Remembering my friend... Kevin

Kevin McGuire was a friend to all who knew him and loved him... he was a true "Inwood Guy"... below is my remembrance of Kevin... we will all miss him dearly...

Hello my dear friends…

The “Fun” in remembering our days in “OUR INWOOD” will never be spelled with a capital again… no, it really won’t… for you see the “FUNNIEST GUY” and one of our best childhood friends has left us much too soon…

Kevin McGuire was MY FRIEND (as I know he was yours)… we’ve been together in friendship since the 1st grade… we took our grammar-school lumps and heartaches together… he was at my wedding… and even though the years had separated us and we took different paths away from “OUR INWOOD”… every time we got back together for lunch… or at Patrick’s for a quick beer… or at the Park Gate Reunion down the river… the first thing that Kevin would say was... “Ya, know we always made each other laugh…” I would answer... “Yeah, Kev... we always did…” and his response would be “Yep, it was something special.”

That was the essence of Kevin McGuire… to everyone who was blessed to know him… he was “something special”… quick of wit… and just as quick to realize when a friend needed someone to talk to… and yes, even cry with… for me, it was a FRIENDSHIP from the very first day of the 1st grade that never died… it was separated yes… by year’s and moves to new places… but, it never, ever, and will never die… for having known an “Inwood Guy” like Kevin McGuire... was the chance of a lifetime... and was indeed “something special…”

Back in the old days… Kevin would kid me about my participation in local Democratic Party politics (we were really closet Republicans together– but there were not any Republican primaries in the city – and even Kevin would say, “that you win or lose the city in the primaries”)... yes, my friends… Kevin was an astute political observer… It was not that Kevin did not agree with whom I was supporting… he just thought that we could use our time to better and more young gentlemanly pursuits… like having more time for a beer or two at the Park Gate, Patrick’s, Freehill’s or The Sloop… or enjoying a good cigar... or a pipe-full of Cherry Blend... sitting on a bench outside of Fort Tyron Park…

One day I talked Kevin into taking a re-election banner for the local assemblyman and got his promise to hang it from his apartment fire-escape that overlooked Broadway… well, Kevin did as he promised… and dutifully hung the banner out for all passers-by on Thayer Street and Broadway to see… and as I walked across Riverside Drive one afternoon I looked up in horror... to see that the banner no longer read “Re-elect Jack Walsh – Assemblyman”… no… to Kevin’s enjoyment and immense delight… the banner now read: “Re-elect Jack Walsh – Soothsayer!”…

That was Kevin… truly one of the funniest people I ever met…

He was a great friend and buddy to all who knew him... and loved him…

I know that we will all miss him dearly… I will miss those occasional phone calls that started with “McGuire here… how the hell are you doing?”… and then we would talk and laugh for an hour or more… I will miss those lunches in Little Italy and in Chinatown… I will miss his call telling me that our cigars smoked together at the Park Gate Reunion were “superb!”… I will miss not seeing him at the curbside south of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saint Patrick’s Day as I march up the avenue…

But, if our faith is indeed true… we will all see his face again one day… and we’ll laugh once again for hours on-end… and we will all be young… and every day will be beautiful… and full of what I wish for my dear friend Kevin to Rest-in-Forever…

Peace,
Inwood Guy

P.S. This is the original posting that was inexplicably changed by the Administrator of the Manhattan Board when whomever it is at the MB changed my name to another... and is the reason why I will never publish a nostalgic posting on the Manhattan Board again...