Hugo.

We have to stop meeting like this.  You, the reader; me, the nihilistic downer of a writer only spurred to pen and paper by pain and loss.  Alas, here we are.  I’ve thought about why that is, why it takes tragedy in order for me to convert thoughts into characters, words, sentences, pages in any sort of cogent way.  I think it’s because casual relationships make for compelling stories.  The best memoirs take a small chunk of life and package it into a complete narrative.  So what more natural a source than a friendship cut short – with a fixed beginning, body, and ending – to sift through one’s thoughts and draw out insight that taps into universal experience? 

 It’s fitting then, that a running theme of my friend Hugo’s memorial service was  storytelling.  He was a master of it, and here is ours: Hugo started as a stranger on Instagram.  Having met and helped a friend of mine at a charity ride, he followed our group Instagram account and somehow found his way to me.  For months, we interacted one post reply at a time, eventually learning we lived in the same neighborhood.  In fact, he met my bike before he met me – sending a picture of it street parked, unchained, uncovered, reminding me to maybe be a little safer with it.   

When it was we actually met in person, I’m not too sure.  But his warmth and intentionality of connection – toward me and everyone else – immediately won me over.  It would grow to give life and energy to all these stories that didn’t occur to me at the time were a core part of him.  Stories of riding two-up with his fiancé on a 200cc motorcycle two hours in the snow.  Or coasting across the Walt Whitman bridge into Philly without tipping her off that he had run out of gas until he rolled into the station.  His excitement when I sent him a tag of his name on a recently stripped billboard – which turned out to be his own handiwork from “simpler times.” The amusement he got from telling people I was the only white person at his birthday party.  Many loved ones at the memorial service had stories of their own to tell, tales that reinforced the universal experience we had all shared.  

Dominican Americans, particularly the Washington Heights and Inwood variety, celebrate hard.  I found out they love and grieve with the same intensity.  A sobbing mother will break your heart no matter the circumstances, but when you have a small window into what she has lost, you feel it in your soul.  Yesterday and the evening before were rough.  But it was worth being there – first, to represent an aspect of Hugo’s life in a way that was appreciated by his family and friends far more than I had expected, and secondly in what I took away personally on his approach to life through those closest to him. 

I learned of Hugo’s passion for his students, and saw the impact through one of the first ones, a promising young woman I knew from a local church who I ran into on the way out from the service.

I learned about his faith through his sister, brother-in-law and old-school pastor of another church down the street where I had spent some time supporting food service to the homebound, unaware of the connection.

I heard more from his fiancé about his drive to wring more out of life at every opportunity, whether that was in their relationship, his work, or his engagement with his community.

I took in stories from his friends of his loyalty to those around him, his commitment to being there, even when that meant fibbing a bit on his exact whereabouts and distance to the engagement in question.

And I learned about his love language of roasting from virtually everyone, which made me feel better about my first thought when I heard the sad news, “Dude, I told you to lay off the Smashed burgers.” I swear I felt his laugh.

Blurry screen grabs from our final shared moments. Smiles, hugs, laughter.

A riding philosophy tiff that blew up between Hugo and a similarly gregarious friend created some self-imposed space between him and the group in recent months, but I’m so glad he found his way back to hang and mend that individual connection at a social gathering just days before he would leave us for good. I’ll be participating in the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride in a few weeks, the event that brought Hugo into my circle last year and one he was excited to return to.  While I was looking forward to joining for the first time, to share the road with hundreds of other dressed-to-the-nines enthusiasts on classic-styled bikes to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues, I’ll find so much more meaning in riding in honor of my friend, knowing that the joy he brought to so many will continue to follow us.

Hugo, you’ll forever hold a key place in my New York experience.  My first organic Uptown friendship, my first authentically Uptown birthday party, and my first New York City funeral, all within the span of 11 short months.  But the bigger impact, though less apparent, will be the lessons I learned from you on how to be a better friend, family member, partner, and neighbor.  Thank you for giving me that – I’ll see you on the road.

The Pursuit of Permanence- Searching For a Legacy to Shape

First written 12/26/15

His hands were what initiated this little journey of thought.  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t noticed them before—they had reached across the counter to jot something down several mornings a week over the decade I had known their owner.   On this particular day though, I was struck by what I saw.  Bones like gnarled tree roots wrapped in tissue paper skin, they were both rugged and fragile. The passage of time, so normally abstract, found physical form before me, unlocking waves of both wonder and discontent.

The hands belonged to Albert Rossi, resident historian at the Hotel Hershey.  At 85, he was just weeks away from retirement (his third, as he would tell it), first as a public school teacher, then later as a hotel chauffeur, before settling into his present 12-hours-per-week gig giving tours.

The marriage between the man and the hotel could not have been designed more perfectly.  Hershey was integral to who he was, and in turn and over time, Al became a core element of Hershey.  People drop in regularly at the hotel to see him: former students, neighbors, fellow church members, friends of his children.  Tourists on return visits come up for a meal and to tell him what a memorable role his tour played in their first trip.  It’s a beautiful cross-section of the influence one man has had on a place and its people.

I often find I struggle when staring down the daunting task of crafting a life’s worth of achievement.  I look at the third of my life already passed, and though I’ve done and seen quite a lot, I lack a sense of accomplishment on a grander scale, and I carry a fear that it won’t come in time.

Albert has lived, by many measures, a rather unremarkable life.  He resides down the street from the house he was born in.  A member of the Silent Generation, he watched the War from the sidelines, and reached adulthood in a period of stable prosperity.  He humbly toiled in the teaching profession, influencing many, but never claiming his moment in the limelight.   His offspring and theirs all achieved modest success, but never earned our era’s gold standard of significance: a personal Wikipedia entry.  Had his story ended there, I’m sure he would have been satisfied.  His funeral would have been well-attended, and family and friends would have oft recounted the positive influence he had on their lives.  If my life followed a similar path, it would be ungrateful for me to be dissatisfied.

It turned out though that Al had an encore in store.  As a chauffeur, he crossed paths with many of the rich and famous, but it was always from the driver’s seat of a Lincoln Town Car.  It was his move to the hotel lobby as a tour guide that elevated his stories to canon, as they intertwined with the vibrant backstory of Mr. Hershey’s grand dame on the hill.  Over a thousand tours later, and he has managed to do more to share our little corner of history than any individual but Hershey himself.  An appearance in a History Channel program and two nominations for “hotel historian of the year” from Historic Hotels of America gave him a piece of the recognition he deserved but never sought.

I went along for Albert’s final tour.  Ten years had passed since he had first led me through those halls as a wide-eyed trainee, and though I had already committed most of his facts and stories to memory, it still felt important to be there.  I was witnessing the final act of something significant, that lifetime achievement I was in search of.  He had been an employee for almost half of the hotel’s life, though his employment there stretched back nearly to the beginning, as a part-time busboy at age 15.  His best story had to do with that period of life, as he was clearing a table in the dining room when news broke that Japan had ceded defeat; the war was over.  As champagne popped, a joyous celebration ensued, etching a memory in one young man’s mind that he would retell 70 years later. 

Those 70 years spanned many milestones of varying importance for both Albert and the Hotel as their paths diverged and came back together.  Somewhere during that period, I was born and began my own journey.  At that point, Al’s hands had already been weathered by 56 years of labor, yet his story was far from over.  At the end of that last tour, another 29 years having passed, I gave the old man a hug.  As he smiled, face caked with layers of time, his eyes shone through, present as ever.  I realized with his 96-year-old sister as example, he could very well last another decade, caring for his wife, taking morning swims, and visiting family.  At our goodbye, I turn inward, wondering what those next ten years could bring me.  I must not waste time, but also must find joy in that time well spent.  I cannot labor over a life worth writing about, when I still have no idea where that life will take me.  In the meantime, I shall keep my focus pure and simple, on the people that matter, the places that shaped me, and the things that fill me with wonder.

Midway through writing this, I looked into my mirror.  Smiling, I admired the extra wrinkles that have started to form around my eyes with newfound appreciation.  My story is well underway, and I can’t begin to understand how what has already transpired will affect my later chapters.  But then I looked down at my hands.  They looked young, untested, yearning for material to grasp and mold into something that can stand the test of time.  I’ve got a long way to go, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

 **on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, Albert passed away. His obituary can be found here

Our Home and Theirs: A Response to the Debate on Syrian Refugees

     I’ve managed to remain out of the fray on this one for the first few days, but I just can’t sit quiet any longer.  To provide some personal context, I just finished a community meal that my church offers free to the public every Wednesday night. This meal, in addition to seating Americans from all walks of life, also hosts many resident aliens largely because of the ESL class offered immediately after the meal. A quick scan of the room reveals families from Mexico, Colombia, India, Iran, Chad, and Myanmar.  Not only are they caring for their own, but also mingling with each other, both natives and fellow internationals. Warm smiles, hugs, and heartfelt conversation filled the cold gym space with a glow of happiness I can’t describe. These people all came here in search of something better—some of them would fit the description of “refugees.”  Which of course, brings me to the source of my grievance. 

     For me, it’s hard to view this issue any other way.  But roughly half of those in my social circle whom have publicly weighed in are in complete disagreement with me.  The problem is you’re wrong.  You’re just wrong.

     We have the potential to mitigate untold human suffering by opening our doors to the people of Syria.  But you’ve let xenophobia (under the guise of patriotism and fear) lift your voice against the great American tradition of welcoming all.  The reasoning behind this is flawed to the core.  It all stems from fear of the “other,” whose humanity you’ve managed to minimize in your own justifications.  The first problem is that fear (as an identity, not an individual response) is an un-American characteristic, at least when we’re being true to our ideals.  I find it ironic that many of the loudest voices in favor of denying Syrians entry are also the most vocally supportive of our troops.  You laud their bravery, risking their lives to sustain an ideal, but you are unable to show the courage to provide a safe haven for thousands when it might invite a small degree of heightened risk (infinitesimally small, but more on that later) to yourself.  You have done nothing to deserve the safety and comfort you enjoy over the displaced.  Nothing.  Yet you’d like to claim it for your own, and prevent others from gaining access to that security you were grateful for on Veteran’s Day, but take for granted a week later.

     The second problem with the fear response is that it’s simply unwarranted.  There have been 325 mass shootings in the United States this year (not turning into a gun control essay, I promise), and in only one of them was the perpetrator a Muslim.  He had been in the United States since age 6, and the FBI has not been able to settle on extremism as a motive.  The other 324 cases were carried out by good ol’ Americans, and we obviously can’t keep them out.  9/11 didn’t need a refugee crisis, and neither did the Boston bombing.  Chances are, we’ll get hit again before the problem of radical, militant Islam is wiped clean, despite the impressive job as our national security agencies and service branches are doing.  There’s just no way to prevent it without dismantling the core.  The same can be said about our own issues here at home, which some of you have leaned on to support your case.  You say that bringing in more people will only add to our problems of hunger and homelessness.  First, I’d like to offer up a quote from a humorist and former classmate:

"Why should we help any of those refugees?! We've got starving, homeless Americans here on the home front!"-person that didn't give one single [pottymouth] about 'starving, homeless Americans' a week and a half ago.   

–Brandon Kline

Really, what have you done to end these tragedies here at home?  If you’re already doing something about it, you realize how our institutions have come up short.  The United States could entirely eliminate both homelessness and hunger by making some relatively minor budget adjustments.  But the systems in place, and our willingness to help have failed to provide a lasting solution.  Adding more people to the pot (who history has shown would likely become productive citizens rather quickly) will not make the problem any worse when we are the actual problem.

By closing our nation to the people of Syria, we are condemning thousands of innocent men, women, and children like the ones I ate dinner with this evening to die.  Let go of your unfounded fear, and open your arms, your homes, your red, white, and blue hearts.

            "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" 

-The New Colussus, found in the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French.

On Death And Memories

Originally written Fall of 2013 and published via a Facebook event, this is my first essay written neither for grade or pay.

     Today marks a ten-year milestone of an important event in my life’s journey.   Elizabethtown Area School District held fast to the sacred ideals of alphabetization, so Betz, Bailey, and Barlow spent a whole lot of time together.  Sharing homerooms, gym classes, and locker bays with Evan and Shane was something I could count on every year.  The spaces they occupied were always filled with the physical sensation of the characteristics they exuded: mischievous smiles, sharp wit, and a genuine appreciation of the people around them.  These qualities, coupled with their constant proximity, lead to my unlikely friendship with them extending beyond the school walls.

     At the time of the crash that ended their lives, I wasn’t as close to them as I had been in the past.  The natural forces of growing up had spun us in different directions, but that didn’t deaden the shock of the news that drifted through the halls the next morning like a cloud of poison.  This wasn’t my first experience with the death of a classmate and friend; that had come the previous spring.  Maybe it was the fact that these were guys my year instead of a girl a year older, or maybe it was just by virtue of a few more years knowing them, but this one resonated much more deeply. 

     They let us out of school early that day.  The group I had been spending most of my time with went to a friend’s house, where we watched a movie to try to laugh a little.  There was an emptiness there, caused by the sense of loss and our immediate, painful realization of our own mortality.  We would learn later that there was a bit of irresponsibility leading to the accident, but nothing on a level we hadn’t all been guilty of at one point already.  As our host’s mother brought out some drinks and snacks, I could see in her eyes an understanding of the suffocating weight occupying our thoughts, as she too was faced with the unpleasant possibility of losing one of her own three sons.

     That afternoon, we drove to the crash site.  Though the vehicle had been removed, and items of tribute were appearing around a power line pole at the crest of the hill, evidence of the mayhem from the evening before was everywhere.  I’m not entirely sure why, but with a feeling of significance in the moment, I picked up a small shard of headlight plastic from the edge of the road and put it in my pocket.

     Over the years that followed, my experiences with the notion of death grew.  My grandfather succumbed to a decade of health problems and I understood what a lifetime’s body of work is worth.  In college, I presented a project my partner didn’t make it through, though we were both on the road at the same time during that storm.  Another childhood friend, one of the most kind-hearted souls I have ever known, drowned during a college cross-cultural mission trip, and I saw in its fullness how life’s amazing potential can be extinguished in an instant.  Two more died from cancer before finishing college: one quickly, the other after a long battle.  When a long-term ex-girlfriend lost her fiery, vibrant mother to breast cancer, I felt the pain of the untimely loss of family through the eyes of another.  And when a couple of friends lost their infant daughter, I saw it all again from a new perspective. 

     My most recent experience with this universal inevitability came just two months ago.  A man whom I had come to see as something of a mentor lost his own battle with cancer.  A few weeks later, I was at my desk working on the newsletter for the nonprofit he chaired.  His widow was talking with a staff member and friend at the table behind me, and though I tried to stay focused on my work, it was impossible not to listen in.  The conversation centered around what came next: what to keep of his things, what to do with their home, and how she would spend her time going forward.  The feeling I got listening to the discussion was not unlike the feeling after a boisterous farewell party is coming to close.  The sound of the vacuum running, empty bottles and trash dropping into bags, and voices saying goodbye just outside the front door, signify that the evening’s jubilation was but a fleeting moment, destined to fade from memory.  As I pondered this, his name disappeared from the masthead of the newsletter forever, falling letter by letter into the backspace bar piloted by my little finger.  Never before had eleven keystrokes felt this personal.

     My experiences with death greatly influence the way I view life and how I live it.  These individual stories inevitably contribute to my narrative of thought during the occasional sleepless nights caused by unfortunate spells of depression.  It’s when I do my best thinking.  It’s difficult though to organize these thoughts around a central purpose when a person is as prone to over-analyzing as I am.  For many people, a rock-solid faith in the love and providence of God gives them all the structure they need to frame their lives.  For others, it’s the human basic of creating and providing for a family, and the beautiful simplicity of it all.  For others still, life can be evaluated through the lens of personal fulfillment, whether through material achievement or self-actualization.  For me, these pursuits all break down at some point.  I hope I figure it out eventually.

     Recently, an acquaintance mused on what Evan and Shane would be doing if they were alive today, and what kind of men they would be.  My best guess?  Shane would be with a small graphic design company, still plying more personal artwork on the side, and recently engaged.  Evan would be competing in the upper tiers of minor league hockey, wife and two kids in tow wherever he ended up.

     Every now and then, I pull out that piece of headlight from the accident.  It acts well as a memento mori, and I’m instantly filled with the certainty that my mere existence serves a purpose. The mark they left in the minds of so many made up for the limited physical impact their shortened existence allowed.

     While it may be pleasant to ponder where someone would be had they made it further into life, it’s a fruitless exercise.  In my memories, Evan and Shane still exist as peers, even though they are in a truer sense forever teenagers.  Their lives had an absolute beginning and an end, just like ours all will, bookends on what we do in between. Ten years ago, Evan Betz and Shane Bailey died.  But before that, they were here.  They were known.  They mattered.  Maybe that’s all I need.

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