Friends

Two lives on different paths
Fate joins for trials and laughs.
Commitment joins two spirits,
A quiet call, they hear it.
Each to give a helping hand
Through turmoil's every stand.
A pair understanding ears
And a friendly shoulder
to catch life's tears.

Dedicated to Dr. Dale Joseph Luketich M.D 8-8-48 to 10-10-08

Friday on the way to work, I was expecting things to get bad when I got in the door. Was I ever wrong. It got bad before I even made it to the parking lot. My phone rang to tell me that my best friend in college had died of a massive heart attack at 3:00 am.

I met Dale Luketich, aka Mad Boris, or Luke on a dark night in a dark film projection booth FY1970. I was changing reels on the only working projector on a Friday night when a pair of hands suddenly reached into my vision and slapped the back reel on while I was threading the front. I finished loading the film and restarted the movie before looking over my shoulder to see this wild dark hair, insanely lit brown eyes and the biggest grin I had ever seen. I was a freshman electrical engineering student running a feature length film for a dormitory on Friday night. Luke was the projectionist for the Student Union and would be showing the same film on Saturday night. He came to cue the film for his dual projector system. He was a Med Student.

It was an instant friendship that has spanned 38 years. The man was brilliant, far smarter than I, and he taught me so much. He knew about my health problems, and was with me through the years we thought I wouldn't live through. In most subjects, anything I knew, he knew more about. That was OK.

A year later, on a Friday night when they had lost my film and I had no work, I was in the Kroger Store laying in supplies for a long night of Calculus and Physics Lab writeups when a voice came over my shoulder - "So they lost your film, too." It was Luke. "So what are you doing tonight? It's Halloween." I replied that I was going to spend the night catching up on homework. "No, you're not. You are going to take the night off. Doctor's orders." He often said that when he wanted me to do something for my own good. He knew I was working 100 hours a week to stay in school. I had the campus job, another job, and I was running an electronics repair shop out of my dorm room. So he drug me down to a student hang out where they served coffee all night for a 50 cent cover charge. He worked there taking care of the sound system, stage lighting, and old movie projector that was used to show old silent Buck Rogers and Flash Gorden flicks. It was a basement space and the owner named it "The Last Resort". So I went along to help him with the stage and sound.

Little did I know it would change my life forever. Except for Luke, I was pretty much a loner. There was no one in my life - how could there be - I didn't expect to have a life. That night I met a little green-eyed elf with reddish blonde hair, 4'10" tall, 112 lbs, all of it choice. I was working on a broken mike line in the dark. My vision wasn't great and I did everything pretty much by touch. So I always carried my tools in my pocket, and laid them out precisely on the work surface so I didn't have to look for them in the dark. Remember, I worked in projection, usually in very dark booths. I reached for my pliers that night and they weren't there. The elf had them, fidgeting as she listened to some struggling liberal arts student practice their songs on other students too broke to go anywhere else. Dale held his breath, expecting my short temper to flare and blast her to cinders. When I politely asked to borrow them back, he knew I was a goner. He was right. Five stormy years later, he was best man for our wedding. He was one of the very few who believed we would make it.

Dale did sound for a 50's revival rock band, and from the sound board sang The Monster Mash. He did a perfect Boris Karloff. Hence the nick name Mad Boris. He often practiced his Mad Doctor routine on his nervous patients. Being Croatian, he was a natural for the role. But I think he preferred to be called Luke, because he went nuts over the original Star Wars. He saw it in the theatre, during its first run, over 250 times. He drug my wife and I (Doctor's orders) to see it. He paid because we were too broke. I'd spent the day in the salvage yard trying to get the parts to repair our car, which my brother had borrowed and wrecked. I was depressed, and he said I needed the cheering up. He was right as usual. He'd gone so many times, the theatre manager knew him. The local radio and newspapers interviewed him about his fascination. I remember that one night, after our fortunes had improved somewhat, my wife and I took another depressed soul to see the flick. We could see, from where we sat that Luke was sitting in his usual front row, center seat. When they hauled the blasted R2D2 out of Luke's X-wing I shouted out "Is there a doctor in the house?" He gave me the finger. Several folks in the audience knew about the mad doctor who was always watching the film and we all had a good laugh.

Luke was a great doctor who practiced old fashioned, listen to your patient medicine. He was always helping folks for free, and he spent a lot of time at clinics for coal miners and farmers where they couldn't pay a lot. He called himself a repairman. He would fix cars, stereos, and people. Since I was working on a degree in divinity for a while we used to bill ourselves as the full service team. If we couldn't fix it, we'd give it last rites.

There is so much more to tell about Luke, but I think it best to know that he was a good man who loved sharing and gave of himself every day. No, he wasn't perfect, but in the final analysis, his karma was very, very good. This gentle soul will be greatly missed.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Flashdance