The Story of mrwaterslide's ark: Reunion With A Mentor

When I first lived in North Carolina, back in the 70's, I moved from Charlotte up to Greensboro because I thought I might have a shot at getting in to the Creative Writing Program at UNC-Greensboro. Of course, that didn't happen. Instead, I had a series of dead-end jobs. After being fired from the first of these jobs, my cousin introduced me to this fellow, John Fisher. John had the Servicemaster franchise in Greensboro, and he gave me a job cleaning carpets and shampooing furniture. It was an interesting job, because John had a gift of gab, and we did excellent work, so we were kind of like the Cadillac cleaning company in the city. We went in to all the best homes in Greensboro, and some of those homes were swank indeed. Swank means that some of them had Renoir drawings hanging in the library (originals, of course). Swank means that at least one of them had bathrooms where all the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, were made of marble. Swank meant that one of the houses had two identical kitchens side by side, each with a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a commercial ice cube machine. I spent probably as much time absorbing my surroundings as I did doing my job.

I got to be good friends with John and his wife Hazel. They would invite me to stay after work sometimes for dinner, and I babysat their kids a few times. John and Hazel were deeply religious, involved with their church, thoughtful, generous, and willing to talk and argue (in nice ways) about most anything.

I stayed at that job for three years, and then I got involved in politics. I campaigned for Jimmy Carter, got accepted in the writing program at the University of Arkansas, and moved away. I kept in touch with John and Hazel for a while, but when Ronald Reagan got elected, John was excited and I was distraught, and, well, we drifted apart. And for one reason and another that's the way it stayed for some years.

My cousin who had introduced me to John told me at some point that John had developed MS. Maybe that was good enough reason to go see him, but I never did, even though at some point I had moved back east, first to Florida and then to North Charleston, South Carolina. Then I took an Executive Chef's job in Des Moines, and any idea of reconnecting with John went by the wayside.

Allright, I'll try to be brief: I was a bust in Des Moines, I took a new job in Cary, North Carolina as a sous chef, and finally, after years of dithering, I got back in touch with my friend John Fisher. John's health had deteriorated, but his spirits were high, perhaps he even was a more positive, forward-thinking, voice for common sense and decency than he had been before. Another person might have been depressed to be so limited physically, and beset by such recurring ailments. But John had found a way to focus on the good. No more job, no more stress, fewer financial worries, more time to devote to his friends and his community. And he was active as always, with his church, with community outreach programs, with his fellow sufferers of multiple sclerosis. His politics hadn't changed, but mrwaterslide got over that. In fact, John Fisher and mrwaterslide liked nothing better than a health political slugfest (that often evolved in to a challenging discussion of questions of real importance), over a good cup of coffee.

At a certain point, I, mrwaterslide (aka John Van Noate) needed a carpenter to make me some picture frames. I knew that the person to ask was John Fisher. I wanted a really good craftsman, but I had one special requirement.

"I need for you to find me a carpenter," I said to my friend John Fisher. "He needs to be an old guy."

"I know just the fellow," John Fisher said.

To be continued.

Done