A year ago I and others, answered the call of distress and helped out a friend who was in danger of losing everything. I have a good nature like that and since he'd been there for me before, I considered it good form and the right thing to do in return. So, in a manner of speaking, we're "even." You know what I mean?

What a difference a year makes...

The "friend" now seemingly secure in his position, seems to have forgotten just how precarious his perch in life was this time last year. He began mixing with a bad crowd, and those of us who had his back have been "pushed to the curb" so to speak.

In short: now he's too good for the people who saved his ass, you know, back when he was about to lose everything.

It's weird what surrounding yourself with the wrong people can do to a man. Now that his biting hunger has been temporarily satiated, he forgot just how starved he actually was.

Material gluttony can do that to a person, causing them to drive away the very people that saved their bacon in the first place.

But all is not well in the land of the lost. A storm is gathering, and memories are long in the minds of those of us who once had your back, but won't be there the next time...

The hangers-on who love this guys company as long as he's the one paying the bill, will flee as soon as the first drops of rain start to fall. Free buffet over, they will scamper back into their well-stocked lairs, and leave him high and dry.

Only this time, the cavalry having been burned once won't answer the bat signal a second time.

I'm truly amazed at the unbalanced short-term thinking of some people. We're already seeing the early signs that the game is just about up for this guy, but it hasn't yet hit him full in the face yet.

There's a sense of disquiet in his orbit, but it seems off in the distance and hasn't registered quite yet. Those of us who'd rallied to the cause the last time (before being jettisoned in the face of faux stability), are watching with great interest for the other shoe to drop.

And drop it will.

This is a teachable moment not just for him, but for all of us involved in answering the call of a man who should have been weighed and found wanting.

None of us could predict how his new associates would warp the mind of a man we considered a brother. You are the company that you keep, so it's best to carefully consider the actions of those you choose to associate with, as in this world, true friends are hard to find.