Not Just 4 Joy

Jeff.

I don’t remember my first memory of you.  One day we were kids, and you were just there, and part of my life, much like you disappeared from it, probably 15 years later.  It makes me sad that we did not remain in each other’s lives as adults.  I was glad when I started hearing that you were back in the area, and proud of you when I heard how hard you were working, how much you loved your daughter, and that you did your best to be a good dad.

My first memories of you were of a rambunctious, curly haired boy, with mischievous eyes and a quick smile.  Maybe something of a temper, sometimes, but a loyal friend, and a lot of fun to be around.  I will never forget the time that I was protesting having to make macaroni and cheese from scratch, again!, from ‘healthy’ ingredients, because what I really wanted was the yellow macaroni and cheese in a box, like they showed on the TV commercials.  I decided that I would use food coloring to make mine yellow, so I could at least pretend.  Finished, it was probably 8 quarts of macaroni and cheese, so I used a lot of yellow.  I wanted it to be already done by the time my mom saw it, because I knew she was going to bust me for it.  I hoped that if it was the right kind of darkish yellow, she’d appreciate it, instead, understand my point, and buy the boxed stuff. 

There are a lot of things you can know in your early teens.  I knew for sure my mom would probably lose it over the color of the macaroni and cheese, and I was willing to take that chance, but one thing I knew nothing about was food coloring.  I think there’s a pretty strong argument, here, to be made for the fact that your brain is not fully developed, or running on all cylinders, at this age.  Anyway, it turns out that yellow is a pretty intense color, and macaroni with cheese sauce (the delicious kind, made with whatever flavor of cheese that was that came from the ‘government’ in the early 1980’s) is not that difficult to turn yellow.  Really yellow.

I ended up with a giant pot full of bright yellow macaroni and cheese, and I knew everyone would notice, so I panicked, and in an effort to darken it up a bit, I looked for the darkest color in the box, and added some blue.  Enough to turn it a disgusting shade of green, with streaks, because, as it got cooler, the color didn’t blend as smoothly. Then, mom came through the houseful of hungry humans, mostly kids, to see what the holdup was, and discovered me in the kitchen, frantically trying to figure something out. 

Since there were so many of us living there at the time, the kids doubled up on chores, and Jeff was my ‘teammate’ that night.  He overheard her predicting what would happen if the macaroni and cheese went uneaten, and I just knew I was toast.  The youngest kids always liked me, but the ones my age (who ate the most) generally thought of me as a goody-two-shoes, holier-than-thou, snooty, teacher’s-pet, or (insert other, less-charitable descriptor).  I have been told this a number of times on this side of things, as we have gotten older, perspectives have changed, and people actually got to know me. Sometimes, people change. At least a litte.  At any rate, by the time Jeff and I were in our teens, most of our peers tended to either ignore or bully me, and home was no exception.

Facing some of my biggest bullies, I was not optimistic at dinner that night, because mob mentality tends to rule, especially with kids, and I figured they’d refuse to eat it, just because it was me.  When I put out the pan of macaroni and cheese, and the grumbling started, I knew it was all over.  Jeff was a ‘cool kid’, and we were friends, but I was shocked when he ‘put it on the line’ for me.  While giving the other kids a hard time, he reached in and dished himself up a big serving of vaguely moldy-looking greenish-blue macaroni and cheese, then proceeded to sit down and wait for everyone else to do the same. They did.  I had to clean all the dishes and the entire kitchen by myself that night, but that was my only punishment, thanks to Jeff.

I remember, once when we were younger, we all lived in a house out by North Beach.  It was sparsely populated, and houses were few and far between, for the most part, but Port Townsend had been ‘discovered’, and the ‘housing boom’ which has never really stopped, since, had started, so there was almost always a new house going in somewhere in the ‘neighborhood’, and usually no neighbors close enough to see kids climbing beams and jumping out of windows.  Have I mentioned how stupid kids can be?  It’s not deliberate, their brains just aren’t connected yet.   Not to mention that sometimes, some of the stupidest things are the most fun.

It was a warm summer evening, we were probably eight or nine, and we had permission to go for a bike ride, as long as we were home by 7.  This ‘bike ride’ we were planning was all the way to the latest construction area, a few blocks away, and we had about 25 minutes.  We started down the hill on our bikes, pedaling to gain speed, and he asked me what time it was.  I looked at my watch to see, because I was the only one with a watch, and because you definitely did NOT want to come in late at our house. 

As I focused on my watch, I failed to notice I was heading toward a log in our neighbors yard.  It was half buried, and there were two of them laid out end to end as a barrier, to keep people from driving into their yard.  I do not recall a thing after looking at my watch, because I hit the end of the log at full speed, then the bike and I went flying, end over end, and landed on the ground on opposite sides of the log.  The bike got some scrapes, but I was undamaged, aside from being knocked out cold. 

The next thing I remember is looking up at Jeff, who was frantically telling me to get up.  He was so grateful when I sat up – he didn’t want to have to go get a grownup, but said that it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.  He was pretty impressed. (As a ‘grown-up’, now, of 56, I am horrified by some of the choices we made back then.) We got back on our bikes and proceeded down the hill, but I was kind of wobbly, and going slow, and since we would only have had a few minutes to play, anyway, we came back home.  We never did tell anyone about it, so I wouldn’t get in trouble for damaging the bike.

We had other fun times, but these are the two memories that stand out most in my head.  Jeff has gone on now, moved along to whatever comes next.  Let’s face it, nobody who is here knows for sure what that is.  I believe it is a meeting with the Creator, and hopefully heaven, but we all believe what we believe.  Jeff is my beloved brother, no matter the distance between us.  I hope that he is at peace, and I am grateful for his time in my life, and all the miles we covered on bike rides, and hours spent climbing trees.  Card games, penny-ante poker, board games, and general fun and mischief. Before video games, cell phones, 24-hour television, and the internet. Laughter and life, when times were simpler. 

Hug your loved ones, friends.  Learn lessons from those around you when you can, and never be afraid to start over, or change course.  Live your life with honor, love, and gratitude, bring blessings wherever you go, and carry your loved ones in your heart. Do your best to make the world a better place in their memory.

Joy