August 31 2019

On August 29, 2009 my good friend Abraham Rogatnick died.

On August 29, 2019 some of his friends met for lunch at the downtown home of MLA Sam Sullivan and his wife Lynn Zanatta. There was copious food and drink and good conversation as we all compared stories on a man who had been of some considerable importance in our lives.

I explained to Clancy Dennehy that in Spanish we like to use the word conversar. It is more obvious in Spanish that it means to speak in verse. Conversation at our table was unusually sublime. It was sort of like a Sam Sullivan Salon in which more than one person was talking at one time. And I must add here that perhaps the man who talked the least and listened the most was our MLA (a politician!) Sam Sullivan who certainly does listen.

Some may know that during Sullivan's run for Vancouver Mayor, Abraham Rogatnick was his unoficial but defacto advisor. Of that job Rogatnick told me, "I advise him but he doesn't listen." Like many who have known Rogatnick we have all learned something.

I told all I would write a blog about our gathering but as I left for home I began to do some math.

I met Rogatnick sometime in 2000 when he was 77 and I was 58. Today, August 31 is my 77th birthday.

In the last few days since Tuesday I have been thinking about all the stuff that Rogatnick taught me but I had not delved much on how he taught me to live and die.

In 2000 I was a youngish man and Rogatnick was an old man who walked with a cane. I was an awe of an old man who had all his marbles. He talked about losing his sense of taste. He complained of bad days with arthritis. He told me how he had special wires attached to the side of his Honda so he could tell when he was close to a curb or a wall.

What can I think about as all that has come to haunt me now as I am now that 77 year-old man, not quite yet walking with a cane?

From left - Bruno Freschi, Lynn Zanatta, Geoff Massey, Clancy Dennehy, Carolyn Chan, Jennifer Shipper, Sam Sullivan, Henry Tsang and Charles Barber - August 28 2019

A week before he died (he told his doctors a year before that date that he wanted to pull the plug on his prostate cancer treatment) I went to visit him at the hospital. I cannot imagine having any other friend to whom I could read Ambrose Bierce’s short story Parker Adderson, Philosopher which is all about the folly of not fearing death when it is planned but of the reaction one has when faced with death in a present moment instance.

Of Rogatnick I have written a few blogs:

Geoff Massey & Abraham Rogatnick

Abraham Jedediah Rogatnick - the Architect and his cane

Abraham Rogatnick's manifesto for staying put

From the Heart

The Architect

Abraham Rogatnick & Parker Adderson, Philosopher

Alvin Balkind & a rear view of the Belkin Gallery
The Philosopher King & the Philosopher Queen
Civics and civility at City Hall
Christmas 2007 with the philosopher king and Henry James 
Christmas 2006 Nochebuena with Abraham 
Abraham Switches Off

AND Clancy Dennehy's video on Abraham Rogatnick 

What would be my hope for a near future?  I would wish that Sullivan would vary his salon into a small round table where architects Geoff Massey, Bruno Freschi, landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander and a few others would discuss what they know about our city. We would all listen.

A surprise came in the mail on Thursday just in time for my birthday which is on August 31.. It was a largish envelope from Buenos Aires from my friend Roberto Baschetti who works at the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno (the Argentine National Library). He is in charge of inspecting the great piles of books that are donated to the library.   

An old photograph fell out from a book by author and naturalist Guillermo Enrique Hudson. He was a Quilmes, Provincia de Buenos Aires author (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922) known in England, where he died as William Henry Hudson.

The photograph had no stamp of any identification on the back. The book came from a pile donated by an Anglo Argentine man called Willoughby Blew who had recently moved to Florida.

Because Baschetti knows of my liking for photographs of undraped women he thought of me and my birthday. Thank you so much Roberto.  

El miércoles me llegó una linda sorpresa en el correo procedente de Buenos Aires. Llegó a tiempo para mi cumpleaños,  el 31 de agosto. Tengo un amigo, Roberto Baschetti, que trabaja en la Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno. Está a cargo de inspeccionar los muchos libros que recibe la biblioteca de regalo.

Baschetti al abrir un libro El Ombú de Guillermo Enrique Hudson, encontró entre unas páginas una vieja fotografía de una mujer desnuda. Como sabe que a mí me gusta el tema de mujeres en paños menores me la mandó sabiendo lo mucho que me agradaría.

Gracias, Roberto por tu oportuno obsequio.