Today on the hottest day of the year the red head was cold. Click this link. Then reopen this page. With a degree in mechanical engineering I finally figured it out. Sarah puts so much fire into the world. According to rules of heat transfer ... she has to be cold, it's just simple thermodynamics.
God did not give her the red hair by accident, it was a warning label. She is passionate about her friends, she is passionate about her family, and she takes that fire into everything she does.
" looks like a girl, but she's a flame. So bright she can burn your eyes."
In the beginning we needed girls for the Black Thorn league. Holly and Mary Kay got Mo and Burdge to play. For awhile, they were Mo and Burdge and kind of came as a package, arriving together at the game. Burdge (Sarah) really wanted to succeed in softball, but did not really understand how to use a glove. In the beginning, she would often catch balls to her, by smothering them into her chest, the glove often was just in the way. Each year she got better and better and I remember one time someone on the other team was being as ass and Sarah looked at me and said, "We are winning this one, Johnny!!" I had no doubt we would come from behind to win it. The Redhead said so. In the third or fourth year, Sarah was hitting doubles past and over the heads of the right fielders. She had worked hard to figure it out and she got it done. Mary Kay Gorman never talked about Sarah without saying (in the middle of the story) My Friend Sarah Burdge. Sarah has always been in my phone as MFSB. Mo got married and moved on, but Sarah has been my friend ever since. She has been a loyal friend when times were tough for me. I hope I was in return, but I know Phil looking down on us expects better. I will keep trying. Sarah and I still have a short hand we can get to quickly when busy lives keep us apart too long. We are also both passionate about those without or those that need our help. And we have little patience for those that are gluttonous or run through life with a contempt for the poor.
"Hottest of the hottest girls"
I often wonder what I will say to Phil when I meet him again. I know what he will say to me. "Red's hot!, man, she still looks great." And then he will laugh, a laugh so big you can feel it in your shoes. I have never had a friend before or after who would talk about how hot his woman was or how great she looked. We would just be out having a beer or be at a Cardinals game and he would sidle over to me with a big grin and tell me how good looking Sarah was that night. He loved her red hair, he loved her passion, and he loved her fire. When the other groomsman were trying to get him drunk and buy him shots on his wedding day. I said no. I knew Sarah and that was not going to happen (not really that loyal of a friend, just scared of Red).
Sarah and I talked a lot today. About things we do not talk about that much. I miss Phil a lot and time does not change that much. I have just a wisp of a vague hint of how Sarah must feel. I know this -- my friendship with Phil was so short and so intense in a short period of time that it almost feels like a gift from God. All those years ago, Phil might have never come over to us in the Blackthorn and start hanging out. Sitting backwards on a chair, laughing at our quarters game. But this was Phil, he had to be there.
I met the Burdge family in the best of times, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and m*********ing girls." That wedding reception was the party of all time. We tore up that dance floor. (See breakfast 27). After killing it on the dance floor, we held each other and sang Pirate songs.
Way too soon, I saw the Burdge family in the worst of times. I still feel real close to them, because we went through that sadness together, holding on to each other and loving each other. Fast forward to Sarah's house and I realized I did not know all the names of this amazing family. When they are around each other, they never use first names, it is all nicknames and inside jokes.
Big Hint: Weezy is not a large black woman. The world is better with big families like the Burdges and the Barrys where the stuffed kids into every room and alcove and somehow that crowding brought out the love also.
I would like to say that Sarah and I know only happy times now, but she blew that all to hell when she invited me out to watch election returns in 2016. Wow, we thought it might be bad then, who knew it would get so much worse. Sarah continues to amaze me, she took up bike riding just recently and of course rode across Iowa last year. (Quick question: Why not go North to South, aren't there any geometry teachers who ride bikes).
When you hear "the sound of the genuine" coming from another human being, grab them and hold them tight. Sarah is the real deal and I am so lucky she is in my life. Today, we parted by her standing next to me letting me know that it was all going to work out. I believe her.
Every time she calls those 4 letters pop up on my phone and I get to say it out loud. I smile every time I say it, because it is true and it is real. Because she is true and she is real.
my friend Sarah Burdge.
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