Philly2Hoboken.com

« The Night I Ran the 40 Yard Dash In 4.47 Seconds | Main | The Winter of Discontent »

January 31, 2005

John O's Top 5

When I first met John, my immediate thought was that I liked him.

He had a bookish quality about him, wearing his round glasses and his frumpled brown wavy hair - he had a disposition about him which said, to me, "scientist". Later, i'd make that "mad scientist".

He was new to Hoboken, telling me that he didn't know anyone in town and was looking for something new. Since I had been in town for a few years at that point, I figured I could introduce him into my "social circle" of friends, barflies and neighborhood store owners. I could take the "new guy" under my wing, and maybe he would get bitten by the same bug that bit me in Hoboken.

My impression with John must have been on target, he lived with me for 3 years after that initial first meeting. I advertised with Hobokeni.com, in their "looking for roommate" section - and it has always come thru in the clutch.

John had an easy going nature about him, sort of a California kid kind of attitude. Of course it may have helped with his, um, use of "natural suppliments" which also gave him a very LAID back attitude, plus certain hunger issues. Of course since he was a cooking whiz - which was well reknown at our BBQ parties each summer - he was very often cooking something great in the kitchen every night.

Aside from his temperment, John was also selfless in his way with helping other roommates. I wrote a bit before about roommates, and John simply was a pleasure to live with, well, most of the time.

His only downfall, which he and I laugh about now is his "infamous relationship" with another roommate. That is another story for another day.

I feel somewhat bad for John, only because of his reason for leaving. His father has the same form of cancer that my father had, its very rare and I couldn't fathom the odds that both of our fathers were stricken with the same exact type of cancer - I think about 5,000 people worldwide get this form of cancer, its a type of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma - the name escapes me for now.

To assist his father with his disease, John decided to move back with his parents and help his father with his business and personal life. How much more noble of a cause could that be?

As a final farewell, here is the Top 5 Memories of John:

1. Showing up at my fathers viewing, I was very much surprised and thought it showed a tremendous amount of kindness. It's easy to be someone's friend during the good times, and you get to know who your real friends are during the hard ones.

2. The one day he decided to take his Jeep, with me in shotgun, off roading near where the 7th street light rail station was being built - and driving ON TO the train tracks. His implusive nature was funny sometimes - except when you think you could die.

3. Going to his rock climbing gym and realizing how woefully out of shape I was, even after working out for 4 months. I never realized how strong John was until I watched him scale a wall using only his hands. John doesn't appear to be very strong, but that is very deceptive.

4. John's amazing BBQ skills which changed a simple get together into something so special that friends would stop me on the street and say, "Hey, when is the next BBQ?". Funny part was that John was Mr. Pita - just about EVERY night for dinner he would fix himself some kind of pita snack and I would come home and ask "Ok, what kind of pita are you making tonight?". It was like living with Bubba from "Forrest Gump" - except he was a pita freak. Pita soup, Pita pasta, Pita with shrimp, Pita with tofu, Pita burger, Pita taco, Pita fish, Pita chicken...

5. Sitting back on the steps to our townhouse, smoking a cigarette together and just chatting aimlessly for a long time on a soft, mellow summer night. You can't buy those kind of memories, they exist in your soul like a gentle reminder of how beautiful life can be.

Thanks for the memories, John. I hope your father gets well soon.

Posted by Furey at January 31, 2005 11:30 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.philly2hoboken.com/blog/mt/mt-tb.cgi/71

Comments

Posted by: trad at January 31, 2005 3:26 PM

Post a comment