A Friend's Mom

I read in the Mining Journal yesterday that Elaine Hase passed away. Elaine Hase, Mrs. Hase to me, was the mother of one of my childhood friends, Joe Hase. Joe is an only child. His father "Misty" passed away many years ago and to support herself Mrs. Hase had to learn to drive at age 65 so she could get back and forth to work. It doesn't sound like much, but that is quite an accomplishment.

I did not know Joe's mom well even though he and I grew up together. Mr. & Mrs. Hase and Joe lived, when they were in Munising, with Mr. Hase's mother in a small house two doors down from where I lived. Included in that family mix was Misty's brother Billy Hase, an arch nemesis of Joey and I during our childhood days. Billy was a bully, a drinker and dimwitted. I used to tease him to the point that if he ever got his hands on my I'm sure I would've taken quite a beating. Joey used to ask me not to piss him off as he had to go home to him.

I didn't know Mrs. Hase very well. She was a petite blonde, pretty that I remember. She worked for years at the Paris Hotel, a men's hotel in downtown Munising. Mrs. Hase always seemed to have those menial jobs that people take to get along. Mr. Hase worked construction that I recall and of course was not employed all of the time. In their early years Joe would be around in the summer, then Mr. & Mrs. Hase would move to Detroit where Joe's dad would find employment to carry through the winter. Around the 7th grade the Hase family moved back to Munising to take up residence with Grandma Hase (Blanche) until Joe and I graduated from high school. I think they lived there until Grandma Hase passed away, Billy passed away, and then I don't know where Elaine and Misty lived.

Mrs. Hase always was friendly to me. She always spoke but we never carried on much of a conversation. I was never in the Hase home, the living conditions were probably crowded and with Billy around most of the time that would never work out. I remember when Joe and I were in the 8th grade we were going to lift weights to build ourselves up for football. He found some weights and a bar and we lifted weights in the basement of Grandma Hase's home. It was a dirt floor and I was tall enough that when I did an overhead lift I hit the floor joists above my head. That cause Grandma Hase to rush out the back door to see what was making such a racket. I don't remember being yelled at, just told to take care.

My Dad used to tell me that Joe's grandpa was the town clerk, or some such position years ago in Munising. I don't remember the exact title, but he had passed and for all the years Joey and I lived near each other he was gone.

It was a difficult life for my friend Joe. His family was not ambitious by the usual definition. Misty was content to be a laborer, I do not even know if Joe's mom and dad graduated high school. Billy was a bum, he might've taken odd jobs but I don't know what he did. Grandma Hase was a good woman, but she had a daughter that was a real hellion. I don't remember her name right now, but she was a town slut, drinking and partying. She might have married one time, but I don't think it lasted. Every once and a while she would show up at the Hase home and I seem to recall upset and yelling, I suppose as Mother Hase would chastise her daughter's behavior.

Joe made something of himself. He was the first Hase of that family to go to college. He ended up teaching in Munising for years and retired a couple of years ago. His wife Barb is the Superintendent of the Munising Public Schools and will be retiring in a few years. Joe was a neighborhood leader, he was always organizing the neighborhood kids into basketball teams, football teams, or baseball teams. He and I concocted all kinds of tournaments, leagues, and provided the only form of organized sports in our area. Joe went on to be a coach in several sports at Munising, last being the golf coach. Joe is a truly good man, from a background that I simply do not know much about, but I believe to be pretty dismal.

However, Joe loved his parents. He and Misty always had a fishing/camping trip every summer. It was in the Munising area, but it was a time the two of them spent in the woods fishing and being together. He provided care for Mrs. Hase in her declining years and it cost him money he could use in retirement, but other than talk about it he did his duty to his folks.

Joe now has no living parents. This is a strange period of time. My folks have been gone now for 13 years. My mother 38, my dad 13. When they are living you can pick up the phone and talk to them. It is as though they are a buffer between you and growing old. As long as they are alive, there is someone you are close to still living, so you will still be living. When they are gone, it is like an anchor or core disappeared. Now you are really on your own. There is no more buffer in the aging process, you now go it alone. Well not really, your wife is around, but this is blood, this is famiy. I love my wife dearly, she is my family along with my children, but she isn't blood. There is a different feeling about life when you finally have no Aunts, Uncles or parents. It isn't sad, it is just different.