Rich Broderick

I’ve been fortunate to have a male best friend most my years.  I’ve already mentioned Rocky, Lance and Bob.  Lance moved to Australia and Rocky and Bob both died young.  I first met Rich Broderick when my son Jack and his son Gabe started kindergarten together at the French Immersion School in Saint Paul.   Rich was the political writer for City Pages and mostly had scathing things to say about politicians, always with wry humor.  Our sons got to be best friends, and so did we.  Our families went on trips together and had Thanksgivings together.

There are certain things only fathers share, whether about their children or their love lives (mostly always in good humor).  Rich was one of those, a confidant.  We could make each other laugh.  I kept telling him we should start a “Click and Clack” radio show for fathers.

One of our best times was just the two of us motoring down Highway 61 to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to take in the juke joints.  We met people along the way – and then for miles afterwards laugh about what just happened.  Arriving Clarksdale mid-afternoon, we got a room.  Rich wanted to nap.  I wanted to check out the town.  Coming back later, wanting Rich to wish he’d come with me, I embellished a story about meeting a beautiful young lady at the “Crossroads.”  (Clarksdale is famous for its musical history, including Robert Johnson’s tune about the intersection of Highways 49 & 61.)

I told Rich:

“Wow, you should have come.  Right at the Crossroads, a brand-new Church’s Fried Chicken is opening up with a Blues band in the parking lot, free chicken wings, and a big crowd.  When it started to rain, I opened the tail gate of the van to make a canopy, and, sure enough, this pretty young woman – the most beautiful woman we’ve met on the trip yet – shapely too – looks in my direction as if wanting to join me in getting out of the rain.  So I nod come on over.  Sitting close, even catching her fragrance – oh man, I was wild with the possibilities!  ……. Probably should have kept it going, but figured you were wondering when I’d get back, so I just left.  She did ask where we were staying though, so you know, maybe …….”

When I had gotten back to the motel, Rich had the door wide open saying the room smelled of mothballs.  I began telling him the story, and just as I finish, there’s this huge commotion in the parking lot, a car roaring up, and someone shouting “There it is! That’s it!” (meaning our van).

What I didn’t know is that the beautiful woman I had described to Rich had left her purse in the back of the van and commandeered someone in the Church’s Fried Chicken parking lot to come get it.  She bursts into the room through the open door saying, “You’ve got my purse!”

Every part of the story I told Rich was true except the part about her being young, shapely and beautiful.  I go out and open the tail gate so she can get her purse, and when I come back in the room, Rich can barely contain himself, he’s laughing so hard – she was anything but young, shapely or beautiful.  We’ve been laughing ever since.

For the rest of the story about that trip, go to Archives and scroll to “The Night at Red’s Juke Joint.”

Our boys, my Jack & his Gabe, are now 25, so it’s been 20 years of friendship, 20 years of sharing the ups and downs of parenting, our love lives, the state of the world.

caption:  one of Clarksdale’s juke joints