By Danny Minton

While browsing the book section at The Texas Star Trading Company in Abilene, I came across a book entitled, Texas High School Football Dynasties. As I thumbed through the book, I came to pages 100 and 101. In front of me, stretched across the top half of the two pages, was a picture of my 1965 Plano Wildcat Football Team. I scanned the faces of the guys I played football with, most of whom played for six years from seventh to twelfth grades, then scanned again where my eyes stopped on those fellow seniors who had passed away.

I remembered Jimmy and I playing “The Lone Ranger and Tonto” on the playground during recess in the second grade. My mind can still picture Steve and I sitting at a table on his porch and diagraming football plays we had to learn as we transitioned to the high school team. I scanned the back row, which included Kent, Hugh, and Carl, teammates who shared stories of six years on the gridiron. 

Danny Minton, bottom row Number 26, with his 1965 Plano High School state championship teammates.

Many of those in the picture and other schoolmates in my classes had been friends since the first grade. As I look at their faces and the faces in my high school yearbook, I see so many that I still call a friend. We took a journey together for twelve years, making history along the way.

Over the years, I have made scores of new friends, some in college and others through churches where I have attended and worked. Along the way, I have lost many friends who have passed away. I still hold many stories in my thoughts about each one. Many of them are stories that share our love and closeness for one another, even as years have passed. I’ve had so many friends over the years that I wouldn’t even try to list them all, knowing I could not remember everyone who has been part of my life over the decades. 

I once heard the definition of a friend as someone who is still around when everyone else has left. The Bible considers friendship a relationship that helps us make it through life. Proverbs 17 tells us, “A friend loves at all times.” Later in chapter 27, we read, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” In chapter 15, John quotes Jesus’s words, “Greater love has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Ecclesiastes tells us in Chapter 4, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either one of them falls down, one can help the other up.”

Having friends is one of the greatest blessings we can possess. Likewise, being a true friend to those we know also becomes a blessing in their lives. I have another picture of several of my high school teammates standing next to my hospital bed and handing me the game ball from the state championship I missed due to an injury. It was something they didn’t have to do but was an act of friendship for a teammate. When our son was in the hospital and couldn’t be insured because of his physical condition, our home church group and one I had worked with years before took up special collections to help with the expenses. I could go on and on where my friends have been there for me and my family over the years. That’s what friendship is all about. In a way, friends become family, loving, caring, and being there for you no matter what.

Danny Minton is handed the game ball from the 1965 Plano High School state championship game by his teammates. Danny missed the game, which Plano won, due to his injury.

In return, I hope I have been and can be as good a friend to others as they are to me. After all, true friendship goes both ways. To take a phrase from the novel, The Three Musketeers, friendship and camaraderie  exhibit the attitude of “All for one and one for all.” In true friendship, we act in such a way that we benefit those close to us. I cherish the friendships of those in the picture from 60 years ago and all those I have made since then.

To all my friends from over the years who read this, I offer a quote from the movie “Toy Story” and a song named “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” The song closes with these words, “And as the years go by, our friendship will never die. You’re gonna see, it’s our destiny. You’ve got a friend in me.”

Danny Minton is a former Elder and minister at Southern Hills Church of Christ