Flips

I don’t know how the name plopped down onto the surface of my brain. The radio was playing in the background and someone in the news had a similar moniker. But, it wasn’t quite the same. And, no one I’ve met is the same as Kraig the K.

My freshman year at college, I finally landed in a housing situation that was economical and long-term. As I was settling into my room, someone behind me said, “You’re the new guy? Far out. Diggin’ that James Dean thing you got goin’ on, dude.”

I was still fairly fresh out of a blue collar background and am guessing I wore my customary black jeans, white tee and leather jacket. I turned around and was staggered by the kaleidoscope of colors painted on a large canvas. Kraig was a big, fleshy guy, topped with a bush of bright red hair. In descending order was a billowy shirt of psychedelic print, striped bell bottoms, and sandals made from old tires. The aroma of marijuana smoke wafted across the room.

We conversed a bit, getting to know each other. Outside of a whole lot of right-ons, far-outs and groovies, I can’t recall the content or even that I understood it.

For that matter, I’m not sure what we discussed over the next couple years that our lives overlapped. I remember that he was very amusing, but always seemed to be functioning in a different dimension.

With a grade point average roughly equating to his customary blood alcohol level, he never finished college and just departed for parts unknown. In this day and age, you don’t have to wonder whatever happened to. I Googled him and couldn’t believe the first few references. Had to be the wrong guy. I cross-checked and the hometown, high school and other data matched up.

Almost every photo showed him dressed in camo and looking like a backwoods mountain man. Camo? A guy whose former outfits could be seen from outer space? He was even on a web site called Camospace, a site where you apparently post photos of yourself attired in camo with your foot planted in the ear of some deceased quadruped.

His Facebook page lists his interests as country western music, hunting, fishing and “Debbie does Dallas.” Talk about your metamorphoses.

If Kraig was the hardback edition, then Keith was the paperback. Keith was his younger brother and shared his flair, along with the shock of red hair. He drove around in one of those pink Jeeps with the striped canvas top that you usually saw at Caribbean resorts. He seemed to strive to eclipse his brother by being even further far out.

Back to the Google. Up pops someone who looks like an accounting professor I had and is a software consultant. It’s Keith. Unbelievable.

I had seen flips like this, but it was typically in the other direction when someone tautly wound snapped and slingshotted in the other direction. One diligently pious divinity student I knew wound up addicted to pornography and alcohol. An over-the-top zealous ROTC student, overcompensating for inadequacy issues, went into the army to become an MP, dropped off the radar for a while and then reappeared as a social worker. But, I never envisioned the brothers doing one-eighties.

Well, if Jerry Rubin could go Wall Street…