I Know More Dead Folks than Living Ones

It is a thought that crosses my mind from time to time. Younger people might not understand this. I have even known a person who--in her twenties--told me that she doesn't know of anyone in her family who had died. This meant that the dead had died before she was born (or had any memories) and that no new takers of the afterlife had transitioned to that state within her lifetime. Bully for her!

In my life, the dead are not replaced on a 1:1 basis (or on a basis of greater number than that). How is that possible? You go to school. You go to work. You belong to activities or groups. Well, I don't really cling to folks I have met in school. Facebook friendship doesn't really count in my mind. There are also few people from work who fall into the category of friends. To use the old expression, "I could count them on one hand."
The folks from the church or witch and pagan network are a small bunch. But the elderly keep dying.
Mind you, when I was growing up, my parents kept company with people who were older than they. When I was in my teens and twenties, I also had somewhat older friends. And, needless to say, HIV/AIDS wiped out a huge chunk of men in my life.

Last month I attended the funeral of a man who was the last member of his childhood family of five. He would have turned 84 this October. I was the only person who stood up during the service and spoke of a positive/happy memory of him.

Why does this come to mind. I had a dream last night that stuck with me. Most such dreams never do stick with me. Dreams to me are like passing thoughts that I quickly forget. Some thoughts I desperately and resolutely want to remember and others have me saying, "I couldn't care less if the thought doesn't return." This thought was about my freshman Russian and Polish teacher. She lived across the street from the college campus in the upstairs apartment of a row house of duplexes. Her apartment was Bohemian and fashionable for the 1970s era. She had shag rugs, ceiling lamps with swag chains, bricks and boards for bookshelves, and framed calendar pictures featuring erotica. One was entitled (by the teacher) Trzy póldupki. It featured the backsides of three naked women. I guess the translation would be either Three Half-A**es or Three A**holes.

Anyway, I don't know why I was in the apartment. She wasn't there. Maybe she had asked me to watch her cat. Or maybe she was planning one of her long summer vacations to Europe and wanted me to hide her liquor and toilet paper in the attic (I was taller than she and not afraid to climb a ladder). Yes, she hid toilet paper from the renters because, well, when you come back from 3 months abroad, the last thing you want to do is make a run to Waldbaum's to pick up a four pack of two ply!

The apartment was always clean. The kitchen and bathroom linoleum had a wax finish. She had casement windows that cranked open and--since she was gone for the summer--she never worried about the apartment being beastly hot and in need of cooling. In the dining room off the kitchen she also had a work desk that included a typewriter that was covered with a plastic typewriter cover. And she had a black rotary phone with a metal rotary and the phone number printed in the circle that centered the dial. The phone number had the original area code of the region (but the number itself was all digits).

She had a stereo system that had two cassette players (to copy one cassette to another). Most of her 33s were in Russian or Polish. The TV was in her bedroom (on a metal stand with wheels). She had a metal filing cabinet that had years of tests that she had written and notes for her lectures. She was brilliant at organizing. She never developed a sense for cooking and she never cared to learn.

I miss her. She was wacky. And she reminded me of no one else. She never married and she had heterosexual romances (although I was never sure just how far the romances had gone). "I have had many many lovers from many many countries," she would say. Or another favorite line was, "He was the LOVE of my life. I can't remember his name."

"Who are the most handsome?" I recall asking her once.



She answered immediately that it was the Croatian men. "They are absolutely gorgeous. Flawless!"
"Really?" I would say. "I'm surprised. I would have imagined you'd say Swedish men were the sexiest looking."
"Swedish?"



"Are you mad? They have misshapen heads that are also too big. Feh!"
And then there would be nothing more to be said.

Of course one wonders what happens to the men when the boundaries change or the names of the countries change or the successive generations intermarry and create multi-racial offspring. Youth of today will not know what the hot love experience from the superiorly handsome Croatian man was like.

My, but this has gotten off topic!

Anyway, the instructor is long gone. The casement windows have probably been replaced. I guess I think about my own mortality from time to time and wonder if I will be missed by someone who liked being with or around me.