‘Why did he take it with his left?!’ Andrew exclaimed after a FIFA video game player missed a shot early on in life as I recall. To which his father could not believe that he knew the dominant foot of the player taking the shot in something so insignificant as a game. The semester I lived with him, we played more games of FIFA soccer than could be approved of by the FDA, CDC, FBI, or anyone really. Liverpool vs. Chelsea, his relentless Frank Lampard attack against my Steven Gerrard counter-attack, he would play guys out of position because it would affect me. ‘Heady’ in the best way.

When we weren’t screaming obscenities at each other about soccer that semester, we were making our own Guitar Hero songs as a prologue to our future band years. I bought the Squire Bullet guitar I later sold to him that semester to teach myself how to play. We still have the best cover of The Who’s, ‘Baba O’Riley’ on YouTube. More on that in a moment, but we were from the beginning in it for the love of music, and as long as there was another beer within arm’s reach the chords kept playing.

Andrew moved on to Ohio Northern University and I had a guest pass to the, ‘Delphos House’ there. A more likable group you could not put together organically, by sheer force of beer pong and will, they persevered. One of the house’s favorite drinking games was, ‘Pop Culture.’ Beautiful in its simplicity and everyone could bring something to the table and play, really the way we all felt about each other and life at the time. Like Maya Angelou said, ‘people will forget what you said at the Ada house, people will forget what you did at the Ada house, but people will never forget the way the Ada house made them feel.’

Going back to soccer again, I have to mention this memory to balance this with what comes later on the Chelsea front. The 2007/08 UEFA Champions League Final, the, ‘Super Bowl’ of soccer was played between my Manchester United, and his Chelsea. We watched it together, agonizingly, to its’ post 120 minute conclusion. My recollection is when it got to the penalty shootout, we both were on our knees, hiding behind the couch, so afraid of watching the result. The penalties went in my favor 6-5 for Manchester United, despite a missed one by Andrew favorite Christiano Ronaldo. Glory, Glory Man United!

Moving on, by senior year, Mark, Geoff, Andrew, Kurt and I were the band Disagreeable Henry. The beer pong room was requisitioned to be the rehearsal room, and as Mark insisted, we got songs, ‘polished.’ We played two shows at Little Mexico in Ada, but the life experiences were in the practice space. While the others were working a few things out, Mark and I made the tree stump just outside the room our personal Neil Young stage to each other. We never played a Neil Young song as a band, my remembrance of this is the Andrew quote, “‘Heart of Gold’ isn’t a panty peeler.” Despite this, we kept on, ‘Rockin’ in the Free World.’

Going back a bit, the most affectionate name I’ve ever been called is, ‘Dude’ by my best friends after we became obsessed with referencing the movie, ‘The Big Lebowski.’ We called Andrew, ‘Walter’ although he fit the character the least between the three of us, Adam, ‘Donnie’ being the third. Andrew would call me, ‘Duder’ and every manner of the expression for my remembered life after we became fans of the movie and got together to make White Russians and jokes together. We went to Catholic school for 13 years, and despite all the scripture, nothing comes close to the ethos: “Nobody fucks with the Jesus!”

He loved the original Matrix movie, like I did, for both the visual and philosophical reasons. I also tried to introduce him to as many of the great movies I was exploring while I was minoring in film at Toledo. I screened him Sidney Lumet’s, ’12 Angry Men’ and in another existence I hope he was thinking about that jury every time he would have been defending someone as the greatest lawyer in existence. How many dollars per hour? Andrew dollars per hour.

There is nothing I can say to fix the hurt. In the spirit of movies, however, take the quote from the end of, ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ ‘Earn this…earn it.’ His death was like all the heartbreak and loss that went into saving private Ryan in the movie. To move forward without him we must earn this life we are so lucky to have. Everyone should be doing something every day to earn this, this existence that he doesn’t get to have. Not out of guilt mind you, but for the love, for the love of life he so consumed in every way he could. Count us in, 4/4, I wanna play a few more bars for you, brother.

‘Blue is the Colour’ – I wanted to pay tribute to Andrew and his favorite team, Chelsea FC, that I loathe. Their anthem is this wonderful collectivist chant: ‘Blue is the Colour.’ So I continued to tweak this song over the last 10 years and I hope you enjoy.