We Miss YOU Already... Um... Let Me Explain, She Just Moved Away!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      We Miss YOU Already...  

                   Um...  Let me Explain, She Just Moved Away!

An aircraft arrived, one of its passengers returning home from Israel.  We weren't aware of it, of course, or its impact upon our lives, not until Fred arrived at our door to suggest we wait a bit, wait for his good friend.  "She'll be here very soon.  She'll stay at the Astor until her furniture and piano arrive, a baby grand piano."   

"Wait?" SweetHeart and I asked, sort of in unison.  We were poised to rent our upper flat to an interested couple eager to submit payment and then schedule a move.  

"Hmmm..." SweetHeart mused, an index finger pressed along her jaw line.  "A baby grand piano!  She'll probably live here for a very long time!  That's a good thing."  She remained our very best tenant, becoming a best friend in the process, for 23 years.  We've long referred to her, to Joan, as "The One Above."  That piano gave us sweet music for many of those years as it sang, its black and white notes and chords penetrating through hardwood floor boards and a high ceiling.      

"She'll be the best tenant you could ever have," Fred stated with emphasis, quite insistently, his hand and arm gestures a convincing argument.   "I guess we'll wait," I said in reply, or maybe SweetHeart did.  "I mean, all the way from Israel to rent OUR upstairs flat."  That last remark was definitely hers.    

"She used to live on this street, north of here.  She loves the neighborhood.  You won't regret it for a moment...  best tenant you'll ever have," Fred repeated with even greater emphasis, his warm smile a reassuring promise, a kind of excursus or a codicil to his testament.  

The herald, Fred, arrived at our door in April of 2000.  The "best tenant," Joan, took up residence in June of the same year, or perhaps it was earlier in the year, April or May.  I can't find a record to verify the exact time.  Not terribly vital to this narrative, I suppose.

Don't know if it's a kind of phenomenon, as perhaps not all landlords / landladies and their tenants become friends.   So often, we're told by others, those relationships become more adversarial rather than warm and fuzzy and friendly, with cultural and social interaction mixed into the recipe.   But, after all, 23 years with the "best tenant..."  As landlords, we've been exceptionally fortunate.  

She became our surrogate "Auntie," sharing our cell phone provider, for example.  For 23 years, we've backed her car into her side of the garage.  Joan was never very good at backing.  Didn't matter.  I casually mentioned to her family, a son and two daughters, other relatives and friends, "I've driven Joan's cars for 23 years, but only backwards."  She's had three different automobiles over the years, the first was blue, one green, the current motor, a compact, is silver-grey.

Of course, there were a few challenges in our relationship.  Joan was, still is, an ardent devotee of The New York Times.  For quite a long period of time, the paper arrived sometime between 5:00 and 6:00AM.  It arrived with a resounding thud against the wall of our porch, as if hurled by a beefy shot-putter with great muscular arms.  The wall was just outside our bedroom, the noise of its arrival nearly catapulting us out of our warm bed. We spoke to Joan.  She spoke to the delivery people.  In a couple of years' worth of newspaper arrival explosions we forgot all about it.  (Or was it three years?  I probably exaggerate a bit!)

Joan has been, in the main, a quiet and considerate tenant, neighbor and great friend.  Except when she dances.  Or is it clogging?  Old houses tend to magnify sound, from floors through ceiling to the ears of downstairs denizens.   Things that fall or drop have contributed, over time, to certain evidence that Joan is in residence.  

Only once was there a sort of atomic blast, when a huge mirror dislodged itself from the single nail that held it in place.  We had trouble identifying the source, wondering if an aircraft had crashed into the neighbor's attic.  Glass and debris covered the floor of Joan's bedroom.  She was traveling to visit her daughter in Minnesota.  SweetHeart and I helped clean up the shattered glass and other resultantly exploded material, books and artifacts!  The mirror has not been replaced.

SweetHeart has helped Joan over the years with eyedrops, television issues, cell phone and land-line-phone matters, physical challenges.  I've carried up her groceries and other supplies over the years -- all of the above simply labors of love!  Keeps one in shape, of course, so not a complaint, you understand.  Repairs, too, of course...  plunging and plumbing, paint, knobs that come loose, carrying up, supplying and moving of chairs, leaking downspouts, outdoor umbrellas, luggage, spring and winter window manipulations...  But all of that goes with property-owning territory.  Mustn't grumble...  Exercise is beneficial...     

At 90 years of age, soon to be 91, Joan is moving into an apartment that does not require her to climb stairs, something she's done with grace and, recently, somewhat decreasing ease.  Her new place has an elevator and gorgeous views of Lake Michigan, watercraft and surrounding structures, grassland, the traffic that crawls or speeds along Lincoln

Memorial Drive.  The "crawlers" are cruisers looking for fun and places to park.  The "speeders" are eager to get home or to the tavern, a restaurant or shops, using the Drive as a kind of unintended expressway, unless, at times, when sirens and their official user-occupants intervene. 

We'll miss her terribly, that is, the proximity of her, of Joan, the ease with which we can see her and follow her activities, her travels, her wonderful poetry.  She has published volumes attesting to her poetic talents.  Joan is a rabid reader.  Her books, a mountain of them, will leave with her, or find homes with other avid readers.  Joan is very generous, kind and thoughtful, and funny, too.  She has a terrific sense of humor!  

Happily, she's not moving far.  We'll visit; we'll see her whenever we can, whenever she feels up to hosting her former lower-flat neighbors and friends.  We'll make plans to collect her for a trip to one of our favorite coffee houses, or for a spot of breakfast or lunch.  Errands perhaps, possibly a visit to our local bookseller.  Joan never forgets our birthdays and wedding anniversaries, gifts and treats of breakfast or lunch always part of the celebrations.   

We've grown to love Joan.  To be accurate, or to be honest, we grew to love her almost from the start of what "initial-ists" termed "Y2K."  It only took us a day, maybe two at the most.  She's easy to love, attested to by her many friends, her family, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, her poetry and Shakespeare groups, neighbors and so many others.  Stay well, Joan.  Settle in.  Enjoy your new digs.  We'll see you again in a couple of days!    

Humbly Submitted 12-08-2022...  Joel K.  

   

  

  

 

 

Losing a Great Friend too Soon, too Young... It Just Aint Right!!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:             Losing a Great Friend too Soon, too Young...  It Just Aint Right!!  

We'd often get together at the weekend for prodigious night-clubbing and drinking.  It was a Friday night.  We decide -- or maybe he decides -- to venture to a night spot we'd often frequented. (Long gone now, it was called "Beneath the Street," I think...)

A splendid looking chap...
Dashing, even! 

The Everly Brothers are appearing, and we somehow snag a table "expensively" close to the stage, as if we'd bribed the head waiter.  No head waiters there, just servers, "beverage hosts" and bouncers.

Pat disappears, and I don't really notice where he's gone, as I'm pleasantly floating on a euphoric bubble of booze-inspired semi-consciousness.  Don and Phil, the Everly Brothers, sit down at my table.  "Hey, how you doin' this fine evening," asks Don, or maybe it was Phil...

"Uh...  I'm doin' fine, thanks," I say, somewhat bewildered.

"What did you think of our set?" asks Phil, or Don maybe.

"You two are great," I say in reply.  "I love your style, your singing and the tunes you do.   I love the old stuff, your signature tunes."  

"Lemme buy you a drink.  What are you drinking?  Miss!!" one of them calls out, "Give our friend, here, whatever he wants!"  This from Phil, or maybe it was Don.  I accept!

"I guess I'll have another of these," I say.  "Nut brown ale."  

"Wanna jolt of something stiffer?" asks Don (Phil?).  

"Nah, thanks, the beer's just fine."  

It goes on like that for 15, 20 minutes, the length of their break between sets. They return to the

stage. I muse that my great friend, Pat -- sometimes I called him Gord -- was in Armed Forces Radio (and Television) in Germany.  He had extended his enlistment to do something he loved. And he was great at it, with an excellent, sonorous and "pear-shaped" tonal quality to his superb voice, a bonus in such work, probably needless to add.  

He met many celebrities in Germany through his work, including "Jack," who became an NBC newscaster in Los Angeles and married an actress named Joan.  Pat and Jack became and remained good friends in spite of the distance between LA and Milwaukee. Pat was best man at their wedding. 

Eventually, Pat returns to our table, explaining that he was visiting, catching up and sharing stories with Don and Phil whom he came to know through Armed Forces Radio.  

"So," I ask, "Why were the Everly's so friendly toward me of all people?"  

"I told them you're a big-time Milwaukee DJ.  'He'll play lots of your music if you're nice to him', I told the boys!"  

We laughed.  I cursed and complained at him with jovial good humor.  He was like that, always...  full of practical jokes, silliness, fun and great humor.  He loved to put me in crazy and     sometimes embarrassing circumstances.  That was his way, and I thoroughly enjoyed the sport! He was among my very closest and most cherished friends.  He was in SweetHeart's and my wedding, and we were in his.  His wife -- we call her Joey -- was and is a treasure, and remains a great friend whose company we enjoy enormously. 

Pat died in April of this year, far too young, far too soon.  We were in the military together, and spent some 18 months stationed in Turkey.  We had great times and many adventures, loaded with mischief.  Late one evening, returning from our duties, our second shift in "Research and Development" in the Air Force Security Service, we "borrowed" one of the shuttle buses in order to get to the Airman's Club before closing time, but that was one of our tamer episodes. We raised lots of hell in Istanbul, drank way too much, traded in contraband, once were caught up in a minor revolution...  Pat enjoyed the time my feet were run over by a taxi cab outside a pavilion (an Istanbul night spot!).  What a sense of humor.  Far more than that, he had a gift for comedy, fun and wildly silly humor!!

He loved being of Irish descent; a DNA test proved him to be predominantly Irish. He and Joey, Steve and Andrea were able to visit Ireland, a trip he greatly enjoyed.  And there may even have been some pubs involved...  

Too many years passed that we did not see or interact regularly with one another on a personal level, but we did always manage to meet on occasion, to speak via telephone and trade nonsense. SweetHeart and I visited him in hospital during his final days, told stories, even sang one of his favorite tunes. He seemed to enjoy the occasion, at least we hope he did! 

Pat was -- like SweetHeart and other great friends still are -- a treasure in my life.  I loved him more than I ever told him, and wish I had done so.  I'll miss him every day.  But like the aftertaste of a favorite dish or a nut brown ale (or, these days, a Diet Pepsi Cola with a wedge of fresh lime), a memory will rise in my throat and move to my heart, and I'll savor, once again, his memory, our friendship and the times we spent together.   

Humbly Submitted, 05-23-18 -- Joel K.     

Old Friends Renewed... A Sort of Re-Awakening!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:     Old Friends Renewed...    A Sort of Re-Awakening! 

Long before entering the depths of Geezerhood (or should it be heights?), in my student days, I read Jean-Paul Sartre's The Wall, in which his protagonist is condemned to death by firing squad against the "eponymous," much-feared wall. The story is set during the Spanish Civil War.  The man is ultimately reprieved for "consideration," temporarily, but not before "surrendering the illusion of immortality."

At least that's one interpretation, admittedly an over-simplification of a classic existentialist narrative.  Nonetheless, it leads nicely into the theme, setting up the topic of this month's attempt at constructing a story!  I think that as we age, we engage in more and more self-reflection, looking behind to consider where we've been, ahead through tunnels of presumptive destinations as they grow ever nearer.  Notions of Mortality, even the "illusion" (we all make future plans, don't we??!!) we all seem to hold on to, creep increasingly into consciousness. I haven't actually "surrendered," but I think about it more often these days...  

I don't know if that's the sole motivation, but in recent years it's the thought of mortality that perhaps moved me to seek out old friends, even after 40 or 50 years' absence.  I'm happy and gratified that I did, and wonder often why I waited so damn long to do so.  Noteworthy among them...  

Freddy and I had been childhood friends.  We had paper routes, played ball in the gravel lot adjacent to his family's garage,

cut lawns, rode our bikes recklessly... had great fun and many adventures.  I'm sitting one day staring a my computer, and the word, "rice-a-floffa" (not sure of the spelling!?) wanders into my head.  I look up Freddy's phone number and ring.  To my delight, he responds happily, enthusiastically, and with a hearty laugh as I begin, "I'd like a large order of rice-a-floffa to travel!" Now we get together for lunch at least once a month.  I was in his wedding many years ago, and attended his and Pat's recent 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration. A renewed friendship...  pure joy!

This famous Milwaukee
custard stand served
equally famous skinless
wieners made by Johnny's
family business...

Johnny B. was one of the first friends I made during freshman year of high school.  Beginning recently, we E-Corresponded, we talked, and now we get together for lunch or dinner, once a month when time and schedules permit.  In our younger days, we prowled around the old neighborhood, "borrowed" his father's car, went to Louie's cottage for boat rides and water skiing.  Now that we're older and far more brilliant, we talk about politics and former bad habits, the Peace Corps, travel and many other topics of significance that great minds crave.

Richard M. and I were in school together, and enjoyed a friendship in the 60's and 70's.  A couple of weeks ago, following some re-introductory E-Messaging, we set a lunch meeting, and caught up, each of us in turn summarizing perhaps 45 or so years since we last saw one another. It was a Great Time! We plan to get together again, sometime after the start of 2017, perhaps even including other mutual old chums...  

Above is a badly-fabricated image of
the fabled saloon, Morry's on Prospect,
where many great friendships were
forged from a crucible of booze,
juke box tunes and good times!!  

Such as...  Mike B.  We met for coffee, sharing recollections of highly amusing if possibly self-destructive adventures.  Mike reminded me of one of them.  After working a day shift in my profession as "beverage host," he and I stuffed 7 "long necks" each into our winter coat pockets and motored off to a basketball game during which we consumed our booty.  We drove back to the saloon using nothing but alley ways, for reasons I can't readily recall.  Brilliant lads! Brilliant times (uh...  weren't they??!). (I've been counseled not to mention our "famous" automotive backing race the wrong way on Prospect Avenue...  ?!)  I should mention, Richard, Mike and I often encountered one another at the fabled and now famous, but former, Morry's On Prospect. And speaking of Morry...  

He and I had lunch together after a similar span of years had elapsed since we last had any purposeful and protracted conversation.  Here again, so good to see and interact with Morry, both socially and culturally!  A great friend and a friendship renewed! We, too, plan to make it a somewhat regular occasion.  In our most recent telephone chat, we even settled on our next choice of lunchtime cuisine!  Now that's a true sense of commitment, yes?!  Wonderful!!  Lest I forget, great, also, to see Dave K. over lunch!

Greg G. is yet another gem, an old friend with whom coffee and great conversation is a

somewhat newly initiated routine upon which I place great value!  Greg has a way of discovering the best in people and their ideas.  My time with him is always edifying and revealing. He has a generosity of spirit that is both admirable and enviable. Oh, and he admires Jungian Philosophy! (When's our next coffee date, eh, Greg??)   

Though I place equal value on (fairly) newly formed friendships with people of a "shared generational map," we've discussed such as those within the context of "film club" postings.  (Please see archival writings...   http://geezerjoel.blogspot.com/)...  I won't lengthen this piece with a repeated litany of names or the themes of our gatherings.

By contrast, and to her great credit and that of her fellows, SweetHeart enjoys uninterrupted friendships -- celebrated each month over dinner! -- with nearly lifelong good friends. Women, I suppose, being perhaps smarter (some apparently assert!) and more socially conscious than men, at least many of us, have the skill and emotional gifts to maintain relationships, even those that began some 50 and 60 years ago! Men can sometimes acquire such gifts in later life, and as in my case, emotional growth finally blossoms.  (It's a right brain thing, I think! Aina??!! One wonders why it can take so long for right brain functions to function?!)

This is SweetHeart, not with an
old friend, but a relatively new one!
(Possibly an Eagle Scout?...)

Do renewed friendships that originally commenced long ago tend to last?  Or are they ephemeral, like novelties that tend to capture our imaginations briefly and then fade as interest wanes over time?  I sincerely hope not. And to be honest I don't think so...  I think friendships with those with whom we became pals long ago can actually be stronger, more fulfilling! Why, you may ask!  Because in later life we're far less likely to try or want to impress one another.  We're able to be ourselves, without pretension, without the youthful proclivities of competition on too many levels...  financial success, who owns more stuff, number of marriages, who's funnier or more clever, who has a bigger house or garage... Maybe I'm being naive, but I sincerely hope these re-connections, renewed friendships, last a great long time, in fact, as long as those good friends and I do.   (Questions listed, below!)  

Humbly Submitted 12-30-16 -- Joel K.

Questions You May Wish to Consider, Even Answer:   

1.)  Have you re-connected with a friend or friends after the passage of many years?

2.)  How you did you arrange the re-connection, and by what means...  Email, letter, social media, chance encounter, school, the county jail...?

3.)  How do you meet...  lunching, drinks, dinner, at a skating rink, your home, her / his home?

4.)  How often do you get together, or plan to meet...  monthly, bi-monthly, weekly?

5.)  What's the history of your friendship with an old friendship renewed, and how did you first get together?    

     

     

                       

An Homage: A Great Friend, a True Champion!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    An Homage to a Great Friend, a True Champion!

Whenever I was privileged to be with him, I knew I was in the Company of a Champion.  My much-loved, lifelong, richly cherished, marvelously talented friend, Stephen F. Johnstone, slipped away on September 8th.  Far too young, far too soon!  Over the course of two or so years, Steve wrote a manuscript about his great passion -- gate-crashing.  It's entitled, In the Company of Champions, and chronicles his longtime adventure, something at which he was the true master, the greatest champion ever to gain entry, surreptitiously, into varied iconic events, those into which lesser mortals might only project their longings and their dreams.

Steve and his son Joel

Steve with daughter Shannon

Steve entered the hospital last Monday, the 1st of September, Labor Day.  About three or four weeks ago, it became obvious he had been assaulted by a form of cancer so aggressive, so virulent, that it claimed him just one week after entering Froedtert Memorial Hospital in Milwaukee County.  His family members and Connie gathered round him.  Happily for Steve, most were able to speak with him, hold his hand, express their love.  It seems they turned away for a moment, and he was gone.  As Mary, my wife, suggested, "He gave us yet another gate-crashing moment, almost a mystical performance, the consumate phantom charmed his way along a bright pathway in pursuit of a far more desirable destination."

Reading with Gina's daughter,
Granddaughter Juliana

 

I hope it's not an irreverence, but I have an image of Steve appearing at the Heavenly Gate, speaking briefly with the temp on duty, presenting credentials, being asked, "Do you have your entry ticket?"  And then he's gone.  He's made his way to the Throne where God is smiling broadly, then seizing him in a warm embrace, announcing to his minions, "Steve's here!  He may have snuck in, but I couldn't be happier to have him in the Circle."  

At the Kentucky Derby

The man who, both in callow youth and maturity, spent more time in the Kentucky Derby Winners Circle than any winning owner, trainer or jockey, made it into the greatest Circle achievable.  Along the way, he witnessed extraordinary sporting and cultural events, too numerous to detail.  I am honored to have had Steve in my life.  He was in my wife's and my wedding.  He was one of our original volleyball teammates, an original is so many other ways as well, a first edition in every sense.

My brother, Kris, and I met Steve and his brother, Jimmy, when we were all just 8 or 9 years old.  We bonded -- like tubes of super glue colliding -- almost instantly, forging a lifelong friendship that never wavered, grew stronger with time, seamless, a treasure among the gems of a good and satisfying life.  Even cribbage -- with its extravagant boasts, its wins and losses, battles and tournaments -- couldn't lessen our friendship and our affection for one another.  

Steve (at right) with Joel and Mary,
Gina, Alie (Kriofske) and Shannon

Steve was generous beyond imagination, loving and kind, a truly outstanding friend, father, brother and grandfather.  He gave us -- all who knew him -- the remarkable gift of himself, his time, love and friendship.  I'll miss him far more than I could ever express in mere words, as will we all.  

I hope for Steve that his afterlife includes all of the celebrated figures encountered throughout his magnificent career and his remarkable life, that they'll gather with him to ruminate, laugh and embellish, and to re-live their happiest moments, their greatest triumphs.

I'm finding it difficult to end this tribute, as I can't stop remembering and thinking about him.  I find it hard to put aside my anger that someone so extraordinary, so special, could be wrenched from us with such seeming cruelly, so prematurely.  But everything ends, and so I'll put this passage to rest with his own words.  Steve's beautiful writing included many poems, such as this one, entitled...

WANDERING

The world's a big place  
Blanket it with deeds and seeds
To embrace your place 

Humbly Submitted, 09-10-14 by Joel K.