Notes from Maine - 2021/05/16

One of my close friends (let’s refer to him as Dave) is always engaged in the pursuit of New Interests. He picks up hobbies and projects on a weekly basis, immerses himself in them, and then eventually wanders off to the next topic. He is completely capable of diving deep into one of these pursuits and engaging himself for years until he is versed in every facet. Dave is also capable of touching briefly and then moving on.

A few years ago I got a phone call from Dave.

“I’m a couple of miles from you, can I borrow a bunch of pencils?” he asked. He sounded almost in a panic.

“Of course,” I said, “tell me where.” I rushed over a pack of pencils to the local Red Cross where Dave was sitting down to take his Ham Radio License exam. Why? Who knows. He passed. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had operated a Ham radio less than a hundred times in his life. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he still used one every day. 

Dave is always doing something unexpected.

The word “amateur” is synonymous with unpaid or incompetent, so that word doesn’t fit Dave unless you go back to the French origin. In French, it means, “One who loves.” That’s Dave—he does these different things simply because he loves to discover new skills to master. Need a shirt designed and silkscreened? Want to set up a media server for your house? Want a weekend crash course in grinding stumps? These disparate pursuits and a thousand others have been conquered by Dave. 

But there’s only so much information that will fit in a person’s head. After moving on, sometimes he remembers details and sometimes he doesn’t. I’ve asked him questions about things that he used to do and it’s anyone’s guess if he’ll even remember that he used to do them.

Because of his ability to turn the corner and forget about the past, a couple of friends of Dave decided to play a prank on him a few years ago.

It started with a detailed email from Brian. I’ll excerpt it here: “The Kawasaki Concours motorcycle has removable hard luggage which can lock. As it turns out, there are only two keys available that fit all the luggage ever made for this bike... some use the A key, while others use the B key. My Concours uses the A, while [Dave’s] uses the B.”

Dave was riding a motorcycle to work and Brian had a spare key for the luggage. 

Brian’s idea wasn’t malicious: “I would like to mail you the key, and the next time he rides it to work, you can use the key to unlock one side, and put something in one or both sides.”

The prank lasted more than three years. It was orchestrated completely by a person I won’t name. It has been ten years since the prank was revealed, but I would hate for any retribution to befall Emilio. 

It started with subtlety. The things added to his motorcycle luggage were things that he typically carried anyway: “When I got there, Dave was standing by his bike drinking a Red Bull. I figured he found it, thought it was a bonus, and drank it. But then he finished it off, got rid of the can, and went into his luggage for something. It was then that he found THE Red Bull and a total WTF look crossed his face.”

After a while, they started adding things that Dave would never carry: “Libby came in waving mushrooms around and making accusations. Not a word on the Red Bull. There's some weird psychological thing going on vis-a-vis the Red Bulls. We should all write a scientific journal paper.”

Dave kept his keys on him. He stopped telling his wife when he would be riding the motorcycle to work (she was his main suspect). Meanwhile, special guests (friends and relatives of Dave) were brought to where the motorcycle was parked and were photographed hiding things in his luggage. Dave trusted a small group of people to discuss who was engaged in the prank. He talked about fingerprinting the items left. Everyone he talked to was in on it.

On the final day, a blood bag (filled with Jell-O) was left for him to find. Dave has an issue with blood. The prank eventually ended with a party at my house. A twenty-six page slideshow was presented to everyone (including Dave), showing all of the items left for him.

I think he had a good sense of humor about it—the rest of us had a great time.

I try to be like Dave when I can pull it off. I try to remember that the world is a fascinating place, filled with new and interesting things around every corner. All one has to do is to be able to let go and move on occasionally in order to make room for new things. Dave was mystified by finding things in his luggage, but he accepted quickly that this was yet another thing that might never be solved, and he didn’t let it bother him. Someone else might have been driven to madness.

When I write, I really try to emulate him. I have to obsess on a topic for a few months and then leave it behind. About five years ago, I had a few unrelated ideas bouncing around in my head—a desert-island reality show, a treasure hunter, and civil unrest. I decided that instead of writing three books, I would combine them into one. In order to write that book, I had to do a lot of thinking and research and then ultimately move beyond all of it. It was fun.