So… I’m driving to work today. Just as I am turning from Sanoma onto Thomas, I see this guy. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, I was coming westbound on Sanoma (a block from my house) to the T-intersection at Thomas. Normally I turn right to head up Thomas to cut over on ShewangoWay over to 71-North. So as I’m turning right, I see this guy out jogging southbound. He looks familiar and as I’m turning I think “man he looks a lot like my former college roommate Cliff Labbe!” Actually when I was thinking about it, I just said Cliff – I threw in that “former college rommate” part for those of you who might not know who Cliff is.

Now I am notoriously bad at recognizing people. You can ask Carolyn– I’m always saying things like “Oh doesn’t he look like so-and-so” and she has to tell me “ummmm no”. In any case, I decide to turn around in a driveway to get a closer look. I did know, from talking to Mike, that Cliff was soon moving back to the ‘Nati, but did not know any details of the when and the where. So I turn around and drive by him again. Slow enough for me to try and get another look at him, but hopefully not so slow to freak him out if it wasn’t him, IYKWIM.

I was looking for the tattoos. I had seen 2 tattoos on this guy when passing him, one on the shoulder and one on the leg. I knew Cliff had a tattoo of some building (I now remember it’s the Chrysler Building), so I was trying to see if I could spot it. I couldn’t remember what the other one is (but I’m thinking now it is an old-school microphone), and I also couldn’t remember which one was the building. As I drove by I couldn’t really tell one way or the other, so I figured what the heck and I stopped a little further up the road to wait for him to come by. I rolled down the window and waited for him to get up to me. As he came up, I thought “Hmm I don’t think that’s him” but I had already said “Cliff?”.

It was him. Crazy. We talked for like 10 minutes, just catching up on stuff. He moved back and is living in Oakley. But his stuff doesn’t get here till next week, so he is staying with his girlfriend who lives on Euclid (in Madeira). Crazy stuff. I got his number and am going to send him an email with our contact info. Maybe we’ll have them over for dinner or something.