Some people are just familiar. It's like you've been knowing them your whole life as soon as you meet them. They're good people. A good soul. A long-lost friend.
The fire chief of Fairfield is like that to me. He must be 30 years my senior, but we got on like peas and carrots when I was a reporter there. We easily and quickly developed a professional friendship, and then a personal friendship. I spent hours in his office gossiping, then 20 minutes talking business.
I would sometimes find myself competing with Cincinnati's news stations and the Enquirer during big stories. I reported for the underdog then, the small paper of just 35,000, while the others had bigger mastheads and expensive cameras. Didn't matter though.
When big stories hit as they occasionally did, and the rest of the CIncinnati media that normally ignored Fairfield descended, the fire chief would part the fray for me. He ushered me into his giant red SUV many times so I could get to fire and accident scenes, and we'd drive right past the rest of the swarming media, and he'd never even act like he was going to roll the window down for them.
Suckers, I thought as we drove past. Ha!
He used to say, "You're not my ex-wife. You can't talk to me like that," whenever I'd boss him into giving me information. So whenever his secretary would tell me he was busy and couldn't pick up the phone I'd have her tell him it was his ex-wife, and he'd pick up, knowing it was me of course.
The last time I saw him was at a surprise anniversary party for him. I hadn't seen him in a few years and when he walked in and saw everyone clapping and staring at him, he paused for a minute, walked straight over to me and gave me a giant hug. The kind of hug that kind of lifts you off your feet for a minute.
He introduced me to his daughter at that party, and a few weeks later I had the pleasure of hanging out with her and him at a restaurant in Fairfield. She and I chatted at the bar and she told me how much she loved her job as an ultrasound sonographer.
Yesterday I was browsing Cincinnati.com for weather headlines and saw this one, and read that his daughter was killed. She and her husband both died during the wind-storm when a tree fell during a fund-raising motorcycle ride for Fairfield families of military personnel who have died in Iraq.
She was young. In her late-20s. And they'd just had a baby about six months ago.
I can't fathom what agony my dear friend is in. It just doesn't seem right. Doesn't seem right at all.
1 comment:
What a touching post. He truly is a special person and hearing the news Sunday night devastated me. Something so bad happening in the life of someone so incredibly undeserving it, just leaves you wondering. I've tried over the last several days to understand it all. The best I've come up with so far ... who better to love that baby left behind and impart in her a sense of who her parents were than Chief Bennett. She'll need him and he'll need her.
P.S. Wanted so bad to call you when I heard the news, but being the terrible friend I am don't have a current phone number ... pass it along via email if you get a chance, please.
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