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Saying goodbye to Jack!
By fred | April 18, 2009
JACK W. ANDERSON – MEMORIAL – Thursday, April 16th 2009 2 P. M.
TELLING JACK STORIES
I have been remiss in keeping up with my BLOG the past few weeks and most of you know it was because of Jack, my best buddy for a lifetime, my bother in law, his passing to – as my beloved Janet, Jack’s wife said “To a better place.” I am sure she is right; however I am not too sure he will be in a place where he was loved as much as he was on this earth. His fight to stay alive after so many surgeries from throat cancer took a long time and was a living bitch, for Jack and extremely difficult for all of his family and friends; especially Janet and his daughters that were at his side constantly and were with him in the end.
Someday if the Good Lord lets me hang around that long, I would like to sit down for a few days, or month, or whatever it took – try to write a book, just fun Jack stories – when the pain is not so bad, I will certainly try. I do want to write about Jack’s Memorial so I can print it off and Janet can put it in the photo album I made up for her so that months and years down the line she and her daughters, my nieces, will have my ramblings about the service and help them remember all the good stuff.
I have been to these things before, too damn many at my age. Usually it is at a church, the minister that does not know the guy or gal from Adam will have been primed by the family to say all sorts of nice things, seldom does a gal or guy that really knows the person get up and say anything. Well my Janet did not want that, to me it was the most fun, enjoyable afternoon of my life. No, I was not happy about Jack leaving us, but the memorial was just done so well. Janet and her daughters invited all his friends and neighbors to their clubhouse at Kali Point to spend an hour or two to just tell Jack stories, stories about what they did together through out his life.
Yes, there were some misty eyes, but it was so much fun. Jack was never a Saint; he was just a good guy with an exceptional set of values, as a friend he was there for you for life. As a father and uncle to my sons he was always someone they could look up to and count on to help and support them any way he could.
My best man at Sally and my wedding back in 1950 Hugo Velasquez and his wife Beverly came, Hugo knew Jack longer than any of us, they were friends at Berendo Junior High School in Los Angeles, so they knew each other over 65 years, more like going on 70 years than 65, but, at our age who is counting?
So maybe I will start at the beginning.
Jack’s sister Sally, my wife had to stay home, she wanted to come but my boys and I told her she could not go. She was so stressed over losing her brother that last Saturday we had to take her to the emergency at Saint Joseph’s hospital here in Bellingham. We all figured it was her heart. That night and Sunday they put her through every heart test and machine they had, but it did not seem to be her heart. The doctor told me that it had to be stress, so my boys and I were scared that the Memorial would be too much for her so she stayed home with Richard my invalid son and my youngest son Scott and I took the trip.
The problem with Sally was the same as with Jack, son Scott also has this same problem; Janet says it is in their genes, the Anderson genes. They hold stuff in, both Sally and Jack all through my life have been like rocks that I could count on or his wife Janet could count on, and I see the same trait in Scott. They shed no tears, it is not that they do not hurt, but they hold it in. This may be good for others around them but for them it can be deadly as we found with Sally. At her age, her body seemed to have to react adversely. She loved her brother so much; they came from a broken home. Ann their Mom had to bring them up by herself so the two kids, Sally and Jack had to depend on each other. Sally being the oldest by just a bit over a year, actually Sally was born on the 3rd of May 1930 and Jack was born in May a couple weeks later in the year of 1931.
We live in Bellingham, Washington and Janet and Jack are across the Puget Sound in Port Townsend, so it is a bit of a drive and a 35 minute ferry ride. The ferry system in the state of Washington now is a bitch, not enough of them, more being made but it will take years to get decent service. If you prepay a reservation, doesn’t matter, they say you have to be at the dock waiting at least 30 minutes before the ferry leaves or you will miss it – and they mean it! If you miss the time there are plenty of others for each ferry that want the spot for their car, so you gotta be on time. Jack’s Memorial was a 2 P. M so we left Bellingham at 9 P.M. and had plenty of time, even had coffee and a hunk of coffee cake at a restaurant near the ferry terminal. Our return ferry would leave at 5:15 P. M.
We were able to get to Jack and Janet’s home in Port Townsend (Kali Point) at about 1 P. M. Kathy and Julie, Jack and Jan’s two daughters were there. Neither Scott nor I had seen them for some time so it was fun to see each other. We have all been Internet buddies for a long time but that is not the same. Kathy and Julie are two very attractive girls, O. K.; they are not babies anymore not girls in the sense of babies anymore, middle age, but looking super, hard for me to think of the girls as middle age as they will always be my two little girls.
Jan was holding up well, her eyes were always a bit blurry but she was determined to get through the day.
The Kali Point club house is fairly small, in fact with the crowd of at least sixty that showed up, it was packed. A beautiful setting as it overlooks a Puget Sound inlet. Kali Point is one of those gated communities, they maintain their own streets, etc, etc. and I have to say it is beautiful there, hundreds of homes, each like living in the forest. Deer so tame you can almost touch them. They have a lovely beach a dock on the Sound a super place for Jack and Jan to walk their dog. Yes, Flo, Jack’s dog did not come to the Memorial as we figured it may be too much for her also. She misses him so much.
Back to the Memorial – there was no priest, minister, guest speaker, just family and a packed crowd of friends and neighbors which are the same thing – friends. Every one of Jack’s neighbors was counted as a friend by Jack and they felt the same about him.
The beginning was a bit tough on family – Kathy, Jack’s & Jan’s oldest started it, both she and Julie that followed her talked of the values Jack taught them, in some ways he made Tom boys out of the girls, what the heck if you don’t have a boy as a son, you gotta work with what you got, that was Jack’s theory. He taught them the benefits of jogging, clearing your mind, how to fish, golf. Jan and Jack had them have riding lessons. Better them than me, the only time I rode a horse it bolted and I fell off, my ego was bruised a bit more than my butt but not much.
My son Scott spent a few minutes telling about what his Uncle had met to him. Jack was like a second father to Scott and my elder son Rick. Every vacation we went on as young married families were together, we did that until the kids left home and then the four of us continued that most of our adult and senior lives.
With the kids we would rent a home on the beach for a week – did that on an inland island in San Diego (forget the name) and most years rented a home on the north shore of Lake Arrowhead, also had a few vacations on the coast of Oregon. Jack knew a doctor that had a very large house at Lake Arrowhead with it’s own private dock on the lake and we spent many a summer there, just the two families and often another family, a buddy of his from Jack’s University of California days, Bob and June Stevenson and their two kids. With renting the house the doctor let us use his Chris Craft ski boat and the kids were water skiing all over the lake from dawn to dusk.
All three of the kids, Jack’s daughters and my Scott were getting a little blurry eyed so their talks were short. Janet said a few words, it has been so rough on her, I hardly remember what she said then cause I keep thinking of all she had gone through, the awful prolonged surgeries and recovery periods that just never turned out right, how she drove for hundreds of miles each week, in awful conditions sometimes, snow, ice, freezing weather, rain, just so she could be with him for a few hours and hold his hand. Tough when you are praying for him to recognize you and seldom would he. How Jan and the girl’s did it I don’t know.
Janet did however, tell one story that pissed me off a bit, and when I see Jack again I will have to give him a piece of my mind. It was about how competitive he was. We had these big houses both of us, different from when Sally and Jack were kids, we had a few dollars and every Christmas each of them, my Sally and Jack would buy a huge Christmas tree, with our high ceiling homes we could do that. Somehow over the years it became a competition. Somehow or other Sally would always pick out the fullest branch Christmas tree and Jack would be reluctant to admit defeat.
Janet said she had been shopping one pre Christmas and came in the front door and there was Jack with a power drill crawling under this huge Christmas tree they had purchased, drilling holes in it, every spot on the tree that had the least bit of open space had a hole drilled in it. Jack had purchased a bunch of extra Christmas tree branches and was going to insert them in the holes he drilled and glue them in. Janet said he was mumbling something about this year he is gonna win.
Now that was rotten, and I will tell him so, I think I remember that Christmas as he stood next to the tree pointing out that is was about perfect and he figured he had won that year. Sally never seemed to figure there was a competition – that was Jack’s idea. Janet was right, Jack just was competitive, had to win, no he would not rub your nose in it, it was in his genes, as long as Jack knew he won that was good enough for him. God I loved the guy!
Then it was my turn, a week ago I could never have done it. Yes, I am not ashamed to say I had a couple crying spells thinking about Jack; I am not made of the same stuff that Jack, Sally and son Scott are made of. I haven’t cried in years but to me there is no shame in crying. Janet and I are probably more fortune that way, alike in that way. To me there is nothing to be ashamed of as a man if you cry, losing Jack hurt like living hell and I am damn proud that I shared his live enough to know him and be able to share a tear for a guy like him. I am damn glad I was his buddy, his number one buddy and brother in law and can write about him, he deserved my tears, Janet’s tears, his daughter’s tears and anyone else that felt the privilege of crying for him. I just wish my Sally could cry, holding it in is far worse and she found out.
Then all of a sudden the fun began. I truly wish I could relate all that was said, I will state what I said, or think I said and go from there. Most of the guys were golfing or tennis buddies of Jacks.
There were golf stories by the carload. Unfortunately I can’t relate to them, must be my mental block about golf. I could never relate to the privilege of paying from fifty to as high as two hundred dollars in what they call ‘green fees’ to play such a stupid game. The language is also very weird, birdies; eagles stuff like that, like birds would play their stupid game – I don’t understand – they got something called irons, which I assume is a golf club. They have numbers for those, “Jack could putt a five footer with a ‘such and such iron’ with his eyes closed!” Do you know what they are talking about? Not me.
It was clear that no one at Kali Point had ever beaten Jack in a golf game – even if he had an off day. It would have been far more enjoyable if they had talked English instead of this weird language of golf.
Jack took Sally and I to the Torrance High School football field a number of times trying to teach us to swing, to hit a ball. I never could figure out how you have to wound up like a pretzel first, and then hit the ball from that weird pretzel stance. Sally and I were not golfers and Jack finally gave up. Janet was a bit more persistent and eventually could play however I do not ever remembering her bragging about how she loved the game. I think she just did it for Jack, not her own pleasure.
Jack for most of his golfing years, walked with his bag, that heavy bag of clubs, walked the whole 18 holes a long, long way, some sort of macho thing I guess. To me it was dumb. He only consented to use a golf cart when a knee operation had not turned out well in his elder years and the pain of walking was too much.
I will try and get off of the subject of golf, the sport he loved so much. But really Jack, where ever you are, I hope you are thinking clearly. All that money spent playing that stupid game. It would not be so bad if you could play and walk in some nice pleasant outdoors and nice straight walk, but that is not the case. There is a far, far distant flag; you are to hit your ball as near that as you can – Ha! Each side of the strip leading to that damn flag is lined with trees and shrubs. So if you hit the ball wrong and it goes out on each side you are screwed royally, finding a tiny golf ball in all that stuff is almost impossible. Then you would think they would reward you for hitting it straight – no way! They have ponds of water; traps loaded with sand, and every kind of obstacle you can name between you and that far, far distant flag on a stick which is your ultimate goal.
Why would you pay good money, for the sweat of carrying a heavy bag around 18 very long areas, often in the blazing sun, and the frustration of trying to avoid all those traps and other fiendish devises and obstructions? Jack and his buddy’s all seem to be really nice guys but you have to have a screw loose to love a game like that.
My best man of a lifetime Hugo Velasquez told the only golf story I can relate too. Jack and Hugo played a game one time with another friend, Don DeCrona on a vacation we all spent together with our wives on the coast of Oregon. Someone asked Hugo who won, and Hugo told em he did. Jack did not say a word. The guy asked what the score was and Hugo said his was about 122 and Jack’s was way off something like 70 or 80, Hugo was informed that the low score wins in golf, Hugo thought that was changing the rules it is supposed to be the high score wins, does in all other sports.
Hugo also told stories about when they were kids. The biggest thing was the first car. Jack’s lifetime buddy, Eddie Saraffian had worked in a market, the Vermont Ave. Market if I remember correctly, saving every penny he could and he finally had enough for a car, a old used car to be sure, but a car that drove which was about all you wanted. Ed had been showing in off, taking his tiny cousins for a spin in it and now he was showing it off to his friends. Jack, Ray Cain and Hugo were in the car driving along the street, Ed proudly showing off how it drove. A flashing light was behind them. Cops would sometimes pull over young guys, just to check them out. Did they have their driver’s license? Stuff like that. They piled out of the car, one officer opened the glove compartment of Ed’s car, and there was a gun in there. Ed’s seven year old cousin on the drive with Ed had put his cap gun in there and forgot it, the cop was very unhappy holding that gun up by its barrel saying, “And what do we have here?”
Eddie Saraffian did a lot of fast talking to get them out of that. I am not too sure why Hugo told that story, other than it had stuck in his mind so long. Ed, Ray, Hugo and Jack were just four of a small group of kids that were tight as can been all though their lives.
I have to stick in something here that has nothing to do with the Memorial, just something about Jack and his relation with his friends, his school chums throughout his life. At Berendo he was also a top athlete, Berendo Junior High school. To show how popular he was – the kids voted him their Student Body President. Most all of the kids that went to his Junior High School also went to our high school – John H. Francis Polytechnic High School – Poly Hi for short. There were few kids at Poly high that did not know who Jack Anderson was.
All of us that played sports wanted to win a ‘Letter’ that is the privilege of wearing a dark navy blue sweater with a large ‘P’ and a football on the ‘P’, meaning you were good enough to win a letter in the sport. My motivation was the first day I hit Poly High I saw a guy, a senior by the name of Ray Lopez with his letterman’s sweater on and on his arm a gorgeous girl. I equated that letterman’s sweater with the reason he had the girl and I swore that if it killed me I was gonna get one of each, the girl and the letter.
Jack Anderson lettered in football for each of the three years he was at Poly High, there were very few three year letterman, maybe one or two. He lettered his freshman year as a ‘B’ team player and then two years on the varsity as a star all of this three years, highly unusual. Few freshman are good enough to letter so a two year letterman as I was, was the norm even if you were a darn good athlete, Jack lettered in all three years.
So why am I saying this? Jack never had a letterman’s sweater, never bothered to buy one. Even if money was tight in the Anderson family he could have got one, but to Jack why did he need it? Everyone at Poly High knew who Jack Anderson was, so if he purchased one – who was he trying to impress? There were some letterman’s club events, deals where he was required to wear a letterman’s sweater; Jack had to ask someone to borrow his for whatever it was. Jack was the only athlete, star athlete I know at Poly or most any other school that never flashed how good he was, didn’t matter to Jack then or as he got older. Jack was never one to try and impress you with his skill in anything, Jack knew how good he was, no need to tell anyone else, why put someone down, not Jack’s way, – that is why he was loved by all, Jack was just Jack a everyday guy a buddy, he never wanted to be anything but that.
Years later when a group of us decided to have a vacation together, another friend Ray Toohey sent me an e-mail asking me if it was the gathering of the Poly royalty. I asked what he met by that. He said, Hugo Velasquez was a Student Body President, Sally was a Student Body Vice-president and May Beauty Queen, Jack was team football captain and senior president, I was a varsity football captain and senior president of my class. Ray figured it was a gathering of the Poly royalty. So – maybe Ray was right – of course when you get out in the real world, high school stuff gets you exactly nothing, still the friends, the things you did with buddies does mean something. I still have friends of those distant days, friends I will hate to lose if I go first or if they go first. So it all means something, a part of life.
Tennis is another sport Jack was a tiger at. He had a service that was smoking; I know because that sport I played for a few years until the family outlawed me for always talking. Seems you have to have some etiquette on a tennis court, no fair yelling as the opposing player is ready to hit the ball at the top of your lungs, “JANET YOUR GONNA MISS IT!” So I was banished from the tennis courts by the family, O. K. by me as I would be on my second or third round of drinks when they would still be out beating on each other.
It turns out that not one of the hundreds of guys at Kali Point could beat Jack at tennis either. Jack was the top jock at Kali Point in tennis besides golf.
Another sport was fishing, now there I could beat his butt – often – which used to really piss Jack off. His girls and Scott related how he had taught them to fish. I didn’t talk about that at his Memorial; my God I will bet I could have talked Jack stories for the entire afternoon and evening if I hadn’t started to get a little too emotional also. Jack had been there for me, never in the almost sixty years of marriage to Sally did I ever need him and he did not respond.
I got two huge bonuses when I married my Sally, Jack as a lifetime buddy and Sally and Jack’s Mom, Ann, – the nearest thing to a real Mom you could ask for, I had two Moms most of my life, my real Mom and Ann, it gets no better than that. When you have a mother in law that will hold a poker party for her son in laws birthday with a big dinner thrown in then you have got yourself another Mom. Of course, later I got Janet, she has been like the sister I never had. Jack and Sally’s family were also a huge bonus, but if I start talking about their Uncle Paul, Aunt Helen, Aunts Mabel, Val, Dagney, the twins, Grandpa Morris this story will never end. Everyone of their family was so supportive of Sally and I, never any friction like you hear about in some families.
Jack loved to win, now all of us love to win, just Jack did more than most, be it football in high school and college or golf or tennis or the game of life. I remember when we lived in Torrance, California. We had purchased two of those big split level homes, huge homes with four bedrooms, huge front rooms, dens, built in bars, etc. etc. We made a deal with Anthony Pools for two pools and got a huge discount so we each had a big swimming pool in our back yards, we purchase two boats together and go a deal on those, everything we did, and it was the two families together. Sally and Janet were best buddies, still are, – best friends from the minute Janet joined the family, and the kids were all not like cousins but like brothers and sisters.
Jack and I got into the habit of walking our dogs in some empty fields near our homes there were a few jack rabbits and sometimes the dogs would dig one up and have the fun of chasing them, never catching them but they loved it. We discussed everything on those walks, from football, sports, athletes foot to our families, kids, business, Jack knew my business as well as I knew his.
Jack was doing extremely well with Ling Tempo Voight (spelling may be incorrect) at that time a huge aero space company. He was the account manager for Boeing in Seattle you can’t go much higher than that as a salesman in that business. He was offered a position in management at the company’s head office in Dallas, Texas. It would require him to uproot his family, take them away from what he considered their support network. Julie and Kathy were in grammar school, had friends, Janet had Sally just a few blocks away, the girls loved their lives, their homes, where they were and the lifestyle we had developed as families. He kept saying, “How do I tear them away from all that, it just isn’t right!”
I told him, “Jack you are only gonna get one shot, you have to take it, you have to go for that big brass ring.” He knew I was right; we talked about it for weeks. He was so qualified, knew the aero space industry inside out. Knew most of the military, the big brass here, the buyers, most were buddies, golf buddies, dinner buddies, lunch buddies, drinking buddies. He was getting huge contracts, this offer was his reward for a job well done, BUT that reward of heading into top management would only come once. I kept telling him that Janet and the girls will adjust somehow to the move. Sally and I and the rest of the family will hate to lose him but we would get together just not as often.
He turned it down, against my advice, and maybe he was right to do so. I knew it hurt him, Jack was a winner, and he loved to win in business the same as he loved to win in sports. Problem was Jack could not win at the cost of hurting his family. He had them in a comfortable cocoon, they were surrounded by friends, school chums, family, a nice area to raise kids in, pools, their animals, horses, he just could not hurt his family to gain a position for himself, for him to climb that latter of success that in my opinion he deserved to climb.
That one decision to me defines the kind of guy he was. Jack always played to win, but he would never rub it in, never want to play to hurt someone. Being good enough to win was his reward, he would never rub it in. Maybe that is the reason all of this buddies at Kali Point, all of his friends from those distant days to high school and college love the bastard so much. He could beat you but never hurt you, never did he act the act, Jack was Jack, just a super guy that you wanted to be with, wanted as your friend.
There was a table full of quiche, bread, cheese ball, I think that is what it was, mounds of cookies, lemonade and coffee afterward so we could all mingle together.
We stopped for a few minutes at Janet’s, friends and neighbors were pouring in her home for a glass of wine, never knew when that all ended – as Scott and I had to head off to make our ferry connection to Keystone and the drive home.
I just want Janet and the girls to know that it was the finest, the greatest, the nicest goodbye to a super guy that I have ever been too. You did good – as one guy said, he was sure Jack was there with us, laughing at our telling stories about him, sharing our love. From the bottom of my heart I have to thank you for realizing that all of us, all of Jack’s friends needed that, needed to talk about a person that we will miss so much.
Fred A. Nielsen – Brother in law and best friend of Jack W. Anderson for life.
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