About a hundred years ago when I was at Ole Miss, my African-American roommate’s friends accused me of corrupting him because we were watching hockey when they came over. One of them pointed at me, whilst speaking to him, and said “you’ve been hanging around him too long”. My only defense was to point out that he was corrupting me.

In 1994, for one year, I was roommates with Michael Robinson, who was a law student at the time. He turned out to be a terrific roommate (I am traditionally, not a good roommate at all) and was full of Southern graciousness and patience. He also taught me a lot about hockey, mostly as a defense mechanism to shut up my stupid questions. For example: “Why does that guy have a C on his sleeve and that guy has an A?”. or “Why do they keep changing players all the time?”

(For the record, given the reaction of his friends, I’m pretty sure he was the only African-American hockey fan in the entire Southern United States.)

He was also, and this I never understood given that he was from Mississippi or at least spent most of his life there, a Dallas Cowboys fan. At the time we were roommates, the Cowboys were attempting a three-peat of Super Bowl wins.

When I doubted this, the future lawyer in Mike took over and he demonstrated, with surprising energy, the three-peat speech that Emmitt Smith was going to give when they won. I was one part horrified and one part embarrassed for him so I didn’t listen as closely as the speech deserved, but I remember it went on quite a while.

When I questioned his love for the Hated Cowboys (the team’s official name outside of Dallas) he pointed out the Denver Broncos, my favorite team, had already lost four Super Bowls, often in spectacular fashion and that I should shut up. (Something like that.)

After a year, he moved in with another roommate and a year later I moved to Japan and lost touch with him.

Then, a couple months ago, in fit of nostalgia, I looked him up and friended him on Facebook. As a rule, although I will make a few comments on posts, I typically don’t start interrogating people about their pasts, especially if I haven’t seen them since the George H. W. Bush administration. All I know is he’d been sick and looked a lot thinner than when I knew him. I also knew he’d started his own law firm.

Then right after I published yesterday’s post, I learned he’d suddenly died. I don’t know why but his family members are in our prayers tonight.

Right now I’m raising a glass of whisky in his honor and wishing him the best and wishing I’d contacted him sooner and been more nosy about his life.

I also hope the Dallas Cowboys lose every game. (That will never change.)

Goodbye, Mike. Thanks for all the interesting times.