Christmas '07

Like Thanksgiving, it came and went quite gracefully, with certain music hitting me the hardest, especially Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians', 'The Night Before Christmas'. We were fans of this recording since we were tots. Highly recommended for fun and sentiment as well.
The impact has begun to feel more wistful than agonizing, with great gratitude for the years, with their Christmases, he had on earth with us.

Happy Holidays

Thanksgiving '07 was a delightful turn of the page. Not that Ken wasn't at the other end of the table, giving me his last salute as he did three years earlier, but it was the first time in five years that we enjoyed the day the way Ken would have certainly wanted us to.

Now here comes Christmas, with eight of us altogether this time. How I wish he could join us, or perhaps he will be with us. Oh, how he loved Christmas!

Forever 49

Labor Day weekend became Memorial Day weekend for me since Ken's passing. His last Labor Day weekend consisted of a party here at my place, when I saw him praying on my couch that it would not be his last birthday. No, prayer does not always work. Actually, it almost never does come to think of it, but you're not supposed to think of it...
Then there was the grand finale birthday bash on Labor Day itself in '04 at Randi and Steve Eisen's place. It was, without exaggeration, Ken's last truly happy day on earth. I cannot recall even a grin even once on his face after that day, though there were months to go. Yet, he smiled and laughed many times that wonderful day.
Happy 52nd Birthday, Ken!

Still to Come

I am finally nearing the end of print scanning and uploading, with perhaps a few dozen or so yet to go. It's our large slide collection that will take the better part of a year to get off the ground. The hardest part will be finding photos of Ken, and not just by Ken, which are far more numerous (thousands, that is). And among those, photos of Ken in places I know he and or we have been to. That includes more photos of India and Nepal, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, and Korea, not to mention Europe (England, Denmark, Spain). Also, Ken dove in Lake Champlain, Lake Michigan, Truk Lagoon (twice), and visited Hawaii on the way there. His diving alone would leave traces all over the globe; so far, just a few sites have been mapped. He also visited Australia twice, which is where his diving started; on the Great Barrier Reef. Oh yeah, I almost forgot Expo '67 in Montreal...If I can't find photos of Ken, I will substitute photos I can find of those places for mapping purposes. He did well in his abbreviated passage through this life.

Technology Marches On

Ken would have loved this stuff. We talked a lot about the miracle of the internet, and how it could be used for so many positive things. Blogging alone would have been a thrill for him, as I no doubt know he would have started his own on any number of subjects. Scanning and uploading/organizing photos would have been a top priority for him as it is for me. He just might have upgraded his old clunker of a computer.
As you may have noticed, I found a way to use Yelp.com for a while to show some of the 'Geography of Ken's Life'. I will probably remove that soon as Picasa now has enabled me to embed a slide show right on this blog, but also to map the photos I've uploaded so far. But please don't stop with the slide show: you can now click on the 'Ken's photos' link, then click on the fairly small 'View Map' link. I have mapped nearly all of the photos so far, with only a handful I'm not 100% sure about yet as far as where they were taken. Please keep in mind that I have only scanned and uploaded prints so far: there are many more slides I have to scan and upload. So please check back once in a while as I continue to build on a project I will continue to build on indefinitely...
PS Speaking of technology, below is a YouTube video of Nunley's just before it was closed in 1995. We were there as kids, as teenagers, and with Marie, including its last day.

49

June 21st was hard enough. No, not that it marked another quarter year, the solstice and such, though I'm always mindful of that. It was Marie's High School graduation; the day dad had prayed he'd live to see (he would have been just shy of 88). The day that we certainly believed Ken would share with us. How proud they would have been to know that she's off to Notre Dame on a scholarship. Their lives were certainly a great part in her achieving what she has to date.

Today was my 49th birthday, though, and I could not help being consumed with thoughts of Ken. It was on his 49th birthday, here at home, that Ken, a month after surgery, and not long before chemo and radiation therapy began, that he prayed that he would see another birthday. Prayer seems to work when things go your way. If it doesn't, it's the will of God, or your lack of His grace. I have a big problem with that facile form of self-rationalizing faith. This does not, however, imply I don't believe.


PS The photos of Ken of his last birthday party are at 49 years plus 2 days.

Depression Redux

There was plenty of nature and nurture to cause little surprise when Ken's depression hit with full fury at the very end of his college years. His relationship to Vera is an amazing story in its own right. Since her contacting me, we have exchanged a number of e-mails that have, if not rewritten Ken's story, have certainly clarified and solidified memories, impressions, and thoughts about Ken's past.

As I wrote to Vera: Now, I have no doubt that, though there was certainly a biochemical element in his struggle to be happy, his inability to maintain his relationship with you and loss of hope for the future was arguably far more important than I ever realized.

The reason was the Cold War, not Ken's love of life, or Vera...more later.

It's a small world after all...

How wonderful to receive responses from the great beyond. I have been away for over a month now, partly due to emotional burnout, partly due to being busy, as well as away traveling.
The first pleasant surprise was from David Wicht, who has a brother Paul, in South Africa. An evidently related branch of the Wicht family came upon this blog in amazement (partly by how much Ken resembled his father) as they are in the early stages of establishing their own family website.
Then Vera contacted me. Yup, Ken's girlfriend from what is now Slovakia. It was her daughter, Barbora, who found Ken's site.
Barbora told her mom that not marrying Ken was her biggest mistake. I told Vera to tell her daughter to keep in mind that not only was Ken never to marry no matter what, but that she herself would never have been born otherwise.
It's just nice to know that she has fond memories and still cares. Such response is a very welcome shot in my blogging arm.

What's in a Name?

Before I return to the subject of music, let's reflect ...
No one knows where Ken's names came from, period. There was no one in the family named Kenneth, or Gary, so it must have been a fad. They had to come up with something other than Adolph H. Wicht in 1955. He would have been the 6th.
Ken detested anything but Ken when he was younger, and despised Gary with a passion. He eventually got used to Kenny, but still referred to his middle name as "Garrish".
There was a change of heart by the time I was born: I was named after two uncles; Paul, dying in his first year, born with severe Downs' Syndrome. Mom cried about him every year. Ken's niece got her first and middle names from her.
Edward was the youngest of the 5, and her favorite. Fortunately, she never saw his dark side.

'Do You Want to Know a Secret?'

It was a rare occasion that I remembered something that Ken didn't. As a matter of fact, the very first time Ken showed a sign of depression, though I didn't realize it at the time, was the first time he couldn't remember something at will. I still don't recall (ahem) what it was exactly, but he truly panicked and was terrified that day. I assumed it was just an early sign of aging, when he was somewhere around twenty-two years old. For Ken, it was catastrophic.
One thing I did recall that he didn't was that the very first 45 recording Ken and I both received (that's the part I remembered that he didn't) was the Beatles Do You Want to Know a Secret? We were too young to realize it was a love song from Pat to us in her own way, as she was like a second mom to us. It would be the only record I would have for who knows how long, and would listen to it over and over on our primitive record player. It had a profound effect on me, as its positive message gave me hope at the ripe old age of 6, while the world had seemed to have fallen apart. It took me years before I realized it was George doing the singing. Buying a 45 once in a while was all we could hope for till Meet the Beatles came along.
Seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show clinched it for us, and everyone else watching that night, though it kinda made me squirm uncomfortably, just like when we saw Elvis on the same show earlier . We were at our aunt's place in Hawthorne, NY., and it was both strange and exciting at the same time. It opened the way for us to get our first LPs. Of course, being siblings, we had to have our own copies.
It would not only be the Beatles, of course. It primed us for all of the great, and mostly positive, music that was broadcast on AM radio then, WABC and WMCA in particular. The veterans of those stations would move on to what would be called 'oldies' radio on WCBS FM in 1972 when AM and FM changed places, FM being better for music quality. AM went to talk shows and news, whereas FM had been talk and classical music, which was fading.
What excited Ken and I even more than the Beatles in those days was when dad would pick us up on alternate Fridays, after our frozen Catholic TV dinner fish sticks and french fries which we ate while watching Superman on the black and white TV. It was Xmas Eve every time.
One more eerie coincidence. The first time I went back to Ken's place after he died, the radio was still set to 101.1, but it had changed to 'Jack FM'.

Music 101.1

Though Ken would not delve deeply into the classical repertoire till the latter years of college, just when depression was about to kick in with a vengeance, the seed had been planted when he was a tyke. It was thanks to Grandpa Wicht, who always had classical music playing, that impressed him in that vein.
When I say Classical, I mean it. Neither Grandpa, and therefore Ken, had much interest in Renaissance, Baroque, or Romantic music.
But we were both distracted by the fact that we were kids and it was the 60's. Ken would point out that the first official rock hit, 'Rock around the Clock', was #1 when he was born. Nevertheless, we were both weaned on the Beatles.
We benefited form having a teenage lady from Ireland as a housekeeper when we were little. Her name was Pat Henebry, and the fact that my now single mom could afford anything, much less a live-in housekeeper, is amazing today. How poor was Ireland still then...
The radio was always on, and it was wonderful. Every day was exciting with the latest songs being broadcast, and the great race to the top of the charts. Everyone listened to the same 2 or 3 stations: WABC or WMCA, both AM stations. The only thing left today that I know of that kept whatever shared culture coherent in any meaningful as the radio did is baseball, and it's a rather sad reflection of the days when there was integrity and loyalty in the sport.
We were into Motown as it unfolded. Everyone was, black or white. Blacks were pissed that just as Motown was in full glory, these white boys from England were taking everything over. Civil Rights tensions were already on the rise. Again, keep in mind, they were all vying for the same few radio stations in New York.
For a few months after we moved into Rockville Centre in '63, Ken and I were trapped coming home from school in the parking garage in the basement of our apartment. It seemed to be on a daily basis then, as I would be held back while Ken had the shit kicked out of him. It almost became a ritual, and it was in part a hazing of sorts, being the new white kids on the block. We tried to find ways to get back into the apartment safely, but we were outnumbered. Ken would later claim it didn't hurt as they held him to the ground and punched into his gut repeatedly while I screamed and cried watching. Believe him? Before long, they were playing basketball together when they found out Ken could play as well as they. 'Beaver' Smith became center of the St. John's team years later. I remember his younger brother 'Chucky' whipping me with clothesline when we came to meet and walk with them to school one morning, with his poor mom trying to stop him.
It was a rude awakening of sorts, but the music would help us get by.

Eulogy Redux

Among other things, I write for a living , and so am naturally self-critical in what I put out there, though I try not to be too hard on myself when I can always blame it all on the cold, hard, cruel deadline.
Not long after Ken's wake, I realized that although I had spent much time thinking and writing what I would present at Ken's wake, just as I had had to prepare for everything else before his heart stopped, there was something obvious I missed.
It wasn't the CD of music I had compiled, burned, but did not play at the wake. These were pieces of music both mournful and beautiful, and mostly well-known and beloved by Ken himself, but something stopped me from using it that day. (I will present the music in a list before too long.)
No, it was geography...
As I lay in bed, my mind and soul reeling from the slow-motion fatal train wreck, my mind darted about late at night until I realized something very simple. The funeral home was ground zero of Ken's life. Let me explain...
Ken (as I) was born and lived for some years just a few miles west of Fullerton in Rockville Centre. Both one and three miles south of Fullerton were the homes we grew up in, as well as our elementary and junior high schools. A few miles north was Baldwin Senior High School, as well as the house he lived in for a few years, with our Italian step-family, across the street from it during dad's ill-fated second marriage of two years. A few miles further to the east is Freeport, where Ken and dad would share an apartment from the end of that time ('74) till their deaths.
I could have taken everyone outside for a walking tour..."see folks next door, that's St. Christopher's where we all went to church together before the divorce which meant excommunication for life then. Let's go up Grand Avenue past where those pix of as tykes were taken at the long gone Hamilton Studio, where dad had a few of his clients, where Ken's orthodontist from hell, Dr. Fischel (or "fish head" as we called him) had his office, and where Ken had his PO box for many years.
Across the street to the east on Merrick Road was where we went to the Venice Restaurant, where they still don't understand 'al dente', where the Carvel still is where mom loved to get her vanilla cone with chocolate sprinkles, and that church across the street from there that used to be a movie theater like so many others. (Remember 'Bullit' with Steve McQueen and 'One Million Years BC' with Raquel Welch...?) A few hundred feet further, see?, that's the police station where Michael Gerdyk was booked for murder...

11:30 pm, two years ago today

It was a Monday. The call came at 10:20. Kay and I were watching TV, and a rather cold-blooded staffer told me Ken had no blood pressure. He was the only person I had met at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx that I was unhappy with.
We got there at 11:15.
His eyes were wide open, and his mouth somewhat so, with a dark spot on his lower lip. We spoke with him, assured him we were there, then he let go. He clearly had been waiting for us. He exhaled some, and did one more time five minutes later.
I closed his eyes five or ten minutes after that. On cue, a chaplain came by for last rites shortly afterwards.
The phone rang 5 minutes after we returned home. It was the eye bank.
Doctors had said six months is average from the time of operation for this type of tumor.
Ken hung on more than 7 months since his August operation.

Five years ago today dad passed away, also in the evening, on a Thursday. He was 82.
Four years ago, Ken watched the clock and marked he exact time dad had passed away the year before.
Three years ago, his disease was just beginning to surface, though the doctors said it had begun over a decade before.
Even after breathing and the heart stops, the dying are still alive for some time, so keep talking. Then again, maybe they're still listening now...

The Equinox

The word equinox means 'equal night', therefore implying equal day.
Astronomically we can pinpoint the exact time the subsolar point is over the equator, which will be at 8:07 pm EDT this year. As noted earlier, this event can be viewed in a number of different ways. Another is that from now until the next equinox, days will be longer than nights. Yet, another is that we are half way between the shortest and longest days of the year. Life's not so precise down here 'below' heaven, though.
St. Patrick's Day was strange this year, as downtown Stamford looked more like winter in Bedford Falls in 'It's a Wonderful Life'. The snow itself had that same somewhat artificial feel and look to it. Normally, the last traces of winter are melting away by now. It'll take another week this year.
So, is today the last day of winter or the first day of spring? As we naturally tend to look forward, we traditionally refer to it as the latter, but it is also the former. Emotionally, I'm not sure which one it feels like yet. It reminds me of a New Orleans funeral march, with the first half heading to the graveyard sad, and the second half, when leaving, joyful. Guess I'm still stuck at the graveyard, as it doesn't seem to matter whether I hear mournful or upbeat music, so the sadness persists.
There's a lot yet to be written about Ken and music. Stay tuned.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day has become something of an Unholy Day of Obligation, as folks emerge from the chilly muck of March to honor the patron saint of beer drinking. Turns out he did not bring Christianity to Ireland back in the 5th century, but he was instrumental in establishing the church there. He's also the patron saint of "engineers, the dispossessed, and Nigeria", beer drinkers all, I presume.
But this blog is more about personal history. So I decided to let everyone know about it now, as it marks a number of different moments in our lives...
St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday 5 years ago, and it was the last time we were all together with dad (see photo), who would pass away the following Thursday on March 21st. It was a good time, as we drank some Jameson's and beer, listened and even danced to some Celtic music. It was a chilly day, so I had a fire on as dad sat there in his down jacket, as anything below 80 degrees was chilly to him. He collapsed the following Thursday in front of the apartment as Ken pulled up to take him to see the doctor.
I looked back since Ken's passing on just when I may have noticed the earliest signs of trouble, and it finally came to me. St. Patrick's Day '04. He met the three of us as we went for the St. Pat's run with a runner's club in Westchester. Who could turn down the free Jameson's? Only much later a symptom that became obvious manifested itself to me for the 1st time. It just struck me as a bit odd then, and it was the fact the Ken just stood in one spot for over an hour without moving, though otherwise enjoying himself. Looking at his last Mexico cave diving trip photos he took a month or so later, there were a large number of shots taken from one spot, and they were clearly not his usual quality. Ken knew he was ill far earlier than he let on.

The Hunger of Memory

This is what Ken's blog will ultimately be about, especially when considering he was the repository of all that could be humanly remembered within our family. I was not surprised at all when he told me how he could remember and describe is perfect detail the apartment that he lived in in Rockville Centre before I was born, all before the age of 2 years and 9 months.
With Ken was lost a treasure trove of detail I can never hope to recall, even of my own life, though some will return in "dribs and drabs" as he would say. I have no doubt Ken could have told me everything else we did in Manhattan the day he took that photo of me on what was then the RCA building.
His memory cut both ways, as he remembered everything, but could forget nothing.
Without exaggeration, Ken could easily recall any time in his life in detail within a two week time frame, usually with a level of detail that was frightening. All you had to do was ask, "Ken, what was going on during the third week of April, 19xx (not to mention 20xx), and he would only have to pause for 5 to 10 seconds before you would get your response. Not just about himself, but about all kinds of news at that time, including baseball scores.
Ken was fully aware of the double-edged sword his memory was. It took many years for him to find some way to stop dwelling on the negative memories and relish the best of times, and eventually he did. Yet, the damage had been done deep within, and he would insist on dwelling in it all, alone in his room, black curtains drawn.

Bitterness

It is simply futile to spend your time comparing one person's passing to anothers'. The enormous number of people who have lost their own lives since Ken jumped off the train is mind-boggling.
Yet, in it's own way, that does not diminish the profundity of Ken's loss. Everyone we lose leaves an aching hole in our own lives.
Ken was taken out by a hideous bit of biology: the glioblastoma multiforme, stage 4. It was the kiss of death, and I knew from day one the Pope himself praying wouldn't make a bit of difference as far as keeping him alive longer. He was about the only one not praying as far as I know. There would be no feel-good Lance Armstrong story here.
He never needed the chemo or radiation therapy. And like most prayer itself, it was all to make the living feel better about themselves, not to mention the doctors and hospital a bunch of bucks. Should I be diagnosed with it, I will insist on pain killers: end of story. For some queer reason, it strikes white males in their 40s most frequently. Could it have been the prozac he took for years?
No, God is not some off-season Santa to beseech up in the stratosphere, but someone or thing far beyond our ability or willingness to consider.
Ken's in a better place? This ain't Mogadishu folks, and he had never been happier since he was a kid toward the end of his life. Besides, what's the rush when you've got a few decades here but an eternity in heaven?
On the other hand, none of this means we shouldn't pray...

There are times

There are times when I wished I could have added a little levity to Ken's wake, as he did at our father's three years before. I couldn't then either, as I just was so overcome with grief. I do plan to write about Ken's great wit as time goes on. He made everyone laugh on a regular basis.
There were times when I wished Ken and I had spoken more during his final months, yet we found ourselves in ineffable disbelief and bewilderment. At the same time we both knew there really wasn't much to say. We knew, and we understood. We simply said "I love you" every day until he could no longer speak, though that didn't stop me. It's hard to know just when he actually lost his ability to speak after all.
With about a month to go, and Ken essentially comatose for weeks, I told him about how we hadn't spoken much, and why we didn't need to. His eyes opened for the first time in weeks, and with an heroic effort, slowly brought his right arm across his body, grabbed my wrist with surprising strength, and pulled my hand to his mouth to kiss it. It was the last thing he ever was able to do physically.

Here comes March

Of course it's great when March arrives, as the weather finally starts to do an about face. St. Patrick's Day, now being marketed as St. Patrick's Season by greedy beer merchants, is just a few weeks away.
Perhaps in another 5 or 10 years....no... March 21st will never stop haunting me. Even the folks at Fullerton Funeral Home in Baldwin, NY, were dumbstruck when I told them Ken passed away on the same day as dad. I assumed that having run the funeral home for so many years, they had heard of such 'coincidences' before. It wasn't coincidence, though. Ken simply decided to die that day.
I forgot to tell them that he lived only 19 days longer than mom. (if you take away the last 2 weeks of her life when she was in a coma, then their life spans were identical) If I had reminded them of her, they would have remembered her, as her wake was at Fullerton, too. I had to chase the paparazzi off the steps of St. Christopher's next door.
Perhaps I was distracted by Mr. Fullerton's fate, as I sat down with him in December, but suddenly died before my second visit a few weeks later...
I wasn't totally surprised once Ken had survived to March. I actually expected it. He was a human time keeping machine, always keenly aware of its passing. He loved watches and time pieces of all kinds. Clocks and watches (mantle clocks, clock radios, diving watches) were given as Xmas gifts. He would often stare at the hands on his watch moving, feeling mystified, disturbed, perhaps terrified. He bought himself one of those Pierce Brosnan diving watches, being a huge 007 fan as well as a passionate diver. (Why do you think he majored in Russian and diving? Thunderball!)
It also made him very grateful for every day. After years of despising the winter months, he changed enough to advise me, "Never wish away time."
March 21st, the Vernal Equinox, the last day of winter, the first day of spring, sunrise at the North Pole, sunset at the South Pole...swiftly flow the years...
The season is already known as the cruelest since it "mixes memory with desire". How much more bittersweet now.

Finally

Dear friends of Ken Wicht,

It will soon be 2 years since Ken's passing. I had planned on this blog being up a year ago, but there was more to deal with than I had imagined. I had to make numerous trips to Freeport, Long Island, to deal with what was left of Ken's material life, as there is no one in the family left on Long Island to help out.

I invite anyone, especially those who knew Ken personally, to blog here, and/or e-mail photos that I will upload. If you have prints, I can scan and return them within a few days.

There are many more pix to come. Most need to be scanned from slides or prints and formatted, which is time consuming. Please bear with me as Ken's blog develops. In the meantime, click on the 'Ken's photos' (PICASA) link (upper right) to view what I have uploaded so far.

There is so much to write about Ken: from his love of language (fluent in Russian and Spanish) and words, to his great photography; from becoming a Master Diver and cave diver, to our travels together; from his becoming a pilot, to his stint in the Air Force; from his in-depth knowledge of the Civil War, to his love of music (oldies to classical and jazz), not to mention his encyclopedic knowledge and love of baseball, Ken wasted little time.

When you learn the daunting background he had to endure to live this much, you will agree with Ken's Russian auto mechanic who said to me, "Somebody should write a book about that guy." Hopefully this blog will emerge as a reasonable and loving facsimile.

Thanks,
Paul