DECEMBER 30, 2023 – In high school I had a friend named Mike. By general consensus, Mike was a pain in the neck but an endearing one, if that dichotomy can be imagined. His high energy could be mistaken for impulsivity, and he was of strong opinions, intensely conveyed. He took special pleasure in watching people squirm when he expressed his ideas about one thing or another, particularly in the political realm. Even then he was an arch-conservative, in large part, I thought, to gain acceptance by his father. I never met his dad, but based on what Mike said about him, I perceived Mike’s leading authority figure—a “pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps,” American business executive from Chicago stationed in Cuernavaca Mexico—to be over-bearing and a man of conservative politics. Mike’s social currency was his well-oiled cheerfulness, which went a long way to temper the offense he would’ve otherwise inflicted on his schoolmates.
Since all of us were confined to a boarding school in the wild northern reaches of Michigan’s southern peninsula, we 450 students had only ourselves for company. Ironically, at a school with the express mission of encouraging creativity, uniforms were compulsory. They consisted of dark blue corduroy slacks (or skirts . . . or knickers with light blue stockings if you were a girl!), light blue shirts (blouses for the girls), and if you so chose, a bright red sweater. For formal occasions—including concerts and Sunday dinner—we had to wear white shirts/blouses, dark blue blazers bearing the school logo and grey slacks (boys) and skirts (girls). When I picture any of my contemporaries sartorially, I see them “in uniform.” So it is with Mike. I also remember his tussled reddish-tinged Irish hair and his wide, open V-shaped grin, which exposed a large set of well-aligned incisors. His mouth, it seemed, was always poised to utter a sardonic remark.
Living in constant contact with your peers, you had no choice but to accept and adapt to people like Mike. Over time you realized that you even counted them among your close friends. It was a lot easier that way.
Mike and I stayed in contact after graduation in June 1972. In fact, from his family’s home in Chicago (they seemed to “commute” between there and Cuernavaca), in late July he trekked all the way to Minnesota and joined my dad and me for a weekend at Björnholm in northwest Wisconsin.
I remember three things about that visit. First was Mike’s breaking the pin on one of the aluminum oars of our Alumacraft rowboat. The boat—and oars—had survived over 30 years of wear and tear, and along came Mike, insistent on demonstrating how a lifeguard “short-stroke” rows a rescue boat to a swimmer in distress. In his over-exuberance he snapped the cast-aluminum pin right in half. I was miffed—especially given that I’d just warned Mike to “go easy” on the oars. I also worried how Dad would react when we informed him. In politeness, however, Dad accepted the damage. Without a hint of disparagement then or later, he found a replacement pin attached to a clamp that he bolted onto the oar shaft.[1] As I subsequently reflected on matters, however, I wondered if Dad’s courtesy toward Mike wasn’t influenced by their shared dislike of George McGovern.
The second thing I remember about Mike’s visit was his astonishment over the bumper crop of black raspberries in the surrounding woods. He was so impressed that he harvested a quart’s worth and baked a pie, mixing the blackberries with a dozen well-beaten eggs and a cup of sugar. To his greater credit, he managed to make a crust out of flour—and more sugar. My dad ate one piece, and I ate another. We then let Mike gorge himself on the rest of what he thought was a baker’s masterpiece.
The third hallmark of Mike’s visit was his open mockery of George McGovern’s decision to dump Thomas Eagleton from the Democratic ticket for President/Vice President. After reports had surfaced that the Missouri senator had undergone electro-shock therapy for depression a decade earlier, all hell broke loose politically. McGovern himself initially stated (soon famously or infamously) that he backed Eagleton “a thousand percent,” but when political pressures mounted, McGovern reversed course and replaced Eagleton. Mike, of course, was a Nixon man—as was my dad, and, to my later embarrassment, as was I, albeit with less ardor than Dad or Mike.
In any event, when talk turned political over the black raspberry pie, Mike scorned McGovern by saying, “I’d sure hate to have him supporting me 1,000%!” Dad joined Mike’s sarcastic laughter. I remember thinking it was all just a really bad deal for everyone involved—McGovern, Eagleton, the Democrats generally. I chuckled, but uncomfortably. In retrospect, I regret I didn’t call a “time-out” and argue on behalf of Eagleton—given the more enlightened attitudes that now prevail regarding mental health issues.[2]
Just one month later, Mike joined me and another school friend—James Oppenheim, a dedicated leftie seeking adventure—at the Republican National Convention in Miami. Mike, of course, was an “all-in” Young Republican. James was an “all-in” Young Democrat in less than convincing disguise as a Young Republican (his hair was way too long). I was in a state of drift between “Young Republican” and “Young Democrat”—a condition I would more readily confess to James than to Mike.
Thereafter, I communicated with Mike periodically by phone and letters, but I didn’t see Mike again until early in the second semester of our sophomore year of college. He had a “fantastic opportunity” he wanted to present to me—in person—so he flew and bussed all the way from Champagne-Urbana, Illinois to Brunswick, Maine. If Mike had been an art major and drum minor at Interlochen Arts Academy[3], he was now a dedicated business major at the University of Illinois. He was also a born salesman but the kind you also wanted to slam the door on—except you couldn’t, because by the time you realized you wanted to slam the door, you’d already let him in because . . . he was a born salesman. (Cont.)
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Dad’s repair worked just fine in the half-century that followed.
[2] Contrast the standards in place then that we applied to candidates for high office versus the abysmal standards that nearly half the electorate observed in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The reader can well guess whom Mike supported both times.
[3] It could’ve been the other way around—percussion major, art minor. In our three years at Interlochen I never saw a stitch of art produced by Mike and never saw or heard him play the drums. All I knew in either regard was that Mike would exchange greetings (in Spanish) with Senor Raz, a member of the visual arts faculty, whenver the two encountered each other walking in opposite directions on campus, and Mike’s roommate was the jazz drumming prodigy, Peter Erskine, a protégé of Stan Kenton,
