LouieV.com

Today was the funeral for my friend Mike Brown.  He was involved in a motorcycle accident on August 26.  He was one of the most giving persons I’ve had the pleasure of walking with on this earth.  Last evening was his wake, I made the comment to several people how odd it was that the room was so quiet with him in the room.  That always seemed to bring out a great story of Mike.

 A couple stories I can share:

Mike was very eager to help Brian put up a yard light.  After a few hours and four electric shocks later they got that light up and wired in… and then there was light.

Brian needed to replace a water heater as the old one had lost almost all functionality.  Mike was there helping us get that thing plumbed in and wired in.  It was not the prettiest plumb job, but it works and whenever I see it, I get flashbacks of PVC pipe and the great smelling glue and the many many laughs we shared that night.

Mike and I were car shopping at the same time.  I mentioned to him a deal the local Chevy dealer had going on.  Not telling him which car I had made a decision on, the next day he went out to check out the Impalas.  When I got home that night he promptly sent me an instant message saying he had purchased a car.  He started describing the car I was ready to buy!  Turns out it was the car I had almost made a move on.  I could hardly believe it!  Since my car was in disrepair I had to make a move on a different car the next day and it is the car I drive today.   Our Minnesota license applications must have been right next to each-other when they were assigning license plates because all three letters were the same and the three digit number was only off by one.  It was great to pull into the BWW parking lot both of us in new Impalas and license plates so close.  Truly unique!!   We got our cars in February and being the generous person that he is, offered to take the car audio equipment out of my old car which he knew I was trying to dump off onto the local community college.  There was an ice storm going on outside and we even needed to run to Sears to get a tool that he didn’t have (he has a lot of tools).  It took a few hours, and a bunch of sodas, but he was able to get it all out and for that I could not thank him enough.

 I spent many hours playing computer games with Mike.  His hard work, dedication, skill and humor will be missed by everyone outside of the games as well everyone that had the pleasure of gaming with him online.

Even though Mike is gone and will be missed dearly by many, he will always have a place in my heart.  I can honestly say that I’m a better person having had Michael W. Brown a part of my life. 

It is comforting knowing that there is one more angel looking down on us… and knowing Mike, he will be setting the bar very high for the rest of the angels up there.

R.I.P. Mike