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This morning my wife received a phone call that a very close golf buddy, poker buddy, and friend had a massive heart attack while driving and hit another vehicle. They attempted to revive him, but he passed.
His wife has breast cancer, and it had recently spread, when her close friends had a girl's week in Marco Island. She got the same phone call while at Marco.
I will ramble, but I will feel better. This person was a very generous and kind man. His father was a big wig with Kraft foods and had set him up in a food labeling business in the mid seventies. He built it to a company of about 30 employees and he pulled a 400k salary. The downturn hit him hard, and a bank pulled the plug on a line of credit which caused a chain reaction where he literally lost everything. His wife had been a far east buyer for sears and pulled in 200k a year in the early 90s, but quit her job to be with my friend.
The last five years I saw these two face business collapse, cancer, and no resources to deal with his dental issues. He never gave up and always kept working. He was lucky because both he and his wife got the maximum SS benefits, but it was a whole other experience for them. He continued to show class and remain a gentleman.
He was a tremendously generous man. The locker attendant at his country club was from Mexico, and he paid for the man's son college education and that kid is now an executive with a furniture manufacturer, yet he never told anybody. We would go over to Biloxi to play poker and golf and visit friends, and he always liked to give me crap. I am an Oscar who is most comfortable in blue jeans and chit kickers. They wore designer clothes and went to the best French Restaurants in America. I like my oatmeal and egg mcmuffin, yet he tolerated my barbarism. Well my wife saw a pair of boots which were white and had all this damn writing on the boot. She mentioned to his wife that my wife liked the boots. They insisted on showing me the boots, and proceeded to be an Oscar chit kicker and pronounced that the boots were the stupidest thing I had ever seen. Well we are on Interstate 10 heading back to SR and out of the back seat pop those damn ugly boots. I do not want to tell you how much he spent to buy those boots, but it was as obscene as the boots were ugly.
So I left for my Sunday tournament, and as I left I told my wife that I would win this for my friend. I felt he was looking over my shoulder the entire tournament, and although I did not win, I came in fourth, won 1,200, and got a 500 freeroll for the big tournament in May. I got in the car and headed home thinking how he worried about my health, and how he always remained a gentleman and how many people he had touched in his life. He was a golf digest panelist and he took me to the best courses in America, and he loved his poker as much as I did. Now I guess it is only fitting that my wife wear those ugly boots to his funeral, and I will try to win the May tournament. Why I live and he dies is beyond my pay grade. Sometimes none of this makes a bit of sense.
His wife has breast cancer, and it had recently spread, when her close friends had a girl's week in Marco Island. She got the same phone call while at Marco.
I will ramble, but I will feel better. This person was a very generous and kind man. His father was a big wig with Kraft foods and had set him up in a food labeling business in the mid seventies. He built it to a company of about 30 employees and he pulled a 400k salary. The downturn hit him hard, and a bank pulled the plug on a line of credit which caused a chain reaction where he literally lost everything. His wife had been a far east buyer for sears and pulled in 200k a year in the early 90s, but quit her job to be with my friend.
The last five years I saw these two face business collapse, cancer, and no resources to deal with his dental issues. He never gave up and always kept working. He was lucky because both he and his wife got the maximum SS benefits, but it was a whole other experience for them. He continued to show class and remain a gentleman.
He was a tremendously generous man. The locker attendant at his country club was from Mexico, and he paid for the man's son college education and that kid is now an executive with a furniture manufacturer, yet he never told anybody. We would go over to Biloxi to play poker and golf and visit friends, and he always liked to give me crap. I am an Oscar who is most comfortable in blue jeans and chit kickers. They wore designer clothes and went to the best French Restaurants in America. I like my oatmeal and egg mcmuffin, yet he tolerated my barbarism. Well my wife saw a pair of boots which were white and had all this damn writing on the boot. She mentioned to his wife that my wife liked the boots. They insisted on showing me the boots, and proceeded to be an Oscar chit kicker and pronounced that the boots were the stupidest thing I had ever seen. Well we are on Interstate 10 heading back to SR and out of the back seat pop those damn ugly boots. I do not want to tell you how much he spent to buy those boots, but it was as obscene as the boots were ugly.
So I left for my Sunday tournament, and as I left I told my wife that I would win this for my friend. I felt he was looking over my shoulder the entire tournament, and although I did not win, I came in fourth, won 1,200, and got a 500 freeroll for the big tournament in May. I got in the car and headed home thinking how he worried about my health, and how he always remained a gentleman and how many people he had touched in his life. He was a golf digest panelist and he took me to the best courses in America, and he loved his poker as much as I did. Now I guess it is only fitting that my wife wear those ugly boots to his funeral, and I will try to win the May tournament. Why I live and he dies is beyond my pay grade. Sometimes none of this makes a bit of sense.
