RIP Michael Pollock
I feel drained and empty. My beloved Michael Pollock has died. I knew it was close; I've been waiting to hear, and yet, these things still feel like an electric shock.
I think I was 19 or 20 when I got a job at Record Service. I was leaning against the front counter chatting to my cute boyfriend and long time employee Deb Scheurich and she said, "Oh, you want a job? Come with me." And so I worked at Record Service. I wasn't really friends with Michael at that point. He was one of "the bosses." He intimidated me a bit. All of us girls at the store marveled that he was tall and good looking and yet we never caught him ogling the co-eds as some did. And he had an 8x10 of his wife sitting on the shelf in his office. Huh, we thought.
I've always been the obsessive sort, so when I loved a record I would play it over, and over, and over. I remember him coming half way down the stairs one early morning when I got had just gotten in and started blasting the Romantic's In Heat, and saying, "Take it home ok? Just take it home." I happily agreed. That still makes me giggle. Ernie just did an imitation of Michael saying that for Owen. His wife Renee would come in, Elisabeth was just a baby, and chat and chat and chat to us. We decided Michael was ok. We left town for Michigan in 1985, and all 'the bosses' took us out to dinner.
Life has its owns twists though and we ended up moving back here in 1994. Ernie started working for Periscope but I started working in the Record Service office. That's when we truly became friends. We became work spouses. We knew far too much about each other and could roll our eyes at one another. The only wrinkle in our work marriage was music. He loved the Dead. Sometimes he'd yell over the wall, "Sorry Cyn, gonna play some Dead." I would sigh and say ok.
I really loved him. And he loved me. He had the sweetest smile and loved to talk about his garden. Despite that he turned down my brilliant idea of a floating gardening holiday. His wife Renee, although we don't see each other face to face all that often, became one of my dearest friends. One of my rocks. Michael and Renee were one of the few other couples that have always reminded me of Ernie and me. I always thought of Renee as Michael's furnace. He had this intense will to fight for justice and was blazingly intelligent. But Renee gave him the warmth of family to be his fire, and was always, and will always be, his fiercest advocate. Their children grew up to be brilliant and beautiful as well and their whole family has always been one I admire.
After Record Service he found his calling when he became a history teacher. An absolutely brilliant and creative history teacher. With everything he did he spread a lot of seeds. When this wretched fucking cancer came he met it with determination and narrowed eyes. He was born a fighter. Some people just are. He found new challenges and focused on squeezing every drop of joy out of the time he had with Renee. He never stopped fighting in life. He never said enough is enough. It might have been easier on him if he had, but he couldn't. He lasted years longer than anyone could have imagined, and weeks longer in this last stretch.
I kind of hate the 'fighting cancer' metaphors but Michael truly was a warrior, but not just in dealing with cancer (he had the spirit, Renee the determination to find anything possible, and she did), but in life. I remember Renee telling me he was convinced that if they'd been in the Holocaust he would have saved the family. I'm sure he had figured out a plan. Brilliant. He had the fighting spirit my father had. It's not always the easiest way to live, but it was so right. So terribly, terribly right.
I send my unending love to Renee, Elisabeth and Henry.
These words barely scratch the surface of how I feel about Michael. Barely scratch the surface.
A few pictures.
I think Mabel's Night was the last time I saw him.
Record Service sometime mid-late 90's. I'm at the bottom right with Michael right behind me.