Thursday, August 29, 2019

"So Long, Ike"


An old friend passes. 

And I’m eating pancakes.

Yesterday, I was informed that a man, once important to me, had recently died. 

We had been best friends when we were kids.

I last saw him four years ago, and he looked fine.  Then I heard he’d had surgery.  Then I heard he was gone.

Beyond that now precious reunion, save for a one-day reunion sometime in the 80’s, there was nothing for fifty or more years.

Remembering someone from the long ago past, it’s like, for me at least, you’re on some archeological dig, finding tiny fragments of memory, not enough to construct a whole person – there are thousands of lost pieces – but recognizable as him.

Sifting through those disparate fragments,

I see “blond.”

I see “wiry.”

I see “dryly funny.”

I see “pensively thoughtful.”

I see “caring.”

I see “kind.”

And then there’s this larger “personal artifact” –

A full-blown “Moment in Time.” 

Once, age in the “double-digits” though I am not sure which ones, we had the option of purchasing our own canoe paddles at camp, and I did.  With the explanatory underpinning now lost – did I ask him to do it, did he spontaneously insist, I do not recall.  But a few days later, individualizing the blade of my canoe paddle, he had painted the recognizable cartoon head of “Dennis the Menace.”   

Wherever that priceless memento is today, you have “painted friendship”, etched on a paddle.

Then, pondering this tribute, another meaningful fragment surfaced to mind, triggered, I imagine, by its prominent mention in yesterday’s post. 

We saw my favorite movie The Court Jester together. 

And this wonderful thing happened that day.   

(Note:  You could easily do this back then at the movies.  Today, unless you’re particularly tricky, you can’t.)

We file out at the end of the movie, emerging into the lobby.  Having mutually concurred The Court Jester was great, suddenly, without a word being said, we wheeled back to the theater, and we watched it again.

That’s all the memories I’ve got.

Accompanying this feeling, uneasy to process, which is this:

Two pals.

One, gone.

The other, still here. 

You know what I mean?  It feels weird.  Unfair.  And, of course, mortalistically scary.

I went down to the ocean this morning for guidance.  I was told he’s okay.  It helped a little, I guess.  But… you know.

We saw The Court Jester twice.

And now I’m the only one who remembers.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Earl, Jay Teitel here. I knew you at Camp Ogama when I was a first year counselor and you were blundering around in the woods at night on the boys' side looking for the wash-house. I am also, you may not know, married to Karen Friedman, one of Ira's three sisters. I knew of Ira's relationship with "The Court Jester", famous in the Friedman family, and meaningful to me because it was also my father's favourite film. The "pellet with the poison" was a trope in my family, too. I never knew that Ira had seen the movie with you, or the story about seeing it twice. I'm not sure if the three sisters know that detail, either. What I am sure of is that your post will be more than meaningful to all of them, and will undoubtedly make my sister-in-law, Susan, cry.

Thanks for the memories.

Jay Teitel
jdteitel@rogers.com

Anonymous said...

Ok. I did cry. But my memory - probably inaccurate - is that a bunch of Ira’s friends went to see The Court Jester at the Nortown Theatre on the occasion of his birthday and that I was allowed to go too. I think that this was the first movie that I ever saw and it was a major deal that I got to go with the big boys. The Nortown Theatre is long gone and now so is my amazing brother. Earl, I have many memories of you, both as one of the “big boys” and as my brother’s friend “Weezer” who was kind to me. I too think he is ok. He deserves to be. Thank you for writing about him. Susan