As a friend’s birth date passes, I celebrate him by re-publishing this edited piece? He was one of a kind. He ran with gangsters in the east and from the cops all the way out west. He was no gunslinger. He was a friend to Medicine Men, patron of “humans”. He was a “knight of the road” in his wagon filled with folksy, street wisdom and charade. He saw clearly into the future yet didn’t have enough time to accomplish the tasks that his ambition craved. But to be with Ralphy, it was the ride of your life.

Category 5

Happy Birthday, Ralphy. Thought about you all day but, I think about you all the time.

The life you breathed into our lungs. The dizziness that we felt as we followed your anecdotes and schemes. You made craziness seem real. The real you made crazy. And now, it’s twelve years since we hugged that last time in that dream.

After running along the mountainside, as we did in life, I knew it was the final hug; that, tight, oddly conscious, yet perfectly inevitable feeling, then we walked to that ridge and sat at the edge of the other side. Our legs playfully swung like restless children fishing on a pier. Our legs dangled over an indefinable universe; that, near-blinding, vast opulent glow of infinity. It was brighter than any imagined or humanly seen.

Saturn spun below. Jupiter towered before us. Planets hung harmlessly with stars shooting around the silent nothingness into a dark vanishing point of galaxies.

In that comforting silence, hardly could we know where you were heading. Had you brought me along to lean upon before that unknown? No matter, thank you for taking me there.

è stato il più magificent addio. A magnificent goodbye; that, which mortals nor heaven could ever contrive. Incorruptible. Supernatural.

As I drove silently for hours to your memorial my ears rang a piercing repeated riff.  As I listened closer then and later, as if you whispered it in my ear, it was “Like A Hurricane” .

Had it all come clearer to you, because it answered much for those who could never understand. You were a dreamer and time had just slipped away before you could harness a reality from the power of dreams. In the end, you were susceptible to nature.

As the drums beat and your tribe sang, my vision blurred. My throat choked close. I am sorry if I failed. If I failed when I couldn’t relate this experience to those who gathered; those, who loved you. I was paralyzed by the experience, stupefied by the love. All of us, your children.

Overwhelmed, I couldn’t speak of what we shared in that quixotic visit. The path before you; that, unknown path shared with me. It was simply all too much. It may have been too much for them but, that defined you.

We were just children. Susceptible. You blew into our lives. There was a calm in your eyes as you spoke madness. The swirl of your mouth as that smile grew with the insanity of each word you spoke. We wanted to love you but we were always getting blown away.

On our last earthly, mortal moment, I told you, “I’ll see yay sooner… than later” but as in life you beat me to it and so we parted on your terms in a beautiful dream.

You blew me away one last time. ti amo, Ralphy!