We’re leaving together for our first journey north in quite a while, and, after the pattern of last year, I feel a bit rusty getting ready. Before our arrival at Bruce’s place, we’ll spend some time at the Menke Homestead in Dark County, Ohio. I met James Michael Menke in 1970 as a
fall-quarter freshman at the University of Cincinnati. After running
into John Michael Hoover (a grade-school chum from the community our
family had left six years previously), I soon became aware of “the
Mikes,” two quickly popular roommates living a couple dorm floors beneath me. Somebody must have considered it logical to pair a James and John without knowing that they both went by their common middle name of Mike. 35 years later, one Mike has long vanished, but the other is
still my “best buddy.”