When I met Rocco during his Chicago visit last fall, he was wearing an old orange and black Giants baseball cap and was waiting for me to pick him up by the post office on Southport. He had just watched my beloved Cubbies lose yet another game at Wrigley.

I met him only once before, for five minutes, at my friend Lin’s in Sonoma.  He was her landscaper and she called me a week earlier and mentioned he was coming through Chicago and asked if it would be okay if he contacted me.

Of course, I volunteered to be his local contact. I thought I would be called on to explain the Chicago Transit Authority’s color coded subway routes. I didn’t expect we’d be hanging out the greater part of the next week. But Rocco is pretty remarkable, totally infused with that kind of joie de vivre that you naturally want to be around. Rocco is a man comfortable in his own skin.

During his visit, he slept in budget accommodations near Greektown, but hung out with John and me and my friends much of the week. Together, we caught some Siberian rockabilly, Columbian  porro, and Malian toureg during the World Music Festival and dined together several times. John and I sat in rapt attention as he shared tales of his last adventure; who he talked with on the el or what kind of noodle shop he discovered that was not in Lonely Planet or any other tourist guidebook.

His visit was followed by a thank you card and an invitation to enjoy his hospitality next time we visited the left coast. So when we planned our trip to Alameda to visit John’s mom, we also designated a day to go to Sebastopol to see John’s friend Phil, a helluva mandolin player, my bestie Lin, and our new friend Rocco.

His place totally fit his personality and reflected how he approached his life as a traveler, cherishing experiences above ownership. Rocco and his partner Beverly, a talented potter, lived in a simple home on a several acre spread, which they rented.  As part of the deal they had with the landlord, they tended to a couple cows and chickens.

Stone paths and a fountain were set along the side of the house creating a garden that was intentional but not fussy. I suppose I should have expected no less from a landscaper. A 1956 yellow Volvo was parked there as was a mini-trailer in case he had overnight guests. Towards the back of his property was a wooden building, too large for a shed, too small to be a barn. There, he stored an exercise cycle and made wine. He devised some system to trap their cold night time air and keep the place naturally cool 24/7.

He had an incredible record collection and seemed personally connected to many of the artists. For years, I seem to recall, he managed an alternative radio station in San Francisco. His father, he explained, used to host poker games in Denver when Miles (Davis) and (Thelonius) Monk stopped there en route to LA.

His father was a fighter and his mother was circus performer. Hard to believe and yet not.  He had photos. He spent a month each winter in Mexico living in a small town near the beach. Such was his understanding of how to restore himself after tending to the gardens of Sonoma County’s wealthy. He seemed to know the best up and coming musical acts from the Bay to West Africa. And he whipped up a crème fraiche with eggs expelled from his own chickens. If his story of visiting a south side Chicago storefront church didn’t impress us, Rocco’s al fresco dinner whipped up on an abandoned professional grill that he re-furbished, served with a pinot whose grapes he crushed – he only became larger in our eyes.

I wanted to take a photo to remember the night. It was so magical! Everything; how tiny white lights and towering palm trees hung over the long glass table  in his yard, how the table was topped with homemade wine, artisan crafted crockery, and an anything but typical backyard barbecue menu featuring dishes like prosciutto wrapped around behemoth prawns. I fell in love with the eclectic range of collectibles that were just there.

I was in a near dream state when Rocco and Beverly walked us to our car. “Look at the sky,” he said, marveling at the view even after thousands of nights covered by their company.

Sure enough, the black sky was full of stars. We spied The Milky Way and more. Earlier in the evening Rocco explained that from March until November, he slept outside under this blanket of eternal lights.

I knew I could never capture the beauty of all these stars in a photo, but I remembered I had taken a picture of Rocco’s bed and the two canvas chairs that sat on his deck earlier. I decided I could always look at this picture and remember the image of the star-dusted sky he fell asleep under.

Having a friend who reminds you to look at the stars is no small thing.