So it goes...

Yesterday marked three weeks until the release of The Portland House: a 70's memoir . On January 23rd, it becomes available on the eLectio Publishing website as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble online and iTunes. As a prelude, over the next few blog posts, I'd like to introduce you to a few random characters in the book. Some will be more significant characters than others, but all played a part in my childhood, whatever their role. Today I'd like to introduce my grade school friend Pat S. I have three friends named Pat in the book as well as my sister Pat, so I try and use last names in the book to keep them straight. Pat (Red), Me (Yellow) This Pat was one of my better friends through the grade school and middle school years. He lived almost exactly one block away, on the 1200 block of Portland. As I allude to in the book, I met him more out of a sense of curiosity than anything. He had a crew cut haircut, and would occasionally stop his bike across the street ...

I had lunch with an old, old friend at Rochester Deli today. We were supposed to get together last week, but something came up and he had to cancel. When he texted today that he was free, I made time and we went. When I say old old, I don't mean he was old, but our friendship is. We go way back to the late 80's and early 90's. His name is Bill and he is one of the funniest friends I have. He's just a lot of fun to be around. He does great impressions and loves being the life of the party. At one point he had aspirations to become a standup comedian. People are attracted to him because he's a warm person and his ability to laugh at himself at times is an endearing trait - at least it is for me. I've always had that trait, I think it comes from my mother who, at age 80, can still laugh at herself when she does something dumb. People that are incapable of laughing at themselves a little bit strike me as too uptight. Life is too short. Anyhow, I haven't seen...