Joe – Again
On this date one year ago, one of this site’s earliest posts was about my childhood friend and his untimely – perhaps – death on this date in 1988. By common consensus, Joe was a f*up. I can’t/won’t deny it but we’d been friends for more than 20 years and I’m biased. He got himself into something ugly and didn’t survive. Suicide? Murder? At this point, what difference does it make?
But that was the past – water long under the bridge.
Fast forward about 10 years.
I was sitting in a bar with a friend – the Ace High in Golden, Colorado. The Ace High was as close to a dive bar as would be allowed on Washington St in downtown Golden. Many if not most of its clientele were Coors workers – the brewery was just a few blocks away. Coors was not a big seller there. Did I mention that I had once lived in an apartment above the bar? That’s OK, it’s not part of this story anyway.
Just as an aside, it appears downtown Golden has been highly gentrified since I lived there. Including the Ace High.
Ron and I were sitting back in a booth BS’ing about something not important when over by the pool tables, I swear I saw Joe doing his Joe thing around the table: taking on all comers, clearing the table, getting free beers as a result, and working his bedroom eyes on the waitresses.
Joe had died about 10 years earlier …
I swear it was Joe. I’ll swear it to my dying day. It looked like him, same hair, same face, same body. He was dressed like Joe, he acted liked Joe, he played pool like Joe. He flirted with the girls like Joe.
The girls reacted to him like it was Joe. We’d go into a place together and the girls would come to me asking how to meet him.
But this Joe didn’t know me and it was the first time ever I watched him as a stranger. I’d known the original since he was 13.
I couldn’t follow the conversation with Ron I was so distracted.
I swear I was watching Joe in action.
There’s not much to this tale. I didn’t walk up to see him up close – the pool table was maybe 10 feet away – but I watched him for about 20 minutes or so.
Ron & I finished our beers and left.
Of course I can rationalize this.
Maybe.
There’s more to this world than what rationalization can explain …
Watching the Mourning doves in the yard walking around
Posted
Thought I saw my ex-wife in Austin one evening. You can be damn sure it didn’t occur to me to find out for sure and you betcha I got out of there most ricky-tick, just in case.
Well anyway. I was taking a nap one Saturday after lunch when a buddy called and said he was surprised to hear me answer the phone. Why’s that, I asked. He wanted to know if I’d read the paper that morning and noticed anything peculiar. I said I’d glanced thru it, but nothing jumped out at me. He said, go take another look, but focus on the obituaries.
Now understand that I don’t have a particularly odd name but it’s not a common one like Jones or Smith, it’s really kinda few and far between. Yet there it was, my exact name correctly spelled, first, last, middle initial and suffix. Sumdood up in Northwest Kansas with whom I shared an exact name but who I’d never met or even heard of. Let me tell you, it’s very unsettling to read your own name in the obituaries.