Remembering Cousin John 

“Cousins are like celebrities for little kids. If little kids had a People magazine, cousins would be on the cover.” – Jim Gaffigan

Before I even begin, let me tell you what ARE NOT the reasons I’m writing down these memories of Cousin John.  I’m not writing this down to insert myself into the story.  Many, especially in the age of social media, try to insert themselves into every tragedy to tie themselves to the story or somehow literally make the tragedy about them.  That’s not what I’m doing.  When John died in 2019, I hadn’t seen him in a decade.  Literally ten years.   So, to say that my day-to-day life was impacted by his untimely death in 2019 would not only be false, but it would also be offensive to his children, parents, and siblings.  John’s death was a blow to my childhood memories, and a sad reminder of how we had let time slip away.  I’m writing this today so that the stories and memories won’t be forgotten.

John and I were both born in April, just over five years apart.  Five years doesn’t really seem like that big of an age gap when you’re adults, but when you’re kids it’s huge.  When I was in the first grade, I thought that kids in the 3^rd grade smoked cigarettes and had serious girlfriends.  That was only a two-year difference – so five years would have seemed like an insanely huge gap.

John was my oldest cousin on the Hale side.  I was right in the middle – three male cousins older than me and three younger.  My first memories of John are that he was immeasurably and unfailingly cool.  I suspect many kids think that about older cousins, particularly their oldest cousin, but objectively speaking John was very cool and charismatic.

Until just before my 8^th birthday I lived on 48^th Street in Jacksonville and Uncle Claude and Aunt Linda lived on 45^th.  It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that we had literally lived in the same neighborhood, and we probably could have been playing together as kids.  But for whatever reasons, I only saw John at larger family get-togethers and I genuinely had no clue that he lived on just the other side of the tracks – literally. 

Whenever my family was at my aunt and uncle’s house, I always found my way to John’s room.  John’s room was covered wall to wall with posters of the famous actresses and supermodels of the day.  My mind remembers Catherine Bach, aka Daisy Duke as a personal favorite.   When I was 11 or 12 John was 16 or 17.  So I was just on the cusp of being a teenager, and he was right at the apex.  For me, John completely represented what it meant to be a teenager, or better said what it meant to be a wildly cool one.   So, in my mind I needed to emulate him in every way possible.  Just as John was blessed with natural charisma and charm, I was cursed with an unbridled dorkiness that could not be remedied by emulating his dress or speech.  But one thing I could do was decorate my room like his.  And by the time I was a 16 or 17 I had done my very best to duplicate his room.   Anyone who visited my room in the late 1980’s can attest that it was indeed a den of impurity with wall-to-wall posters – just like John’s bedroom several years earlier.

One of my very favorite memories of my childhood turned out to be a lie – but in the best of ways.  One night at our grandmother’s house, the male cousins were boxing in the front yard.   I was probably not much older than 10 or so.  When my turn to fight came, I was paired against an older cousin (not John) and after a few minutes of exchanging punches, he staggered and fell to the dirt.  I spent the next few days telling everyone I knew how I had knocked out an older cousin.  Who am I kidding, I spent the next few YEARS telling that story. Four or five years later we were again in my grandmother’s front yard and once again the boxing gloves were brought out.  This time two of my younger cousins were squaring off.  After a few minutes I saw John subtly motion to the older boxer to go down, which he of course did (no one questioned John’s authority).  I would have liked to have seen my face at that moment when the realization suddenly hit me that John had done the same thing years earlier in my moment of glory.  My legendary knock-out of an older cousin had all been a sham, a set-up, a lie.   I know John orchestrated it to give the younger cousin more confidence, or maybe just to make the younger one happy.  All I know is that it was a fantastic memory of mine, and it remained one even decades later after I learned what had really happened.

Not a lot of people know that John was my godfather.   I don’t believe that John ever took his faith particularly seriously, but I think he liked the honor associated with the title.  I wasn’t baptized until I was ten years old, and John was fifteen.  Ten is late to be baptized for a Catholic, but fifteen is pretty early to be a godfather.  I don’t remember a ton about the ceremony, but I remember that John was very quiet beforehand and not in the mood to joke around.  Looking back I suspect he was probably tense about it all.  Even super cool older cousins get nervous, I guess.

Another fantastic memory of my early childhood involves a trip to Disney World with some of my cousins.  I specifically remember that it was Mickey Mouse’s 50^th birthday, so that would mean it was 1978 which feels about right.   The funny part is that I remember nothing about actually being in the park.  Not the rides, the food, the weather – absolutely nothing.   What I remember, and remember very fondly, is the 3-hour drive to and from the park.   The boy cousins were in the back of a blisteringly hot truck (with a topper) and the girls were up front with the mothers.  I remember nonstop laughing and joking and just having the time of my life.  I fondly remember laughing at the things John said/did in the hotel room too.   At one point in the back of the truck, I made an extremely lame joke that involved the word “ass”, and I remember John laughing at it.  Emboldened by my success, I said the same line again and again and again.  And John continued laughing.  You may be thinking how it could be possible that I can remember a specific joke I told 43 years ago when I was only 7 years old.  It’s possible because I had just made the coolest guy in the world laugh – so, of course I’m going to remember that.

Another memory that still makes me smile to this day happened at John’s wedding.  At the reception he was dancing on stage after a drink or two, and for whatever reason the CD kept skipping backwards so the song just went on indefinitely.  I was standing off to the side of the stage watching John dance at this ridiculously fast pace and I could see the sweat literally flying from his face.  When the song finally finished, he looked over at me, took a deep breath and exclaimed, “That’s the longest damn song I’ve ever heard.”  Of the thousands of times he made me laugh, that was probably the only time he did so unintentionally.

Some of the most fun I had in my late teens and early twenties were at our Uncle Bud’s house in Callahan.  He had multiple parties for birthdays, Super Bowls, and probably other reasons that I can’t recall.   At one of the Super Bowl parties in the early 90s John inexplicably started referring to me as Guy #1 and my younger cousin as Guy #2.  What made it funny was that he just said it so matter-of-factly that you’d have thought these had been our nicknames since birth.  John labelled himself Guy Extraordinaire on that day, and we, obviously, did not question or challenge his authority.  The names stuck and we continued using them for the next 25-30 years.  On the day he died my Facebook status read “RIP Guy Extraordinaire.”

I have another memory of being at Uncle Bud’s with John, and it’s special to me for different reasons.  I feel like it was the late 90s, so it’s possible that it was shortly after Bud’s death, or maybe even the day of the funeral.  All I remember is that John said he needed to make a run to the store for more beer, and he invited me to ride along.  Of course, I said yes.  If Guy Extraordinaire chooses you for anything, you accept graciously and without question.  What made this night stick in my memory is that after John bought beer from the corner store, we just drove around Callahan talking.  The topics of conversation were nothing earth-shattering.  We were just two cousins swapping stories and reconnecting after many years.  At the end of the night, we exchanged numbers and vowed to keep in touch.  Amazingly, we did.

Not long after that night driving around Callahan, John called to invite me to his house to watch an FSU game on television.  Of course, when he called he tried to prank me with a fake voice.  He probably would have succeeded if not for Caller ID.  I remember having a great time at his house and saying that I couldn’t wait to do it again, and maybe he could even come to my place.  I can’t recall exactly why we never did, though.  All I can figure is that this must have been about the time I started dating my future wife.  If not, I can find no other reasonable explanation.

Years passed before I saw John again, and as I just mentioned I can’t really explain why that happened.  In fact, I didn’t see him again until our grandmother’s funeral in 2009.  A few days after her funeral John invited everyone to his house for a Super Bowl party since the out-of-town relatives were still in town.  It ended up being the last time that I ever saw John, and since it was the Super Bowl, I know the exact date - 02/01/2009.  Our grandmother’s funeral was 1/27/2009.  At his Super Bowl party, he asked me the name of my five-year old daughter.   I don’t blame him for not knowing her name since there was no real reason that he would, but it was a glowing example of how we’d fallen out of touch.

I didn’t see John once in the last ten years of his life.  At least not that I can recall.  But like most we were able to reconnect and stay in touch through social media.  And for that I will be eternally thankful.  When I think back on John I, obviously, have regrets about losing contact with him.  But my memories of him are all positive – every single one of them.  John never once picked on me, bullied me, or made me feel bad about myself.  Maybe that’s setting the bar low, but the truth is I can’t say that about every cousin I have.  I can say without even the slightest tinge of hyperbole that John was the most charismatic person I’ve ever known.  He was the walking talking stereotype of “guys wanted to be him, and girls wanted to be with him.”  Maybe he was arrogant behind closed doors.  Maybe I’m seeing my oldest cousin through hero-tinted glasses.  All I can say is that this fat kid with glasses and braces never felt self-conscious around him.  With John, I never felt like I had to keep my guard up in case of incoming insults.   That fat kid with glasses and braces once got invited to the coolest man on the planet’s house for a football game, and even got to ride around with him in his car.  And once I even made him laugh hysterically with an ass joke.  Seriously, that really happened.