I share this with my friends who read this blog

This is personal.

I just learned that a friend of mine died over the weekend. This is somebody I’ve known for almost 40 years. We started at the DJ within a week of one another, in the same position as editors. It turned out that we were sort of cut from the same cloth. He was one of the smartest people I have ever met, and also one of the funniest. He’s the guy who came up with the line, “If you were smarter, I’d be funnier.” Actually, he came up with a lot of lines, but that was probably the best. We ate lunch together all the time, played poker every month, golfed for a while every week. After about 20 years I realized that he was a neocon, and was rather shocked, because other than that he had seemed so normal.

Losing anyone leaves a hole in one’s life. We’ve all lost family or friends, and as we age, the number of losses grows. My friend died of a heart attack; he had just celebrated his 66th birthday. He and his wife had just moved to Rhode Island for their retirement.

I have no message to relay. At the moment I’m sort of stunned. I was just talking to him about some freelance work a couple of weeks ago. I simply want to say here that having him as a friend was an important part of my life, and his passing is a sad milestone.

RIP.