An Ode to Paul

When I went to college, I was in the Honors Program, and when I decided to live in the dorms, I ended up on the Honors Floor of one of the dorms. There were two Honors Floors, actually. The girls were on 8, the dudes on 7. There weren't enough Honors guys to fill 7, though, so they put some regular guys down there. One of those guys was Paul.

Paul is from the southern part of the state, and he actually went to high school with one of the other Honors guys, James. He's got dark blonde hair and these big doe eyes: brown and soft, framed with long, curled eyelashes. (Note: I was never attracted to Paul. I am merely giving the facts.) Paul's claim to fame as a freshman was blaring ABBA's "Take a Chance On Me" from his surprisingly loud stereo (I think it was the hallway acoustics that allowed the song to permeate the walls up to the 8th floor, where we'd hear it like a siren song and come running). Not only would he play the song, but he would gallop down the hallway in time to the beat of the music, slapping his ass with one hand and holding onto the "air reigns" with the other. Paul was (and is) an amazing singer (especially of the Neal Diamond favorites) and played a mean game of baseball, too, but I'm afraid that ABBA and self-ass-slapping was his legacy.

Paul lives in Rochester (a.k.a. The Crotch) now. (Sorry; the only good parts about Rochester are Paul, the Savers store, and their corn-on-the-cob water tower.) I don't see him very often, but when I do, we manage to bond again within thirty seconds. The last time I was down there, I stayed at his place. He's got a big leather couch, a big TV, lots of sports memorabilia on the walls and no real groceries to speak of, but when I went to the spare room to climb into the bed, he made sure there were lots of blankets and pillows. We went out to eat and he paid. He brought me to Savers and didn't mind that I spent an hour there. That's the kind of guy Paul is. He's a brother.