What can you say when your best friend, that was like a brother to you passes away. Phil, Dave Hoxie and I spent our school years enjoying each other’s company and families. We would sit and listen to a Beatles new album and then try to decipher what we thought the lyrics meant. Then go outside and play baseball in his back yard! Phil’s dad eventually took away our ball field and built a pool in there back yard! Oh what fun that was helping to build that. I will never forget the day that Keith dumped a wheelbarrow load of sand into the filled pool! We talked about that for years!
As we got older and the fun turned from baseball and pool antics to cars. Each of us got a car that was different. Dave got a Opel GT. I got a AMC Gremlin. Phil… well Phil got a Triumph Herald! That was a car that would consume Phil. He loved that car so much that any mention of the word Triumph or Herald would make Phil beam! (Even in church singing the hymn “Hark the Herald Angles sing!”). We would spend our Friday nights… not going to dances or football games. We would go to Irv’s Service Garage and change Phil’s oil and do various things to that Triumph. Not that it always needed it, but simply to do it. That was Phil!
So many memories that continue to pop up in my head. Phil was unique. He had no problem wearing a coconut bra in our high school play - South Pacific. But the same guy would amaze you with his knowledge of the Bible and various religions. His knack for detail was amazing.
As our lives went separate ways, we tried to stay in touch. We have great memories of spending a fall weekend at Phil and Jean’s Bass Lake Cottages. Phil loved his family and loved to share their experiences. When they sold the cottage and moved to Florida it was about the same time we moved to Connecticut. The distance apart meant fewer visits and more phone call and eventually emails. That will be a time that I wish we could re-live. A time that each of us drifted apart, but we each knew we were still the best of friends. As time slipped quickly by we found ourselves comforting each other when our parents passed away. We comforted each other when our good friends or family passed away.
Now Phil has gone and I take comfort in knowing that he is with Jean and at peace. I have my memories of all the great times we had growing up. But the greatest memory will be the end of our last phone call, when we each told each other that we loved each other. Rest in peace my friend, my brother.
