Baby

This has been a rough few weeks. I spoke to my mom about it and she said it was the result of an eclipse. My mother is tracking astrology pretty closely even though she knows it conflicts with her Episcopal faith.

On Sunday John Bumpus died. He was my brother's friend from high school. He was also my friend although I'd lost track of him and hadn't seen him in probably 20 years. He was a big, red headed, freckled face, unattractive kid. Life is never kind to people who look like John. It's just a fact.

Somehow John made it into the inner circle of a group of boys that ran Weston High School in Weston, Massachusetts. My brother made it in too even though he was new to the school as a freshman. I moved in as a senior and was not happy. I couldn't stand most of the kids in my class so I hung out with my brother's friends.

Everybody called John Baby. I think it was a reference to a dinosaur movie, to how big John was. I can't remember. To me, John was a sweet, polite kid. He was quiet but had a big grin. Mainly I remember this sort of chivalrous air about him at least when it came to me.

These boys, my brother's friends, were not particularly chivalrous or polite. But there was no need for them to be. They were all wealthy, attractive, funny, crazy, boozy - like a modern day Rat Pack.

Because my blog seems to be nosediving into sadness, I've decided to remember some of the funny stories from those days and remember John and the boys of Weston High School fondly.

Helen Keller
Helen Keller is my nickname from Weston. I earned that name after another night of drinking at the Piccadilly Filly in Harvard Square. The details are fuzzy but I know someone had to drive me home because I was incapable. Peter Alphas and I think Baby were in another car yelling something to me and all I could do was raise my hand and "sign" something. I don't know sign language. I was pretending to sign something. From that point on, I was Helen.

The Steak
Another of my brother's friends, Rich Strachan, was a very big boy and a very big drinker. His family has a house in the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport. Maybe Rich took some lessons from Teddy.
At any rate, the story goes that one night Rich was eating a steak and another kid, Greg Blatt tried to steal a bite. Rich stabbed Greg in the stomach with a steak knife. Just a flesh wound apparently but a vivid lesson in not stealing steak from Rich. Rich was also the kid that rolled out of second story window of our house and flew past the kitchen window. I thought he was the world's largest bird until I went outside and saw him lying in the dirt in our front yard. After a minute or so, he woke up and went back to whatever it was he was doing. N.B. Greg Blatt is now General Counsel to Barry Diller. I bet he tells that "steak knife" story during poker games with Barry and Diane VF.

Evidence
My parents were gone all the time when we were in Weston. I'm not sure where they were going. But they would leave us for long periods of time with only me to supervise the house. So my brother would have these huge parties. I would've had a party but I didn't have any friends. My old friends from my last high school (Staples HS, Westport, CT) came up occasionally. On Sundays my brother and I, mainly I, spent the day cleaning up the house for the rents. We'd return the kegs, pick up cigarette butts, wash the dishes. We thought we did a pretty good job. It wasn't until we were adults that our parents told us they'd known all along about the parties. The most obvious clue was the kitchen floor was so sticky with beer residue their shoes would squeak when they walked. Also their friends and our neighbors would tell them. That's how oblivious you are in high school. We were thinking we'd have these huge parties and the neighbors wouldn't say anything to our parents. Idiots.

Campion Center
Because Weston is a small town and pretty much everyone was rich, there aren't a lot of jobs for kids. I needed a job to buy gas to get back and forth from Weston to Westport, CT where I was going every weekend to see my friends. I took a job at the Campion Center, a nursing home for Jesuit priests. Oddly many of those priests were from Fairfield University in the town where I now live. I won't go into all the details because some of them horrify me to this day but there were some funny stories.

I was pushing one of the Fathers to dinner in a wheelchair and his foot dropped to the floor. He just tumbled out of the chair in slow motion like Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett Show. He wasn't hurt but it was another Tim Conway bit to get him back in the chair.

Father Hegarty kept liquor in a pickle jar in his closet. There was a terrible smell coming from that jar. Trying to hide liquor in a pickle jar was like my brother and I trying to hide beer spillage in our kitchen.

Father Eberle was a tall, gentle man. He'd lived in Jamaica most of his adult life. I always wondered how you get stationed in Jamaica as a priest. Anyway, Father Eberle had Alzheimer's and everyday he greeted me with a smile and introduced himself. He wanted to know who the new girl was. As I got older and saw what Alzheimer's can become, I realized how fortunate Father Eberle was to experience every day as a new day and to face the day with a smile. Maybe that's what you learn living most of your life in Jamaica.

Goodbye John "Baby" Bumpus.