stay loose

SLAM THAT PHONE, DB

Richard H. "Dick" Baker Obituary | 1938 - 2025 | The Salem News

Here’s one of my strongest beliefs…as a young man, as a young person…you meet a handful of older folks that aren’t blood relatives or close friends, nor do they stay in your everyday for all that long. In whatever design the universe is unfolding, and on their particular sojourn your way, they’re meant to demonstrate a certain kind of adult care. Maybe we call it goodwill. We might say interest.

I don’t know if I can get it down to a word.

But I think I can make do with a sentence or two:

These are the people who look you square in the eye. They take the measure of you.
And if you’re lucky, you hear and feel things like this:

Kid, you might (or you might not) be a fucking mess right now, but I’m rooting for you.

Because I’m in your corner.

And by dint of their presence, these folks plant a flag in the middle of your shabby toothpick-and-tinkertoy young person’s architecture, so that when you look back on that period of your life, you see what was there all along:

You meant something to someone. You always did. And you always will.

Stay loose, DB. Say hi to Pie for us.
-JK