The importance of some things can't be overstated. I've known this day was coming, and said nothing, keeping the date close to my chest in order to have just a little more time to think about it.

When I came back from a Colorado vacation a year ago this week, I told you the superficial stories first. I saved the crucial one for last and dreaded the telling, because I knew how much of a surprise its contents would be for virtually everyone I've ever known:

There is one last Colorado story I plan to tell, and it's one that I've been holding close and quiet, because the time wasn't right to tell it. That is no longer the case.

In this life, at least, like attracts like. I won't say that most, or half, or even many of my friends have an extraordinary event in their past that affects their adult lives, but some of them do. For those who do, though, the friendship is subtly different; a different level of protection and guardianship than what is found among those who don't understand.Sometimes, you don't even have to know what the event was to recognize the effects. Our hobo language of survival isn't always visible to the rest of the world, but once you learn it, you know what to look for. The presence - or absence - of particular words. The inability to joke about a particular subject. A subtly self-destructive pattern of behavior.