Phil

I thought it was just a job. To be sure it was an important job in that jobs were hard to find, unemployment was up, the economy was in the tank, Florida had been hard it. You could drive through Orlando and see buildings abandoned in the midst of construction.

Those were the days when Altamonte Springs, Winter Park, and Orlando were identifiable towns driving on Interstate 4. Today, without highway signs indicating these places you wouldn’t know one from the other – everything runs together – of course things change over 35 years.

The grocery store was Red’s Market, located on South Orange Blossom Trail. It was a family-owned business in the days when families could still make a go of it in a grocery store. It was also open 24 hours a day and they needed someone for the 11 – 7 graveyard shift, a shift staffed with two people. My first day on the job I met Phil, my shift partner.

Phil is one of those people I wish I could catch-up with, and you’ll see why as this unfolds. I’ve tried to track him down from time-to-time, but trying to track Phil down is like trying to actually find Kilroy back in WWII days.

Phil was about 5’9”, black hair, black eyes, angular face, lean and muscular – he lifted weights and ran, keeping himself in shape. He remains to this day the most exquisite underachiever I’ve ever known – though of course I’ve no idea what he has done these past decades. 

He was from a well-to-do, if not wealthy, Jewish family in Portland, Maine. He was a pianist, a graduate of Brandeis (major was music) and divorced with a son who lived with his mother and step-father in Chicago. At night Phil worked at Red’s Market, in the day he gave piano lessons. My guess is that he was around 30 years old when I met him, but he seemed much older; I think it was because of sorrow, sorrow at the loss of Jake, his son; sorrow at the loss of his marriage; and perhaps sorrow at being the odd son out in a family of aggressive achievers.

Phil observed people with amusement and without judgment. If Phil did pass judgment it was reserved for his own “class” and not for the common person, not for the redneck, not for the uneducated. He did miss the high culture of classical music, which at the time was scarce in Orlando. I recall him telling me after he moved back North how great it was to find classical music stations on the radio. He pretty much took life as it came, but he took it with a filter of sadness and resignation – though at times he could be sardonic. Phil wasn’t a drinker, I don’t recall him touching alcohol, if he had his life would have likely been a tragedy with his disposition.

He used to call me “Bobby”. I think he was surprised that he had a work partner that he could talk to about politics and history and philosophy and religion and life in general. My time at Red’s Market turned out to be a significant experience for me because of Phil.  To be continued…..