On a bleak anniversary, a tribute to two souls from the Little Apple

Way back in the early eighties, visiting old friends in South London, I was introduced to a visitor from the States, a certain Jeune Kirmser. There followed three hours of some of the liveliest conversation I’d ever had, ranging over any and all subjects. I remember she spoke of cases fought up to the Supreme Court about prayer in schools, she spoke about the pleasure she took from visiting London, she spoke about the wonderful people she knew back in her home town of Manhattan, Kansas – the little Apple, to distinguish it from its big brother, Manhattan, New York.

I later learned that many of these wonderful people were victims of misfortune, some of them immigrants, who’d she meet living in dire circumstances, and take under her and her husband’s wing.

Jeune Kirmser: remarkable and from Manhattan, Kansas

She also put me firmly in my place. I smoked in those days and she gently, but firmly, explained that my never-ending chain of cigarettes had given her a headache. It was the first time, I think, that I learned to be ashamed of that appalling habit, not for its effect on me, but for its effect on others.

She was good at that. She knew how to use words effectively, without aggression, but so that one understood precisely what she meant. 

I’ve since found out that her skill with words, as well as her openness to other nations and other cultures had deep roots in her. When she was twelve, she wrote:

I walked the street that night alone 
Fearing I should be seen or known. 
I’d not meant to do any wrong,
But that is always the bad man’s song.

Did anyone see me take that pear? 
The devil thrust upon me a dare 
That made me go against my will. 
But he, the Devil, is laughing still.

Said God, “My son, you must take care 
Lest you walk into the Devil’s snare.” 
The Devil whispered “Don’t take heed 
you know you’ve got yourself to feed.”

I pondered. “Let the pear decide.” 
I brought it from my coat inside 
And held it up to see it better.
Then ’twas done. I wasn’t God’s quitter.

I took it back to Toni’s stand 
But Toni grabbed me by the hand 
“I did wonder if you’d bring it back.” 
He gave me the pear and an apple in a sack.

I went home that night to my bed of straw
And knelt upon my knees before my God, 
And felt I had been saved from a quitter’s mission 
By Italian Toni. Who wasn’t a Christian.

Many years later – in 2009 in fact – I started blogging and enjoying it. And I began to notice that I was getting a few comments from another inhabitant of the Little Apple. This was how I came to know Bob Patterson, the man who could, for instance, mark his forced early retirement through ill health with the remark:

Retirement has changed my world in so many ways. Before I retired, I would set the alarm clock for 7 a.m., but I'd rise at 5:30 a.m. Now that I'm retired, I set the alarm for 8 a.m., and I rise at 5:30. It's a brand new world.

After many exchanges on Facebook, Twitter or simply by e-mail, I felt I really ought to ask Bob about the other person I knew form Manhattan, Kansas. It was probably my desire not to be taken for the kind of person who asks “you live in New York? Do you happen to know Mark?” that had put me off enquring before. However, the Little Apple doesn’t have the population of the Big one, and civilised people probably gravitate together.

“Jeune?” he said. “Of course I know her. Or knew her. She died a few months ago. She went to the same Unitarian Church I attend.”

I’ve never been to Manhattan, Kansas and don’t know the Unitarian Church. But I felt better for knowing that such a place existed, and that it had contained two such people as Bob and Jeune. Even though I’d discovered rather too late that they knew each other.

Sadly, Bob has gone too now. One of his final posts was “Popsicle sticks are made from the wood of the white birch. Go back to bed,” showing that his taste for the whimsical, the off-beat never deserted him. His last words to me were “…you shouldn't take this as a sign of anything but my fatigue, but it's time for a pre-prandial nap. Thanks to you and Danielle for getting in touch.” There was nothing to thank in the concern my wife and I both felt – rightly as it turned out – but Bob always made sure that friendship was properly recognised.

Two fine people, whose lives touched and enriched many others. Today, 4 June, is the third anniversary of Jeune’s death, which struck me as a good occasion to remember them both, and salute the Little Apple which nurtured them and which they graced. 

There’s no better way to close than with another of Jeune’s poems:

Death swept in, graceless and arrogant, 
Taking from me a gentle love, 
While snapping that I couldn't have the world.

Angered, I reminded him 
That he emptied not my world 
By snatching bodies. 
That for every stolen love 
I would cherish another.

He looked at me and smiled. 
I turned from him and cried.

A friend to treasure. Though we never met

Facebook does some things well. The best, in my experience, is that it can make friends of strangers, friends who haven’t even met, who in the old sense of the word, may never meet.

That was our experience with Bob Patterson.

It started with his posting occasional comments on my blog.They were always insightful or funny or both, and at one point Danielle asked me, “who is this Bob? He seems so clever and kind.” So in November 2010, we sought him out on Facebook.

That made us what I like to think of as “friends”. In the Facebook sense. With quotation marks.

Bob: a "friend" since November 2010, and then a friend indeed

The cleverness and kindness continued.

“He always brightens up the day, doesn’t he?” Danielle would say, as the occasional comments sprinkled our posts.

Gradually, they grew and blossomed into more sustained exchanges, and almost imperceptibly, we moved from simple “friends” to proper friends.

”You know,” Danielle added, “he could be a brother of yours, with his sense of humour and his attitudes.”

We had much in common, but he outdid me in gentleness and generosity of spirit.

It did occur to us that only chatting on Facebook, while perfectly satisfactory as far as it went, would never beat actually meeting, physically, in the flesh. Danielle and I could travel to the States to catch up with him in Kansas; then again, Bob seemed attracted to the idea of coming over to Europe so that we could all three travel down to Italy. Great plans, to be revisited at some unspecified date in the future, when we would all have more time.

While we were waiting, the comments continued. Never unpleasant, always warming. He’d crush a lousy pun of mine with a far worse one or, even more gallingly, a more subtle one. Or he’d simply throw out some gentle wit or wisdom.

On a photo of me trailing along fifty metres behind my dog, it was “dog walks man.” Laconic, perfectly balanced, entirely inoffensive, deserving a smile.

Back in December, replying to a post about the cough afflicting both Danielle and me, he wrote: “Mankoff and womankoff in your household? Get well.”

On New Year’s Day, he posted a card which advised us all to kiss someone who thought we were wonderful.

“The last creature to kiss me who thought I was wonderful,” Bob pointed out, “had ears down to her knees and legs up to her wagging tail.”

Deprecating his own insomnia just over a week ago, he posted: “Popsicle sticks are made from the wood of the white birch. Go back to bed.”

I enjoyed the whimsy of the thought, and as always with Bob, it left me smiling.

Those smiles, those little brightening moments, are what we’ll most remember of Bob. They’ll be cheering memories but, sadly, memories are now all we’re going to have. Because during the night of Saturday to Sunday, Bob who we thought had been recovering from his long spate of ill health, succumbed to it and died.

There’ll be no more comments, and it’s only now I realise how much I looked out for them: a “like” was always welcome, a reply still more so, the absence of a comment frankly disappointing. There’ll be no meeting in Kansas. There’ll be no trip to Italy. We waited for when we had time, and now time has run out.

It was wonderful to have had four years of Bob’s friendship. But I would have liked another five or ten or fifteen. We would both have liked to get to know him a great deal better and do some of the things we’d panned.

Which brings me back to the beginning. Facebook does many things well. But it’s only a vehicle, a medium. What brings it to life, what makes it shine, is people.

When it comes to people, nobody did more than Bob to make Facebook shine. With a gentle, warming, cheering light that did everyone who felt it good.

Farewell, Bob. We’re going to miss you. And remember with pleasure the short time we shared.