My New Friend Fred. I have made a new friend here, his name is Fred. Fred and I met due to the simplest of things, an apple core. I was outside admiring the view of Lake Michigan, eating a Michigan grown red delicious apple, and watching a squirrel opening acorns atop a stump of a tree I cut down last year. I finished the apple and threw the core into the wood about 25 feet behind the squirrel. All of sudden he stopped eating the acorn, stood up, ran into the wood and immediately retrieved the apple core from the brush. I was rather amazed that he could find it in the briar and raspberry bushes, but he did. He came back to his perch on the stump and proceeded to continuously rotate the core and completely nibble it down to nothing. I don't know why, but he reminded me of an intelligent, very fast friend I had up here years ago named "Fast Freddie". Given this squirrels obvious inteligence and prowess and speed, he now is named Fred. I put a whole apple on Fred's stump yesterday morn and went off to work. When I came home the apple was gone of course. Now you may think that a deer got it, or a coon. But I'm putting my money on Fred. I'm reminded of my Grandfather Walter by this---and his pet chipmunk. In those marvelous summers I spent with him on Douglas Lake in Northern Michigan, he befriended a chipmunk. He had a Polish name for the chipmunk that I can't remember, but I'd like to think it was "Fred". It started innocently enough, with both the chipmunk and my Grandfather being startled one day by each other in the garage. Grandfather used to sit out in the garage and eat peanuts and the shells would drop to the floor. He'd just sit there enjoying the summer Northern Michigan day, eating peanuts or just rocking in the chair, out in the garage, for hours. Now I realize that was his man cave, his respite away from the much more beautiful, fairer and intelligent sex. It wasn't long until the chipmunk started watching him from about 12 foot away, just watching Grandpa eating those peanuts. Then it was 6 feet, then he'd scurry underneath Grandfather's chair and scoop up the remnants. By the time I entered this story Grandfather's "Fred" was on his shoulder, on his knee, and he even allowed Fred to take a peanut from his shirt pocket while I watched. But I could only get within about 5 or 6 feet and Fred would run away. He learned to trust my Grandfather, but no other human being. There were a lot of us who trusted Grandfather like that, he was just that kind of guy. A man's man, firm, but allowing you to see the tender side enough that just mesmerized you. You just wanted to be around him, like I'm heard was Walt Whitman, or Abraham Lincoln. Grandfather loved that little chipmunk. But I know he loved me so much more, and as I sit here with tears in my eyes, I am thankful for my Fred. I am thankful of how he reminded me of my Grandfather, and how wonderful it is to be here in Northern Michigan, watching the sky go by, maybe eat some peanuts. I'm watching life go by slowly again. I am, alive again, and I know, I know Grandpa had these same feelings of joy and thankfulness to be here. Well, I know my Grandfather now lives in an even greater place, but I betcha there he has a friend named Fred.