About a year later there was a woman on the radio talking about her son and a child that was to be born.  And then Dale called in.  He was the son, it was his child and I was surprised that he was to be a young father.  But this isn’t when I missed Dale.

          Years went on and on and you get married and you have your art and photography and you always believe there is that reunion to go to when you will see everyone again.  But things like that only happen on television.  You get one opportunity and that’s all you get.  I got mine at Comfest 2000; the year Joel got it in his head to be a float in the parade.  We probably talked to two hundred people that day and what I didn't know was that somewhere in the flood of people was Dale, marching along with us.  The next day I hit Comfest as a patron just hanging around and listening to music and I saw a vendor with a very familiar face and coal black hair.  Could that be Dale I thought?  It couldn’t be.  I made excuses in my head why I wouldn’t say anything to him.  He won’t remember me.  He didn’t recognize me.  We weren’t really close so it wouldn’t matter to him if I didn’t say "Hi."  But as the years went by it mattered to me.

   This photo was randomly taken during Pride 2000 by our own  
Gary Miller.  Dale is the second marcher from the left.  By the
 time I saw this photo Comfest and Pride 2000 were over for    
the year.