Lee Geiger

Why are you always SO MEAN to John?

Anne Geiger

The Campolindo neighborhood in Moraga is many things—peaceful, bucolic, family-friendly. The clean sidewalks and manicured lawns portray a strong sense of community, a sturdy watch-out-for-your-neighbor bond that takes decades of commitment and trust to build. But the tranquil confines peppered by modest homes and soft rolling hills is anything but dull, thanks to larger-than-life characters like the marginally intelligent, debatably handsome, yet perpetually insufferable next-door neighbor of mine known to my readers as Sir Lag-a-Lot.

Sir Lag-a-Lot, a.k.a. John, made his first appearance in the Marginal Prophet in the spring of 2017, where I spotlighted his questionable golf skills during a trip to Ireland, including his natural tendency to protect bogey by leaving a ten-foot par putt three-feet short of the hole. I first met John, a career foot soldier at a Big Four accounting firm, 28 years ago after he and his young family moved to Moraga from yet another state that had grown tired of him, and since then we’ve shared a fence as well as fervent preoccupations with business, wine, golf, and Never-Trump politics. But the best part of our friendship was the decades-long, nonstop back-and-forth banter about the perceived personal failings of one another. Both of us took tremendous pride in our ability to verbally expose and disparage the other, but never did either of us take the locker room abuse as a personal afront. Political correctness be damned, we figured. It was just two guys being guys.

But sadly, any future character assassinations will have to be done via long distance. In March, my never-shy-nor-sensitive neighbor dropped the bomb that he and his lovely wife were moving to a palatial new home near John’s old stomping grounds of Boston. John was a local track and football star in high school, graduated with a degree in accounting from a nearby university, and still has tons of family in the area. He also claims to have a bushel of childhood friends, a dubious assertion since anyone who knew John during his youth assumed he had grown up and entered the Witness Protection Program.

My initial reaction to the news was a Richter-sized “WTF?” I, and everyone else in the neighborhood, had absolutely no clue of John and his wife’s desire to move back to the Boston area. Truth be told, I felt like my best girlfriend from high school was breaking up with me over the phone. But weeks of neighborly counseling and wine-induced therapy have helped me come to grips with the new reality. Their reasons for both wanting to move back to the East Coast, and keeping their desire under the radar, would not have been mine. But I’ve come to accept and respect their decisions. Sort of.

As you would expect, stories involving John and me are rich with boorish behavior and questionable judgement, most of which will stay between us. But there was that night in Pebble Beach when I managed to white-knuckle his brand new, fully-loaded Porsche SUV back to our hotel after he was overserved during dinner. There was also the Thanksgiving meal I attended at his house where I filled my wine glass to the absolute rim, a castigation he has lived on for years that is infamously known as Lee’s “Thanksgiving Pour.” Most recently, we embarked on a wine country buddy trip to Paso Robles which included dinner at a restaurant named after the owner who coincidently shared the same last name as John. The owner eagerly met his namesake at the hostess station and proceeded to treat John like a gilded member of his family. The Irish brothers-from-different-mothers even shared disturbing obsessions over golf and wine, no doubt due to a defect in the Irish gene pool. John had the time of his life that evening and chortled like a schoolboy for hours, whilst I happily picked up the check while doing my best not to vomit.

To simply say I will miss John would not do justice as to the depth of our relationship. There’s just too much to unpack. In the interest of fairness, it would be better for me to provide context as to exactly what I’ll miss most about him.

• I will miss hearing John’s sonorous, Boston-baked baritone. His deep, ear-splittting voice is the “PAHK YAH CAH” version of Darth Vader. It’s never difficult to find John at a neighborhood party. Or in a neighboring state.
• I will miss John’s guttural howl of “LEE, LEE, LEE,” whenever he felt the need to deliver a strident lecture on why my way of thinking didn’t match his. Whenever John vociferously said your name three times in rapid succession, delivered in his standard 100-amp shrill, you knew you next move was to duck and cover.
• I will miss John’s spontaneous phone calls inviting me over for a glass of wine because he “just opened a bottle of De Négoce”. John and I have consumed an ocean of vino together, most of it very, very good. However, John recently became a zealous promotor of wine sold by De Négoce, a company that buys finished wines or grapes from other producers, bottles them under their own label, and sells them to customers at steep discounts. I’m relieved John didn’t try to pawn his collection off on me, as he decided to pack it all up and take it with him to Boston. To his unsuspecting family and friends back in New England, you have our deepest thoughts and prayers.
• I will miss hearing John explain why someone needed to receive a New England-style “dope-slap” whenever they did or said something he considered foolish. After 28 years, I still don’t know how one is delivered, but it’s clear John has been on the receiving end of quite a few.
• I will miss John hyperventilating over the newest golf training aid he just purchased on the Golf Channel in a futile quest to lower his handicap. As anyone who has ever listened to John bleep incessantly about the state of his game will tell you, John spends more money on golf than Trump does on lawyers.
• I will miss John’s unique ability to communicate a cost/benefit analysis about anything and everything in life. He’s an accountant, after all, and his mind works like an Excel spreadsheet, so overwrought with confusing data that a computer contemplates committing suicide.
• I will miss John forever telling me I need to stretch more often. This from a man who’s undergone multiple back procedures and slow walks around the neighborhood like a hunchbacked-version of Herman Monster. John spends two hours every morning trying to loosen up, utilizing training aids that would make the Marquis de Sade blush.
• I will miss learning about music from John. He introduced me to guitar legends like Mark Knopfler, J.J. Cale, and Joey Bonamassa. That being said, he enjoyed irritating me whenever he came over to our house and hijacked the Bluetooth speakers because he couldn’t appreciate timeless classics like Paul Anka’s “Times of Your Life.” Not a surprise though, since John’s idea of good taste is wagyu steaks from Costco.
• I will miss the less-than-discreet New England Patriots flag John flew outside his house every NFL weekend. The Patriots won six Super Bowls during John’s reign in California, a number greater than the hand tools he knows how to use.
• I will miss John taking great pains to explain to me in excruciating detail the biographies, achievements, and swing dynamics of every woman who ever played a round of professional golf. And don’t even get me started on the amateurs. Hopefully his new friends in New England will give a damn, because nobody here ever did.
• I will miss being on my side of the fence and listening to John watch endless hours of golf on his patio TV. Many peaceful weekend mornings were interrupted by John’s howling play-by-play drivel. There’s a reason I don’t have an outdoor TV–one of us had to have a life.
• I will miss John giving Jesus a last name. Once, after hearing him pitifully moan “Jesus, John” after a dozen or so bad shots, a caddy quipped to the rest of the foursome, “I didn’t know Jesus had a last name.” And I’ve lost count of the number of splitting headaches I’ve had that began with John’s thunderous rendition of “JESUS, LEE!”
• I will miss John’s late afternoon calls saying that his wife had made too much pot roast and would I like to come over and join them for dinner. I always tried to answer in the affirmative. Only a fool would turn down an opportunity to savor his wife’s cooking. Based on the exponential expansion of John’s waistline over these past 28 years, he obviously never did.

To conclude this cathartic missive, it’s safe to assume God broke the mold when he made John. I’ve never met anyone like him, and I doubt I ever will again. John has helped make me the man I am today, but rather than serve as the wind beneath my wings, he routinely pummeled me like a November nor’easter. But that’s what made it all so fun. And whenever I find myself missing my next-door buddy, I will recall a memorable line once uttered by the Pretty Blonde at yet another spontaneous neighborhood happy hour. John was in an inebriated, window-rattling rage, ripping me about some perceived slight, an accusation to which I responded in-kind, launching a verbal counterattack that left him bloodied and speechless. Afterward, my beautiful but not always supportive wife shot me a side-eye look and announced to everyone in attendance, “Why are you always SO MEAN to John?”

Because I love him, that’s why.

Au Revoir, John. I wish you nothing but many joyful years of health and happiness whilst spending your days relishing your New England roots.

Especially in February.