(An old high school pic with Alya's back to us. Claaaassic Alya. And yes, I am wearing a headband and Gander Mountain cutoff. Look the part, be the part.)
Some things seem predictable, some things almost preordained. Texas A&M will always churn out top draft picks while simultaneously staying mediocre. The Arrested Development movie will always be in pre-production until Gob can legitimately trade in his Segway for the hoverboard from Back to the Future II. Russell Westbrook will always foolishly think he's better than Kevin Durant. Lebron was always going to leave for Miami, and Nick Bunce was always going to leave for Germany.
I met Nick in high school during our junior year PreCal class. He had just moved from Austin, and the first thing the rest of us noticed as the new kid walked in was that he had a goatee so gigantic that even John Salmons would have been impressed. No one else in the school even thought such facial hair could exist at that age. (Seriously, Bunceadelphia's driver's license looks like he was just a young impressionable Amish kid excited about Rumspringa.) It was written that we would be friends once we realized that we had a mutual interest in Lost, classic rock, and the criminally underrated (yet ever-changing) band Wolfmother.
Bunce's fixation with Germany was pretty evident from the start. (That Janisch and I didn't come up with the nickname "Hefeweizen Hedgehog" until last week is one of the great regrets in our life.) He made a trip there after high school and spent an entire semester there in college. Upon coming back for his final semester at A&M, it was clear that he was now a stranger in a strange land. He was looking for something missing and itchin' like a hound, Charlie Kelly-style, to get back to what he now considered his home.
And he found a way.
And he found a way.
On his last night in America, it was pretty amazing how tangible the end of an era felt. We hung atop of my friend Blake's new apartment with a perfect shot of the sprawling Houston skyline. It was clear that we had come a long way from hanging out at the secluded lake house and that whether we are ready or not, the next stage of life is here.
So good luck Bunce. I hope you find what you're looking for out there.
-PB
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