On The Other Side Of Forever

#59 – Tuesday May 1st

John Curtin - Untitled
5.5" x 7" - 2001
Acrylic and wax on paper

I met John Curtin in the back of a dump truck, shoveling dirt. As die-hard mountain bikers, we’d both volunteered to work on a Cook County Forest Preserve trail reconstruction project, and our piece of the action was to man the shovels. That was over 20 years ago, and while the origin of our friendship was founded in a mutual enthusiasm for mountain biking, it grew into a relationship far beyond any definition of the word “friends”. I’ve never stopped to examine why we became so close, we just did. Shared interests of course . . . art, music, film, politics, a zest for language, March Madness, The Tour de France, Vuelta a España, black coffee, dark beer, smooth bourbon, killer burritos, and yes mountain bikes. In the two plus decades we knew each other, and regardless of living eighteen hundred miles apart, we rarely went more than a week without deft and joyous hours long conversations, and all combined within, was the magic.

My John passed away last week, victim of an aggressive form of melanoma. I will miss him more than any words could express.

Thanks for reading.

Charles

If one might be so inclined, donations can be made in John’s memory to the Patient and Family Assistance Fund of the Northwestern Memorial Foundation.