Carl

Carl and I were both philosophy majors at the same college. We had a couple classes together. I'd go to class and would almost inevitably run into him playing hacky sack on the way back to my dorm afterwards. I'd join the circle and fill him in on what he'd missed and warn him whenever a quiz was coming up. He was in a pretty good hippie band (if such a thing exists) that I'd go watch at Stebs whenever they played there, even though they had an annoyingly mousy drummer.

About a year later, long after he had given up on the whole philosophy major idea, Carl realized that I was that bombastic drummer he often heard on the corner of Second and Main downtown and asked if I wanted to try out for his band. Having just graduated from college and without a clue as to what to do next, I said, "sure."

We set up a time to meet at a house he lived in with the rest of the band except the bass player. The current drummer's kit was already there so I just used that. After about an hour of random noodling (at least on my part), the other drummer showed up. Nobody said anything; we just kept on playing.

I joined the band and eventually moved into that house. Carl had inadvertently steered my life's course into a direction at a time when it had none, and would do so again years later when I moved to Portland to be close to friends once more.