My Friend Who Died

This is my generic tribute to a good friend who died one year ago today.

I suddenly had the thought a few days ago that this guy I knew died about this time last year. So I looked up his funeral information, which I keep in Evernote, and, sure enough, the day was coming up, Feb. 6.

That's today. And so this is my generic tribute to him, generic because I'm not going to say anything about him in a specific way. His family likes me and all that, but I'd rather no one could Google this article just to see what kind of dirt I might be scooping on him. Frankly, he's got enough dirt scooped on him.

I was at his grave a few times in the last year. I straightened up some hobby effects the family left behind. The wind plays havoc with stuff at the cemetery.

It was a shocker that he died. He was clearly old enough to die, being in his 80s, but to all appearances he was in great health. He was active, then one day (a year ago today), that was it. Complete and total death, sudden and merciless, and he was gone just as fast as that. I was surprised. It was a stunner.

Anyway, he was older than me, obviously, since I'm still in my 50s. But we were pretty close, politically especially. Except he would watch the Fox News channel and I won't. He'd come by and tell me the latest crap he'd heard from "Hanraddy," which was his word for Hannity. He'd roll his eyes and act disgusted and I'd say, "Why are you even watching it?" As for me, I don't watch any of the Fox assholes, so I never know what they're up to. And now I've been without a whole year of updates, so I'm falling farther and farther behind! That's at least one positive thing about his death, which, on the whole, hasn't shown many positives.

As for being a nice guy to me, he was tops, this guy. Helpful, true, honest, good hearted, a good mind, had good things to say about people. He was nice to minorities too. You get some people who are real bigots, like if a black family or a Mexican family would move in. But not this guy. He was helpful and kind.

So it's been a whole year. And I'm glad I thought of it the other day. I figured I overshot it without realizing it, but somehow, nope, today is the day!