I don’t even like Roslindale Leo, Natick Jerome or Moneybags John. Yet they are my dearest, most valued friends.

Leo had been a thorn in my side since, on the night I met him, he invited me to fight on the lawn. And it was my lawn. He ended that night vomiting on the same lawn, an act witnessed by my sainted mother (she actually asked if he would like a tuna sandwich.) Years later, as I lay dying (I recovered) in a Gloucester hospital, Leo asked my (soon-to-be-ex) wife if she wanted to go to a New Year’s Eve party. When she demurred, he said, “He will never know.”

Nice guy. In ensuing years, he tried several times to kill me on canoe trips, tipping the craft into ice-filled waters, hitting me over the head with a log and ignoring each bit of advice.

At least you can pick your friends.

I had no choice with Jerome. He came along with the Twomey-Meara clan, disguised as a cousin. Jerome’s claim to fame is that he went back to college and got a music degree, at prestigious Berklee College, at age 55. Then, as testament to this milestone, he never played his guitar again.

He is also known for the night during his rock band days when he played a guitar solo while standing back-to-back with the gorgeous lead singer. His (soon-to-be-ex) wife leaped upon the stage, wrestled the sticks from the drummer and started beating the gorgeous lead singer. Jerome, a trouper, kept right on playing. But, since the gorgeous lead singer was married to the bandleader, Jerome lost the gig, and later, the wife, who took the house and furniture with her. Jerome was left alone, with only folding chairs from the neighborhood funeral parlor for company.

Moneybags John came into my life when he married the (almost) beauty queen from next door in Tenants Harbor. He is a marathoner, perilously thin and takes great pleasure in remarking on my expanding girth and shrinking financial resources. He loves it that my Florida land purchase set off a national, if not international, crash in real estate. John carries a calculator to determine up-to-the-minute calculations on his financial worth and eventual Social Security windfall. Certainly, no one celebrated his open-heart surgery last year, but the event did cut down on the “Emmet is fat” jokes.

John was a naval officer. I could tell how well-trained he was during my brief sailboat ownership when I approached a Rockland dock and threw him a line. I was no naval officer and admittedly failed to secure the line to the boat. But when I looked up, the Navy vet was standing there holding it, instead of lashing it to the dock. We both fell down laughing, praying to God that no one witnessed the feeble act.

The point here (there is one) is that this dastardly trio was born before I was, some of them by several months.

I was born on Dec. 22, along with one Meara Van Der Zee, destined for a career in Hollywood.

That means that I can send them “old” jokes all year long with the understanding that I am still young, at least compared to them.

Now, the days are dwindling down to a precious few. They have already experienced the pain that is age 66 and the tide is turning. Their e-mails grow more and more bitter. The same jokes are now bouncing back.

That’s not funny.

Now that I am next in line, I wonder why I ever had anything to do with this trio in the first place.

Wait till next year.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.