Typical looking guy about my age. He looked like 90% of the skater old heads I know: White dude with a buzz cut, but he had a faded and clearly very old soviet hammer sickle and star tattoo behind his left ear. Me being me, I could not help but point to the same spot on my neck, telling him mad respect for having that tattoo displayed on his neck. Otherwise you’d think he was probably some MMA loving possibly reactionary skinhead. Though his head wasn’t shaved that closely.

He then told me his dad was a party member and he got the tattoo in his memory, and how he basically fled with his mom after the collapse.

I was training a new cashier at the time so didn’t have enough time to talk more in depth, but we did chat a bit about the dire need for a return of the proletarian revolutionary spirit in this country and how tragic it is that all of our past leaders are mostly long dead and buried and bumped fists and thanked each other for keeping the flame kindled if not burning brightly and I could tell he was probably a bit surprised and maybe even a bit moved by the moment, I sure as hell was.

There are comrades out there we just gotta find each other.