Tocky on 21/8/2022 at 01:26
I hadn't meant for this to be a memorial thread but what the hell, after a certain age everything is a memorial.
Lee Cobb. I've had many friends over the years but many I've drifted away from, particularly those of early boyhood. I guess as I got older I left behind a simpler thinking that others did not. I don't fault them really, in fact I admire the simple goodness they held onto. What goodness was in me had to evolve and struggle with knowledge of a system that does not reward it always. Lee was just simple good. None of that mattered to him. He was what he was and no reason to change. In that he was like my dad, a pure and true thing.
We became friends on the bus at around eight. We traded the JVC cars that came in boxes of Honey Comb cereal. They were always at the bottom. You either opened the bottom which could not be closed the way the top could or you dug your hand down bowing the box until you felt it in it's cellophane packet. I still have a couple but back then I had around forty. We talked about the TV shows of the day, Mission Impossible, Night Gallery, Get Smart. I had a crush on agent 99. And we played army with our hundreds of green plastic men, tanks, and equipment, when I slept over. We would set our men up on a clay bank near his house. Last man standing was the rule. Only dirt clods the size of your thumb for the men and for the tanks as large as your fist. Once your positions were set you could begin firing from behind your men. One throw a turn. Overturned was dead. No negotiation.
We were physical kids. We fished and hunted and played in the dirt. And if you were his friend you worked. We would work tearing down old houses and stacking lumber or building barbed wire fences when they were made of cedar posts and the strands were pulled tight with a fencing hammer. I haven't seen one of those in ages. These days There are no post hole diggers because the posts are steel and driven in. I've done those too. Way easier. After a day of sweating hard we would get our shorts on and go to a lake near his house that was spring fed and clear yet had no visible bottom. We would swim down as far as we dared but never were able to make out the bottom. The temperature got colder and colder the farther down and it got darker though the water stayed clear. At a certain point your lungs began to yearn for air. My stopping point was around 30 feet deep, Lees about ten feet deeper. The surface seemed so far away. I still recall how it looked with the sun shining on a dappled surface, alien and distant, and how it felt like it might not be reached again.
Hell, I couldn't even swim worth a damn then, a sort of spastic side dog paddle. But we did lots of things I couldn't do well. They kept a few horses at Motee Daniels in a pasture behind his store. Motee is celebrated as William Faulkner's bootlegger. We didn't know who the hell Faulkner was back then or cared. Lee got the wild young stud and I got the sweet old nag. She had been a carny pony and was used to going in circles so you had to keep the left reign tight to keep her from going right. She was gentle as an old dog. She dutifully followed whatever trail you put her on but it was easier going if they were all right turns. It was my first time on a horse. Lee was always helpful in letting me know what horses would likely do.
Years later when I was a teen and Lee had moved to Yocona, Richard, Kevin, and Elliott were with me and urged me onto Motee's mule who was more hands high than most horses. Mean ass Elliott pinched it's ass hard and it reared (not Lone Ranger style but with my head smacking into it's head) and headed straight for the pig wallow at a gallop. I had nothing to hold onto but mane as it was Indian style bareback. I saw what was going to happen. It would either hard stop at the edge sending me over to land in the mud or plunge in to get rid of me. Maybe roll on it's side pinning me under the mud for good measure. I hopped off just before and skinned my ass a bit. Elliott always was a fuckwad.
Not so with Lee. He was as gentle as that horse and self effacing. After I hit twelve I became a bit wilder and ran with a wilder pack. Lee no longer rode my bus to his new home. I guess that's what they were saving for during all that work we did. That last time I slept over we had gotten up early and walked to his grandmothers who had just made some fried peach pies. One of the best things I've ever eaten. Then we went to the field to pick corn. First damn ear I pulled down the leaf sheared sharp and cut my finger wide open. What an embarrassment to have to be taken back to get first aid wrapped with my finger out the window and bleeding all over the side of the truck. I insisted on coming back and picking the rest of the day with my other hand. I still have that scar.
And then we just sort of quit seeing each other. We played football together and shared a class or two but I had been segregated into the smart kids classes by the time I reached high school. I was into all sorts of other things and he still into fishing and outdoors stuff. I don't like to think I was a truly bad kid but maybe I was. I wasn't the good simple kid I had been at least. Lee never changed. The last time I saw him he came by the shop and was happy to see me and spoke of a fishing spot he wanted me to try. Always helpful. He even warned me about how a stick on sanding disc had come off and blinded him in one eye though you couldn't tell to look at him. I think about that as I don safety glasses to sand the sharp edges of glass now.
Of course the very last time was at his funeral. He had three boys who looked very much like him. I know they had fun with him as a dad. During the eulogy the preacher told of how the very church floor he was standing on, a raised dais, was made by Lee. Of course he told some Lee fishing stories. Then he mentioned a thing I had forgotten. Lee often spoke of himself in third person and that brought forth a memory that I passed on to his wife on the way to see him one last time.
I told her about the time one night we went frog gigging and you spot their eyes glowing yellow near the banks so you paddle over to them and spear them with this trident then take the legs to flour and toss in a skillet to jump their last in grease. This time every set of eyes we investigated were snakes. And there were lots of sets of eyes. And worse, they were starting to come to our boat and the head lamps we had were fading from poor battery power. "Well I'll tell you what Lee thinks... Lee thinks we should get the hell out of here". I don't know if she appreciated my telling that story at his casket but she acted as if she did. I don't know how to comfort anyone so I just told her I will never forget him and hugged her and that is true. I like to think that although we drifted apart he stayed a good friend. I know we had lots of good boyhood memories together.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/zS9e0Rz.jpg
Aged Raver on 2/9/2022 at 09:17
Long preamble. A lot of my entertainment comes from YouTube and Archive.org and when I discover something good, I search out other films by that actor (e.g.
Basil Rathbone as
Sherlock Holmes). Often they're in black and white from the 30's 40's 50's with good actors/actresses many who'd learned their trade on stage. Sometimes classics in a foreign language with/without subtitles, to get “a bit o' culture”, (
Mahabharat - about 70 hours - until then I didn't know the famous Oppenheimer quote “
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds” was from it, with the Bhagavad Gita).
Recently I watched the epic
Seven Samurai from 1950 and searched out other films by director Akira Kurosawa. I've seen about 10 so far, including one of his later ones called
Dreams which consists of short stories, supposedly Kurosawa's own dreams.
It's a long time since I dabbled in martial arts and Japanese culture and the first dream, linked below, is intriguing from a Western point of view and quite surreal, like a Grimm's Fairy Tale of Japanese folklore. I'm sure demagogue will have a view. I watched it 3 times and each time noticed something I didn't see before. Much I could say but best let the viewer interpret. It's said the ageing Kurosawa had the wooden gate that you see in the film constructed exactly as for the house he lived in as a boy and the plate on the right gatepost says Kurosawa. He showed photos of his mother to the actress to help her portrayal.
It's about 10 minutes long before it moves to the next dream and for those who like fast action movies and snappy dialogue,
please look elsewhere. Even the opening credits seem to slow the heart down for what is to come. Don't worry about the opening music, it builds quietly.
Short Preamble I started to read the beginning of this thread (excellent stories and very well told) even back to the thread that had challenged and inspired its creation.
(Along the way I cleared up confusion in my mind about Oxford, deciding there were/are two in your life Tocky, the one in England and the one in the USA). Reading about the tall tales you told your brother when young, which he believed, cross-linked in my mind to stories that kids and grown-ups tell children for their own reasons, probably in all cultures, and to Kurosawa's dream ...
[CENTER]
(
https://archive.org/details/dreams_20201215) https://archive.org/details/dreams_20201215
(There is a YouTube version but the quality didn't seem so good).As a kid, an older neighbour boy often warned me about "
The Big Thing behind the shed". :eek:[/CENTER]
Tocky on 7/10/2022 at 03:31
You should write me some stories of your life in England some time, Aged Raver. I miss that place.
Tocky on 11/10/2022 at 03:05
I haven't felt like writing this obit for my mother in law because I'm torn with how much I could say. You know she was selfless in making us go on our vacation but there is so much to a person. We always gathered at her house for holidays, the whole clan, sometimes fifty or more people. Lot's of good food. Lot's of good conversations and laughter. I recall one windy day I decided to buy all the kids kites, about nine in all, and they all flew them in a line in her large yard. Not large enough. After getting them up and handing them off I would have to go back and untangle kites from each other constantly. Not a minutes rest between running here or there. She got such a kick out of that.
I think she understood who I was even before her daughter. She always took my side in any argument. I think because she appreciated me. She was grateful to have me in the family. She knew what it was to have a bad man. Her first husband was scum. Much of what he was had been kept from me during his life. I had sketchy information, enough to know he had done horrible things. I didn't know the full extent. She had three girls with him. She left him when she found out how he was with the eldest. It was a hard thing to do back when women had so few options but she did the right thing. She did not make excuses for him. She took action to protect her girls.
I don't want to say too much. Even recently I heard something to break my heart from my wife. You get these dribbles over the years and then one sentence crushes you. I can't say it. It isn't mine to tell. But it would crush you too.
Patricia never got what she deserved from the men in her life. Her second husband was okay but less than what she truly deserved. At the end of her life, in the last few years, she finally got a good man, one who made her truly happy. He came to all the family functions, even my last birthday. He sat with her holding her hand till the end. He is a man of honor and decency. I mostly sat and talked to him during the funeral.
All the card games and conversations, all the Yahtzee, all the cackling over this or that, made a warm spot in my heart for her. You never feel what a person means to you till they are gone. She always told my wife to tell me she loved me at the end of her morning phone calls. I always yelled it back from wherever I was in the house and meant it. She was a protector too. She did it at great cost to herself. But what she gained was a large loving family who loved each other and loved her. That's a damn good legacy.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/4rQNpVV.jpgThat's her in the blue shirt back row in the middle.
PigLick on 11/10/2022 at 10:47
Great photo my dude, thanks for all your stories.
Harvester on 11/10/2022 at 10:57
I wish you and your wife and all her mother's loved ones comfort in strength during this difficult time, Tocky!
PigLick on 30/1/2024 at 14:34
And ZOMBIE THREAD ARRIVE or something.
Anyway, to appease Tocky and his voracious appetite for "stories", here is a little one. Some of who may know me may have heard this before, but probably most of those people are not around anymore.
So anyway, back in my younger days when I was a gigging musician, I would say early 2000-2001, the band I was in (kinda a funk, rnb, outfit, but also top 40) used to play a double on sat night. First one was at some bistro, like a lonestar kinda vibe, that finished at around 11.
Those were the last of the good ol days where the band would get a rider, probly food as well. Still happens these days but its not as much of a thing.
Anyway after that we had to hoof it down to Fremantle, which is the port area of Perth, so dodgy as fuck, but huge nightlife scene.
The club we were playing at was called Joos (ikr), it was a double story affair, a band would play in the before midnight bracket down stairs, and the after midnight a party band would play in the more exclusive upstairs bar. That was us.
Anyway so thing was this was just after the 90's excess era and the lower area had a huge aquarium built into the wall behind the stage area. Huge. Full of fish.
So after we set up upstairs we headed on down because the band playing were good friends, plus they were great players.
Of course, a massive crack like nothing i have heard, and the glass shattered and all the contents of the aquarium poured out onto the band, the stage and then the rest of the dancefloor, these huge expensive fish just flopping around.
Fucking surreal. Emergency services came.
We still played our gig upstairs.
Tocky on 30/1/2024 at 17:25
I gotta ask. Did you pick up a fish?
PigLick on 30/1/2024 at 17:38
No, I did not. I just hoped those guys had good insurance.
The after midnight gig was fucking cool though, we finished at 4am. The bar staff stayed back with us and poured a whole bunch of cocktails.
and then because I was so fucking drunk at that stage, couldnt drive. Luckily there was a 24 hr burger place (WHICH WAS AN INCREDIBLE RARITY IN PERTH BACK THEN) just around the corner.
Captain Munchies.
Anyone here who is from Perth in the late 90's will know Captain Munchies.
saved my fucking life.
burgers were shit though