Dominic Czarnota

I met Dominic at some random get together at the Diedrich's house back in middle school and I don't remember exactly how it happened, but he and I just clicked and before I knew it he became one of my closest friends.  We both dig movies, we're both Polish (and have the wild families that come with that), we're into the same kind of music, we both like photography...we had a lot of things in common that most of the rest of our crew of guys didn't, which is what I think allowed us to build a friendship outside of just having proximity from the people we hung out with when we first me.  One of the things that Dominic and I connected most with was music, and in the decade or so that we have known each other we have been able to see multiple shows, just about all of them being memorable.  The most recent one actually happened but a few hours before I started writing this when we went to see The Hives at Clutch Cargos in Pontiac.  Not only did those crazy Swedish bastards put on one hell of a show, on our way out as we were walking to the parking lot we just so happened to run into the band and shake their hands complimenting them on a great performance.  We didn't plan for something great, it just happened naturally, and in a nutshell that's how I would describe mine and Dom's friendship: natural, unforced coolness.

During the second semester of my junior year at college, Dominic and his girlfriend Melissa were visiting MSU so I invited them over to hang out and have some drinks with my roommates and a couple other people.  What I expected to be just a nice little get together with one of my good buds ended up being one of the most fun nights I've had in college and quite possibly the best night of party photographs that I have ever had.  Looking back through the photos from that night I laugh both at the things I remember vividly and the things that apparently happened which I have no recollection of whatsoever.  That night had pretty much everything: drinks were flowing, laughs were had, good music was played, funny pictures were taken, new friends were made, and old friendships were bound even tighter.  Dominic and I have done plenty of things which could probably be described as "cooler" than that one night we all hung out at my apartment, but to me it's a night like that that defines a good friendship because that was just us being ourselves with ourselves without the help of some famous band or thousands of screaming people.

Dominic and I have been going to different colleges for the last four years and despite us not seeing each other all that often, whenever we do hang out it never feels forced and I always feel like I'm still hanging out with one of my oldest friends.  Because of that I feel confident when I say that I can see me and him being good friends for many years to come.

Cheers my Polish brotha,

Andrew