I first met Evan in 1985, making him perhaps my longest lasting friendship outside of family. This is not to say that I don't think of him as family. I know his parents, his wife, his brother, and so on.
We met in the 5th grade, I don't remember how. But as we would later discuss we were two new students with two new ways of life. In Traverse City at the time of moving I was popular and when I moved to EL I was not. I went from high to low, Evan did the reverse. I was into comic books and GI Joes. I can remember walking around the park at Whitehills Elementary school, back from the swampy pond, and I can remember Evan telling me that he liked GI Joes too. This was great as I think I was having a hard time understanding why alluva sudden I was a geek! That was then and this is now and here he is, holding my son.
He and his wife Nell, who also has appeared on this blog, got married in 1999 and I was pleased to be there. When Debbie and I got married and I was filling out who was to be in my party of men in suits the first name I thought of was Evan.
Together we have talked a lot, listened a lot, smoked a lot and so on and so forth.
When Josh got hurt five years ago the first person that I called to talk to was Evan. I was a wreck and he came up to hang out with me on that first Saturday Josh was in a coma. I'll never forget that.
And last year when I got word that Debbie was really pregnant he was the first person that I called to tell.
So yeah. I feel lucky to call him a friend.
Really we just hung out, had a couple of beers and jawed about this and that. I gave Debbie the phone number for a pizza place on West Saginaw by accident and we hopped into the Mustang like we did the last day of our Junior year of high school and set off to get it.
One constant to our friendship is the fact then when I have a camera, and Evan is around, I tend to catch him in a wacky expression that does not translate to film.
This, friends, is one of those images.
1 comment:
Look closely at number 4 down. It is so sweet!
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