Happy Half-Century of Walaka
The date on the photo says January 1989. The location is the Queen Anne House (known to some in the recording community as "2112."). There is the inevitable (at the time) ash-tray, on a table consisting of a thin slab of marble sitting on a rustic, heavy-duty wood table. Walaka is admiring what I believe to be a Christmas present--a stuffed moose (his familiar, or daemon, of choice then). He's remarkably clean-cut, so I think he might still have been a detective at the time. I rmember, but can't place the little figure on the table, but it was someone prominent (George Bush Sr.?), nor can I identify the book, but dollars to doughnuts it was by Taylor Caldwell.
I first met Walaka through my first wife, Sandy. They worked in adjoining cubicles at a best-unmentioned insurance company (wonder if they ever caught the guy...). And by way of introduction, he held out a cigarette (shows you how old the story is, both of them could smoke at their stations), which she then lit, without a word passing between them. And as he said, "I knew you were an alright person."* This led to spousal introductions, and he and I and she and she became sets of conjoined twins, very much Lucy, Desi, Fred and Ethel of the 80's. It seemed you couldn't have two without the other two, although any combination of the four was a solid, well-honed working relationship.
Time wounds all heels. You lose lots of friends over fifty+ years, but some (like Walaka and The Gang of Four, to mention only a few), you can't bear losing. You make the effort--through changes, makeovers, re-boots, through sickness and in health, career and relationship turn-overs--to keep them within reach as long as Providence allows. You make the most of your time with quality, because there's never enough time to do quantity right.
And because there's never enough time.
But fifty years is a good stretch. Especially when they're of such quality.
Here's to many more (no pressure, of course).
Hope you're Happy as "L," Walaka.
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* ..reads like a Howard Hawks scene.
3 comments:
Good golly! Who is that kid?
January 1989 would have been while the wife and I were living in North Carolina, a few months after I left the cops. I was still skinny and had my Miami Vice hair. Didn't we come back for a post-Christmas visit?
I remember that table. It weighed a ton.
I remember smoking at my desk. I was damn good at it.
And I recall that we had already known each other eight years when this photo was taken, so as long ago as it was, it's not even ancient history.
And yes, here's to many, many more years, not just of Walaka, but of this friendship.
OMFreakingG!!!
Walaka looks so innocent.....never thought I'd connect that word with himself. Maybe it isn't innocence, yet something non-cynical....
Thanks for sharing this insight into the history of Walaka and yourself.
Not sure. The date on the photo, though, is accurate. Of the other photos under consideration were some of that North Carolina Christmas--you got a BIG stuffed moose from us for that, so I don't understand your cherubic delight over getting another, smaller (kinder, gentler, antlier) one a month later.
But whadda I know. To get dates straight, I check my resume (often)
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