He was unknown to you. But not to me. We were friends. Sort of.
Ours wasn’t a long lasting friendship, but we rode the school bus together. So I guess that made us friends.
He would save a seat for me; I would board the bus, walk the aisle, and plop on the cushion beside him.
He was funny. We laughed a lot. Some kids are just born to be funny.
He kept a journal of sketches. They were good. He could draw anything. And I remember when he trusted me enough to let me look through his journal. Inside were dozens of bald eagles.
“Why do you draw so many eagles?” I asked.
“‘Cause they’re cool, why else?”
He didn’t have many friends because he was shy, and shy people are like that. I was the same way.
Between the two of us we were so timid we squeaked. And if ever we saw each other outside the confines of the bus, we were even shy
around each other.
When he got a part in the school play, nobody was sure how it would go. The kid was so quiet he wouldn’t even raise a hand in class.
He was afraid to play football, he didn’t like baseball. He liked to read and draw instead.
Yet here he was playing Mayor Shinn in the Music Man.
I was in the musical, too. In fact, I played one of the guys in the barbershop quartet. Our quartet sang a song named “Sincere.”
I still remember the lyrics:
“How can there be any sin in sincere?
“Where is the good in goodbye?
“Your apprehensions confuse me dear,
“Puzzle and mystify...”
There are some things you don’t forget.
I was the bass singer for the group. Not because I actually sang bass, but because I was…