Stro

[Drunk Monk]

It filled in a lot of gaps for me.  I left the fencing world after college.  Well, I did continue with Gaugler for the paper for a bit, and there was my PhD proposal.  And then there was AFS.  I bailed soon after and that wasn't really the fencing world and lost track of Stro for the most part.  I cannot remember the last time I saw him, sad to say.  I remember hearing of his move to OR, his split with Gay and his move to LA, and PPFY telling that story about his brain tumor, but I didn't hear he had died until much later. Tara was only one so I was focused on family life, and living across from Lam Kwoon. The fencing world was so distant then.  Actually, PPFY was pretty much my sole source of fencing news, and was so until facebook.

I wish I knew Stro in his hippie daze.  While I had leanings in my college years, I didn't really turn on that lifestyle until the late 80s after that.  I was *experienced* when I knew him but he was more coach-like at SJSU. I remember discussing that with him a bit. He had this wacky habit of eating the roach (swallowing the last bit of the joint).  That's just nasty but it destroyed the evidence and might give you a little extra buzz because the roach is heavily resinated.   It was pretty harsh. He be all 'whose gonna eat da roach?' in that accent of his, exaggerated by the high, and we'd all look at him like, "wtf stro?" "Oh I'll fuckin do it!" he say and pop it in his mouth like a tic tac.  Man, I haven't thought about that in years.  I've known countless stoners but he's the only person I've ever known to do that.