Firstly a thank you to Mike and Melissa Rhodes for creating this memorial page for Craig.

Over the years the friendship that Craig and I had shared sadly disipated along the way with life decisions and distance. Our love for each other had not. It’s impossible to share such a long history and major life events with someone and not come away with anything other than a strong brotherly or sisterly love for one another. Craig played a large part in shaping my life, and I his. I have many anecdotal memories of Craig that echo within my thoughts when I think back on my childhood, adolesence and into adulthood. Many stories, happy, sad, funny, even hysterical, the full gamut. Those memories will overlap and intertwine with some of you that are reading this. I could write a novel with the adventures that he and I had shared over the years, however I’ll spare you that and instead offer a Reader’s Digest version of our younger years, for those who are interested. Younger years because that’s when we knew each other best, uninhibited.

I met Craig in second grade. I had been held back from the previous year after transfering to a new school and being the new kid in that class on my first day, I found myself anxiously stumbling around the playground during our first recess. It was there when I saw this tall, gangly, white haired stick of a kid with popbottle glasses being bullied and pushed around over by the slide. I stepped in to intervene (as best as I could at that young age) and we quickly became friends, as he likely related to the tall, gangly kid that I too was at that time. That friendship turned into a lot of sleep overs, falling asleep listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater, fort building, Cub Scout meetings with other friends and his parents Ken and Rose (pictured), who incidently were our den parents for a while, birthday parties at Lake Michigan, day trips to Chicago with his dad to watch a Cubs game, and so on. Most every other weekend or so, one of us would stay at the other’s house and we would find some sort of mischeff or another to get ourselves into.

After a couple of years my family moved again, and again I transfered schools, but it was still close enough that Craig and I could maintain our friendship. As weekends and birthdays came and went, we eventually got our drivers lincenses’ and with that of course a whole newfound freedom. At this age we had an entirely different motive (aside from birthday parties) to go to Lake Michigan, and we did this quite often during those warm and humid Michigan summer months. I will always remember (and share here) a particular summer when Craig got his first car, a maroon Pontiac Sunbird if I recall correctly. I arrived at his house one Saturday morning for a planned trip to the beach, however this time he would be the one doing the driving in his new car.

As I approached his house with my beach gear, I could hear the lawn mower running in the back yard and Craig and his mother engaged in a squabble of sorts. Rounding the corner of the house, I saw Craig mowing the grass in front of (and towards) the miniature rose bush lined patio, where Rose was standing and giving him what for. I’m not sure if Craig had procrastinated doing his chores to the point that we were going to have a late start, or if it was a last minute chore that she had required of him before we had left for his maiden drive to the beach. Perhaps she was nervous thinking about her only child (accompanied by myself) driving to the beach, I’m not sure. Either way, Craig was clearly irritated with the culmination of having to mow last minute, the realization that the beach and I were waiting on him, and his mom continuing to bicker at him as he feverishly mowed away, glancing between his mom and the ground he was mowing. Finally, he snapped, and with one quick swipe murderously plowed into a miniture rose bush with the lawnmower, severing it in half directly in front Rose, in some sort of rebellious display. As miniture rose bush sticks went flying into the air in various directions, Rose immediatly screamed (in her heavy English accent) “Craig, me roses, me roses”!

In disbelief of what I witnessed I looked at Craig and saw his head drop in shame as he mowed over the remaining rose bush sticks in an attempt to cover the crime scene. The irony of it, Rose, the rose bushes, “me roses, me roses"… it was all I could do to contain myself from cracking up. However, that said, we both knew the seriousness of what had occurred. The English take great pride in their back yards, their gardens. I wasn’t for certain, but I was pretty sure that what he had done was a capital offense over in the UK. Rose, being the loving mother and kind spirit that she was, eventually gave pardon and Craig and I were allowed to continue on with our plans. Although I thought it was rather funny and mostly harmless, I think he held onto some remorse about it. Years later, the handful of times that I reminded Craig of that humerous event, he would always shy away and redirect the conversation onto something else, reminding me of what a big heart and kind nature he had.

And so it was not long after he went on into College and I went on into the Service and we went our seperate ways. We had reconnected and even roomed together for a while some years later after he had moved to Georgia, introducing me to some new friends and sharing some new travels, adventures and memories. In the mid to late ’90’s I moved west, subsequently visiting each other on only a few occasions since. Regardless of where we landed, I will always remember Craig as a close friend that I had once had. Like many of you, his laugh, his kind nature and quirkiness and the time that we spent together will forever be imbedded in my memory and thoughts.