So here's a few shots of my summer:
Due to the timing of everything, most of our family has had no irrational fear of this virus since the beginning. A few of us, with serious health issues, are being very careful but that has not included isolating themselves from the world for going on 6 months. Honestly, the fear of it is far more debilitating than this stupid virus is. I think the masking of little kids is obscene. There is NO empirical evidence from anywhere on earth that a school child will get the virus and asymptomatically pass it on to their frail old grandparents. As I've said, Royana died of Leukemia at 47. Tomorrow isn't guaranteed any of us. Stop hiding in your house: death already knows where you live. So here's a few shots of my summer: I've been having a lot of fun.
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I need to get it all down before I start to forget. This strangest of summers included some of the best parties our family has ever had because they were all about remembering how fragile and precious life is and how much we all mean to each other. It was a blast, even though we're in mourning. IN fact, the party after Dad's funeral lasted 48 hours, in two different venues and included at least one fist fight and a drunk dog. It was perfect. Oh, I also wanted to say that a few days before Dad's funeral Mom announced that she would not be wearing black. "I'm wearing pink." she said. "He always liked me in pink and this is not a sad occasion; it's a celebration." Most of us followed Mom's lead and it most definitely did NOT look like a funeral party. Bill and Jen hosted after Dad's, just as they did after Roy's. Just as it was for Royana's, the weather was perfect and the pool was open. All my grandkids were there, so half way through the afternoon, I donned my suit and took the whole gang swimming. For about a half an hour, I had the pool all to myself and my grandkids (and Carly, who opened the pool for us) but then other members of the family began joining us and before the afternoon was very old, it became John G.s favorite thing: a pool party. Heidi, Katie P, Punkin, Katelyn, Margy, Alex, MJ, Joe, Molly, Katie M and Liz. The cutest bunch of kids I've ever seen and some old lady. The Hostess with the mostess. There was swimming, eating, drinking, laughing, crying, a slide show, a sing along, a music trivia contest, a fist fight and a drunk dog. It was the best. We all went home when we were too exhausted to keep going and then we did it again at my daughter's house the next day. This one is so cute she can give you diabetes just from looking at her.
Day 2 had no pool but it included tacos, a huge hammock and a bonfire dance party. A bonfire dance party! Tot and BoopityBoop pulled out all their moves, and believe me: they've got plenty. The golf tournament took place as scheduled but we've changed the name. Every year we get closer to the day that one of the next generation will take the honors but it hasn't happened yet. In an all-family tournament, the pressure is intense. In addition to being pretty good golfers, all the players in my generation are really good at getting in your kitchen and messing up your head. Each of the last few years, someone from the next generation put up a good start and every year, on day 2, the uncles manage to force them to choke. This year, Finbar put up a fantastic first round but on day 2, his Dad Mike took home the trophy. The John G. Hubbell Memorial Invitational proves that age and experience still beats youth and beauty. After the tournament, the party was at Tyler and Megan's place. It was our third giant family party in four days. There was horseback riding, eating, drinking, dancing, singing, laughing and crying. There was no social distancing. Most of us have already had C19 but the few of us who haven't figured they were surrounded by people full of antibodies, so hey: herd immunity! (That all happened a month ago and no one got sick. Sure, Gus tested positive and spent his first 2 weeks on campus in quarantine but he was asymptomatic, aka 'not sick'.) Hubbellpalooza was split into two parts this year to accommodate our mourning. The first part, built around Royana's memorial, included at least three big get togethers and at least three smaller, impromptu parties. The second part happened two weeks later for Dad's memorial. I can barely remember all of what we did but it was fun. We've always had fun getting together and this year it was more important than ever because it was a clarion call to never take any of it for granted. Dad got 93 years in which he accomplished everything a person could ever hope to do. Royana got 47 years and was taken unexpectedly, in the blink of an eye. No one is guaranteed tomorrow. The way the world is behaving right now, you'd think Death was a new concept. I see little kids wearing masks to protect them from a virus from which they have statistically no chance of getting sick much less dying and it makes no sense. The chances are very high that my own grandkids have all already had C19. Mandating masks for these school kids is superstitious nonsense. The proponents of this crap are all citing 'science' for their stupid dictates, while ignoring the imperial evidence, which is that young, healthy people have far less to fear from Covid than they do the seasonal flu. Our despotic politicians seem hell bent on keeping us 'safe' until they can conquer Death itself. Well, I've got news for them all: Death has been conquered and Science had nothing to do with it. Go live your life, hug your loved ones and BE NOT AFRAID. My parents have 28 grandkids and nearly all of them wanted to get up and talk about John G. Mom asked Grandson #1 and as one of the few in the group who isn't a lover of the limelight, he passed. After that, it was a free for all. To absolutely no one's surprise, my daughter Katie emerged victorious. This is what she said at the funeral.
"Last week, grandma read me the eulogy grandpa wrote a few years ago for his good friend, Sam Morrison. They met and become friends at a party just after WWII. After Sam recounted his feats of valor in the Pacific theater, Grandpa looked him in the eye and said, “ever heard of the battles of Okinawa or Iwo Jima? Well I was nowhere near them. I was holed up on a repair ship off of Terminal Island, California. We never went anywhere.” It was the beginning of a seventy-year friendship, during which the two each married the loves of the lives, raised a bunch of kids, and shared countless laughs and card games and just the right amount of martini lunches to remain employed. As I was listening to grandma, tears rolling down my face from how hard I was laughing, I momentarily felt sad for grandpa, because he outlived all the friends who would have honored him with a eulogy half as fitting as the one he wrote for Sam. And then I laughed at myself, because we all know that the only thing the people in this room possibly love more than grandpa is the spotlight. I’m not exaggerating when I say I am in three separate group texts filled with people that pitched themselves as the perfect candidate to deliver these remarks. Was the choice unanimous? Far from it. Did a shadow faction of my supporters rise, whispering my name as the merit of my selection became unassailable? Absolutely not. Truthfully, many spoke against me. Their names are now marked down in my little book, and they better stop calling me for free legal advice. Lucky for me, Mike Hubbell passed the mic and people were worried that if Tyler followed my dad everyone would say “Hey, didn’t that guy just sit back down?” Viola, the stage is mine. There’s never been a shortage of stories or storytellers in this family, and as we’ve gotten together over the last few weeks, some fan favorites have been told again. As grandkids, we’ve heard stories our whole lives about grandpa as an athlete, as a writer, a world traveler, how he hobnobbed with world leaders and played golf with Jack Nicklaus. And while we appreciate those stories (I mean I enjoyed the Shining as much as anybody) to be honest, by the time most of the grandkids came around, grandpa didn’t have a byline at the most widely circulated news magazine in the world, a scratch golf game, or connections to any famous people we were interested in meeting (which for the record at that time were Mickey Mouse or any of the Ninja Turtles). On the contrary, as we grandkids came on the scene, grandpa was slowing down and headed towards easy street. No more deadlines, all his kids except MJ were grown up and let’s be honest, by the time she was came around both her parents were coasting. He thought he was going to relax into retirement, a time when, in his words, “one went fishing, or played golf, or went to afternoon baseball games, or did whatever else one felt inclined to do.” Finally, he had something that I imagine you don’t have much of while raising nine kids and reporting world news, and defeating communism and saving democracy (like superman if he never took off his glasses)– and something that is essential if you want to succeed in your new position as ringleader to a group of tiny people who don’t care that you once sat in the oval office across from Nixon and Kissinger, can we please go ride the trolley? Finally, he had time, and we were determined to fill it all up. My mom has a policy that any time one of her kids invites her to do something, she says yes. This is how I got her to tagalong to a community theater production in which the sole actress spends the entire play stuck in a mound of dirt, and how she and my brother Zack found themselves the only two people in the theater watching the Green Inferno, a cannibalistic thriller upon which one critic commented, “We see certain films so you never, ever have to, and The Green Inferno is one such atrocity.” But as she has explained it to me, she figures that as long as she keeps saying yes we will never stop inviting her. Clearly, she borrowed that philosophy from grandpa, because he also said yes to any opportunity to share an ice cream, watch a game, cheer for us, or party with us and he always let me play on credit when I asked him to play cards, no matter how many thousands of dollars he assured me I was already in the hole from our last game. Sharing custody of grandpa was easy when it only involved taking the four of us to Sebastian Joe’s, or inviting a chosen few to spend a week down on Marco Island. But by the time there were 28 of us, Henry Ford would have marveled at his productivity. Did Grandpa love sports and musical theater? Almost as much as forwarding joke emails. But even those passions have their limits. It’s all fun and games watching Woody and Holden march through the prep bowl (and Tyler wanted me to point out here that he, too, played in the prep bowl), but have you ever been to an 8th grade girls’ b squad volleyball game? Grandpa has, and he didn’t even bring needlepoint to work on the whole time. Katelyn and I may have occasionally forced him to witness lackluster improvised talent shows after dinner, but we never made him watch us run in a circle or competitively toss a Frisbee. When my sports career was tragically ended due to me being “bad” at “all” “sports”, I was frankly worried about what he was going to do with the extra time on his hands. For his sake I just kept going to school so he could keep coming to my graduations. I’m shocked he never showed up to one of my court hearings. The trick, with grandpa, is that we never questioned that he wouldn’t show up, no matter how small the role or bad the team or long the ceremony (and did I mention that Amy Klobuchar gave the commencement address at my law school graduation?) He would show up and heap us with praises and buy us a sundae (with or without tomatoes) for the simple reason that we were, individually and collectively, his favorite people on earth. Now, there is some contention between our generation as to who was actually grandpa’s favorite. Tears have been shed. Punches have been thrown. So earlier this week I asked them all to make their best case, to allow us to determine once and for all who was grandpa’s most favored grandchild, prized above all others, named first in the will, etc. etc. It’s a stiff competition, and I’ve yet to meet a grandchild who hasn’t made a claim to victory. Several contenders submitted written proof, in the form of book dedications, letters or birthday cards, which my handwriting expert is still analyzing the results, but I think we can dismiss such evidence by asking ourselves, who among us doesn’t have a copy of Writing for Wally signed, “to my very favorite grandchild”? There were several entries related to food, but so far as I know none of my cousins invented the root beer float, so I have to look upon these accounts with suspicion. Grandpa challenged a disturbing but unsurprising amount of us to physical combat, particularly the athletes in the family, because, as one grandson put it, “game recognized game”. Another faction pointed to his praise of various “talents”, including music, theater, showtunes. People who live far away claim absence makes the heart grow fonder, while others point to the frequency of their visits or chats. Meg, in a shameless bid to outpace the field, had his name tattooed on her person. I have to admit that grandpa’s late in life discovery of and delight in the Gilmore Girls momentarily tipped the odds in favor of Molly McCollow, particularly after he was seen wearing a Gilmore Girls themed sweatshirt on Christmas, but really, as the answers came in, there wasn’t a dud among them. [Read from cards]: “I know I’m Grandpa’s favorite because in sixth grade he helped me write a paper about Navy Seals. I got a D.” “We were his favorites because we were the fake grandkids.” “He never told me I was his favorite, but he was always honest, kind and fair to me.” “I know I’m grandpa’s favorite because I’m a power ranger.” “I know I’m Grandpa’s favorite because every time I showed up he said, now it’s going to be a great day!” “I know I’m Grandpa’s favorite because I am a writer just like him.” This one just says “Cancer.” At the end of the day, the evidence is inconclusive, and there is no way to know who may have ranked first as grandpa’s true favorite. You just knew, when you looked up to the bleachers and there he was, or when you sat down next to him and he told you a joke, or when you walked through the door and saw his smile, every single time, that he was yours. God blessed Grandpa with a lot of time. He had 93 years, packed with adventure and laughter, 64 years married to the love if his life, and at least 35 with his favorite grandchild. And that may have been enough for him, but it wasn’t enough for me, and I don’t think five more years or ten more years would have been enough for me either, because it’s already a little bit worse to live in a world where I can’t make grandpa laugh so hard he passes out. I can only hope that someday years from now I might make it to heaven, and I can sit down at a table with him and Sam Morrison and a deck of cards. I just hope he can convince the commissioner to let me play on credit. After Andy spoke on behalf of the kids, Mom asked Jay to speak for the outlaws. It was Woody's idea, as he told Mom "You should ask Jay to do it. He's the best public speaker I know."
This is what Jay said about Dad. I have been dreaming a lot lately, which according to Mary Louise, is a good thing. She goes into this litany about rem sleep a state of sleep that recurs cyclically with non REM sleep several times during a blah, blah, blah… The in laws refer to these mini lectures as that “Hubbell” thing. They will start talking about something like they are an expert and it isn’t until you secretly research whatever it is they are talking about that you realize that they do know what they are talking about. Hmm I wonder if growing up in a library had anything to do with this? Visualize if you will that you are somewhere in that beautiful Victorian house, on 4004 Queen. Take a good look around. My guess is each of you here today have some special memories of that house. Aside from all the wonderful things you are seeing, and all the wonderful memories you have, you had to have noticed you were surrounded by books. They’re everywhere. The gang of nine did grow up in a library. They read, they wrote they painted and acted, it’s where their curiosity for the world and beyond began. Oh, what gifts you were given. And how blessed are we, to have had all those gifts and then some passed on. Passed on to our children and hopefully to our children’s children. When Mary and I got engaged I wanted John G’s blessing. I can remember this day like it was yesterday. I had told ML that today was going to be the day. ML stayed in the kitchen helping Punkin get dinner ready. I went into the TV room. I felt like the cowardly lion. John G had just finished a round of golf at MGC and was sitting in his chair in the TV room relaxing, watching the nightly news before dinner was ready. I walked in, looked him square in the eye and asked, “I would like your permission to marry Mary Louise?” His response appeared in the January 1982 edition of the Reader’s Digest, under the title “Marry my daughter, are you serious?” In my humble opinion I felt and still feel to this day, it was his best literary work. That was 40 years ago. I have been a “Hubbell” for 40 years! This past week I have had this recurring dream. I am sitting on the porch at 4004 at that big table in the back corner next to the side yard. Dinner is chuck roast that has been marinated for a week or two in Italian dressing (brilliant Punkin!) and cooked on two weber kettle grills, charcoal not gas. There are dozens of sliced tomatoes and the biggest pot of sweet corn you can imagine. All sitting on the “boat box”. Now comes the good part. I am watching John G attack his corn like a point guard from the Academy harassing the blank out of a ball handler from De La Salle. You get the picture? He is destroying that ear of corn. That ear of corn has got no chance. Kernels everywhere. On those rosy cheeks, on his forehead, that big forehead on that huge melon of a head. Dream ends. I love that dream. I hope to have that dream many more times. The kind that makes me happy when I am sad, like today. John G., as I always referred to him, was known by many names. Mr. Hubbell, Hub, Gerry, Johnny, Grandpa, Dad and of course, my favorite sweety. Sweety? Yes sweety. Mary and I were at the Waters sometime before our world was turned inside out and upside down. You know ;the pandemic. John G was having some trouble doing some little task when Punkin, mom, grandma said “let me help you sweety.” As Mary Louise and I were driving home I said, she called him “sweety”. Sweety. I started to tear up. At that moment I realized in such a profound way that for the past 40 years of my life I had been witnessing the greatest love story in the history of love stories. While John G was this most remarkable man, accomplished in so many ways, his legacy will be the love he provided to his family first the gang of nine, Charles Woodrow II, John Paul, Mary Louise, Joseph, Mary Margaret, William, Andrew, Mary Katherine and Mary Jean and to his other gang of nine ,the out laws, Kathy, Roy, Heidi, Mike, Vianne, Jeff, Jen and Kent. To his grandkids, he was so proud of each of you, Mike, Katelyn, Chad, Tyler, Megan, Katie, Adam, Zack, Josie, Tucker, Alex, Hootie, Martha, Woody, Vince, BJ, Cary, Logan, Andy, Madalyn, Holden, Hattie, Gus, Johnny, Charlie, Meg, Finbar, Molly, Annie, Stella and Jack and his great grandkids Jaylen, Lucas, Allie, Cecilia, Pearl and Hayes. And to the woman of his dreams, his bride of 64 Years, his best friend and first editor, the woman who called him I believe his favorite name, Sweety. Katherine Hamel Hartigan Hubbell or Punkin or Grandma Punkin. Rest in peace, John G. Rest in peace dad. Rest in peace grandpa. Rest in peace Sweety. May perpetual light shine upon you and all the souls of the faithful departed. Andy gave such a fantastic eulogy at Royana's funeral, Mom asked him to do the same at Dad's. This is what he said: "Years ago, must have been the late 80s, early 90s or so, my Dad got a call from a Television news producer from a local station somewhere in upstate New York. They were doing a story to commemorate the anniversary of some major news event from years gone by. By this time this happened, I was out of high school, and old enough to at least sort of grasp the fact that my father was kind of a big deal. (The man had his own phone line, with a RED phone on his desk for Pete’s sake. Apparently the powers that be at the Reader’s Digest, and the White House for that matter, didn’t appreciate having to wait to talk to him until a dozen or so teenagers were done talking to their friends, or Mom was done placing her grocery order at Hawkinson’s.) Anyway, Dad took the call in his home office, like he did for most calls. It was Mom who told us after the call that some TV people were coming to the house to interview Dad. I assumed it had something to do with the POW experience in Vietnam. All kinds of people had, for many years by that time, sought Dad out to talk about the POWs in Vietnam. But no, Mom told us that these folks were actually coming to talk to Dad about the Cuban Missile Crisis. They wanted to interview him as an acknowledged expert on that event, having co-authored Strike in the West, The Complete Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, and get his recollections of the events of that time. Anyway, this crew came to the house a couple days later for the interview. Their equipment wouldn’t fit into Dad’s office, so they set up and did their interview in the living room. We all stayed away so as not to disturb them. They were there for about 4 hours or so, then they left. It was pretty exciting, at least to us. There was definitely a buzz throughout the house. Dad downplayed the whole thing: “It’s just some local station, not even in our market,” he told us. “We’ll probably never even see it.” A week or so later, a VHS tape comes in the mail from the station. So, we all go into the TV room as Dad puts on the tape. And suddenly there he is, on TV! And not in a “hey, I blinked and missed it, rewind that” kind of way either. I mean, he’s center frame, speaking at length, intelligently, and with clear knowledge about the events that led up to The stand off, the Kremlin, the Kennedy administration, who did what, who knew what, who didn’t know what. There he was, on TV, demonstrating his professional experience, his encyclopedic recall, hisstunning intellect - all the things that made him arguably the world’s top journalistic mind on Foreign and Military affairs. To put it mildly, it was impressive. The tape ends, the screen goes dark. And for a long moment, we all just sit there, quiet. Dad, he’s just looking at the dark screen with a kind of serious, focused look on his face. It was really the only time I ever felt like I was in the room, not with my dad, but with John G. Hubbell. Finally, Mom breaks the silence, and says, “What did you think, Johnny?” He keeps looking at the dark screen for a long beat, and then he turns to us, John G. Hubbell turns to us, and says - “(deep breath) God I’m funny lookin.” That’s the man that we knew, that other people didn’t know, or get to see. That guy? He was OURS. That was Dad. To the rest of the world, He was a renowned journalist, he was talented, he was respected, he was influential on a global geopolitical stage - and NONE of that mattered AT ALL inside our house. He was a storyteller, and he raised a passel of storytellers. He wrote for an audience of MILLIONS, but it was the ability to spin a yarn, to make people laugh, that was always the coin of the realm at home. He was funny, and goofy, and lovable. He was the absolute Gold Standard for Fatherhood. What I find really hard to fathom about that, is that he didn’t have anyone ever show him how to do that, to be a father. His own father was not a good one. To my Dad’s credit, I was an adult before I knew that my grandfather had not been good to his children. I asked my Mom recently - how can it be that dad, - DAD - the funniest, most dependable, most trustworthy, and patient? Good Lord, the things he put up with from us, are you kidding me?? Someone should write a book. He didn’t have a role model? How did he learn to be the father that I know? She said “I don’t know, but I think he must have gotten it from his mother.” My grandmother, who died many years before any of us were born, was clearly a wonderfully loving, and nurturing parent, as my Dad and his brothers and sister adored her. And while I’m absolutely sure that his mother helped him become the man that you met, we here, his 9 children, our spouses, his 28 grandchildren, 3 grandchild-in-laws, his 6 great grandchildren, we know. It was the love he found in you, Mom, that transformed him, allowing him to become the father, the father-in-law, the grandfather, the grandfather-in-law, and the great grandfather that we have all been so blessed to call our own. Dad was the tall ship for all of us, and you are the star he steered her by. Don't let the dimples fool you: this is the guy who looked world leaders in the eye and called them liars, saved his best friend from getting shot for marching across the DMZ and taking a piss on North Korea, bought Rita Hayworth a beer, played golf with Bob Hope, scared two Presidential administrations so bad he was audited 7 years in a row and received death threats from PETA. And of everything he did in his life, marrying Mom is the accomplishment of which he was the most proud.
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