True friends are a rare find

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

George Washington

I have to agree with George. I've often been struck by the limitations of the word "friend." For instance, consider someone you know from the office and who's fun to be around. You've gone out together a couple of times. Someone asks you "Hey, are you friends with Ernie?" (Let's assume his name is Ernest Holberforce Terwilliger, just for specificity.) 

You'd probably say yes. But the next day you realize you have a real emergency and need to ask someone to drive you 500 miles to Lost Oasis, Ohio, because you lost your license due to traffic violations and you absolutely have to get to Lost Oasis before 9 PM that evening. Is Ernie the person you'd call? Likely not. But you said he was a friend, no? 

Sure, Ernie is a friend but not THAT kind of friend. That's why we need more words for the different grades of friend. And that gets to what old George was talking about. There are "friends" and there are FRIENDS. The reality is that the number of FRIENDS you have is probably far smaller than your number of "friends." Furthermore, unless you've really had the opportunity to test them, you may well be unaware of just how high up the "Good Friend Index" someone is. George is right. You can't really have a lot of top rank friends and it takes a long (sometimes tumultuous) time for someone to reach that status. 

What's the corollary? If you do have a really deep friendship with someone, you DO want to maintain it. Like a good reputation, it takes a long time to establish and you wouldn't want to lose it from neglect. 

- And that's today's word from the bird