My Best Friend
My best friend is Bill Brauning. We went to kindergarten together. He pretty much single-handedly kept me sane when I was ostracized and bullied in grade school. When I left Ohio for good in a kind of George Willard exit from home as in Sherwood Anderson’s classic cycle of short stories Winesburg, Ohio, it was Bill and two other guys who drove to California with me when I was 20 years old.
Bill and I were born in 1949. In those days polio was a threat to children all over the world and Bill contracted polio shortly after he was born. As a result movement in his right arm is limited to his fingers and wrist. Nevertheless he became one of Ohio’s, and perhaps America’s, finest bass guitar players, and has played continually for over five decades in bands including rock, cover, reggae, jazz and show bands. He also was a fine French horn player in grade school and regularly won “firsts” in music competitions where most competitors received “seconds” or “thirds” if they received any awards at all.
As kids Bill and I did everything together. We played baseball, Bill catching flies in his baseball cap. We sailed small boats together---“Sunfish”---on Silver Lake and rode our bikes all over the Village. When we were ten years old we swam across Silver Lake nine times non-stop, accompanied and supervised by our parents in a row boat. The distance was almost two miles, Bill pulling with one arm only. We wrote and performed a comedy in fifth grade and were in the school band and the school orchestra together.
Although I haven’t lived near Bill for 50 years, when we do meet up, though infrequently, it’s like I just saw him yesterday. And while I’ve lived all over the world, Bill stayed in Akron, Ohio, our hometown.
I have a hundred stories in my head that involve myself and Bill Brauning. They span our entire lives, including those involving our now adult children. How do I choose what story to tell which underscores the reason I call this fellow my best friend? Here’s one:
Many years ago my mother had to move into a nursing home in Akron after suffering a stroke. She spent six years there before she died. That was at Christmas time in 1999.
I was at home in Newfoundland, Canada when I received a phone call on a Friday from St. Thomas Hospital in Akron. They recommended I come at once as she was gravely ill with pneumonia and they didn’t expect her to recover.
I quickly finished grading my students’ artwork, booked my flights from Newfoundland to Ohio, and prepared to leave first thing in the morning. The weather at home was terrible and the route from Newfoundland to Ohio was: Deer Lake-Halifax, Halifax-Toronto, Toronto-Cleveland. It took all day to get to Cleveland and I arrived at 9:00 PM to more bad weather. There I rented a car and drove to Akron, found St. Thomas hospital, parked the rental car in a lot where houses used to stand, including one where my parents lived when they first moved to Akron, and I hurried to find my mother’s room.
My wife, Charlotte, had phoned Bill after I left home to let him know I was on the way and that I’d get ahold of him the next day.
At about 11:30 in the evening I found my mother’s room. The hospital was silent at that time of night and most lights in the wards were turned off or dimmed. They knew I was coming since they contacted me to get there as soon as possible so they let me in to see her immediately.
As I reached the door Bill stepped out of the shadows and said “You’re not going through this by yourself.”
My mother passed away the following morning.
© Kent Jones 2016
My best friend is Bill Brauning. We went to kindergarten together. He pretty much single-handedly kept me sane when I was ostracized and bullied in grade school. When I left Ohio for good in a kind of George Willard exit from home as in Sherwood Anderson’s classic cycle of short stories Winesburg, Ohio, it was Bill and two other guys who drove to California with me when I was 20 years old.
Bill and I were born in 1949. In those days polio was a threat to children all over the world and Bill contracted polio shortly after he was born. As a result movement in his right arm is limited to his fingers and wrist. Nevertheless he became one of Ohio’s, and perhaps America’s, finest bass guitar players, and has played continually for over five decades in bands including rock, cover, reggae, jazz and show bands. He also was a fine French horn player in grade school and regularly won “firsts” in music competitions where most competitors received “seconds” or “thirds” if they received any awards at all.
As kids Bill and I did everything together. We played baseball, Bill catching flies in his baseball cap. We sailed small boats together---“Sunfish”---on Silver Lake and rode our bikes all over the Village. When we were ten years old we swam across Silver Lake nine times non-stop, accompanied and supervised by our parents in a row boat. The distance was almost two miles, Bill pulling with one arm only. We wrote and performed a comedy in fifth grade and were in the school band and the school orchestra together.
Although I haven’t lived near Bill for 50 years, when we do meet up, though infrequently, it’s like I just saw him yesterday. And while I’ve lived all over the world, Bill stayed in Akron, Ohio, our hometown.
I have a hundred stories in my head that involve myself and Bill Brauning. They span our entire lives, including those involving our now adult children. How do I choose what story to tell which underscores the reason I call this fellow my best friend? Here’s one:
Many years ago my mother had to move into a nursing home in Akron after suffering a stroke. She spent six years there before she died. That was at Christmas time in 1999.
I was at home in Newfoundland, Canada when I received a phone call on a Friday from St. Thomas Hospital in Akron. They recommended I come at once as she was gravely ill with pneumonia and they didn’t expect her to recover.
I quickly finished grading my students’ artwork, booked my flights from Newfoundland to Ohio, and prepared to leave first thing in the morning. The weather at home was terrible and the route from Newfoundland to Ohio was: Deer Lake-Halifax, Halifax-Toronto, Toronto-Cleveland. It took all day to get to Cleveland and I arrived at 9:00 PM to more bad weather. There I rented a car and drove to Akron, found St. Thomas hospital, parked the rental car in a lot where houses used to stand, including one where my parents lived when they first moved to Akron, and I hurried to find my mother’s room.
My wife, Charlotte, had phoned Bill after I left home to let him know I was on the way and that I’d get ahold of him the next day.
At about 11:30 in the evening I found my mother’s room. The hospital was silent at that time of night and most lights in the wards were turned off or dimmed. They knew I was coming since they contacted me to get there as soon as possible so they let me in to see her immediately.
As I reached the door Bill stepped out of the shadows and said “You’re not going through this by yourself.”
My mother passed away the following morning.
© Kent Jones 2016