I received the phone call today, the kind of call you dread
getting in the middle of the night. When I looked at the caller ID, I saw that
the call was from an old friend of mine, Tony Kozar. We hadn't talked in awhile
so I thought he'd finally called to catch up, not exactly.
I answered the call with my usual greeting when he calls "Hey
man, what's going on?" After a short pause he cleared his throat and just
said "We lost Pat Galvin yesterday." As my hearing isn't what it used to
be and I didn't want to hear what I thought I just heard, I asked 'Excuse me,
what did you say?" "We lost Pat Galvin."
For most of you, you're going "OK, who's Pat Galvin?"
Well, Pat Galvin was a good friend of mine. I hadn't seen much of Pat the last
15 years or so, but he was and is a friend. I met him over 30 years ago while
attending Portland Community College. Tony Kozar was also attending at that
time and him and I got to be pretty tight friends. Through "Kozar" I
met a litany of people from Pat, who was lovingly referred to as
"Fats," why, I don't quite know, he was never very fat to me, but
maybe when they were kids. Kozar gave him this moniker. Most of Kozars friends
had nicknames, mostly just their last name, but some guys were called
"Goofy" and a myriad of names that I can no longer recall. Me? I was
just Jimmy.
Anyway, over the better part of 30 years there were Raider games
at Kozars, Rolling Stones concerts in Seattle, and trips to Seattle to see the Yankees
play the Mariners. In addition to the Oakland Raiders, the Yankees were one of our favorite professional teams to root for. None of us liked teams from Seattle, so it was great fun to
go up there, drink way too much and boo the Mariners. Kozar and the boys went
up there yearly. I went a couple of times and it was always a great time.
Fats it always seemed was the only one who could say anything to
Kozar that he would listen too. Me? I was too young and never felt like I could
say anything that he would listen to, but when Fats spoke, Kozar listened. On
one trip, after the game, we were driving around some portion of Seattle when we
came across an A-Frame ad outside of some restaurant or something. Well we just
had to have it of course, so into the back of 'Dalby's' van it went. Later, Kozar
wanted to do something else reasonably stupid and Fats, said "no."
Kozar insisted on whatever it was and Pat in a stern voice said something to
the effect of "Fuck Kozar we already got a sign, fucking knock it
off." Kozar got this hurt puppy look on his face, looked at me and said,
"Fats yelled at me." I thought he was going to cry. I about shit
myself trying not to laugh.
That's the way it kind of went for a long time. Pool party's at
the Dalby's, concerts in town; blues parties at my house, we always all had a
great time. But alas, things change, we get older, get married, have kids,
drift apart, it happens. I moved to Central Oregon and I didn't see anybody as
much. I'd always go to Portland to visit and we'd hook up, and it was always
fun to see everyone again. But none of us could believe though how the time had
flown. We all had met as 20 something’s and now we were 50 somethings.
Fats and his wife Nancy came to my first wedding and came to
Central Oregon for my second, (and last) about four years ago. He had mentioned
not feeling great that weekend, but nobody thought much of it. During a trip to
Portland some time after that he mentioned some pain in his kidneys but didn't
think much of that either. I talked to him last year and he informed me that he'd had
Kidney Cancer and had one of them removed. He said it was an early stage and that he didn't follow-up with chemo or radiation, which I thought a bit odd at the
time, but it was his cancer and not mine this time. That was the last time I
talked too him.
It's brutally ironic I guess, that Al Davis, owner and general
managing partner of the Raiders passed away on Saturday. The Raiders dedicated
their game yesterday to Al. In a close game that will go down in Raider lore,
the Raiders held on to win the game with a last play interception in the end
zone, at about the same time that Pat Galvin drew his last, how fitting.
Pat had been feeling poorly the last year and got checked about
six months ago. The doctors had found that the cancer had spread and that there
was nothing they could do. He spent the last few weeks of his life in hospice
and was comfortable at the end. I wish I had been able to talk to him. I wish I
had picked up the phone the many times I wanted to, to see how things were
going. I don't understand why friends can't put away differences and pick up
the phone and let somebody know before somebody dies, that someone you care about
is dying, fuck!
So Pat is gone. Gone like the others before him, and like the ones
that are to follow. No one on this planet gets out of this predicament called
life, without dying, it's just the way it is. That being said, I don't have to
like it. I don't have to like that Pat suffered the fate of many other cancer
sufferers in that he withered away before leaving us. I don't like that he's
gone. I have faith that I will see him again someday, but I don't like the
process we go through to see each other again. It's kind of funny that most of
us want to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die to get there. Anybody find
another way, I'm all ears.
Even though I hadn't seen Pat in a very long time, I will miss
him. He was a good man, husband, father, and friend. Pat may be gone, but his
impact on my life and the lives of his friends and family will live forever.
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