While out and about yesterday, doing that which I like least of all human activities, shopping, I entered an antique store filled with remnants of people's lives, each of the thousands of items with its own tale of love, tragedy, financial desperation, betrayal or death, kept silently beneath its surface. Once inside an older fellow, about my age I guessed, hollered at me from where he was seated in a comfortable chair toward the back of the store. He was dressed casually in a jaunty Harris Tweed hat and a sweater. I guessed him to be there a bit reluctantly, maybe filling in for the wife.
As I nosed about the shop we started a dialogue common to old men who believe they are in the company of someone whom they do not immediately dislike. We chatted the "where ya froms, whadya do, ya a Bison? bits when I focused on a display case filled with intriguing shapes, forms and colors. The more we chatted, the more we seemed to be like a pair of divergent guided missiles homing in on the same moment in time. And eventually there came the explosion. He and I attended NDSU at the same moment in time, both English majors involved with the identical faculty. I thought I'd try a mutual good friend question.
Didya know Bob Maier? I asked.
Bob Maier? Yeah, he was a really good friend. We worked together a bunch in theatre. He, John Winklemann and I.
He was my best man, I said. Our wedding singer too. He died a few years back, tragically young in my estimation. Pulled off a freeway ramp in the Seattle area and parked in an adjacent area and succumbed to a heart attack. God he was so young, I said, one old man to another, and ambled toward the front door.
As I nosed about the shop we started a dialogue common to old men who believe they are in the company of someone whom they do not immediately dislike. We chatted the "where ya froms, whadya do, ya a Bison? bits when I focused on a display case filled with intriguing shapes, forms and colors. The more we chatted, the more we seemed to be like a pair of divergent guided missiles homing in on the same moment in time. And eventually there came the explosion. He and I attended NDSU at the same moment in time, both English majors involved with the identical faculty. I thought I'd try a mutual good friend question.
Didya know Bob Maier? I asked.
Bob Maier? Yeah, he was a really good friend. We worked together a bunch in theatre. He, John Winklemann and I.
He was my best man, I said. Our wedding singer too. He died a few years back, tragically young in my estimation. Pulled off a freeway ramp in the Seattle area and parked in an adjacent area and succumbed to a heart attack. God he was so young, I said, one old man to another, and ambled toward the front door.
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