We Will Remember Them

I haven’t written a lot about my songs as yet, but that will come. Today I write about a song that I have never recorded. It is a journal of a walk I made on the day Russ died. I needed some air and had a bit of an adventure around the back streets of Avondale.

My father-in-law, Russ, passed away 16 years ago this month after a long battle with cancer. I wrote about him in my post “My Doctor Recommends Camel”, because it was throat cancer that dealt him the final blow.

I remember one of my wife’s uncles telling us how he learned to smoke in the army, when he served in Korea. I’m not sure if the cigarettes were free or just cheap, but the military knew that smoking nicotine could help calm the nerves.

Russ served in WWII as an Air Force Radio Officer on Raoul Island in the South Pacific, and was a proud member of the RSA (Returned Servicemen’s Association), together with his wife, who was a WREN in the navy. ANZAC Day is always a special day for the family, when we remember them.

His last ANZAC ceremony was one to remember, as he had the honor of laying The King’s Wreath. He and my mother-in-law danced a classy Rock and Roll at the Avondale RSA that night, which will remain a special memory for us all. We all stood together for The Last Post, as we did (and still do) on many a year, in memory of those who served in multiple wars, those who passed on and those who survived. It remains an important day for our family.

Russ was a very active man who worked for the Ports of Auckland as a Traffic Manager. He played sport and was President of the Blockhouse Bay Bowling Club, where my wife and I were married.

He had a laryngectomy as a consequence of cancer which was the result of many years of smoking, and dedicated himself to helping others learn to speak again, as he had to after losing his voice box. He was President of the Lost Chord Club for some years, and was often there when fellow sufferers awoke after having similar surgery.

He was a much loved Pop for my children and visited their school (amongst many) to talk to children about the dangers of smoking, and let the curious kids look into the hole in his throat and showed them how he learned to speak, without a voice.

He received dozens of letters from children thanking him for his presentations and vowing to never take up smoking.

I had a lot of time for him and was deeply saddened by his death, while glad that we as his family were able to be there with him, and that his suffering was over. In many ways I felt a closer kinship to him than I did with my own father.

So to the song I haven’t recorded. It’s called Another Man Has Gone. Russ passed away in the rest home where he and Paddy, his wife lived out their last days. I needed some air and went for a long walk around Avondale and the song recalls that walk.

Another Man Has Gone
V1
On the streets of Avondale
Wearing the tread off my shoes
Don’t you talk to me man
Can’t you see I’ve got the blues
My heart is breaking
Cancer called again
Another man is gone.
Chorus
Another man has gone
Life will never be the same
Another man has gone
How do we go on
V2
A brother comes along the road
So drunk he can hardly stand
He looks me up and down and nods
Then he shakes my hand
Life runs in cycles
And they have to end
Another man has gone
Bridge (rap)
I’ve been walking down these streets so long that I can’t feel my feet
But I can’t stop because that’s getting real, accepting the deal
The ache that I’m feeling
I’m reeling one minute you’re there then you’re gone and I can’t stop
Because that’s getting real, accepting the deal
V3
Now I’m on a back street
Man is glaring at me
His eyes are throwing daggers
Maybe he thinks that I’m a D
But I’m just a sad man
Walking misery
Another man has gone

I walked around the back streets of Avondale which is mostly a working class area, with a lot of low income housing. I was fairly well dressed for some reason, certainly in comparison to most of the people I saw in their yards and on the footpath.

I distinctly remember being aware of a feeling like a silent chorus of birds, warning each other that a human, perhaps a danger was coming. There was one particular Maori guy, who was leaning on the wall of a deck by the front door of a house, who was giving me dirty looks as I walked towards and then past him. He made no eye contact, but I’m sure by the way he looked at me, that he was certain that I was a cop, and it seemed like he wanted me to know that he knew I was a D (detective). I wasn’t but it’s not the first time I have been mistaken for one. Let me digress for a moment:

I used to sell supermarket scanning systems and part of that entailed spending a few days after each site went live, standing by the checkouts, ready to help staff who had to learn a new system, both for training and in case anything went wrong. I won’t name the location, but in this town I spent almost every day for a week at the front of the store, wearing a suit, as was appropriate for my role.

I noticed a few people intending to shoplift (mostly pet food and alcohol) and on several occasions went to them politely and recommended they either pay for their items or return them to the shelves. At other times, I pointed them out to the Manager, who dealt with them and in a couple of cases had to call the Police.

On one of those days a guy came up to me while I was standing near the door and said to me, “Everyone in town knows you’re a cop.” Not everyone I thought, but it didn’t worry me, if it helped reduce crime for my customer who had spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars on my new system.

Let’s return to my walk.

I had come out of the back streets and was on the main road. A very working class road with $2 stores, second hand shops, a pawn shop and other low cost businesses, many festooned with cheap clothing such as bright Hawaiian shirts and lavalavas. This would have been about 3 in the afternoon.

I was approaching a bar, which could be described as The Flying Jug, although that was actually a name that belonged to a pub popularly but unofficially known by that moniker about 4 km from where I was. It was probably equally rough and the sort of bar that you would not frequent when dressed in smart casual clothes as I was. It was more a rough denim jacket and steel capped boots kind of bar.

A roughly dressed Maori man with facial tattoos stumbled out of the bar’s main entrance and began walking in my direction. As we would say, he was pissed as a fart. As he came closer to me, he stopped and seemed to be focussing on keeping his balance. He eyed me up and down, and his arm came up. We shook hands, he gave me a grin, and continued to weave his way across the footpath, perhaps on his way home to sleep it off.

I continued walking back to the rest home, to my family to mourn the loss of another good man.

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