Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
Like most I had a best friend during my teens and twenties. He was the smartest and funniest guy I ever knew. In his mid-20's he started exhibiting agoraphobia. This was exacerbated when he contracted crohns disease and he got a colostomy. He lost his zest for life, for partying, playing ball, sailing. He gradually became a shut in. Still we remained close.
Over the decades we started drifting. I moved a thousand miles away had a family, job, what not. He stayed single, supported himself extremely well day trading, and we talked less and less frequently, but always when we did it was like the years and miles never mattered.
It had been two years since we talked. I called and his number was out of service. I did a quick e-search and came up with an obit for his father that mentioned his father had been recently predeceased by his son, my friend. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I'll be processing his death for some time. The father's obit stuck me too. I had known this man for decades. He had shown me many kindnesses. We talked often. I had been in his home and his summer home thousands of times and was exposed to the memorabilia of his life. Only in his obit did I find out that my friend's father, a Jewish-American, had fought at the Battle of the Bulge, been captured and held by the Germans until the war's end, and had been decorated with pretty much every medal his country could give excepting only the Medal of Honor. This man was the most unassuming and gentle man one could ever have met. I had no idea, no hint, he had ever been in the war, more less that he was a hero soldier and a POW. I can't imagine what a Jewish American POW must have gone through.
Weird how you can think you know someone.
Over the decades we started drifting. I moved a thousand miles away had a family, job, what not. He stayed single, supported himself extremely well day trading, and we talked less and less frequently, but always when we did it was like the years and miles never mattered.
It had been two years since we talked. I called and his number was out of service. I did a quick e-search and came up with an obit for his father that mentioned his father had been recently predeceased by his son, my friend. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I'll be processing his death for some time. The father's obit stuck me too. I had known this man for decades. He had shown me many kindnesses. We talked often. I had been in his home and his summer home thousands of times and was exposed to the memorabilia of his life. Only in his obit did I find out that my friend's father, a Jewish-American, had fought at the Battle of the Bulge, been captured and held by the Germans until the war's end, and had been decorated with pretty much every medal his country could give excepting only the Medal of Honor. This man was the most unassuming and gentle man one could ever have met. I had no idea, no hint, he had ever been in the war, more less that he was a hero soldier and a POW. I can't imagine what a Jewish American POW must have gone through.
Weird how you can think you know someone.
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