He’s a very self-contained person.  Mom asked him, after he walked around the lake near Jack’s house, “Who did you meet?  What did you talk about?”  And he replied “Why would I want to talk to anyone?  I’ll never see them again.”

We’re not even sure he’s from the same family as the rest of us; the inveterate talkers, the invariable handers-out-of-business-cards-because-you-never-know-who-will-be-your-new-best friend.  I have friends I made from interviewing; when their skills didn’t match the job requirements I said “You’re not a good match for this position, but do you want to be friends?”  I shudder to think of the HR penalties for that now.  Nate and I have friends we met at garage sales, friends we met dog walking, friends we found at a bookstore because we liked the same book.

“I’m sure they think I’m the cleanest homeless person they’ve ever seen,” Sam says about being in the library.  He doesn’t spend a lot of time at home, so he has routines:  the coffee shop, the library, the brewery, the other brewery.  Everyone knows him but no one talks to him.  We met him at the other brewery and the bartenders exchanged looks with each other:  see, he does associate with others.  I win the bet.

Mom says she thinks he’s like Noni, our great-grandfather.  “Give him an opera to listen to and a book to read and he doesn’t need anything else.”  The Italian strain comes out strongly in me; all hands waiving and voice inflections and the need to tell everyone what I’m thinking all the time.  I’m not sure how the Italian comes out in Sam.  Noni was happy tending his market garden; he liked people but didn’t always see the point of them.  That’s pretty much Sam.

Dogs are different.  Sam loves dogs.  He photographed humane society dogs for posting on their website.  If he could adopt every abused pit bull he saw, he would.  When our Shiba Sakura went missing, and then was found and returned, Sam was housesitting.  Apparently Sakura was remorseful about her week away from home, and allowed Sam to pet her and even stayed on the bed while he watched Ash Vs. Evil on his iPad.  “I made sure to cover her eyes when it got gory,” he said.

And yet:

At a brewery, wearing Grandpa Gub’s Amoco work shirt, reading.  The guy one stool over says “Hey!  I like your shirt!”  Sam, shockingly, explains that it was his Grandpa’s and they engaged in conversation and then Sam—continuing to shock—sent the guy a follow-up email.

“Hey, Zach.  A few days ago at 300 Suns you noticed my Amoco shirt and we got to talking about Iowa and that small town we both come from, Fort Dodge.  I called my Mom today and asked if she had any recollections; she did remember that there was an Eleanor Troubridge in my Dad’s class.  When Eleanor’s boyfriend went off to the army he asked my Dad to take her to the prom because my Dad was trustworthy and wouldn’t try anything.  So they went and danced and Dad was all those things; a perfect gentleman.

“She also remembers the Lebanese community in Fort Dodge.  That town was a bastion of communities:  Italian, where she grew up; Scots, who lived down on the flats; Lebanese; Czech; and black folks who had come north for opportunity and peace and found it, mostly, working in the brickyard with my Noni.  She has a vague memory of a Lebanese restaurant downtown named Anwar’s with an organist who played during meals.

“None of that I remember.  The family moved when I was about three, and my biggest memory is the enormous blue water tower near our house.  That, and grandpa Gub’s Amoco gas station that he ran for 53 years on South 22nd Street.  He worked six and a half days a week for all those years.  He got a plaque from the company after 52 years and proudly displayed it in their living room.  He knew everyone in town and when he died, Mom was deluged with cards telling her of the many small kindnesses Gubba performed on a daily basis.  She cried for days.

‘Anyway, let me know if this rings any bells for you or your family.  I look forward to hearing back; it was nice chatting with you.”

So maybe there’s a friend out there for Sam.  I like to think so.