a good friend

I have a good friend from my days in Connecticut with AT&T dating back some 14 years ago. Bob Breau worked in our media center and was in charge of compiling our "raw" drafts and customer information into polished, bound proposals complete with the customer's logo and beautiful charts and graphics he created. Bob has been and always will be a very interesting fellow. He reads voraciously and has many interests ranging from music to nature to science, to just about anything you can name. In fact, I cannot think of an area of human endeavor that Bob has not explored to some extent. We have maintained contact throughout the years via e-mail and his e-mails are always packed with interesting tidbits. He has sent photos as well as sound clips taking full advantage of technology to share information. There are times when I will prompt him to send more information by asking innocently if anything interesting is going on in his neck of the woods. He never disappoints.

Several years ago, when we were in the CT area scouting colleges for my daughter, Bob made a distinct effort to connect up with us to spend some time together with me and my family. On our trip to Maine last week, Bob drove 200 miles to meet up with us once more. Of course, he does have a sister who lives not far from Portland, so he did have lodging, meals and the chance to visit his sister as well, but nonetheless, I am grateful and touched he would extend himself in such a maner. I have "friends" nearby who probably would not even deign to drive me to the airport in a pinch.

We spent the good part of a day exploring the city of Portland together and catching up. We shared a couple of moments of hilarity, one involving a very odd, but colorful clerk at a local hardware store whom we encountered again on the street many blocks from his place of employ. The clerk could have easily been a character in the movie "Ghost World." Bob commented it was almost as if he had been hired as an extra for a movie we were in and he was asked to double as a passerby for the street scene in addition to his role as sales clerk. Reviewing this, here on the computer screen, it isn't as funny as it was at that moment. You had to be there.

In any event, I wanted to acknowledge Bob's friendship and thank him for keeping in touch all of these years. Thanks, Bob! You da MAN!