upfromdysfunction.com

Entering the cavernous rec hall of the suburban church I immediately pivoted to the door and phoned my sponsor. In fall of ’97 I was a fish out of water.

“Preston,” I moaned, “This is ridiculous.”
“Relax,” urged the man sixteen years my junior.
“But I don’t belong here.”
“Sit the f#!* down.”
“But we have nothing in common,” I pointed out earnestly.
“Wrong!” he shot back. “Just the opposite: None of you got there on a winning streak.”

Lord knows why but for the first time in many years, I listened. Trudging back in, taking a seat among men and women, old and young, white collar, blue collar, no collar, clad in mezuzahs, crosses, tattoos and piercings, I not only listened, but heard.

How lucky was I back then? Spiritually (and financially) bankrupt, I’d been granted the gift of desperation, and for reason unbeknownst to me, I began following suggestions from one not yet born the day Kennedy got shot!

(Ed. Note 1: How’d that joke go? A guy says to a date half his age: “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” And her reply: “Ted Kennedy got shot?”).

There’s an old bromide that says “Recovery isn’t for people who need it; it’s for people who want it.”

I wanted it.

Meeting after meeting I was mixing with an amalgam of people from all walks of life — people I’d never have met. Day after day I was finding commonality not in our jobs, or religion, or schools, or whatever — but rather in the pure fact that each of us, taking disparate paths, had found his/her bottom…. that each of us had learned that to really see that the sky’s the limit we had to have our back on the ground — and look up.

Yes, I wanted what those people had. They were calling it “serenity”.

I was reminded of that autumn night just recently. Ron and I, (Ed. Note 2: We’re the same age, give or take. He: a rich kid from Beachwood; me: product of South Euclid’s “mean streets”) .… Anyway, there we were — the two of us — again Wednesday — taking a meeting into a downtown detox center … sharing our “stories”. It’s our commitment, and frankly, as we speak weekly to the always new assembly of four to six barely/clean addicts, it’s always a coin flip if one of our captive audience will snore.

This week, though, was different. Someone — he couldn’t have been twenty-five — actually wanted to share. (Ed. Note 3: “Vent”, if you will).

“I hate lead meetings,” he asserted. “No one tells my story.”
“How many meetings have you been to?” asked my partner.
“Two,” he said, “And then I got pulled over.”

They laughed — all of them. It was funny, except it wasn’t.

“Let me tell you something,” I said, staring directly at the kid, (who may have led his high school class in tats), “I once sat in your seat”.

Standing oh so politely, he interrupted: “You don’t understand,” he told me.
“Really?” I pushed back with vengeance.  “Sit the f#!* down.”

… Silence … Just silence … and I picked up steam.

“I didn’t get here on a winning streak, my friend. Either did Ron here.”

My buddy nodded; the kid hit his chair; the horse had left the barn; we closed the meeting.

Brandon — that was his name — came up to me afterwards and asked for my number. Gladly I gave it.  Gladly.

He’ll be gone by next Wednesday. Four days for detox— that’s all they give them. Odds are he won’t call — but we’ll see. We’ll see.

It all depends, you know…

Not on whether he needs it, but on whether he wants it.

To The Boys of 44121…to the core friends I met in the spring of my life,

As you know, I’m sixty-six. I smile more than I frown, laugh more than I cry, and feel better than I look. Moreover, reasonably comfortable with my age, I’m even more comfortable in my skin. But still, I’m sixty-six. Sixty-f’ing six. As are you, my friends, if not older!

Some of you are in Florida. Wieder, (true to form), is on the Left Coast). And while Kraut is seen regularly, even the world’s oldest teenager Brother Bob, moved out of county.

(Then there’s Randy. Randy).

Time marches on, my friends. Inexorably. Time ticks away, buddies, at quickening pace.

In my heart, as the song goes, I can see each of you “for miles and miles”. But I want more— do you?

Remember that moment? No, not one of the ad hoc high school gatherings Bobby tends to orchestrate. (Ed. Note 1: I mean, really. Who has a 46th year reunion? 45, maybe. 50, Yes. But 46?).

How many years ago was it that young in mind, body and soul we posed for pictures on Stuart’s back deck? Fenton had yet to see West Hartford; Art had his original knees; and Ermine? He had hair. (Ed. Note 2: None of us were forty then when, sitting circled in Fenton’s family room, Desert Flower predicted I’d be first to die).

THINK ABOUT IT.

And think about this: none of us is bullet-proof.

None of us.

This year alone we’ve seen two retirements and two other work changes. Our schedules have softened. This month alone, from heart issues to kidney issues our team has been threatened.

It’s time.

Time to convene again, to laugh again, to mock and share again.

Together.

We pride ourselves — we all do — about the wonder of growing up where we did, about the splendor of our friendships and the strength of our bond.

It’s time, I say, to all break bread together.

Word spread of Ermine’s six days in the hospital and we rallied. Stu passed a stone and reminded us of Kramer.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqKOYQcGojU  Enough of this long-distance crap. But I watch my sugar, Snyder his diet, and Arthur his office.

Seasons are passing.

For my part, I will waive my 4-state rule to meet with my comrades. (Ed. Note 3: Noun used to make Alan happy). So get it done.

Going to go now. Hope I’ve made my point. Let me hear.  Gonna go for a walk. It’s Sunday morning, and the sun is out — for now. Then home I’ll be … watching TV …. news channels … perhaps the week in review.

— Which reminds me:  Garry Shandling died. Just Thursday.  Unexpectedly.

He was a nice Jewish boy from the suburbs.

And he was sixty-six.

After months of mulling over it, the inevitable office move went smoothly. For six weeks now the “fresh air” has been great.

No, it’s not the extra space. Surprisingly, it’s not even the one hundred and ninety-two less steps from the parking lot. Actually, it’s much simpler: everything just feels right. I wasn’t happy where I was, and hadn’t been — but now, for the first time in Obama’s second term I truly enjoy going to work.

(Not that I really ever thought I’d make the move. As recently as December I’d been resigned to pretty much playing out the rest of my run where I was. Sixty-six and counting— where was I going? Still, when I embraced the concept of going to Vegas for an event in this year’s WSOP, actually booking the travel …well … instantaneously it seemed, my phlegmatic “Why?” became an ebullient “Why not?”.

The landlord? Nice guy. Very nice. A Jew from California. Worldly. (Probably eats kale). Ah, but he can’t be that worldly. He doesn’t quite “get” me.

Consider:

It was last Monday—

We were standing by the kitchen area when his secretary (Ed. Note 1: Make that “assistant” in Stacy/speak). (Ed. Note 2: Make that “admin” in Stacy/speak 201).

—When his secretary mentioned that she’d booked a trip to Costa Rica for her vacation.

“We were there,” said Ned, (referring to his family) “… and loved it. Have you ever gone?”
“No,” said I, not necessarily encouraging the conversation.
“Do you want to go?” he inquired. “Where do you like to travel?”
“My kids are out of town. New York and Chicago.”

Pausing, tilting his head oh so slightly, my new friend was clearly trying to figure out if I was toying with him. His mouth was closed but his face said “Really?”

“Let me make this easy for you,” I exalted, “You’re going to bump into people here and there and sometime, somewhere in this small world of ours someone is going to ask you if you know Bruce Bogart. Your answer should be ‘Yes, and he is one of the most intelligent shallow people I know.’ “

The whimsy (or perhaps accuracy?) of my utterance escaped him. Right-hearted, but from the Left coast, he lagged sentences behind.

“You really don’t travel?”
“I love Ohio.”
“So do I,” he said, “But—“
“Four places,” I told him. “New York, Chicago, Vegas and Florida.”
“Oh, so you do go to Florida.”
“East coast only,” I assured him, as serious as a heart attack.

He’s such a nice guy that I didn’t have the heart to walk away as he started his story of a recent trip somewhere. ‘Can’t remember where he went but it bore a Spanish name and apparently in the middle of the night down there his daughters heard, as he phrased it, a “pop pop pop sound”. The next morning, evidently, the ladies shared fears from the prior night — hearing gunfire and all — at which Ned laughingly told me how his kids had erred. Indeed, it hadn’t been gunfire that had frightened them, but merely the sound of falling coconuts.

Slipping back to my office I sensed an opening.  Time it was, I well knew, to let the landlord know where I’m coming from.

Quietly I called my admin Kathleen (Ed. Note 3: Stacy/speak 201—I’m a quick study), and asked her to make a stop on her way into the office. Happily, she obliged.

A bit later the two of us, arms deftly behind us, dropped grocery bags of coconuts in Ned’s office.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

“What was that?” asked the landlord.

“You’re having a great day,” I exclaimed. “I just saved you a couple thousand dollars.”

“The f#+% wants me to walk”, I complained to my group. Midweek it was, at a men’s discussion group, and I’d been to the doctor. “Twice a week!”, I exclaimed. “Who has time?”

He approached me at meeting’s end — hand outstretched.

“I’ll walk with you.” How ‘bout this weekend?”

8 AM we convened days later! Outdoors on a December Saturday in globally warmed Cleveland. (Sundays came later). Bill T and me … walking the mall, talking, sharing in a manner physically beneficial and emotionally therapeutic. Indeed: just what the doctor’d ordered.

Truth was I was hurting but didn’t quite know why.

Out-of-sync. Out of rhythm. Reasonably happy, irrationally struggling — instinctively pushing, stepping, marching.

Flat.

I had Michael, Vegas, Stacy, Facetime … and Carrie. I had family, friends, fellowship and fun.

Even more so, clearly, I had footwork to be done, and “miles to go before I sleep”.

Still the weeks sped by. Slowly. Often arduously. As I trudged.

— To meetings I enjoyed and to meetings I didn’t.
— To rehearsals I loathed full of people I liked in a play that I loved.
— Through the splendor and wonder and yes, ardor of life.

Off my game, but not off the tracks. Out of stride, but not out of spirit. To some it was obvious and to others, imperceptible. But I knew and she knew.

And He knew.

(Ed. Note: I talk to the guys I sponsor about “rhythm”. How it’s vital to have a pace to life: a regimen… a regularity… a tempo … a flow. Where, I was asking myself, was mine?).

Was it the loss of an aunt? The health of my loved ones? The erosion of purpose?

Perhaps the plateau of pleasure?

And then — OVERNIGHT — my fever broke!

Was it the music of my brother’s email? Ermine reaching out? Snyder making me laugh?

Was it the pics of New York grandsons? Chicago granddaughters? The play’s final curtain?

For some reason, instantaneously — call it “Daylife Savings” — sun returned. In some way, ‘though I barely noticed, my pulse returned.

I was breathing not the schism of my old office but the fresh air in the new. I was bouncing through my day — not trekking through its hours.

I was embracing, once more, the ordinary.

And smiling.

The heart of winter is winking at the light of spring, and me? I’m meeting Bill T 8AM tomorrow to go walking.

And to share.

—Because one night he reached out

“In 3 words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”                                                                                                                         

                             Robert Frost

My father died in ’85 and my mother in ’09. To this day I share more with him than her, but then, just today….

“Dad,” are you busy?”
“I’m sitting here with Max Mitchell and Cousin Norm. You ok?”
“Yeah,” I assured him. “Just wanted to tell you something.”

JUST THEN MY CELL PHONE LEAPED IN VIBRATION.

“It’s my mother calling. What should I do?”
“Conference her in if it’s something she can hear.”
“C’mon, Dad. They have hearing aids in heaven!”
“Not how I meant it, funny boy. But actually I’m surprised you know how to get us all on one line.”
“Your grandson showed me,” I assured him.
“Not Dickie Lomaz?”, he asked.

“You forget. I lost him in the divorce.”

“Right,” he signed. “You know I never told Ralph.”

“OK, hold on …”

“Mom?

“Wait a minute,” she shouted, apparently juggling something, “I didn’t think you were going to pick up. Sam, could you get me a pillow?”
“Mom I’ve got my father on the phone with us. OK?”
“Al?” she posed quizzically
“Elaine.” he responded politely.
“HEY! I have a good story for you guys. Can I speak?”

Moments of silence

ME: “Dad, remember when you went to the World Gin Rummy Championship years ago?”
MOM: “Do I need to hear this?”
DAD: “ In Vegas. I took Harriet.”
MOM: “Do I need to hear this?”
ME: “Well guess what I’m doing?”
DAD: “Please don’t tell me you’re playing head-to-head against Walter again. Haven’t you learned your lesson?”
MOM: “Should I let the two of you talk? (To the side: “Sam get me a valium”).
ME: “No, Dad. But guess where Carrie and I are going?”
DAD: (To the side, in a hushed tone: “Deal me out”).
MOM: “What about me? I carried you for nine months.”
ME: “I’m playing in the World Series Of Poker this summer — the Seniors Event.”
DAD: “In Vegas?”
MOM: “Sam!”
ME: “Yeah.”
DAD: “I’m so proud.”
MOM: “I could brecht”

Continuing on, I told how my wondrous wife had encouraged my resolve to knock down this Bucket List dream … how indeed we were flying ‘cross country … how first I’d toyed with the idea of selling shares in the project but that Stace said “No” in December and Michael said “Of course not” in January … and that Kanter said yes (Go figure)… but that we’d ultimately deduced the journey was ours to embrace.

— And that we were “all in”.

MOM: “When will this blessed event occur?”
ME: “We’re flying out June 16. It’s a Thursday.”
DAD: “What a wonderful present! That Sunday is Father’s Day.”
MOM: “That’s also our 67th anniversary, Albert. Or did you forget?”
ME: “I could brecht”.

More moments of silence. The backdrop featured sounds of chips riffling and dulcet tones of my kind, dutiful stepfather urging my mother to “calm down”. Finally, the silence was broken…

DAD: “Anything else, Sonny Boy? I’m holding up traffic here.”
MOM: “What’s new with the children?”
ME: “They’re fine.  Mom, can I ask you something really important?”
MOM: “Anytime.”

In the background —somewhat muffled — I heard “You owe two blinds, Al”.

DAD: “Gotta run.”
MOM: “Nice talking to you, Al”.
ME: “He’s gone, Mom.”
MOM: “Well, then —what was the important thing you wanted to ask me?”
ME: “Be honest with me, Mom.  Do you want me to go to Ed Turner’s stone setting?”

Five more seconds of silence until finally:

“When are you going to grow up Bruce?
“I love you too, Mom.”

We  would hang up in unison. By then my father, Camel perched deftly ‘tween his lips, was calling out of position. My mother (chances were)  was watching “Dr. Phil.”

And me? I remembered once again that the hero my father was to me was the hero my mother gave to me.   In all the years — from their divorce “before it was fashionable”  through her near half-century that followed — not once did she badmouth her ex.  My mother so often … perhaps too often … would fold with a smile —

Leaving me the big winner.

“I want you to cheer up!” chirped the voice Tuesday morning. The smile in her New York accent was unmistakable.
“Caryn Miller!”, I exclaimed, “How’s Brother Stuart?”
“Stuie’s fine,” she responded. “But it’s enough already.”

Fact is my fog, six choppy weeks later, was beginning to lift.

Had it been the loss of my aunt? The nightly rehearsals? The dry of the winter?
Perhaps the issues of family? The pale of my health? The ennui of the artifacts? (Ed. Note 1: After all, how many dusty documents, old photos, or stirred memories can one man take?) …

Perhaps it was the post-Vegas letdown? The mere tedium of work? Or… or … the missed Wednesday breakfasts with the boys?

I was prepared for the end of Aunt Helen; we all were. What I wasn’t ready for, quite clearly, was the end of her era.

Yet I plugged away, daily. All January. Pedaling. Pedaling. Reaching out. Talking. Sharing. Trudging.

I said my prayers in the morning, hit my marks through the day, made the commitments of night. And never did I forget that as God held my hand, Carrie held my heart. I wasn’t alone.

Then January ended.

Michael called with the boys in the car. Lucy Facetimed, dancing and singing. I moved my office, played some poker, and got a car wash. (Ed. Note 3: No, that’s not a typo).

My rhythm returned.

There’s a box of pictures — two hundred or so – stashed in a closet. Lord knows how long I’ve been planning to sift through them … to assemble my favorites … to post in my workplace.

This could be the weekend. The time may be found. Oh, WAIT! There’s the debate to watch… and I’m walking with Bill … and the Super Bowl Poker Tournament in Euclid … and Peyton’s Last Stand.

I’ll think about the photos, I guess — but I may not get to them.

After all, mourning has broken.

A hollow day, it was. Work to be do (yet no one to see). Paper to push ( while no urge to do it). And nothing — nothing required that moment.

Did I mention it was cold outside. Dry cold…bitter? Or that I was bored?

Flat.

Perhaps the systematic culling of our aunt’s archives — the self-imposed obligation to closely scrutinize each and every document left from her Hundred Years War — had taken a toll. Carrie got it, (and a few others). To much of the western hemisphere, however, Aunt Helen was somewhat of a pain … an aberration…an inconvenience.

It was about 11 that my brother called. There were matters attendant to Helen — things to discuss. As such, when he asked if I had time to swing by, I jumped. (Ed. Note 1: Make that “leaped” from my chair).

“The door will be open,” he told me by phone. (Ed. Note 2: Was that not a metaphor of our nexus?).

Not long after, turning down Aldersgate, I reveled at this perfect measure to fill the morning’s vacuum!

I knocked while entering, and was greeted by my splendid brother, standing with the paperwork. Our task took but seconds.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Why don’t you sit for five minutes,” he urged me. “We don’t talk as often.”

I obliged, of course, quite amused. So was he. Laughing, we both pretty much said the same thing: his words were the words of Aunt Helen! How many times over the years had one of us wanted to run into her house, drop the groceries, and just “Get out of Dodge?”

— And yet… how many times had each of us sat, kibitzed a bit, and not felt the better for it?

So I sat on his couch. And we talked about kids, and wives, and work, and whatever. And we laughed.

“Gotta go,” I said after a while. (Ed. Note 3: Not that I had to, not that I was bored, but perhaps more along the lines of what Stuart or Stacy term my A.D.D.).
(Ed. Note 4: My wife takes it a step further: “If he was school-age now, he’d be diagnosed”, she tells others).

“Do you have time to go to Staples? Nothing urgent”. (Little did he know HE was doing ME the favor).
“Absolutely!”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Do you want me to go for you?”
“No,” he demurred. “We can both go.”

(Ed. Note 5: Truth be known, understand I didn’t, his necessity to shop. Desiring a check register, H didn’t opt to wait the day for his bank to reopen. Oh, and ink was needed, he said, for his computer. First: I don’t know why he can’t keep his balance in his head, like I do, but God bless him, and Second: did any male Bogart really have the wherewithal to load a cartridge in a computer?).

Thrilled I was however, to go.

Within minutes we pulled in the lot. He ran in; I waited; he came back; they were out.

“What kind of office supply store doesn’t have ink?” I asked, and he shrugged. “Let’s try Office Max!” I urged, not ready to go home.
“They’re closed,” he told me.
“Let’s drive by just to make sure,” I pushed back.
“We can if you want, but they’ve merged with Office Depot.”

… So we drove up to Eastgate. I told him, en route, how I had once boycotted the store when a friend had a fight with it…and how years later, unbeknownst to me my buddy had ended his feud … and how for another decade, not knowing my pal had since mended fences, I continued to abstain from Office Max. He wasn’t impressed — my brother wasn’t — even as I drew the analogy of Letterman doing the Super Bowl commercial with that piece of shit Leno, much to the chagrin of Howard Stern.

… And then drove back from Eastgate — the store clearly closed.

“Do you need to go anywhere else?” I asked. His answer was “No.”

A bit later I dropped him off — my sterling brother — and went to my office.

I could have used another five minutes.

Dear Dad,

Remember how we slipped away to Vegas a few times when I was in my thirties? You from Columbus and me from Cleveland — we’d fly separately and room together, just spend quality time? Well, as oft’ you said: “The players change, but the game goes on.” Last week I went there with my son.

From New York he came and from Cleveland I flew. Watching football — not baseball …playing poker — not gin … and staying uptown at The Aria — not downtown at the Plaza Hotel And Casino. Oh, Sorry Pop … it changed its name a few years back. It’s no longer “The Union Plaza”.

But yes, Dad, the more things change ….

Semi-bored Michael sat, studying his phone as I folded my hands — not unlike, by the way, my reading SI as you played in your tourney.

Father and son. Side-by side as adults. Away from the politics of family, from the mandates of home. One.

Not that we didn’t have a hiccup. Of course we did. Remember how even in the most idyllic of our times every once in a while I’d say or do something that we both could have done without? With that look of yours — that amalgam of incredulity, anger, love, and warmth — you’d muster two poignant words:

“Must you?” you’d say, (and as if once wasn’t enough): “Must you?”

And the storm always ended.

Anyway, let me share of the weekend:

Our room that first night really was two. A wall separated Michael’s bed from the sofa I’d plopped on. (Ed. Note: He offered the bed, of course; I declined. To me sleeping on a couch is the Jewish substitute for the Christian’s camping outside). Nonetheless, spacious as our room was (bigger than the house I grew up in on Bayard), apparently one of us snored too loud (no names, please). As such, the next day we moved. (Ed. Note 2: Our upgrade was bigger than Wieder’s home, and it was a split-level).

Oh, and before you ask, let me say that the food was exquisite. Not that I can tell you what we ate. (Ed. Note 3: It was up to me what kind of food we ate (Italian cuisine, Chinese, American, etc.). Then, once I’d narrowed the field my Heir Apparent chose the locale. For the life of me, though: why do so-called upscale restaurants feel compelled to list menu items so “enlisted men” like me can’t understand them? It was embarrassing how many times I had to ask my kid “What does this mean?”. Frites? Why can’t they just list French fries? And how ‘bout this: “Blistered green beans”! Are you kidding me?

So we laughed a bit. And smiled a bit. And even touched seriously on the realities of my first marriage… A conversation delayed by decades, it was perhaps not necessary, but perhaps quite healthy.

A bit.

We spoke of Max, and of Eli, and of my next trip out east.

—And of, of all things: wardrobe.

There I was, in my own world focused to the goings-on at the Hold-Em table, when he tapped on my shoulder…

“Can you get up for a second”
“Sure,” I said. “Is everything OK?”

Two feet from the table he told me:

“I’m mortified”!
“Huh”?
“I’m mortified!”

(Ed. Note 4: Turns out a tee shirt worn over a button/down shirt, (the ultimate in card-playing comfort wear), is not GQ’s look. (Ed. Note 5: I call it the “over-under” style, and although its critics include the wondrous Carrie, I don it proudly).

“Can I take a picture for Meredith?”
“Absolutely,” said I, sacrificing none of my panache.
(His head was still shaking as I played my next hand).

Mostly though, we just hung out. As one. Father and son.  Together.

We left early Tuesday, for our long trips home. He up to Westchester, me back to C-town. Both of us to the “real world”.

It’s not true, Dad — what the marketing guys say. A lifetime after our last trip…a week after leaving Michael, I know better:

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas … it stays in the heart … forever.

All my love,

Your Heir Apparent

       “…Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
       Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel …”

(Polonius to Laertes, in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”)

I have a slew of compatriots —core friends. Through the years each has shared with me life’s blood, sweat and tears. Indeed, I am better for it. Still, while I “cut my teeth” with Stuart and Alan and Walt and Kraut and, and, and… my friend Bobby, celebrating a birthday today, stands unique, and special. To borrow a phrase from Seinfeld’s good friend George Costanza (“The Jacket”, original airdate 2/6/91): “Can I say one thing to you? And I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality….”:

I simply love this man.

(And why shouldn’t I?).

In all the years, through incredible laughter and intermittent tears, through sometimes parallel bumps on our journeys, there has never been a time I couldn’t describe my friendship with him in two specific words: Joy…Loyalty.

How can I not think of the times we’ve had— the times we still share — and chuckle, well up … and just plain old smile!

I’m not alone.

One friend readily recalls watching Bob at a Chagrin Falls restaurant flirting away with a young lady near him — only to learn that indeed she was with her father. Another regales at the time Bobby, at another eatery, sent his food back because vegetables had brushed against his burger.

Yet another tells the tale of being in the Caribbean with Bobby, who had for some reason run out of SPF40. As the only inventory available was bottled lotion, Bob unabashedly cajoled his friend to rub the gook across Bob’s body. (Ed. Note 1: Never let it be said our friend wasn’t “comfortable in his own skin”).

Me? Images conjure still of so many of his hijinks, from the Bexley ballfields to the Rowland halls, from the days of elevator passes at Greenview through my nerd years at Brush … from R.E.N. to A.Z.A. to SAM… from marriages through divorces to our remarriages and rebirths … from radio days downtown to cinema days uptown …through communing at reunions to the NOW — even now: Wednesday mornings in the back booth at Corky’s.

(Ed. Note 2: Could I fill a tome with my Bobby stories alone? Of course. The downside, however, would be that not unlike JFK’s autopsy, formal publication would be held up ‘til some fifty years after he’s gone).

Fun stuff, it was…. no doubt. Still, when I reached out recently to those who’ve known him longest, what ran consistently through the thread of comments received was, as Linda so aptly put it, NOT his “killer” smile or his personality nor even his decades-long appreciation for beauty. It was, rather, as so aptly noted, his childlike sense of “joy and wonder”.

Among the luckiest of his friends were Stuart, Alan and I. “The Big Four”, we called our foursome in our halcyon days. (Ed. Note 3: The natural inner nexus was Bob with Stu and Alan with me. The first two chased women; Wied and I chased ground balls).

Sixty years ago we bonded, give or take. Resounding as the frolic of our association has been, however, it has always, through near six decades, been trumped by the purity of our friendship.  Laugh all we want about times with the Birthday Boy, (who since Dick Clark’s 2012 demise has been the World’s Oldest Teenager), but it is those poignant moments we hold dearest.

Well Alan recalls our buddy rallying him one day at a Sandusky hospital. Stuart echoes the theme with further tales of Bob’s tender side, as do I. We know that whenever that proverbial bell has run, our friend’s been there.

Always.

Yes, I’m among the lucky ones. Linda went steady with him for maybe a week or two “in the day”. (He was the “it” boy, she reminded). Others have joined him for business or golf or softball or whatever.

I’ve walked through life with him. He’s been at my peaks; he’s stayed through my valleys.

Always.

Happy Birthday, Brother Bob. I love you.

—And AGAIN: “I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality….”.

How can I measure my place in life’s journey? Perhaps by the rhythm of each New Year’s Eve.

In the 50’s we’d stay up late, H and I — special treat that it was to watch Jack Paar at Grandma’s. (Ed. Note 1: Not so much to view the show, mind you, but rather for the bragging rights of SAYING we saw it). By the 70’s, both married, of course, first minutes each year were spent calling our parents — and Grandma. Even into the 90’s. Indeed, even then…teasing middle age, we were blessed with calls to make: our mother, Harriet, and the successor to Grandma’s rotary phone: Aunt Helen.

It would stay that way for nearly a quarter century. Emancipated children called us … our Mom went south … but our calls: to our matriarchal clan … continued.

New Year’s Eve, 2016: no pomp, but rhythmic circumstance:

On the outside I went to a meeting, played gin with my wife, and watched “Blue Bloods”.

But inside, I thought, relived, and bid adieu to twelve more months, yet another series of examples whereby God closes doors, but opens windows. So…. while we said Goodbye to Uncle “Mush” and Aunt Helen, many reasons there were (big and small) to smile and be grateful.

There were hits and misses: two shows on stage, one show directed, one stunning rejection.

And things lost and found: Still looking for Cousin Hindy’s coat, but alas, DID discover the world’s greatest cheeseburger at The Mahogany Restaurant off the lobby of the Mountaineer Casino!

And sleeping around: from beds in Chappaqua and Great Neck, New York to a bed in Deerfield, Illinois— not to mention sleeps in Pittsburgh, Columbus, Boca….and a fold-out couch in University Heights, Ohio—

It was, moreover:

The year some unknown woman approached me at Kraut’s daughter’s wedding asking if I was related to Michael— that she’d gone out with him at Ohio State years ago— and we looked alike. (I wonder if he was mortified).

The year that Letterman signed off;
That Stuart and I went to the wrong wake;
And that our Mom’s third husband passed. (Hold the applause).

More importantly however, it was the year Rabbi Mandel joined us in matrimony…

And the year two of my children asked ME for extra one-on-one time—

And the year I saw Max and Eli prance, Lucy dance, and (drum roll) that we all welcomed a wondrous Ruby Emma!

I struggled last night to stay up till the ball dropped. By eleven Michael’d checked in, as had Stacy. My brother had texted good night.

“I’m going to wake you at midnight,” my bride told me. (It was 11:45).

She did, of course, and we kissed for the New Year. And then… be it sentimental or plain denial …but I went to the kitchen and phoned my Aunt Helen.

It was a call I knew she couldn’t answer, but a call that I well had to make.