So I had a long day in the mines you know, leaving the house a scoche (or however the hell that's spelled) after 5:30 am and getting back just shy of 9. I feel pretty strongly that these hours should be reversed, but what else can you do after a few extra-lean months and fairly small regular earnings? Be as irregular as possible, right? But I'm not going to go off into my extra-odd circumstances as far as everything is concerned right now.

Around 9 tonight, while I was microwaving sweet potato in the kitchen, my friend John in Dracut called and left a brief, nonspecific message to call him back. It was a little un-John-like to not say what it was about. I'm likelier to call in any case, whether specific or general. I reached him back before 9:15 and he said something like "Do you remember Paul Hansen from VISTA?", only it couldn't have been that, maybe it was more like "Did you know Paul Hansen was sick?" and proceeded to tell me that he'd just received email about Paul's death on Monday.

In my mixed experiences in the world of community technology and communication-based nonprofits here in New England (which have driven me to the world of service industry and temporary work), Paul stood out to me as someone competent and relatable. He was creative, smart, funny, understanding, fairly outspoken and you could even say classy. There, I said it. He returned a call of mine sometime this spring. I wish I could remember right now what the topic was, but I remember taking the call when I was working at WCAT. I had to take my cell outside into the back parking lot of Wakefield High School to keep the signal as we often had to do. His voice didn't sound at all good, and I don't think I knew his diagnosis yet, may have heard something general about his being sick. I'm pretty sure that if Ben Sheldon had taken over his post at that point, I didn't know about it. But in any case, I was asking for advice about something and a guy who quite certainly already knew he had lymphoma and may have been told he was terminal bothered to try to help me with one of my relatively trivial issues, something like "Who should I trust to buy a car from? Is this Saul character who worked for you reputable?" or something like that.

Two years and three months is just about exactly when I moved up to the Boston area to do a work assignment though the Community Technology Center branch of VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America, itself a branch of Americorps). Paul headed the CTC-VISTA program for the whole country, located here at UMass-Boston. I had a bit of a rough spot with some assignments that weren't a good match and didn't make as many personal or professional connections through the program as I would've hoped. Despite the troubles I had, Paul was one of the people who was interesting to talk to, offered helpful advice on numerous occasions and didn't make me feel like a misfit.

With that intro, I'd like to rehash my memories, though I want to clarify that I'm not trying to claim that I was an important person in his life. He was someone I respected and liked, and is well worth reflecting on and remembering. Having said that, I warn you, this stuff gets a little goofy.

An artsy guy, Paul made odd sculptures with colored balls that were displayed around the UMB campus. Once Danielle the cake-artist brought a birthday confection with a design of his balls (oops, I guess I better leave that in) to a post-Boston VISTA meeting lunch at The Other Side, a little bar/cafe on Newbury. I'd been sitting near Paul and Chuck and discussing various things that the acronym CTC could actually stand for, and we liked "Caffeine Technology..." (I guess the second C was always Center? not sure). Paul could actually carry off wearing pink pants and he wasn't all powermad like my boss in New York who wore pink pants. That was something different about him.

He lived in Dorchester, and I think he had a certain jaded liberalism, something I can relate to. By that I mean he had a realistic view of things like class politics, things he understood and was down on, like some failings of public transportation or law enforcement. He sometimes mocked people who were ignorant or bigoted, such as the aforementioned law enforcement who he said treated any white people in Dorchester like they were just stupid to live there and unworthy of protection or respect following any incidents.

I first met Paul at the orientation for the CTC VISTA volunteers posted countrywide. That actually was a good, interesting spectrum of people. We were playing a silly game called Diversity Bingo which may have been a better icebreaker than I give it credit for. I have a small vendetta, because I feel that game was responsible for exposing me to ridicule, but more on that later. We had sheets with a grid containing rows and columns. You had to walk around the room and talk to people, finding anyone who matched the descriptions in the rows and columns. They ranged from two-person specials such as "Speaks Bengali or Farsi" (Dave C. or Dean G.) or "has studied butoh or bellydance" (Emily in MI and uh, me), prosaic nonethnic stuff that could be many of us like "has worked with community technology" and the simple one-word "Jewish". I went up to Paul, possibly our first conversation, and asked him if he had worked with community technology even though I knew the answer. I guess I knew he would say well yeah, but don't use me. Go interact with your peers, basically. Although as it turns out, Paul was only about my sister's age and more of a peer than many in the program although his professional accomplishments were far greater. Anyway, I'd actually been walking around looking for a damn Jew for a while 'cause I had four in a row fast and needed that fifth square. I was like "I need a Jew for the win, Alex." Or maybe it should be the host of Hollywood Squares instead of Mr. Trebek. Whatev. I'd asked Dan Richardson if he could possibly, please be Jewish solely because I'd had a coworker at Moment Magazine named Dan Richards who was indubitably Jewish, and that's pretty close! I am of dubious Judaism, which is to say that for the record I am not Jewish although I possess a Jewish last name, thanks to my dad. That is a somewhat interesting situation. I realized that our VISTA leader, one Saul Baizman formerly of Brandeis University, was a fairly solid bet but I don't think he'd really been playing or I'd have tackled him and made him tell me. Anyway I also said to Paul "Where's Saul? I need a Jew!" and Paul replied with something about that being a no-brainer. I suspect Saul was sitting the round out or he wouldn't have escaped me. Cause I like to win things and I can be ruthless. Kinda like the dominoes game last night...that was some good action, and possibly some of the last of its kind I may be able to enjoy, depending on my future plans.

Well it's now actually midnight and one of the longest, most intense days I've had in a while. My energy and health have been improving bit by bit, but right now I'm totally beat and bound to overheat. I need to bust outta here. I need to think straight, but what I need is not necessarily possible or in any case easy.