Kind of depressing evening.
Was up in the town in the county over from mine that I rarely get too and thought I’d pop in and say hi to my old shift manager that retired a few years back. I’d bumped into him last in august of this year and usually stopped in a couple times a year to say hi. Ken was my first shift supervisor I had in my first adult job. Which was gate security at a military installation. Him and I didn’t get along at all for about the first year. I was 18 young and dumb, Ken was a retired Marine major turned Army reserve lt Col, spent 3 years as the Provost Marshall in Germany in the 80s. We didn’t see eye to eye at first and finally one Christmas Eve, we had a face to face argument and nearly came to blows. But something fixed it going forward because we became friends for the next 4 years before I promoted to another installation. We stayed in touch for a few years until he finally was forced to retire in 2019. But I tried to stop by occasionally, shoot the **** and buy a quart of honey with honeycomb from him . He was the guy that tried to get me to buy gold with it was 400 an ounce and silver at less than 7 bucks an ounce. But I didn’t and bought a PlayStation and bunch of games instead.
Anyway, back to the stop in. knocked on the door and his neighbor who id met many times before answered. Ken passed away suddenly in November, extremely surprising cause despite being 72, he looked 40. Was a health nut and very nutritional conscious. Neighbor said he hadn’t seen Ken that day and came knocking. When he didn’t answer, he tried calling his cell, which didn’t answer. So he let himself in with the spare key and found Ken dead. Ken left everything including his house to his neighbor as Ken never married, was a single child and has no surviving family. Neighbor is clearing it out, going to sell it and donate the proceeds to the soldier sailor home in Indy, per Kens wishes. Only people to attend Kens funeral was the neighbor and his wife. Which was Kens wishes as he was all but a hermit. But still sad and I wish I’d known. Not really torn up over it as we weren’t that close but still a bit of a shock