The Godfather

I had my reunion last night. A friend of mine was in town for the evening, and we got together for dinner and discussion of things past and present. I met him back in high school. My first concrete memory of our friendship was the two of us sitting rapt as another member of the band recounted (in explicit detail) his experience watching John Carpenter's "Halloween". This led, somewhat abruptly, to our own viewing. By the time we saw it, we had worked each other into such a state of preemptive terror that there was no way that we could have anything but a horrifying time, in spite of the fact that we had been prepared for virtually every scene, shot by shot - or perhaps that was the reason we were so scared in the first place.
The other distinction that my good friend has in my life is that he dated both of the loves of my life before I did. He acted as a kind of romantic preview system for me. I ended up being engaged to both women, and eventually (as my mind cleared) married the second. As a matter of fact, it was at my friend's wedding that I finally had the "just good friends" talk didn't end that way - we ended up deciding to date, then moved in together, got married, had a kid and lived happily ever after. I owe him my happily ever after.
For this reason, Clark is my son's godfather. He earned it by being a galactic constant in my life. We stayed up way too late swapping music and laughing like we did back in high school. It was over way too soon.
My younger brother pointed out to me that he always skims to see if he shows up in the blog before he reads it. He reminds me that stories of the past are best when they are told to a very specific audience. This one's for you, Clark.