We were born in October, one year apart, then due to parental failure we were both taken in by non-relatives in the mid-seventies.

Our best friends "Pighead" and "Froggy Devil" both died in 1998.

He told his most intimate secrets to his journal and dog Brutus (my Fonzi), prayed "often and hard" as a child, watched Oral Roberts weekly and the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon every year.

He fired his Santa-like image of a higher power after…