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| Would this man drown a kid? |
When I was
in grade 7 or 8, I do not remember which, my teacher
tried to kill me. I don’t know why
exactly – he said I was “mouthy.” Those
who know me well know that this cannot possibly be true. I am never anything if I am not respectful,
especially of my elders. I always have
been.
But he apparently lost his temper with me over some perceived misconduct. He joyfully lifted me bodily from the floor, slid me horizontally down the “science lab”
counter in a classroom at Cholla elementary school (somewhat like an otter on a water-slide) – from one end to the other where
there was a deep sink – and then he tried to drown
me. It was by the luckiest of coincidences
that I was able to escape. This is all
the more horrifying because this man professed to be my friend and as my teacher, was charged with my care and protection
while at school. I know! Now that I think about it, there were probably a couple of other educators who might have had the same homicidal urges when they thought about me, but I digress...
For about the past twenty years, he and I spoke almost every day. We traveled together, we ate together and we
sat and talked together; it was enough happiness for me to simply sit somewhere
with him and talk; it didn’t really matter where. He was my mentor, my “father,” my buddy, my
true friend. He was always available
when I needed him (even when I didn’t know
I needed him) and he never asked for anything in return. He was my friend every day of my life from 12
years old to the day he left us all behind, no doubt unwillingly (the leaving, I mean).
He was my seventh-grade home-room teacher at Cholla Elementary School in 1965-66. I don’t remember a single thing about how we became
friends outside of the usual teacher-student relationship. I just remember that we did. Such
a close relationship between a teacher and a student would not even be possible today.
I
remember rough-housing with him in the classroom (see story above) – before, after, and
even during class to some extent; that drowning story was his favorite too -- he always told that one when he'd introduce me to someone. I wasn't just
mouthy, I was a load of trouble both inside and outside the schoolhouse - but he loved kids, even troublesome ones. It wasn’t long before he and I were trading
items from our lunch boxes – the way I remember it, he brought the same sandwich every day – a cotto-salami
sandwich on “yellow-colored” bread, like maybe buttermilk bread (with mustard)? We’d swap occasionally. I can't eat a salami sandwich today without thinking of Dave.
Dave was
probably always a counselor and a “mentor” at heart. I’m not the only one he looked after – there
were literally hundreds over the years. One thing I learned about him today that I do not remember he ever shared with me, was that he once was chosen the national "middle school counselor of the year." While I may not have known that fact, it doesn't surprise me. As a teacher and later a counselor, he and his teacher-counselor partners ended up with all the problem
boys. I was simply one of his first and
he could never get rid of me after that. His care wasn’t limited to school hours – I was invited to his
home on multiple occasions. I met his
wife, his in-laws, and his kids. They all
became part of my life and made me feel like “family” when I was with
them. I still do today.
He saw me,
as he did others he helped, as an at-risk kid. I don't think he was wrong about that; I
believe I was an at-risk kid –
and I also believe that I didn’t get too far off the path to decency
because of his guidance and his care for me. I think I very
easily could have. I wonder today how many others like me could say the same
thing? I’ll bet there are many. But not all of them were lucky enough to become
an every day part of his life, as I did, once they were past school age. Many kids who get into trouble today do so because they don't have a Dave Melian in their life who cares for them -- who decides that it is the most important thing in the world to make a difference for someone. It isn't always convenient to do that, you know.
Sometimes on
Saturday mornings I would ride my bicycle over to their house in Moon Valley –
and once there, I would follow him around. He and Gloria would have me eat with them and I think he usually threw
my bike in the back of his station wagon and would cart me home afterwards. The first Crepes Suzettes I ever had, Dave made for me when I was just a kid - they were always one of his specialties.
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| My teacher - 1967 |
My first trip to the Grand Canyon was with
Dave and his family – in that green Ford station wagon. He had given me a camera – a little 35mm Agfa
(which he later got back for his son), and I still remember a photo I took on
that trip of the San Francisco Peaks in the rear-view side-mirror; creative
photography at 14! It was a winter-time
trip and there was snow on the mountains. I often wonder if there is a connection between that wonderful experience
and my love for the Grand Canyon today – it is certainly not the entire story –
but I’ll bet it didn’t hurt.
I was a
rather timid boy – bullied occasionally – and I rarely stood up for
myself. One particularly spoiled and
socially-inappropriate kid (not naming names here) jumped up on a chair in the music-room
one day and kicked me in the ribs – either breaking or bruising them pretty
seriously (don’t remember which, but seems to me they were cracked, at least). I couldn’t
retaliate for this offense for quite some time – if you’ve ever had injured
ribs you know why. So anger and the
desire for revenge smoldered in me… Finally,
weeks or months later, I caught that skunk in the hallway at the school when
there were no witnesses around, and I backed him into a corner and lit into
him.
I am sure Dave knew a good part of the background of the dispute. As luck would have it, he rounded the corner
a minute or two (or at least a few seconds) into the fight, saw what was going on – and unfortunately
for the rat who was being "corrected,” Dave wheeled around and disappeared back down the hallway
from whence he came, having never been seen by my enemy. The other guy lost that fight big time; righteousness was
on my side that day and Dave firmly believed in justice - even if it was schoolyard justice.
In the years after I got a little older and was in high school, Dave and his peers arranged to take the boys he was charged with on camping trips and outings. Many of his favorite stories were about those adventures - he was almost arrested on probably more than one occasion because of things that they did. I never got to go along on any of those - but I went
camping once with his family - out to Apache Lake.
I got
a little sick to my stomach that weekend (probably from the heat) – but I still remember it as a good
experience because of Dave’s care. Then,
as they do now, the Melians had a small travel trailer – but I remember Dave
and I sleeping outside under the stars. David and Kathleen were both still smaller at the time. Probably my clearest memory of that weekend is Dave and I floating on inner tubes, bobbing around in the middle of Apache Lake with speed boats flying by and swerving all around us! Hey, Dave knew how to live and enjoy life! On the way home that Sunday, we stopped for church in Globe. Dave and Gloria are devout Catholics and
church is always part of their week. They don’t make excuses why they can’t
go, they plan to do it as it is
unthinkable not to. I still remember that Mass, which we attended at a pretty church in downtown Globe.
Dave's faith
shaped his entire life – he told me at one time he had planned and studied
to be a priest and was attending school for that purpose. I don’t remember why he got sidetracked; it
was probably Gloria’s fault (‘cause you know
priests cannot marry…) This distraction from the priesthood was probably a massive stroke of luck for David, Kathleen and Jim... Still, he
“ministered” all his life; I can name dozens of people that he cared about and cared for. Although he was never "preachy" about it, we talked about it all the time and it was always plain what he was up to. Dave’s ministry, every day that I knew him, was looking after the people around him.
As I grew
up, went away to the service, got married, Dave faded out of my life for about
twenty years. It seems like a long period as I think about it, but twenty years
isn’t really that long. I thought about
the Melians often during those years, but life got in the way of any connection
with them I might have had, given my distractions, family and job. I regret that now of course, those "missing years," but I think it is a normal
thing that happens to many of us. Friends and acquaintances, even good ones, pass in
and out of our lives during the course of it all. The great thing,
and my good fortune, is that with Dave and his family that drifting apart was not permanent like it often is for some.
I found myself
thinking about him, wondering how he was doing, and eventually I looked him up and we reconnected in
the 1990s. We picked up right where we left off. I know absolutely that our re-acquaintance was meant to be and it came about exactly the way it was supposed
to. I don't believe in fate, or pre-destination, but Dave and I were meant to be friends and there was no avoiding it. We have spoken almost every day since. We never had a disagreement or a fight – and I do not believe he was
ever mad at me. If he was ever mad at me,
he never showed it. And knowing me, that’s
a huge compliment to him… and indicative of his great patience.
Since then, he and I traveled
together frequently – so many times that some of the memories run together.
Sometimes we traveled with others of his family – sometimes just the two of us –
at least once it was just the “boys” – Dave, me, John (another friend) and Jim –
all making a pilgrimage together to the Melian cabin above Prescott, where we
mostly just sat around and talked – we talked about what big beer-drinkers
we were, and the pleasures of biscuits and gravy. I don’t remember drinking that much beer, but
we talked about it… all weekend long.
Some of our
other trips included Mexico (Rocky Point), San Diego, a couple of Royal
Caribbean cruises (Mexico and Alaska), Grand Canyon and Southern Utah, Quebec
and New England, the Arizona border from Bisbee to Canyon de Chelly… you get
the idea. He and Gloria took me to Los
Angeles a couple of years ago for my birthday – we stayed with Haig and
Kathleen a day or two and then we drove up the coast. On that trip -- Jim, Gloria and I took turns in the cramped back seat of Dave's little Chevy Cobalt -- and the air conditioning quit right in the middle of the Mohave Desert coming home - in August - over by Needles. Hey, it's an adventure! He and I even went out chasing thunderstorms once or twice... In recent months, we talked about still more future trips we might take together -- to Los Angeles for a hot dog at Pink's, and a windjammer cruise I found out about up in Maine.
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| Dave and Gen on a St Lawrence ferry |
Dave and I took a trip to Maine and Quebec back in 2009 - we drove from Portsmouth up the coast into Quebec to visit my friend Genevieve; along the way we had a lobster dinner in Bangor.
You know, the way they eat lobster in Maine? They cook the whole lobster. Everything. They put that "whole" lobster on the plate and there you have it. And they expect you to eat the whole thing and they don't consider you normal unless you do. My adventurous friend tried it. I didn't, but he did. Neither one of us ate the whole thing though; even Dave only took a few bites of that nasty middle part. From then on, I order just the tail! The next morning, on a beautiful sunny Maine day in October, we stopped at a rest area and took photos of Mt Katahdin (which is where I took that photo of him above, sitting in the rental car); Mt Katahdin is the place where the rays of the morning sun first strike mainland US soil each day.
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| Alain's B&B - a 17th century farmhouse |
We continued north across the border, met Genevieve and toured with her along the St Lawrence - we ate crepes in Quebec City and we rode the ferry across the seaway. We stayed at Alain's B and B and had huge blueberry pancakes baked slowly on Alain's antique iron stove, and we drank Alain's "stands-up-by-itself" cowboy coffee. We had a reluctant but ultimately roaring bonfire on a cold, dark beach. We sat on the shores of Lake Champlain in the sunshine and watched the boats.
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| Dave and Gloria's 50th anniversary in Alaska |
One of the best times was his and Gloria’s 50th Anniversary cruise from Alaska to Vancouver three years ago. It was a really wonderful thing to be able to
celebrate that milestone with these two friends, their real family, and several of us who are "adopted" family. We ate together every evening – and Dave and
I walked around Ketchikan with Jim for an afternoon when our ship stopped there. We made several trips to the ship's sauna and jacuzzi. We had a late-evening drink together onboard a couple of
times – and also met several times in the ship’s hamburger joint for late night
snacks with Jim. Jim’s like me – always hungry
(or at least ready to eat). There was much more, of course, but these are some
of the individual memories that stand out for me as being particularly good
ones.
It bothers
me right at the moment that as I think back on the years of our friendship, not every little bit of our shared history is
present in my memory. It’s that there is so much to remember – and that many things have become so familiar that it
seems we always knew them, they’re always there. Little bits and memories are there – pieces of things that
we did together, woven into the fabric of many years passed by.
My mind is hungry for memories right now, because now he's gone and that is an immediate hurt. I don't want to forget any of him, or to allow the memories to grow dim.
I cannot say that I have any
regrets. It's just that I long for another minute or
two where I could give him a hug, or hear him tell me in great detail about one
of his boyhood memories, or about a great meal he had on the ship a couple of
weeks ago. His departure was sudden; I had no time to prepare for it. The news of his passing literally took my breath away, it was such an unexpected shock. In that, I know I am not alone and I am not complaining.
I know Dave is
OK. Dave was 82, almost 83, and his physical heart was struggling, so this moment should not have been, and in the end was not, a surprise.
He and I talked about this. Our discussions about death were matter of fact, not fearful. I told him
more than once that he was not allowed
to die, that I needed him too much; but we never get our heart's desire when it comes to that. Many
times we encounter people who never had the chance to say goodbye, farewell, to
someone they loved. While it is true
that I did not get to specifically say goodbye to him, we had left nothing unsaid.
He knew that I loved him, and I think he knew how important he was to
me. I am a much poorer person now that
he is gone – and it will be most difficult, if not impossible, to fill the hole
he leaves. Without any worries about "manly" reserve or etiquette, I can tell you that I loved him – that I could not have loved anyone more.
My friend
David H. Melian died this past week. I’ve done nothing but think
about him since the moment I heard that sad news, which is a natural thing when
you lose someone who was such a large part of your life. And today, there
was a funeral mass for Dave. Afterward,
many went to his son and daughter’s home for a celebration of his life. There was lots of comfortable conversation
between people who shared love, food, laughter, friendship, not just a few tears and experiences that were all
tied together in our memories of this wonderful man.
I repeatedly
heard the memories of Dave that others shared – and the themes were the same as
I have written here; everyone remembers him in much the same way. As I heard others speak of him – I thought more
than once that what they said would have been just as true – even the same words – as if
I had spoken them myself. This, I think, is the legacy of a very successful
man, a man who lived his faith consistently each day. He was a person who loved life and the people
he shared it with and he knew how to express that love, both in word and deed.
On his last
vacation, just days before he passed away, I followed his ship’s
progress around the Mediterranean and the flights he, Gloria and Jim took – the way I almost always do
when any of my friends are away on trips. As their time away grew to a close, I got impatient for their return, so much so that I went to the airport to greet them on their arrival home. I do not usually do that unless I am giving
someone a ride. But I was missing him, even though there was no idea that our time together was at its end.
I unfortunately had the wrong flight – I
had lost the paper I wrote the flight numbers on and I guessed and picked the
wrong one. They were already headed home from
the airport a few minutes before I got there and so, on Sunday evening, I missed what would have been
my last sight of Dave in this world. That, I regret. We did talk on the telephone the next evening,
as we almost always did each day.
His last words to me as we ended our conversation on Monday night, were “I
love you.”
Can you
think of any better way to remember your best friend?
My best
friend Dave Melian was born on December 21, 1929 in Melvindale, Michigan. He passed away at his home in Cave Creek,
Arizona on a Wednesday; September 12, 2012 at about eight o'clock in the morning. In
between, he lived and loved each day the best way he knew how. What an example he was for me; I
am a better person for having known him.
Even though he tried to drown me once, maybe even because he did, I will miss him each and every day.
September 15, 2012
