Written on Saturday, June 25, 2011 at 9:49am

Gents: When our friend, Sammy W. was in town last week for the annual get- together of our email group of old high school buddies, I told him affectionately that he was one of the two people in my life that could always effortlessly make me laugh -- with some kind of bullshit story, a crass putdown, a scatological non sequitur, or even a mere raised eyebrow. I found myself repeating this to our guys who got together during this GT week. Invariably, after relating this, people would ask me who the other person was who so consistently and easily cracked me up. I would tell them it was an old college friend of mine, Geoff Liss.

In our youth, Geoff’s humor had been easy and constant, sarcastic and witty. He was a big, good-looking, athletically built guy-- pretty good with the girls. One of the funny things about him was the incongruity of the nature of his humor – Lenny Bruce-ish, very hip and often laced with Yiddishisms -- coming from this big all-American-looking guy. (So many people had told him he was funny that in his 30's he tried an open-mike night at a comedy club. We all went to watch and support him and he was excruciatingly bad, which in itself was hysterical). Mentioning Geoff Liss so often and so unexpectedly in the past week made me think about him and how close he and I had been when we were young -- I could tell a million stories about our misadventures! Yet, I hadn't previously thought about him much in years. My ex-wife and I had been close with Geoff and his wife since college, and when they divorced years later, we basically sided with his wife (always a mistake to take sides). So, Geoff and I saw each other only for lunch a couple of times in the last 30 years and ran into each other at his ex-wife's funeral several years ago. At those infrequent meetings, the years melted away, the stories were non-stop, and the laughter raucous. You guys know how that goes.

As a tragic irony, this past Thursday, I got a call from Geoff's ex-brother-in-law. He told me Geoff had died on Tuesday after a brief illness. He was our age, 64. I went to the Shiva yesterday and was pleased I had gone, as his children seemed genuinely happy to see me after all the years, and I think the memories were a bit affirming of their dad for them.

Geoff's death affected me more than I would have anticipated. The natural death of a contemporary, certainly at our age, reminds one of one's own mortality, but more so, and more constructively, reminds one to reach out to the people you think about but don't touch enough. (According to his kids, Geoff had sudden severe stomach pains a week ago Thursday and his girlfriend made him go to the doctor that day. After some tests, the doctor told him he had diabetes. They did further tests and told him his body was riddled with cancer. They told him he had 6 months to live. He lasted 4 days).

I sure wish I could have had one last lunch with him and have had the chance to tell him how sweet the memories are. While I am pretty late to this "Bru-crew" of ours, I appreciate that we keep in touch and keep the friendships going, notwithstanding the diversity in the directions all of our lives and viewpoints have taken.

Tonight I am having a drink and will toast the memory of my old friend, Geoff Liss. One quick story: at SIU in 1966, the student government was dominated by a group of right wing Young Republicans. I was active in some lefty anti-war student groups. We decided that we would try to take over the student government, so I ran for the student senate. Geoff was my campaign manager. A guy named Lee, who always seemed to have a lot of money (curiously, tons of singles and fives), financed the campaign. Geoff decided to make my nickname, "Tweets," by which I was exclusively known in college, part of our strategy. He and Lee managed to buy a couple thousand little tin whistles. They had printed (no copiers back then) flyers that would have the whistles attached. The plan was to instruct a couple thousand students to all blow the quite shrill whistles simultaneously at midnight the night before the election. Geoff brought me the printed flyers and, without anyone's prior knowledge or approval, he had had the large headline on it printed as "Blow for Tweets." Geoff explained his thinking. He said that even if I lost, it would be funny (always important), and maybe some of the girls would even take the suggestion. We all laughed our asses off, but had the flyers changed to "Tweet for Tweets."

I still have a couple of those faded old flyers, and a few of those rusted old whistles, but am sadly reminded that nothing, and no one, lasts forever.

Tweets