First Friday Random Five

I've been making changes in format from my old blog. One of the changes I'm making is to streamline my Friday Random Ten to the Friday Five.

Tomorrow, I'll be going to "Atwoodfest," an annual party old friends and I have in order to honor and remember our friend Mark "Atwood" Evans, who was murdered four years ago today. We have it around his birthday every year; he was killed a week before his 42nd birthday. He was one of the most interesting and unique people I've ever met in my life, and will miss him the rest of my life.

A few weeks ago, I found this picture, which I was afraid was lost forever. The picture was taken the night of a graduation party my roommates threw me when I finished my Master's Degree in Political Science in July of 1985. The guy on the right is Mark. The guy on the left is one of those roommates, Jamie, who was also one of Mark's closest friends.

I lost touch with Jamie about ten years ago, and when Mark was murdered, I tried to contact Jamie. I was finally able to get in touch with him and inform him what had happened.

This year, Jamie will be going with me tomorrow to Atwoodfest, at the Tencat Tavern in Chicago. This year we will have one more thing to celebrate-- that the guy who killed Mark was convicted in August of last year of the killing of one of his accomplices in Mark's killing, whom he was afraid would rat him out. He was sentenced to 70 years without the possibility of parole. The state's attorney decided not to pursue Mark's case because of the length of the sentence. We're satisfied knowing that this guy will live in fear of predators like himself for the rest of his life.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing Jamie for the first time in ten years tomorrow, and to seeing the rest of my old college friends.

1. The E Street Shuffle- Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
2. This Land Is Your Land- Pete Seeger and Sweet Honey In the Rock
3. Too Hot To Handle- UFO
4. Within You Without You
5. She'd Rather Be With Me- The Turtles


Notes:
1. From Springsteen's great second album, "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle."
2. Another song from the "Vision Shared" album, a collection of covers of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly songs.
3. An old heavy-metal self indulgence
4. From "Sgt. Pepper," which was released 43 years ago this week.
5. One of many hit singles the Turtles had