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WEIRD BUDDIES AND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS!
By fred | March 9, 2009
Wow, today started off with a bang, snowing like crazy, and the high temp at 2 PM in the afternoon is 30 degrees. What happened to spring? Did it get lost?
One night this week it is supposed to get down to 14 degrees. With freezing at 32 degrees that is a might cold for your 79 year old buddy. This is in Bellingham, Washington, up near the Canadian boarder where we live, yes we have snow here most each winter, just this year it seems to want to stay all spring.
Every time it gets really cold I wear my U. S. C. heavy sweat shirt my old buddy the Fuzz, (Arnold Fazekas) sent me years ago. A bright yellow with crimson USC letters across the front, it is the warmest, most comfortable thing I have ever owned. So thanks old Fuzz old buddy, each winter I am not an ice cube because of you.
Inasmuch as most of my buddies are old farts, shouldn’t say that, lets say we are “elder citizens” – we don’t exchange gifts anymore. We used to go through the task of buying boxes of candy and cookies each Christmas and then spending a fortune in postage to send them out. Really stupid, expensive and according to Sally my waist does not need em anymore. Sally’s words not mine! I still love all that bad stuff that tastes so super good.
However there is one guy I can’t break of the habit, I should say I am never going to try to break him of the habit. My buddy Eddie Saraffian, every year in the late fall I get a box of twelve of the largest persimmons you have ever seen. To me a persimmon is the fruit of the God’s. Now up here in Bellingham, Washington near the Canadian boarder our markets may or may not have them for a week each year, and they are up to five bucks for the biggest. They have the small ones at Costco by the box, those are O. K. but nothing like the ones they grow in California.
It all started years and years ago when Ed had us as guests in his home for our annual Old Poly Guy Sports luncheon and the following day Poly Alumni luncheon. Brother in law Jack and I have been freeloading as guests of Ed’s for years. Usually for up to a week, although lately only four or five days, last year with Jack’s cancer, the best man at my wedding Hugo Velasquez and Dominic Sacino were there, Hugo and Dominic are two of our lifetime buddies of our Poly High years. Ed Saraffian lost his wife years ago to cancer and once a year we call it the Saraffian Hilton, about as good as it comes, hey where do you find a host that gets up at 5 A. M. and drives to the bakery for fresh coffee cake and bagels?
Eddie has a large old rambling two story house in Brentwood, not very far from the Country Club and the UCLA campus. The guest bedrooms are on the bottom floor with an entry to a large garden filled with fruit trees and Ed’s hobby orchids, he has a large area covered with a net for reducing sun and raises the most beautiful orchids you have ever seen, some are literally breathtaking to look at. BUT, that morning when I opened the door the first thing I saw right next to the house was this huge persimmon tree, the top was almost above the roof of the two story home. When Ed heard that I love em, he took some from the freezer and we had some frozen – they were wonderful – however Eddie has a memory like a steel trap, that fall he sent me a box of fresh persimmons, I could have kissed the guy. He has continued that each year, and yearly I call down the Blessings of the Almighty on his head for it.
A remember about three years ago I got a message that he had to have a gardener come in and trim the tree. It was just too big and when the wind blew it could damage the house. It would take another year to recover and deliver a good crop of persimmons. I remember the disappointed feeling I had when I got that message, but life must go on, a fall with out persimmons would have to be faced, a sad fact of life on this planet. So imagine my shock that November when Sally yelled at me that the postman just dropped off a large box, and she said it came from Eddie.
Twelve huge persimmons were in that box, so I called Ed and asked him what the deal was, that I figured no persimmons this year. He reluctantly admitted that he had gone out and purchased twelve of the largest persimmons he could find and packed them in the box. Said he didn’t want me to cry because I didn’t get my persimmons that year. I don’t even want to think of what that cost Eddie, I know the postage alone is almost $20.00.
Sometimes it is nice to have rich buddies, hey, Ed and the Fuzz made it all themselves, both self made men, no one gave em a thing, I admire that, but having rich buddies like that can be very interesting some times. I am sure that both of them will likely be ready to shoot me when they read this, but if they do, I am sure they will be nice and like the Lone Ranger of yesteryear, use a silver bullet to do it.
So one more story about these two characters that have made my life on his earth fun, exciting and definitely interesting. Many of you will remember about six or seven years ago when Sally was going through Chemo therapy, she had twelve weeks of that. It was no fun, losing her hair, feeling ill most of the time, throwing up, a awful time in her life.
The third week, on Friday of that week, a delivery guy comes to the door with the biggest bunch of flowers you have ever seen, from Fizz Fazekas and his wife Marcia. Then the next Friday another huge bunch of flowers arrive, then the next week, on Friday another huge bouquet of flowers arrives. Now, this all decidedly raised Sally’s spirits, just looking forward to them brightened up her week. HOWEVER, we had several cats then, my invalid son Rick’s kitties and our cat. They loved the flowers also, however they would eat some of the leafs and then barf up on the floor, so we had to put all the flowers in our bedroom and keep the door closed constantly. Soon, after about five weeks, the bedroom was packed with flowers, they seemed to last forever, and Sally sure as heck was not going to throw them out as long as they were so beautiful.
She did say that I better ask Fuzz and Marcia to halt the flowers as much as she loved them cause of the cats and the size of our bedroom, we were running out of space.
I called Fuzz, and explained the problem, I found that he had ordered flowers for the entire time that Sally was to have Chemo, a huge arrangement of flowers to be delivered each Friday – and there was still about five weeks to go. I told Fuzz how much Sally loved em, but that we just couldn’t handle all of the flowers with the cats and all, so could he cancel the order.
The phone got awful quiet, for the longest time, until I finally asked him if he was still there. Finally in a soft, almost defeated voice, Fuzz said, “Fred, I don’t think I know how?”
The next Friday sure as hell the guy arrived with another huge bouquet of flowers that went on every week for five more weeks. It was evident to me that super business man, a top executive, big business owner, a buddy that owned shopping centers all over L. A. and Las Vegas, owned blocks of rental apartments & high rise buildings, flew his own plane all over the country, had a 72 foot power cruiser that cost millions, —–had a problem –— he didn’t know how to stop a flower order. Ha – the problems of the rich and famous, like I said – being a buddy of these guys can be very interesting some times!
I will miss seeing these guys this year, and all our wonderful buddies both the ladies and old teammates and friends – but there are just too many problems here. I am still fighting that damn sleeping machine I have to be hooked up to each night since I flunked the sleep doc’s tests. My heart surgeon says I have to learn to use it as it will halt the likely-hood of a stroke. Then my brother in law Jack, is having a rough time, his throat cancer was a bitch, God willing he will make it. I want to hang around and try to give Sally and his wife Jan a little support. Also we have not been exactly getting rich this year, the stock market stinks, the CD’s are down to nothing in interest, and taking money for a ‘me’ trip doesn’t really make sense now. Anyway, maybe, God willing next year we can make it.
I will miss the luncheons though and I will miss Ed and his wonderful hospitality. Also I love the guy’s memories for those distant days; seems their memories are often sprinkled with fairy dust. Seems they remember stuff in a more positive way than I do.
Brother in law Jack and I would love to sit on the airplane on the way back to Washington, talking about what the guys said. Now Jack was one hell of a good football player, I will have to say pound for pound they don’t come much better, especially in high school. Later at UC after three concussions, the docs told him he had to quit or he would go to the funny farm.
In one game, in high school, Jack threw three touchdown passes; one guy told him how he watched him throw five touchdown passes. Jack was laughing and said on our plane right back, that he had no idea where the other two touchdowns came from but that we was not going to call his old teammate a liar. Another guy told me how he watched me run ninety yards, now that is nice to hear, however I never remember running over 50 years on a play in my entire football career as a halfback. But, again, who am I to tell a old buddy that his memory is failing or incorrect. Jack was a co captain of his senior 1948 team and I was a co captain my senior year of 1946. I might as well though in that Fuzz was a co captain of our B football team in 1947. So many, many years ago, another lifetime is seems.
I was going to send all of the humor and stuff from buddies with this message, just never seemed to get that done. Guess, old guys like me ramble, interesting, when you get old – you tend to look back, remember all the stuff that happened in your life. Maybe it is because there are not that many more years to look forward too, so you look back at those long years that blessed your life.
There is one thing that has made my life on this earth so super and that is the wonderful buddies I have accumulated, most will be getting this message. Knowing that you have friends, folks that give a damn, hey that is what life is all about! Love and friendship – without that there is not a lot of meaning to life.
Love ya, Fred
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