Matt Carter.

.....This past year has been rather difficult on old friends of mine. I found out this morning that a friend with whom I hung out a lot when I was in my 20's died in September of this year. He was 38 years old. I still haven't found out the details, although I'm not sure if I really want to know the details. But it was still something of a shock none the less.

.....Matt Carter and I met while playing in a AD&D group over in Port Orchard in 1984. We were definitely roll-playing geeks of the worst order. Every weekend was a marathon session from early evening on Friday all the way through Sunday. Caused my parents a lot of grief when I completely lost track of time and I'd show up at home on Sunday afternoon when the last time they'd seen me was going to school on Friday morning. :-)

.....When I left high school I spent parts of my first year at Olympic College trying to tutor him in math. I would not think of it as a real success. We were always getting into trouble and whatever looked good at the moment looked a lot more fun to do than math. He did end up graduating though in 1987, something of a shock to all of us. :-)

.....He ended joining the Marine Corps a year or two later, attached to a supply unit. He actually was involved with Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He did see some direct action, but most of his time was spent in complete and utter boredom. Somewhere in all the boxes packed away downstairs I have a huge stack of letters from him from that time.

.....He had this early '70's Monte Carlo that he stowed at my house while he was over in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. That was a fast car. When he first bought it he and raced from his home in Poulsbo over to Port Orchard. We did the run in just over 16 minutes. I think that we lucked out big time in that there were no police cars in route. About a week or two later I actually raced him in my old clunker Ford Fairmont. I about blew the engine in my Ford and he made it to Port Orchard a good ten minutes before I did.

.....After getting out of the Marine Corps he got married and kinda sorta settled down. But his ideas of settling down still involved getting into all sorts of trouble. He loved attending rock concerts. Ack! I am getting a headache just remembering a few of them where I went with him, after drinking the fifth or two of obligatory Jack Daniels. Ouch!

.....The birth of his daughter, Brittany, seemed to make something of a difference. He tried hard to become more mainstream. I have some pictures of him at Brittany's birth. The look on his face is absolutely amazing.

.....I started losing track of him about this time. I was playing a lot more in the SCA and he was hanging out more in the coputer geek crowds. I hadn't heard from him in a while and when I heard of Byron's death earlier this year I started making an effort to track down some of my friends from this crowd. His first wife actually tried to get a hold of me earlier, but I never responded because I didn't recognize her number on last call returned. A good argument towards trying to change my habit of never picking up the phone when it rings.

.....Makes me wish I had made more of an effort earlier this year. Matt and I had a lot of good times. I miss the guy a great deal.

.....Aaron.