Nothing bad or sordid can be said about Mike. He was the most gentle and kindest of men, inspiring my life in a multiple of ways.
I loved him and was in love with him because he understood me. He whistled in the morning as he made breakfast for whomever was in his home at the moment. His whistling was clear, strong and always cheerful. I write that I was in love with him but he was also peers and had been friends with my parents, and thus, nothing ever transpired between us. Everyone thought we were intimate including his ex-wife but we never were. I was old-fashioned and Mike understood this quality about me. When his kids wanted to go out club hopping I preferred to stay at home with him watching old classic films. He would laugh at me when we watched films together because invariably I would notice a lamp or something else as trivial in the background of a scene and he would laugh and say: This is the best scene in the film and you focus on the lamp! He knew all of the old movie stars by name and I learned those names as we sat and watched those black and whites. He had endless stories to tell as well. Funny stories about various jobs he had had in his life. Once he worked, I think, in an ice cream place where he and another guy had to load stuff in a freezer all day long. Every time his co-worker had to go into the freezer he would have a cup of coffee to warm up. He drank so many cups of coffee one day the guy passed out and had to be taken to the hospital. One time I introduced my friend Paul to Mike and Mike sang the song, Danny Boy, and my friend began to cry. Paul had always thought of that song as racist somehow and he had never heard is sung with such despondency and melancholia. He still talks about Mike having sung that song all those years ago as a unforgettable moment in his life.
Mike had been a school teacher up in the Bronx and I remember vividly asking him on the day he retired if he was going to miss teaching. He said: Fuck no! He had been assigned, I assume, to a school with kids that really didn't appreciate the fact that he was a wealth of literary information. Mike could recite Shakespeare, The Iliad, and a host of other classics. In his younger days, If I remember correctly, he did some acting and became close friends with the late, Wally Cox.
My family and Mike's came out of The Dyckman Housing projects, in Inwood, NYC. These projects at the time were fully integrated with everyone having an up and coming family that saw our stay their as temporary. Most of us attended private schools and these projects were home to many aspiring and budding families: The Devyatkin's, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Bishop. The McKenna's were our upstairs neighbours in the same apartment one floor up. Everyone was having kids at the same time and most of us kids played together, attended school together and went on to become lifelong friends.
As I got older it seemed everyone in the world knew The McKenna's. Once I was in a line to buy ice cream in Ashland, Oregon and I was speaking to my friend about about the McKenna's and a guy in line overheard me and came over to declare that he had gone to school with one of The McKenna kids. Another time I was in a bar having just developed some pictures which I was showing to my date. He suddenly exclaimed that he knew the people in the pictures (The McKenna's). He had not seen one of the members of the family since art school and he was eager to become reacquainted. One Mike told me of being somewhere in europe waiting outside a cathedral or museum and running into a friend of one of his children. The McKenna's were like that. They had friends far and wide and attracted people like a magnet.
Each one of Mike's four children were unique, smart, extremely talented and funny. Some were world sailors, another worked in archaeology doing many a dig in Europe. and another ran a library system at Bennington college and all of this, with the exception of one, without the benefit of a high school diploma. They had had the most knowledgeable of parents and had sat at their knees and absorbed all there was to absorb.
And then one of Mike's children went missing at sea. We sat in his kitchen stuffing envelopes with missing flyers and and placed hope against hope that M would be found. He never was. I once asked Mike if he was afraid of dying and he said he wasn't afraid of anything since M disappeared. And then years later another of his children died and when I saw him he looked frail and crushed. I can't imagine what it must feel like to lose one child but to lose two seems too cruel to imagine. I felt for him and that phrase seems all too lame. If I could have crawled inside him and removed the pain I would have. For someone so humble, kind and generous this seemed an especially nasty punch to receive.
Through terrible unfortunate circumstance for which I was partly to blame for I lost contact with Mike but there was never a day that I have not thought about him. His granddaughter contacted me to say he had passed. I felt immediate anger that my friendship with him had been taken from us both. I wish I had been there at the end to hold, and talk, soothe and read to him.
But this is life.
If there is a heaven I hope he is whistling and reunited with his two children. I am consoled that he was surrounded by his family when he left. I know they loved him as much as I did.
I loved him and was in love with him because he understood me. He whistled in the morning as he made breakfast for whomever was in his home at the moment. His whistling was clear, strong and always cheerful. I write that I was in love with him but he was also peers and had been friends with my parents, and thus, nothing ever transpired between us. Everyone thought we were intimate including his ex-wife but we never were. I was old-fashioned and Mike understood this quality about me. When his kids wanted to go out club hopping I preferred to stay at home with him watching old classic films. He would laugh at me when we watched films together because invariably I would notice a lamp or something else as trivial in the background of a scene and he would laugh and say: This is the best scene in the film and you focus on the lamp! He knew all of the old movie stars by name and I learned those names as we sat and watched those black and whites. He had endless stories to tell as well. Funny stories about various jobs he had had in his life. Once he worked, I think, in an ice cream place where he and another guy had to load stuff in a freezer all day long. Every time his co-worker had to go into the freezer he would have a cup of coffee to warm up. He drank so many cups of coffee one day the guy passed out and had to be taken to the hospital. One time I introduced my friend Paul to Mike and Mike sang the song, Danny Boy, and my friend began to cry. Paul had always thought of that song as racist somehow and he had never heard is sung with such despondency and melancholia. He still talks about Mike having sung that song all those years ago as a unforgettable moment in his life.
Mike had been a school teacher up in the Bronx and I remember vividly asking him on the day he retired if he was going to miss teaching. He said: Fuck no! He had been assigned, I assume, to a school with kids that really didn't appreciate the fact that he was a wealth of literary information. Mike could recite Shakespeare, The Iliad, and a host of other classics. In his younger days, If I remember correctly, he did some acting and became close friends with the late, Wally Cox.
My family and Mike's came out of The Dyckman Housing projects, in Inwood, NYC. These projects at the time were fully integrated with everyone having an up and coming family that saw our stay their as temporary. Most of us attended private schools and these projects were home to many aspiring and budding families: The Devyatkin's, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Bishop. The McKenna's were our upstairs neighbours in the same apartment one floor up. Everyone was having kids at the same time and most of us kids played together, attended school together and went on to become lifelong friends.
As I got older it seemed everyone in the world knew The McKenna's. Once I was in a line to buy ice cream in Ashland, Oregon and I was speaking to my friend about about the McKenna's and a guy in line overheard me and came over to declare that he had gone to school with one of The McKenna kids. Another time I was in a bar having just developed some pictures which I was showing to my date. He suddenly exclaimed that he knew the people in the pictures (The McKenna's). He had not seen one of the members of the family since art school and he was eager to become reacquainted. One Mike told me of being somewhere in europe waiting outside a cathedral or museum and running into a friend of one of his children. The McKenna's were like that. They had friends far and wide and attracted people like a magnet.
Each one of Mike's four children were unique, smart, extremely talented and funny. Some were world sailors, another worked in archaeology doing many a dig in Europe. and another ran a library system at Bennington college and all of this, with the exception of one, without the benefit of a high school diploma. They had had the most knowledgeable of parents and had sat at their knees and absorbed all there was to absorb.
And then one of Mike's children went missing at sea. We sat in his kitchen stuffing envelopes with missing flyers and and placed hope against hope that M would be found. He never was. I once asked Mike if he was afraid of dying and he said he wasn't afraid of anything since M disappeared. And then years later another of his children died and when I saw him he looked frail and crushed. I can't imagine what it must feel like to lose one child but to lose two seems too cruel to imagine. I felt for him and that phrase seems all too lame. If I could have crawled inside him and removed the pain I would have. For someone so humble, kind and generous this seemed an especially nasty punch to receive.
Through terrible unfortunate circumstance for which I was partly to blame for I lost contact with Mike but there was never a day that I have not thought about him. His granddaughter contacted me to say he had passed. I felt immediate anger that my friendship with him had been taken from us both. I wish I had been there at the end to hold, and talk, soothe and read to him.
But this is life.
If there is a heaven I hope he is whistling and reunited with his two children. I am consoled that he was surrounded by his family when he left. I know they loved him as much as I did.
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