Irene and her boys
Tuesday night I
listened to the Wolves on the radio as I drove down to the small town of Alpha,
Minnesota. The Wolves were in Philly taking on the 76ers, and from the sounds
of it on WCCO, they were having themselves quite a first half. Threeball after
threeball went through for them as they built a 20-point first-half lead and my
Subaru ate up the miles on Highway 60 West, County Road 4 South, and I-90 West
from Mankato to Alpha. Alexey Shved was heating up, JJ Barea was passing for
easy ones and hitting his own shot, and the Sixers couldn’t buy a bucket. But I
was thinking about the old days.
The reason I was
heading to Alpha (pop. 116) was to pay my respects to a great woman by the name
of Irene Callender. Irene passed away December 1 after a bout with pancreatic
cancer, but not until she had spent 90 and a half full years on this earth. You may
not have known Irene (I only met her a handful of times, myself), but you know
her type. She was one of those people who prop up other people, one of those
people who step up to the plate, who get their hands dirty, who make things go.
As her life pertained to mine, she was the lifeline for and grandmother of one
of my best friends, Ronnie Gasca, and his younger brother Randy.
I first met
Ronnie when my high school hoops teams were whipping his high school teams’
butts in southwestern Minnesota. A couple years later, we came together to play
on the same college ball team at Worthington Community College (now called
Minnesota West), and we roomed together there, too, after Ronnie got kicked out
of his apartment halfway through the year when his dipstick roommates failed to
pay the electricity or some dumb thing and the management locked the doors and
cut the lights (which Ronnie found out one night after practice when he arrived
home to find deadbolts, gone roommates, and darkness). At Worthington, Ronnie
was the only guy I ever played with who I didn’t mind bumping me over from the
point to the two-guard, and as a result, I had the most fun and successful year
of basketball of my entire life—we made the national tourney in Elmira, New
York, and finished 7th in the nation, best in Bluejay history to this
day.
But what I
remember more about that year than Ronnie’s sweet dishes and Casey Werner’s
automatic turnaround J and Adam Hale’s lucky jockstrap named Ol’ Blue were the
good people I met that year. Coach Mike Augustine, who possessed the biggest
heart of any coach I ever had, Mike and Karen Fury, Denny Hale, Arlo Mogck, Jerry Jansen, the genius Becky Potts, Muff Teerink, Weime, Reusche, the good folks
at the Daily Globe, and yes, Irene Callender.
I went to Irene’s
house once after we watched Ronnie’s bro Randy play in a game for Jackson High.
Randy hadn’t had a great game and his team had lost, but Ronnie and I went to go say hey to him at
Gram’s house where he lived, because that’s what you did after those games—go
say hey to the folks and have something to eat. Randy was in a foul mood,
especially after Ronnie asked him why he’d missed so many shots that night—nice
question, Ronnie—and soon they were about to start brawling. But before anything
other than words could start flying, in stepped the littlest, sweetest old lady
I’d seen. “Randy!” she said. “Ronnie!” And then, like dogs who hear their
master, her grandsons ceased and desisted. I couldn’t believe such a
sweet-looking grandma could have such an effect on a pair of wild young
buckaroos like that.
I would meet
Irene a number of times after that, and I’d hear Ronnie talking to his Gram on
the phone in the years to come, going to her when he needed something: advice,
food, a little cash, a laugh, love. She gave it all to those boys for many
years when they didn’t have much else in the town they grew up in. I remember
how Ronnie told me once that when Irene’s husband passed when those boys were
still pups, he made her vow, just before he died, that she’d take care of those
boys and see them through. I found it fitting that in the last three months
of Irene’s life, Ronnie moved her into his family’s home.
So I made it to Alpha, and I drove around town three
times—which took less than five minutes—the Wolves on the radio, looking for
the funeral home so I could attend the wake. No luck, and not much going on. So
I did what you do in a small town when you can’t find someone: just go to the
house with the most lights on, most cars in the driveway, knock on the door, and
ask. Might sound crazy, but the girl who answered the door got her mother and
father without batting an eye, and the two of them treated me with care, the lady saying, “Oh, I
always liked Irene,” and the father directing me six miles down the road to
Jackson where I found the funeral home without a problem and met Ronnie, Randy,
and Irene’s other loved ones. After the wake, we went out for some food, because
that’s what you do in these small towns—you see the folks and have something to eat. I
met Ronnie’s son Christian, and Randy’s son Preston, both two years old and
full of the jumping beans. I talked to Ronnie’s wife Sonja and her daughter
Maddie, beauties both. I talked to some of the old folks. When I got my wallet
out to pay my bill, Ronnie told me it was already paid for.
“What?” I said.
“Who paid?”
“Gram did,”
Ronnie said. “She said she wanted to make sure we had something to eat.”
Of course.
Irene Callender
was buried today, but she lives on in my friend and his brother. Bless her.
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