I'll find an easy way

 

I'll find an easy way





While this was used in my eulogy at the remembrance for this truly great friend I repeat it with a couple of flourishes. Greg was a very complicated guy who was outwardly quiet conservative and non-confrontational. You would say he was a good boy in his youth, never breaking any laws, never bullying anyone, never really causing his parents any trouble. Yet, at his core the man was a kind of rebel who did swim upstream on occasion and a risk-taker that was antithetical to his family life. He scoffed at religion, he questioned  authority and he sampled drugs across the spectrum. He had a good heart but was far from sentimental. He was generous, kind, capable but not a sap. He also would talk some major shit if the situation warranted that attitude. As we have discussed many times the guy had a big temper but never put a dent in any wall, car hood or skull in his life. While he threatened to curb-stomp or drive a fireplace poker up somebody's butt he actually never threw a punch. The last fight he spoke of to me took place when he was in 4th grade. He would yell out of his car window but had the good sense to stay inside the vehicle. So the story goes he was being lectured by his father, a World War II combat veteran with a purple heart in a drawer somewhere. Dad wanted to make sure his son knew he must sacrifice, work hard and be true to his word if he wanted to succeed in life. John, as a Postal worker had for many years got up way before the sunrise to go to his job was no stranger to sacrifice and discipline. Being a know-it-all teen Greg defiantly looked the old sage in the eye and let him know he knew better. "I'll find an easy way" he told the old man which probably set off fireworks of rage in the cigarette scarred   chest of the father. Let us also realize that as Greg told the story many times to me he admitted he was an asshole in this early scene in the many acts of Greg and John. 

 




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