This is my ‘Throwback Thursday’ story for today. Back when we were in our late teens in the late 80s we used to hang out at a Wendy’s restaurant just a block from my house, in the same plaza as the IGA where I worked part time as a bag boy and pretty much next door to the high school.

A bunch of us used to go set up camp at Wendy’s on Quinpool in Halifax and sit on a 69 cent cup of coffee for hours. You have to love free refills. We hung out there after school, after dinner, weekends, that was our social networking.

It was sort of the planning ground for our social lives. From there we’d often hit the mall, or walk around with our boyfriends and girlfriends, basically whatever teenagers at a driving age would do.

Looking back on those years, of the 10-15 of us four that I know of four have passed away. Two due to health, another to an auto accident and one who I was a closer friend to Troy Furlong died “unexpectedly” at the age of 36 back in March of 2006.

I don’t know the specifics, nor do I need them. I just remember Troy being quite closest to the nicest person you’d ever want to know. Always there to listen if you were going through trouble, always had great advice and was always up for a fun lighthearted time.

I found out Troy had died back in 2007 when I was looking for my old friends on Facebook when I first signed up. When I plugged his name into the search bar, I found a Facebook page dedicated to him. As I was clicking through the tribute page, it hit me that we are all mortal and death does not escape anyone even sometimes youth.

It is kind odd how we drift and weave through life. I’m not sure really how or why I drifted away from that circle. If I were to guess it would be because of shutting out others when I started going out with a girl outside of that circle. You know that complaint friends have when you start dating someone. You never have time for us anymore.

It could have been that I started a job at a convenience store in another part of town? I don’t really know. By then too we were all out of school and were heading our own ways anyway.

Troy wherever you are, I remember the fun we had, cranking the tunes at a party jamming to Def Leppard, Milli Vanilli, Bobby Brown, etc.  and talking about girls that just dumped us or girls we couldn’t get. You were always a great friend to me and I’m still sad to know that your life was cut short.

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