My best friend Keith in two unguarded moments: Kruse Ranch dive trip.
He hated photographs, hated sitting still long enough for a photo, hated posing. I'd have to be sneaky to document our dive trips, our friendship, and since I was arrogant regarding the primacy of memory and the internal vision, I colluded with Keith. I can't recall that he ever snapped a shot, though I think his children may remember the facts differently. He would have told me, Matt, of course, I want to have keepsakes of my children. (He loved his children fiercely.)
Memory Lane is a blurry avenue, don't you know?
We left home about midnight and drove the three or four hours up to our "secret spot" on the Sonoma Coast, talking all the while, solving the moral conundrums and practical puzzles of the day, crashing out after a few beers by the side of the road. (We both had forgotten to bring a bottle opener, and consequently, we had to be creative with different parts of the Datsun or our dive knives to serve that need.) I think there's a "No Camping" sign a few feet from where Keith is sleeping. With the morning light -- though this trip we'd obviously overslept -- we'd gear up and harvest a few abalone. I usually ended up driving homeward while Keith napped in the passenger seat. (I sometimes railed at him for how he relied on me to keep him awake on the outward leg, but he snoozed on me, leaving me to my own devices, on the homeward leg, but he always failed to be impressed by my arguments. As driver, I had command of the tape deck, and he knew I liked companionable solitude anyway.)
When would this trip have occurred? Post-undergraduate. Law school days for Keith? Warehouse/driver days for me? I'd have to do some homework. Early or mid-80's? If I think hard enough about that car, I can work out the year, I'm sure.
If I spent too much time with my instamatic taking photos of the tidepools, of the surf, of any of our group, he'd urge me to get done, as we needed to head home. He usually had work or chores or something waiting for him, and I respected those responsibilities, yet it often seemed as if he just thought what I was doing was frivolous.
He claimed to hate these shots. And yet I can recall one time he commented that I never bothered to share the photographs with him and the rest of the gang, if gang there happened to be that year. I was surprised and hadn't shared due to my sense of his disinterest, or antagonism, or to the poor quality of the shots, hurried and taken from the hip, as it were.
I wish I had more of them.
I miss you, man.
