So Max passed away this weekend - apparently sometime during our hellish party on saturday night. I can't but think that was the kind of environment in which he thrived. Chaotic and yelping and always talking - he would have known everyone there.

The first time I met Max (I had known his older brother Bill a bit when we were in high school) was the summer after his sophmore year of high school and after my freshman year of college. I was at home in Temple bumming around for the summer. He snuck out of his house and Victoria and I went to pick him up. He snagged a bottle of rum from his parents and we went and got slurpees from 7-11 to mix it with. We ended up in an empty lot somewhere drinking most of the night in that inimitable small town way.

We were never the best of friends or anything like that but I will miss him and the crazy enthusiasm he had for life. He always had a smile and a hug and some weird story about something he had just done.