Best Friends

Copyright Iconfinder.com

Who Is Your Best Friend?

Who is your best friend, beyond your family?  If you're like me, your definition of a best friend has changed over the years.  Is it the person you spend the most time with or maybe the person who's been your biggest supporter or even the person you've known the longest?  Is it the person with whom you most closely identify, the person you're most alike?  Or is it maybe that one person, despite being so different from you, who has stayed in your life regardless of everything that's passed?

Is your best friend still alive, or, sadly, has your best friend already died?

For the purpose of this essay, I'm intentionally discounting the deep friendship I've developed with my wife and companionship I've had with my dogs.  I'm very fortunate that my best friend over the last twenty years has been my spouse, but, of course, that relationship has had the advantage of physical closeness, shared responsibilities, and all the benefits of being married.  The constancy and closeness I've felt with my dogs is not uncommon between dog owners and their pets.  At any one moment you might claim that your dog or cat is your best friend, but that's a reflection of the shared, remarkable love you have with that animal.

One thing I've learned is that I've had many, many best friends in my life, maybe as many as 30 or 40.  My step-son, Hal, at the age of ten, once said to me, "You'll talk to anyone, won't you?"  That was a very honest, insightful moment, after I'd stopped to talk with a stranger in a shopping mall.  Hal's the person who first alerted me to the fact that I've always been very social, that I'm naturally interested in most people--who they are, what they do, what they enjoy, and where they're going.  My assumption with anyone is that they're basically good and well-meaning, although I can be persuaded otherwise.

Because it's always been my inclination to approach others and begin conversations, usually with some sort of common interest, I've simply met thousands of people I may not have otherwise met, and some of those people have become best friends.  But along with that habit, at least since I moved to California in 1976 and began developing friendships from doing things, rather than talking, I've had a lot of interests and hobbies, and that has sometimes had the adverse effect of meeting new people while leaving others behind.  It's the people who I have not left behind that I think of as my very best friends.

Early in my life, longevity played no part in identifying who my best friend was.  I could consider someone my best friend after knowing them for two weeks.  You could meet someone and suddenly find that you really, really liked the person, whereby you'd decide to spend all your time with them and anoint them as your best friend.  If you both liked baseball cards, for instance, you might spend an inordinate amount of time together with your collections.  In a way, when you are young, it's easy to determine your best friend; it is almost always the person with whom you spend the most time.  I know that was true for me until I left home for college.

On that occasion, two things happened simultaneously.  For the first time in my life, I was not only away from my current best friends much of the time, but I was suddenly surrounded by many other potential best friends as I had new experiences.  Cultivating relationships became a different process.  While beginning to take on adult responsibilities, especially in light of the fact that my dad died when I was nineteen, I also began to evaluate friendships differently.

When you're young, your palette of experiences is limited.  You don't have developed beliefs, nor do you have tastes and preferences which have withstood the test of time.  If you meet someone before college and begin seeing a lot of that person, that's usually enough to qualify for "best friend" status.  However, in today's social media world, spending a lot of time with one person who you label as your best friend is fairly rare.  In a race for the most friends, finding that one special person may be a lot more difficult these days.

When you reach the period in your life when you focus on preparing for a career or, if you don't go to college, looking for your first job, your life enters a new, steady routine and focus.  Your time is more valuable, because the stakes are higher.  Your efforts must contribute to the goal of (eventually) earning money.  As your life goals develop, most people mature in how they choose their friends.

I've probably had at least 25 serious interests and activities in my life, and with almost every interest I've found certain people who I really wanted to know very well.  The people who have lasted are the ones who have shown, over and over again, that they care about (and have time for) me!

Concentric Circles Of Friendship

It was many years ago that a concept about friendship came to me in a dream.  No kidding!  I had been preoccupied with a basic question: Is there a way to categorize how close we are to someone?  We use the term "best friend" so loosely, and although I have long thought that, in different contexts, we can have many best friends, is there a way I might appreciate and distinguish one friendship from another?

From this dream (or maybe it was just a half-dream where I was ruminating about friendships), the concept of "concentric circles of friendship" emerged.  For some reason, I immediately came up with seven as the number of concentric circles, and I've stayed with that number from the start.  The circles are concentric because, as you move from the outer circle toward the innermost circle, the friendship represents a more profound closeness.  The outer circle has the most people, and each successive circle has fewer people than the previous circle.

So, if a "friend" is someone I would want to spend time getting to know, and vice-versa, here are my seven concentric circles of friendship:

People I've Never Met.  There are probably many millions of people I would want to get to know, if I only had the time and means to meet them.  These people are complete strangers.

People I've Only Met.  These potential friends are not total strangers, because I've met them, but I don't know their names or anything much about them.  This person might be a grocery clerk or a UPS delivery person or a neighbor with a dog.  Knowing this person would require an introduction.

Acquaintances.  I know these people but don't spend any appreciable time with them.  Not only have we been introduced, but I know some things about them.  These people might be neighbors I see frequently or be friends of friends.

Casual Friends.  These are people I've spent time with and know to some degree.  They are either people I haven't known for a long time, haven't seen frequently, or haven't conversed with deeply.  This might be a tennis partner or a co-worker.

Good Friends.  People I know well and have had deeper conversations with fall into this special group.  After knowing this person for a while, I can ask "How are you really doing?" or "What's bothering you?"  I've known a person like this for at least six months usually.  We have common interests and/or history together.

Best Friends.  This essay is mostly about best friends--those rare friendships which have lasted for decades and continue to grow.  I not only know these people very well, but it's hard to imagine my life without them.  They have contributed greatly to the person I am.

Kindred Spirits.  We used to refer to this type of friend as a "soul mate," but I like "kindred spirit."  It's a best friend with whom you're connected on some spiritual level, where you can be apart for a long period of time and instantly reconnect when you see them.

As I thought more and more about the concentric circles of friendship, I began adding my own rules and observations.  A person you meet could progress from the first level all the way to the seventh, inner circle, even skipping a level or two.  They could move from being an acquaintance to a good friend to a kindred spirit, for instance.  To a small extent, the reverse is also possible, where a best friend can go back to being a good friend or even just a casual friend over time.

It comes down to how much time and effort you put into a friendship--and how "in tune" you are with that person.  To me, that's the beautiful thing about friendships.  A person can enter my circle of acquaintances, and yet I'll feel an "in tune" affinity with them, knowing that, if we put in the time and effort, we'll progress from one circle to the next.

Best Friends and Kindred Spirits

I have many people on my "Best Friends" list, all of whom I've known since at least 1981--almost 40 years as of this writing.  There are many people I've met since then who have become very close friends, but the people I usually think of as best friends are the ones who I've known for a very long time and with whom I've shared deep interests.

Looking at my list of best friends, I realize that we share other things in common.  Those people I've stayed closest to share my values about humanity and, thus, our politics.  When we talk, we don't bump up against subjects that are forbidden; we are completely open with each other.  Our opinions and beliefs may differ a little bit, but our values are the same.  If I had it to do over again, I would still choose each and every one as a best friend.

A word should be said about the women on my list, because there are fewer women than men.  I have always found it more difficult to have a "best friend" relationship with a woman once she is married, especially if I had some type of romantic relationship with her at a time before she married.  That seems quite natural to me, especially if, as I've experienced many times, the woman has moved out of the Bay Area, and I could no longer see her.  Where friendships with men didn't require that we live in the same area to maintain closeness, parting from women friends often led to gradually losing touch, as we "go on with our own lives" with our partners.  Still, I value those old friendships deeply.

I'd like to tell you a little about each person on my "best friends and kindred spirits" list.  For each person I've added, in brackets, the main interest(s) we've shared and the year we met.  I could easily add ten or fifteen people to this list, but I've tried to limit the list to those with whom I've shared very substantial interests.  Coincidentally, I've also learned things from each one of these dear friends, which is maybe a substantial part of friendship, so I end each profile with a brief summary of what I've learned.  Here are the men and women on my "Best Friends and Kindred Spirits" list, in order by the year we met.


Lenny Schmeltzer [baseball, bikes, golf] [1954]. Len was my first best friend.  I always called him Lenny when I was a kid, as did all his other friends.  We met in kindergarten and stayed together in elementary school through fifth grade, after which my family moved to another part of town.  After that Len and I played golf a lot in the summers and saw each other during holidays sometimes, but by high school we had mostly drifted apart.

Len and I both loved the New York Yankees and playing baseball, so that's what mostly brought us together in our early years.  We lived six blocks apart and rode our bikes constantly to see each other.  I also remember his family's phone number from my childhood; he was the first person I ever called on the telephone!

There were six kids in his family--five boys and a girl--and I remember all of the family fairly well.  His mom and dad were always very good to me.  I even remember his mom's parents, the Ginestras, who would occasionally come to watch Len and me on our little league baseball team, the Waller Tailors.  Len could hit a baseball a country mile and was a superb left fielder on the team.

We were inseparable for those early years.  I remember his infectious laugh and easy-going personality.  He'd stick up for me, and I'd stick up for him in any boyhood argument among friends.  There was also another formative aspect to our friendship: he was Catholic and I was Jewish, so we naturally learned to respect each other's religion, without being instructed.  Well, okay, I was a bit confused that he couldn't eat meat on Fridays, and he was probably confused why, if we were Jewish, we still celebrated Christmas with a tree.  It strikes me that our diversity was our strength as much as our similarities were.

We were so close that, in 1962, our two families vacationed together at a lake in Wisconsin for a week, with swimming, boating, sports, and lots of kids driving the adults crazy.  It was the only time our family ever vacationed with another family, and it was a blast.

I lost touch with Len after he headed to Northwestern University and I went to the University of Illinois, but in late 2019, after searching on the internet for years, I finally found him again!  He is a retired optometrist and was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I called and left a message for him on his 70th birthday, August 22, since I had remembered his birth date after all those years.  Len now lives in Durango, Colorado, and we have renewed our lifetime friendship.  When travel allows us, we will see each other again!

From Len, I learned the basics of friendship--sharing activities, communicating, competing with, and confiding in.  I also learned to accept and embrace our differences in religion and ancestry--my first exposure to diversity!

Len and I during Christmas vacation, circa 1965.

The Group [ROTC, rifle team, folk music, very long talks] [1965].  In tenth grade, I joined ROTC and grew very close to five other guys--Howard Fry, Jon Stafford, Cecil Germann, Joe Sharp, and Dave Billingham.  We were so close, in fact, that we became known as The Group.  Our parents, relatives, teachers, and friends knew us by that name.

I'd known Howard since 1962, and for three years he was my best friend.  As with Len Schmeltzer, Howard and I played baseball together all the time.  He rooted for the Chicago White Sox, so there was a healthy competition between us, because I was a devoted Yankees fan.  Howard and I both joined ROTC, and I soon met the other guys who were to become The Group.  In retrospect, it all happened so fast.

Cecil, Joe, Dave, and I tried out for our tenth-grade rifle team.  We so much loved that endeavor that we became fast friends.  Joe and Jon were close friends, so Jon joined The Group, and Howard was invited to join because I knew him well.  Another activity that drew Cecil, Jon, Dave, and me together was our budding love of folk music.  All four of us attended a local coffeehouse, Heather On The Moor, to listen to live folk music on Saturday nights.  That's the coffeehouse where my sister, Sue, first sang and played guitar.  Each of the guys, in turn, dated her for a short time.

In addition to folk music and ROTC activities, the six of us became best friends for a number of other reasons.  We all got our driver's licenses and borrowed our parents' cars, so we could visit each guy's home and meet his family frequently.  We were all fortunate enough to have both parents alive and at home, and we all had at least one sibling.  Dave's mom was the only mom who had a professional career; she was a psychologist.

Along with solid family environments, we were the good, innocent kids right out of Happy Days.  We frequented our favorite drive-in restaurant, Dog 'N Suds, and we always had our radios tuned to Chicago's best top-40's station, WLS.  Those were the days of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Motown, the British Rock Invasion, Peter and Gordon, Chad and Jeremy, Bob Dylan, and a hundred more musical icons.  The time and setting were perfect for what The Group did best--talk to each other.

Our talks were monumental, and they were unusual because of our shared willingness to be honest and vulnerable with each other.  We'd talk about girls, music, beliefs, the Vietnam War, religion, love, school, social problems, and everything else.  On any particular night, some combination of the six of us would get together.  We didn't drink, smoke, or get in trouble, which was unusual for a large group of kids.  We had a universal signal of affection when we'd drive past each other's house--three short beeps on the horn.  Our parents and all our neighbors knew that anthem.

We did invite a seventh kid, Marty Miller, to join The Group, but he had his own circle of friends and only occasionally joined us.  That was probably for the better, because the six of us were so tight as a group that a seventh person would have upset the balance.  When we graduated from high school, Dave, Howard, and I went away to college, and Cecil and Jon went into the military right away.  Joe decided to stay in Rockford and go to a community college.  Eventually all six of us had attended a four-year college.

The night before I left for college, the six of us went to a restaurant, sad about what we thought would be a bittersweet, late-night dinner before going our separate ways.  One of us said something that seemed completely nonsensical, and I responded with another off-the-wall comment.  For the next twenty minutes we added to our shared, make-believe story, which all the people around us could hear: we were six friends traveling from coast to coast (the restaurant was on a toll road), and a series of hysterical events had occurred in our travels together.  With each comment about what we'd run into along the way, we fought harder to keep from laughing.  Finally, when one of us mentioned Jon's deaf parrot in the car, waiting for a hamburger, we all lost it.  (Now that I describe it, this was like a scene out of Monty Python.)

In the years that The Group was close, which lasted into the middle 1970's, I can honestly say that each of the five guys was, at one time or another, my very best friend.  Dave and Howard were best friends in Chicago.  Jon and Joe raced cars together and were best friends.  I wrote a song called Three Friends about Cecil, Jon, and me.

As we got older and our interests changed, so did our politics.  I am closest to Dave now, because we're both quite progressive in our views.  Jon and Joe have moved further to the right, and Howard is somewhere in the middle.  Cecil was always the most unpredictable person in The Group,  but we were "blood brothers," as he would say.  I wrote a song about Cecil, called We Were That Way Then, in 2010, not long after he committed suicide.  It was the most unexpected loss in my life.

I keep The Group on my Best Friends list because, for many years, when the term "best friend" was mentioned, I'd think of these five guys first.  We grew up together, went to each other's weddings, and were the first ones to hear about the birth of a child.  I remember one night in the early 1970's, when I was home for the summer, that Cecil, Jon, and I got together and literally talked all night--for over ten hours straight.  We saw the moon rise that night and watched the sun rise the next morning.  When I rolled into bed at 8:00 am, it was hard to sleep; there was still more to say to them.

From the Group, I learned camaraderie within a bunch of guys, expressing one's deepest feelings as we eased through our teenage years into adulthood.

The Group (front: Howard and Jon; back: Marty, Cecil, Dave, and I; absent: Joe) on high school graduation day, 1967.

The Group (l to r: Cecil, Dave, Jon, I, and Joe; absent: Howard) at our 20th high school reunion, 1987.

Marty Olson [college roommates, sports, families] [1967].  When I moved away from home and started college at the University of Illinois, I initially had a roommate who was a fifth-year senior studying architecture, so I didn't see him very often.  Our dorm floor had 65 men living in fairly close quarters, and most of those guys were good athletes, whip smart, and friendly.  It wasn't long before I met Marty Olson, who was a sophomore.  He was an all-around good guy--very athletic, outgoing, and funny.  The card game of choice for our dorm floor was pinochle, so Marty and I became partners at the pinochle table, and we became roommates the second half of my freshman year.

One thing that drew us together is that Marty was majoring in math with a computer science minor, and I was gravitating in that direction--a year behind him.  In fact, after hearing about the computer science programming class Marty was taking, it was settled.  Following in his academic footsteps was one of the best choices I ever made in my life.

After that first semester, Marty and I were roommates in the dorm for another year and a half, and then we shared an apartment with two other guys for his last semester before graduating.  He and I did dozens of things together in those years--lots of movies, concerts, sporting events, and parties.  We talked a lot and confided in each other; he was the one and only person on our dorm floor who knew that my father was terminally ill, and he even met my dad not long before he died.  That meant a lot to me.

I always looked up to Marty in sports, because he was naturally gifted in just about everything.  We've played softball, volleyball, basketball, and golf together.  He was always someone you wanted on your team.

The thing I associate with Marty the most is that he's always been a model family man.  I met his parents, brothers, and sister at their summer vacation home in Door County, Wisconsin.  All the boys were good athletes, so I remember the rough basketball games in their driveway.  Marty married his college sweetheart, Cathy Moore, and they have three great kids, and those kids have made Marty and Cathy proud grandparents many times over.

Like me, Marty was a computer systems analyst for his entire career.  Following in his footsteps turned out quite well for me.  Our friendship has never wavered; we've been best friends for over 50 years.  He and Cathy have always lived in Illinois but travel extensively to spend time with their kids and grandchildren.  I'll always think of Marty as one of the really good guys in my life.

From Marty, I learned what I really wanted to do in my career--be a computer analyst.  I also learned many things about being and having a roommate; Marty was the best roommate!

Marty and I at a San Francisco hotel, during his visit in 2007.

Rich Warren [folk music, performance] [1969].  I met Rich Warren in the second half of 1969, but it wasn't until the Red Herring Fall Folk Festival in 1970 that we got to be really good friends.  When the Herring presented folk festivals, Rich was always the emcee, and occasionally he'd even host the concert live on the university's radio station, WPGU.  There were tons of musicians and songwriters who wanted to play at the Red Herring, but there was only one Rich Warren--a non-musician who probably knew more about folk music than anyone else on campus.

Rich began working in radio when he was a teenager.  He was from the Chicago area and would often visit the city's classical and folk music station, WFMT.  In 1983, Rich became the part-time host of the station's famous folk program, The Midnight Special, which is the longest running folk music program in the country.  He became the sole host in 1996, and he launched the station's live concert series, Folkstage, in 1994.  He has hosted many hundreds of concerts over the years.  Rich retired from The Midnight Special after his last show on Saturday, July 25, 2020.

I think what first drew me to Rich was his stark frankness.  He could be honest and direct to a fault, which was unusual for many of the people I met in those years.  When he said a song was good, he wasn't mincing words, and when he said a song was okay, you'd want to go back to the drawing board to make it better.  From the beginning I respected Rich's opinions; he may not have been a musician, but he was the best of music critics.  He knew what made a performer appealing and what made a song great.

In those first couple of years, Rich did not have a driver's license, so I often volunteered to drive him places, especially to concerts at the Quiet Knight in Chicago.  Truth is, I really soaked up folk music knowledge from him.  He was a walking encyclopedia of Chicago folk music, and he introduced me to several of those folk heroes, such as Steve Goodman and the Holstein brothers.

Of all the concerts I attended with Rich, perhaps the most memorable was a non-concert featuring Loudin Wainwright III at the Quiet Knight.  Due to a terrible blizzard, the crowd at showtime amounted to all of ten people, so Wainwright asked if we might sit around in a circle (in the club) and play songs.  After he sang a few of his songs, he started passing his guitar around, and two or three of us sang our own songs.  I got to sing my song Morning Grey to Loudin Wainwright III, and Rich was right there next to me!

When I co-founded the group, The Ship, in early 1971, Rich was our biggest fan and supporter.  He did more for the group than any other person.  In a world where insecurity and lack of confidence can easily derail a performer, Rich was our buoy in the performance sea.  If you knew Rich Warren, you were readily accepted in the performance world.  When The Ship got back together in 2008 for a reunion concert at the Red Herring, we were invited by Rich to give a concert on Folkstage, and we were overjoyed.  That's where we really wanted to play.  The Ship gave its last concert on his show in June, 2009.  Here's a photo from just after that live show, which was broadcast to many thousands of people.

The Ship with Rich Warren (orange shirt) after our last concert (2009).

When Rich moved back to Chicago in the mid-1970's, we lost touch for several years.  That was a common occurrence in my life, after I moved to California in 1976.  By the late 1980's we had rekindled our friendship, and we've been very close since then.  He tries to visit the Bay Area every year, and so I've seen Rich more often than any of my other best friends over the years.

Our talks still can occupy hours.  We talk about old friends, the state of the world, and, inevitably, music.  Oh, and about our dogs, too.  Rich is a dog person, like me.  We also keep in touch with frequent emails, so we always know what the other is doing, how they're feeling, our highs and lows.  Of all the people I've known in my life, Rich Warren may be the most dependable person of all.  That is really no exaggeration.  It is a very strong trait upon which to build a lifelong friendship!

From Rich, I learned about folk music--performers, songs, influences, connections, recordings.  He has brought more music into my life than any other person.

Rich and I visiting at my home during his annual visit, 2019.

Debby Reese-Stephens [music, literature, English language] [1970].  I met Debby on January 27, 1970, which was a very cold, snowy day in Rockford, Illinois.  She walked into the used bookstore and poster shop where I was working during semester break, and after helping her with her purchase, I asked if she'd like to get a cup of coffee at the diner nearby.  I was immediately attracted to her, and we talked for a couple of hours.  (So much for my job at the poster shop!)

Debby was on semester break from Northern Illinois University, and I was on break from the University of Illinois.  The two schools are about 150 miles apart, so dating was complicated by the distance, but our friendship blossomed, no matter what the distance.  We'd see each other when we were both home in Rockford at the same time, which was rare, or when Debby traveled down to Champaign-Urbana to visit.

We both remember pieces of our first conversation that snowy winter day.  We talked almost exclusively about music and literature, because that's what we were both interested in.  Debby was an English major (and an art minor) at NIU, and I was an English minor at U of I.  Since we were both impoverished students and social media didn't exist, our main means of communication was letter-writing.  I would often hibernate in the back of the very small English library in Champaign and research Kafka or Lawrence while writing a letter to Debby.  Many short stories and novels were discussed between us in that fashion.

Often, however, the subject of our letters centered around music.  There was so much to talk about.  I introduced her to the music of Gordon Lightfoot and Dan Fogelberg.  (As it turned out, I actually introduced her to both of them in person.  See my article in Twelve Stories about meeting Gordon Lightfoot with Debby.)  In turn, Debby introduced me to the music of Mary Chapin Carpenter.  We both adored the music of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

I was a beginning songwriter in 1970, and Debby was my muse.  Many songs and my folk opera, The Ship, were inspired by her.  Deb has always confessed to having a wanderlust that is unquenchable, and I've always marveled at that aspect of her life.  Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Rockford area, Deb has spent most of her adult life in Arizona and California, but I've received letters from her that were posted in several other states.  I often thought of Debby when I wrote about other places in my songs.

Debby's eleventh-grade English teacher wrote the following comment on an essay Deb wrote: "You'd be a great English teacher!"  And, so, Deb became exactly that.  She and I have always shared an immense love of the English language.  We would joke about grammar and usage and style and tense, and, truth be told, she was always too critical of herself if she used a cliche or phrase that others might use but was beneath her standards.  I'd chide her a little, and my admiration would grow.

When I visited her once in Kearny, a small town on the Gila River in Arizona, I went to watch her teach one of her English classes.  She was the high school literature teacher I only found when I reached college.  She told me that many of her students thought of her as "Misery" Stephens, rather than Ms. Reese-Stephens, because she pushed them so hard.  The "evil red pen" was her dearest ally.  If she knew a kid could do better, she wouldn't accept mediocrity from them.

Recently Debby shared a letter she'd received from an ex-student, who had attended Deb's high school Senior English class many years ago.  I was truly stunned.  Not only did the letter describe an extraordinary teacher, which I already knew was true, but it perfectly captured the view I have of my dear friend--and have always had.  I take this great liberty to quote parts of the letter, without asking her permission:

"I wasn't ready to think deeply.  I just wanted to get by doing the least possible.  But that wasn't enough for you.  You wouldn't accept my work if it wasn't up to par.  You made me re-do countless assignments because you thought I could do better.  You were a colossal pain, and as I look back on it now, I am forever grateful....I often wondered if you were curious about how I was able to make it through not only a Bachelor's and Master's program, but also a Doctoral program.  Me.  The one who was a fraud.  The one who didn't read....I didn't realize it at the time, but you taught me not to settle for mediocrity, especially from myself."  This "open letter to my high school English teacher" was written by a woman who is now the superintendent of an elementary school district in Arizona.  Deb has changed generations of lives in her teaching.

Deb and I have always shared the ability to kid each other, to offer levity to any conversation.  On the rare times we are able to see each other, we always, in the course of the conversation, use one word that brings back a very funny scene between us many years ago.  I was doing a crossword and lounging near her swimming pool in Kearny, when the following exchange took place:

  Steve:  What's a four-letter word for 'debatable?'
Debby:  Oh, that's a moot point.
  Steve:  What do you mean?  It's right here; the clue is 'debatable.'
Debby:   It's 'moot.'
  Steve:  So why is it moot?
Debby:   That's the answer!
  Steve, after long pause:  Oh.  (much laughter)

Debby is one of those kindred spirits who I was lucky to find on a snowy day in 1970.  Every year she sends me a unique birthday card that she's created.  Every year for the last fifty years!

From Debby, I learned the valuable art of transitioning from a romantic relationship into being lifelong friends.  I also learned, more than from anyone, how to laugh at myself.

Debby and I in San Diego, February, 2020.

Nancy Niedermayer [politics, conversations] [1971].  Nancy and I traced the beginning of our friendship to the summer of 1970.  I met her sister, Lynn, in a college English class--a short-story course taught by Paul Friedman (see the article about him in Meetings With Remarkable People).  Lynn and I had spent a lot of time together during the spring of 1970, which were the days of Kent State, college strikes, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.  When I paid a surprise visit to her family home in Berkeley, Illinois, that summer, Lynn had commitments with other friends, so her "chatty, friendly" younger sister, Nancy, joined in the conversation, and Nancy and I then spent the afternoon together in Chicago.

Nancy is the exception to my statement that I've always shared specific activities with best friends, for we have never lived anywhere close to each other, nor have we even seen each other that many times. What has been constant are the letters, holiday cards, and emails between us.  I think more than with anyone else, when I read her letters and emails, I can still hear her distinct voice and the way she expresses herself.  We have not seen each other since 1978, but she is still unique and important in my life.

Nancy went to Northern Illinois University and majored in elementary education, with a minor in math.  Her education program was an experimental one with more focus on non-traditional classrooms, such as multi-age and open classes.  She claims that she never learned how to write a lesson plan but could recite The Little Prince by heart.  Through several job changes, she is now a part-time instructor for Ann Arbor Sylvan Learning Center.  When I asked her what ages of students she has taught, her answer was basically, "Well, everyone--kids from 4 to 18 and adults in reading, math, SAT-prep, writing, or whatever they needed in private tutoring."

She also spent 25 years as a waitress, which she loved.  She would often substitute teach during the day and waitress at night.  Nancy always really liked and was curious about people.  After all, that's what drew me to her--her unabashed willingness to step in one Sunday afternoon when her sister was busy.  She could converse easily with anyone, which must have been invaluable in all her work.

While in college she partook in various political and women's cause protests.  When we first met, I was compiling my conscientious objector file for an appeal to the draft board (which was successful in the spring of 1971), and Nancy was immensely interested in the process.  Had the country drafted women at that time, I'm sure she would have gone through the same application.

Nancy has always had a way of communicating in our letters which I find witty and compassionate, with a dose of "keep you in your place" cynicism.  That's why we've stayed best friends for so long: she never takes herself or anybody else too seriously, but she's always maintained her integrity and constant caring for others.  That's a very tricky balance to achieve.

Sometimes staying best friends with someone takes a lot of work in adjusting to each other's changes, life events, arrivals, and departures.  Nancy's friendship has stayed constant.  She has that special talent of being able to share her deepest thoughts in one sentence and to make me burst out laughing in the next.

Recently I wished her a happy birthday in a long email, and she responded in kind, while claiming to have "legally changed" her birth date.  I wouldn't be surprised if she were the first person to figure out how to do that.  She was kidding, I think.

[I do not have a photo of Nancy, although I'm sure she would be fine with me posting a photo of anyone.]

From Nancy, I learned the importance of questioning authority and the freedom of being a bit of a rebel.  I also learned the subtle art of cynicism.


Les Urban [songwriting, performing, Monday Night Football] [1970].  Les Urban and I met at the Red Herring Coffeehouse in early September, 1970.  Although I had probably watched him perform solo several times before that, I distinctly remember him encouraging me to join in coffeehouse jam sessions when I first brought my new Martin 12-string guitar to the gatherings.  From the very beginning of our friendship until present day, he has remained one of the nicest, most caring people I've ever known.

As I describe at length in my article, Life In The Middle Lane, Les was one of the original members of the folk rock group, Appaloosa.  Both of us were songwriters who practically lived at the Red Herring (well, actually, we both did live at the Red Herring for periods of time), and we knew each other's songs well.  By 1975, Appaloosa was a country rock/bluegrass band, and Les and our mutual friend, Glenn Levinson, asked me to join the group that year.  It was the most fun I ever had playing music.  Les spent countless hours bringing me up to speed on Appaloosa's 50 songs, and he taught me how to play and sing through a rock band's sound system.

Although I had stopped playing music after leaving my first band, The Ship, in March, 1973, Les was the one person with whom I stayed in constant touch.  During football season, Les and I would get together every week to watch Monday Night Football, and our close friendship grew and grew.  We are both die-hard Chicago Bears fans.  In early 1975, Les showed up at my door one night and convinced me to "come out of musical retirement," by performing a set of my own songs at the Red Herring the following week.  He knew my performing days were not over yet, even if I thought they were.  Three months later I joined Appaloosa.

What I remember about Les is that he was always there, always ready to talk out something that was on my mind.  Our communication was never better than when we were on stage together during an Appaloosa concert.  I always stood next to Les on stage, whether he was playing electric guitar or pedal steel guitar, and if I had any questions or doubts during a song--how is my volume? do I sing the third or the fifth here? am I singing on key?--all I had to do was look to him for the answer.  We could always share in the excitement of a song well done.

In all our years of friendship, Les has always been known as one of the nicest guys in our music world.  His knowledge of music and musicians is extensive, and he is always ready with a heartfelt compliment of others.  Off the top of his head, he probably knows the chords, lyrics, and history of a couple thousand songs.  If I ask him about a song, he will know who wrote it, who played it, and probably even what key it was in, and, if one of his guitars is nearby, he'll grab his guitar and start playing it.  I love that about him!

Les has long been retired from selling insurance at his own company, but he will never stop playing music, his life-long love.  He is one of the best pedal steel guitar players you'll ever find, and he's still in several bands (as of 2019).  Whenever we visit Illinois, we try to set aside days to visit Les and his wife, Pat, in Crystal Lake.  Les has a full recording studio in his basement, as you might expect.

From Les, I learned how to perform in a rock band.  I also learned techniques for memorizing guitar and vocal parts quickly--a crucial aspect of joining an existing, popular band.

Les and I on the front steps of Channing-Murray Foundation, home of the Red Herring, in 2017.

Les and I singing at our Appaloosa reunion concert, 2017.  I'm playing Les' beautiful Martin guitar.

Thom Bishop [songwriting, fiction writing] [1970].  I met Thom Bishop in the fall of 1970.  Our paths crossed at The Red Herring Coffeehouse on the University of Illinois campus, where we each performed frequently.  Thom would either perform solo or with his friend, Fred Rubin, and I always tried to catch their one-hour sets, because they were two of the best in the endless array of musical talent on campus.  To me, Thom had a stage presence that was somewhere between Buddy Holly and John Lennon.  The Buddy Holly comparison wasn't hard to make, because Thom did several Buddy Holly songs (like "That'll Be The Day" and "Peggy Sue") and just nailed them.  But with his leather jacket and quick, penetrating wit, Thom reminded me of a young John Lennon.

Early in our friendship, Thom and I passed each other on the Herring steps one night, and he asked where I was headed.  I told him I was going to drop in to see a play at the nearby Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.  I remember him saying, "You go to a lot of things there, don't you?"  We chatted for a few minutes about our mutual love of theater, and in his modest, off-handed way, he suggested that I go to see Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot the next week.  It turned out that Thom was starring in the play as one of the two main characters, which I didn't know until the night of the performance.  It was then that I found out he was a theater major.

Although our friendship began to grow, the first pivotal night of conversation occurred a few months later, after I had moved into the building that housed The Red Herring.  I was working at the coffeehouse almost every night and would see Thom quite often.  At some point, the subject of Janis Ian's music came up, and I said that I was a big fan of hers.  Thom said he'd never really listened to her music, so I invited him into my little room to listen to one of her songs.  We sat and listened to two full albums, and we talked about music into the night.

Over the next two and a half years, we spent a lot of time together.  We would play our new songs for each other when we finished them and attend each other's coffeehouse sets.  For some reason (whether Thom asked me or I asked him), I sat in one night for one of Thom's sets, playing a second guitar and adding harmony to the songs I knew.  It was completely unrehearsed.  Midway through the set, he announced that he was going to do a song he'd just completed that week--one that I hadn't heard yet.  I sat quietly next to him while he played the amazing "Mr. Arthur's Place," one of the greatest pieces of songwriting I've ever heard.  What a treat to be sitting on stage next to someone performing an instant classic!  (The song was later recorded by Michael Johnson and Mandy Patinkin.)  When he finished, he looked over at me and grinned, just knowing he'd blown me away.

Many times we shared amazing, serendipitous experiences that brought us closer.  I had never told anyone about my favorite poem, The Mountain Whipporwill, by Stephen Vincent Benet, which has 48 stanzas in its original form (!), but one day Thom told me he'd put the poem to music, not knowing it was my favorite!  (His version is much better than the later version by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.)  But that was Thom--borrowing something I deeply treasure and handing it to me on a silver platter.

In the past Thom has lived in Chicago, New York, Nashville, and Los Angeles in pursuit of his many creative endeavors.  He has been a singer/songwriter with several released albums, a musician, a playwright, an actor, a novelist, a short story writer, a college professor, and probably things I don't even know about.  For the last twenty years we've stayed in frequent touch, and my wife and I have visited Thom and his family in a little town outside Boulder, Colorado.  He has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado.

Thom has always pushed me to be creative.  To have a conversation with him is always filled with glorious surprises, as we discuss his latest novel or newest song.  After each of our conversations, I always hang up the phone and think about the efforts I am making to be creative.

I was honored to be a "first reader" for two of Thom's novel's, "The Cold Last Swim" and "Buddha Was A Cowboy."  I have always loved Thom's writing, uniquely his own voice with glimmers of Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway.  He was also gracious enough to review and comment on my very first short story, "The Last Right," paragraph by paragraph!  His critique was not only so accurate and valuable, but it inspired me to finish the story.

But Thom is more than a creative contact for me; he is a deeply caring, empathic person who asks the right questions about my life.  Even when I haven't seen Thom for ten years, we talk as if it was only yesterday.

There was a time in the early 1980's that I answered my phone one night at home in Saratoga, California, and Thom's voice began the conversation as it always did--as if we were continuing our last talk from years before.  He simply stated that our mutual friend, Fred Koller, was getting married the following day on a beach in Santa Cruz, and would I please drop by with a bottle of Champagne from both of us.  I replied, "Of course."  He told me the name of the beach, and that was that.

The next day I walked over a shaded sand dune and spotted the people gathered on the beach for the ceremony, which was about to begin.  As I got closer and closer, Fred's squint turned into disbelief, and he finally said,  "Wh.. wh... what are you doing here?"  I smiled at him and said, "Thom asked me to represent the two of us.  He's sorry he couldn't make it."  Fred's confused expression turned into a big smile, "Great.  Thanks for coming."  Both of us knew it was just like Thom to make such a grand entrance and be loved for it.

[Parts of this short article about Thom are taken from my Meetings With Remarkable People series of articles, of which Thom is one of twelve people I describe.]

From Thom, I learned the importance of creativity in one's life, and, most recently, learned dozens of keys to writing a short story!

Thom and I at a Colorado Rockies baseball game in Denver, 2005.

Joe Miluso [volleyball, family] [1976].  I met Joe Miluso and his wife, Gail, in a gymnasium on a Saturday evening in September, 1976, just a month after I moved to California.  The gym was on the San Jose State University campus, and we were attending an "open gym" night of pick-up volleyball.  People formed teams at random and played against each other.  Out of more than a hundred people, I walked up to Joe and Gail and asked if they would like to form a team.  Not only did we play well together that night, but they became life-long friends of mine.

After that night of playing, we formed a co-ed volleyball team that competed in city leagues for a couple of years.  I suggested the name of the team, Asleep At The Net, which I'd brought from my Illinois volleyball friends.  Gail's sister, Marcia, joined our team, and we found a few others to join us, as we became one of the best teams in the league.

Joe was born in the Bronx, New York, but grew up mostly in Burbank, California.  What really drew us to each other was our mutual love of (and participation in) sports.  Joe is a natural athlete through and through.  He was the best hitter on our volleyball team, and I could imagine he'd be good at all sports.  We've also played golf and tennis together.  I've always loved his competitive nature and his overall knowledge and understanding of each sport.

But I've met hundreds of volleyball players and never gotten to be as close to any of them as I did to Joe.  There's something that clicked between us when we first started playing together and would talk after our volleyball matches.  For one thing, he was not like most of my other friends; he had nothing to do with music or computers.  In college, Joe had majored in microbiology, with a minor in environmental health, and he became a health officer for the San Mateo County Department of Environmental Health for 36 years.  He was their first swimming pool specialist, in charge of inspecting and maintaining almost 1,200 pools in the county.  He was the chairman of the State of California Public Pool Committee during the last five years of his career.

In addition to sports, what we usually talked about was relationships and family values.  Joe and Gail had married right after graduating from college (Gail was a speech therapist), and they were thinking of starting a family when I first met them.  In fact, we retired our volleyball team when Gail got pregnant with their first son, John.  After they had their second son, Nick, we gradually lost touch as our lives took us in separate directions.  I didn't see Joe and Gail for about ten years, until we had a chance meeting again in 1996.

I had taken my dog, Casey, to run on his favorite field.  We were far away from a kids' soccer game when one of the kids scored a goal, and all the parents began to clap.  Casey had been taught to come when he heard someone clapping, so he turned and raced onto the middle of the soccer field near the kids.  Of course, all the parents looked to see who owned that unruly, huge dog.  I ran onto the field to get Casey, and then I heard Joe's voice, calling to me from the sidelines.  We have often laughed about that incident--how my dog brought us together again.

In the 25 years since our second chance meeting, we have stayed very close friends, often getting together for lunch or breakfast or playing a round of golf.  For two years, I joined Joe and another friend in playing "Marathon Boggle," a really addictive, competitive game that they created.

Being a true lover of the English language, I couldn't resist when I was asked by Joe and Dave to join their weekly Boggle games.  Marathon Boggle is played with letters on a 5 x 5 board, where the shortest word must be at least 5 letters long, not the traditional 3 letters.  One of us (rotating from week to week) would compose the 25-letter board, and we'd have a full week to find words with those letters.  It was not unusual for us to find over 300 words in one week!  If someone found a word the other two had not found, he got points for it.  We kept records of our games, and it became very competitive.  Joe was the only one to ever find the word "incarcerate" on one of our boards.

Probably more than anyone, Joe embodies the person who most closely matches my progressive values and feelings.  He cares so much about other people and lives according to his caring beliefs.  I have only one photo of the two of us together (below), from one balmy October day in 2012.  I was playing golf at the Ocean Course in Half Moon Bay when, while walking on the 18th hole, I ran into Joe and Gail walking along the coastline with members of their family.  At far left is Sandra, who is married to their son, John, and in the middle is her sister, who was visiting from Peru.  In the carriage was John and Sandra's infant daughter.  Joe and Gail are grandparents!

From Joe, I learned a lot about Progressive politics in our chats.  He is also the model of a great father, which helped me in being a stepfather to Heather and Hal.  I also learned how to speak New Yawrkeez.

The only photo I have of Joe, with his wife, Gail, and other family members in Half Moon Bay, 2012.

Patricia Long [music, literature] [1976].  In the fall of 1976, I met Patricia Long, who then went by the name, Patricia Hardin.  It was quite a serendipitous meeting.  Soon after moving to California in August, 1976, I received a letter from my good friend, Pat Garvey, who was living in Austin and making it as a singer-songwriter.  In his postscript, he told me to keep an eye out for two friends of his--Patricia Hardin and Tom Russell--who were sure to come through the Bay Area and perform at one of the clubs.  He said that Hardin and Russell were top-notch songwriters and good people to meet.

Less than two weeks later, I noticed an advertisement for a San Jose club, where Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band would be performing soon.  The warm-up act would be none other than Hardin and Russell!  Well, I bought a ticket right away and attended the performance.  I was much more impressed with the warm-up act than Rick Nelson's band.  I introduced myself to Patricia and Tom as a good friend of Pat Garvey's, and we became fast friends.  I think they had just moved to the Bay Area, not far from where I lived.  Tom was married and had two daughters, and Patricia had a lovely, young daughter, named Dorion.

For the next couple of years I went to a lot of their performances.  I had known many songwriters and singers in my musical life, but Hardin and Russell were two of the best.  Two things drew me to Patricia especially: she had an extremely versatile, beautiful voice, equally capable of singing lead or harmony on any song, and she played piano unlike any other folksinger I'd ever heard.  It wasn't long before I learned that she had been trained as a classical pianist.  It also wasn't unusual that, between songs during a concert, Patricia would play a little J. S. Bach for the audience!

Patricia Hardin and Tom Russell, circa 1976.

How do I describe Patricia?  To begin, she is certainly one of the five most creative people I've ever known, and I've known hundreds of creative people.  But even beyond that, she has a special quality about her that I've only seen a couple times in my life.  This is where the description gets difficult, so I'll use an analogy.

If you've ever been to Santa Fe, New Mexico, you may have noticed that it has a quality of light that is rare and astounding.  Books have been written about the light in Santa Fe; the leaves on the trees are vibrant; the buildings are starkly outlined; the colors are unique.  It is said that objects are placed "into the light," rather than the light shining on the objects.  In much the same way, Patricia has been thrust into the middle of life.  She is always honest in her opinions, forthright, humorous, engaging, and evolving.  To be around her is to know that something is going to occur; she does not stand still but invites life to happen.  She places herself "into the light" of life, time and again.

Patricia was born and raised in central Texas, the first seven years on a farm near Crawford, just a mile from the George Bush Ranch.  She graduated from Baylor University with a B.A. in History and English, a minor in Secondary Education, but years later she attended the University of Texas in Austin to acquire a minor in Music.  Although she began piano lessons when she was five, she began singing and picking out tunes on the piano much earlier, according to her mother.

Patricia and I spent a lot of time together when she first moved to California. She told me what it was like to grow up in Texas, and I remember two episodes especially.  When she was a young girl, she witnessed the flooding of the Brazos River, which flows through Waco.  The flood had submerged a cemetery, and the coffins were escaping their graves and floating away!  In the 1970's she wrote the song, "Coffins on the Brazos."

Then there is the unbelievable story of her car accident, when she was 18.  After an argument with her mother, she raced from their house in her little blue Ford, driving on a country road.  Miles later she hit a patch of ice and the car turned sideways, whereby she was thrown against the passenger door and knocked out.  (The car was without seat belts.)  It was later determined that the car flipped over three times, took out a fence, and came to rest in the middle of a field.  Patricia woke up on the floor of the back seat and crawled out the passenger back window, glass and metal all around.  The car was totally demolished, but she had survived without a single scratch!  The penny loafer and sock on her left foot were sliced in half, but there wasn't even a scratch on her foot.  The next day she was very sore and lost her voice, probably from bruised vocal cords.  She had been placed suddenly in the middle of an extreme life event, and she had survived without a scratch!

I often discussed with her how she came up with such unique songs.  I could hear the classical influences in her melodies, but the song titles and words were so unusual and poignant.  She just explained that she often wandered into odd experiences in life, or that maybe she brought them on.  Whichever was the case, she took notice and wrote about them.

Except for a few phone calls, we mostly lost touch after she and Dorion moved to Nashville in 1980.  When internet search engines caught up to my curiosity, I located Patricia in Austin, Texas, probably in 2007 or 2008.  She had married Monty Long, had a son, Austin, and returned to her first love, classical music.  She was a composer of classical music!  She sent me a couple recordings of her work, and I was astounded!  Having also evolved into a lover of classical music, I immediately recognized that Patricia is a first-rate composer.

But wait!  She was also writing poems, short stories, and working on her first novel!  Patricia's song lyrics were always poetic, where words didn't have to rhyme if they were the right words to describe an image or feeling.  It wasn't surprising that she was also a very good poet!  But her short stories took me totally by surprise, because they captured her quirky, beautiful view of the world.  I say "quirky" in an admiring way, because she notices details in life that others miss, gets to the heart of things that completely elude most of us.  In 2009, Patricia sent me a copy of her book of "poems, stories, and pieces of work" (I love that!).  It's called "Falling Up In Three Parts," and it is wonderful.  I've read it multiple times.  Part of the dedication of the book captures her view of things:

     "For no one in particular, but definitely not for everyone."

In the spring of 2015, I volunteered to be a "first reader" when Patricia finished her novel, and I was quite honored when she accepted my offer.  It was an amazing experience to read the initial "public" draft of a very good story.  In her own words, "it's a family saga of epic scope dealing in depth with child abuse, mainly psychological abuse but sometimes physical, and the family's lifelong struggle and sorrow over a few acres of land."  Entitled "Children Then Living," the story is rich in complex characters, changing relationships, and adventures on the Texas plains.  Recently she sent me the published hard-cover edition.

Describing my friendship with Patricia would not be complete without telling you about her primary focus--composing classical music.  She has composed four symphonies, two masses, and many shorter instrumental and choral pieces, and something new is always in the works!  She calls herself a "late bloomer" in classical composing, but I'm astounded by her output so far!  In 2010, Suzanne and I traveled to Austin, Texas, for the world premiere of her Symphony No. 1 in D Major, along with two other pieces--Suite for Piano, Orchestra, and Special Percussion and Mass in E-Flat "Millennium".  We thoroughly enjoyed that evening, and I can think of nothing I'd rather do than listen to beautiful classical music composed by one of my best friends!  Brava, Patricia!!

From Patricia, I learned the importance of tackling life's situations head-on, going after things rather than letting them come after me.  I've also begun to learn how to balance multiple creative efforts.

Patricia and I at her home in Austin, Texas, 2010.

Steve Rebello [ballroom dancing, tennis, golf] [1978].  I met Steve Rebello in the spring of 1978, when I took my first ballroom dance class.  He was the male demonstrator, and he was willing to spend a lot of time explaining ballroom dance frame, steps, leading, and etiquette.  By the end of that spring session of classes, he and I were playing tennis together and discussing other sports.  He was a natural athlete who could also dance--a very rare combination for men in the ballroom dance community.  I was also a good athlete, so Steve and I recognized each other as kindred spirits.

Steve grew up in Santa Clara, California.  It was his life-long dream to become a fireman, but not long after he joined a fire engine crew, he was injured on the job--not a serious injury, but serious enough to end his career as a fireman.  He turned all his attention at that point to ballroom dancing, from teaching classes to hosting all-day dance workshops, which featured world champion ballroom dance instructors.

In 1989, he added another dimension to his dance career, forming the STAR Formation Dance Team, where he served as the primary choreographer.  His choreography was stunning!  He created routines in many different dance styles, from smooth (waltz, foxtrot, quick step, tango) to Latin (cha cha, salsa, samba, rumba), swing (East coast, West coast) to nightclub (two-step, hustle).  I was on the team for a little more than three years, and I was continually amazed by Steve's creativity and ability to teach really complex routines, which invariably included many partner exchanges and advanced steps and stylings.  [For a full description and photos of the STAR Formation Dance Team, please see my Collaborations essay.]

Steve was an all-around athlete.  In our 42-year friendship, I've played more sports with Steve than with any other person.  We both grew up playing golf with our fathers, and he is a very good golfer.  The only time I ever scored an eagle (two under par) on a hole, I was playing with Steve.  I've played softball and gone bowling with Steve.  He's one of the best bowlers I've ever seen.  There was also a time in the mid-1980's when I took him to a touch football game in Golden Gate Park, held annually with other friends of mine, and after catching his fifth touchdown pass, my friends asked me politely to never invite him again, because he was too good!

But the sport that Steve and I played and loved the most was tennis.  We were about equally matched and played together twice a week for several years.  On Friday mornings we would play singles and then, after three sets of hard play, would retire to the nearby shop for coffee and doughnuts.  On Sunday mornings we would play three sets of men's doubles.  Being left-handed, Steve had the strongest, most difficult serve to return, and he was also the fastest person on court.  We had some marathon matches.

After each singles match, in addition to the coffee and doughnuts, we always looked forward to our talks.  I have probably talked with Steve about personal issues more than any other best friend.  Our talks could cover any subject--relationships, health, sports, dancing, politics, families, pets, work, finances, life.  As with most of my best friends, Steve is extremely kind-hearted, family-oriented, thoughtful, funny, and engaging.  I don't ever recall having a cross word or disagreement with him in over forty years.

Unlike any of my best friends, however, Steve's health in the last twenty years has been poor.  He has beaten serious, blood-related cancers three times. A misdiagnosed giant cell tumor in his ankle ended his tennis career and led to several surgeries.  Years of chemotherapy have left him with a host of other maladies, but he doesn't mention them, unless I urge him to tell me how he feels.  His misfortunes do not define him, and that's one of the things I love about Steve.

It occurs to me that Steve embodies the qualities I most value in a best friend.  We are in frequent contact, confide extensively in each other, talk about everything, laugh a great deal, offer support and consolation, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable in the presence of the other.  We have so much good history together.

In writing this essay, I realized that Steve and I have had very few photos taken of us together, and I could find none of them, so I'd like to share a beautiful photo of Steve and his wife, Diana, on their wedding day.  I was honored to be his best man.

Steve and his wife, Diana, at their wedding, 2007.

Steve and I have also shared a love of baseball, and we've been to many San Francisco Giants games together.  He grew up a Giants fan, and we were watching them one afternoon (50 years and one day after my first baseball game with my father) when I got the one and only foul ball in my life (below).  It's amazing how many important moments I have shared with Steve Rebello.

From Steve, I learned steps, posture, leading, etiquette, and even some choreography in ballroom dancing. I have also learned to be more resilient when life throws those awful curves.

I got this foul ball off the bat of Garrett Atkins, Colorado Rockies, with Steve, on August 29, 2007.

Chet Amborn [computer programming, Goldcoast Software, Chinese dinners, good wine, movies] [1978].  In June, 1978, I met Chet Amborn when he joined Interactive Applications Inc. (IAI), where I had worked since that spring.  He and I shared the same office, and it was not long before I realized that he was more intelligent than any of the other computer programmers in the company.  (Chet changed his last name from Leighton to Amborn, when he married his wife, Tammy, in 2000.)  Chet had enlisted in the Armed Services out of high school and had just completed two years at a community college, eager to apply his computer knowledge.

It was a good thing that we shared the same office, because we were, in many ways, different from everyone else in the company.  As we got to be good friends, Chet revealed a sense of humor unlike anyone I had ever met.  Extremely quick-witted, with a touch of subtle sarcasm, he could get me laughing at the drop of a hat.  One day he began reciting the full text of a Monty Python skit, in response to something another person had said, and it was hilarious.  I think it's fair to say that I've never known anyone who had to fight so hard to be silent when someone else said something really stupid.

Over the years I learned many things from Chet, and developing wit in the presence of others was just one of them.  Chet just looked at things differently, and probably more accurately, than my other friends did.  Gradually I became less shy about expressing my own humor, seeing the unusual side of a situation or a person's comment.  One of our favorite habits in conversation was to almost speak in code, where Chet would say something that he knew only I would get, and vice-versa.

He also had an incredible knowledge of the theory of computer programming.  He was the first person to talk with me about how computer solutions could be sloppy or elegant, and that we should try to always choose the elegant solution.  He also introduced me to the famous book, The Mythical Man-Month, by Fred Brooks, which was the basis of learning project management for me.

Very soon after meeting, Chet and I started spending a lot of time together outside of work.  Chet was already a gourmet cook of Chinese dishes, so I spent many, many evenings at his place enjoying Ma Po Bean Curd, drinking wine, and listening to his favorite band, Supertramp.  Chet and his friend, Michael Rosenthal, had catered banquets for large groups of people.  I never saw him use a recipe or cookbook.  The evenings often ended with a movie, for Chet loved movies, as did I.  It was not unusual for the two of us to see 30 movies together in a year.

Chet got me very well acquainted with excellent wines.   He was the first person with whom I went wine tasting, and he converted me from buying cheap whites to moderately-priced reds.  I all but abandoned chards for zins and pinots.

When my brother, Mike, started up his quiescent computer software company in the summer of 1979, Chet and I handed in our resignations at IAI and joined IDA.  There we worked together for a couple years, building the company's class library of programs and working on business applications.  Chet was definitely the leader in the class library work.  He built some amazing tools for us to use.  In 1981 or 1982 he decided to leave IDA and start his own consulting business, but we both knew it was not the end of our working together.

By March of 1983 we were talking about starting our own software company.  Chet had met a woman who was a management consultant at a Big Eight accounting firm, Coopers and Lybrand, and he suggested that Judy Ano join us in forming a new consulting business.  Although it was difficult to leave IDA, I wanted to be a principal in my own company, so I joined Chet and Judy in forming Goldcoast Software.  Judy did the sales and marketing, while Chet and I developed the software.  Chet also did all the accounting, insurance, medical coverage, and taxes for our little company.  The three of us were constantly together and, although budgets were tight, we ran a successful operation for the next four years.  We added a couple employees, had a beautiful office space as a work environment, and wrote some really good applications.

By the middle of 1987, I decided that Chet and I were interested (and excellent) in different types of software projects, and that it was the right time to separate professionally.  I went back to work with my brother at IDA, to be in charge of their software development on a three-year contract, and Chet and Judy (and one other partner) continued Goldcoast for a couple years.  Even during that time, Chet and I stayed close friends.  Where we had often disagreed on business issues near the end of my tenure at Goldcoast, there were many other parts of our friendship that thrived.  In the late 1980's, Chet left Goldcoast and started Infomark Software Corp.  I joined Quartet Systems in 1990, and often in the next decade our two companies collaborated on projects.

Chet is probably the most brilliant computer analyst I've ever known.  He returned to school and got a masters in "Just In Time" (JIT) computer learning, and then he taught college courses in computer learning, based on a curriculum that he designed.  What I remember most about our many years of working together is the incredible level of collaboration we'd reach during our intense database design discussions.  We both felt a magic that was electric, when we'd solve very hard database and application problems together.  It was just one of many parts of an extraordinary friendship.

Chet and I dealt with a lot of demanding, naive computer users in our day.  While installing one of our IDA systems (an insurance app) at a client site, we noticed that one young woman would often mistype something and then quickly type "OH SHIT" on her screen and slam the Enter key hard, to vent her frustrations.  (This was before the days of Windows, where everything was instead typed in line by line.)  Chet saw his chance and immediately wrote a little app that we installed on her computer, without her knowledge.  We lingered around her workstation for about five minutes before she went into her routine again, typing "OH SHIT" and slamming the Enter key.  Immediately her screen went into reverse video mode and started flashing:  OH SHIT TO YOU TOO, BABY.  She turned white, and we told her she'd finally made the computer mad at her.  She totally believed us.  Come to think of it, that was Chet's first foray into "Just In Time" computer learning.

During the 1990's we played a lot of tennis together.  Chet had played on his high school team and was much better than I was.  We drifted apart gradually, and by the end of the decade, he and his wife were living in Sonoma County, about 80 miles from where I live.  A few years later, they moved to the Portland, Oregon, area, where we have visited them.  Chet will always be one of my best friends, and I will always remember what we loved doing together.

From Chet, I learned much about systems analysis, from designing databases to solving complex technical issues, from structured programming techniques to writing elegant programs.  I also learned a lot about Chinese cooking and red wine!

Chet and I at his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon in 2010.

Chet Ratliff [skiing, sporting events, philosophical talks] [1979].  I met Chet Ratliff in late March, 1979, when I was one of the people who interviewed him for a job at Interactive Applications, Inc., where I worked from spring of 1978 through July, 1979.  I remember having a cup of coffee with him and conducting the interview at a small cafe near IAI, and it was immediately apparent to me that he'd be a great addition to the company.  Chet joined IAI soon thereafter as a systems analyst / programmer.

Probably two weeks after Chet joined IAI, he and I had lunch together, and the conversation quickly shifted from work topics to our personal lives.  I well remember my impressions of him--that he was thoughtful, modest, very bright, and as much interested in knowing me as I was in knowing him.  I found out that he'd graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in physics and pure and applied mathematics, with a chemistry minor, and that he had grown up and still lived in Berkeley.  So, each day his round-trip commute to work was about 90 miles!

Although many things, including our diverse and common interests, drew me to Chet, one of the most interesting things to me was how he communicated.  Over the years I heard many people tell him that he was unusually quiet, even wondering if he was shy or intimidated.  From our first conversation I saw him much differently--as a person who listened intently and only spoke when he had something of interest to say.  That set him apart from most people, including myself.  If Chet was quiet for a short time, it didn't mean he wasn't "present."  I thought he was more "present" than anyone I knew.

Our early conversations soon led to our doing many, many activities together.  I think it's typical that a person does a few types of activities with a close friend-- maybe meals together, movies, shopping, one sport.  Chet and I had lunches and dinners together, saw many movies (I'm still somewhat amazed that I convinced him to see "ABBA: The Movie"), and went to classical concerts.  He introduced me to the comedy and late-night jazz clubs in San Francisco; I took him to a bluegrass concert in Berkeley.  He owned two beautiful Jensen Healeys, which he personally maintained, so what I know about cars I learned from watching Chet work on his cars.  We attended car road races at Laguna Seca and Sears Point Raceways, went to see the Reno Air Races, saw several A's and Giants baseball games, and traveled to Santa Barbara for a weekend to watch the Junior National Volleyball Championships.

One of our favorite pastimes was watching basketball together, and we often went to see the Golden State Warriors play, especially when one of Chet's four NBA-playing cousins was in town.  (He introduced me to Caldwell Jones and Major Jones after games in Oakland.)  When you sit courtside at a professional basketball game, you get a new appreciation for the remarkable athleticism of those players.

One thing I loved about Chet is that he would challenge me to experience new things, and he'd often do that without preparing me for the surprise of an event.  It happened many times, such as the evening he suggested we go for a hamburger after a San Francisco Symphony concert.  We were both dressed in three-piece suits, and I was ready to try some place new.  He knew just the place.  As we approached the front door of Hamburger Mary's on Folsom, which turned out to be a gay biker joint, I was almost run over by a Harley coming out of the small restaurant.  They had great hamburgers, and we had a wonderful time.

But what we probably loved doing most was skiing together.  Chet pretty much taught me to ski, helped me pick out all my equipment, and coached me down many scary slopes.  Besides being one of the most graceful, beautiful skiers I've ever seen, he was infinitely patient and encouraging of someone a lot less accomplished than he.  He bought us a pair of fluorescent orange Northface caps so we could always spot each other while skiing on a crowded hill.  (I still have that cap!)  In all the years we skied together, I only saw Chet fall twice, both times when he skied onto a narrow strip of snow that gave way.

As I progressed in skiing to an advanced intermediate level, we had more and more fun together. Although I have many memories of those days, I have two favorites.  Once while skiing down a narrow, steep hill late in the afternoon, he saw me struggling a bit, and over the sound of our skis, I heard him say, "Ski the hill; don't let the hill ski you."  He showed me that I had the control and ability to be there.  And then there was the time we got caught in a white-out snowstorm at the top of Heavenly Valley, on the California side.  You could not see more than ten feet in front of you, and it was getting worse by the minute, so he led me down the entire mountain without stopping--almost five miles of hills and trails--while dodging people who had fallen.  He knew I was right behind him, and he only skied as fast as he knew I could ski.  Those were great days.

Yet, what I remember more than anything from our years together is our conversations about life.  Although I consider Chet remarkable in so many ways, it is through our talks that he most influenced my life.  I also know that I influenced his life.

For fifteen years Chet and I did so much together and were very, very close.  Although he is "always in my thoughts," as he likes to say, we have seen each other very little in the last twenty-five years.  He still remains one of my all-time best friends.  In searching for a photo of Chet, I could only find one from my first wedding, 1994, with another of my best friends, Jon Stafford, from The Group, as profiled previously.

[Most of this short article about Chet is taken from my Meetings With Remarkable People series of articles, in which Chet is one of twelve people I describe.]

From Chet, I learned much about human kindness and interaction.  I learned how to question and push myself in search of doing the "right" thing, not the "easy" thing, and I learned to challenge myself in all types of new circumstances.  I also learned how to ski and enjoy car races!

Jon Stafford, I, and Chet Ratliff together in 1994.

Rodger Lippa [classical music, good wine, law] [1981].  I met Rodger Lippa in about 1981 when he joined the running group, Eat-N-Run, that I had been part of since 1978.  He lived in a beautiful home in Cupertino, and it became a favorite place to host the group’s weekly running event.  We'd meet at someone's house each week, go running for three miles, and come back for a potluck dinner and good conversation.  (That weekly routine lasted for over 20 years!)

In those days, most of us were fairly poor, so we usually drank low-priced, mediocre white wine.  (White wine was the tradition, because we were afraid of spilling red wine on our carpets!)  Rodger was not only a good runner, but he was the first one to invite us to bring red wine into his home.  One evening he hosted a blind taste test of nine different cabernet sauvignon wines (the bottles were masked, not us), which proved to be a bit too much for some of us in the group, because we didn't know how to sip wine!  We were looped before the ninth wine.  (Interestingly, the three middle-priced wines were ranked 1-2-3 in our taste test.)

In fact, Rodger was the first person to introduce me to really good red wines.  As we got to be better friends, I often dropped over to Rodger's house to enjoy a bottle of wine and listen to classical music on his outstanding sound system.  His favorite soloist was cellist, Jacqueline du Pre.  Our friendship deepened because we could talk at length and enjoy wine and music at the same time.

Eventually Rodger had the idea of hosting classical music evenings with several friends on his back deck, which had a swimming pool and hot tub.  He would bring his huge audio speakers onto his deck, which overlooked Stevens Creek Canyon in Cupertino, and turn up the volume on a classical music piece.  Things were fine one evening until the police showed up in the middle of Carmina Burana and told us to turn down the volume.  We were entertaining all the homes in the canyon.

When I met Rodger, he was an experienced workers' comp defense attorney, but in about 1987, he was appointed as a California workers' comp judge (which he served as for 25 years).  It was a very proud day for Rodger when his appointment was announced, and I was extremely honored that he called me up and invited me to celebrate with him that evening.  He broke out his best Scotch and we talked alone for hours.

One of the things that Rodger brought into my life was a greatly increased appreciation for the law.  We often discussed points of law, but only after cases were settled and of public record.  In fact, I don't think we ever mentioned people's names, but only the events and subtleties in the cases.  Rodger always impressed me as a whip-smart, eminently fair judge--even when his decisions were not entirely popular.  Those were very interesting chats as we became best friends.

Rodger and I had a vast mutual interest in classical music.  I have many memories from the sixteen concerts he and I attended together at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall.  I recall sitting in the first row, only feet away from Zoltan Kocsis, as he played Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto.  We saw the legendary Eugene Ormandy conduct on one evening and the great Jean-Pierre Rampal play flute concertos another night.  We sat through all six Bach Brandenburg Concertos in one glorious concert!  But the greatest concert we ever attended was Herbert Blomstedt conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony--probably his audition before becoming the music director of the San Francisco Symphony.  It was simply the best Beethoven I've ever heard, and Rodger and I agreed.

Rodger and I did many fun things together.  We saw Riverdance and attended the San Francisco Jazz Festival, where we enjoyed vibraphonist, Milt Jackson.  We camped together in Yosemite with our fellow Eat-N-Run friends.  Then there was the time on Friday, October 19, 1984, when he called me to see if I'd like to go with him the next day to the grand opening of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Last minute plans were not unusual for us, so I readily said yes.  We were two of over ten thousand people to show up that day, but we were in the first one hundred people to enter the museum doors!

It's amazing to me that Rodger and I have had such a close friendship, and it wasn't based at all on sports or computers or folk music.  He has, indeed, been a one-of-a-kind friend.

From Rodger, I learned to appreciate both sides of legal arguments and was exposed to some of the complexities of workers' comp law.  I also learned a lot about good red wine!

Rodger and his wife, Pat, with me at a wedding reception, 2003.

Bruce Homer-Smith [computers, classical music, golf] [1981].  Bruce Homer-Smith joined my brother's company, International Data Applications, in 1981 as a technical writer.  Bruce had never done a day of tech writing in his life, but my brother recognized his intelligence, creativity, and work ethic, and he really liked the guy.  That was a very good move, for all of us.

Bruce grew up on Long Island and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, which is ranked the #1 Liberal Arts college in the United States.  He graduated with a Political Economics degree but went on to teach high school English before applying for his first computer job with IDA.  He had also sailed a boat to the southern tip of Mexico (from the Bay Area) with his wife, was an accomplished classical pianist, and had written a book on needlepoint!  To say he had eclectic interests is an understatement.

Soon after Bruce joined IDA, he and I began playing chess together during our lunch hour.  It wasn't long before he invited me to go sailing with him on San Francisco Bay, using his in-laws' large sailboat.  Bruce left IDA in the spring of 1983 to start his own consulting company, and I left the company a couple months later to join Chet Amborn in forming Goldcoast Software, but Bruce and I stayed in close contact.  Because we both loved classical music, we began going to concerts in San Francisco in 1984, and over the years we've attended 37 concerts together!

In 1985, Bruce formed Quartet Systems, Inc., and hired our mutual friend, DiAnn Perko, to work with him.  When the company was incorporated, we started talking about the time when I would eventually join Quartet, because we discovered that we had the same philosophies about what an ideal software consulting company should look like.  In 1987, his brother, Chip, joined the company, and I completed the quartet on July 1, 1990, when I began working with them.  (Please read my Collaborations story about Quartet Systems.)

Bruce and I became very close friends in the 1990's, as we worked on software projects, attended more and more concerts, and began playing golf together.  Bruce's in-laws owned two condos in Palm Springs on a private, executive golf course, and he invited me to join him each spring for a week in the desert.  We played a lot of different golf courses, worked jigsaw puzzles, drank many date milkshakes, explored the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, hiked Indian Canyons, watched Thin Man movies, and read countless books during those wonderful vacations.  Besides the immaculate Seven Lakes Golf Course where the condos were located, our favorite course was the Gary Player Mission Hills layout.  One year Bruce also invited me to be his guest at a Dave Pelz 3-Day Short Game School, which was the most fun I've ever had practicing golf.

Bruce and I have probably played over 100 rounds of golf together, on all sorts of challenging and beautiful golf courses.  Our games are similar, although he almost always manages to beat me, if we're keeping score.  To share a golf cart with Bruce for 18 holes on a magnificent course is a real treat.  One of our favorite courses is the Ocean Course of Half Moon Bay (next page), where several holes overlook the scenic Pacific Ocean coast.

Bruce is in foreground, as we played the beautiful Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay, 2012.

In the mid-2000's we switched our annual golf trips from Palm Springs to Tucson, where we would play golf, hike, try out the great restaurants, and even catch a spring training game, since we're both big baseball fans.  The photo below is one of my favorites.

Bruce and I at an exhibition baseball game in Tucson, Arizona, 2006.

The photo above also reminds me of a last-minute invitation I extended to Bruce on October 24, 2002, to see the San Francisco Giants play the Anaheim Angels in the fifth game of the World Series.  At four o'clock in the afternoon, tickets for the game dropped into my lap, and I invited Bruce to join me.  We had a blast, as the Giants won the game, 16-4.  It is the only World Series game I've ever attended.

Of course, what stands out most about my friendship with Bruce is the twenty-five years we worked together at Quartet Systems.  He went from being a budding tech writer to being a top-notch database analyst.  We worked on so many software systems together, in so many vertical markets, for so many clients, that working at Quartet is certainly the greatest achievement in each of our lives, outside of our families.  As with my decades with Steve Rebello, I don't recall having a single cross word or argument with Bruce in all of our years.  I do remember a million times when we laughed together.

Bruce named Quartet Systems based on the concept of a string quartet, where each instrument has an important, unique part in a complex composition.  Certainly within a year after I joined Quartet, the four of us felt that we had formed the perfect consulting company and that there was no problem--technical, business, or human resource--that we couldn't solve.  We were fully billable, which is very unusual for a small company, were able to take lots of vacations, and greatly enjoyed our work.  We operated as a four-person company for eighteen years, and then began expanding (eventually to eight people) in 2008.

The key to why Quartet was so successful rested in the fact that we were very close friends who could work well together and "carry our own weight."  We also shared the same business philosophy of not trying to grow the company but simply create great systems and grow our expertise.  All four of us could fully manage a project, which often spanned many years, and we often worked in different combinations to make a project successful.

To this day Bruce and I try to see each other often to play golf, have lunch, and always to reminisce about Quartet Systems.  When I think of best friends, Bruce has been that perfect friend.

From Bruce, I learned many things about running an exemplary software consulting company--one that had interesting projects, helped people, carried little stress, and made money.

Chip, DiAnn, Bruce, and I at Bruce's daughter's wedding, 2005.  We were the original Quartet Systems foursome.

Many Other Very Good Friends

It happens that I've known all of my best friends since at least 1981, and I've enjoyed a variety of activities and interests with each of them.  But there are many other close friends I've had the pleasure of knowing for short or long periods of time.  I'd like to mention a few of them.

Every few months I have lunch with Bob Donnelly, who I've known since about 1986.  We met in the dance world and soon discovered that we both went to the University of Illinois and love sports.  I always enjoy getting together with Bob and discussing the state of our lives and the state of the world.

I met DiAnn Perko in the summer of 1979, when she was working at Prime Computers.  She joined my brother's software company in 1980 and moved to Quartet Systems in the mid-1980's.  When I joined Quartet in 1990, we began doing projects together and continued for another 24 years.  She was always a joy to work with and was a very good analyst, especially strong in dealing with clients.  For many years she was in charge of the huge University of California Intellectual Property project for Quartet.

I met Randy Salim in a Palo Alto ceramics class in 2015.  We soon began meeting in a Los Altos tea shop for croissants, tea, and long conversations.  He's a University of Michigan grad and very active in environmental issues, having traveled to Washington D.C. multiple times to lobby Congress.  We occasionally meet to run our dogs together, for Randy owns a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback.

Tom Podoll's wife, Kit Davey, and my wife, Suzanne, met through a professional women's group, and Tom and I then connected through them.  President of a biotech company, Tom and I periodically meet for lunch (our favorite Indian restaurant has closed, but we find others) to discuss philosophy, dogs, and affairs of the world.

I met Tom Moran through a mutual friend.  He's a retired intellectual property attorney, and we were first drawn to each other by our mutual love of music--and the Beatles in particular.  Tom had a stroke in February, 2019, after having heart surgery.  Soon thereafter I began designing customized speech therapy exercises for him, and during those many sessions we got closer and closer.  He's made great strides in his recovery.

Jim Goodkind and I live in the same townhouse complex and met in the mid-1990's playing tennis.  Only in the last few years have we grown closer.  We both grew up in Illinois, have played guitar in bands, and were even born in the same hospital in New York City!  Jim's one of those guys I wish I'd known all my life!

I've known Peter Panfili for many years, but it is only the last five years we've grown close.  He and I live in the same townhouse complex and, upon seeing each other at social gatherings, talked about literature often.  Five years ago we began our two-person book club, which runs approximately from April through October each year.  We meet every week and discuss the current book, and we dearly love doing that.  Our favorite books?  Probably Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Steinbeck's Cannery Row, and Anthony Powell's several novels in the 12-book series, A Dance to the Music of Time.

Ed Ridings and I went to high school together in Illinois, but it wasn't until we ran into each other in a Mexican restaurant in Sunnyvale, California, almost 40 years later that our friendship began to flourish.   I always liked Ed, but I didn't appreciate how much alike we are until we re-met.  For many years he consulted as an electrical engineer on the design of airplane engines, spending much of his time in Paris!

Joachim Pistorius and his family lived next door to us for ten years.  A year after his wife passed away, he and his two kids, Johann and Leah, moved back to Germany.  Both kids are in college now.  Joachim is also a person who I wish I'd known my entire life.  We visited them in Freiburg and Oberwesel in 2019.  He is an intellectual property attorney and has found a new partner, Esther!

Finally, I've been a member of Eat-N-Run since 1978.  I've profiled fellow-member, Rodger Lippa (above), but there are many more people from this extraordinary group who have been life-long friends.  We started as a running and potluck dinner group, after several original members met on a backpacking trip, but we have been so much more than that in the 40+ years since then.  For over 25 years we met once a week to run, eat, and enjoy wine together, and we still meet up a couple times a year.