2005-10-09 - 7:29 p.m.
Stan �the Man� Musial played for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1941-1963. He had a legendary career, accumulating tons of major-league records and being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Stan the Man Unusual has been my friend since fifth grade at Saint Ann�s and we went on to college together. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he managed to graduate on schedule and make good grades. He�s been working for a hedge fund for the last decade, earning all money. (As his older sister � who I must mention I thought was a goddess on earth when I was 13 � noted: �I�m not sure exactly what his job is; I just know he�s really successful.�)
And now Stan is married. Okay, I admit this is a little surprising because, well, he�s a bit of an odd guy. The Man Unusual. He�s quiet. Like he won�t talk at all for long stretches of time. He might just stand there unmoving with his mouth open a little. He�s an incredibly nice guy when you actually do talk to him, it�s just that it takes a while to get to this stage. I should also add that he�s a complete genius, seemingly with total recall. He remembers the full details of people and events from years before. He knew complete statistics on Yankees pitchers and wrote articles about them in like primary grades and that wasn�t even the smallest part of facts he could summon up. And lest this make him seem like some sort of charming but impractical idiot savant, it bears repeating that he parlayed these skills into earning more than you or me.
Going off to college was especially hard for us. I�d been at Saint Ann�s for 8 years. Stan had been there and with a lot of the same people at preschool for 16 years. We knew everyone around us. Now we had to start all over and make new friends. This was daunting to me and I make friends pretty easily. I knew that for Stan this would be a lot harder. I mean, he�s not the most outgoing guy and meeting new people requires reaching out a little. I was very grateful that Stan was there as a familiar face to me in a swath of new ones. But I was a little worried for him. What if people didn�t find out what a great guy he is because they don�t make the effort to communicate with him?
Before I academically imploded and left school, I tried my best to make sure he had a good time. He became friends and business partners with my roommate, the King. When Stan did research for his senior thesis on the economics of paramutual wagering at Suffolk Downs, the local horse track, I was there for every grim moment, watching old men pick up discarded betting slips to see if someone had accidentally tossed a winning trifecta (racetracks are pretty depressing and rightfully haven�t shared in gambling�s booming success over the past few decades).
I want to emphasize that this wasn�t some sort of missionary/charity work or something. Stan was my friend, someone I�d grown up with. He was also a Brooklyn Heights insider (Saint Ann�s WASPy neighborhood, although he himself is Jewish) to whom I didn�t feel my outer-city ass could hold a candle in �belonging� (hell, I think he was a member of the local squash club, the Heights Casino). I was proud to have the opportunity to do what I could for him.
I was touched that my reaching out so long ago was remembered. To be quite honest, I didn�t really expect to be invited to his wedding; we hadn�t been in contact in years. But he got the address I was staying at in Denver and sent me an invitation. I don�t think I was ever so proud as when filling in that I �will attend� with guest Nya. Nya! Since I had another wedding the next weekend in Cambridge and had been invited to speak with a class at Brown in between and was due for chemotherapy after (simpler insurance-wise for now to do in Boston), I decided this would be a final East Coast tour before settling back here to work hardcore.
I know I�ve dissed the place before, but Stan�s wedding was at the Rainbow Room and it was absolutely lovely. Since it was raining out, the restaurant�s Rockefeller Center view was shot, but they still turned up the charm. There was an opening cocktail hour with no actual cocktails, it being before the ceremony. The wedding ceremony itself was on site in a beautiful round side room with a string quartet playing. Then there was another cocktail hour with real drinks and shrimp the size of my fist. Then we went back into the room that had held the ceremony for dinner and a reception with a jazz band.
Base was there and Skeek and Joey and Beef and Tap and Franklin and also Max and a lot of people who didn�t have nicknames at Saint Ann�s. (Oh fine, I myself was �Bignose� in fifth and sixth grade, but this didn�t really outlast my growing into my nose�) It was so good to see everyone. Someone pointed out that people in their 30s remeet at weddings and funerals and we should all try to keep it to weddings. I was so happy to have Nya with me in front of so many folks who had known us back in the day. Sure, I was in a wheelchair and all, but I felt like I had indisputably made out well. Who wakes up next to hotness incarnate?
At a later stage of Harvard, Stan became the financial partner to my roommate in �Positively Punk�, the East Coast�s second-largest independent record distributor (so named by themselves � are you really going to fact-check that?). Now, Stan didn�t really like punk music, just taking advantage of a found business opportunity. Stan and the King would take around crates of records to sell at shows. During the show, Stan would wear earplugs to block the sound of the bands. After the show, I�d ask what he thought. He�d tell me how many of which records they�d sold. I was confused. I�d meant what he thought of the bands.
But thinking back, do I really remember who I saw? I suppose I built up my indie cred, but am I really a better man for it? Stan on the other hand had his eyes on the prize. He sharpened his sales skills and gained business experience. Maybe he could identify what was really important. Discerning true value is certainly the case now in picking his life partner. They were set up years ago by a mutual friend, who alerted her that Stan was incredibly nice and would show her a great time, but would be hard to draw out. Today, after making the effort to listen, she understands him better than anyone.
I�m not terribly surprised that she listens well. She�s a doctor who�s practiced social medicine in the direst circumstances in South America (when asked if her hospital had air conditioning, she noted that it didn�t have running water). She seems to have made a tremendous difference in Stan�s life. He�s grown a great deal with her by his side. He�s more confident and even more social. Even seemingly small things � she�s apparently helped him get over various food avoidances (I�d always thought they were allergies, but it turns out they were just neuroses) and I�m told he no longer compulsively leaves storage space empty.
Choosing her as his wife was an undeniably good move. Perhaps I�m making this out like some cold, unromantic decision-tree business choice. Maybe this call seems like a no-brainer. But determining what is important, understanding who really loves you, and perceiving true value amidst the noise around you is a real skill I will try to hone in my own life.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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