Just because I’m writing about somebody I saw once in almost
forty years doesn’t mean I’ve run out of topics. John Elisberg was a true
individual, and I’m fortunate to have made his acquaintance again two years
ago.
I knew John since age 11, when he started at Camp Nebagamon
in 1960 with my brother Frank and me. One year later, we met on the basketball
court for the first time, as we South School 6th graders defeated
John’s North School team, and the year after that we began six years in junior
high school and high school. And somewhere along the line, we started religious
school together.
John was a true non-conformist. He convinced some of his
friends – including me – to ride our bikes to high school as freshman when that
was decidedly uncool. Cycling became a lifelong love, although his idea to ride
to Cobden in southern Illinois, whose high-school team, the Appleknockers, had
almost pulled a Hoosiers-like upset in the state basketball tournament,
was quickly nixed. His smooth jump shot pretty much meant I would be the loser
in our driveway 1-on-1 matches. John’s position in baseball was – what else? –
catcher, where he played for two years in high school, and he was a regular
member of our Saturday summer softball games in Watts Park. He also had a great
dry and wry sense of humor. Our grandmothers were friends, and his grandmother
used to ask my grandmother about “The Twins.” John would call us The Twins, but
always with the sappy grandmotherly inflection thrown in.
Central School varsity and jv basketball teams, 1962-1963
John is 3rd from right, 2nd row. Phil Toubus (aka Paul Thomas) is at his left
Frank is 4th from left, back row. I'm 4th from right, back row. Steve Glick is to my left
Everybody has a favorite Elisberg story, so here goes.
John and most of our friends
weren’t the most interested students in the confirmation class of 1965 at
Congregation Solel. We didn’t have speaking parts at the Sunday June ceremony,
so we were relegated to the end of the line (done by height) to file in wearing
our long white robes. We found ourselves standing by a tray of desserts, most
notably tiny chocolate-covered éclairs. As we looked at John, his face belied
he was going to take one. Sure enough, he did. The warm sun streaming through a
window made the chocolate runny, and it quickly coated John’s fingers. Just as
he popped it into his mouth, the line started to move. A look of confusion
crossed his face; what was he going to do? For a split second, he looked down
at his flowing white robe. No, he’s not going to do it, we thought. With all
eyes upon him, he resumed walking and licking his fingers at the same time. I
think he hesitated on purpose, just to yank our chains.
Frank and I in confirmation robes, 1965
At camp, John was known for his canoe-trip expertise. He
double-packed on portages or carried a heavy aluminum canoe, loving the
experience. Among others who shared this talent were Reed Maidenberg and John
Seesel – still my dear friends – who were with John on a two-week trip when it
rained almost every day. John became a counselor and, try as we may, we coaxed
maybe one letter in three summers from him about camp goings-on.
After our respective college graduations (John attended
Wisconsin), we reunited when he enrolled at Northwestern Medical School. Some
found it ironic that he followed his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, for
John passed out watching a film of an eye surgery in 8th-grade
science class, which had been brought in by Dr. David Schoch’s son, John. Janet
and I married in January 1973 in New York City, and John traveled east that
weekend to attend the wedding. His evening attire included a tweed sport
jacket, corduroy pants and hiking boots. Between my married life and John’s
education demands, we didn’t see much of each other thereafter, and he returned
to Wisconsin for his internship, residency and a family practice in the
Appleton area.
John (next to Janet) at our wedding, Jan. 20, 1973
As noted earlier, John wasn’t much of a communicator. In the
days before cheap or free long-distance calling, email and other forms of
electronic media, staying in touch took some effort, the
“Reach-Out-And-Touch-Someone” canard notwithstanding. We knew John lived in
northeastern Wisconsin, and some more than others tried writing but to no
avail. He never attended a junior-high or high-school reunion, but he did send
Frank written regrets that he wouldn’t be attending the big 75
th
anniversary camp reunion in 2003. All we knew was what we found on the
Internet, which wasn’t much besides his office and home address and that he’d
divorced and remarried.
In January 2011, his mother’s death notice appeared in the
Chicago Tribune. Services were in The Glen, where his parents had moved
after selling John’s childhood residence. I knew if I didn’t attend the
funeral, I’d never have contact with him again. Realistically, there was never
a question to go. Too much water under the bridge, as I always say.
Janet and I were his only contemporaries on that snowy
weekday. John looked pretty much the same, sharing baldness with his father and
younger brother Bob, a prolific Huffington Post commentator who appeared
in a Naked Gun film with Leslie Nielsen and O.J. during his screenwriting
days. We chatted for a bit before the service, as the bygone years pretty much
evaporated on the spot, bringing me back to our bike-riding, hoops-shooting,
summer-camping days. John had closed the family practice and was now teaching
at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. After its conclusion, he told me
something shocking: this fitness fanatic, who never smoked a cigarette in his
life, had been diagnosed a year earlier with lung cancer. It was now pretty
much in remission but by no means cured.
After returning home, my Google search found two rather
surprising facts. The first was that he had been given only a few months to
live when the cancer was diagnosed, and here he was, actively pursing life and
enjoying activities with his grandchildren. The second was John was now a
Mormon, having converted after his marriage to Harvada. Like me, John was
hardly religious as a youngster – neither of us had a bar mitzvah – so a
conversion wasn’t all that strange. He did, however, become a very devout
church member, typified somewhat by his sadness that his three teams –
Wisconsin, Northwestern and Brigham Young – had all lost the same day in the
NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments two months later. And I know that because
we kept in regular touch after that January meeting.
I believe technology advances in the 21st century
only played a small part in John’s seemingly newly found communicativeness. Any
correspondence was always returned within 24 hours, with his cares and concerns
for my minor medical maladies in the face of his greater challenges. I’d asked
if it was o.k. to give out his information to his old friends, which he gladly
assented. Most of them heard from John too. And to my surprise, he even
remembered my birthday.
Through the emails and Harvada’s blog, I kept up on John’s
changing condition. Often they included detailed information on treatments and
dosages, as well as his general well-being. Still, I wasn’t mentally prepared
for Harvada’s early January entry: it basically said, the end was near. I
waited a day, then called his home. “Is this the Elisberg residence?” I asked
and told it was. Virtually holding my breath, I asked, “Is John in?” “This is
John,” the voice said. We talked for 30 minutes. His voice was strong and
upbeat, despite his being in home hospice care. John could no longer walk, and
his only expressed consternation was that he had to have two people lift him
out of bed into his wheelchair. He knew about our 50th –year
junior-high reunion in August and expressed wishes to attend, despite his lack
of mobility. He also asked if I knew where I could get a copy of our yearbook;
I told him I thought somebody had scanned a complete edition and I’d check into
it.
Word came via email that John passed away peacefully on
January 28, with many of his family members comforting him at the end. So many
emotions rushed through: sadness about his passing, happiness that we got to
speak, regret that we hadn’t kept up over all of the years and relief that he
no longer had to suffer. He left me with what I told him during our last
conversation, barely keeping it together: Your courage is an inspiration to me,
for it reminds me about what’s really important in life. For John, it was his
family, friends, faith and a profession of healing. For the last one, you may
read the comments on the death notice in his former hometown newspaper, the
Appleton
Post-Crescent:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postcrescent.
Here’s Bob’s take on his brother in the
Huff Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/the-tao-of-plink_b_2589921.html.
One of our mutual friends and his
Freshman B squad basketball and freshman and sophomore baseball teammate, Steve
Glick, found the news more difficult to take than he’d imagined. I knew why,
and it wasn’t just our fleeting sense of our own mortality. The week before I’d
seen the intense play, The Motherf***er with the Hat, and remembered an
exchange starting with the “I thought you were my friend?" question. The reply:
“Anybody you meet before the age of, say, 25? That’s your friend. Anyone
after that? That’s just an associate. Someone to pass the time. Someone who
meets maybe one or two specific needs. But friend? . . . Friends are at the
playground.”
John was with us on the playground, basketball court,
softball fields and baseball diamonds, bicycle paths, Northern lakes and
wedding ceremonies. I announced his passing to his junior-high classmates via
the group email list set up for our 50-year reunion. Most of the many replies
had a single common thread: John was a “good guy.” He was and very much more,
and I’m really going to miss his birthday email next month.
