Clockwise from top left: Lucky, Bobby, Lucky, Bobby & Lucky as I remember them best, playing cards.
I've been thinking about my old neighbor, Homer "Lucky" Tessier. He & his friend/boyfriend Bobby McLaughlin had adjacent apartments on the top floor. They would sit in their doorways in their undershirts, playing cribbage, smoking & kibitzing. After Bobby died, in 1983, Lucky was at loose ends. He was too deaf to be able to talk on the phone until Maggie & I convinced (forced) him to get hearing aids. Then he became part of the world again for the next 5 years, until he died, of emphysema, on New Year's Day 1989 at age 62.
I asked him once how he got the nickname Lucky. He said, I really am so lucky. I have enough money to feed my cats without having to borrow more than about $10 to get through to the end of the month.
A modest person, who relished his life without expecting very much. I'll tell you one thing, though, he cheated at cards. We used to play cribbage, & I could never figure out how he was cheating, but he beat me every single hand—& cackled—till I finally refused to play with him.
Lucky would spend months choosing presents for each of us. I still have a little jewelry box he gave me, and a light-up rose in a glass box. Lucky made borscht for our Thanksgiving dinners, and went to church, and got drunk, and took in my cat and turned her from hairless Psycho into fluffy Nikki. He was proud of us, & I'm proud that we made his last years happy.
I asked him once how he got the nickname Lucky. He said, I really am so lucky. I have enough money to feed my cats without having to borrow more than about $10 to get through to the end of the month.
A modest person, who relished his life without expecting very much. I'll tell you one thing, though, he cheated at cards. We used to play cribbage, & I could never figure out how he was cheating, but he beat me every single hand—& cackled—till I finally refused to play with him.
Lucky would spend months choosing presents for each of us. I still have a little jewelry box he gave me, and a light-up rose in a glass box. Lucky made borscht for our Thanksgiving dinners, and went to church, and got drunk, and took in my cat and turned her from hairless Psycho into fluffy Nikki. He was proud of us, & I'm proud that we made his last years happy.