by June Tuthill Bassemir
At the present time, there are three widowers in my life.
One is an old H S. boy friend. One is a bit older whose
parents rented a cottage of my father’s. The third is another H. S. classmate
from Spanish class.
My communication with each one of them is not known to the
other two and I might add we are all Octogenarians. Driving to the East end of LI is no longer an
option for the first two, so our communication is by telephone or the US
post. Neither feels they can overcome
the learning process of joining the email generation, justifying their
objections to their extreme love of the telephone and the mailman. The third is email literate but... just
barely, sending a love note from Texas
now and again.
The H.S. boyfriend worked in the television industry when IT
and he were young, so he was more “people” oriented than “hobby” oriented which
puts anyone in the later years of life at a disadvantage. For the last few years, we have enjoyed
dining at the various restaurants here on the “East End”
of LI. and there are many good places to eat.
However, due to doctor appointments, he ran out of steam before we ran
out of restaurants and now he can’t make the 65 mile Toyota
journey to Jamesport. I miss his company
and the lobster dinners ... I clip
articles from the local newspaper showing the different places where we have
been and that keeps his spirits up. He
follows the Yankee ball games with devotion and I share the joy and excitement of
seeing the ball get whacked out of park too...wondering if they will play in
the World Series.. yet again. He is
single handedly paying my mail lady’s salary with numerous cards and letters
sent weekly, sealed with multiple stickers that he gets for free from those
organizations to whom he donates money.
The second widower has been to visit me just once when he
came with one of his daughters after an absence of no communication for over 50
years. He has been invaluable sharing
his practical knowledge and advice with the things needing attention around my
house. In exchange for this, I send him
essays and stories of our younger days that he reads while sitting in his open
garage, facing the activity on the street in front of him. As a young husband he was in the construction
business, (when he wasn’t in bed) and built seven buildings interspersed with giving
his wife seven reasons to visit the maternity ward at the local hospital. He jokes that he never had enough money to go
bowling. When he lived in my Dad’s
cottage as a boy, my romantic interest in him was non existent because his
family was of the strong Catholic persuasion and I was of the strong Protestant
persuasion. My parental advice was not
to marry a Catholic as the Priest would be in the bedroom with us and this
vision of course, limited my list of potential boyfriends and a husband. Now the residue of our upbringing doesn’t
matter anymore except if we discuss the Presidential candidates and we try to
sidestep that subject while chatting on the phone.
The last friend from the Spanish Class, emails heartfelt
expressions of long lost love that he has been nursing for lo these many many
years. I never accepted a date with him
although he would ask each time the class was dismissed and we both reached the
exit door at the same time. I dreaded
the moment the class was over and often hung back as long as I could, but then
he would too. He came to the 40th
and the 50th Class reunions all the way from Mexico
where he fled after High School to marry a Mexican woman and sire three kids.
He obviously did much better in Spanish class than I did. He now lives in TX with a son and I am trying
to keep his brain active. He is pleading
with me for my phone number to be able to call at Christmas time. He says that he calls all his friends at that
time to explain all his health problems that he’s had during the year. I’m not eager to hear that as it seems to me
to be an unproductive waste of breath but I did give my three digit area phone
number. I told him he has to work for
the other seven digits in a little whimsical exercise that I gave him... I also
said the rule was that if he called he couldn’t discuss any medical problems
and I wouldn’t talk about mine. Since
the end of August he has yet to decipher my phone number hidden in this
sentence..... “Seven too too small Pygmy
men, for years ate seven won derful donuts”.
See if you can figure it out. Of
course, if the other half of his brain were active he would be able to get my
phone number and any body else’s phone number by calling 411 with the name and
address. Actually there may be another
reason he is not anxious to break the code of my small quiz and that is he
won’t have anything to talk about.
So much for life here in Jamesport – written by the 11th
direct descendant of John Tuthill who landed on LI in Southold in 1640 along
with 12 other English families.
copyright June T. Bassemir, 2014
June Tuthill Bassemir is
the widowed mother of four and grandmother of 10. An artist and
writer, she volunteers as a docent in a 1765 farm house. June loves
old cars and antiques, and has also enjoyed furniture stripping and rug
hooking. "I used to say I was a stripper and hooker.but with so many
trips around the sun, no one raises an eyebrow anymore. They only
laugh." June has given up furniture stripping, but is still an avid rug
hooker.
