Time passes... friends must go... but memories remain.
Bruce... a unique guy. Both in his appearance and his demeanor.
In both pockets of his jeans, he almost always had tsuba, which he worked on with horn or bone at almost every opportunity... sometimes even in the morning at diner breakfast.
I will never forget the expression on the faces of the other guests when they saw Bruce at work in the morning at breakfast.
In 2002, I first heard one of his almost legendary lectures on sukashi tsuba at the table of a dealer friend in Tampa.
I have never met anyone with such a keen eye for good iron tsuba.
It was in San Francisco... in 2003 or 2004, on the last day, just before closing... Bruce and I, a group of four, were strolling through the sword show.
At one table, swords lay in five or six layers, completely jumbled together. Bruce stopped, reached into the stack, and pulled out a rather poor-looking wakizashi in a koshirae.
On the koshirae was a Kanayama tsuba. I couldn't believe my eyes. I must have walked past it 6 or 7 times before...looked through the stack...and I didn't see it...and Bruce strolls past and däng, he sees it immediately.
Crazy in a positive way...that was Bruce for me.
Rest in peace my crazy friend