I want to wish everybody a happy new year, even though the first week of it has been filled with some sad news for me. I lost two friends New Year's Day, one whom I'd known about a year throught the Knights of Columbus at my church and the other that I had known of since 1994 and worked with for three years at the beginning of this decade (century..whatever). These two men, though about the same age, couldn't have had more different lifestyles and couldn't have left us in more different ways, but both were unique, and I will miss them both greatly.
Brother Bob Eyles was one of the first people to call me when i joined the Knights of Columbus in the fall of 2005, and was the definition of classy kindly gentleman. He was my partner on the Knights' Jordan team assisting at baptisms at the church and was a joy to know. I will never forget the kindly way he would call me to remind me about Knights meetings. The world has lost one of its good ones, and I will surely miss him, though i didn't have the privilege of knowing him nearly as long as I would have liked.
Michael Schrader was an eccentric character, but he was also without a doubt the best practitioner of the English language I have ever met. Anybody who wanted to know just how little they (sorry Michael, he or she..) knew about the English language could simply give him a page he or she had proofread and watch it come back in a sea of red ink with corrections he had made. I know because I tried that little experiment once and was duly humbled at the results.
Michael had retired to Florida a couple years ago from his job at the trade magazine in New York, but was murdered in his Florida condo New Year's Day, apparently by a young man he had taken in who kept asking him for money. Unfortunately the scenario was a familiar one to all of us who worked with Michael and one that was repeated despite our warnings to be careful.
Working with him was a privilege and a lesson in respecting the English language and all its nuances. I can certainly say I never have met anyone like him when it came to a passion for proper usage and grammer. The world has lost a great grammarian, but I'm sure there will be fewer split infinitives among us who were lucky enough to work with him.
Michael could construct a sentence better than anyone I know, but unwittingly strung a couple together one day that became my favorite memory of him: A beautiful young woman at our office had been laid off and came by to say goodbye to all of us. In the process of consoling her, Michael said "You're an attractive young woman. You'd do well at Penthouse magazine." At the woman's "excuse me??" response, Michael quickly hastened to add "in the editorial department..in editorial"
God Bless you, Michael and Bob, and Happy New Year, everybody.
