I first met Charles on the 2012 BRT. As two single guys of similar age, it was only natural that we sat next to each other. Little did we know how much we had in common — we had both spent time suffering in the rental car industry (oh, the stories!) and quickly discovered just how much our nerdy interests intersected (both being avgeeks as well as transit geeks and closeted railfans), so I suppose it was inevitable that we became fast friends. I traveled with Charles or met him when our trips intersected innumerable times, from joining him on one of his annual nostalgia pilgrimages to his alma mater in Arizona to eat terrible Mongolian barbecue and drive around that beautiful state to sharing hotels in Seoul to taking several cross-country Amtrak trips in sleeper cars.

I was also privileged to be a groomsman at Charles‘s wedding in December 2021, and like FriendlySkies mentioned above, the Charles we married off was a very different — and slightly more mature, but not too much! — Charles than the one we met years ago.

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to see Charles twice recently — once for the Delta Flight Museum’s Hops In The Hangar event in February, and then again a couple of weeks ago when he brought Alva to Yankee Stadium to see her first MLB game. I cherish the fact I got to see him so recently.

I’m still struggling with how to process his passing, as I’m sure all of us who knew him are working through, but the memories I collected with him will always and forever be a blessing to my life. Rest in peace, my friend.