My friend Jerry Porter

I first met Jerry 12 years ago at the old Elks Club on a Sunday afternoon. I had missed the weekly Sunday morning services there and wasn't even for sure they would still be open when I got there. It turned out that they were so I walked in and took my regular seat at the far end of the bar by the door.

There were only two other people there when I arrived; the bartender and a guy I had never seen before who was sitting at the far end of the bar from where I was. I naturally looked down at him to see if I knew him and, when I did, he said, "What are you looking at" and I replied "What's it to you?"

He got up from his chair and started over to where I was sitting. The bartender put her hands over her eyes as he approached me. As he came up to where I was sitting he said, "My name is Jerry Potter and people usually don't talk to me like that."

I told him my name and said that people usually didn't talk to me like that either. He extended his hand, I extended mine and a friendship was born. We spent the next couple of hours buying each other drinks and talking about things that usually aren't considered to be bar talk. It didn't take long to figure out that I was talking to a pretty smart guy.

Our first encounter ended with the two of us parked out in front of my apartment complex talking about Plato, Socrates, and the world they knew compared to the world we live in now. It was probably the most intellectual exchange I've ever had with someone I've met in a social setting.

I'm not sure how things like this work even though I've spent my life studying people. Jerry and I just made an immediate connection with each other and it's lasted through all these years.

Jerry didn't live the kind of life most people expect others to live. In talking one night with one of the prominent investment advisors in McCook, he told me that Jerry Potter was smarter than me and him put together and the more I got to know Jerry and the more we shared with each other, the more I knew his perception was most likely correct.

Jerry was a top scholar and athlete at Hayes Center High School and went on to the University of Nebraska with tremendous promise.

But then tragedy struck. He was riding around one night with a good friend of his when they had an accident and his friend was killed. Jerry was never the same after that. As some people do, he drowned his sorrows, guilt and remorse and that impacted his life for evermore.

Even though he had the intellect to be anything he wanted to be, this tragedy would forever haunt his thoughts and his life. Consequently, most people didn't know the Jerry Potter I knew.

I knew a man of immense intellect, a man who had a probing spirit who was never satisfied with the status quo. He always thought all of us could be better than we are and he talked about that constantly to me.

Because of the tragedy and its aftermath, many, including Jerry himself, would say he never lived up to his potential, in terms of achieving great things. He was a hard worker and I believe that everyone he ever worked for would testify to that. He also had a heart of gold. He told me one night he would go to his grave still in love with his ex-wife and the mother of his children.

Not long ago when he was going to be gone for a couple of months, I met him for breakfast the morning he was to leave. He came into the restaurant carrying a paper sack that he sat down next to him and then asked if he could use my cell phone. He called his daughters to tell them that he had "messed up" again and that he would be out of pocket for awhile. Tears ran down his cheek as they conversed and when he hung up, he reached down, picked up the paper sack, and sat it on the table. He reached inside and pulled out two picture frames, each displaying a picture of his daughters. He said he was going to leave all of his belongings in the room he had rented except for these two pictures and asked me if I would keep them safe for him until he came back home. I was honored to do so.

Seminal moments have everlasting effects on our lives. He never got over the death of his good friend and it impacted negatively on his life forever.

But most people never knew the heart of Jerry Potter. He was a man whose friendships meant more to him than anything. He would never let his friends down and he was always there when you needed him. He epitomized the old saying, "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

Unfortunately, our friendship waned in the final stages of his life and I will blame myself forever for that.

The very last conversation I had with him, he said, "I wish you would call me more often because the loneliest sound in the world is a telephone that doesn't ring."

I don't think Jerry had any idea how much he will be missed.

Rest in peace my friend.