A Cream Puff Forced Me To Rethink My Trump Philosophy

I went to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. I have to say that, while there, I acquired quite an exotic array of friends. All of them funny and super smart, and each one more fantastic than the rest. None, however, can even come close to Ian on the Great-Pals-Of-All-Times charts.

I met Ian just a day or two after my arrival on campus. Our meeting was inevitable as we lived across from each other on the infamous fourth floor of Page Hall, one of the more ill reputed dormitories on campus. It wasn't that there were any illegal activities or unethical trysts going on there, unless you count the guy who shagged his girlfriend on the stairmaster in his room every day. It was just kind of a dump. The carpets bore constant reminders, both visual and olfactory, of the nightly beer fests, the walls were pretty dinged up from the constant to and fro with Salvation Army couches and other furnishings, and the music blared just a little more loudly than it tended to in other spots on campus.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that my freshman center was located on a floor that housed both freshmen and sophomores, rather than freshmen alone.

On perhaps our second night at school, this very handsome sophomore barged right into our room (yes, the door was closed, and no, he did not knock) to see if we would be interested in partaking in a keg. Hmmm...let's see if I can remember my response to that question. I was 17 years old and away from home for the first time. If memory serves, I left this sophomore in a cloud of dust as I made haste to grab my wallet.

I asked this mysterious beer man what his name was. "Garrett," he replied. "Gary?" I asked. Obviously he had heard this before. He smirked, shook his head in utter disgust and enunciated, as if to a deaf four year-old, "No. Garrett. Two Rs. Two T's."

I thought it was so cool that this sophomore was seeking my company for his drinking soiree. Turns out, in reality, he just needed the money.

Anyway, when the keg arrived, Garrett ushered us into his room where I met his roommate, the aforementioned Ian. You know how you sometimes just meet a person and, for some unexplained reason, you just like that person intensely right from the beginning? Well, that pretty much sums up my immediate reaction to Ian. How could you not love this guy?

We became great friends at Bates! We hung out, had tons of laughs and had this very honest and straight-up friendship. Totally unconditional.

Ian is such a nice guy that his universally accepted nickname became, "Cream Puff." By universally accepted, I mean that we universally accepted that it was funny to call him this, and he universally resented it. Well, that's not entirely true. He didn't seem to mind my calling him Cream Puff. In fact, when leaving me a phone or dry erase message, he often identified himself as Cream Puff. I guess I mean to intone that he resented his male roommate and friends call him Cream Puff. In fact, I think he once attempted to impale Garrett's throat with a ski pole for the offense.

Ian is the kind of friend who would go the ends of the earth for you. In fact, I've seen him do it for me. He came all the way to Bates to attend my graduation, and when I lived in Germany, he took a massive detour on his trip to Europe to come visit me in the very cool, but un-sought-after Hannover. Anytime he has made his way to the Boston are, he always makes every attempt to get together. He has taken trains all over the greater Boston area to meet me at my work or just wherever.

I think I'm a pretty good friend, but I don't think I can even measure up to the kind of friendship that Ian offers up. This kid is rock solid! I think, though, that he owes me big time for the time I blessed him with my wise advice and urged him to "dump the Weenie!" Or maybe he had been dumped by the Weenie and I told him to face the freakin' facts, that the woman was a Weenie and he needed to stop crying in his beer and move on. (No need to dilute already shitty beer. Hey, we were drinkin' the Beast..it was all we could afford!) We will stick to the story that Ian did the dumping because, well, we love Ian and the Weenie is, well...a Weenie. No need to go out of our way to depict her favorably. Right? Ian is the winner in every story.

We've seen each other at our best and worst. The fact that anybody who has seen me at my worst and continues to stick around says it all right there! Ian rules!

Anyway, our friendship has endured over the years. Mostly by phone and email, but the strength of the bond has never wavered.

Now onto my reasons for admiring Ian so much. As I've already mentioned, this kid is such a great friend and no favor is too big to ask of him. He is extremely intelligent and energetic. The one thing that I most admire about him, though, and which I don't think that I've ever seen any other person display, is his willingness to take risks in areas of our lives that most of us are way too scared to "shake up." When Ian wants to try to do something, he just does it. I remember noting this very early on in my friendship with him. He is pretty much a native French speaker, so being a French major would have been super easy for him. Instead, he studied biology. He always found his courses really hard, but he worked his butt off to get great grades. I forced him to take a French course with me one time. He had reservations. I could completely understand his trepidation as the professor, a man, often showed up to class wearing a gold-flecked lame blouse. I could understand his discomfort with the situation. I recall Ian having a really kick-ass biology course that semester. When I asked him why he didn't just take the easy road and become a French major, he sort of looked at me funny and said, quite simply, "Because I like biology. Its interesting."

My first encounter with somebody totally comfortable with being outside of his comfort zone.

In the years since graduation from Bates, Ian has worked as a French tourguide in a Canadian Zoo, has gone through formal training to become a professional chef, and has undertaken countless way cool endeavors, both personal and professional.

This is getting very long, so I will cut to the chase.

Ian emailed me to tell me that perhaps my judgement of Randal's decision not to share his Apprenticeship with Rebecca at the culmination of the Donald Trump show was overly harsh. Ian asked me to see the logic in Randal's decision. After all, Randal did go through a very difficult ten-week interview period, beating out fierce competitors every step of the way. As Ian pointed out, if I had been in Randal's position, I might also have found it hard to share the wealth. Maybe it is easy for me to be an armchair quarterback (first and only football reference I will ever make in my life..savor it now), in judging Randal.

Here's the funny thing..Ian would rather remind one of Randal. Very laid back. Very kind. Very driven and determined all while being very compassionate and aware of how those around him are feeling. Very smart. Well loved by everybody around him. The peacekeeper. The reliable one. The worker. The positive teammate.

There are only two slight differences between these two, really. First, Ian is white and Randal is black. Second, Ian could never pull off the white suit that Randal wore to the boardroom on the day he was assigned his final task. On Randal it looked rather retro cool. On Ian, it would look rather retro pimp.

Other than these two little details, you'd have a hard time telling these two apart in a lineup.

Anyway, enough of my sappy Ian fan club president mail! Sometimes you just have to talk about how great somebody is!

Ian, you rule!