He Hit a Touchdown!

“How do you begin to tell his story?” Brian James O’Neill on John-Bryan

John-Bryan was “one of the most brilliant people I ever met and also the wittiest. He had the best command of the English language of anyone I ever met. He befriended all of our family and was adopted as a full family member. I don’t think he ever lost a game of trivial pursuit…”

Thus my brother Brian described John-Bryan in part, the other day, on the initial post about JBD. (http://markyswrite.blogspot.com/2017/11/jbd.html) Additionally, Brian added, “He never went anywhere without bringing a gift.” 

I wrote in “JBD” that before I had ever met John-Bryan, while I was in the military, he had taken pity on me and begun sending a steady stream of home-town comfort, in the form of newspaper clippings, comics, sports articles and news from home. Brian is correct when he writes that JBD “didn’t do sports and couldn’t tell you what sport involved a touchdown.”

That being said, John-Bryan still knew that a headline involving the LA Dodgers or LA Lakers would always be welcome, just as one involving the cross-town Angels, would not. He made it his business to find these things out, because, well, that was the kind of person he was.

“He wore his heart on his sleeve” would describe John as well as anything. I concluded my initial piece by “revealing” that JBD was gay, but the reality is that no one cared. It was the biggest non-issue of its kind, in the history of the universe, at least from my perspective. 

In 1972 one could only imagine how thoroughly closeted John-Bryan might have tried to be, but he may as well have put on a Roman Gabriel jersey, and pretended to be the quarterback of the LA Rams, for all the good it did him. 

We accepted him unconditionally, each of us for different reasons, I am sure. Brother Brian added that there was mutual love and respect between John-Bryan and Pauline, and that long hours were spent together, conversing comfortably on a plethora of subjects. 

John-Bryan's brilliance meshing with Mama’s mind, weighing in with her IQ of 161, made for some lively dialogue. With or without his beverage of choice, gin, John-Bryan was fun to be around; once he started drinking, he became a riot.

With immense fondness I think back to Christmas of 1982, when HeadSodBuster was all of three months old. Gluten-Free Mama and I had taken him down to the great metropolitan arena of San Jose, to spend some time with the other grandparents, Tom and Beverly.

While there, we had prearranged with John-Bryan, to pick him up at the airport, and whisk him up to Bell Springs Road for the post-Christmas celebration. The night before we left San Jose, John-Bryan and I sat up late drinking gin and chatting, with GFMama bowing out early, and Beverly sitting in her chair, embroidering. 

Beverly seemed to enjoy it tremendously; JBD was at his finest. He had a captive audience, he was on his way up to one of his favorite hangouts, and he was in top form. He kept us in stitches; we kept him in gin. I drank also, but I knew far better than to try and keep pace with John-Bryan.

Not if I was going to be able to drive the following morning.

And drive I did, in the old ‘Lova machine, our ’72 Chevy Nova, with two-thirds of the “N” removed so that the back of the car read “‘lova.” We lov-ed that car but not as much that particular five-hour drive, because the heater was caput. 

Nonetheless, de ‘Lova Machine had a substantial trunk, so there was plenty of room inside the car for blankets, as we stuffed  everything in the trunk. As brother Brian mentioned, accompanying John-Bryan with his luggage, were numerous parcels and packages, gayly wrapped, of course. 

GF Mama rode in the back seat with HeadSodBuster in his car-seat, facing backwards, of course. JBD rode shotgun, all bundled up in blankets, and I drove. We stopped in ‘Rosa to eat breakfast and defrost, before we headed up to what turned out to be a snowy scene, unbelievably peaceful and beautiful.

HeadSodBuster and a new mama.

In reflecting on John-Bryan, GF Mama reminded me that he had come for dinner one evening long about the time HeadSodBuster turned nine months old. Make it late June of 1983. By chance his visit coincided with HSBuster taking his first steps. On his way over to our house, on foot, John-Bryan hurt his foot/ankle. I do not remember the specifics, except that in crossing the little creek bed at brother Noel’s spot, he had gone down hard.

Sallying bravely onward, and in this case, straight up a steep hill while in pain, he made it to our house. I am certain that we did your basic first-aid, with ice and all, but it did not stop the dinner party from progressing, including the inevitable gin. 

While there and sitting out on the front deck, little HeadSodBuster, in a burst of blazing glory, crossed the deck to John-Bryan, darn near at a trot. Tickled pink and a little pickled too, to see history in the making, John-Bryan just beamed.

As it turned out, his injury was ultimately properly diagnosed, and turned out to be more severe than we had hoped, magnifying John-Bryan’s ability to downplay his discomfort. I’m sure the gin helped and we would have driven him back to the big house, but still, he must have been in great pain.

In retrospect, John-Bryan’s logic would have been, since he wasn’t going to charge down to the emergency room at Howard Hospital in Willits, why should he spoil a good time for everyone? After all, he was generally still standing when all of the rest of us had long crashed, bad foot or not. 

When we had those extended family gatherings up on the mountain, Mama’s house always over-floweth, with bodies crashed all over the lower floor, the balcony and both upstairs bedrooms. One year on New Year’s Eve, when much of the family had gathered at the big house, midnight came and went with a small contingent of us still rocking a hearts game at the big oak table.

We got too obstreperous at one point, prompting an annoyed Brian to appear at the upstairs railing, inquiring acidly just exactly how long we were going to be “at it.” Apologizing profusely, while trying desperately to stifle the giggling that just would not be stifled, we assured him that we were “almost done.” Now if that had been the case with the gin, we would, indeed, have been almost done. 

Such was not the case, however; it never was with John-Bryan.