I’m just gonna start here again and see what happens. Let me just post a couple of the updates I sent out to family and friends about my journey so far. I just want the documentation to be here. Most everyone who will want to read this already gotten these emails. But there might be a few from the past — I am 70 so I’ve been around a while.
From December 11:
SPILLING THE BEANS
Hello my friends,
I’ve been holding this inside for a couple of months now sharing mostly with just my family. But it’s time to let you all know what’s going with me.
I have stage 4 Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma and will begin an aggressive chemo program on December 29.
This started with some lesions on my right leg which showed up in late September. After 2 biopsies on the leg, I got the confirmation of cancer a few days before Thanksgiving. In early November some ulcers showed up on my gums and I went to the dentist to find out what was going on. He sent me to an oral pathologist who did a biopsy of my gums and confirmed the same cancer there as on my leg. This past Monday, I went in for a PET CT scan and just met with the oncologist this morning. The cancer has spread into my bones (my left femur, left hip and spinal column and the bone in my upper pallet in my mouth). This is a very aggressive type of cancer but the good news is that it is very treatable and a particular chemo regimen has proven to be very effective in about 70% of patients. I will begin that regime called R-CHOP (5 drugs) on December 29. Next week I will have a bone marrow biopsy and a spinal tap to make sure it has not spread to the nervous system and an echo cardiogram. I will undergo 6 chemo treatments 3 weeks apart. I will likely undergo all the side effects from chemo — hair loss, nausea, fatigue, constipation etc. You know them all.
I am immune compromised right now due to the cancer and will be even more compromised once chemo begins. So that means in this age of Covid-19, I have to be very very very careful. I will not be able to go out at all and for those interested, I may need to lean on some of you for local support for things like shopping, etc. When the vaccine for Covid is available, I may not be eligible for it and even if I am, it will not be as strong or effective as it is for healthy people. We just have to wait for it and see. I am going to the Winship Cancer Center at Emory University which is very close to my house.
I am encouraged that the R-CHOP chemo regimen has proven to be very effective for treating Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma. I am going to have some difficult days ahead but I fully expect to be my normal healthy self by this time next year. The Lymphoma Research Foundation website and YouTube pages have lots of good information and videos on this type of cancer and treatments if you’re interested. https://lymphoma.org and https://www.youtube.com/user/LymphomaResearch/featured
You can share this news with anyone you know who might care. I’m just sending this to a few close friends.
I will need support, prayers, translations, meditations and understanding in the tough days ahead.
I’m keeping my chin up and you should too. I’ll be OK.
Ned
Just Being “Not Racist” is Not Good Enough Anymore
From December 29:
DAY 1 OF CHEMO
Hi all,
Just thought I’d broadcast a short report on the first day of chemo where I FINALLY get to enlist medicine in this fight of my life. Short answer it all went well and right now I am not sick. They warned me about all the side effects from my fingernails will turn black to my pee will be red to you know all the ugly shit like losing my hair (my beautiful long hair again — I hate this one) and throwing up all the time. We’ll see what materializes or not in coming days. WE did not finish the chemo today. I’m on a regimen called RCHOP which is 5 drugs. Well we only got to the R — Rituximab. They gave to me very slowly since and have to monitor heart function. I had a reaction to it — one’s body wants to reject these medicines and see them as threats (which they are to the cancer). My reaction was itching all over so they stopped, gave me Benadryl and steroids and after an hour started up again. It took till 7 before I had gotten the full dose of it in my body. I was at the cancer center from 9 to 7 but some of that was labs and meeting with doctors and nurses. Tomorrow morning I go back for the rest of RCHOP — the CHOP drugs. That will be faster — about an hour and a half or so.
So I feel good right now. I’m taking the anti nausea drugs and hope to get a good night sleep tonight.
Couple of updates on my tests — The bone marrow biopsy confirmed Diffuse Large B-Cell lymphoma in my bones. This is just moving so fast. My entire upper mouth is now covered in sores. They looked at that today and did another test but they told me it looked like the lymphoma I have and it’s just spreading like wildfire. The spinal tap showed lymphocytes in my spinal fluid which is a precursor to the lymphoma. So they have ordered a brain MRI and another spinal tap. In the next spinal tap they will give me more chemo in the spinal column so it will also get to my nervous system and brain. The RCHOP does not penetrate that barrier.
So I get the RCHOP every 3 weeks for 6 cycles. I’ll be in chemo until May or so. I am absolutely delighted that we are started. I don’t care if I throw up all night or if my hair falls out (my beautiful long hair) or if I am constipated or have black fingernails. This is my best shot to beat this. The team at Emory has been amazing so far. Really compassionate and caring people at the cancer center.
So that’s it for now. I’m fine and the battle has now begun with the medicine on my side. I know some folks can fight this with the mind alone but I’m not that good. I am happy to add medicine to my meditations and prayers and translations.
Love you all. Didn’t have emails for many folks so feel free to share if you want. I think each distribution list I come up with is different. Just know that I know that you all love me and that you are all pulling for me in your own unique and effective way. And I love you and I feel your love.
Ned
Just Being “Not Racist” is Not Good Enough Anymore
OK that’s out of the way. There might be folks out there I haven’t found yet who might want to know what’s going on with me. I do know this is tough stuff. Not easy for most folks to deal with or talk about. That’s all OK. I don’t take any of it personally. It’s all good. And I’m doing just fine.
I wonder if I can post music here. Wouldn’t that be cool. Especially since music and cannibas are helping me break my addiction to TV. Guess not doesn’t seem to be an option for that. I’m building new playlists and have found so much new and old music. I want to post the playlists someplace — maybe Spotify — we’ll see if that works out. I might be getting redundant. It’s OK. “Just breathe. You’re OK.” Thanks Bob. Miss you sooo much.
Wish I could figure out how to make the image smaller. It’s not like I want this whole thing to become a huge photo gallery. Oh well. Moving on. Bob was a cool guy. Died of Liver disease. Was on the transplant list But his name came up too late. He actually got the transplant but it was a waste because he was too far gone to accept it. If it would have come up earlier then he would have made it. So the liver was wasted. Such a dumb way they handled the transplant list. Maybe it’s changed by now. He loved to party. We smoked weed together (whenever one of us had it — it wasn’t quite as ubiquitous as it is now) and he could drink a bottle of wine by himself in one gulp if you’d let him. Married to wonderful woman named Carol. Both meditation instructors at Shambhala. That’s a buddhist center I hung out at for some 5 years or so. Also met Liz there. We’ll talk about Liz later. You know the first noble truth in Buddhism is Life is Suffering. Well I never did get that one and one thing I loved about Bob was He didn’t take that one very seriously either. He taught that the first thing to being able to mediate was to be able to relax. If you couldn’t relax you couldn’t meditate. I wonder sometime to this day if all those hours I spent on the cushion crushing my knees contributed a bit to my needing knee replacements. My own fault. I didn’t listen. Catholics love to suffer too. Bob used to spend hours and hours in his basement workshop playing with LED’s. He had shelves and shelves of electronic stuff and tools and soldering irons and all these fine fine things. Small. He would build these LED displays that dis all kinds of things — patterns of flashing — different colors — changing colors. Very elaborate very useless. He just built these rather small displays for his own enjoyment. And I didn't realize it at the time but he would keep them for a week or 2 or 3 and then take them apart and build a new one. It was like a lesson in impermanace. I wonder if Jeffrey — another kind Buddhist from the center has some of Bob’s displays left. I’d love to borrow or buy one for a while. Buddhists are mostly kind. Bob and I used to walk around the Cherokee trail at Stone Mountain park. Not the sidewalk — the trail. It was about 6–7 miles long I guess and went around the mountain. Bob was also a photgrapher so he was always on the lookout for a good photo. I have a couple of his photos hanging in my kitchen. One is this tiny caterpillar (blue) inching its way along a shelf. Bob cared about all the sentient beings. He celebrated them. And none more than Kelly — the big German Shepherd Wolf dog that he and Carol ADORED. We would take Kelly for those walks sometimes on that trail. Later Bob couldn’t go so far as his liver began to fail. But we got Kelly out there even when he was too weak to walk. WE’D THOW TENNIS BALLS IN THE LAKE AND SHE WOULD GO SWIM AND GET THEM OVER AND OVER AND OVER. After Bob died and even sometimes before then, I would hike that trail alone with a precursor device to the Ipod mini that Bob found on some electronics website. He loaded Eckhard Tolle for me on the device. I listened to Power of Now and A New Earth over and over and over. Me and Eckhardt walking around the mountain. Wonderful wonderful times. I decided to leave that center after something called a Dathun which was a month long retreat in Colorado (in December) in silence and on the cushion. Ate all the meals in silence. It was basically sit (meditate), walking meditation for a few minutes to kind of stretch your legs mindfully, sit some more, walk some more, hear a talk (by a really heavy guy named Reggie Ray) sit, walk, sit sit sit. After a month of it I was fucked up. In Shambhala they have something called the genuine heart of sadness. Bob asked me if the dathun had created that or just uncovered it. I told him it didn’t fucking matter. I was debilitated. I had to MOVE. I realized that sitting alone wasn’t going to do it for me. Bob supported me when most all the Sangha dropped me like a hot potato because I decided to drop them. Understandable. But Bob and Liz and Jane stayed friends for life. Here’s Jane.
If not THE most KIND person I have ever met, certainly in the top 3. Jane and I drove out ot Colorado together for that dathun. She went through it all with me and it was hard. I met Jane when I first learned how to play bridge. My folks played bridge all the time with their friends. I decided that I wanted to learn how to play so I could play with them. I eventually got pretty good. That’s a relative term. I was ALMOST a life master — just 5 Gold points shy. I had all my silvers and blacks and reds. Anyway I met Jane when I took adult education class at Emory (again) I live close by so it’s the university that’s 5 minutes from where I live in Decatur. Beginning Bridge. There was a group of 4 of us — Jane and Shirley and Katherine who decided that we would get together once a month at one of our houses and practice playing bridge. The host had to provide dinner. We became a pretty close knit group. And we all learned the game. Shirley and I took it more seriously and we both joined the Atlanta Duplicate Bridge center and started the never ending (until I decided to) chase for master points. Bridge is a great game. A partner game and partners are human and they sometimes make mistakes. Bridge is a memory game but most of all it’s so damn strategic. And there is no bottom to the game. It’s not like one day you wake up and say I know how to play this game. It just gets deeper and deeper. Well, Jane worked at the local rather major theater in town — The Alliance. She was a theater person. Not on the performing side but on the business side. How do I tell this without getting sidetracked. I got laid off after 9/11 from my lucrative job in technology sales. The tech crash — remember? Moved to San Diego — helped my folks for a year or so — and then came back to Atlanta and my sales career was gone gone gone. I was over 50 by then and too high priced and I had lost my contacts by going away. Nobody would even talk to me about a real job again. At that time Jane and Kenny Leon (a theater legend in town who now directs plays on broadway — even won a Toni I think) decided to open a new theater company in Atlanta. The called it TRUE COLORS. It was based on diversity and like the name says, one’s true colors. I was hired by Jane as the 4th employee on board behind Jane and Kenny (the founders) and the marketing manager, Jenny. I was the accountant. Watched over the $$. And did a good job. Learned a cool finance program for non profits that Jane found. Job didn't pay much — that was the beginning of the next 10 years of working for not much money for non profits and cheap consultants. But Jane bailed me out at a time when I had thought that I might be broke by the time I was 60. She gave some income. Non profits don’t pay much and start up non profits even less since they are just trying to survive what was then a reasonably competitive theater scene here. Jane loved basketball. I used to play basketball. That’s how I met Pete. We’ll get to him later I hope. So Jane and I would get together for the first weekend of March Madness and watch all the games on TV. Jane came down with a form of ALS and had to move to Asheville with her wife Sandra and into an assisted living facility. A really nice one. On March madness opening weekend it seemed Sandra always went to some spiritual retreat someplace. I drove up to Asheville and spent the weekend hanging out and watching hoops. Amazing times. We did this for a couple of years before Jane died about maybe 10 years ago or so. I remember she used to go around and put quarters in phone booths. She said it cost her nothing but think of the joy it brings to someone that finds it. That’s just who she was. Always spreading joy. An amazing woman.
Hey it’s 2021. 2020 left a half hour ago. I’m tired. Hope you’re enjoying this or some of it. It is so good for me to write and remember. Good night. More tomorrow.
So it’s the next morning about 6 AM. I did not sleep very well. Thinkng about my story and really feeling compelled to get my thoughts down on paper. I was thinking that you know I am not a good typist. I make typos. I try to catch them and fix them but I miss them sometimes. so if that bothers you, well that’s how it is. My life is full of blemishes and mistakes. It’s just the way it is. I try to correct them — sometimes I catch them sometimes I don’t. Some lessons take a very very long time to learn and ultimately isn’t that what this writing for me is all about. If I’m going to die, I want to spend the time I have left figuring out what I need to learn so I don’t have to repeat this life all over the next time. That’s a Buddhist thing you kids. (some of my nieces and nephews might read this.)
ALS — ALS is an even more cruel disease than cancer. With cancer I have some hope. In fact I have real hope. Evidence says that this RCHOP chemo will work on my cancer some 60- maybe 70% of the time. That’s a really good shot. It’s a race but I’m finally running the race against it. With ALS you just waste away. There is no cure. There is no hope. There is just the possibility of greeting imminent death. Jane knew that and she greeted it elegantly as far as I know. I wasn’t there in Asheville when she passed. But this is the time to talk about Johnny. John is the one in the lower right side of this picture. The others are my sister Jan sitting next to John, her son Steven behind her on the left, me in the middle and my cousin Mike on the right. Mike is the oldest of the cousins by one year on me. I’m just the oldest in my immediate family.
Our family is humongous. I have relatives I have never met. My grandma and grandpa on my mother’s side — which is where all these folks come from had 7 kids and they all had kids. My mom had 12 (13 if you count my older brother Brian who died when she was pregnant with me). Aunt Fran had 7 I guess. Aunt Mary had one — Cathy. Aunt Jean had 4 I think, Helen had 6 or 7, I don’t know. Virginia had 2 and Uncle Jack had 3 I think. I could look all this up but I don’t want to take the time right now. Anyway suffice it to say that all these cousins had kids and all their kids are now having kids. It’s huge. We had a big family reunion on the Indiana/Michigan border the summer before COVID and many of us all came together and really met each other for the first time in some cases and for the first time in a long time in others. This photo was taken at my brother Jack’s wedding in Northern Michigan — what was that town — Leland. Jack now has teen agers on their way toward college so this was taken 15–16 years ago. How long have you been married to Carey Jack? Johnny was a long haul truck driver. He drove the big rigs across the country. He lived in Lansing near his dad and brothers. He would stop by and visit my parents in their retirement in San Diego and stay for a day before he had to take the next load to wherever the hell hje was going — Texas or Virginia or Ohio. Who knows. His life was on the road in the big rig. John got ALS. His company fired him immediately so they didn’t have to cover his insurance. John was one of the most inspirtational people I have ever met. He was really a pretty simple guy. Not sophisticated AT ALL or really well educated as I remember. His outlook on life was pretty simple. “How ya doing YOUNG MAN?” he would say. He said this to my dad who was well quite a bit older. At first dad was taken aback but he came to see that this was John’s way of just making him feel good about himself so he came to accept it. We all cherished John. Such a just plain good human being. John wasted away in hospice for some 3 years. I would plan a business trip to Michigan and so spend a weekend with him every 6 months or so. They let me stay in his room with him and fed me and all that. Really nice hospice. Really kind people. Sometimes my brother Jack and Cousin Mike would come up with me from Chicago. Maybe others. And I’m sure John had lots of people dropping in. I often saw his brother Greg I think. I can’t even keep all the names straight in my family it’s so damn big. Greg dropped in often to visit John. Big Michigan State fan — Mike (also in the picture remember) went to Michigan. so yeah there was some Big 10 jawing. John was just such a happy guy. There was not one hint of an iota of why me, poor me, I don’t deserve this. It’s just wasn’t in his DNA. He just wanted to make people feel good. His nurses loved him. And John was a BIG guy. Not easy to move around as he lost muscle control. He hung in there in hospice when they thought he might last for 6 months for close to 3 years. They planted a tree outside his window when he passed so they could all remember him.
I’m writing about these people who have passed on because I talk to them. They are all helping me through this time in my life. I call on them. I ask for advice and encouragement. And it’s funny — you know they all know each other. There like my team on the other side. There are others on the team over there that I’ll talk about but these 3 are the strongest voices. They’re the ones that answer back all the time. Bob says “just relax and breathe”, Jane says “it’s all good” and John says, “How ya doin’ Young Man?”
There are others who have passed who I have reached out to but their voices are not as strong yet. Even mom and Dad haven’t come through very strong yet. I’m sure they will. The are the very definition of love — as any of us can attest. Here are a few others whose stories I will tell. After that we’ll see where this blog thing goes — hopefully to the Living.
Alice — really Alexandria Peterson. I don’t have a photo of Alice but I do have a drawing that my friend Heather did. She is a rather quite good artist.
I knew Alice when I lived in San Francisco. I lived there for a couple of 3 year stints I guess. Was mostly in the bay area after college (in Santa Cruz). I first moved there for a construction job. I was living in LA at age 23 trying to figure out how to get my life together after a 8 month trip to Mexico on virtally no money. Just a hippie drug trip mostly alone although I started the trip with a French girlfriend name Caroline. She flew back to France from Mexico City after I flipped a coin to see if she would stay or go. I was so fucking dumb. Anyway, I found myself back in LA living at home in complete and total shut down culture shock mode. I mean really fucked up. Besides all my other psychological and cultural issue in adjusting back to life in the US from Life in Mexico where everything is bargained for and there are no set prices and everyone wants to take advantage of the gringo. I did learn Spanish kind of and I did do magic mushrooms. Whole new story that maybe we’ll get to or maybe we won’t. But Besides all my problems at that time, my teeth were falling out. I had been on an anti seizure drug called dilantin. I first got seizures after a motorcycle accident in Santa Cruz. A couple of us hippies joy riding on smaller hondas stoned. No helmets in those days. Well I crashed and knock myself out for an hour or so. And developed a seizure disorder a few months later. The neurologist said the accident had jarred some brain connection loose and so I have been taking anti siezure drugs mostly ever since. Dilantin is a particular nasty drug. I causes the gums to swell so you can’t clean your teeth. And brushing teeth in Mexico when you are throwing a hammock over a tree for the night just wasn’t the most hygenic of places anyway. I had no money. As one of 12 we were on our own after high school. So I went ot USC dental school for dentistry work and met a guy there named Randy who was my student dentist. Since we were about the same age and since I was starved for a friend at that time and really very needy, I tried to strike up a friendship. He wasn’t very interested in that but he did do one thing that changed my life. He took me to a Prosperos Sunday meeting where I heard Thane talk for the first time. I was blown away. Never has anyone in my life reached so deeply into my soul and gave me exactly what I needed to hear to come back to life. I jumped in with both feet and for the next 6 weeks I took all the classes — Advance Seminar, Translation, RHS, Comprehensive Workshop, Life Class and Crown Mysteries. And a month later went on an Aloha retreat which was a weekend of intense therapy in Palm Springs. I finally had begun to pull myself back up out of the hole I had been stuck in. It was hard work but eventually I got a decent job in construction (I did office work not trade work)and that company Chanen Construction company — there’s a whole story to getting that job in the first place but this could take forever if I go there — moved me to San Francisco to work on the construction of the Sheraton Hotel at Fisherman’s Wharf — a project that was in deep deep trouble. That hotel had underground parking so they could use all the real estate for revenue producing rooms and zoning laws wouldn’t let them build higher than 3 stories I think so they didn’t obstruct the views behind them. So the parking was underground. It took half of the entire construction budget to get the water out of the hole before they could pour the concrete for the parking lot. So we were behind the 8 ball from the day I got there. They had made me Assistant Project Manager — heck I was just a kid about 25 years old. I worked my ass off. There is more of my blood and guts in that building than you’ll ever know. I did the purchasing, payroll, expediting, some estimating and even had to hold the weekly safety meetings where I basically was tasked with coming up with a new joke each week. Well I was desperate to fit in and be one of the guys. Well these big burly construction workers like to drink after work at a bar across the street called the Wharf Rat. They would just line up drinks in front of me and I would pour them down. I couldn’t keep up but I tried. I would wake up sometimes asleep on the front seat of this old 56 light blue Chevy that I drove around in some neighborhood whre I didn't;’t know where I was. I lived in the Upper tenderloin on Bush street and would wake up in Pacific Heights or something. I t was crazy. I had become a full fledged drunk. So one night a group of fishermen came into the bar. We were all drunk and so were they I guess and they picked a fight. Everyone scattered. I’m not a fighter so I ran toward Scoma’s down an alleyway. A guy followed me and kicked the shit out of me. I played dead and he eventually got bored. I was so mad. I slammed my hand into the glass display case in front of Castagnolias and was bleeding down my arm. I wandered into a Holiday Inn and they called an ambulance took me to San Francsico general where they sewed me up. I called a guy from the Prosperos named Skip Byron. Good guy. Saved me really. He marched me into AA meeting every day for a month until I sobered up. I came to recognize that place when drinking was no longer fun. I got it under control and have had it under control relaly for the rest of my life. I’m not a big drinker now at all. Well part of getting myself better was working with Alice. Alice was my Mentor in San Fransciso. Perry was the traditional mentor there for The Prosperos. Mentorship is whole thing but it’s really just what the word means. Alice was non traditional. She lived on top of Nob Hill at the CLAY JONES at the corner of Clay and Jones. A prestigious building. I think she was on the 17h floor if I remember. A very elegant lady. She was half Italian and half Inca Indian. And was married to a scandanavian I think named Magnus. Magnus was a cabbie. Well he started as a cabbie but he owned medallions for cabs which was like gold in a cab town like San Franscico. He was with Veterans Cab Company. I wonder if they even exist anymore. I wonder if Uber has put all the cabs in San Francisco out of business by now. I haven’t been back in a long long time. Alice worked with me and helped me get back on track. Our counsleing sessions mostly were sitting around her table looking out at the bay playing cards (she liked to play Casino) — a simple enough game to keep the conversation flowing. And we would talk. She would tell me stories about her life — ask me questions about mine and just talk things out. She knew Thane for a long long time and was a devotee so to speak but not a teacher like most mentors were. Her work was one on one with moslty tough cases. Cases like John Bunyard a convicted murderer and rapist who spent his life in Soledad prison.
Here’s apicture of John Bunyard taken at Soledad. Tom Charlesworth, another good old buddy of mine who lives in Seattle and might be retired in Portugal by now, John’s in the middle, Tom on the left and me on the right. John wanted me to send him the raunchiest porn I could possible find in San Francisco. And I did it. They let prisoners have all the porn they wanted and he wanted it all the time. Porn is a whole different part of my cancer story which I hope we get to later in this journal. Anyway, Alice got the tough cases. I was one I guess. But she was so kind. We ate many meals together at the restaurants on Nob Hill. I lived in an apartment on Clay street then just down the block from her building. She had 2 very old cats — Sabrina and Patches. I mean those cats were the most well fed cats that have ever lived on God’s green earth. She would ask me to go down to the fish market on Polk and get fresh scallops for their dinner that night or something else tasty and expensive. They never ate out of cans and god forbid boxes of dry food. I think Sabina was 17 when she died. Alice loved that cat. I never had pets. Never understood the love for an animal that people have. I didn’t want anything to “depend” on me. I was too selfish for that and so I missed out on alot of uncomplicated companionship. I’ve been alone most of my life. As you will come to see as we get further. But Alice was a special lady who helped me alot mostly by just listening and being a good mirror.
Here’s Thane. I don’t have a good picture and I never knew the man all that well. He was a MASTER TEACHER. His major influences were Gurdjieff, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jung, Emmett Fox, Emma Curtis Hopkins,and others. He lived in Hawaii and Hawaiian culture was part of the curriculum in the Prosperos. He embodied Aloha. He could be tough, he could be kind. He was like Gurdjief in many ways. Just thought I’d share a picture. The Prosperos today is shell of what it once was. Thane is impossible to replicate. He believed in the oral traditon and took that quite literally. He did not write books. A few pamphlets but nothing more. He taught. I have spent part of my life pursing other spiritual paths or no spiritual path at all which is where I’ve been lately. But I have found my way back to The Prosperos during this CRISIS time. The word Crisis means : “the turning point in a disease toward life or death; A point at which a change MUST come for the better or for the worse; a deciding event;” Comes from the Greek KRISIS — decide, judge, separate. Here are a couple of websites for The Prosperos. These are the very best tools I have ever found in my life for spiritual growth and healing. And this is where I’m doing most of my work right now on cancer. And it’s not really healing at all. It’s recognizing the wholeness that already exists if we can but see it.
And here is a quote from Thane. “You are an individuation of infinite mind. You are an individuation of creative intuition. Being an individuation of infinite mind, you know what to do, and you will do it; you know what to say, and you will say it; you know what to write and you will write it.”
–Thane of Hawaii
So let’s call this a new Chapter… This site won’t let me post what I have so far. I guess there’s a limit on how many times you can post. Oh well. Contiuning with dead people. Dead people who we both know really aren’t dead at all.
Ramon:
I wish these pictures showed up better. I’m shooting pictures of pictures. This is from the Memorial service for Ramon that I put together. Ramon was a BRILLIANT light designer and I use the word BRILLIANT on purpose because brilliance was his career. He was a Cuban refugee and came to Atlanta after the Castro regime took over. I met Ramon in the Prosperos (naturally) and he and I and some other formed the “Atlanta group” as we were known. We had some classes here. Thane came a few times. Ramon was one of these guys who just knew all there was to know about how to produce light and sound. He built his own stereo systems using gold cables and tubes and all the gear no matter how expensive so he could create the cleanest sound. He was a member of the Atlanta audiophile society and they would meet (I joined them sometimes) and just sit and listen to classical music on this magnifent sound system. Ramon and I shared season tickets to the Atlanta opera for some 10 years or so and went to all the productions. Just another terrific human being. He was written up in Architectural Digest many times for his light design all over the country. He did all the big jobs in Atlanta — The Woodruff Arts Center, The Atrium at the Hartsfield airport, the Marriott Marquis downtown, The lighting for Centennial Park for the 96 Olympics. He was truly brilliant. You know he would design the lighting and then hope the owners would keep using the fixtures and bulbs he designed as they maintained their facility. His lighting was soft yet brilliant. You could read the programs in the Arts center without any harshness. He used indirect lighting on that job where he had down lights focused on mirrors inside the fixtures that refelcted the light back up and lit the room. He was a very accomplished man and although I wasn’t his best friend at the time by any means, he was mine. He accepted me for who I was warts and all. I was in a loveless marriage at the time and later with a very immature but beuatiful woman. I floated in and out of doing the “work” of The Prosperos. Ramon never wavered as far as I know. He was openly gay and active in the gay community here in Atlanta but he loved me for who I was. We would go for walks in Piedmont park and just talk for hours. Or meet for dinner out to some really cool hole in the wall place he knew about. He was a gourmet cook. His birthday was July 24 and mine is July 23. One year we threw the most elegant birthday party for the two of us for some 12 or so guests. We cooked all day. Calamari and I don’t even remember but it was just such a good time. Jane came to that dinner. We each invited 5 other guests so we had 12 in all I think and it was a beautiful mix of people — diverse, interesting, creative and fun who didn’t all know one another. That was Thane’s kind of party. But he threw his on a much bigger scale. Ramon had lunch every single day with his mother who lived about 4 blocks away from him. He never missed lunch with her. I would join them sometime. His mother was in her 90’s when he died. She never accepted his being gay. She always thought he just hadn’t met the right woman yet. So she wanted to have a very small traditional service at the funeral home for a small group of Cuban friends. Well this was man who was WIDELY known and loved in Atlanta in many circles and he was my best friend like I said. He died of a heart attack in San Francisco at a lighting convention at Moscone Center. He was out there to learn about the latest lighting technology as one does at trade shows. I worked many of them in my own technology career. He was having breakfast with some colleagues and had a heart attack in the restaurant and the ambulance got there too late to save him. He was 10 years older than me so he was 62 or so and I was 52. I was not going to let this man pass away without giving all his friends a chance to say good bye. I went itno frantic action. I raised some $12 grand. People gave money like it was water. I got the Woodruff Arts Center to let me hold the service there and it was beautiful. I emceed the service and worte the speech that Lee Wells delivered about hte Prosperos. We had 3 major themes to the service — his 3 passions. The Prosperos, his Light design and his Gay Spirit vision. Lee delivered the Prosperos speech, an accomplished architect spoke about his professional work and a gay Spritiual leader spoke his work in that community. Interspersed with the talks were readings and performances and songs and peoms that people wanted to share. I let it be known that anyone who wanted to offer up anything could. It was a beautiful day. The flowers — all donated filled the stage. The sound was flawless provided by the audiophiles. I even sang a little bit of a chorus from Lucia just to get folks to finally sit down so we could begin. I catered a beautiful spread for the event and an open wine bar. There were donation plates for his favorite charities — The Prosperos, Gay Spirit Vision and Heifer International. People gave generously. Well After all that, I had money left over I mean lots of it. so we invited everyone that wanted to come to someone’s mansion — I don’t even remember what part of town it was in — but it was amazing place. Huge — pool out back lots of land outside to walk around in big room for a sit down reception. We had a sit down dinner and reception and people just hung around and celebrated his life. It was beautiful. I crashed. There was a pack of cigarettes sitting on a table and I took one and smoked it. And another one. And another one. The next day I bought a pack and I was hooked again. I had been quit for some 13 years and just like that I was back. I think it was really my way of mourning his loss. Like some sort of sick way to destroy myself if I couldn’t have his friendship. We weren’t lovers or anything. I did try to be gay when I lived in San Francisco earlier in life but nothing happened. It didn’t work for me. But I loved that man. And he loved me. And I was going to miss him dearly.
Here’s a picture of that Atlanta group — Some of The Prosperos people who might read this will know many of them. That’sLee Wells in the middle. A dear southern lady. Steve Osborn who I found again after so many years at of all places a Religious Science church I went to after the Buddhist experiment. Ramon in front in the middle. Jim Ranza and Bob Matusiak in the back row, then me and my wife at the time Violet — who never really took to any kind of spiritual work. Chris and Barbara Gelmen and Chris’ mother from Germany Emi, who was an accomplished painter in her own right. I have several of her paintings hanging in my house. Mostly still lifes. In fact all of them are Still Lifes. She was a young woman in Germany when Hitler came to power. All such wonderful friends. We shared alot.
So that’s Ramon. His voice is not as strong yet but I know it will be when the time is right.
Next is Gavin.
That’s him with his son Nick. at his 60th birthday party a couple of years ago. What can I say about Gavin. I met Gavin through another friend Pete. Pete had season tickets to the Falcons games and he would invite us to join him. Well I couldn’t afford that but Pete is a very generous guy and just said — “look money is not one of my problems I want you to come.” so for several season Pete and Gavin and I and someone else like one of Pete’s bothers or poker buddies would go to the the games at the Georgia dome. Not everyone went every week. Pete had 4 tickets but he invited Gavin and me alot. Gavin was married to Vesna — a beautiful human being is praying for me daily these days. Vesna grew up in Croatia and her best friend gorwing up as I understand it was Sasha who is Pete’s wife. Got that?? So Pete knew me and Pete knew Gavin and Gavin and I first met going to those games. Gavin didn’t really know me all that well especially professionally. I was struggling. This was during my 10 year period between 50 and 60 when I couldn’t get a good job. I was working for a cheap consultant who had some good ideas but was well cheap. He paid me $36,000 a year and worked my ass off. We held business retreats at a resort in the mountains where he charged CEO’s big bucks to attend. His company was The CEO Alliance. Anyway, I was miserable. I was poor and getting poorer and worried if I might really run out of money while still alive. I did like most all of the CEO’s and executives that came to these retreats. Steve Markham and I had some good times. But I’ve lost touch with them all. They’re mostly on LinkedIn and I don’t really go there at all. I don’t really do social media at all. Anyway, Gavin worked at ATT as a Project Manager later promoted to Program Manager. He knew nothing at all about my business skills or abilities. But there was an opening for a project manager at ATT and he put my name in for the slot. I got hired on a probationary basis without even an interview. I was a contractor as was Gavin so they could fire us at will if they wanted. I watched them walk folks out the door every Friday afternoon. I had never even really been a project manager except for that construction job in San Francisco and I was just a kid then. There was so much to learn. These were not cell phone type projects. These were huge Ethernet backbone projects that involved as many as 50 different applications that all had to be integrated and delivered on time and on budget. People wer all over the world. Teams in India, The Phillipines, Europe, Chicago, Dallas, China — I mean everywhere. My job as a project manager was to get these teams to deliver their software and get it integrated and delivered to client which was the ATT team selling it to the customer. I did a GREAT job for them. I became one of their top Project Managers and I got the job done so they assigned more and more difficult projects. I found Project Management is a lot like sales and I had a good sales career which maybe we’ll get to in this post. I was just running my own business. I have good communication skills and I think I can write pretty clearly and that was a big part of the job and I could run a meeting over the web efficiently and effectively. Project management is a funny thing. You have all the responsibility but none of the authority. these teams don’t work for me — they work for their own hierarchy — and yet I had the responsibility of getting them to deliver on time and on budget. So here I am at age 62 getting a 6 figure job again without even having to interview for it at a place like ATT all because Gavin who knew nothing about me professionally got me the job sight unseen. It saved my retirement. I mean literally saved it. I could rebuild my IRA instead of draining it to make the house note. I could refinance the house at a lower rate since I had good income, I could put away half of what I made and I could contribute to the 401K of the contractor and I got Health Insurance from them and was a W-2 employee of the contractor rather than a 1099 consultant. I mean hog heaven. The cheap consultant would not even make me a 1099 contractor. He made me go through all the rigamarole of setting up my own company so he could pay me like a vendor and I wasn’t very good at doing all that to make the most of the 3 grand a month he paid me. So I owe alot to Gavin. He stuck his neck out for me and in the end it worked out great for both of us and as a result we became close friends.
Here’s Gavin with his first son Jake — one of the coolest dudes around. Gavin Jake called me the other day from Brooklyn and we talked for along time about what I am going through. Gavin lived in England for a long time. I think Jake was born there. Not sure. Gavin was so strong. I mean strong solid built. He went to the gym every morning and worked out with light weights lots of fast paced reps. He was a sailor. I never got to sail with Gavin. I did sail in San Francisco bay where I crewed on the J24 racing fleet. I was just a grunt but I loved sailing. Later sailed with girlfirend around the bay. So many stories to tell. I hope I get to them all. Remembering with gratitude is so important to me now. Gavin used to sail around the world. I mean across oceans and shit. He would deliver sailboats to clients who would fly to some exotic destination and then have their vacation and Gavin would sail their boat back home. He was good let me tell you. He worked his ass off for his family. We had lunch at ATT every day. We both brought lunch and we would go down a floor and eat together in the lunch room and just visit. We talked about everything. We talked about Nick. Gavin was worried about Nick and his schoolwork. Nick turned out just fine by the way. A strapping and tall young man in college who is now the man of the house. Gavin died of cancer in March of 2019. His was prostate cancer and he treated it way differently than I am. He was very private about it. I am choosing the opposite — to be very public about it. People tell me there is no right or worng way for people to deal with cancer. You just do the best you can. Here’s Gavin with the love of his life —
Vesna is an integral part of prayer team. She is al All Star PRAY-ER. Just like my sisters Jan and Ronna. I have so many pulling for me. And there is already so much here that most folks don’t even know about my life. Vesna wanted to come over last night at 11:45 to ring in the New Year with a toast on my back deck in the cold Atlanta winter night. So sweet of her. She’s such a giver. I was too tired to stay up and do that but she’ll be over for a visit soon. She’s hanging in there with me.
Gavin isn’t coming through very strong yet. He might need some coaxing. This might seem a little bit way too far out for him. But he’ll come around and join the team on the other side.
So will Mom and Dad but I’ll talk about them later. And my sister Nancy who also died of cancer. Let’s talk about Nancy now. Here she is with me when I was a hippie.
Nancy was one year younger than me. She was the leader of the girls in the family. I came first and then 6 girls in a row — Nancy, Jan, Terri and Peggy (twins), Louise and Ronna. Then Paul and Mark, Liz (Elizabeth) all by herself as the girl at the bottom of the family and then Dave and Jack. I have a picture someplace of all of us with mom and dad someplace. I’ll dig that out before we’re done. Nancy and I fought like Cats and Dogs. I mean she was the leader of the majority of the kids and could alwasy muster up the votes to out vote me on anything like what TV show to watch — Davey Crockett or Cinderella. Guess who won. She was stubborn and strong and firm. She went to the smae high school as Megan Markel. Immaculate Heart in LA. I went to Loyola the Jesuit high school after a 2 year stint in the seminary. I hope we get to that too. That was interesting. Nancy lived in New York with the love of her life Dean after a failed marriage to some shmuck in LA. Dean and Nancy were just perfect for each other. Nancy was always kind of high strung, intense. Dean was a go with the flow kind of guy. They balanced each other out. They lived in upstate New York in the Catskills. Nancy and I truth be told were not nearly as close as I was with others of my siblings. She wasn’t easy. And neither was I. She got her diagnosis of breast cancer oh some 10 or 12 years ago. She got one round of chemo at Sloan Kettering and decided that that was going to kill her and that she was going to fight the disease her own natural way — not with chemicals and drugs. She was amazing. The herbal remedies, propolis, fresh organic vegetable in their garden, Organic meats from a farm nearby. She bought special coconut oil and fish oil and all kinds of suplements and teas. She worked it. She posted videos on YouTube about what she was doing to fight the disease. She spoke at cancer conferences all over. She was an all star alternative cancer fighter. Her doctors couldn’t believe how well she did. She lasted 10 year. She had had a double mastectomy but in the end the cancer got into her bones and she passed away from that. She died right before I started at ATT. So once I had my start date at ATT I took a few weeks and drove up to the Northeast. I looked up a childhood friend I guess an intellectual and arrogant guy from Harvard named Jeffrey. Not a good visit. He hit on me and I wasn’t into it. I ended up staying in a hotel. Then I drove up to Vermont and visited my Financial Advisor — the guy who really saved me from myself. David Carris.
That’s him from his current email signature. Probably makes sense to talk about him for a little while. I met David at a Shambhala retreat in Vermont at Karme Choling. We ended up being roomates. Didn’t know each other but we hit it off. Jane and I drove up there for it. She took Buddhist vows — I took Shambhala vows. Shambhala was sort of the western Buddhist path that Chögyam Trungpa came up with when he came to the US. He was kind of the Thane of Shambhala. He was long dead before I ever showed up there. Well it turns out I was having a terrible time with finances. I knew absolutely nothing about investing but I was making good tech money and buying tech stocks like crazy. I was working for a Internet Secutity firm at the time that went under with the tech crash. I bought stock all the way down from $130 a share to $3 a share. I bought stock based on what Kramer said on CNBC. I knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing and I didn’t have the time to learn to research. I had sales quotas to make. So I had talked to Jane about my dilemma. Remember she threw me that life line at True Colors. I had met with her Merril Lynch advisor in Atlanta but I was too small potatoes for him to give a crap about. So we’re at the reception at Karma Choling after a nice weekend of meditation and mindfulness practice and Jane is talking with David. So I saunter up there and join in and Jane says to me, Do you know what David does for a Living. I said no. We hadn’t talked about it. “He works for Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor.” I latched on to him and he took me on and has kept me out of trouble ever since. I had wasted over a hundred thousand dollars on bad technology stock buys when the tech market crashed. David saved me from myself. I was at wits end. He left Merrill, went to Stanley Morgan left then and is now with UBS and I just go with him. Heck having a Buddhist financial advisor who is also a good friend who takes a personal interest in me and my well being financially is as good as it gets. I never reach the hightest of the highs but I never even come anywhere close to the lowest of the lows. He has done an incredible job for me. I called him when I got the diagnosis to let him know. He just assured me and said we’d get through it. I’m not a wealthy man but I have a good team helping me in so many ways in my life. So I spent a few wonderful days in June in Vermont with David and his daughters Ruby and Nora and his young son now grown up Theo. Then I drove to the Catskills to see Nancy and Dean. Nancy was pretty weak and nearing the end. They didn’t want me to stay long but we had a really nice very high quality and healing visit for about 6 hours or so. We got to make peace and say good bye. She died a few months later. My sister Terri went out there and stayed with her until the end. Terri is the other RED redhead in the family
Haven’t really reached out to Nancy. We have history. Not all good. I need to do that. I’ll bet she will forgive me now. I’ll put her picture in my gallery of folks from the other side on the team.
Mom and Dad are out there. Grandma and Grandpa — he was so cool. Fun stories about him. Aunts and Uncles. Oh and Father Moe.
Here is Father Moe. Uncle Moe to the Leahy clan in Chicago. Father Moe died in a nursing home in Chicago this past year at age 93. This was taken about a year before that. My cousin Mike thinks he died from Covid for sure but I’m not sure it was ever officially diagnosed. Moe was so cool. He was a Catholic priest but not really a normal one. He didn’t work in a parish or anything and I don’t think he was part of an order — I may be wrong about that. He just sort of worked on his own and got jobs as a prison chaplain. So his career was working with inmates in prisons. He bounced all over — spent some time at Soledad. He worked with the Manson women and Juan Corona a notorius serial killer in California. Grew up in Chicago. He was my Uncle Jack Leahy’s brother. Big Big Notre Dame fan. Once many years ago Jack pulled off a Boys trip for weekend for 8 of us brothers and cousins and Father Moe to go to South Bend, stay at a house on the shore that he shared with some other families and all go to see Notre Dame play UCLA. The seats were in sections of 2 each. I sat with Father Moe. So much fun. UCLA was winning in the 4th quarter. And of course the Henry’s are from LA so I was pulling for UCLA. Moe was next to me and as it got later and later in the game he started to pray. We could see touchdown Jesus from the seats. And wouldn’t you know it Notre Dame pulled off a last second touchdoen and won the game. The place went crazy. And Moe was jumping for joy. What a great day that was. We all had so much fun. Moe cheated at poker. I think he must have. He kept saying he didn’t know what he was doing but he kept winning. He was sly that way. Just a real fun guy. So easy to talk to. He would come over to my folks house for all the holidays — Christmas and Thanksgivng and Easter. He was at a prison in Oceanside at that time. And I would fly out to at least once a year to be there and sometimes more than that — especially at the end of my folks lives. So Moe was like one of the Henry’s in a way. He and my dad had a unique relationship. The kidded alot. Moe didn’t give a shit about money. Not at all. He just couldn’t be bothered. He drove an old broken down car. My dad was a real stcikler about money — he had to be — he had 12 kids to raise on not a great salary as a credit manager. Well one of Notre Dame’s big rivalry games (until this Covid year) was with USC. They played every year. So one year my dad bet Father Moe on the game. Moe of course took Notre Dame and they lost. Moe just kind of blew off the debt. Just wouldn’t recognize it at all. It drove my dad crazy. It was a thing of honor. You paid your debts. He was a fucking credit manager — his whole life was about collecting debts. All too funny in retrospect. Of course no lasting damage to their deep friendship. Moe was wonderful. He retired in Chicago and got to see all the Leahy’s regularly untiul the end. I was on the Leahy Christmas zoom call this year and we talked about Uncle Moe and just remebered how really cool he was. So unobtrusive, so genuinely good.
So that’s my team from the other side. Bob, Jane, Johnny, Alexandria, Thane I guess - haven’t reached out to him but I know he’s there, Ramon, Gavin, Nancy and Father Moe. I’m talking to them. Some more than others — some at different times, they don’t always answer back but most of the time they do. I haven’t really tried Nancy yet but I will. And I bet we’ll make friends again. Our last meeting in this life was so good good. I think I am going to take a break and listen to some music and cook some eggs. I’ll see if this site let’s me post this long narrative. Back soon. It said no again. Its’ gonna make me wait til 5 PM Eastern. Who knew this was going to take so long to share. I never should have posted that silly stuff when I was figuring out how to do this. Oh well live and learn.
Oh I didn't mention Bob Gabbard and Mark Garry. And I need to do that. I know they are both there for me. Their wives — my twin sisters Peg and Terri and crucial in this fight. They are both doing all they can and so much to support me in any way I need. You have no idea. Peg is a Physical Therapist in Olympia, WA and Terri is retired in Anaheim. You’ll hear more abot them when I pull together the team on THIS side. But let’s talk about Bob and Mark.
Peg sent me a picture and I can’t find it right now. All I’m finding is the pics I send her nearly every day of this wound on my leg from the biopsy site that hasn’t healed. She is one of my medical coaches. I have a few. Let me go find that picture. It’s gotta be here.
So this is Peg and Bob. Bob was the love of her life. They have 2 terrific sons — JV and Patrick. They are on the team on neices and nephews helping me with all kinds of shit. All amazing kids. Most in their 20’s now. Thick as theives and always pulling for each other. They were all raised with lots of love in their lives. Well Bob was a finish carpenter in Olympia WA. He had a business making custom California Closets for high end clients. I think they had to be high end. These things aren’t cheap. Both boys kind of apprenticed with him. I think you did JV. I know Patrick did cuz that’s what Patrick does now for work. Patrick came out here and stayed with me for a week after my hip replacement and helped me rcover from that. I know I didn’t know Bob as well as others did but I know he was just such a kind man who loved his family with his whole heart and soul. He was also strong like Gavin — Solid as a rock. He worked with his hands his whole life I think. I remeber when Terri got married to Mark Garry who is next, Peg and Bob naturally were there. Well we all went for a run on the beach at I guess it was Manhattan Beach — maybe Hermosa I don’t remember. I was running alot in those days and thought I was pretty good. Running is how I wrecked my knees by the way. Don’t do it kids. Protect your cartilage. It is a limited resource as I found out when mine was gone and I had to have both knees replaced. And no matter what the orthopedists say, the replacements are just not nearly as good as the real ones. Not even close. Sorry for the commercial. Well on this run Bob just smoked us all. I mean he wasted us. He was so fast and ran for so long. And then jumped right in the cold Pacific in I guess it was Fall — it was cold I remember that. That Northwest lifestyle makes you tough. I never got to go on hikes with Bob but he would take the boys hiking all over. Mt. Ranier. Peg and Bob would kayak. I just remember him as the most loyal and caring man. He died of Alzheimers a few years ago. There is a picture of Bob at the end. I don’t have it and don’t know that I would have the right to post it anyway. But he became so frail and so vulnerable. But you know he was happy and surrounded with so much love and he knew he was surrounded with love even if he didn't really remember. Yeah Bob’s on the team too. I can’t say enough about his sons. I’m tearing up again. It happens alot these days.
Mark Garry was Terri’s husband. Let me go take a picture of a photo I have of him. He was a prolific photographer. Their kids David and Rosie are also on the 2o’s team helping me through this. I’m in touch with them almost daily by text. David works for Google and is now the tech wiz of the family. I’m trying to figure out some tech stuff with him right now for music. Rosie started a puzzle club and I got my first text today about our daily club but I’ve been busy writing this. Also both great kids. All my nieces and nephews are and I think there must be something like 25 or 26 of them. Like I said BIG FAMILY. And now some of them have kids. One of the newborns this year — Alora just made it through the fight of her life in Oregon. She is Julianna’s daugher and I got the most beautiful picture of her for Christmas. OK back ot Mark. It’s just too easy to get off track. But it’s good. It’s all good and it’s what I need to do.
So here’s Mark and Terri and Rosie and David. He’s the one at Google now. Hey David How can I make these pictures look better on this blog site. Rosie is as cute as ever. I think these 2 are THE most photographed children of all time. Mark just took pictures constantly. There are thousands and thousands of them. Mark was very smart. I mean very smart. He was Mensa quality. I don’t know if he was Mensa or not but he coulda shoulda been. And Terri is no slouch either. Actually none of kids are. Anyway, as a result Rosie and David are both smart and driven and kind like their parents. Mark was an investment guy — a finance guy. He was very savvy with money. He knew what the hell he was doing with it and he made good money and provided for his family very well. I don’t remember who he worked for but he was always around. They lived in Anaheim and most all fo the family gatherings were in Southern California so all the Southern California family was there. Mark was just kind of always around. You knew he was there. He was a really good conversationalist and could use words like butter. Mark died a long time ago. He died the year the Angels won the World Series. Mark had Lymphoma. Not the same kind I have but lymphoma nonetheless. And in those days chemo was broad spectrum. Not targeted like it is now. They just blasted him with chemo. I remeber Terri was in such distress that she developed Shingles and they wouldn’t let her and the kids into the ICU. This is MY memory. It might be wrong. Anyway, they would come and stand at the window and blow kisses and hugs. Terri was devastated. I was in the room with Mark. I stayed with him in the hospital for several days. Not overnight like with Johnny but there every day for hours. We just talked. Not really about anything important. Just interesting conversation. He loved the show JAG and they were showing reruns of that show on the TV and he wanted to watch it as much as possible. So we watched JAG together. I’ve never watched it since. Now Mark was a lot of great things but he was not into sports. And well all my brothers and I were really into sports. We talk about them. We all played sports some better than others. But sports was kind of how we all bonded with our dad. We could always talk to Dad about sports. Well the World Series is going on right there in Anaheim. The town is a buzz with World Series fever and Mark couldn’t give a shit. And I wanted to watch the game. Well we watched the clinching game of the World series together that year in his hospital room. And even if he didn’t really enjoy it he pretended for my sake that he did. I think he actually did get a kick out of being from a championship city that year. Something we NEVER get in Atlanta. So that’s Mark. 2 more on the team from the other side — Bob and Mark — both loving and such good caregivers and providers. Both such hard workers in totally different ways but they took care of our precious twins.
Here’s Grandma and Grandpa. They started this whole big family thing. Two of my favorite all time people. I mean 2 of everybody’s favorite all time people. Grandpa was a character. And Grandma had to keep him in line. They loved each other enormously. We used to have these huge family dinners at their home on Troop Street in Chicago whenI was a kid. There are these massive photgraphs of all of us. Every Sunday. No matter what. And everyone showed up. We moved from Chicago when I was 8 for a year in Kansas and then on to LA when I was 9. But I remember those Sunday afternoons. The kids played in the yard. The women cooked up a storm and the men played poker downstairs. Very traditional role modles back then. Let me go see if I can find one of those group piuctures. You won’t believe it. I can’t find it. If someone reads this and I know some of you will, then text that picture to me and I’ll post it here. It’s that one in the backyard with cousin Jack Leahy hands on hip looking so cool. All the uncles in the back, The moms with babies in their laps, Cathy crying with mouth wide open and grandma and grandpa siting regally in the middle. You ALL know the one I mean. It’s priceless.
Grandma and Grandpa used to come visit us in California every year for a week or so. Oh wait before I get to that…Grandpa was the first FORD dealer in Chicago. I think there is a picture of him riding into Chicago with Henry Ford in a model T or something. His dealership was Harbor Motors on the South side. That was of course way before my time. I’m old but not THAT old. As kids on Saturdays sometimes when we weren’t in school Grandpa would take us down to the dealership. We’d hang out with him — eat out of the vending machines. Walk around and look at the cars. Grandpa was just so much fun to hang out with. He had his little sayings — “Cooking with GAS”, better than sliced bread. I don’t remember them all. But he was just a fun guy.
So they would come out to California every year and spend a week. Grandpa played a lot of solitaire and taught us how to play. He’d always look for Money in his coffee — money was the little bubbles you get in a cup of black coffee. Adn every afternoon he would walk down to the corner drug store to buy his paper. Our neighborhood was near the corner of Crenshaw and Olympic. We were half way betweeen Wilshire and Olympic one block off Crenshaw. We go down to the drug store at Norton and Olympic walking past St. Gregory’s where we all went to school and church. A half a block from home. And grandpa would take us with him to get his paper in the afternoon and he’d buy all of us a piece of candy. Well soon enough this ewhole neighborhood of big Catholic families heard about this old man who buy you candy if you walked to the store with him. He waslike the pied piper. Kids followed him down there. He had so mcuh fun doing that and every kid got their piece of candy. He was just so cool. Grandma was little more stern — not stern really maybe serious is a better word. While Grandpa loved to joke around Grandma could be all business. We would all kneel at the foot of their bed and say the rosary every night when they visited. My sister Jan is doing that right now for me with her family. Every night. Grandma would lead, Hail Mary Full of Grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed are Thou among Women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Grandpa would answer Holy mary moth god Amen. We busted out laughing. It wasn’t funny to Grandma. But Grandpa just wanted to go to sleep. They were a pair. Cathy my cousin who worked for Delta at John Wayne (another All star Pray-er on the team) and helped me with flying back and forth to the West coast, tells a story about grandpa taking her to a pool hall when she was a little girl. Soem guy came us and wanted to hustle grandpa. So he challenged him to a game which grandpa let him win. Looked bad doing it. So the guy thought I’ve got a mark here and he went double or nothing. Grandpa smoked him. Ran the table but wouldn’t take his money. Mike Leahy just told me on the phone in a recent conversation about one of the sales guys at Harbor who sold a car at a huge profit. Thought he would high praise for making so much money for the dealership. Instead Grandpa scolded him for taking advantage of a customer, made him call the customer back and give a fair deal not the one sided one he had made. Just that kind of guy. The whole family is. Someone send that picture of all of us in the backyard at Troop street.
Auntie was grandpa’s sister and she and Grandma did not get along. I don’t have a picture of Auntie but she would visit us in California when Grandma wasn’t there and we would make her make corn fritters for us. They were such a treat. A lot of work for an old lady but she did it with love in her heart and a smile on her face as she brought delight to the children.
Here’s Grandpa Henry. That side of the family is much smaller. He’s with my dad’s sister Aunt Irma in this picture. Jan just sent a picture of Grandma Henry too. I remeber her. Grandpa Ehnry dies before I was born. He died in 1938. He was a hard man. He was teamster. Like a real one. Had a team of horses and was on the crew that built road to the Western suburbs. They lived in La Grange which is the town where we lived when we lived in Chicago as young children in a really cool old house with lots of nooks and Crannies on Elmwood Street. Great for hide and seek. Stories about that house. Grandpa Henry used to bare knuckle fight in barns on Saturday nights for money. He was a tough old guy from what I hear. And very hard on Dad. Aunt Irma was a sweet lady. A packrat in the end but a nice lady. Her son Rich is still in La Grange. I hung out with Rich a couple of years ago when I flew up for the big reunion on my mom’s side of the family. Rich lost a son to the opioid crisis. His son a plumber was on a construction job installing a toilet on the second floor and fell and broke his back. Well needless to say, plenty of pain so they put him on opioids and got him hooked. And then cut him off cold. He turned to heroin. He was already so addicted by then and died of an overdose. I’ll bet he’s on the team too. Never thought about that til now. I didn’t know him well. We met before I know that but well I was all over the west coast and he was in Chicago. Sad Story. I hope the medical people do better than that now. I was glad to see see this — Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement For $8.3 Billion Approved …
The Henry side has had a harder life. Granma Henry used to visit us as kids but I don’t remember her much. She’d just sit in the rocking chair. Here she is. And next is a picture Jack took about a month ago of Grandpa Henry’s gravesite. Ok alot of dead space here and one more on the team from the other side.
That’s my older brother Brian. He died as a baby when my mom was pregnant with me. I talked about having a relationship with him at Richard’s funeral. Richard was Terri and Mark’s first born who died in the womb. Terri had to give birth to a baby she knew was already dead. I can’t imagine. It was so painful. Brain died of pneumonia at I guess about 6 months old. He would have been the oldest of us. He should have been the oldest of us. But I’m sure he’s on the team too. Along with Richard.
