DEDICATED TO RICHARD M. AND MIKE T.

I met Richard M. in the fall of 1960 in Junior High School when I was 14. I think that the home room teacher had assigned seats so he was placed next to me. We began to talk and found that we had common interests like electronics and particularly salt water fishing. His parents owned a 29 ft. Luhrs Sea Skiff with a Greymarine inboard motor. His father seemed well to do so his family had a nice loving home Even his dog, Teppy, loved me when I would come over. Over the years we did some fishing together, took long bike rides,had the first reel to reel tape recorder running in a vehicle that we know of on a power inverter and enjoyed food. Somehow we lost contact in a strange way because we each misplaced each other's change of address. This occurred around 1978. I was out of contact with him until the late 1990s. The computer age helped me to find him, in fact, fortunately his son was listed in the state that I thought that he would be living in and so it was. Great person, great family, what more could anybody ask in a friend. I will never forget how kind his mom was during the year 1961 when she would take me and a few other of Richard's friends home by car from a division of our high school known as the annex from Jamaica to Queens Village, New York.

I met Mike T. while working for a social service agency on a senior works program around 1978.
We became fast friends. He admired the way I was with home electronics like stereos. I went with him in the 1980s to audition speakers in a store. He bought the Pioneer HPM-100s. He still has them and they still work. They are a much sought after vintage loudspeaker(read audioreview.com on the stories of how people acquired these things). We went fishing with a friend of his out of Key Largo in a rowboat with a 18 hp evinrude outboard that only had two of the three blades on the prop out of a joint called ALABAMA JACKS. We did catch some small panfish because I had some tiny hooks in my taklebox. We did have a good time anyway. I lost track of Mike for awhile because he went to seek his fortune in N.Y.C. However, I always kept him on my mind. Fortunately, I remembered where his father lived and was able to track down his dad's phone number. Mike was with his dad and told me that the N.Y.C. trip did not turn out that good. No matter. He is happily married with two sons. He has a doctorate and his charming wife is a executive vice-president in a major bank. In the 1980s when he got married, I video taped his wedding in linear stereo sound. The wedding photographed quite well but the sound was fantastic. Mike and his family live very busy lives but I am always in contact with him. He came to see me a few times when I was in the hospital in Feb of 2005. On the day that I got out, he came with his son and a carload of foodstuffs. Some time ago, I was at his house and assisted him in hooking up a budget home theater system which for the budget it was, played pretty damm good. He is a great friend and he has a great family. He is also a great MR MOM.