Bittersweet

As most of you regular readers know I'm hooked on Facebook as well as blogging. And for every old friend from college or high school that I've reconnected with there's been people from that part of my past that I'd rather just stay away from either because they've become intolerant Christians who look forward to going to the Creationist Museum or because I didn't like them back then and I still don't like them now. My friendship with some of my blog friends has deepened as a result of being on Facebook with them as well as reading their blogs.

Unfortunately, I've also ran into some sad and troubling news on Facebook as well. I recently friended a gal I went to high school with. I knew she would not remember me because I was a few years behind her. But I not only remembered her, I went to a very small high school, I was friends with her young brother Scott.

Scott was friends with my sister Sandy first. He and Sandy and another gal named Sheila were thick as thieves for a few years but when Sandy and Sheila graduated and went on to other things Scott was still in school with me, he was a year ahead of me. Since we both partied in high school we would often hang out together and get stoned and or drunk. Scott was a fun, funny, stand up guy. And he was gay.

In a small rural community like Lee County, VA if you were gay you had to keep it under wraps or you faced the wrath of people who hated gays and the wrath of the sanctimonious holier than thou Christians, and often they were one and the same. But for some reason this didn't apply to Scott. And I think it was because Scott was so beloved by everyone. We stoners liked him because he was one of us, the jocks liked him because he was not a threat to them, and the hicks liked him because he made them laugh. If you asked him he'd tell you he was gay but he didn't go around screaming about his sexual orientation. He wasn't a flamer, but you knew he was gay if you spent any length of time around him at all.

I liked Scott immensely because he was such a fun guy. He always was quick with a joke and to poke fun at the people and things that needed it. He reminded me of me in that regard. I also liked him because he was who he was and he didn't change for anybody. I always thought he was pretty brave to not change who he was in order to try and fit in. In a way he was a hero of mine because if a gay guy like him could be himself in that small town then I, a smart geeky bookish kid with a smart mouth, could be who he was and not worry about it. Sometimes I had to reign in who I was but Scott never did and for that I always admired him.

The day after I graduated high school I left moved out of Lee County and for the most part I never looked back. I had heard that Scott had died of HIV/AIDS but I never was sure about it, until his sister and I began emailing each other on Facebook that is. I shared with his sister that my brother Charlie, who she remembered very well by the way, had died from an HIV/AIDS related illness and so she told me that Scott had as well. But oddly enough he didn't get it from unprotected sex, he got it from a blood tranfusion. She told me that Scott was managing a restaurant in North Carolina and one night after he closed up the place he got carjacked. The carjacker slit his throat so he could not scream but the slit did not kill Scott. The carjacker tied him up and put him in the backseat of his car and then he took off. Despite having a slit throat Scott was able to undo the bonds that held him and he managed to run off when the carjacker stopped for a rest break. It was during his hospitalization that Scott was given AIDS tainted blood.

It's a sad turn of events that cost my friend Scott his life but I know that he lived that life braver than most anyone else I know. I wish I had kept in touch with him after I left high school and I wish I could have seen him before he passed so I could have told him he was one of my personal heroes. I missed the chance to do those things, so this will have to do, so long Scott, you were one hell of a guy and this world was better for you having been in it.