An Old Friend's Husband Died of Cancer

She still lived in the Washington, D.C. area. Her name was Maurgerite but we called her Bambi. Her husband Mark who died who I never knew called her Meg. She was like that. She could have different names but they all seemed to capture her.

Bambi was the heart of the 107 Zimmerman constellation. Zimmerman was a dorm at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. where we went to school in the late 70's. Suite 107 became a mini commune of sorts, us renegade folks finding each other and caught between the 60's and the 80's, who thought College was not about getting a degree but figuring out what was going on, how we felt about ourselves, each other and the world around us.

We were not all focused on getting big jobs and internships but focused on how to unwind the first part of our lives so we could start to weave it back together again the way we wanted.

We thought we were so trapped back then but looking back we were more free then we were since probably. The weight of the world and adult hood weighing us down now like all the plastic we can't figure out what to do with so we just bury it somewhere or let in float in the ocean and hope it will go away.

Now we have to be concerned and focused and get the job done. We have no choice. The 70's blur is gone and the go go 80's are never coming back either.

So why am I telling you all this?

It's funny because I have not seen Bambi in almost 25 years. I didn't know anything about Mark who came out of a long remission and then got sick again and died. I know all this because incredible Julie, another friend from School, googled me and found me on the internet via another college friend, Chris. Julie suggested I email Bambi and say hello and she told me her husband was ill.

I emailed Bambi and she emails me back at 5 am saying her husband just died. Amidst telling me some of the fragments of her life that I knew nothing about Bambi tells me that her husband Mark worked at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC. He was considered the go to guy for anything about toxic and solid waste. They called him the super fund guy and he advised congress on these issues for many years.

When the Bambster told me this I thought how behind the veil of separation and not seeing something there has to be some link or chain that still connects us.

I told Bambi that sometimes people refer to me as the go to guy for green stuff and that one of my latest obsessions was that almost all of the garbage from NYC office buildings is thrown into a landfill and it really pisses me off.

So Bambi writes in the email today when she was telling me about all the funeral arrangements for Mark that it disgusts her that so many offices just leave the computers on all night and what a waste of energy that was.

She also told me her son had the same name as me and while I know that this has nothing to do with me and my platonic friendship with her decades ago it made me feel good that there was a kid with my name who had a mother who told him to turn his computer off at night and whose dad who just died was the go to super fund guy.

And I thought next time the Solar Decathlon happens on the Mall in Washington D.C. that Bambi and her son and me should all go see the houses entered into the Solar Decathlon which are built as an exhibit on the Mall. And we will talk about Mark the go to guy and 107 Zimmerman, the Moody Blues, and how to put a solar hydrogen system onto a house.