Final Verse

Someone we don’t really know recently asked, “Whatever happened to that guy that used to come out to Margaret Explosion shows and sit up front in a lounge chair.” I told John that someone had asked us that and he laughed, happy to have been remembered. He said he was feeling stronger and hoped to make it out to a show again.

Bob Mahoney called this morning to tell us that John had passed, at home, maybe three days ago. That didn’t add up because we had received a text from him on Thursday afternoon, a picture of his son, Pat, graduating. We congratulated John, our last brief connection.

John brought this photo over a while ago. He was pretty sure the other guy was Rex Daniels, a classmate of ours who was killed by friendly fire in Viet Nam. I told him it was Bill Hill, not Rex but it is still a fabulous photo.

John moved up here from Long Island. I first heard about him as one of the guys from our high school class that drove a car straight through the T intersection of Holt and Ridge Roads. They crashed well into the cemetery. Dave Mahoney and I went up to look at the wreckage. That was my introduction to John. A high school wrestler, he was bursting at the seams with life.

John came out visit a few times while I was in Indiana and it was always somewhat of a clash. John was just a little rough for mellow Bloomington. I drove out there with John one time. He had a cooler between the two front seats of his VW van, loaded with Genny Beer. He drove, drank and talked the whole way.

John had a Jeep when I returned to Rochester with Peggi. We will never forget screeching through downtown on 490 or missing a turn in Mendon and running off the road. John was entertaining us.

He already had a son by the time we were married and went on to have three more along with two daughters. A family man, but the one time we met him to play golf he was tripping on acid. John lived life to the fullest.

We went to a play with John and his wife, Kathe, a musical about Janis Joplin. He was carrying around cushions at the time and this one is familiar. John made the reservations and he posed with the sign on our table.

He and his friends built a house in Geneseo. It seemed to me the middle of nowhere. Once he was in he threw a big party for all those that helped. When we got there John was sitting on top of the hood of a car that was driving in circles around his house. He was belting out the lyrics to Jefferson Airplane’s “Crown of Creation.”

John was the only one who called me Paulie. Bob was Bobby and John’s mid-career, drink-of-choice, vodka and ginger ale, was a “Johnny.” He lived life to the fullest.

John was like a character out of Kerouac book. He could recite Lord Buckley verse. We went to a Ken Kesey talk with John — the premier of the Wavy Gravy movie at the Little and a Grateful Dead show in Boston.

We bonded over a Traffic album we were listening to in my bedroom at my parents home. John was always there for the music. Pete, shown here with John, plays piano on the “Ballad of John Gilmore” (below.)

His career as an electrician at Kodak came to an abrupt end and he wore a suit for a few days while he tried to find a new job. He asked me to take this photo of him in a suit. We are going to miss John.

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