After a few more bids, the horse sold for $75,000, a lot lower than we had anticipated.