Johnny Mac

Tyler, Johnny Mac and Mom on Mac's boat in September 2007.

Johnny Mac died today. He was practically a member of our family, and my dad lovingly referred to him as a handy bastard. There's a picture framed at my folks place of him reading to me when my mom was still pregnant with me.

My dad used to take me to see Mac when I was little (not even in Kindergarten yet) at a bar called Kharacters. I would sip on Shirley Temples while him and my dad would drink and visit. I became so accustomed to the place, that I thought it was Mac's house. When my mom drove past it one day, I pointed and asked if we could go see him. You could imagine her surprise when her little daughter asked to go into a bar. But hey, it's Alaska.

Mac was always there whenever I needed help. He loved my parents, so therefore he loved me too. One time my car broke down in when I was in high school behind Captain's Coffee and dad couldn't come fix it right away. Mac saved the day by coming into town and getting that old Lumina running for me.

And he always used to say this to Zack and me when we were little:

One hen,
two ducks,
three squawking geese,
four Limerick oysters,
five corpulent porpoises,
six pairs of Don Alvarso's tweezers,
seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array,
eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt,
nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a
marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth,
ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep, who haul stones in and around the quarries of the queasy of key, all at the same time.

I'll miss you Johnny Mac.