While some of Hank’s jokes and stories were done for personal attention, most of it wasn’t. It always came at a time when one teenager or another was full of anxiety about a swim event or even trying to figure out life. Hank’s approach always hit the spot and made everyone feel better about themselves and their situation.
I was more fortunate. The surrogate fatherhood from Hank lasted for several decades beyond my teen years. I can’t say the jokes got any better over the years, but his expressions of caring about how my life was going and his general interest in all the good and often stupid things I did increased.
The memories of Hank are endless and I’d like to share a few. The first comes from his nominating himself as team dad for my high school swim team. Not only did this make him one of the few dads at every swim meet cheering for his own son and anyone else who wore those silly black and red Speedos, it also made him the most popular dad because at the end of every swim meet, he brought out a brown paper bag of nearly every kind of candy bar. I became addicted to Butterfingers and Clark Bars because of him and would likely blame him for my current girth if I weren’t so damn happy to be eating those candy bars today. As an aside – and there is usually the aside – his son went for the O’Henry bars. I wonder why.
Anyone who knew Hank knew he was one of the greatest supporters of UCLA football. OK, it was USC. And that’s the point. If you ever wanted to get your thumbs pulled off, you merely had to say something negative about his beloved Trojans. While I was attending UCLA (on paper, at least), it was very enjoyable to get in a few digs by wearing a UCLA shirt on a visit to see Sladed, hoping Hank would be around to jab you with his toothpick that was incessantly resting on the side of his mouth.
Gail and I went to UCLA together and I always managed to get her into the act. We once tee-peed his house in Bruin blue and gold and later, despite the fact I was wetting my pants thinking we would be discovered and shot, Gail and I removed his USC Trojan license plate rim and replaced it with a UCLA rim. Fortunately for our prank, it wasn’t noticed until a friend and fellow Trojan fan was helping him put things in his trunk after the UCLA/USC football game and said, “Hank, when did you become a Bruin fan?”
As was often the case, Hank got me back. He along with Jayne took out some cardinal red nail polish and painted in the UCLA rim with Trojan colors, drove to our house, dragged me out by my thumbs (what was it with Hank and thumbs?), and made me stare at his and Jayne’s handiwork.
Besides being a Bruin fan (and a closet Trojan fan), I was also a University of Michigan fan. That meant that every so often the two teams would meet in the Rose Bowl and Michigan would do one of its usual failures to show up for the big game. Of course that didn’t stop me from carrying on the pranks and it led to one of my finest moments. I placed an ad in the sports sections of the San Diego newspaper addressed to all Wolverine fans. It announced there would be a pre-game party at the home of Michigan Alum Hank’s house and to call his number to share in the festivities. The ad didn’t draw the numbers I hoped for, but I think there were enough calls to irritate him because he started giving out my number as the party’s “social secretary.”
Sadly I never did two pranks I hoped to do. One was to write a fictional piece about Hank as the world’s biggest Bruin supporter with fake quotes about how he lives and dies for the Bruins. My idea included getting the wives of his fellow Trojan teammates and classmates to put the fictional story around the morning newspaper so they would all wake up thinking the world had shifted in a strange way and Hank had turned to the dark side. My other plan that never played out was to hire the UCLA marching band and have them march down his street playing the Bruin fight song and generally annoying him and his neighbors with displays of Bruin spirit.
Hank also knew that a prankster at heart could be used for his own fun and he often put me up to things. Among my favorite memory was calling a San Diego sports radio show at Hank’s urging. His old teammate and good friend Ernie Zampese was a defensive backfield coach for the San Diego Chargers and was the guest on the show that night. Ernie and Hank had been friends at that time for more than 25 years and had a lot of nicknames for each other. For the sake of keeping this post clean, I can write one of those nicknames was Zampoosie. So I called the station and said I had a question for Mr. Zampoosie. The host immediately corrects my pronunciation while Hank suppressed a laugh. Hank pushes me to continue. “So, Mr. Zampoosie, do you intend to utilize a nickel formation or make better use of a strong safety?” The host again corrects my pronunciation and now Hank is giggling and even Ernie is laughing because he knows I’ve been put up to this. I mention Zampoosie several more times, each time corrected by the host, and Ernie can barely answer the question and I think Hank wet his pants laughing.
Hank had so many life-long friends and it’s such a testament to who he was that he and Jayne could continue those friendships up until the last days of his life.
Despite all the fun and back and forth we had, none of these stories touch who Hank really was and what he meant to his two boys, their wives and kids and especially to Jayne. I’ll never forget when Sladed was so sick and in the hospital for a very long time. Things weren’t going as well as any of us had hoped and there were even thoughts we were in for a long recovery at best. I came to visit Sladed in the hospital and when I turned the corner, Hank was sitting in a chair and quietly crying. For all his toughness and roughhouse ways, deep down Hank was a loving and emotional guy who was so worried about his son he couldn’t contain the tears.
The greatest story of Hank, however, was the 55 plus year love story he had with Jayne. She was his everything and, man, he often needed her to be his everything if only to keep him out of trouble. From the early days of dancing to the Tennessee Waltz to Jayne’s endless vigil by his side as his health declined, they were both the apple of each other’s eye. There is no better way to sum up a man’s life than to witness how he loved and how he was loved by others. His relationship with Jayne and her with him beats anything you would find in a romance novel and tells you all you need to know about the both of them.
I didn’t get to see Hank in his later stages. He wouldn’t have recognized me anyway. But I was able to keep tabs on how he was doing by Jayne having the courage and willingness to open up such a private moment to write in many forums on the journey she and Hank were on. Not only was it comforting for those who knew them to read, but I know it helped others – often strangers – find solace as they went through their own journeys. And so now Jayne will continue without her Hankie, as we all will, and I wish nothing but love and happy memories for the joy that came from just knowing the man. Peace be with you, Hank. You will be sorely missed.
