This weekend's entries are in posted in memory of a friend of thirty years standing, a man named Michael McDermott.   Mike had heart failure late last night, and passed away early this morning.   He was 55.

Mike was my best friend's cousin.   You see, my best friend, Bob, ran away from home when he was 17.   He came east, all the way from what is now known colloquially (a synonym for 'idiotically') as the 'OC', and moved in with his uncle and his cousin.   Mike, at the time, was just turning 25.   He was a college student.   Even then, he was a very funny guy who said, and did, very funny things.   I had always felt that Mike missed his calling in life.   I always thought he should've been a comedy writer on TV, or in films.   He used to spin hilarious yarns that were so good, I never cared whether or not they had a lick of truth to them.   Mike made us laugh.   Often.   I've always measured people on their ability to make me either think, or laugh.   Mike scored high on the humor quotient.

Mike was a MAJOR New York Yankees fan.   Big time.   In fact, both he and Bob, ever the Mets fan, would have endless, heated discussions about things, which never failed in having me double over in laughter.   In fact, Mike's reverence of the Yankees brings forth my favorite story about him.   July 4th, 1983 was a blistering, hot day here in New Jersey.   I remember the temperature hovered around the century mark.   That afternoon, the Yankees were hosting the Red Sox at the Stadium, and as the game wore on, it became clear that pitcher Dave Righetti was pitching a masterpiece.   Inning after inning passed, and the Boston half of the scoreboard showed nothing but zeroes.   Finally, in the 8th, wouldn't you know it, a late afternoon thunderstorm blows in, and knocks the power out in Bob's and Mike's end of town.   The power remained on in my house.   Mike was apoplectic.   Here, Dave Righetti was pitching a no-hitter on July 4th against the rancid Boston Red Sox, and a thunderstorm comes in the eighth inning!    Mike had a Gleasonian caniption fit.   Finally, he puts on rain gear, and begins heading out of the house with a ladder...it was all Bob and their uncle Charlie could do to keep Mike from going up on the roof, in the middle of a thunderstorm, to fix something he had no clue as to the nature of its anatomy, much less its function.   Bob called me up to tell me about all this, and I managed to convince Mike that his best shot right now was to turn on a transistor radio and catch the rest of the game on it.   All the while, he wailed like a wounded buffalo.   Mike was the real deal; he bled dark blue pinstripes.

Mike married late in life.   He met a woman through his job several years ago...a woman who was literally the female version of him.   We joked about how likely an occurance this was, sort of like the same DNA match fingering two different people.   Either way, they clicked, and my wife and I attended their wedding.   It was a memorable, fun affair.   This morning, I thought about it.   If nothing else, Mike had found someone to share his life with, even though that time turned out to be so tragically brief.

In a nutshell, Mike was a truly memorable person, and there certainly was never a dull moment.

Rest easy, my friend.