News of the death of Brad L. Graham came to me in the middle of the night, via e-mail. I was tossing and turning, stressing about this site’s launch, as a matter of fact, when it seemed a good idea to surf the web. Instead, a friend who I’ve only met once in person was sending along word of the passing of someone that I still have locked in my mind as a 20-year-old undergrad at Webster U.

In all the touching, online writings that have been penned about Brad in the last week, I’ve never seen him identified as a Teenaged Ghost Hunter, but that’s exactly what he was. And here’s how I know.

Back in the late ’80s, the two of us were both on the staff of the Webster University Journal, each of us editors of some section, or another. We were also night-owls, and the evening-into-morning production sessions often lead to us to wandering around campus after midnight. This was in the time before surveillance video, before any real WU security force and, seemingly, before locks on windows and doors. We’d routinely hang out and gab in the turrets of Loretto Hall or the belltower of the Winifred Moore Auditorium, or we’d traipse through the fourth floor of Webster Hall (then the Administration Building), listening for the long-rumored ghost of Sister Maria, who, the whispers said, had pitched herself to death from that very floor. While we spent considerable time eavesdropping and squinting, we never heard, or saw, ghosts. It wasn’t for lack of trying.

Where we really specialized in our ghost hunting was the main theatre of the Loretto-Hilton Center. Years and years before Brad would become publicist for the St. Louis Rep, he’d found a way to get into that big room, and there we’d sit after the tech and cleaning crews had left for the evening. It was the usual collegiate yammer. He’d be going on about guys, I’d be prattling on about girls. Sometimes, we’d shut up and listen for the ghosts, of which there were reportedly two in the building, doomed men who’d fallen to their death during the L-H’s construction. Vividly, I can recall that we usually came prepared with a four-pack of wine coolers apiece (wine coolers! ohmygosh! how… something!) and occasionally we were ballsy enough to bring a friend or a jambox. I can still hear INXS’ “Kick,” played on cassette tape in that august room, hours after some regional theatre presentation had brought hundreds of St. Louis’ grayhairs to the same space.

College friends are an interesting lot. You spend a semester hanging out with someone on a near-daily basis and, then, poof! A girlfriend or boyfriend comes into the picture, a new set of friends emerge, a new hobby takes over. For a minute there, Brad was probably my best friend at Webster, and only my second, openly gay friend; though many under-aged Faces runs and trips to “Rocky Horror” made for a rainbow of good acquaintances.

Years went by. A serious amount of years. And then one day, Brad L. Graham popped up on my new Facebook page, befriending me. We exchanged some cursory notes and I checked out his Bradlands blog. We didn’t connect in any dramatic way, but allowed for a new, if distant friendship to develop. Realizing that he worked at the Rep, and wanting my Intro to Media Writing students to think about something other than just the School of Communications, I asked Brad to lead a tour for each of my two IMW classes, which he was happy to do, even with next-to-no warning.

The second day, we were limited to that gorgeous lobby of the Rep, because a spring show had gone into tech rehearsal. But on the first day, he lead us through every byzantine pathway in the Loretto-Hilton, a building that he’d come to know so much better than during our Time of Many Wine Coolers. He pointed out drawers full of fake body parts and noted the dog that practically lives in the workshops. He gave a lilting, five-minute speech about the Green Room, peppered with the histories of Green Rooms the world over. Hell, he even made the soda machine seem interesting. His speech was a combination of off-the-cuff sarcasm and practiced wit. One of his delightfully corny lines caused me to laugh aloud. The reference was so dated that I was the only person to grab the hilarity of it. My students stared first at Brad, then at me, shrugged, then continued taking notes or daydreaming.

The man knew his stuff, and not just regarding the Rep. He knew St. Louis theatre and where the bodies were buried. I would’ve enjoyed hearing those stories, too. But for my classes, the official history was good enough, especially when told with his particular blend of passion and precision.

(And, by the by, he never mentioned during those two sessions that he invented the term “blogosphere.” Little in his message was about him, even though I told him they’d be using his speech for color. Had the feeling that he kept that, and lot of other interesting things, close to the vest.)

He was one of the first people I meant to ring up about this site, but time got away. Again. I put off the call. Then I got an e-mail.

Now, for my sake, not his, I’m going to pretend to make that call. Maybe, tonight, I’ll stop by the store for some Bartles & Jaymes, listening to some Depeche Mode, and reflecting on who else I need to contact now, rather than later.

RIP, my creative friend.

NOTES

The Post-Dispatch’s “Culture Club” notes Brad’s passing.

Metatalk on Brad.

NPR on “The Blogosphere” and those who named it.