I Wanna Be Sedated

This morning at 8:34am, my phone rang. I just got a new phone, and for some reason a lot of the names associated with phone numbers are no longer linked. So I wasn't sure who it was until I heard a deep voice carefully articulate just one letter:

"K."

"Hey Chief!" I answered, as my daughter wondered aloud: "Who's Chief?"

Although it is a different explanation than the one I gave my daughter, he is my best friend from high school, the man who long ago used to like to say to me: "Que sera, sera" and of course when he shortened it, he only needed the one letter. He is the man who wrote, in High School Journalism, a dueling editorial opposite mine (the year was 1988):

Bush or Bust was his; Dukakis: The Right Choice, was mine. This was after he'd chased me around the Journalism classroom with a pair of scissors until he finally managed to cut a lock of my hair. What did he do with this lock of hair, you ask? He carried it around in his wallet, naturally.

We spent a lot of late nights together, listened to a lot of music, and had a lot of fun. He always hoped we'd be rocking more than a friendship, but alas, I never gave in to that feeling. In a funny twist of fate, we ended up having both of our babies within weeks of each other.

A few years ago he emailed me and told me he'd dreamt about the awesome eulogy I gave at his funeral. And though I'd be happy to say it all then, if he goes before I do, I can just as easily say it now: I feel so fortunate to have the most loyal, loving, hilarious person from my high school, or any high school, for that matter, as my friend for all these years.

Here's just one of the tunes we enjoyed on all those late night drives -- we were partial to punk in those days -- and when the Ramones came on the radio this afternoon, I knew this had to be my pick.

We did want to be sedated, and we did a lot of self-sedating, in those days.

Hanx for the memories, Chief!