The magnificent David Ingenthron has recently wed.
As the ceremony was a small family affair, I was unable to give a toast in his honor. Therefore, I make one here and now.
"tink-tink"
Ahem...
I've known Dave as long as I've known myself. Literally. We first became pals when we were three-years-old; at an age before, as they say, children become self-aware.
In the thirty-five years since that initial encounter at Willard Swimming Pool, the two of us have had quite a bit of fun, together, and caused quite a bit of trouble. These moments, scattered evenly throughout the years, are the objects of many of my favorite memories.
Childhood nights spent running wild through the backyards of Montclair. We knew the land like no one else did. We made the hills our own.
Our stream-of-consciousness trip through Mexico.
The flying scarab beetle in Lugano. So vile and nasty a creature that we fled in horror like little children down the medieval path.
Football in the mud. Hoops surrounded by the burnt-out remnants of houses.
Drinks, drinks and more drinks.
It has been, thus far, a life well-spent together.
A few years ago, on a visit to see Dave in Chicago, we rode at night from club to club, bar to bar, aboard our bicycles. Flying through an abandoned industrial district, the warm wind blowing through my hair, I braked to a stop, overwhelmed by the sheer delight of it all. When Dave pulled up, I turned to him and yelled that THIS was what life was about. I truly, truly meant it. I was wonderfully alive. Free. It was the kind of moment that can only happen when you're in the right place, at the right time, with the right person.
There's something about Dave that makes him that right person in a lot of different times and places; and for a lot of different people. He has, consequently, attracted many admirers over the years. They see something special within him. A certain wisdom. A particular centeredness.
In my own experience, as I've grown older (and, hopefully, a little-bit wiser) I've noticed that so much of what I've come to learn is something that Dave has already known; usually from long ago.
There is, for instance, the way that Dave views the world around him.
He has never been an environmentalist. He has never called himself green. However, Dave is, simply, never wasteful. This is who he is and who he's always been. It is a deep moral issue. For Dave, behaving wastefully is morally akin to acting violently.
He never preaches this morality to others. He only acts according to his beliefs.
Today, the rest of the world is running around scared, afraid of the Earth melting, and they're doing their best to imitate Dave's ways and, yet, their behavior is almost always shallow, almost always disconnected, almost always a farce.
This is because Dave's idea of waste goes far beyond mere materialism. It touches on a rare respect for life that I wish I understood more but I can, alas, only hint at here. What I do know, clearly, is that he is someone whom I greatly admire.
So, I'd like to say, since Dave has just been married and is, also, fast approaching the age of forty, when most of us look upon our lives and take a reckoning, that I want my ol' buddy to know that if he ever feels lost, if he's ever questioning his path, he need only look inside for guidance.
He is, in my humble opinion, as close to a complete human being as anyone else out there that I've ever met.
It is an honor to spend a life with a friend, no matter what. It's been a very unique honor of mine to have that friend be such an inspiring person.
Here's to a wonderful and fulfilling life ahead for Dave and Carrie.
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