Just yesterday mornin', they let me know you were gone
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to
I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again
Why? I found out, early this morning and wholly by chance, that my cousin Gary lost his battle with lung cancer on Tuesday. Yeah, that was the very same day I got my NF2 surgery reprieve (it may be short break but I’ll take it!). I like to wedge all my yins and yangs into one day. 
Gary and I have both had, health-wise, an hellacious pack of years. I survived them (so far)—he didn’t. I wouldn’t have bet peanuts on life turning out like this. Doesn’t seem fair somehow. 
I remember, the last time I was up in Maine visiting him and his awesome wife, we were walking down the hill from their house to the downtown/harbor area. Gary and I were frail and rickety—I had to laugh, internally anyway. Who coulda predicted—back when I was 12 and he was 17, us sitting in his basement room in Uncle Nick and Auntie Carol’s house in Yonkers, back when he was introducing me to Mott the Hoople, The Who, Hot Tuna, King Crimson and on and on—that nearly 50 years on we’d be hobbling down a hill in Maine to go eat oysters, whilst talking about Nine Inch Nails, Jeff Beck and indie comics.
When Gary and Dawn moved from NYC up to coastal Maine, he made fast friends with the fishers and lobstermen. He had this eloquent bit to convey.
If you are a Global Warming denier, go talk to a fisherman. If you are thinking we can do something about it, you are mistaken. It's here, it's going to get worse, and we need to figure out how we are going to live in a rapidly changing climate.All I can say is this—69 is too damn young to die. AND, as he always advised, quoting his friend Warren, enjoy every sandwich.
Islands up here are already disappearing at high tide and the acidity of the Ocean water is causing young lobsters to not be able to grow hard shells, making them prey for other sea creatures. I hate to say this, but we sort of missed the point where curbing pollution will make a difference, It's like quitting smoking when you already have lung cancer.
Guzzo has left the building.
♥️
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