Friends

A friend told me this is national Friend's Day. I thanked her because she is a "Say-Hi" friend where we know each other's names but I wouldn't drive her to the airport nor would she drive me. But her casual mention of Friend's Day started me thinking about friends.

In almost ten decades I have acquired a lot of friends (and lost a few). A major engine of friend acquisition is shared circumstance: school, church, jobs, armed forces,  But next to family, your reservoir of friendships is what flavors the quality of your life.  It's a complex interaction of ever changing temperatures that adds the spice to social intercourse. 

 Words matter; spoken and unspoken. They are the binding mortar of friendship that can cut as well as mend.  My oldest friend is Darryl Pollock. He can run faster than me but I'm better looking. Who is smarter has yet to be resolved.  We met in high school and agreed on things that made us laugh as well as the importance of playing football.  We've outlived most of our classmates but it draws us closer to the other survivors.

Darryl lives in a nice neighborhood in Bend, Oregon and a daily ritual is to sit in his garage with the door up and give a wave to anybody who happens to be walking or driving pass his home.  He thinks of them as drive-by friends and Darryl has lots of them.

Friends deserve more than one day a year.  Like Mother's Day and Father's Day it should be every day.  So, on this Friend's Day,  choose some words carefully, and send them to a friend.

This Old Man

 Roger Angell died last May 20th at one hundred and one years of age.    He was possibly the best writer ever published by the New Yorker magazine where he worked as an editor for a good share of that publication's long history.  Almost as a sideline, his love of baseball led him to become the greatest writer ever of that classic American sport.  He actually knew Babe Ruth as well as the hottest stars in today's pennant races.  Roger is in the Coopertown Baseball Hall of Fame.

I have admired Angell's writing for years and my friend Josie Larson, knowing of my high regard for Roger Angell, sent me copies of a piece he had written for the New Yorker in 2014 entitled:  This Old Man. It is now included in a book published by Doubleday ($26.95): This Old Man, All in Pieces.

Here is some of the best advice you will ever get:  Buy the book!  If you are still seventeen,  never mind.  But everyone else will pass up one of life's true treasures if they don't let Roger into their mind.  Particularly if they are with me in God's waiting room, nervously anticipating the call, "Next."  It is Roger Angell at his lifetime best: insightful, funny, profound, touching.  Roger hits all the bases as he knocks a slider out of the park.

Trust me.

Meet Gene McKinney

Gene and Mary Ellen McKinney have been residents of the West building at Russellville Park for about a year.  Gene appears much younger than his 84 biological years and his life in the last half of the 20th Century is a personification of America’s in that same time period.

When Gene was born in 1937 it was only 34 years earlier that the world was stunned to learn that a couple of brothers at  Kitty Hawk, North Carolina had made a powered air flight for the first time ever.   And today, if Gene possessed a million or two dollars of disposal income, he might be able to book passage on a 15- minute rocket ride to outer space.  Gene’s working life was in the telecommunication business and his first job as an adult was installing rotary dial telephones for American Telephone & Telegraph (AT & T) that put Tilly the telephone operator and her massive board of tangled cables out the back door.  Replacing old technology with new technology was what kept Gene involved in America’s quest to lead the world in communication technology.

You’ve never heard of some of the installations Gene’s teams made because you don’t know what a “hot box” is.  Ask the engineer of that 100-car freight train streaking through the Columbia River gorge and he will tell you it has to do with the wheels on all those box cars and flat-bed container haulers,  The load weight rests on an axle attached to the wheel and the axle turns in a box filled by fibers soaked in an oil based solution that controls the heat generated by the turning axle.  If the oil fails the heat creates a “hot box” that can make the wheel lock-up and possibly derail the train.  So Gene’s team wired in sensors along the track to detect any hot boxes that needed attention.

The yearly advances in technology had sent thousands of workers to join Tilly on the sidelines and in 1989 At&T offered thousands of their employees a plan to leave the company.  At age 52 Gene elected to take a lump sum buyout that included lifetime health care and drug coverage.  As years passed and health care cost went crazy, Mary Ellen and Gene knew they had made a good decision.

The two met in 1956 and married a year later.  They raised a family of three boys and a daughter.  Their oldest son, Mike, grew to be a 6’3”, 237 lb. football tight end who played at the University of Oregon for coach Rich Brooks.

Gene’s working life gave him an up close and personal view of the disappearance of Tilly’s massive obsolete equipment to his daughter’s  3” x 5” cell phone that could do everything but fry an egg.  From 1937 to 1989 it was a trip of wonders for both Gene McKinney and his home, America.

The Wind Was At His Back

My friend Kenny Moore died five days ago.  He was 78 years old.  Few people who come and go through this intimidating lifetime journey possess the amazing package of brilliant talents, both mental and physical,  that fueled the fierce fire that burned inside the lanky graduate of North Eugene High School, in Eugene, Oregon.  He had a way with words and I first saw that touch of his in a piece he wrote for the Eugene Register Guard.  The young phenom, Steve Prefontaine, was scheduled to run in an AAU meet on the East Coast and the RG asked Kenny, who was in the area of the meet at the time, to cover the race.  Pre came in second to a world-class runner (don't remember his name) and  Kenny wrote, "WCR crossed the finish line in (time) and turned to see the future rushing toward him."  What a terrific line.

We became friends.

Kenny was a key member of Oregon's 1964 and 1965 NCAA's Track & Field Championship teams.  Coach Bill Bowerman admired Moore's toughness and nothing showed that more than his participation in the steeplechase, possibly track's most grueling, demanding races at 3,000 metres with hurdles to clear.

In 1967 Moore won the National Cross Country Championship.  In his second Olympic appearance he just missed winning a medal in the marathon and it is insightful to realize that a person who possessed  the magic of word manipulation was also the rare human being who has experienced running 26-plus miles while the pounding madness in his mind is demanding that he stop the pain but he wills himself to increase it even more.

And then to experience the exquisite joy of realizing that of all the billions of human beings on the planet Earth, only three could catch him if he ran away.  And you have the gift to tell those other billions of people how it felt. 

How fortunate I am to have called that remarkable man my friend.  For a truly rewarding experience read BOWERMAN AND THE MEN OF OREGON, Kenny's masterful biography of his college coach.

In addition to his enormous talent, Kenny Moore was a compassionate citizen of the world who listened to his better angels and made his community of friendships richer for having known him.

Let the Follow Spot Shine On Me

Here's what my friend Marilyn Bruner did: she talked me into joining Curtain Call, an organization of wannabe actors who put on stage plays for the entertainment of their fellow residents. Some of these folks, like me, can't remember what they had for lunch so memorizing lines for a play is out of the question.  Also, choreography for moving people in wheelchairs or walkers around on a stage is too scary to imagine.  Obviously, modifications to traditional stagecraft is a must.  

 I'm glad I listened to Marilyn and joined her band of thespians,  even though my original vision of doing the musical, Singing In the Rain with me in the Gene Kelly role didn't work out.  I have been warmly welcomed to the cast.  We do the theatrical productions by sitting in chairs in front of the audience and reading our lines from binders.  Remember radio?  I know, I know that sounds crazy to you but it works.  I was in the audience for their last performance and the crowd loved it...foot stomping applause.

We're currently rehearsing a play that does a takeoff on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was written by Marilyn and who knew the girl could make dialog sing? It's years later after Prince Charming left Snow White at the altar and although she has put on a few pounds and some smile lines, she still owns those hug-me-now eyes.  Oh, yes and that name change: Silver Gray. She now tends bar and owns the Last Chance Saloon in the small town time forgot: Arid, Arizona.  It's all about the return of Prince Charming (who is not so charming) and those height challenged Hi Ho, Hi Hoers.  Each actor is assigned a character and the practice begins.  It is harder than you might think to get the different characters to say their lines so that it creates a seamless flow of dialog.  Ever try herding cats?

It's a genuine fun exercise with lots of laughter intermingled with kindly commands from the director to pay attention to the cues.  Cry your eyes out Broadway.

 

What's It All About, Alfie?

Remember the title song of that flick?  Are we meant to take more than we give, Alfie? Or are we meant to be kind?”  Here at Russellville Park we have four floors in the east building full of apartments occupied by mature citizens who, after a busy day of doing whatever, turn out the light and in that quiet stillness of their lonely room they whisper, what’s it all about, pillow?  The pillow doesn’t have a clue and I know I sure as hell don’t. But we all keep asking.

Last week I visited my sister Virginia who lives a few hundred miles away from me. At 96 she is four years older. My second mother.  Really smart. Retired as a Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank. We talked a lot and laughed a lot and touched on some serious issues but let me assure you, a river rock has a better understanding of what’s it all about than either Ginny or me.

A lot of people think they know.  They don’t.  But they do a lot of damage because many truth seekers out there give them power until the whole bloody gang ends up  drinking bye-bye Kool-Aid south of the border.  Or invading the nation’s Capitol.

The search for what it’s all about becomes more urgent as you notice your dance card has only a few more open spots.  What’s behind the curtain?  Do your trespasses really count against you?  How many stars do you give your life?  I know how many stars I deserve but I ain’t telling.  Here’s the truth: I was very close to a lot of wonderful triumphs but I was never essential to the mission. Picture a crab louse at the moment of conception.

Well, maybe one.  I was Assistant Director of Athletics at the University of Oregon (close to the top but no cigar) when we came up short by about $30,000 of funding the new west grandstand at Hayward Field. We decided to put on a fund-raising track meet and I was given the assignment to put the event together.  The only open date possible to run the meet was just over three weeks away so we started the plan in a state of high anxiety.

The key to the success of the mission was to have our wunderkind, Steve Prefontaine, race the Bowling Green State University sensation Dave Wottle who still holds the NCAA mile record of 3.57.1. He would win the 800 meter gold medal at the Munich Olympics.  But first we had to get the meet sanctioned by the NCAA.  Done.  Now get Pre and Dave into the harness.  First potential disaster: Pre was scheduled to be in Europe on our meet date.  Time to break some rules: I told Pre if he would delay his European trip a week I would buy him a round tripper for his ride (Hey, everybody’s doing it).  The NCAA track championships were being held at Louisiana State University the next week and Dave Wottle would be there. So would I.  Made Dave the same deal I made Pre and he said yes. Youssaa!

Pre’s agreeing to delay his trip was a magnificent commitment by our middle distance phenom.  First he agreed to a mile race he knew he couldn’t win.  The pride of most runners would never let them agree to a deal like that. Second, Pre loved the Oregon fans and he did it for them.

Right up until the first event the days were around the clock putting together the other events. Athletes from all over America calling, wanting into the meet where they could qualify for the coming Olympics.  Do you believe in miracles?  It all came together. Roaring success.  Double the needed funds raised.  Pre makes a great run but it’s a close loss to the kid in that signature golf hat.  And the success of the meet gave birth to what became an annual event called the Prefontaine Classic.  It is now the premier track and field meet in America pulling in athletes from all over the world (with a little help from an ex-Oregon runner named Phil Knight).

If you think you know what it’s all about, please give me a call.

Russellville Lives. JG

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it                                                                                                               --Omar Khayyam 

It's all about time isn't it?  Once we were skipping down windy beaches looking for agates and now we're skipping dental appointments because we forgot.  Recently I've written about those other times in the lives of the remarkable people who share the present times with me in this stack of rented spaces.  My friend Lou Barrett, the ex-cop, refers to all of us as "inmates."  In a sense Lou is right because we've been sentenced to life terms for the unforgivable offense of growing old. But we are still the same individuals responsible for creating those other times, some of which were exceptionally well lived.  

Like the one architect Joy Gannett designed.  Do a deep probe into the inner souls of thousands of retired strivers and you will find a high number of them did not truly enjoy going to work every day.  That wasn't Joy. He loved what he did and knew what he wanted to spend his life doing from as far back as junior high school.  It was in a mechanical drawing class where he was given an assignment to draw the plans for a house basement where a slab of concrete would be poured on the ground for the floor.  On his finished drawing he penned "ROR" and handed it in to the teacher who later asked him what those initials meant.  The teacher loved his reply: "Rough On Rats."

Joy was born in the early morning hours of October 13, 1926 in the family home in Oakland, California.  He was named Joy to honor his mother's family name: Joy.  A few years later his parents divorced and Joy was often sent to visit his mother's brother in Stockton where he and his cousin Tim Joy, who was one year older, became lifelong brothers. 

Joy enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944 and was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on his way to what would have been the invasion of Japan when the dropping of the atomic bombs ended the war.  With the support of the G.I. Bill,  Joy enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his degree in Architecture.  Joy and Delores (Dotty) Phillips were married in his senior year and their family grew to include Martha, Marshall, and Alice.

Joy worked for a number of different firms as he developed his own skills in a complex profession that demands both artistic and structural expertise to achieve creation of buildings that are both reliably sound and aesthetically in harmony with their location.  One of Joy's many projects was working as a member of the team that designed the Veteran's hospital on Pill Hill next to Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon.

Replacing his cousin Tim Joy as a resident at Russellville Park, Joy, with his quiet wit and wonderful singing voice --in high school and the army he participated in bands as a drummer-- joins that elite confederacy of talents that define the unique spirituality of this home for the still active players in life's mysterious game.