Time and Again

Man, your equilibrium is destroyed when you hear bad news like I received on Sunday. Is this Thursday already? Where has the week gone?

A very good friend of mine has been dead for six months. Before I heard about it on Sunday after the Round Bend Hour, I had assumed he was in LA where he lived with his family for most of the past 3 years. When he was straight and working on his academics he seldom wrote to me, but last year he started school at Humboldt State and started writing to me again. Then he started drinking again.

He said he was coming up from Arcata to see me and some of his other friends. When he didn't show up we thought, hell that's just Roger being flaky. He's probably in LA.

Tragedy struck in Albany, about 60 miles south of Portland, on March 22 at 9 p.m. A car hit him on I-5 and he died at the scene. He was travelling to Portland as he had promised.

Roger was funny and often brilliant. But he could be a drag when he drank heavily--like many folks, including myself. He was 41 and studying environmental engineering at HSU before dropping out after one semester.

People who knew Roger--really knew him--loved the man. He was often disparaged by his inferiors; those folks simply could not put up with him. Seems to be a common enough occurrence in life, doesn't it?

It is too bad. He was so much smarter than his critics. In this town he had plenty of those.

On a lighter note, look at this scene from CD's movie-in-progress. Funny, funny stuff.


TS