Sometimes People Forget I'm a Minister

Julie Baker always had something to do. That's the gist of the story I told Buck X as we stood at her grave. Ziegs and Belly and I would be sitting around the apartment, hung over. Belly would be drinking a "Polish Martini", which was basically Budweiser with olives floating in it. Ziegs and I would not be drinking that. But something. "Hey Julie, wanna go to breakfast?" we'd say when she was running around the place. "Nah, I'd love to but I have to..." whatever she was doing. She was always polite enough to pretend she wanted to. Or maybe wanted to for real. But Julie Baker always had something to do.

She drove a truck for Fed Ex. She came out in college and stuck with it. She became a nurse. And you know how nurses get frustrated with doctors? No? Well, sometimes they do. So she became a doctor. She got married and had kids. Then, around 40 years old she caught pneumonia and died.

And if I got any of that wrong, I apologize and will correct it. Because I never knew Julie well, but when I was with her she was a good friend. She was good people, is how we say it, I guess.

When Julie died, I knew the world had lost a good person, and I knew that Buck X had lost a close friend. Buck's wife had just had twins and he couldn't get away. He told me yesterday he felt bad about that. I knew Julie well enough to know that if she Jacob Marley'd Buck, she'd laugh at him and tell him (out of the side of her mouth) not to be an idiot, of course he had to be with his wife and sons. She had a tendency to get it.

Maybe I knew Julie pretty well, but not as well as other people, I guess is what I'm saying. And admired her a lot.

I still tell the story about the time Buck and I drove cross country and visited Ziegs and Julie was there with her then girlfriend. We went to Napa, had a nice picnic. We're driving back, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. One of my cross country mix tapes is playing. Buck and I are up front in the car. Song comes on. Julie says, "Is this Social Distortion playing a cover of Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire'". The easy answer was 'yes'. I answered with, "Are you from Buffalo?" I love that story.

But I was being an idiot in Binghamton when Julie died. Probably too drunk to get to the funeral on time and all. Buck had just become a dad. I told him that we'd get to Buffalo together and go visit her grave. And it took a while, but we did. Turns out Julie is pretty close to where I live now. So Buck and I walked around my neighborhood for about and hour and talked. Then we went to the cemetery. He only had vague directions. I think he was afraid we would not find her grave easily.

Sometimes people forget I'm a minister. I found her grave by dead reackoning, or maybe god or something. We talked about Julie and people we know and life.

I think what bothered me most about Julie's death is that she always had something to do. Like a lot of stuff. Not enough time to do it. And I guess she was right, in the end, to get as much done as she could do, but I really feel like she needed more time. Anyway, you should have known her.

This had to do with the garden for the following reason:

I had these Forget Me Not seeds sitting around. I was unsure what to do with them. I realized at the graveyard that the thing to do was to get a pot, start them on the stoop and bring them out to Julie when they start to bloom. There's a place called "Attic to Basement" down the street that, well, around here thrift stores and antique stores blend into a kind of recycling that I appreciate. So I found the pot there. And planted the seeds today.

Yeah, we all had nicknames back them. I wasn't the super intelligent chimp and I think Julie gave Ziegs her nickname. Julie was the only one without a nickname. I nicked her Julie "Widowmaker" Baker, which was cool at the time, but sucks in retrospect.