Dave

May 19, 2024July 27, 2024 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ 6 Comments

That’s my friend Dave Szymanski. He died Tuesday, May 14th. RIP my brother. We laughed so much that now just laughing at all often makes me think of him. We were going to get together when we both turned seventy and sing “Bookends” on some park bench. No kidding; it was part of the plan. We wanted to belt out to whatever audience was out walking their dog, “How terribly strange to be seventy!” Well, that won’t happen. Still, I am absolutely certain if I make it that far I’ll most definitely do just that, but alone, crying, laughing. I have so many stories about Dave you’d think we were twins. But those are mine now–Dave and I agreed to have joint custody of the stories of those times, but since he is gone now, I’m assuming full ownership. Unfortunately, they fall squarely under the category of “You had to be there,” so there’s no point in sharing them.

This is not likely to go where you believe it might go.

I’ve been thinking about what I can best call the start of some independent consciousness–that is, the time when I was first aware I was a growing, independent thinker/dreamer, mentally unattached to others, my thinking not entirely tethered to parents or siblings or teachers. I guess I was in what we then called Junior High, now Middle School, and at thirteen or fourteen years old life was still idyllic. That’s the point I think I started to think of myself as an individual. I have no idea if that is late, early, or disturbed. We lived near the Great South Bay next to a State Park and an arboretum, a golf club, and I was surrounded by friends in the village of Great River. I have memories before that, and possibly even dreams, which at that time were to either be an astronaut (Apollo 11) or play baseball during the summer (Miracle Mets) and be an ice cream man in Florida during the winter. But those were the “in the immediate” aspects of life; that is, things you thought about and said to friends but then forgot nearly instantly. But realism crept into my view somewhere around seventh grade when more realistic plans surfaced, like sailing around the world or riding my bike across the country, or being a musician or a writer or a tennis pro. All seemingly real plans at the time; those things which you no longer imagine and pretend but which you pursue, even if fruitlessly and without much talent.

No one save his family knew Dave was sick, so most of us didn’t have the chance to take the time to reminisce. It’s important; we always say, “Tell people how much you care about them because you never know if they’ll be around next week,” but we rarely follow through. We know it is true, and we know it is real, but we just don’t. But if we really did know it was the last time we might talk, the last chance to say something, like how much you appreciate the long conversations in the radio station at five in the morning, you picking out albums, him tearing UPI articles for the news; or how the three am pancake house runs were more important than final exams; or how the weekly texts through the next forty years kept you going, you’d tell him. Listen: Please, make sure if something happens and you know you’re going to be checking out, do not keep it a secret; some of us have a few things to say.

Anyway.

A few days ago someone asked me for my favorite picture of Dave. I went searching deep both on and offline, but I do not have many at all since back when we spent a lot of time together we rarely walked around with a camera and film. But I looked, all the while sifting through tons of other photos of the scattered years throughout my life, and at some point I stopped and simply sat remembering, and I realized something close to lifesaving during an otherwise heartbreaking week: What an amazing ride this has been so far.

I’ve mostly taken the paths of least resistance, I must admit, but apparently someone was up ahead clearing it for me, because it’s been outrageously fortunate. And I finally figured out what the pictures are for. Not only to reminisce, but to remind myself when I get lethargic or depressed, lonely, or tired, that I’m still walking this brilliant Camino, and to remind me of the words of Virgil when he wrote that Death twitched his ear and whispered, “Live….I’m coming.”

Not knowing when someone is going to die, or even that they are sick, is a cold reminder that we don’t know when we’re going to die, or when we might fall ill, and the truth is we just might have a few things to say to those we will leave behind. Speak now or forever…

I normally try to not write too directly only about myself, choosing instead for a digression into some common ground. But not this time. Honestly, this one is for me. Just a few findings from the journey so far:

Sandy. My best friend forty-five years ago.

My yellow house in Oakdale, MA. I lived for a few years on the first floor/basement behind the hill. The water is the Wachusett Reservoir, and up the road to the right was an apple mill, then up the mountain to the ski slopes, Princeton, Massachusetts. I loved it there and never should have left. 100 years earlier the house was a fish market.

My siblings and me (in the middle) in Massapequa Park on Long Island, where we lived from just after I was born until I was nine. It was a great place to be; Dad worked his tail off so we had great childhoods. My siblings are two of my five heroes.

My friend Michele during high school. One day I borrowed Dad’s car to go to Michele’s for “about an hour.” Instead, we drove to the end of Knott’s Island on the Carolina border, drove onto the ferry, and headed down the coast of the Outer Banks. Neither one of us wanted to turn around. If we hadn’t we might well still be driving.

In Senegal where I spent some time before headed somewhere else in Africa. A few months earlier my life had completely changed, so I decided to change it further and ended up there. My college friend Claire and me with a village jeweler on the left. We had no clue who the dude on the right was. He just jumped in the picture.

I lived in this cabin in northern Norway for March of 1995 with my colleague Joe and American teacher/writer John Slade while we taught at the Bodo Graduate School of Business. We filleted cod caught by our seventy-five year old neighbor, Magnus. A Russian guitarist, Max, and I spent evenings in the cabin dueling folk tunes from the US and Russia. One night I fell through the ice on a lake but only to my ankles. Another we felt we had to duck from the swirling bands of the Northern Lights. Another we chased moose up a hill. Other stories for another time.

This old guitar saved my life. Coffeehouses kept me from falling through some proverbial ice during those years. And what stories from those gigs, like the time when 150 people sat to watch us play and at one point we opened the curtains behind me (there’s an Olympic size swimming pool on the other side of the windows) at the exact time a swimmer climbed out of the pool and his suit had slipped to his knees. We all waved. He dove back in the pool.

The Great River house my father had built and where we lived until moving to Virginia in ’75. When people ask where I’m from it is a difficult question to answer, but as I get older I say “Great River” and it is listed that way on my FB page. I live in Virginia. But I’m from Great River. Hard to explain.

My advisor and mentor, Pete Barrecchia. He was one of the true journalists of this country and the source of my first and greatest writing lesson. When someone in editorial writing class complained about not knowing how to start and where to put in the research and on and on and on, he put down his cigarette, grimaced, and said, “Oh just write the fucking thing.” It worked.

One of my escapes during college; Letchworth State Park. My escapes were either music or nature. Sometimes just the smoke-filled art studio beneath a dorm on the other side of campus. But escape was always important for me. Hard to explain.

My boss in the mid-eighties. One of the finest humans I’ve ever known. Yes, that’s him.

My Great Uncle Charlie Kunzinger and Aunt Jane. Time note: He fought in WW1 in France, and when I was a freshman in college at St Bonaventure, he was still writing me letters and sending poetry.

Mike Bonnano and Kermit when idealism was still okay to sing about, and where no one cared how bad you were.

My friend Tim O’Brien who most know for his prose writing but few know is an extremely accomplished magician. True story.

Michael and me in mountains of eastern Quebec many years ago. We’ve been literally around the world since then, and we’re still going. With apologies to Maya Angelou, “I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.”

Call someone. Tell them something. Anything. Forgive them. Ask them to forgive you. Tell them you’re sorry you didn’t answer the phone that last time they called and said they felt like talking. You planned to call them back but just didn’t “feel” like it yet. Now you can’t. Go ahead, call someone and say you wish you were as good a friend to them as they have been to you. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s only life, you know. That’s all.

It’s only life.

I Can Breathe in a Small Town

May 9, 2024May 9, 2024 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ Leave a comment

My brakes went and my mower broke this week. I’m not mechanically inclined.

I drove the car to a mechanic two miles from Aerie and asked him to check it out. He said it was a full brake job from calipers to pads, but he could do it the next day, and while his rates were higher than I was hoping to dish out for something I can’t even see (though I could hear them well enough), they were still lower than anyone else I called to compare. And I know Scott; he’s reliable, dependable, and has a reputation for being very fair. Plus I can walk home from there past cows and sometimes even turkeys.

While I was there the first of those two very recent days, I asked him about small engine repair since the two shops I’ve used in the past have since closed, and my own attempts to fix the engine did not pan out, despite watching several YouTube videos (though admittedly, one thing lead to another and I spent a few hours watching Taylor Swift songs and Family Feud clips).

So I asked, and Scott recommended Kelly Slaughter in the village. Cool.

I spent the better part of the past thirty years working in the city of Virginia Beach with its half a million residents. But throughout my adult life, I’ve always managed to live where I knew everyone and people knew me. In Massachusetts it was a fine 100-year-old house in a small hamlet on a reservoir. In Pennsylvania it was a farmhouse three centuries old with push out lead windows and farms everywhere. Here at Aerie, if I don’t know someone in town, they certainly know my son. There is something safe in this life, something reliable. I love traveling, headed out to Ireland, Prague, the Gulf Coast of Florida or the hills of western New York, but I know I can come home and settle right back into life on the bay.

I couldn’t find Kelly listed so I stopped at a shop known as “The Man Cave,” with deep hallways and rooms, alcoves, and endless piles of yard sale type items. This is the place where you can find virtually anything, but you have to climb and sift, move aside, and dust off. Fred is a man of about eighty and he sat in the front room in his chair and welcomed me to his world.

“Hey Fred. I need a mower. I’m going to find Kelly Slaughter to fix mine, but I saw the one out front and wonder how much it is?”

“Kelly! Kelly and I been close friends since we were young. I’m sorry to tell you but he’s not doing well. Thirty bucks and it’ll start right up. Already filled with gas.” This all in one sentence. Fred and I talked a bit. I told him I had to head to 711 to get money from the ATM and he gave me an envelope and said, “Well, I’m leaving so just put the money in here and slide it through the door next time you get a chance.”

I loaded the mower (which did start right up) and told him I’d have paid someone twice that to mow the property just once, so this is a great deal. “You’ll get a few seasons out of this anyway,” he assured me. “711 huh? That puts me in mind for a few slices of pizza. I might stop there myself.”

I took the money out of the ATM and bought Fred a few slices of pizza and paid him for the mower, went home and cut the grass after a month of outrageous growth.

Then back to Scott’s to drop off the car.

“I felt a slight shimmy earlier when I accelerated,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered, not feeling the need to expand. Scott’s good.

“I have transmission flutter stuff; should get rid of that. Car will be ready tomorrow about lunch.”

On the way home I walked by a ranch with close to a hundred head of cattle. It’s one of my favorite properties around here, and I stopped and talked to the cows a while. An eagle—very late for his trip north before all the osprey return and reclaim their nests—settled in the yellow field for a rest then headed out toward the river.

The next day at lunch I picked up the car and went to 711 to fill up with gas, where I ran into Wayne. “I hear Fred sold you a mower.”

“He did, and I already mowed the entire property, including the field and the northern yard.”

“Hell, Bob, you would’ve had to pay someone twice that at least just to mow it once.”

“Exactly.”

Bubba came out of the store headed to his new job in the next county. “How’s that new mower Fred sold you?”

“Good. I still need to get the old one fixed though.”

“You try Kelly Slaughter? I used to see him parked at the end of his driveway waiting for the mail each day. Haven’t in a bit though.”

“Kelly’s not well anymore and Fred said most likely not going to improve.”

“Oh too bad. I always liked Kelly. There’s a shop in Mathews. Another in White Stone. Or you can watch a few videos and do it yourself.”

I went home and put some old tomatoes out for the fox and filled the birdbaths for the deer. Then I decided they are right; I can absolutely fix the mower myself. So I sat once more at my desk and scanned YouTube for mower-repair videos. Turns out there are even videos for my specific brand and model.

I must have spent an hour watching. You know, I wasn’t crazy about Steve Harvey as host at first, but he grew on me, and I like how he keeps the show moving. And Taylor, well, I like “All Too Well,” of course; I mean, who doesn’t. But that one line from “Anti-Hero” keeps cycling in my mind: “Hi. It’s me. I’m the problem it’s me.”

Cathy Kunzinger Urwin, Ph.D.

March 24, 2024March 24, 2024 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ 1 Comment

Today my sister turns seventy-years-old.

Let’s start with this: My sister should be dead. Some years ago Cathy was diagnosed with aggressive stage four ovarian cancer. She had to undergo treatments in Philadelphia, knowing the odds of surviving even for just a couple of years were slim. She continued to work daily in Princeton, New Jersey, forty-five minutes from home, and she battled the monster. To the point: If you know anything about my sister, you know that ovarian cancer, even stage four, didn’t stand a chance. That was more than ten years ago, and not only did she defeat the cancer, not long ago she was told she is completely cancer-free and doesn’t need to return.

First picture ever of the three of us with Mom, Point Lookout, NY, 1960

Of course. That’s Cathy. One of my heroes.

I thought about telling “Cathy stories” here, like how she got my copy of the then-brand-new Let it Be album by trading me a Bobby Sherman album. Or how she let me use her guitar all I wanted. Or how she sent me care packages, made me ceramics like a seagull mug and another of a seagull standing on one wing, a beautiful rug she made of a seascape, and a pillow she made of Fozzie the Bear. How she introduced me to the music of John Denver which carried me through some difficult nights as I went out on my own, and how she sent me a plaque she made with the lyrics to John Denver’s “The Eagle and the Hawk.”

Cathy and Fred holding up their chubby brother

She doesn’t recall but I do how during the Watergate fiasco, my history-major sister quizzed me relentlessly in who the primary players were at the hearings. I was thirteen and she was in college, so I didn’t really see her too much after I turned twelve. But I ended up at the same college some years later to discover she had left a mark at our alma mater, graduating seven years before I did, but her former professors knew who I was because of her. I let them know quickly I was not my sister; an always straight A student who excelled in her studies, particularly in history, eventually earning her doctorate at Notre Dame where she met her loving and devoted husband, Greg.

I’m not going to provide details of the myriad times she ended up being the butt of my jokes and those of our brother Fred. I will say she is such a fine cook and baker that her food should be in restaurants, she is an excellent writer of both history and other subjects, authoring the fine and definitive book Agenda for Reform, about Winthrop Rockefeller. I’ll not embarrass my sister with stories of her dancing to the “Hokie Pokey” at a resort in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, or bring up the complete drenching she received on the Roman River Rapids ride at Busch Gardens in Virginia, where she apparently didn’t know she’d get wet, to which her son replied, “Ma! It’s Roman River Rapids! What did you think was going to happen!”

I’m going to save the story of calling her one August day in 1988 just seconds after she received beautiful news that would change her life; how she became a committed and loving mother; a passionate grandmother, which only deepened her love for her husband and the rest of our family.

There are too many details necessary to explain the time I finished a reading at a major conference and afterwards a woman approached me and asked if I was related to Cathy Kunzinger Urwin. When I told her, she said, “I’m with the Winthrop Rockefeller Center in Arkansas and we’ve been trying to reach her! Her book Agenda for Reform is the best work written about Rockefeller and the work he did, and we want to invite her to a symposium.” I was never so proud of my big sister, and I really don’t remember much about the rest of that three day conference, but I remember that.

The three of us at the World’s Fair, Flushing, NY

And I’m going to keep to myself the history we’ve shared not solely as brother and sister but as friends. And readers do not need to be reminded of what it means to have an older sister; how she is counselor, surrogate mother, teacher, patient audience, how she teaches scared younger brothers how to care about others, how to show compassion, how to think of others first. Few people with an older sister don’t already know she is a security net for the most challenging of emotional events, how she listens, how she is tolerant.

“Life is paper thin,” my friend Toni Wynn once wrote. Sometimes we all take each other for granted, forget to check in, see how life has been treating us. On the one hand we might talk often enough to know our sisters are there if we feel like calling. On the other, we don’t let them know nearly enough, not nearly enough, how much they mean to us.

Happy Birthday Cathy.