Today I received a call that my friend, for what seems like forever, Michael "Squeaky" Carroll, had made his transition at the beginning of the week. Fifty-eight... how very sad.
Squeaky? He got the nickname in grade school, St. Mary's School, because that's the way his voice was. At some point in grade school, his voice was squeakier than most pre-pubescent boys, so the name stuck. And it stuck through HS, and today when I got the news some 50 years since St. Mary's School, I was told that Squeaky, not Mike, had passed on.
To say he was a character, would be an understatement. About an hour ago when someone we both knew called to chat about him, I said, "I have a million Squeaky stories." And that's probably not too much of an exaggeration; if one at all.
He was short, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in uniqueness. The girls, for as long as I can remember, loved him. He was funny, and kind, and caring, and funny, and special ... and did I say funny?
He was captain of the Varsity soccer team. In junior and senior years he and I and Murray, O'Leary and Sapienza were inseparable. I know each of those guys will be as sad as I am when they hear the news.
We worked together at White Beeches Golf Course in the summer.... hysterical. Ironically, Rick Molnar worked with us. Ricky, another best friend, made his transition several years ago. Rick died after a bout with cancer.. I'm not sure how Squeaky went. The call I got today gave no clue and the obituary in the paper only mentioned that he wanted no viewing and no service. Being a cancer patient myself, I only hoped his transition was made without a great deal of suffering.
For several years now I have worked for Blood Systems, Inc. We are the second largest provider of blood and blood products in the U.S. and those products save lives every day. I don't think Mike knew that I worked there, but his family requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the local blood bank. Maybe he did know.... If you are a friend of his and reading this, please consider making a local blood donation in his memory. You will save lives and you will honor his memory.
We were children of the sixties and we did have our "youthful exuberance," and we enjoyed the hell out of our teen years. I didn't have a car and Squeaky did, so most every night he'd stop by the house to pick me up. My parents loved him. My sister loved him. He was always welcome in our home.
One night he came to pick me up and he was wearing a pair of overalls. Tucked into the top pocket of his overalls was a bag of weed. It was more out of his pocket than it was in. He waited for me about 10 minutes and spent the entire time talking to my parents. When I walked into the room, I did my best to let him know what was happening, but their conversation kept up. As I hustled him out of the room and out of the house, my Dad said to him, "Hey Squeaky, you may want to tuck that in before you lose it."
We spent our weekend nights at the finest places... mostly at Jack and Ginny's Pub in Piermont, NY. We just called it Jack's. It was replete with a bowling machine, endless beer nuts, at least two good fights a night and those Stewart's sandwiches that came wrapped in plastic and that you put in a special oven with the plastic still on them. Yum! Piermont was the closest "alcohol at 18" town over the "must be 21 to drink" New Jersey State line. Many of my "millions of Squeaky stories" center around Jack's.
One night at Jack's we met two young ladies from Paramus, NJ. Squeaky began a relationship with Linda, and I with Joann. We went out to eat together, we went to the movies together, we went on ski weekends together, although neither he nor I skied. The one thing we did not do, was get their names correct. For more than 6 months we, in error, called them the wrong names, and although they didn't seem to care, it must have seemed odd when some of their friends were with us. Anyway, eventually two other guys came along that called them the right names and that was that.
Maybe my favorite story, and the story that captures his essence was one from college days. He attended New Haven College in Connecticut, and I attended East Stroudsburg State College in Pennsylvania. We were frequent visitors to each other's school.
I am a brother of Phi Sigma Kappa and Squeaky was at one of our frat parties one night. It was at a time in our lives when the only things really important were cold brew and loud music. Oh yeah... I forget to also say studying hard. It was also at a time when he had the burning desire to learn the harmonica, the blues harp, so he always carried one around with him. He couldn't play it for shit. So we are at the party with about 200 guys and girls, drinking beer and listening to Led Zep (When the Levee Breaks) and I look over at Squeaky and he is going to town on his harmonica. He's got all the moves and it looks like he's been playing for years. He's wailing, but the music is so loud you can't hear him at all!!! So I walk over to where the stereo system is and little by little I begin to lower the volume. Well, he's playing so hard and so loud that all he can hear is himself and not that the stereo has been turned down. And I get it to the point where all anyone can hear is this disastrous harmonica player giving the performance of his life and living his dream of being a legendary blues man. It sounded like someone was killing cats! He sucked! But th crowd cheered him on and on and he played like he was a harmonica god (but a really crappy one). Little by little I raised the volume back up to its original level. The song ended, he stopped, wiped his harmonica down and then stuck it back in his pocket and walked away like he had just mesmerized a Saturday night crowd at the Fillmore. He was a hit and I couldn't have been prouder of my friend. When I thought of this today, I was glad I was able to do that for him, because I knew that he had done so much for everyone that had the luck to know him.
As you know from reading the blog, my nickname in High School was Whitey. Squeaky always called me White Dog.
I know tonight he's got a circle of people gathered around him and he's blowin' the harp in heaven. And if heaven is as beautiful and perfect as we hear it is... this time he's awesome! Thank goodness because he couldn't play worth a damn down here.
I miss you my friend. Rock on...
White Dog out.
Here we are at our Senior Prom in 1970. That's Squeaky on the far left, and me on the far right.
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Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful thank you for sharing the stories.
Laura B