We kept in touch by letter, but I hadn't seen him face to face until about three years ago.
When Cinelli and I learned that he and his wife had a place in Palm Springs, we made it a point to meet them for dinner on a weekend trip. It was a strange encounter.
There was a peculiarity about Walt. He had always been a soft-spoken man, intellectual in conversation, but possessed of a nimble sense of humor. Now he was loud and repetitive, greeting with raucous bursts of laughter moments from our past that weren't especially funny or that had never actually occurred, and repeating them many times over, as though each telling was new.
When he fell silent, he seemed abruptly detached, as though he were viewing from afar, directing his focus on someone beyond the room.
I had seen that look before in another man I knew, a much younger person than the 79-year-old Walt. His name was Buddy Epstein. He was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and coldly aware of the fate that would lead him into darkness. He described it as a slow disappearance. "One day you're here," he said, "and one day you're not."
Cinelli and I wondered if Walt was on the edge of that same darkness when we last saw him in Palm Springs. And now our fears had been confirmed. The Walt we had both known simply no longer existed.
That was reason enough for me to view with intensity the evening my family was decorating our tree. There are moments we must not abandon, beyond major achievements and professional triumphs. Careers end and plaques tarnish, but the eyes of Christmas, for instance, remain forever bright.
One must remember with equal clarity the nuances of a lover's voice and the cry of a baby's frustration; the aroma of pine trees and the cool, clean perfumes of a rainy day. I am determined never to give up a vision of Cinelli's smile or the warm embracement of a summer's eve.
They are blips in time to be absorbed. They pass too quickly and are gone so completely.
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almtz13@aol
