Most of the people reading the blog don’t live around my town and have no idea who Mickey is.

I try to introduce him when I can. He is the brother of photographer and artist  George Forss, who died a couple of weeks ago.

Mickey has had some issues with mental health in his life and was living on the streets in New York City.

He was taken in by George, who made sure he had his own room and was clothed, fed, and clean.

Mickey is a sweet and gentle soul who walks up and down our Main Street most of the day, pausing at the Stewart’s Convenience store to buy coffee and if he can afford them, cigarettes.

Lots of people – even young kids – know him and bring him money and things to eat.

I met Mickey through my friendship with George, I often saw him at George’s art gallery which was also where George and Mickey lived together for nearly 30 years.

Mickey is the only person I’ve ever paid to pose for me. He likes having his photo taken and he loves being able to buy coffee and cigarettes.

I pay between $3 and $5, and he says my photography reminds him of George, who was always taking pictures.

A number of people are supporting him and making sure he is will. I’m not sure who they are or what they are deciding.

I do know that there are intense discussions going on about where and how Mickey should live after George’s death.

I have not been invited to them and don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to be involved in deciding any part of Mickey’s life.

He tells me he is well, he knows George has died, he says he can take care of himself and he says a number of good people are taking care of him.

I don’ know any more than that, and haven’t asked him any additional questions, there are enough other people are involved. I’m guessing the subject is painful to him.

I appreciate Mickey as a wonderful photographic subject, his face just reeks of character.

And as George’s stepbrother.

He looks somewhat depressed to me lately, but that is to be expected. He lost someone dear to him.

After I saw Mickey, I had the urge to drive over to George’s house to pay my respects to his UFO Investigations Van, an ancient VW  van with a living room in the back.

I walked around the van a few times and started getting emotional. This was was so George. I don’t know if the van even runs anymore, and the UFO Investigations sticker has gone from the front left window.

In addition to seeing Mickey, I spent more than two hours on the phone Friday with a thorough, painstakingly careful, and honest New York Times reporter named Alex.

He was trying to put George’s life together after he left fame and fortune in New York.

He was one of those reporters I admired and always tried to be. No fact was too small to track down, and he was obsessed with capturing George’s life in a fair and truthful way.

He is writing George’s obit for the Times, which covered his brilliant photography career a number of times when George was in the city.

Alex was very through and through him, I got a massive dose of George and his kindness, eccentricity, photographic genius, and love of aliens.

It was like a wound reopened, I think. I didn’t sleep much last night.

George did not have a lot of use for human beings, especially political ones, and he didn’t see the future of humanity as being bright.

Good riddance to people, he told me every now and then, they don’t deserve the earth. He told me the aliens would take care of the earth if people wouldn’t. I told him I thought they went to congress instead. He loved that joke.

But that was his political stance .

He loved a lot of the people around him and was kind to every one of them, including me.

I learned more from watching George take a photo than I did in a decade of taking my own.

He saw things none of us saw, and he was unfailingly generous about what he had learned.

I’m hoping to acquire the UFO Investigations van should it ever become available, I’ll bid on it if I can and if it isn’t expensive. It’s been a long time since it has moved.

It might be too far gone.

I want to park it at Bedlam Farm as my memorial to George.

George used the UFO to investigate alien sightings that were reported to him, I wish he had a siren and flashing lights, he would have loved that.

He told me he only spotted a UFO once, it was reported hovering over Schuylerville, N.Y. one night and George raced to the Saratoga Battlefield (which is in Schuylerville)  got a picture of it, which he has on a disc and showed me and others many times.

It was an odd and bright light roughly the shape of an egg.

George was proud of it. He said he got out of the van and gestured to the UFO to scoop him up and meet with him. But, he said, they weren’t interested.

I’m sure the disk is still in his art gallery downstairs, where the big TV he found and patched together is.

I missed George a lot today, I think the idea that he is gone didn’t quite strike me until I saw Mickey and talked to the Times reporter.

Perhaps one day I’ll spot a UFO and name it after George Forss, the UFO Investigator and one of the best landscape photographers ever.