You know what today is, right?
It’s also my 70th birthday, which I’ll be celebrating in the usual manner: at the range in the morning, followed by a quick trip to the gun store to buy some ammo, and then dinner with my kids later on.
The Second Amendment and family: can it get more American than that?
I first met Pete DiStaulo back in 1985, when I joined a small marketing company as director of their supermarket relations effort — I was, if you will, an in-house consultant to their clients who were all just starting loyalty programs. About my age, Pete was the VP of IT, and we hit it off immediately, my no-bullshit management style being a perfect match for his Jersey-City no-bullshit technical expertise. I don’t know what company management expected from our friendship, but to their consternation I was more often on his side rather than on their side, because while Pete knew next to nothing about marketing and Management knew absolutely nothing about IT systems, I knew a great deal about both, and I was able to temper their sky-high expectations of IT with the realities thereof.
Anyway, Pete and I became family friends, in that not only did he and Connie get along, but his wife Margie became part of our little IT circle.
Pete was a small, tubby man with a receding hairline, while Margie was a large, overpowering woman (a senior nursing sister in a local Jersey hospital) who terrified everyone she met — her husband not excepted, she insulted and verbally abused him constantly — but both Connie and I thought she was wonderful. Connie’s genteel Beverly-Hills politeness contrasted so much with Margie’s Jersey-City brusqueness that one would have thought that they’d never get along; but we and the DiStaulos got along famously, and had dinner together more times than I can remember, more often than not causing consternation among the restaurants’ customers with our peals of helpless laughter. By the way, Margie wasn’t Italian, but Irish. “And I had to learn how to cook his fuckin’ guinea food, because he hated anything that wasn’t pasta. Jesus Christ, what a fuckin’ nightmare this marriage has been.”)
I left the marketing company after a while — hired away by one of their biggest clients to rebuild and relaunch their failing loyalty program — but Pete and I stayed close friends. In fact, when I left the supermarket company three years later to start up my own consultancy, Pete left his company to become my partner.
Time passed, and sadly, there was just not enough IT business for Pete to stay on, but even though he left to head up a local bank’s IT department, there was no rancor — in fact, we became closer friends than ever, talking on the phone at least a couple times a month and still having dinners together as a family thing.
His son Pete Jr. (“Petey”, duh) finished his college degree at Tufts and was offered a couple of jobs: one in downtown Manhattan and the other in Chicago. Amazingly (he being a Joizee boy), Petey turned down the City job for Chicago, and his move to the Windy City happened only a month or so after Connie and I moved to the lakefront.
Of course, Pete and Margie had helped Petey with his move, and when they all arrived in Chicago, needless to say we had dinner at our apartment in Lakeview. To our general astonishment, it turned out that Petey didn’t have a sofa for his new place, and we had discovered that our large sofa took up too much room in our apartment — so then and there we gave it to Petey, and he and his dad moved it over to the new apartment.
Incidentally, the Manhattan job that Petey DiStaulo had turned down? It was with Cantor Fitzgerald, on the top floor of the World Trade Center, and his start date would have been September 1, 2001. (Yeah, I got the shivers, too.)
Living across the country from each other only meant that the DiStaulos and Du Toits had fewer dinners together, but Connie was working for Ernst & Young in NJ, so every time she had to go there for a management meeting or the like, I’d go with her so we could get together with Pete and Margie, and our ongoing phone calls were frequent and needless to say, cordial.
Then Connie got ill, and Margie was distraught — as a nurse, she knew all about cancer, of course — and now she started calling Connie, often, for updates on her condition.
When Connie passed away in February 2017, of course I called Pete to tell him the tragic news, but I only got his voice mail so I just left him a message.
The next evening I got a call from his phone, but it was Margie on the line.
“Kim, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Pete passed away last November.”
“Damn Margie… why didn’t you call and tell us?”
“I couldn’t — I just couldn’t. I didn’t know how Connie would take the news, and I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
I thought about that for about three seconds, and said, “Margie, I don’t think she could have handled it. Pete going away might well have pushed her over the edge.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Margie, thank you for not calling us. Please don’t feel badly about it, because as hard as it is to think about, you did the right thing, I promise you.”
“Good, because the kids have been giving me no end of shit for not calling youse.”
“Margie, what happened to Pete?”
A pause, then, “That fuckin’ asshole.”
Despite myself, I started laughing helplessly. “What did he do?”
“You know he fell and busted his hip, right?”
“Yup. But I thought he was doing okay.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Kim, he wasn’t doing okay, the lying little shit. He couldn’t get up the stairs, we had to convert his office (“awfiss”) to a bedroom, and he was basically bedridden for four months.”
“Ah man… so what happened?”
“Donald Trump killed him.”
“WHAT?”
“On Election Day, Pete absolutely insisted on getting out of bed, making me half-carry him to the fuckin’ car, and I had to drive him to the fuckin’ polling station so he could cast his fuckin’ vote for Donald fuckin’ Trump.”
I couldn’t say anything because I was incoherent with laughter. Which then stopped.
“And then the next day my Pete just died. The autopsy showed a pulmonary embolism that was probably caused by his being bedridden, and it was dislodged by his activity of the day before, that going to vote for Trump.”
And there you have it. Donald Trump killed my great friend Pete; well, according to his widow, anyway.
Despite her offhandedness and abuse, Margie was absolutely devoted to Pete (“Kim, he took my fuckin’ virginity!“), and he to her. Of course, it was easy to see why, because they were the most warm and wonderful people I have ever been privileged to meet.
Of course, no prizes for guessing what triggered this reminiscence from me.
I wonder if Margie voted for Trump, this time round… I’d give her a call, but a couple years after Connie died, my last attempt met a “no longer in operation” tone, and Margie too disappeared from my life.
I miss the DiStaulos, terribly.
We had Doc Russia and his exquisite wife over for dinner last Saturday, and as always, a really good time was had by all, what with funny stories, jokes, lengthy discussions on interesting topics, all enhanced by one of New Wife’s excellent cooking choices (roast pork nom nom nom) and shall we say a sufficiency of booze.
One conversation was really interesting, and it revolved around the question: “If you had $3,000 spare, what would you buy?”
The immediate stipulation (made by Mrs. Doc Russia and endorsed by New Wife) was “No guns”, which stopped both spouses in their tracks.
It’s not that we have all we desire — far from it — and we could spend a lot more than three grand on, for example, a new car. But both Doc and I have no actual need for a lot of things (outside guns).
In bygone times, I might have been seduced by the acquisition of a watch, say this lovely Longines Equestrian piece for New Wife:
…except that while she thinks it’s a lovely watch, she’s perfectly happy with the one she has (Olivia Burton Floral, $140) and sees no reason to own another, at any price.
As do I, because having acquired my Tissot Heritage manual, I see no reason ditto.
(I should point out that the above costs less than $500, and since getting it my desire to own any other watch has, amazingly, disappeared.)
I should point out that the question stumped both Doc and Mrs. Doc as well. She talked about jewellery, being a woman, but although also a woman, New Wife has no interest in any of that stuff (“I own enough, and don’t want any more.”) I am sure as hell not in the market for that crap, either.
Well, if not a watch or jewellery, then what?
A few decent knives? Honestly, no. As much as one could never have too many knives (or guns), I can honestly say I can’t see spending that amount on bladed stuff because my modest knife collection is perfectly adequate for all my needs and wants (see sample below).
(that’s my “Crossing America” selection)
The “no gun” restriction was proving to be a pain in the ass, but in the end, I settled for a vacation for New Wife and myself, in essence deciding to buy memories. A 10-day trip to, say, Montana’s Glacier National Park or the Bitterroot Mountains:
Or (if we wanted to leave the country), there’s always the option of seven days in Montreal or Quebec City — I know, I know, but she’s never been to either place, and I love Montreal.
Both the above would cost around the $3,000 amount, and would leave us with a treasure trove of lovely scenery and fine dining.
Have to say, though, it sure would be hell not to be able to buy that Colt Single Action Army:
Anyway, what say you, O My Readers? On what would you spend three grand, assuming guns were off the table?
From a Concerned Reader (anonymous, for obvious reasons):
It seems our crazy Western governments are intent upon starting one or more wars. If one has a teenage grandson and wanted to resettle him somewhere in the world to avoid his participation in one of these conflicts, do you have an opinion as to where he might go?
I have to tell y’all, that is a really good question.
I’m leaving aside the old-time “draft-dodger” discussion, because it’s clear that this is not a Vietnam-era situation where everybody knew that our kids were being sent off to die for a country which was eventually going to fall into enemy hands anyway. (In other words, don’t go there in Comments.)
A lot depends on the grandson, of course. Does he speak Spanish? (In that case, places like Panama and Dominica are decent choices.) Ditto any other foreign languages, which open up areas like Southeast Asia — Thailand especially seems to be becoming a destination of choice.
It also depends how much you’re willing to pay for this resettlement, as several countries offer one the opportunity to purchase residency or citizenship (CBI, it’s called), so if you have the spondulicks, there’s that.
However, I also think one could consider staying at home, so to speak, but simply going to a place where one would be outside the risk of any foreign entanglements: the Coast Guard or a local police department, for example.
Comments on the topic are of course welcome.
Some background: Longtime Reader and Buddy Dave L. and I have known each other for years, and along the way, we’ve swapped stories back and forth, talked guns and such, and shared good times and bad.
Both of us lost our beloved wives to illness, I only a couple of years before he did, and we’ve taken it in turns to talk each other away from the abyss. You know, what friends do.
Another thing we have in common after our respective losses is that somehow, without trying, we both lucked upon women who were prepared to take the enormous risk of marrying a pair of cranky old widowers — I already did, and he will be doing it too, later this year.
Anyway, a couple of days ago he sent me this email, which I’m posting almost unchanged (other than anonymizing it a little) with his express permission, because it is just too damn good a story not to share, and Dave is an excellent storyteller.
Hi Kim:
I want to share a story with you about the goodness of two people that I encountered last week. As with all Dave stories it’s a little long and involved but you’re an observer of all that’s wrong with our society so I hope that this brings a smile to your face.
A couple of weeks ago the “soon-to-be-wife” and I decided that we needed a little “us” time. I’ve lived in Oklahoma for 42 years but I’ve never made the detour south of Amarillo to check out Palo Duro Canyon. We decided to drag our small camping trailer out to the canyon for a couple of quiet days.
I want to lay the foundation for the story. I have an 18-foot single axle camper. It’s about six years old and is in very good condition. I have less than 15,000 miles on the unit. I’ve never overloaded the trailer and I’ve been very careful about inspecting the tires and maintaining the proper inflation pressures. In short, I’ve done about all that I could to keep the trailer safe and in good order. (I later learned that most of the new trailers come from the factory with a set of cheap Chinese tires that are commonly called “Chinese Time Bombs”. These tires look okay but literally disintegrate at the six to seven year mark.)
We were heading down I-40 last Monday afternoon. I tow with a 2020 F-150 that has the towing package and is a well maintained truck. We were running at about 65 — I don’t feel comfortable driving much over that when towing — and we’d just crossed the Oklahoma/Texas border when I heard a loud bang and saw pieces of tire flying from my wheel. We got the rig shut down and I found just a little rubber and lots of steel cord on the wheel rim. Last Monday afternoon the temp was about 95 but STBW and I managed to jack up the trailer and change out the bad tire for the spare.
While we doing this a typical Texan (God bless him) pulled up behind me in a big dually Dodge and helped us with the job. We were on our way to finishing the job, but when you’re 71 years old and out in the hot sun, any help is sure appreciated. I noticed that he was wearing a blue polo shirt (this becomes important later). I offered to buy our friend a beer or lunch but he wouldn’t hear anything of it. So I gave him a bottle of cold water and we went on our way.
About two hours later we’re south of Amarillo heading toward the canyon and I heard another loud bang. Yes, the second tire decided that it was at the end of its useful life and let go as well. So now we’re stuck without a spare and I’m looking for a place where I can park the trailer on the jacks and find a couple of tires late in the afternoon.
A guy who ran a local landscaping business saw our trouble and came out and suggested that we park the trailer right there in his yard. He said that we could leave the trailer on his locked property and he’d help us with it in the morning. That sounded like a good idea so we found a motel room.
On Tuesday morning we used the landscaper’s floor jack to get both wheels off and I made a trip to Discount Tire for two tires which were not made of Chinesium. Total time spent doing all this on Tuesday morning was about two hours. I insisted that the landscaper guy have lunch on us, and that was the best $50 I’ve ever spent.
Now for the good part. The second guy was also wearing a blue polo shirt. Your mileage may vary, but I’m convinced that in Texas, angels wear blue shirts.
All the best,
Dave
New Wife and I will be going to Dave’s wedding in a few months’ time. After all these years of friendship, it will be the first time we’ve actually met in person, and I cannot wait.
From Adopted Daughter:
“Hi Papa. Could you ask your Readers for advice on visiting Ireland? I’ll be staying at Lough Rynn Castle near Carrick-on-Shannon in August, but other than the castle itself, I don’t know anything about the area (County Leitrim).”
Here’s Lough Rynn, which appears to be a shabby little place:
I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ babies traveling in Ireland, never having been there myself, so all advice, experiences and warnings will be welcome.