I took this photo of George back in the early 1970s when we were both teenage boys and I was getting deep into photography as both a photojournalist and an artist. George was one of those rare friends who could give the camera a completely natural straight-on look, and enjoyed letting my camera give him some love. This one was taken somewhere along one of our hikes at Great Falls.

He was beautiful, which was another reason why he was a favorite to take with me on a camera hike. In retrospect I think he had a crush on me, but I was crushing on another classmate and was oblivious. He paid my way into a drag race at a track deep in PG County and also for a pit pass. His favorite drag racer was competing. But it was during the Saudi led gasoline shortage and though heavy gas rationing was no longer in place it was still a time of shortages, and I got afraid I would run out on the way back and asked if we could leave the track early before the gas stations closed.

He sadly agreed and I can still hear his wistful voice saying as we drove off, that his favorite was probably making his run about then. I wrote about it here back in 2013, long before I knew what had happened to him. This photo is from our last camera hike, a few weeks after the race. He never took another with me and we drifted apart. It’s my favorite photo of him. I made him a print of it and he told me afterward that even his dad thought it was a good one.

The memory of that moment and the sound in his voice as we drove away from the track stuck with me, and I began to feel more and more like I’d betrayed his trust. It has persisted painfully all these years.

I began trying to search for him online, first on the various blogs where I thought he, or a mutual friend, might be, then as the Internet became a thing. I tried all the people search websites I could find, but I could never remember how to spell his last name so the searches came up blank. It went on for decades. Then on Facebook someone posted some pages of his high school yearbook and I saw his picture in it and got the correct spelling. I immediately found him: he was living in Florida, got his address and sent him a letter. It came back as no longer living there, forwarding address unknown.

The more I dug the more it began to appear to me that he was in a bad way, maybe even homeless. I became alarmed and contacted a private detective agency and gave them what I knew. If he was homeless or on the edge of it I wanted to help. I felt I owed him. I’ve had other friends who have gone through periods of homelessness here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, and I’ve seen how they can convince themselves that their situation is hopeless and they just give up. I came near enough to that myself. With effort mutual friends and I got them the help they needed and back on their feet. I would have done that for George if I could have.

The agency found him right away. But it was bad news. Yes he was still alive, something I was worried about because we are both old men now. But sometime between when we were teenagers and the old men we are now, he had become schizophrenic.

He was being cared for in a place I thought was sketchy, but that was none of my business. I sent him some letters and postcards but never heard back. I don’t even know if he got any of them or if his caretakers simply trashcanned them.

So now I know, and I have to let it go. Or at least try to make peace with it. Somehow.

We were young and he was beautiful and fun to be with. I should have paid more attention…and maybe been a little less self absorbed. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, but then I suppose none of us do, for better or worse. Things just happen and you do you best to navigate the wreckage to the other side.

Never ask me why I am an atheist. I might just shrug and give you whatever answer I think you want. Or you might get an earful about every knife in my heart and all the good hearts I’ve ever known that happened to us for no reason. There is no God. All we have in this life is each other.

 Shine on George, wherever you are…