So many thoughts right now.

I was playing an online video game. The same one I always play. Talking to fellow players. We were discussing how easy modern technologies make it to communicate. Cross country, even world wide. The thought of my friend Brad popped in my brain. I hadn't seen him in 20? years. I googled....and I never expected to come across this sad information. Sorry to everyone on this loss.

I knew Brad from Heather Lane, Glen Ellyn Il. We met sometime in the very early 80s. My dad lived on Heather Lane, and I would visit every other weekend. But most of that visiting time was spent hanging out with my friend Brad.

We use to do all kinds of things. From fishing up at  the Royal Glen ponds, to racing these toy tyco racecars. Atari 2600 marathons playing Worm War 1 or Pitfall or whatever the newest Activision game cartridge was. Later, it was Commadore 64s. We always loved playing Bruce Lee. We would take turns being the sumo wrestler trying to stop Bruce.

In the winter we use to go snow sledding over at the park. I don't remember the name, but there was a tabogon hill. We thought we were daredevils and would always take the sleds down the very steep backside of the hill. Sometimes we would try to roll a huge snow ball down the park near Heather Lane and see how big of a snowball we could get towards the middle of the street. Not exactly nice thinking about it now.

We use to order stuff from Dolans sports. Chinese throwing stars and nunchucks and books on ninjitsu and ninja skills and tactics. At night time we would dress up like ninjas and play ding dong ditch around the neighborhood. "practicing" our ninja skills.

Sometimes I would stay over across at Brads house or he would stay by us. We would stay up til the sun came up painting dungeons and dragon minitures. And listening to "The Trooper" sometimes over and over all night. And if not Iron Maiden, we would try to catch Dr. Demento.

The last time I saw him was maybe 88 or 89? I don't even remember how we got in touch. I stayed over out there. We talked music. It was really exciting for me. We hadn't caught up in a few months. But as it turned out we were both picking up bass guitars. I had this black Quest bass. and I remember when I got there he had a white Quest bass. What he wanted to play was interesting. He was into metal, but always mentioned a pshycodelic Pink Floyd influence.

I have so many fond memories.

I always imagined that we would catch up some day.  I never expected it to be like this.

Ed