They definitely broke the mold...

You know when you're having a day like every other day (especially in these times) when you're just bumping along doing what you do, and you come home from a pleasant ride with a friend, and you head out to the backyard to hang out with your family and dogs, and your phone rings in your pocket, and it's a friend you rarely hear from, so you answer, and he tells you that your mutual friend that you've known for more than twenty years died in his sleep last night, and then... that's it.

I lost my long-time friend, Bill Fehr this weekend.

I remember when I first met him in 1998.  This bald-headed former (but always) Marine had his red and yellow Cannondale MTB upside down next to the fountain in The Square.  He was essentially polishing it with a towel that he was (always) carrying in his messenger bag. He was the latest FNG to the messenger scene, and while I couldn't really call myself a "veteran" with my year of experience, I had seen a few come and go in that time.

Who knew he'd be the only constant in my uptown life for over two decades.

We definitely had our ups and downs.  He was a complicated, interesting, well read, intelligent, thoughtful, dedicated (I could keep going, but at some point I gotta move on) man.

There was a time where if I was doing something, he was doing it with me and vice versa.  

He was the first person to take me mountain biking in Wilson Creek... and also camping... where he would cook his infamous "ham the size of Liberace's head."  I still don't know why he used that unit of measure.

We pretty much owned happy hour at Dixie's Tavern for a long time.  $1 pints and free wings and jambalaya... the "courier special."  I still have a sizeable scar on my knee from one of our rides back to his house afterwards.

He and I attending the Fontana Village Icycle a million years ago.... to end up in the middle of nowhere on the round about way home, almost running outta gas in his Jeep, finding a small convenient store with a clerk who looked like Helen Hunt... Bill dancing in the aisles singing Dragula out loud for some odd reason.

I rode along with him on an insane Midnight Run style drive to Connecticut to pick up a cradle that his father built.  I got to see his dad answer the door buck naked, eat eggs while smoking, and somehow we ended up in a strip club in Moosup, CT... which was just the oddest thing ever.

He made it to both 24 Solo World Championship races I was in to support me, Idyllwild and Conyers.  He got to meet my father in California... he was fully clothed tho.

I remember when he left the courier life for a few months... and then there was a hole in Uptown Charlotte... that fortunately he came back and filled up again.  At least while he was "in between" courier life moments, he was able to hop into my Isuzu Rodeo for the planned/unplanned trip to Moab the weekend after 9/11.  At some point on the trip, he broke off solo to ride to the La Sal mountains to overnight (before amateur homeless personning was a thing), ran outta water on the way back, and returned to us much crisper and lighter than when he left.

My whole family was right outside the door at the hospital when his daughter was born.  I can remember him coming straight out of the room and hugging me... and crying.

I wish I could hug his big dumb head right now.

I feel awful that in his final months, he had to let go of two dogs that were the world to him.  I'm so happy that he found someone new to spend his canine time with...

I feel for his sweet wife and his brilliant daughter.  I'm comforted that his parents have both passed away and they don't have to deal with the loss of a son way too soon... if that's anything, I guess.

And the thing I can't understand is that although he and I hardly got to hang out much anymore, he's definitely in that circle of people who's absence could possibly leave me with this hopeless sense of "what the fuck am I supposed to do now?"

What I wouldn't give for one more conspiracy theory laden discussion on the bench, what with that tiny bit of white spittle that would form on his lower lip any time he got excited about something.

Okay.  That's enough.  Time to go off and cry and ride my bike and try to not see his face everywhere I go.

Go hug your family.

The last photo Bill took of me...for what it's worth.