Michael Finnegan: An Impromptu
Rodeo
The innumerable friends of Michael Finnegan found that
one simple word best captured him: "mine." Everyone felt
he belonged to them, because he made everyone feel
special.
"Every one of his friends thought Mike was his," said
Katherine Finnegan, his sister. "If he was talking to
you, you were the only person in the world. A neighbor
remarked that Mike never just beeped the horn and waved.
He stopped the car and got out."
Finny, as his friends called him, was a 37- year-old
currency trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, who could never let
a friendship lapse. He kept up with people he had met
when he was 5.
He constantly rooted for his friends. He was a scratch
golfer. At a memorial service for him, a fellow golfer
printed out a dozen or so recent e-mail exchanges between
the two. The friend was preparing for a club
championship, and Mr. Finnegan told him: "It's all in
your mind. Don't play against yourself." And: "E-mail me
your tee time. I'm going to be in the gallery. You're
going to break 70."
If there was a chance for some impulsive fun, he took
it. Once, after a golf tournament, he and some golf
buddies jumped a fence encircling a horse farm, lept on
some horses and rode them merrily around the pasture.
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