Category: In Memoriam

…because you may find it.

I met Jeffrey in 1999, shortly after I'd started working at PG&E Energy Services (PG&E Corp's unregulated energy experiment) in San Francisco.

Surprisingly, there weren't that many out gay men working for the company, so Jeffrey and I immediately gravitated toward each other. Never mind that the boy was cute and smart and sexy as fuck. But nothing more than a friendship—despite the mutual attraction—developed because Jeffrey was hopelessly devoted to his long-term boyfriend, Leroy. Even when said boyfriend was found caught cheating on numerous occasions, Jeffrey stood firmly by his side.

Like myself, Jeffrey was an inveterate techie. We were always discussing the latest hardware and software trends. He was very above board on software licensing issues, while I was more…flexible. He always purchased his software. I, on the other hand "obtained" a lot of it. (One of the perks of being in the business, I suppose.)  One day I finally convinced him to come over to the Dark Side by providing him something that he wanted but was otherwise unobtainable.

Even after PG&EES finally followed ENRON into the dustbin of history, and went to different jobs, we still both worked downtown and managed to meet up for lunch several times a week. At his new place of employment, Jeffrey discovered the Mac and became an immediate convert, putting an end to all his Windows-based Dark Side adventures. (Just as I was forced to go legit once I joined the Church of Steve Jobs.)

Shortly after I'd returned to Phoenix in 2002, Jeffrey finally had enough of Leroy's dalliances and they parted company. A little over a year later he told me he'd decided to move back to Texas and start his own business.

In 2004, we met up briefly as he was passing through Phoenix on his way to McKinney. This would be the last time I'd ever see him.

We exchanged a few more emails as he got resettled, but then life intervened and I lost touch. When I attempted to re-establish contact, none of his email addresses were active, and I had no phone number or old school physical address by which to contact him.

Over the years, I'd run cursory internet searches hoping to find him, but with such a relatively common name, I came up empty handed.

That is, until earlier this week.

And I almost wish I hadn't. "Ignorance is bliss," as they say.

Jeffrey died in 2011. No cause was given in the obituary, so I have no idea if it was AIDS, cancer, or some horrific accident. If he was HIV positive or otherwise sick, he never mentioned it. All I know is that yet another little hole has opened in my life that will never be filled.

I'm glad I had the chance to know him.

Something I've wanted to do since we got back to Phoenix two and a half years ago was pay a visit Metrocenter mall to see how it's changed over the past thirty-five years, but it seemed there were always more important tasks to attend to when we were in the area and I never seemed to get around to it.

Once upon a time this was the happening place in the (then) northwest valley. It opened my sophomore year in high school and I was immediately entranced by it's futuristic, foward-looking architecture. Over the years it became one of my favorite hangouts, suppling clothing, music, sundries, and even an occasional fleeting lascivious encounter. I worked at two stores there: Diamonds (later to become Dillards) and Broadway Southwest. I bought Village People's Macho Man and Michael Zager's Life's a Party at Musicland there the day they came out. My friend and great unrequited love Steve Golden worked at the Jox store. Needless to say, the mall holds many memories, so it was very sad indeed today when I finally had the time to stop see what had become of the place that played such a big part of my early adult life.

I knew that the mall was dying, but was unprepared for just how far gone the place was. Of the original 1970s anchors (Sears, Rhodes, Broadway Southwest, Diamonds and Goldwaters), only Sears and Diamonds/Dillards remained open. Broadway Southwest was demolished during the last two years to make way for a Walmart; the other stores (having long since changed corporate hands and branding several times) are now completely boarded up.

Vast stretches of the smaller stores are closed completely. When I was there at 10:30 am today, the few remaining stores that were still in business were all closed until noon. There were at most 50 people in the mall and four of those were extremely bored-looking security guards who couldn't even be bothered to enforce the "no photography" edict I was so blatantly violating. Maybe it gets more traffic after 12 pm, but considering the number of stores that are outright out of business, I doubt it.

I made my way to the Food Court, a place that was once so vibrant you could be assured of waiting in line no matter which vendor you chose. When the mall first opened, the court overlooked a lower-level ice rink, and sported a bar that was built inside (or at least resembled) an aircraft fuselage that hung over the edge of the upper level and looked down on the ice rink. The ice rink and the bar were removed in early 90s, so I wasn't surprised to see them gone. But I was a little surprised to see just how vacant the rest of the food court had become.

So another part of my young adulthood has died. This seems to be more and more common the older I get, and I suspect—is the same for every other person on the planet.

What surprises me the most about this (and the fact that Paradise Valley Mall seems to be suffering the same fate) is twofold. Firstly, the stores and restaurants on the ring surrounding the mall are booming. Secondly, "mall death" doesn't seem to be the case in Denver. Denver malls are still alive and vibrant community gathering places. So what's happening in Phoenix that the malls are rotting from the inside out?

Edgar Mitchell, one of just 12 human beings who walked on the moon, has died. He was 85.

"On behalf of the entire NASA family, I would like to express my condolences to the family and friends of NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "He believed in exploration, having been drawn to NASA by President Kennedy's call to send humans to the moon. He is one of the pioneers in space exploration on whose shoulders we now stand."

Mitchell died Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to NASA. His death occurred on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar landing, which took place on February 5, 1971.

Mitchell, Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa were the crew of Apollo 14, which launched on January 31, 1971. Mitchell became the sixth man to walk on the lunar surface.

He and Shepard set foot on the moon two separate times during their mission, spending more than nine hours collecting rocks, taking measurements and (in Shepard's case) hitting a pair of golf balls. Mitchell also took a famous photograph of Shepard standing next to an American flag. All told, the two spent 33 hours on the moon.

Mitchell, who was the lunar module pilot, found the trip to be a profound experience, telling the UK Telegraph in 2014, "Looking at Earth from space and seeing it was a planet in isolation…that was an experience of ecstasy, realizing that every molecule in our bodies is a system of matter created from a star hanging in space. The experience I had was called Samadhi in the ancient Sanskrit, a feeling of overwhelming joy at seeing the Earth from that perspective."

Fascinated and frustrated by the relationship between religion and science, he was very public about seeking links between the known and unknown, being a firm believer in extraterrestrial activity, and was convinced UFOs had visited Earth.

In one interview, he told Bloomberg Business that the 1947 Roswell incident, which to some people is evidence of an extraterrestrial crash landing, was covered up, saying, "It's not just military. It's a cabal of organizations primarily for a profit motive."

The astronaut was born in Hereford, Texas, in 1930. A Navy pilot, he joined NASA in 1966 as part of the agency's astronaut corps. He was well-qualified: besides having served as a test pilot and college instructor, he earned a doctorate from MIT in aeronautics and astronautics.

With Mitchell's death, of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, seven survive: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, David Scott, John W. Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.

Many have talked of their missions with joy and wonder. Mitchell went beyond, however: he believed we were all connected—to everything.

"We are not alone in the universe," he told the Utica Phoenix. "We are just one grain of sand on a huge beach."