'The glue': Blacktop notes on loss, Dolly, bonds that sustain

A few weekends ago I was hammer-down on I-40 headed east through Tennessee to the town where I grew up in South Carolina. Best friend I had way back in high school had passed away suddenly the prior week at 50, a true shocker to our circle and his family, for certain.

His name was Rob Anders, and he and I spent many an evening on the phone over the last decade or so, after a long time more or less out of touch -- I'd moved from the hometown way back in the late '90s, he'd stayed. I was tied up in family and all of you-know-what otherwise, himself in the same boat, each of us with a single daughter about the same age.

In our little figurative and quite literal band of young misfits around town when we were kids, Rob was the guy you could count on to be there when you called. If he said he'd be there, he'd be there, uncommonly outgoing, quick with a joke, a helping hand, a bit of information only he could summon to correct whatever problem you had. With respect to the last there, he ID'd many a mechanical issue for me, particularly.

He worked on cars in some capacity his whole life, when he was kid Volkswagen Beetles just because (did a little VW drag racing out in Farmington, North Carolina, and elsewhere time to time, back in the day).

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