365 # 39: Robert H.

You and me, buddy, we were partners in this thing called rock and roll. You behind the drums and me on guitar. Other players stepped in every now and then to add a little bass or maybe a second guitar, but you and I formed the core of the group, the band that we never quite got around to naming. We rocked so hard that we once drove your dogs to run away from home. Ooh shit, your mom was pissed. Lucky for us she caught them.

We originally met because we were both tech theater dorks in high school. I ran lights and you held things down on the audio. The cast for each play changed, but it was always us behind those consoles keeping shit tight. Being immature high school kids, we partnered up in an ongoing onslaught against our theater teacher's sanity. We weren't the only troublemakers in her class, but we seemed to get away with more than most, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that we were the only ones who knew how to use the lighting and sound equipment. Running tech for a play involves a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, which meant you and I spent hours talking. Didn't take long to become friends.

Random memory: you had that crappy old VW Beetle with the hole in the floor under the passenger's seat, which I discovered one day when you ran over a puddle and I got drenched. You laughed your ass off.

So we did some theater together and played some music together, and that's all nifty and everything, but what I'm having a hard time with now is finding a smooth segue into talking about how you were one of my absolute best friends back then. I don't have any smoother way of saying it than that. And not that you needed to prove it, but you most certainly did later on after high school when I went and got myself into all that trouble, and you were there, along with Amy and Diane, to help me see sense. In fact, you were the one to start the conversation, to basically say, "look man, we need to talk about this, and we need to do it now."

Aside to readers: apologies for yet another post featuring vague allusions like the ones in the paragraph above. Perhaps more elaboration will be forthcoming later, but then again, perhaps not.

Anyway man, we haven't seen each other in years, but if you ever want to get the band back together, gimme a shout. Or maybe I'll give you one.