I originally wrote this memorial on the night of October 31, 2015, when I learned of the death of my friend, Todd Blaeuer. That was one year ago this week, and I have moved it to American Path[o]s to make it more permanent and more accessible.

As one who talks and writes and, in some sense, “performs” for a living, I am not accustomed to being at a loss for words, as I have been for the last few hours. I feel compelled, on this Halloween night, now that my house is quiet, to change the clocks to standard time and go to bed.

The news of the death of my old friend and fraternity brother, Todd Blaeuer, has made that impossible.

Two things of note happened on my Facebook page yesterday. First, someone posted a meme that said, “Everyone Needs a Redheaded Friend.” I have a redheaded wife, and we have a mutual redheaded friend, so I pondered it for a moment and concluded that I was covered.

I wish I had given it more thought.

Later, on impulse, I re-posted a photo of myself, in costume, from the 1987 Phi Kappa Tau Halloween party at the University of Tennessee. It occurred to me at the time that it was not yet Halloween, but the photo is funny and dear to me, and it reminds me of contented times, so I put it back up anyway. Off to the side, dressed as a caveman, and nearly out of view, is my other, and somewhat distant, redheaded friend, Todd Blaeuer. Todd loved the theme parties, and he worked hard on that costume. I remember.

Sometimes it seems that I remember everything.

The first time I walked across the lawn of 1800 Lake Avenue, Todd Blaeuer was the first person I saw. He was standing on the front steps, holding a trowel and replacing some missing bricks. Todd was always trying to fix something. We had that in common.

In no time at all, Todd and I were friends. It would have been difficult to find anyone who didn’t like him. He was quiet, contemplative, and wryly humorous. He was a man of endearing but sometimes vaguely irritating habits. He “dipped” incessantly, a habit I discouraged, not because I thought he didn’t understand the risks, but because I thought it was gross. He adored Z-Cars, and had a 230 or 240-Z that he rarely drove but worked on as often as his schedule and income would allow. One summer, I returned to Knoxville to visit and check on things at the house and found the engine—yes, the engine—sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, half assembled. For as long as I knew him in Knoxville, he maintained a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. The papers, soggy and swollen, piled up outside the fraternity house door. Never once did I see him open one, yet, he could tell you anything you wanted to know about investing.

Todd was intelligent and thoughtful. He understood puzzles, patterns, statistics, and economics. When thinking deeply, he would look down at the floor or the ground; a few seconds later, he would say something truly incisive. I suspect his ability to manipulate numbers and variables and probabilities in his mind was at the root of his later love of poker, a game at which he achieved some measure of success.

When I returned to Knoxville for my senior year, in the fall of 1987, Todd and I moved into the fraternity house’s only downstairs bedroom. Having the downstairs room had certain perks, since the parties tended to spill in, so we arranged the room into a genuine bachelor pad and made the best of it. Our schedules did not always run parallel. We were both night owls, but he sometimes seemed not to sleep at all at night. Instead, he might sleep all day, but I don’t recall our ever having a cross word about it. I do, however, recall his irritation once when my report card came in with a 3.38. He had spent weeks predicting that I would do badly because I never did any homework. I told him that I did it in the daytime when he was asleep.

Sometime during the 1987-88 school year, Todd went home to northern Virginia. For several years, I would see him at Founders Day or homecoming. Twice in the nineties, we met at such functions and helped shore up our budgets by splitting the cost of a hotel room. When email became common as a social tool, we would communicate from time to time. I distinctly remember his interest in the plans that Leslie and I had purchased for our new house. Still, Todd spoke but little about his own life.

The last time I saw Todd face-to-face was late on the night of the Fourth of July (in truth, the birds were singing, and I am certain it was the morning of the fifth of July) 2004. I was halfway through a four-week fellowship residency at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Our friend Rand flew in, and Todd arrived later in the afternoon. That night, despite an endless, driving rain, the three of us attempted, with mixed results, to reclaim our youths from one end of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue to the other. We talked about our fraternity days, our lost loves, and the unexpected turns in our individual roads. I don’t think we arrived at any cosmic truths, but we had a great time, and when it was over we all had that feeling that you can have only by sharing important memories with someone who was there and who thinks the memories are just as important as you do. When Rand and I headed back to my creepy, ancient dorm on the Georgetown campus, Todd left for home. I have heard from him only rarely since then.

About all I know of Todd in the last several years is that he excelled at poker. I wish I had known more. Very rarely, I might get a few words out of him, but even that was years ago. Facebook never seemed to catch his interest, though he did have a page. It was as it always is, in retrospect. I knew where he was. I knew how to find him. I would make serious contact with him just any day . . .

Todd passed away sometime today, I guess. I don’t know any details. I wish I could have seen him again, and I hope he did not die feeling that he was in need of friendship, because his friends were legion. As is so often the case with college friends, they were just all somewhere else.

The Delta Kappa chapter of Phi Kappa Tau is long gone. Tonight, Dr. Stacy Prowell observed to me, in the context of Todd’s passing and the need for a reunion, “The fraternity will never be any bigger.” Those are wise words. At the very least, Todd’s unexpected death signals that we should all think more about some old friends and about some solemn promises we all made decades ago, before wives and kids and jobs changed our directions. I am writing this tribute to Todd because I want it to start with me.

The meme got it right. Everyone needs a redheaded friend. I’m glad we all had Todd, and I hope that, as he slipped away, he knew that we all loved him.
KB