Great story. So . . . did your friend turn out to be a Commie?
I grew up in a very liberal area, btw. There was one conservative in my class, and he was such a rarity that in talking about him to my parents, I'd refer to him as "my conservative friend" rather than call him by name!
Pretty much, I was right on both counts. He ended up as a full professor in math at a very prestigious university. I didn't spend all that much time with him, but I get the feeling that he's politically about what you would expect for an east coast liberal who grows up to teach at an east coast university.
You know, the type of people that go to see the Che Guevuera movie and wish they could have been there tooling around with Che on a motorcyle.
The story never changes, does it?