Memories of My Brother

My brother Ken passed away a few days ago.  He was 83.

Over the past 10 years, he had suffered from several serious, but manageable, diseases.  But his last few weeks saw him battling horrible and impossible-to-overcome ailments, and it became clear that his time had come.

And it did.

Ken and I were never very close, at any time of our lives.  The most obvious reason was that he was 10 years older.  When I was in second grade, he was graduating from high school.  And when I was in high school, he already had gone to Fresno State and received his bachelor’s degree, been on a two-year military deployment in Vietnam, come back to Fresno and earned an M.A. from Fresno State, gone to work at, first, Reedley High School and then Merced College, and gotten married.

I was still trying to figure out who in the world I was, and what in the world I wanted to do.

Then — once I had gotten my first job in television as a reporter for Channel 30 in Fresno, I met Sharon, and we got married. A few years later, we started our 20-year “tour” of the nation — to Ames, Iowa; then to Phoenix; Buffalo; Detroit; San Francisco; Atlanta; back to San Francisco; to Los Angeles; and then, one more time, back to San Francisco.

And during our long time away, Ken — then divorced — had started a “side career” and become one of the most successful political consultants in all of California.  He still lived in Fresno — still worked as a history teacher at Merced College — but he was then consumed by politics and all the trappings.

So when we returned to Fresno in the late ’90’s — with our two children — he was busy doing many things — including finding Pat — a companion who would share the rest his life with him. She loved politics.  So did he.  Both loved to travel.  Ken and Pat would never marry, but they were great for each other.

His passing last week brought back loads of memories from my childhood — when we had our closest interactions.

I remember (don’t ask me how — I had to be no more than 4 or 5) when our parents had to get twin beds for him and me — so we could share the same bedroom (our home had only two).  We both hated that, as I recall.

I remember one summer when he was in high school and was working a summer job at a plant nursery.  He got to bring home those plants the nursery could not sell or considered “extra.”  I remember he brought home lots of roses and hedges — and I watched Dad dig holes for them in our yard. Then, year after year, I saw those plants grow up and become mainstays of our place at Arthur and Weldon avenues.

I remember — it must have been when Ken was a student at Fresno State — that he worked one summer for the U.S. Forest Service out of the Westfall Ranger Station near Fish Camp in Madera County.  His job was to dig out undergrowth that could have become fuel for fire. I remember going up with Dad one weekend to camp with Ken.

I remember at least one time when I was driving Ken crazy when he was studying for finals at Fresno State.  I was running around the house, making noise — lots of noise. (Remember, I was in elementary school.)  On that springtime Saturday afternoon, while he was trying to study, he told me — ordered me — to go outside and mow the lawn with our noisy power mower.  I asked how he could study with that mower noise.  He told me that was a consistent, steady sound.  It made sense.

I don’t remember him leaving for Vietnam in 1962 — but I remember his return, two years later.  He showed us — Mom, Dad, me — some truly gruesome black-and-white photos from Vietnam, where he had been a communications officer but had also gone out on missions.  He never talked about that again — and I never saw those pictures again until a few days ago, when we were packing up family photos at Ken’s condo and found them.

I remember that Ken went with Dad and me to my first Major League Baseball game in August of 1967.  It was the San Francisco Giants versus the St. Louis Cardinals at Candlestick Park in the Bay Area.  The Cards won, 2 to nothing. I remember that as if it were yesterday.

I remember Mom and Dad and Uncle Jerry and I driving up to Ken and Sherry’s (Ken’s wife) house in Madera on Christmas Day 1967. Why do I remember that?  Because Jerry and I played a touch football game against Ken and Sherry at the park on Riverside Drive in Madera that day.  I still have the football from that game, and it’s labeled with the date and final score.  86 to 28. Jerry and I lost.

Ken took me to my second MLB game the next summer — a Friday night game at the Oakland Coliseum between the A’s and the New York Yankees.  I got to see my longtime baseball hero — Mickey Mantle — play.  It was the Mick’s last season.

When the A’s got into the World Series in 1973 — the second year in a row they’d been there — I managed to get three tickets for each of the four games against the New York Mets that would be played in Oakland.  Ken and I went to all those games along with my college broadcasting teacher, mentor and friend, Bill Monson.

The second weekend we were there — it was Saturday night, Oct. 20, 1973 — President Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliott Richardson to fire Special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox.  Richardson refused and resigned.  Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.  He also refused and also resigned.

And finally, Nixon got the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, to fire Cox.

I remember that Ken and Bill and I walked down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley that Saturday night, wondering how the nation could get out of the mess we were in then — or if we could.

By the way — the A’s won that World Series against the Mets the next day. At the end of the game, the three of us stood up, along with the packed Coliseum crowd, and cheered and stamped our feet.  The stadium shook.  I’ve never forgotten that.

I remember that Sharon and I announced our engagement on Christmas Day 1974 at Ken and Sherry’s home in Northwest Fresno (they had moved there after living in Madera).  We got married in their backyard in 1975.

I remember that Ken ran for political office in 1975 — for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.  He lost. Six months later, he and Sherry got divorced.

After that election loss and his divorce, Ken went on to team up with two other political whizzes to become one of the most successful consultant teams in the state.  They took on lots of candidates and causes, and they usually won.

Memories — oh, so many.  All of them from a half-century or more ago.

I can only say — and truly mean it — thanks for the memories, Ken.

And rest in peace, brother.