‘rona de mayo

this one really sucks…

…but as far as last memories go, it rocks.

i grew up with this guy brandon. back in mr. key’s math class (8th grade – 1984-5) it was me, him, and robert garcia all cutting up and drawing iron maiden shit and generally entertaining the whole class from the back row much to the detriment of our mathematical education.

but we had fun.

i never really hung out with him outside of school. i have no idea where he lived. but i know if we had a class together, we sat together, entertained the masses, and got in a decent amount of trouble for doing so for years. after school we lost touch, but if we ran into each other around town it was never a short visit.

we ran into him at a tex-mex place in kyle and, due to his presence, that became where we went twice a week while os was in his mma class back then. when he was unceremoniously and unjustifiably let go from there we boycotted the place for a couple years. then he started bar-tending here in town and it was on, prompting this graphic on all my social media platforms at one point:

(get it? “cinco de brandon” because his last name was “mayo”?!? eh, what do you know from funny?)

he eventually left this gig to work for frito-lay as a delivery guy, taking salty crispness to the masses. he bought a house with his wife out near bastrop so then the only time i saw him was in h-e-b when he was on a delivery, and the ufc knew if i ran into him because my typical half hour or less store runs would drag out to more than an hour.

but happily so.

the last time i saw brandon was on my birthday, june 19th. as i’d mentioned around then, i did the juneteenth bbq as a during work shop party, buying all the meat that morning and cooking it just before taking it in. when i went to buy it all on juneteenth morning i ran into brandon, who saw me before i saw him and started belting out “happy birthday”…at full volume…in the middle of the meat section of h-e-b.

and that kicked off a half hour visit with hugs and all, plus multiple run-back-into-each-other visits throughout the store as i bought what i needed, occasionally seeking him out to fuck with him a bit, and vice versa, eventually parting company so he could go buy tacos (not being racist, that legitimately what he was doing and he offered to buy for me as well if i wanted) but i declined because i had to go fire up the grill.

two days later his wife made him go into the hospital because he was feverish and short of breath and…you know…’rona.

he never came out. after an eight week hospitalization he lost to the ‘rona on what would have been my mom’s 80th, august 18th.

so i can now say i positively have somebody from my life that’s been killed off by this. yeah, i have my extreme suspicions that my dad was an early victim back in february, but this one is a lock. so wear your fucking mask and stop bitching so the rest of my friends can get through this shit, okay?