I just got a high-school friend’s obit via email from another old pal; it’s put me in a musing state.

The decedent was someone who utterly transformed after high-school, from a prototypical stoner kid into an academic superstar whose career trajectory, according to the obit, had most recently involved work in the DC area, bridging government and academe. The obit specified no cause of death, and email correspondence with others revealed that it was uncertain.

He was in his early thirties and although I can’t swear to it, I believe I understood that his early college career was founded on a track scholarship. Which leads me to impute a later-life level of health-consciousness on his part, and that leads to the sort of “he just… died?” thoughts that are dancing about my pate at the moment.

mmf.

UPDATE: An hour later, another passing. Another friend of ours, in California, died in a diving accident yesterday. Both men were redheads, I just now realized. My high-school friend didn’t seem to have left a wife and kids, but our California pal does.

It’s a sad day.