The game was entered into my lacrosse schedule weeks ago, but in truth I had been plotting this road trip for more than a year.
A game assignment at Haverling in Bath, N.Y., our southernmost school, requires an 80-mile drive and three hours back and forth in the car.
My colleagues in the Genesee Valley Lacrosse Officials Association target these assignments with jokes. “It’s a long ride so you better pack good stories.’’
One season, they passed out T-shirts: I Took A Bath For GVLOA.
But I welcomed the trip this season, and chose to drive alone. I was on a mission of loyalty and gratitude to find my old college friend, Jim Hageman. Sadly, he was interred at the Bath National Cemetery in Steuben County.
I hadn’t heard from Jim in more than 10 years. The last thing I knew was undergoing cancer treatments. He preferred to fight this battle privately. He was a hard guy to keep in touch with. He wasn’t sentimental or effusive, but loyal and dedicated. He wasn’t a social media regular or a letter writer. He did have a foxhole mentality, meaning he was a guy you would trust to share a foxhole. I don’t use that military reference lightly. I had no military experience but Jim was an Army veteran when he showed up at Buffalo State College in September 1976.
I had returned to my dorm as a 19-year-old sophomore; he was a 28-year-old Army veteran who lived in a single room on the opposite corridor. Nobody knew him, but he was unmistakable. Six-foot-2, 260 pounds, thick arms and legs, shoulders like the Adirondacks and shaved head. One wisecracker referred to him as Genghis Khan. Another as an extra from the Kung Fu television series. He could have been Vin Diesel’s father.
When Jim offered a hello one day in the hall, I engaged. His hand swallowed mine. In the sexism of the day, he called it a “girlie’’ hand. My budding newspaper background kicked in. Jim came from an Army family. His father was a World War II veteran and a retired major from the Reserves. Jim joined the Army as a 22-year-old and left 3½ years later in the summer of 1975, a Vietnam veteran with the rank of Specialist 5.
He kicked around a few years doing odd jobs and lifeguarding at pools until he chose Buff State. His worldly experiences made him a man among us boys.
I lured him onto the rugby team and he fit perfectly with the camaraderie and debauchery. His bulk anchored the scrum on our B side (team). For every bawdy rugby song, he could recall an Army drill chant, outdated and inappropriate by today’s standards: “I don’t know, but I’ve been told, Eskimo women are mighty cold.’’
He turned me on to Irish folk music, especially the Clancy Brothers, and the pleasures of a frosty Guinness. I can still hear his voice after the first gulp: “Aaahh, mother’s milk.’’
Beer was a weakness. At our friend Kim Forrest ’s stag party, when a bowling pin was left standing, Jim took off down the lane and dove headfirst. He would have converted the spare but the rack came down and delivered a gash on the crown of his head. The doctor, who administered four stitches, shook her head and muttered in labored English: “American GI.’’
These are the lighthearted stories you remember as mile markers whiz past and wipers rhythmically remove the road spray from semis. This trip seemed less monotonous. This was about dedication to an old friend, thankfulness for untold favors, and the way he impacted my life. It is harder to pinpoint the examples he set of stoicism, responsibility, assertiveness, in his 1970s phrasing: “Jim, don’t be a Suzie.’’
He could be remote. I heard little from him after his marriage broke up. I knew he had two children, but Jim did not regularly return emails or answer phone messages. He had a Facebook page with eight friends but never updated it. The page remains idle. Last I knew, he was lifeguarding at a hotel in Niagara Falls when he learned the cancer diagnosis.
I always wondered about his fate. I found him last year when I happened across a directory for veterans’ graves. The screen blinked and up popped “Hageman, James Voorhees.’’ He died in March 2017.
Birth Date 06/08/1948. Internment 03/15/2017.’’
That led to last week’s road trip. Two hours before gametime, I reached the administration building of Bath National Cemetery and doublechecked Jim’s gravesite. Section V, Plot 427. He never took the easy way out – you had to walk a half mile up a hill to the back of the property.
The immaculately straight rows of white marble headstones gave you an Arlington feel. The cemetery tumbles from pine groves, down a long hill, but well above the Cohocton River. I walked past Civil War graves populated with mostly Irish surnames and white crosses. A few Stars of David appeared as I passed the World War II and Korean sections. The later the war, the more diverse our nation. At the road’s end, I found my guy.
On this late afternoon, the sky covered in clouds, the cemetery was deserted. There were hundreds of graves in any direction, but I was the lone figure. You couldn’t hear or see any traffic. It was deadly quiet. My only companion was a gentle breeze whispering through the pines.
That was how I found my friend’s inscription.
“BELOVED FATHER’’
“WE’LL REMEMBER’’
“THE GOOD TIMES’’
I most certainly will.
Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/
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