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Disclaimer: some of the names in this post have been changed, sort of, to protect the bipolar.
It started last spring.
My dear old friend Butch, a guy I grew up with in the suburbs of Detroit, now well into middle age and living in Texas, got a wild hair up his ass.
Butch was born in Texas but as a child, moved with his family to the Detroit area, land of belching smokestacks, 25 degrees below zero winters and the beating heart of Rock ‘n Roll.
To say that Butch (and I) grew up in Detroit is a bit like saying Iggy Pop grew up. We spent our most malleable years there but I’m not really sure any of us in Detroit actually became wise, mature, responsible adults. We did grow taller, started shaving, lost our virginity and then, our naiveté. But as decades flew by I think most of us remained just kids with the same insecurities, neuroses and obnoxious habits we had in high school. Most of us, like Iggy, with a propensity toward addiction.
So, sometime around 1977 Butch aimed his pea-soup-colored Datsun southwest and put ice storms, industrial-hell-on-earth cityscapes and his maladjusted circle of friends in his rear-view mirror, forever.
Well, almost forever.
After spending a few decades irrigating golf courses in the Phoenix area Butch found himself back in Texas, this time as the single parent of a teen-aged, skateboard riding, mini-me named Ron.
Butch and Ron are best buds now. Butch buys Ron’s breakfast, takes him on airplane rides to places like Los Angeles and turns him on to other things that stirred his soul growing up, like the sound of a stratocaster and the smooth ride of a Cadillac STS.
And Ron is teaching Butch a thing or two, such as what the word iPhone means or the “noun” Ass Knife (When you mess up a trick and the board comes up and sticks you in the butt. “Dude Josh looked like he was enjoying that ass knife.”)
Oh, and Facebook.