The Aerie
[panorama.jpg]
So I'm stuck in El Paso during the Dog Days of summer. Somehow I think
I could have planned this for a better time of year, but oh well.
[P7210007.jpg] So one minute we were wondering if the project in El
Paso would get signed, and the next thing I knew the last two weeks of
summer were snatched out from beneath my feet at the stroke of a pen.
Gone was a long, leisurely stroll through the State Fair. Away went at
least one barbeque, one trip to the beach, at least. Away witn two
weeks with my kids who I miss terribly.
[P7210038.jpg] In order to shoehorn in a little bit of summer before I
left, we went to the [1]Cottage View drive in, one of the few
remaining Minnesota drive-ins, and one described as being likely to
close after this year.
The drive-in is certainly a strange thing. I take it for granted, just
one of the items on the cultural landscape, but it's interesting to
think of what it represents: [P7210049.jpg] a time when a moving
picture was an event rather than a commodity, and when a car was a
sign of prestige and comfort rather than a kind of tool or an office
on wheels. Well, okay, for some deluded fools, a car still IS a sign
of prestige, as is a hollow suburban mansion or a holiday in the
Hamptons.
[P7210056.jpg] But the confluence of the two
TITLE:the public moving picture (because not everyone had a television
in the home, and NOBODY had a "home movie player"), and the car
TITLE:create this odd thing, the drive-in theater.
Is it any wonder its on the wane? Why go sit in the vehicle where you
commute for two hours daily and watch a movie through a bug-spattered
windshield, when you can watch with phenomenal home sound and video?
The only loss is that you don't mingle with the other patrons. Our
night at the drive-in featured the occupants of the car next to me
toking up during the show. Decades go by, but the smell of burning
weed is still quite distinctive...
[P8080018.jpg] On the way home we travelled up West River Road as we
usually do, slow but calming, even at night. As we rounded a curve
there was an owl, standing in the road in front of us. As we pulled up
it flew up onto a nearby tree. The photo at right was taken completely
blind -- I couldn't actually SEE the owl -- with a very long exposure.
Even then I had to bump the brightness and contrast, so it looks a bit
washed out. As I took several snapshots at different long exposures
(using the car hood as brace), it sounded like the owl was crying out
a few times. Then I turned around and realized that another owl -- its
mate? -- was in the tree behind me.
[P8140043.jpg] Another part of summer is the annual Growing of the
Monarch. In past years we have contented ourselves with one monarch at
a time. But this year, with transplanted milkweeds now
well-established in the garden, we ended up growing two pairs of
monarchs, about three days apart.
[P8170008.jpg] Part of this was our desire to catch the moment of
pupation itself. Past years we've looked, and seen the grown
caterpillar in its "J" shape, and then at next glance it's fully
pupated. This year having four caterpillars allowed us to catch all
the important points. But not without some effort. My spouse
maintained a vigil for three hours one evening, and a couple more in
the morning before calling me in for the big event.
[P8170012.jpg] So we got in a few summertime things before El Paso
loomed up and ate the last part of my summer. I have some El Paso
photos to post, but dinner is calling and this entry is already long
enough. Hopefully I'll post again before two weeks pass, but if I
don't, here's one last shot of the butterfly disappearing, like
summmer, never to be seen again...
[2]Last
Just got back from Steve's Memorial. It went very well, despite being
somewhat hot, cramped and humid. The chapel is a small affair, a squat
domed marble building with an interior covered entirely with
astonishing mosaic.
The service was very simple: Gretchen Thompson, the hospice chaplain
(and alumni of my own First Universalist church) led the service.
"Everybody Hurts" by REM was played, and then those of us privileged
to speak were to do so.
Right before the service started Tanya handed me a poem that Steve had
written in high school and asked if I would read it. It was on a
mimeographed sheet, faded light blue, and full of typos. I had minutes
to prepare. Since Steve was known as and referred to as "Moldy
Ramone," I changed a couple of lines of his high school tribute to the
Rolling Stones into a tribute to the Ramones.
Tim went first, reading a brief piece from behind the pulpit. In order
to differentiate Steve's poem from my own writing, and in keeping with
the spirit of the piece, I began by reading in front of the pulpit.
They've done it to me again, dammit,
But I don't care.
The wrath knows no outlet
like the pummeling of eardrums
under the sweet sound of a wicked song.
My shirt is shed,
a makeshift microphone I clutch
in my clawed fist.
Performing to a mute audience
Gyrating, careening off the wall
Third degree carpet burns on my elbows and knees.
But I don't care!
"Rock rock rock 'n' roll, rock 'n' roll high school"*
Jump, kick, slam!
Potted plants and statuettes
vibrating to the music
Raw vocal cords spilling out
"I'm a teenaged lobotomy!"
Sweat-drenched locks
whipping my eyeballs into dripping redness
One last thrust!
One last valiant, ecstatic-
"Gabba gabba we accept you we accept you one of us!"
I pant, my throat is hot.
My tension is released.
But they want an encore.
*Originally the quoted lines were:
"Please to meet you, won't you guess my name"
"It's only rock and roll, but I like it"
and
"Brown sugar, how come you dance so good?"
Then I walked behind the pulpit and read my own selection.
We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need
to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and
cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone
to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we
might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands
prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.
The poet George Odell.
My name is Bob Alberti and when I met Steve in 1975 I really needed
him, because I had no other friends. My family had moved twice in five
years, from Queens and then from New Jersey to Minnesota, and Steve's
friendship was what helped me survive and grow. (I also had an awful
crush on his sister Connie, but she never knew...)
I joined theater club in high school at Steve's insistence, and I made
many friends including Tim Fay. Because of Steve my time in high
school, and theater club in particular, was where I finally took root
and bloomed.
There were a lot of special moments with Steve, like the time he
snorted a Gummi Bear through his nose at lunch. Yes, Steve, you STILL
haven't lived that one down. Or the time we were tear-gassed at an
Alice Cooper concert, and Steve was so mad that he beat up a car. But
there were other moments, too, like the night in his front yard when
we watched, descending around the entire sky, the most phenomenal
Northern Lights I will ever see. It was a magical moment.
I remember the night I was waiting for Steve when the phone rang.
Driving to pick me up, he had blown not one but BOTH right-side tires
on his car, and slid into a cornfield. He was calling me from the
farmer's own phone. I raced over and picked him up, leaving his car in
the corn for later, and we managed to get to St. Paul on time. When we
met and shook hands with the actor Vincent Price there were still bits
of cornhusk caught in Steve's hair, but he was ecstatic. It was an
exciting moment for him.
Steve and I shared many automotive moments like that. He was with me
when I used a Mazda RX-7 to knock down a telephone pole. And he was in
the car when I spun a Ford Galaxie 500 into the guardrail and stopped,
facing the wrong way in the fast lane of I-94 in downtown St. Paul.
Despite this record, in May he allowed me to drive him, his beloved
spouse, and three friends up to Elk River to see a movie. Climbing
into my car again after those accidents shows the kind of man Steve
was. Yes, he was nuts.
But he was more than that. He was one of those rare friends you can
rely on. He was a man whose integrity was so essential to his nature
as to be almost overlooked. Without trying, he commanded that kind of
integrity in return. Despite the fact that I had twice nearly killed
him, he climbed into my car again. Steve offered me his trust again
and again... and left it up to me whether I would disappoint him.
It goes without saying that we shall all miss Steve. But the challenge
for us is to remember what he taught us so easily and so naturally: to
show friendship towards one another without artifice; to give and
expect integrity from one another; to accept one another; and most of
all to appreciate one another.
The twenty-eight years I shared with Steve, my oldest friend, seem to
have passed in only a moment. Whether we who remain have only a day
more together, or another twenty-eight years, it will all seem the
same in the end, a mere moment in time.
For the sake of our friend Steve, whose moment was all too brief, let
us, who need one another so much, not squander our own moment
together.
_________________________________________________________________
Then others of Steve's friends spoke, and I learned more about Steve
that I had never known. Friends provided Steve's point of view when he
met Tanya... and Tanya's point of view when she met Steve. They played
the Ramones' [1]"Believe in Miracles", and after a final benediction
by Gretchen, bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" began to skirl out of
the speakers... except that after a few bars the screaming guitars cut
in and it turned out to be the [2]Dropkick Murphy's punk version. You
could see the older folk shaking their heads and hobbling a little
quicker to get out the door.
I liked it.
Finally, while looking over the mimeo of Steve's poetry, that Tanya
handed me, I found another poem of his a couple pages further back.
Our family is like the solar system.
Dad is Pluto.
Farthest from the rest, and the coldest.
My brother is Mercury, closest to mother Sun.
My mother Sun.
My elder sister is down to Earth no nonsense, very conventional.
My younger sister, like Venus, is always after the boys.
Mother, dear mother, is the Sun. She keeps us warm and is our light
in the darkness.
Me, I'm Saturn. I'm the oddball of the family.
But I didn't "planet" that way.
Some friends and I have scheduled a night at the local punk-rock
hangout the Triple Rock in order to raise a glass to Steve. And that
will be the final goodbye. And after that Steve will have been well
and truly sent off, and life will go on. Without him.
[3]Last
Well I'm just getting too old for all this.
It's been a hell of a week or so. I spent the first couple days after
Steve died in a serious blue funk, which I suppose is only to be
expected. But of course I didn't know quite what at expect, since I
don't have a hell of a lot of practice with death.
The deaths in my family were quite limited. Before I was old enough to
understand, three of my four grandparents were dead. This is what
happens when one's parents are both the youngest in their families, in
my father's case the youngest of ten.
We'd also lost my Uncle Bob to cancer, but I have no memory of him:
just a vague impression that he was nice and funny, along with a
strong respect for the damage the loss of a father can do to a family.
And amazingly, to me, my aunt never remarried and raised her five kids
alone.
At thirteen my last grandparenT, my paternal grandmother, died. This
was also not traumatic: she had lived with us for three years in New
Jersey, becoming increasingly demented, then lost touch entirely in
the nursing home. We'd moved back to my mother's home state of
Minneapolis and lived there for a year before she died. So my rather
callous 13-years-old response was "Well, finally,"
And then, tho it seems like an odd complaint, nobody in my family died
for DECADES. Two, to be exact.
A few acquaintances died. Penny Kennen, "the girl with the scoliosis
brace" in high school, died of a brain aneurism as a newlywed. She had
been sweet and nice and it sure seemed a bum waste to have had to wear
that stupid brace all that time, then to take it off and die.
My high school mentor died next
TITLE:of the thrice-cursed brain cancer
TITLE:but he was gone before I knew he was ill and I never got to see
him. That one was hard, but mostly for the anger I had about never
getting to say goodbye.
Then my maternal uncle John died. He had been the one to throw the
annual Fourth of July parties, and since then the Fourth has always
lacked its marrow. I go to Professor Barker's now, but of course it's
not the same, not at all.
And then, again, nothing for almost ten years. And now my father, and
Steve, all in seven months. Along with 9/11 and the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, I feel as if the year 2000 rolled around and the
world turned into a hellish plane of misery and death.
So Saturday I've been honored, and I do mean that, with a request to
speak at Steve's memorial.
But what can I say? I hardly know what I feel. It certainly strikes me
as odd to be asked from among so many people who knew and liked him.
I guess I'll do what I usually do when I'm in a bind like this, so far
out of my league. I guess I'll just be straightforward and honest
about my thoughts and feelings.
I guess I'll describe how I've been astonished at how close and caring
his friends are. How their bravery and compassion illuminated the kind
of friend he must have been for them.
And my grief for his wife, siblings, and parents, who deserved so much
more time with him. My deep admiration and respect for their courage
and dedication in supporting him. At my awe for the majestic love they
showed him.
And I won't try to draw a lesson from all this, or justify it as some
step in a Greater Plan. Some things are just bad. Some equations end
in a negative number.
But I will point out that Steve would have been the last person to
tolerate everyone being gloomy. Steve loved a good time, and didn't
really ask the world for more than the occasional good time.
And I suppose I'll point out some small things. The time he snorted
Gummi Bears out his nose. Or the fact that I nearly killed him twice
while driving.
I dunno. It's hard to say what I'll say. Maybe I'll script it out, but
most likely I'll wing it with an outline the day that I'm there.
All I know is I'm not very good at this... and I hope I don't get any
better.
[1]Last