We knew each other, of course. The university's undergraduate program wasn't that big. But it would be safe to say we didn't hang out together. I was in with the nerds, folks who preferred spending Saturday nights in the basement computer lab because that's when you could run those huge programs that took boxes and boxes of keypunch cards and get results back in less than half a day. He was a jock, a frat. Saturday nights were meant for partying. When discussing some of the younger coeds he was "courting", I still remember his flip response.

"If they're old enough to bleed, they're old enough to breed."

I suspect he'd be embarrassed by that, now.

So, it was a little odd that we ended up being research partners for two years. Sharing the same office on the third floor of a building that also housed a small, active nuclear reactor. If you stepped out of our office and looked down the hall to the left, to the end wall... well, on the other side of that cinder block wall was the containment vessel.

Yeah. On campus. In the middle of town. But no, ours was not one of the unsecure campus nuclear sites exposed on television a week or so ago. Our alma mater was smarter than that. Our reactor was disassembled and shipped to South Korea for use as a training reactor early in our postgraduate careers. I never actually saw the inside.

We were the Odd Couple, but also the odd men out. In classes on nuclear physics, dosimetry, radiological assay, we were the only wildlifers in amongst physicists and medical professionals. When we took a class outside on the lawn and the professor forgot a tool to extract a core sample of the sod, he was unconcerned. As I handed him my pocket knife, he announced he knew one of the wildlife guys would have a knife. And the physicists all laughed.

When it came to the classwork, and particularly to all the hairy integral and derivative math involved with multiple decay products of radiactive elements, or predicting deposition rates from plumes of smoke or gas, my nerd talents made it easy. In addition to the plastic pocket protector full of pens, I also packed a slide rule.

In a holster, on my hip.

Really.

And I wasn't the only one. Upon occassion, I would actually fit in with the physicists in the crew.

My partner, on the other hand, struggled with the math. With some coaching from me. But his grades were never much different from mine. He just seemed to work harder for them.

And it was he who got the part of our project that called for bottle raising deer fawns. It was he who took me out for my first deer hunt, and my first experience at skinning a deer. There, late at night, in the deer pens. And thanks to him and our professor, I learned a little about college social life, and the lubricating effects of good whiskey.

So, knowing this, if one were looking forward into the future back then, which of the two of us would you expect to end up a wildlife biologist in a sparsely populated part of the country, and which would you expect to have a long and varied career in nuclear physics?

Odd how things turn out, isn't it?

He called this summer. Once again had managed a hard to draw hunting license in one of my deer areas. Been close to five or six years since he'd been so lucky. We promised to get together when he was here.

Well, I was on check station duty, of course. And running wing barrels. Got to meet his hunting partner, though, as he brought his deer to town. Turns out to be a high level bureaucrat in D.C. for one of the nation's nuclear weapons programs.

Had several hunters and a rancher come through check station snickering about those idiots in the dome tent who set up on top of the highest, windiest ridge around. Guess I wasn't too surprised to find out later from a warden that had been in camp that it was my friend.

So, on the first morning off with nothing I absolutely had to do, I pondered hopping in the truck and checking out the dome camp in the wind. And the phone rang.

My friend. In town, at McD's. They're ready to hit the road for Vegas.

Well, I made it into town in record time. Had coffee, visited, and delayed their long journey by at least a half hour.

He's changed. Less hair, more wrinkles in his face than I remembered. I didn't remember being so much taller than he.

I suppose it could be those decades of working with radioactivity, but I suspect giving testimony before Congressional Committees probably aged him more than anything.

But his laugh?

Ahh, exactly the same. He still sees joy and fun in everything. Still enjoys the company of people. I envied him that thirty years ago, and still do.

And I envied him his travels. Yes, I would love to go to France for a tour of their nuclear waste recycling facilities.

Really. I would.

List off the major nuclear facilities of the U.S., and you would also be listing off most of the states where he and his family have lived.

Me, I came right here, and stayed.

But a lot of our conversation in that plastic McD's booth was about hunting. Hunting and wildlife. His partner was just awestruck that they could stand outside their tent and see antelope, mule deer, and elk. All at the same time. Every day. And deer inside town.

My friend raves about their hunt, and the open country they were in. Other than the dust, their campsite on the rim was perfect. After the raining fiasco many years back, the last place he wanted to be was camped down in the muddy valley below with all the other hunters.

He tells me about the hunt he has planned with his son. You can tell these brief trips to the country are the high points of his year.

And, too soon, I take a quick look at his buck, and they are on the road. I head back home, for a few hours in the office before the heelers and I hit the road ourselves for more wing barrels.

It was an interesting meeting. I'm fairly certain his path in life could also have been mine. And I suspect he could have had mine if he so chose. I would love to think he is horribly envious of my choice, but I think not. The open country and slow pace probably look appealing to him, but his life has had so many more experiences, so many interesting projects and people.

And me, driving the same roads through the same old desert to pull down the same barrels... would I want to give this up?

No.

But it was good to see how the other choice could have worked out.

It would have been fine.