The
Ten Con-Man-Ments
When you look at the Ten Commandments with a fresh eye it
looks suspiciously unlike a cranky deity laying down the
law for a lot of unruly residents of his brand-new planet
and more like a wish-list drawn up by slaves who have grown
tired of living in bondage.
If the former were true the Ten
Commandments would end with "Follow the rules or else yer
gonna burn, pilgrim!"
Right?
----------------
The following is for me alone but I invite you to join me
in remembering a fallen comrade.
Thirty years ago I was running
weekly evenings of war-gaming at a local rec center. One
night a 16-year-old lanky collection of legs and arms, and
enough chin for two people, appeared at
my table. He caught on to the rules
without effort and quickly developed an enthusiasm for the
game. After the night was over he asked for a ride home,
which
was odd as he hardly knew me.
I
don't
know
what
he saw in me but he decided he was going to be my friend.
That's
how
Josh
worked and it was just fine with me. In
the process I also got to meet his parents, two of the nicest
folks on the planet. (Hi, Bob! Hi, Phyllis!)
Josh and I both spent a lot of time at the gaming tables,
geeking-out on the finer details of the games in which we
indulged. To
make extra money, while still in high school, Josh
hawked [a well-known brand of] knives door-to-door,
and he was danged good at it!
Eventually
he left for college, Brandeis, to be exact, and we kept in
touch almost daily via a new thing called "email".
He came home to Dallas with a degree in psychology, a minor
in creative
writing,
and
a black
belt in
karate.
Of course, with all this collective knowledge he opted
to go into show-biz.
He made Las Vegas his new home base, dabbled in real estate,
ran a 4K camera-rental business, met a lot of cute women
and, most interestingly of all, wrote and produced indie
movies.
He championed the film industry in Vegas and got deep
into
the governmental weeds to further its expansion into his
fair city. All the more customers to rent his cameras to,
of course.
He prospered in all these things, built a beautiful home
for himself in the Vegas suburbs and shacked up, as he recently
put
it
to me,"with a rich widow".
I could
not have been more proud
of
him.
And then, last Tuesday, Josh Cohen's aorta ruptured. He
was 47.
During the deepest, darkest parts of the COVID pandemic,
before vaccines were available, Josh invited me to accompany
him on a trip to Mexico, to have an adventure while
the whole world cowered! I had to defer, not wanting to
die from Trump's pandemic, but he
went
anyway. That was Josh.
He is now on his final adventure, this time alone. Knowing
Josh as I do I think, given the circumstances, he would
have preferred to exit stage left in a more dramatic fashion.
One filled
with
action, intrigue, jealous husbands and maybe a few zombie
aliens. Without doubt, there were mountains in his future
he yet intended to climb.
I still own one of those well-known knives he graciously
gifted me with, lo those many years ago. It currently commands
a prominent place in my kitchen and I know that each time
I hold it in my hand he will live again, if only in spirit.
Ya did good, kid. Farewell.
=Lefty=
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