Happy Birthday Tony!

It was probably the third or fourth day of getting settled in the dorms, and I'd had a few conversations with another long-hair I'd met while smoking cigarettes. Alan was his name, and he was older than the rest of us; he was twenty-one. That was important in the dorms, where most of us were in the pretty much seventeen or eighteen.

(Sidenote: Alan was the reason I became a math major.)

I found long-hairs who smoke cigarettes tend to get along with other tobacco smoking ling-hairs. It makes sense if you're a long-hair, or a smoker, or both.

Now I'm neither, so go figure.

But on this particular day Alan and I were exiting Muir Hall on the side that faced The Steps, a place many of us heads would waste away the days wasted, and standing somewhere on the middle steps, smoking, was a guy who'd I'd seen smoking before, but hadn't yet met.

Alan was taller than I with stringier hair, and it was black. He didn't take care of his like I did mine. I always thought his hair was longer than mine, only to be told otherwise at some point.

This guy on the steps was also a long-hair, but his hair was thick and straight and brown, and shorter than mine. He was also shorter than me, which acted as a marker. As we approached the Steps Alan said, "Oh look. It's Tony. Have you met Tony? You guys'll get along."

That was fourteen years ago, and the place in my heart occupied by Tony today is as close to the center as anybody can get.

Tony wasn't a body building football player, but he had, and still does have, a presence, an aura of power that intimidates the meatiest meat-head. He still can do this, even though he's a lover, not a fighter.

He's loyal, brilliant, funny, observant, generous, and helpful. He's one of my very best friends, and even Tux likes him:



Happy birthday, Brother!