Mr. C's Funeral
It's been years since I was last at the Buffalo Grove school where I was Mr. C's assistant. This was his home school--he lived just blocks away for many years and his children were students there. It's a landmark in the area, as I discovered on Friday; the church steeple can be seen from a mile away. When I drove there regularly, I'd leave the house at about 5:30 AM and it would take me an hour to get there. Not knowing what traffic would be like, I left my house about 8:20; I did not want to be late, and I always prefer being early.
But I forget that we're in a pandemic, and traffic volumes are lighter, and again it took me one hour and one minute to get there. However, that last half-mile gave me a surprise--it was the only construction I hit, but it meant I couldn't enter the lot the way I used to, from Lake-Cook Road. I had to enter from the cross street. Being as early as I was, I figured I'd drive around for a bit and took a tour of the general Buffalo Grove/Wheeling area. My Nevada cousin's family lived nearby--she not only attended the school but was Mr. C's student once upon a time--and I drove past their subdivision near the high school. There used to be a Que Pasa restaurant at the corner of Dundee and Arlington Heights Road years ago; that's probably the chain where I began my love of crunchy restaurant-style tortilla chips, as we had an outpost near our house, too. The building is gone completely from what I can tell. Sigh. Time marches on.
Eventually I made my way back to the church and was able to enter off a side street--good, because it turned out you couldn't enter the lot itself. As I walked from my car around a corner, I spotted the band lined up at the lot entrance, in uniform and holding banners and flags, and I lost it. That was the one time I lost it all day, actually, but it was so fitting. I completely forgot Mrs. S is the band director and obviously knew him and knew to do that. I'd later find out it was quite the production to set that up, because the kids haven't had band in person in a year, and hadn't been fitted for uniforms in a year and a half, and luckily a band mom or someone knew where to find all the accoutrements and helped make it happen. One trumpet player even played Taps shortly before we went inside for mass.
Mr. C had a friend of his who'd been in my concert band at one point. He did not fit in well and was asked to leave; when I saw him at solo contest after that happened, any time he talked to me, he'd disparage the band. Well, he was the first person I saw and recognized as I walked up to church. He was in front of me, so he didn't see me, and I'm not sure he would have recognized me, especially in the masks. I managed to avoid him and go around to the other side of the church, and soon after I spotted Mr. M, and I was able to stand by him. There was a woman on his other side, and that turned out to be Jinny. She is still teaching at this school and happened to have that time available as her students were with another teacher. She barely said anything to me, though I made sure to say hello and ask how she was doing. Some things never change.
I mentioned that I should have been in this church before but hadn't. Back when I taught with him, we were there on Wednesdays and alternating Mondays. (He'd be at one school, I'd be at the other.) For Ash Wednesday, we'd gone to the office to check our mail, and he started talking with the principal; that man's son was our second chair trumpet player in senior band. They were chatting for a bit and I was getting bored, so Mr. C said to go down to the office and he'd come get me before mass. So I waited…and I waited…and I waited…and it dawned on me that he completely forgot to come get me, and mass had started, and I had no idea where it was, so I stayed in the band office the whole time. This is probably when I went looking through the drawers and found the programs with my cousin's name in them, since I had the time. The entire rest of the day, students would ask me, Miss [Lastname], why don't you have ashes? I'd grimace and go, ask Mr. C.
Fast-forward seventeen years, and here I am at his funeral. The church is beautiful, big and white…with a second church behind it? What is that? Normally behind the altar it's solid, a wall, but there was some sort of extra seating area back there. Weird. Maybe a chapel? Simply overflow seating? Unsure. This was what I'd had to walk around, since it was round, and how I didn't see the band at first as I was walking from my car, as otherwise it probably would've been a straight shot.
This was different from my aunt's funeral, though who knows if there are county protocols in place that supersede any diocesan protocols. Aunt D's church was in DuPage County; this church was just inside Lake County. (There were actually two different dismissal times back then, where Cook County had one time and Lake County had another, about five minutes apart.) There was a guest list, essentially, so that when you walked in, they checked your name off, then gave you a squirt of hand sanitizer. Every other pew was roped off, and even inside the pews, there was blue tape on them. I'm not sure what that meant but it looked like it was separating the pews into seating areas. Mr. M and I sat together, and Mr. D and a woman (not his wife, but I think a longtime friend and/or colleague) at first joined us in our pew, but they went walking around talking to people and ended up elsewhere when mass started. Mrs. S ended up in front of us, and at the other end of her pew, we recognized someone by the distinctive back of her head: Ellen, the camp nurse. We did go up and say hi both before and after church. Another row up were Jinny and Nikki; they ended up sitting together. I'd forgotten that Nikki would've been Jinny's boss up until a few years ago. Aside from the "peace be with you" time, we had no interaction, though she did recognize me and gave a friendly wave. Later, during communion, I spotted Jerry, the longtime associate director for camp. I hadn't seen him in nearly a decade. However, he left right after church and I didn't get to speak with him. And, after mass had started, there was a minor commotion; while someone was speaking, I could hear voices talking behind me. Mrs. S happened to look, and she got my attention and pointed back there--Mr. L had shown up. He'd been Mr. C's student teacher and then colleague probably 40 years ago, but was forced out of teaching around 2004. He has not had an easy go of it since, though he didn't let on to any of it, but that's for later. He made it. That's the important thing.
This having been his home church for ages, probably even after he moved to Palatine (not like it was that far, truthfully--I could've driven by his house while wasting time), he knew the priest, who did a nice job. In fact, Mr. C's son, Dave, spoke first, and when the priest came up to give the homily, he said, Dave, you took a lot of what I was going to say! Ultimately, it was a shame that it turned out the way it did--Mr. C wasn't given the chance to be honored for all his teaching, to say goodbye to his students and schools on his terms, due to his health issues. The staph infections that first came into his life back in 2010, and nearly killed him then, are part of what took him down this time. He'd had a knee replacement that failed, rendering walking difficult if not impossible two years ago, and he was forced into a retirement he wasn't ready for. Then, when he was sick with his final illnesses, the pandemic meant that the thousands of lives he influenced couldn't come together in person to commemorate him; all those people who may have wanted to be involved got reduced down to a guest list of about 50 people. Believe me, I imagine a few parents who'd known him a long time would've been willing to take off work to express condolences to his family in person had they been able, but no. Such a loud, boisterous personality went out quietly, in a box carried into church by his children, specifically his daughter. I'd wondered about that--he was not a small person, and I wondered how pallbearers would work.
We were given programs, which were nice and had a picture of him inside the front cover. I knew I'd have to show it to mom once I got home; the cover image had her old work's name attached to it. Look, mom, you were involved. That fits because she started that job the same year I met Mr. C, actually. It was nice to be able to follow along, and it listed who would participate as well. Aside from Dave, a man named Frank gave one reading, and Mr. C's younger granddaughter gave a short one as well. I kept looking at Frank going, I know him from somewhere…where do I know him from… Mrs. S helped me out: He'd been the assistant principal at this school for many years and must've been a close friend. That jogged my memory; I used to have lunch with him, I believe. There were only so many men at this school. If they had the same lunch period, they sat at the same table. (This is how I got to know Jinny's husband before they got married, actually; he taught 5th grade there at the time and he was part of our lunch bunch. I was the only girl at the table, because I didn't know anyone else to sit with.) I didn't participate a whole lot with mass; I'm still stuck in Vatican II-era sayings, so all this Vatican III-type stuff is weird to me, despite it being around since Uncle Ted died in 2011. That's how little I go to church. For the sign of peace, this church did a wave, so there was a fair amount of waving at whomever was in the general vicinity. I did not take communion, though Mr. M did, so I made sure to get out of the pew as he was walking back. Mrs. S is not Catholic so I knew she wouldn't go, either.
Afterward, we were encouraged to go outside by the ushers; I swear one of them was Brigid, who'd been the general music teacher back in the day. I didn't ask her name, though, but if that was her, it was nice to see her again and that she's still active in the parish. I think her kids had gone to school there, too. Back outside, I saw Luana, who was a Mr. C student ten years ahead of me and whom I've met as a judge at solo contest. She teaches in Barrington and was the older Mr. C granddaughter's band director in middle school. (She'd switched to public school after about 5th or 6th grade.) Luana had not gone inside; turns out she has her own medical situation that prevented her from attending mass, so she stood outside the whole time. Oh, wow. I offered to go back in to find her a program and was able to do so; she really appreciated that. She was double-masked, which made me feel better. My coworkers requested I wear two masks, so I complied, though soon after I went into church I was feeling around for it and was like, why do I not feel the outer mask? Because it was around my neck, duh. Oops. My bottom layer was a surgical-style mask, with one of my homemade masks over it. Once in place properly, it stayed there the rest of the time, phew.
We stood and talked for a while, with Luana and Mr. L talking a bit. It took him a while to place me, which I suppose isn't surprising since it's been seventeen years. He's like the musical version of Sheldon Cooper, this brilliant, near-eidetic memory that has a very narrow focus. He can tell you all you want to know about bands in the Chicago archdiocese. That's whether you want to hear it or not. That is all the man talks about. You will be in some other conversation with no bearing on that, and he will butt in and start telling you something about various schools from many years ago. It's a talent. And he will be completely oblivious to anything else going on, but more on that in a moment.
First, I had been invited by Mrs. C to Dave's house for a luncheon after mass. Luana, with her health situation, excused herself, but did get a picture of a group of us. Mrs. S and Mr. M had not heard of such a thing, but if we were on the guest list for mass, we were automatically invited; the priest even mentioned it as church was ending. Dave's wife even came up and made sure we had their address, so we all decided, what the heck, at least for a little while. It was while walking back to our cars afterward that Mr. L was trying to place me, and he said, don't tell me, give me 5-10 minutes. That's when Mr. M said, Jennifer, I'll pull my car up around and behind yours. Okay, well, there's half the battle right there, heh. Mr. L looked at me and went, flute player? Yes. He still wasn't sure about my last name and I said, your clue is my license plate; it has my nickname on it, which is based off my last name. He did finally give up and I had to say it to him. I guess my license plate looked German to him (das ist nicht gut, heh) and it wasn't clicking with him. (I mean, I *am* the person who figured out his birthday is on his license plate, and arranged for a birthday celebration at camp one year, and as thanks he made me a set of towels with my name on them which I now use as my set of kitchen towels, but whatever. Realize that the directors would get super sweaty while rehearsing at camp, so Mr. L got them towels embroidered with their names and the camp logo on them, five total, one per weekday. I was gifted with a set of them one year.) (…I'm basically the Sheldon Cooper of camp. What, I can talk about other things, too. Hush.)
Mr. L left before the others. Mr. M and I waited for Mrs. S to lock up the band room; in the meantime, we looked up Dave's address on our phones. Also, Mr. M had car trouble almost immediately after leaving his house that morning and up and had to borrow his brother's car. I'm used to him being in an SUV; it was really weird seeing him in a sedan. After about five minutes, here came Mrs. S, and I thought we were caravanning over there, but when I drove away--the frontmost car in the line--they didn't follow. Hmm. They did catch up to me pretty quickly, and Mrs. S had said she'd lead the caravan, so she ended up in front of me, which was fine. It was pretty easy to get to the house and the only trouble we had was once we got on the street--the app Mrs. S was using didn't show her the house number. I said, when in doubt, look for the cars. Sure enough, we had farther to go down the street. The house is in a court, and there's a circular drive down by Dave's house. In order to park on the same side of the street as the others, we had to go around the drive--made slightly tougher by Frank and his wife walking to the house. They're older; they didn't move very fast. They could see me and were giving me sympathetic looks. Guys, it's fine. We're all going to the same place.
Mr. M, Mrs. S, and I all walked in at the same time. The garage had single doors and one was up, so we figured we could go in that way, though Mrs. S still knocked first. We were told, come on in! It basically opened into the kitchen, where a whole spread was set out. Sandwiches, veggies, chips, cupcakes, drinks, it was all very nice. I didn't touch a thing. Stuff like fruit salad and the veggies were in single-serve cups, oh, and I think a potato salad. Someone said it was so good she had a second cup of it, heh. Man, if it wasn't a pandemic, and not Lent, I likely would've been all over that. Don't forget Friday, as well, though there were meat sandwiches too, like maybe roast beef. For drinks, they ranged from Capri Sun to Coors Light. I ended up in front of the sink for a bit, which was where one of the garbage cans was, so I kept opening the drawer whenever someone came by and looked like they needed to throw something away. What can I say; I'm very useful. Mr. C's remains were on the counter nearby, and we joked that he should have a scotch and a cigar. Dave said he was going to go get some but the items were in the basement; he didn't do it while I was there. No biggie. There was a nice bouquet of flowers so at least that was appropriate.
I spent a little time talking with Mr. D in the kitchen. Between the ambient noise and my two masks, I don't think he heard me very well. While I wasn't the only person wearing a mask still--I noticed one older lady kept hers on--I was definitely the only one in two masks. Everyone else, masks came off. I mean, okay, your choice, but I simply can't risk it. When I brought up going to the house to mom on Wednesday, she got kind of anxious about the situation and was like, you'll have to take off your clothes as soon as you get home, and shower, and… Okay, fine, I can do that. Thursday morning as I finished my shower, she knocked on the door and asked if I'd be willing to wear a face shield. …Uh, no. Not that dorky. I'm not wearing a face shield for the first time at a funeral, thank you. Also, we don't have face shields…? (She ordered them from Amazon that day. My saying I wouldn't wear one to mass on Friday meant she didn't have to pay extra for shipping to get them same day. Ah. We're now in possession of four face shields should anyone need one.) Anyway, Mr. D is not currently teaching, but plans to go back once things settle down. He told me a bit about Mr. C's last illnesses. I'd heard from Mr. M that it was a situation of, where do we even start? Mr. D gave me the litany of everything, and yeah, there was so much bad going on that there basically was no way for him to recover from any of it, much less all of it at the same time. One or two things would've been bad enough; Mr. C had at least a half-dozen. It's amazing he lasted as long as he did. In fact, he was on a ventilator, I think they said, and the nurses figured he'd have only a few minutes to an hour after they took him off it before he passed. He actually made it through the night and died at 5-something the next morning. It wasn't that he didn't have the will to live. His body had had enough. Mr. M, in the parking lot, had said that he was able to make it to say goodbye in person, basically. I think it was Mr. D who said that Jerry had come by--it could've been Dave or someone else saying this, though--and Jerry didn't seem to understand that Mr. C wasn't going to make it through this situation. Yes, he'd been ill before, very ill, and pulled through, but that wasn't the case this time around. People have wondered about Jerry's mental condition for a few years now and perhaps that's what caused him to not quite understand how dire the situation was. Again, he left before I got to talk to him; I was standing in front of the church and recognized him in his silver truck as he pulled out of the lot.
Mr. D left first, then Mr. M a little bit later, saying he'd borrowed his brother's car so quickly that he didn't know if he needed it for anything that day, and he didn't want to keep it too long. Understandable. I did give him a hug as he left. We're both attempting to judge Mrs. S's solo contest this upcoming weekend and it might be something where we go to the school to view everything online; that's still being worked out, though at least this weekend I was able to log into the teaching portal and she has made me what's called a copilot. (This is still in progress.) Anyway, after they left, Mrs. S said she wanted to go outside for some air, so I joined her, and we were outside for quite a while. It was sunny and about 50F, so it was actually comfortable until I ended up fully in the shade. Dave was out there with a young relative at first, then Frank came out and talked to us for a little bit. I think Dave went in with the little girl (an uncle's granddaughter or something; she was about 8 and adorable) and then came back outside as I was asking Mrs. S how home-type things were going. The questions I was asking made Dave ask me, are you married? No? Then why are you asking this stuff? I said, we had sort of a therapy session after solo contest last year and I wanted an update. Anyway, things are unresolved, and the pandemic exacerbated things, so that was unfortunate. Dave's friend Mark came out and started talking with us; turned out that Mark and Dave had installed a countertop at an old place where Mrs. S had lived. At some point Dave went back inside, but Mark kept talking, and he brought up camp. He and Dave were at camps 2 and 3, as counselors. Earlier, while still inside, Dave had come up to me and said, hey [Lastname], how's it going? Like…he did not ever address me by my first name. We didn't really know each other, as he's five years older than me, and he was only at camp those two years. I spent more time with his daughters, actually. But he said that there was someone online claiming they'd pulled off this epic prank that he and Mark did, where they moved a camp mom's belongings on top of the gym. I'd told him, I actually just came across the pictures from that, and I'm planning on starting a camp Instagram account--I mean, it exists; there's just nothing there. Dave and Mark did me a favor, confirming what I'd long thought--that prank was from camp 3. The signage in the pictures listed an area code that I didn't think had been in existence yet (I clearly remember reading that 708 came online on 11-11-89, which was three months after camp that year), but that was probably Dave's version of a 555 phone number. Anyway, fast-forward an hour, and Mrs. S and I are outside talking to Mark and he's mentioning that prank. I mean, it was pretty epic. He also talked about the camp rap that the counselors had done and I went, I totally remember that! We thought it was the coolest thing ever! The campers had the counselors do it a second time. Mrs. S then told him, you know, she's the person who went to every single camp. Mark was very impressed by that. When he'd mentioned camp, I'd had to ask him his last name, and I did recognize it, though I think he said he was a sax player so it wasn't like he was my counselor. He mentioned a few names that I recognized as counselors from that era. The guys also told me something I hadn't realized--they didn't go to camp 1 because they'd just graduated the 8th grade, so they weren't a part of their school band any longer, and they weren't yet part of a high school band program, so they weren't allowed. I hadn't realized that 8th graders couldn't go at first. And, as I mentioned to them once we were back inside, there wasn't a program from camp 1 so we really don't know who all was there. I happen to have the t-shirt from that year; that's how I can show my proof. Also, I remember the old chapel--it only existed that year.
At some point we went back inside, and this was when I was trying to talk to Mr. C's daughter, Becky. She'd mistaken me for Mr. D's daughter earlier in the day and I'd had to go, no, I'm Jen; she felt bad about it, but again, we really didn't know each other, only more of each other, and I did have two masks on. Alas, I didn't get much of a chance to speak with her as Mr. L was holding court in the kitchen, and Mrs. S decided to leave and she took Becky home. Mrs. S did have lessons to teach later in the afternoon so she didn't want to be gone all day. I mean, it's crunch time for those solos. Once she left, about 2 PM, I figured I should probably take my leave, but Mr. L kind of kept talking. This was when Dave and Mark and I were trying to talk in the kitchen, but just as Dave started going into what seemed like an interesting story, Mr. L interjected, and even when he stopped talking and I said, so Dave, what was that story? I think Mr. L jumped in again, and there went that. Around that time I was watching Mr. L eat a brownie or something, holding it in his hand and waving it around a little while he talked, and it was soft, and the end of it fell off onto a cupcake on a serving platter below his hand. He had no idea that had happened. He also spits a little when he talks and there was a point where I kinda wanted the face shield, to be honest with you. Shortly after was when I was like, well, I should probably get going, and Mr. L was like, yeah, I probably should too, places to go, people to see… (I know that's likely not true, though I won't get into it here.) I did want to say hello and goodbye to Mrs. C, whom I hadn't said anything to at all. She was sitting at a table by the back door talking with someone. Dave was nearby and was encouraging me to interrupt, as she was probably talking to a family member, but ultimately he's the one who went, mom, someone's trying to talk to you. I did give her a hug as well, and she mentioned getting my Christmas card, so yeah, she'll remain on my list.
My coat was in the dining room, which I could see from the kitchen. Dave saw me go in there and started talking to me and ended up walking me out. His neighbor's dog, like a dark goldendoodle, was sitting on the driveway next door watching the house; he gave a low woof as we walked toward Dave's driveway. We were saying our goodbyes and he'd even started walking away when I said, am I mistaken, but did I not see your older daughter? He said, no, you didn't. She's in college in Texas. She was in the week prior but they sent her back to school on Sunday. She did get to be there for Mr. C's last days. One thing we'd talked about back on the deck was how much kinder he'd gotten after the girls were born. Dave had even said, yeah, my daughters are like, we love grandpa! He's great! And Dave was like, yeah, you are getting a whole different person than who I had! Oh, gosh. Mr. C definitely softened after they came along. Anyway, he asked for my number in case he needed to get in touch with me about anything, so I sent him a text; he said his phone was in his wife's jacket, as there wasn't enough room in his when they'd gotten to mass. He texted me back yesterday morning to thank me for coming.
One thing Mrs. S had brought up, and she sent the link to me while back on the deck (a lot happened on that deck…it's a nice, big deck, too), was something called a Kudoboard. I'd never heard of it, but it was something that had been put together as a place to share pictures and stories. She said it was open for submissions through Sunday night, so after I got home (and peed!), I spent the evening going through my online camp albums and saving pictures to the iPad, then Saturday after shopping, I went through my teaching scrapbooks and scanned in some pictures. Ultimately, I only went with the scans; I didn't want to spam the page. Plus, I mean, I do have the camp Instagram. I can put all sorts of pictures there. Including the famous pranks. Perhaps I'll make sure to give Dave and Mark credit for that. Also, for posterity, the reason behind the prank was that one of the camp moms stole Dave's underwear. He wanted to get her back and suggested stealing hers, freezing it, then putting it on the tables in the mess hall. His dad was like, no, that's not appropriate; you're not at the same authority level. You can't go stealing her underwear. However, one of the camp maintenance guys had some sort of vehicle that could transport, say, a roomful of furniture from the staff house to the canteen area on the back of the gym. And this is how I came out of rehearsal one day (I believe--it had to be long enough for the rest of camp to be occupied for a good hour) to find the entirety of this mom's room up there, with signage saying it was a garage sale and here was a (fake) phone number to call for inquiries. It was really impressive. It also started a series of pranks over the years that didn't end for a while, even after Dave and Mark were gone. Oh, memories. And this is why I wanted to start the Instagram. Let's share and reminisce together. Between my pictures, Jerry's, and Mr. C's, I have thousands upon thousands of photos. Dave said that Jerry would take about 1100 pictures per year. Yep; that's what I was at by the end. I could post a picture a day for decades and not run out, though admittedly not all of them are proper enough to go up there. Some are blurry; some are controversial. (No, I am NOT putting up pictures of a counselor in blackface. Just no. I was kind of horrified to find those pictures--there's at least two.)
But I forget that we're in a pandemic, and traffic volumes are lighter, and again it took me one hour and one minute to get there. However, that last half-mile gave me a surprise--it was the only construction I hit, but it meant I couldn't enter the lot the way I used to, from Lake-Cook Road. I had to enter from the cross street. Being as early as I was, I figured I'd drive around for a bit and took a tour of the general Buffalo Grove/Wheeling area. My Nevada cousin's family lived nearby--she not only attended the school but was Mr. C's student once upon a time--and I drove past their subdivision near the high school. There used to be a Que Pasa restaurant at the corner of Dundee and Arlington Heights Road years ago; that's probably the chain where I began my love of crunchy restaurant-style tortilla chips, as we had an outpost near our house, too. The building is gone completely from what I can tell. Sigh. Time marches on.
Eventually I made my way back to the church and was able to enter off a side street--good, because it turned out you couldn't enter the lot itself. As I walked from my car around a corner, I spotted the band lined up at the lot entrance, in uniform and holding banners and flags, and I lost it. That was the one time I lost it all day, actually, but it was so fitting. I completely forgot Mrs. S is the band director and obviously knew him and knew to do that. I'd later find out it was quite the production to set that up, because the kids haven't had band in person in a year, and hadn't been fitted for uniforms in a year and a half, and luckily a band mom or someone knew where to find all the accoutrements and helped make it happen. One trumpet player even played Taps shortly before we went inside for mass.
Mr. C had a friend of his who'd been in my concert band at one point. He did not fit in well and was asked to leave; when I saw him at solo contest after that happened, any time he talked to me, he'd disparage the band. Well, he was the first person I saw and recognized as I walked up to church. He was in front of me, so he didn't see me, and I'm not sure he would have recognized me, especially in the masks. I managed to avoid him and go around to the other side of the church, and soon after I spotted Mr. M, and I was able to stand by him. There was a woman on his other side, and that turned out to be Jinny. She is still teaching at this school and happened to have that time available as her students were with another teacher. She barely said anything to me, though I made sure to say hello and ask how she was doing. Some things never change.
I mentioned that I should have been in this church before but hadn't. Back when I taught with him, we were there on Wednesdays and alternating Mondays. (He'd be at one school, I'd be at the other.) For Ash Wednesday, we'd gone to the office to check our mail, and he started talking with the principal; that man's son was our second chair trumpet player in senior band. They were chatting for a bit and I was getting bored, so Mr. C said to go down to the office and he'd come get me before mass. So I waited…and I waited…and I waited…and it dawned on me that he completely forgot to come get me, and mass had started, and I had no idea where it was, so I stayed in the band office the whole time. This is probably when I went looking through the drawers and found the programs with my cousin's name in them, since I had the time. The entire rest of the day, students would ask me, Miss [Lastname], why don't you have ashes? I'd grimace and go, ask Mr. C.
Fast-forward seventeen years, and here I am at his funeral. The church is beautiful, big and white…with a second church behind it? What is that? Normally behind the altar it's solid, a wall, but there was some sort of extra seating area back there. Weird. Maybe a chapel? Simply overflow seating? Unsure. This was what I'd had to walk around, since it was round, and how I didn't see the band at first as I was walking from my car, as otherwise it probably would've been a straight shot.
This was different from my aunt's funeral, though who knows if there are county protocols in place that supersede any diocesan protocols. Aunt D's church was in DuPage County; this church was just inside Lake County. (There were actually two different dismissal times back then, where Cook County had one time and Lake County had another, about five minutes apart.) There was a guest list, essentially, so that when you walked in, they checked your name off, then gave you a squirt of hand sanitizer. Every other pew was roped off, and even inside the pews, there was blue tape on them. I'm not sure what that meant but it looked like it was separating the pews into seating areas. Mr. M and I sat together, and Mr. D and a woman (not his wife, but I think a longtime friend and/or colleague) at first joined us in our pew, but they went walking around talking to people and ended up elsewhere when mass started. Mrs. S ended up in front of us, and at the other end of her pew, we recognized someone by the distinctive back of her head: Ellen, the camp nurse. We did go up and say hi both before and after church. Another row up were Jinny and Nikki; they ended up sitting together. I'd forgotten that Nikki would've been Jinny's boss up until a few years ago. Aside from the "peace be with you" time, we had no interaction, though she did recognize me and gave a friendly wave. Later, during communion, I spotted Jerry, the longtime associate director for camp. I hadn't seen him in nearly a decade. However, he left right after church and I didn't get to speak with him. And, after mass had started, there was a minor commotion; while someone was speaking, I could hear voices talking behind me. Mrs. S happened to look, and she got my attention and pointed back there--Mr. L had shown up. He'd been Mr. C's student teacher and then colleague probably 40 years ago, but was forced out of teaching around 2004. He has not had an easy go of it since, though he didn't let on to any of it, but that's for later. He made it. That's the important thing.
This having been his home church for ages, probably even after he moved to Palatine (not like it was that far, truthfully--I could've driven by his house while wasting time), he knew the priest, who did a nice job. In fact, Mr. C's son, Dave, spoke first, and when the priest came up to give the homily, he said, Dave, you took a lot of what I was going to say! Ultimately, it was a shame that it turned out the way it did--Mr. C wasn't given the chance to be honored for all his teaching, to say goodbye to his students and schools on his terms, due to his health issues. The staph infections that first came into his life back in 2010, and nearly killed him then, are part of what took him down this time. He'd had a knee replacement that failed, rendering walking difficult if not impossible two years ago, and he was forced into a retirement he wasn't ready for. Then, when he was sick with his final illnesses, the pandemic meant that the thousands of lives he influenced couldn't come together in person to commemorate him; all those people who may have wanted to be involved got reduced down to a guest list of about 50 people. Believe me, I imagine a few parents who'd known him a long time would've been willing to take off work to express condolences to his family in person had they been able, but no. Such a loud, boisterous personality went out quietly, in a box carried into church by his children, specifically his daughter. I'd wondered about that--he was not a small person, and I wondered how pallbearers would work.
We were given programs, which were nice and had a picture of him inside the front cover. I knew I'd have to show it to mom once I got home; the cover image had her old work's name attached to it. Look, mom, you were involved. That fits because she started that job the same year I met Mr. C, actually. It was nice to be able to follow along, and it listed who would participate as well. Aside from Dave, a man named Frank gave one reading, and Mr. C's younger granddaughter gave a short one as well. I kept looking at Frank going, I know him from somewhere…where do I know him from… Mrs. S helped me out: He'd been the assistant principal at this school for many years and must've been a close friend. That jogged my memory; I used to have lunch with him, I believe. There were only so many men at this school. If they had the same lunch period, they sat at the same table. (This is how I got to know Jinny's husband before they got married, actually; he taught 5th grade there at the time and he was part of our lunch bunch. I was the only girl at the table, because I didn't know anyone else to sit with.) I didn't participate a whole lot with mass; I'm still stuck in Vatican II-era sayings, so all this Vatican III-type stuff is weird to me, despite it being around since Uncle Ted died in 2011. That's how little I go to church. For the sign of peace, this church did a wave, so there was a fair amount of waving at whomever was in the general vicinity. I did not take communion, though Mr. M did, so I made sure to get out of the pew as he was walking back. Mrs. S is not Catholic so I knew she wouldn't go, either.
Afterward, we were encouraged to go outside by the ushers; I swear one of them was Brigid, who'd been the general music teacher back in the day. I didn't ask her name, though, but if that was her, it was nice to see her again and that she's still active in the parish. I think her kids had gone to school there, too. Back outside, I saw Luana, who was a Mr. C student ten years ahead of me and whom I've met as a judge at solo contest. She teaches in Barrington and was the older Mr. C granddaughter's band director in middle school. (She'd switched to public school after about 5th or 6th grade.) Luana had not gone inside; turns out she has her own medical situation that prevented her from attending mass, so she stood outside the whole time. Oh, wow. I offered to go back in to find her a program and was able to do so; she really appreciated that. She was double-masked, which made me feel better. My coworkers requested I wear two masks, so I complied, though soon after I went into church I was feeling around for it and was like, why do I not feel the outer mask? Because it was around my neck, duh. Oops. My bottom layer was a surgical-style mask, with one of my homemade masks over it. Once in place properly, it stayed there the rest of the time, phew.
We stood and talked for a while, with Luana and Mr. L talking a bit. It took him a while to place me, which I suppose isn't surprising since it's been seventeen years. He's like the musical version of Sheldon Cooper, this brilliant, near-eidetic memory that has a very narrow focus. He can tell you all you want to know about bands in the Chicago archdiocese. That's whether you want to hear it or not. That is all the man talks about. You will be in some other conversation with no bearing on that, and he will butt in and start telling you something about various schools from many years ago. It's a talent. And he will be completely oblivious to anything else going on, but more on that in a moment.
First, I had been invited by Mrs. C to Dave's house for a luncheon after mass. Luana, with her health situation, excused herself, but did get a picture of a group of us. Mrs. S and Mr. M had not heard of such a thing, but if we were on the guest list for mass, we were automatically invited; the priest even mentioned it as church was ending. Dave's wife even came up and made sure we had their address, so we all decided, what the heck, at least for a little while. It was while walking back to our cars afterward that Mr. L was trying to place me, and he said, don't tell me, give me 5-10 minutes. That's when Mr. M said, Jennifer, I'll pull my car up around and behind yours. Okay, well, there's half the battle right there, heh. Mr. L looked at me and went, flute player? Yes. He still wasn't sure about my last name and I said, your clue is my license plate; it has my nickname on it, which is based off my last name. He did finally give up and I had to say it to him. I guess my license plate looked German to him (das ist nicht gut, heh) and it wasn't clicking with him. (I mean, I *am* the person who figured out his birthday is on his license plate, and arranged for a birthday celebration at camp one year, and as thanks he made me a set of towels with my name on them which I now use as my set of kitchen towels, but whatever. Realize that the directors would get super sweaty while rehearsing at camp, so Mr. L got them towels embroidered with their names and the camp logo on them, five total, one per weekday. I was gifted with a set of them one year.) (…I'm basically the Sheldon Cooper of camp. What, I can talk about other things, too. Hush.)
Mr. L left before the others. Mr. M and I waited for Mrs. S to lock up the band room; in the meantime, we looked up Dave's address on our phones. Also, Mr. M had car trouble almost immediately after leaving his house that morning and up and had to borrow his brother's car. I'm used to him being in an SUV; it was really weird seeing him in a sedan. After about five minutes, here came Mrs. S, and I thought we were caravanning over there, but when I drove away--the frontmost car in the line--they didn't follow. Hmm. They did catch up to me pretty quickly, and Mrs. S had said she'd lead the caravan, so she ended up in front of me, which was fine. It was pretty easy to get to the house and the only trouble we had was once we got on the street--the app Mrs. S was using didn't show her the house number. I said, when in doubt, look for the cars. Sure enough, we had farther to go down the street. The house is in a court, and there's a circular drive down by Dave's house. In order to park on the same side of the street as the others, we had to go around the drive--made slightly tougher by Frank and his wife walking to the house. They're older; they didn't move very fast. They could see me and were giving me sympathetic looks. Guys, it's fine. We're all going to the same place.
Mr. M, Mrs. S, and I all walked in at the same time. The garage had single doors and one was up, so we figured we could go in that way, though Mrs. S still knocked first. We were told, come on in! It basically opened into the kitchen, where a whole spread was set out. Sandwiches, veggies, chips, cupcakes, drinks, it was all very nice. I didn't touch a thing. Stuff like fruit salad and the veggies were in single-serve cups, oh, and I think a potato salad. Someone said it was so good she had a second cup of it, heh. Man, if it wasn't a pandemic, and not Lent, I likely would've been all over that. Don't forget Friday, as well, though there were meat sandwiches too, like maybe roast beef. For drinks, they ranged from Capri Sun to Coors Light. I ended up in front of the sink for a bit, which was where one of the garbage cans was, so I kept opening the drawer whenever someone came by and looked like they needed to throw something away. What can I say; I'm very useful. Mr. C's remains were on the counter nearby, and we joked that he should have a scotch and a cigar. Dave said he was going to go get some but the items were in the basement; he didn't do it while I was there. No biggie. There was a nice bouquet of flowers so at least that was appropriate.
I spent a little time talking with Mr. D in the kitchen. Between the ambient noise and my two masks, I don't think he heard me very well. While I wasn't the only person wearing a mask still--I noticed one older lady kept hers on--I was definitely the only one in two masks. Everyone else, masks came off. I mean, okay, your choice, but I simply can't risk it. When I brought up going to the house to mom on Wednesday, she got kind of anxious about the situation and was like, you'll have to take off your clothes as soon as you get home, and shower, and… Okay, fine, I can do that. Thursday morning as I finished my shower, she knocked on the door and asked if I'd be willing to wear a face shield. …Uh, no. Not that dorky. I'm not wearing a face shield for the first time at a funeral, thank you. Also, we don't have face shields…? (She ordered them from Amazon that day. My saying I wouldn't wear one to mass on Friday meant she didn't have to pay extra for shipping to get them same day. Ah. We're now in possession of four face shields should anyone need one.) Anyway, Mr. D is not currently teaching, but plans to go back once things settle down. He told me a bit about Mr. C's last illnesses. I'd heard from Mr. M that it was a situation of, where do we even start? Mr. D gave me the litany of everything, and yeah, there was so much bad going on that there basically was no way for him to recover from any of it, much less all of it at the same time. One or two things would've been bad enough; Mr. C had at least a half-dozen. It's amazing he lasted as long as he did. In fact, he was on a ventilator, I think they said, and the nurses figured he'd have only a few minutes to an hour after they took him off it before he passed. He actually made it through the night and died at 5-something the next morning. It wasn't that he didn't have the will to live. His body had had enough. Mr. M, in the parking lot, had said that he was able to make it to say goodbye in person, basically. I think it was Mr. D who said that Jerry had come by--it could've been Dave or someone else saying this, though--and Jerry didn't seem to understand that Mr. C wasn't going to make it through this situation. Yes, he'd been ill before, very ill, and pulled through, but that wasn't the case this time around. People have wondered about Jerry's mental condition for a few years now and perhaps that's what caused him to not quite understand how dire the situation was. Again, he left before I got to talk to him; I was standing in front of the church and recognized him in his silver truck as he pulled out of the lot.
Mr. D left first, then Mr. M a little bit later, saying he'd borrowed his brother's car so quickly that he didn't know if he needed it for anything that day, and he didn't want to keep it too long. Understandable. I did give him a hug as he left. We're both attempting to judge Mrs. S's solo contest this upcoming weekend and it might be something where we go to the school to view everything online; that's still being worked out, though at least this weekend I was able to log into the teaching portal and she has made me what's called a copilot. (This is still in progress.) Anyway, after they left, Mrs. S said she wanted to go outside for some air, so I joined her, and we were outside for quite a while. It was sunny and about 50F, so it was actually comfortable until I ended up fully in the shade. Dave was out there with a young relative at first, then Frank came out and talked to us for a little bit. I think Dave went in with the little girl (an uncle's granddaughter or something; she was about 8 and adorable) and then came back outside as I was asking Mrs. S how home-type things were going. The questions I was asking made Dave ask me, are you married? No? Then why are you asking this stuff? I said, we had sort of a therapy session after solo contest last year and I wanted an update. Anyway, things are unresolved, and the pandemic exacerbated things, so that was unfortunate. Dave's friend Mark came out and started talking with us; turned out that Mark and Dave had installed a countertop at an old place where Mrs. S had lived. At some point Dave went back inside, but Mark kept talking, and he brought up camp. He and Dave were at camps 2 and 3, as counselors. Earlier, while still inside, Dave had come up to me and said, hey [Lastname], how's it going? Like…he did not ever address me by my first name. We didn't really know each other, as he's five years older than me, and he was only at camp those two years. I spent more time with his daughters, actually. But he said that there was someone online claiming they'd pulled off this epic prank that he and Mark did, where they moved a camp mom's belongings on top of the gym. I'd told him, I actually just came across the pictures from that, and I'm planning on starting a camp Instagram account--I mean, it exists; there's just nothing there. Dave and Mark did me a favor, confirming what I'd long thought--that prank was from camp 3. The signage in the pictures listed an area code that I didn't think had been in existence yet (I clearly remember reading that 708 came online on 11-11-89, which was three months after camp that year), but that was probably Dave's version of a 555 phone number. Anyway, fast-forward an hour, and Mrs. S and I are outside talking to Mark and he's mentioning that prank. I mean, it was pretty epic. He also talked about the camp rap that the counselors had done and I went, I totally remember that! We thought it was the coolest thing ever! The campers had the counselors do it a second time. Mrs. S then told him, you know, she's the person who went to every single camp. Mark was very impressed by that. When he'd mentioned camp, I'd had to ask him his last name, and I did recognize it, though I think he said he was a sax player so it wasn't like he was my counselor. He mentioned a few names that I recognized as counselors from that era. The guys also told me something I hadn't realized--they didn't go to camp 1 because they'd just graduated the 8th grade, so they weren't a part of their school band any longer, and they weren't yet part of a high school band program, so they weren't allowed. I hadn't realized that 8th graders couldn't go at first. And, as I mentioned to them once we were back inside, there wasn't a program from camp 1 so we really don't know who all was there. I happen to have the t-shirt from that year; that's how I can show my proof. Also, I remember the old chapel--it only existed that year.
At some point we went back inside, and this was when I was trying to talk to Mr. C's daughter, Becky. She'd mistaken me for Mr. D's daughter earlier in the day and I'd had to go, no, I'm Jen; she felt bad about it, but again, we really didn't know each other, only more of each other, and I did have two masks on. Alas, I didn't get much of a chance to speak with her as Mr. L was holding court in the kitchen, and Mrs. S decided to leave and she took Becky home. Mrs. S did have lessons to teach later in the afternoon so she didn't want to be gone all day. I mean, it's crunch time for those solos. Once she left, about 2 PM, I figured I should probably take my leave, but Mr. L kind of kept talking. This was when Dave and Mark and I were trying to talk in the kitchen, but just as Dave started going into what seemed like an interesting story, Mr. L interjected, and even when he stopped talking and I said, so Dave, what was that story? I think Mr. L jumped in again, and there went that. Around that time I was watching Mr. L eat a brownie or something, holding it in his hand and waving it around a little while he talked, and it was soft, and the end of it fell off onto a cupcake on a serving platter below his hand. He had no idea that had happened. He also spits a little when he talks and there was a point where I kinda wanted the face shield, to be honest with you. Shortly after was when I was like, well, I should probably get going, and Mr. L was like, yeah, I probably should too, places to go, people to see… (I know that's likely not true, though I won't get into it here.) I did want to say hello and goodbye to Mrs. C, whom I hadn't said anything to at all. She was sitting at a table by the back door talking with someone. Dave was nearby and was encouraging me to interrupt, as she was probably talking to a family member, but ultimately he's the one who went, mom, someone's trying to talk to you. I did give her a hug as well, and she mentioned getting my Christmas card, so yeah, she'll remain on my list.
My coat was in the dining room, which I could see from the kitchen. Dave saw me go in there and started talking to me and ended up walking me out. His neighbor's dog, like a dark goldendoodle, was sitting on the driveway next door watching the house; he gave a low woof as we walked toward Dave's driveway. We were saying our goodbyes and he'd even started walking away when I said, am I mistaken, but did I not see your older daughter? He said, no, you didn't. She's in college in Texas. She was in the week prior but they sent her back to school on Sunday. She did get to be there for Mr. C's last days. One thing we'd talked about back on the deck was how much kinder he'd gotten after the girls were born. Dave had even said, yeah, my daughters are like, we love grandpa! He's great! And Dave was like, yeah, you are getting a whole different person than who I had! Oh, gosh. Mr. C definitely softened after they came along. Anyway, he asked for my number in case he needed to get in touch with me about anything, so I sent him a text; he said his phone was in his wife's jacket, as there wasn't enough room in his when they'd gotten to mass. He texted me back yesterday morning to thank me for coming.
One thing Mrs. S had brought up, and she sent the link to me while back on the deck (a lot happened on that deck…it's a nice, big deck, too), was something called a Kudoboard. I'd never heard of it, but it was something that had been put together as a place to share pictures and stories. She said it was open for submissions through Sunday night, so after I got home (and peed!), I spent the evening going through my online camp albums and saving pictures to the iPad, then Saturday after shopping, I went through my teaching scrapbooks and scanned in some pictures. Ultimately, I only went with the scans; I didn't want to spam the page. Plus, I mean, I do have the camp Instagram. I can put all sorts of pictures there. Including the famous pranks. Perhaps I'll make sure to give Dave and Mark credit for that. Also, for posterity, the reason behind the prank was that one of the camp moms stole Dave's underwear. He wanted to get her back and suggested stealing hers, freezing it, then putting it on the tables in the mess hall. His dad was like, no, that's not appropriate; you're not at the same authority level. You can't go stealing her underwear. However, one of the camp maintenance guys had some sort of vehicle that could transport, say, a roomful of furniture from the staff house to the canteen area on the back of the gym. And this is how I came out of rehearsal one day (I believe--it had to be long enough for the rest of camp to be occupied for a good hour) to find the entirety of this mom's room up there, with signage saying it was a garage sale and here was a (fake) phone number to call for inquiries. It was really impressive. It also started a series of pranks over the years that didn't end for a while, even after Dave and Mark were gone. Oh, memories. And this is why I wanted to start the Instagram. Let's share and reminisce together. Between my pictures, Jerry's, and Mr. C's, I have thousands upon thousands of photos. Dave said that Jerry would take about 1100 pictures per year. Yep; that's what I was at by the end. I could post a picture a day for decades and not run out, though admittedly not all of them are proper enough to go up there. Some are blurry; some are controversial. (No, I am NOT putting up pictures of a counselor in blackface. Just no. I was kind of horrified to find those pictures--there's at least two.)