You Gotta' Aim Them

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As you go through life you'll find the most interesting people. Sometimes they will enter like a storm, stay close, and then circumstances will take them out of your life, but the feelings will never change. And you'll remember every second of the life moments they shared with you, when they are taken away.

I knew a man named Kimball Patterson. A Native-American ironworker with a college degree in physics who coached lacrosse, loved the Sabres and Bills, and worked so hard it made my head spin while I sat beside him as a 27-year old man on a long-term job.

Kimball passed away on Monday at the age of 59. He had just hit a golf shot in a charity tournament. His heart couldn't take it.

"We all get a lot of arrows to shoot in our lives," Kim told me once. "Most people just shoot them willy-nilly. You gotta' aim them."

I can still see him saying it. We laughed a lot in our time together in that little job trailer. He let me and my buddy Jeff have his Sabres season tickets one year. Great seats. We paid him $50 bucks apiece. For the entire season.

One day we came around the corner at a job and there was a grand piano sitting there. Kim sat down and played Beethoven. And not just three notes. He played a mini-concert for me as I stood there with my mouth wide open.

"What? You thought I wasn't cultured?"

When I heard the news yesterday I was so sorry for Kim's mother and wife. He was such a fine man. I was also sorry for myself because it had been a little while since I spoke to him. He'd had a heart scare a couple of years ago.

"I'm fine," he said. "Your heart will give out way before mine."

I hadn't called him since. I certainly regret that this morning.

Kim was around when I met my beautiful wife. Perhaps he knew a little something. I was leaving the office to have a drink with Kathy back in the days when she did things like that.

"Aim those arrows," he said.

"Shut the hell up," I answered.

We always said shut the hell up to one another.

RIP buddy.

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