His voice was scratchy.
I'm not sure if he had chronic bronchitis, or if it was just worn out, tired from a lifetime of whispering and yelling and crying and laughing. I don't remember that bothering me. Maybe something about being a homeschooled kid of twelve who played by himself a lot insulated me from what the world considered cool. He was rich. I knew this because he had a pool. He lived with his wife in a nice house, nestled neatly within american suburbia. I remember his driveway being ridiculously steep. My mom would drop me off at his house once a week to learn things. Sometimes it was photography, sometimes is was building a model plane, sometimes it was how computers worked. He was smart. The kind of smart that made a kid's head spin with numbers and diagrams and terms that were hard to understand like "flying erase head" and "single lens reflex". He spent hours with me. I'm sure I wasn't the easiest kid to teach. I'm fairly convinced I had ADHD or ADD or one of those acronyms that keep people in boxes and tells them why they can't do things. That didn't seem to bother him. Every week I would show up, and every week he would invest his time and leave me a little bit smarter.
Sometimes I wonder why he did it. He had worked hard all his life to reach the plane he stood upon; one of few responsibilities and ample resources. He would have been more than justified in spending those twilight years doing anything...or nothing. Instead, he spent time with a weird pre-teen boy who thought he wanted to make movies. Maybe he was lonely, but I don't think so. I think he chose to spend those hours investing in the next generation with his time and knowledge. I think he saw broken families and aimless kids and wanted to do something about it. I think maybe some of those families and kids were closer than I knew. But that's just what I think.
I still visit him. Every year or so I'll drop by and we'll talk about where I live and how crazy technology is getting and if I'm married yet. He never looks any older, but I'm always worried that when I ring the doorbell, a young face will appear; one without fuzzy white hair or glasses falling off the end of it's nose. It reminds me to redeem the time, and invest it in the things that are really important.
Just like Mr. Gould.
"They lied, when they said the good die young..."
