Still the Best Man

We live about 900 miles away from each other and, if we're lucky, we see each other in person once every four or five years. So it was a real treat to see Al Rodriguez, my best friend from high school and the best man in our wedding, come up from Santa Barbara for Jordan's wedding this past weekend.

Except for the neatly trimmed snow-white goatee, he looks as though he stepped out of our 1970 high school yearbook -- tall, dark and still thin. My family used to call him "Bean," as in stringbean. I call him Al Rod.

I also call him a trusted friend, someone who makes me a better man by gently challenging me, whether it's to better articulate what I'm saying or, just as often, to justify my views.
We've always had a great rapport, even though we've had some l-o-n-g stretches between phone calls or e-mails.

We met through our dads, who worked at a pipe foundry. We became close friends as high school freshmen and ran track and cross country. Al went away to Sioux Falls (S.D.) College on a track scholarship, but then transferred to San Jose State as a junior and we roomed together, with others, for two years. After college, I moved to Oregon and married Lori. He stayed in California and eventually married Elizabeth, an East Coast transplant. They have a daughter, Nicole, who graduated from UCSB a year ago.

Al was a lifesaver during the wedding weekend. I wound up being busier than I expected the day before and day of the wedding, and Al jumped in to spend lots of time with my mom, acting as shuttle driver, lunch companion and all-around caretaker. I owe him big time.

He arrived early enough Friday that we had a few hours together to catch up on each other's lives. (We had lunch at the Butte Falls Cafe, above, a downhome kind of place in Jamie's hometown of about 400 people.) Where we once used to confide in each other about female relationships and debate great existential questions, now -- understandably -- it's all about family, our tenuous employment situations and the future.

Watching Al converse with family and friends over the weekend, it became obvious to me why he is such a good friend and why other people like him so much. 1) He listens. 2) He doesn't interrupt. 3) He asks "why?"

That may sound simple enough but I've gotta say there are a lot of people who don't get it. Nothing aggravates me more than someone who talks over me, who doesn't give me the courtesy of finishing a sentence because they are so eager to jump in. Al really takes time to focus on what the other person is saying. As a result, the conversation doesn't jump all over the place. It stays focused.

I've always prided myself on being a good listener. And I've always been aware how that quality contributes to being a good journalist. As an introvert at heart, I'd rather listen and observe than be the one at the heart of the action.

Al is at least a head taller than me. But I suppose I can understand people mistaking us for brothers. After all, I've always considered him mi hermano.