I was talking to a friend the other night and he had heard that Pat Finney had passed. I was hoping it was a different Pat, but realized it was true after finding his obit. Pat's mother and my mother were old friends, maybe from college or maybe from childhood. My first memory of Pat was when my mom took us to visit his mom and the two Finney kids when I was about five, and Pat had put together a makeshift intercom with two cans and a string. I struggled to keep the string tight which frustrated Pat. In 1968, when I was nine, we moved to the same street in Jennings Lodge that the Finneys lived. Pat and I became fast friends. Pat was a walking encyclopedia because he read his family's books at a young age and was the smartest kid in our peer group. The Finneys had a tether pole in their back yard and a ping pong table in the basement making it the year-round hot spot for neighborhood kids. Looking back, it was an idyllic childhood growing up in Jennings Lodge with Pat and his sister Kathy, and all the other kids. Pat was not only smart, but also a smartass in the fun and clever sense, making things much more exciting like the time Pat was celebrating a preteen birthday and decided to yell down the street to a much older and bigger, high school aged, kid named Steve Bell calling him "Bellbottoms". Steve marched up the hill and grabbed Pat by his ankles and shook him upside down until Pat apologized. There are countless other Pat stories, but the bottom line is Pat was a really good friend to grow up with and left an indelible impression on me and many others. Pat and I, along with many other friends, played high school golf and I have fond memories of those years spending time playing with Pat at the old Oregon City golf course when it was considered a cow pasture. Pat was a really good guy and I feel bad for not staying in touch, and will make it a point to reach out to our other friends and share some Pat stories. Pat will truly be missed and my sympathy goes out to his family at this sad time of loss.