TRIBUTE TO A CHILDHOOD FRIEND

I was offline for the most part yesterday ..I just found out that my best friend in the 5th 6th and 7th grade Virgil Howard passed away. Virgil and I became friends when my family moved from the monster public housing project …Carver Homes into a community of small affordable ( 10,000 dollars, a lot of money in 1959-60 ) houses in a subdivision on the northwestern edge of the city of Atlanta.Called “Lincoln Homes”. It was still very much the time of “jim crow” and Virgil and I met when we found out that the only place close by that sold comic books..( I mean the real deal D.C. and Marvel..not the “Archie” and “Donald Duck” stuff which were called “funny books” in those days) did not allow Black people to even come into the store. We ended up coming up with schemes every month to get some white person to go into the store and make a purchase for us…sometimes we paid a white “wino” to go inside…one summer we went into the surrounding woods and picked buckets of plums to give to the white church lady who lived across the street from the store and she would go in and buy from the list of our favorites that we would give her. Virgil and I in those days were true kindred spirits ..not just comics but we discovered all the classic fantasy writers Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell., Isaac Asimov.,Arthur C. Clarke.and Robert A. Heinlein. together ..we knew already that we were a lot smarter than the kids we went to school with ..but didn’t dwell on it. I guess it was my interest in being a musician, and later the civil rights movement that caused us to drift apart when we got to high school .I sort of went with the academic crowd while Virgil became something of a loner…But we only lived one block apart so I still saw him everyday. We really did go through a lot together and I treasure the time of discovering who we were together. I have always felt kind of sad that we did not keep in touch…The last time I saw Virgil was about 1976..long after high school walking down the street not far from his parents house. I already lived in Philly by then but we had a beer and talked a little ..I heard two days ago from a class mate that Virgil was ill and in the Hospital..I was off the computer yesterday and at 7 this morning I read that he had passed…this might be the worst thing about this time in life ..when you lose people or things and regret ….strongly how you didn’t get to spend more time with them or let them know how important they were…I have no idea what kind of life Virgil lived as an adult..and I regret that..but where ever he is I wish him peace….this is a picture of Virgil Howard from our high school yearbook …he was voted ” most humorous”14184474_10208826549572550_5399854431322786275_n