Welcome to Day 14. Just a fortnight to go, gang.
I know you recall that this year’s countdown is dedicated to Ray Karl, my friend in name, but a whole lot more like a big brother. And as the eldest child in my family, that’s just not something I ever really had.
So, if you knew Ray even a little, you already know the following: Everything Ray ever did or said he did – every story from his days of playing stoop ball (sort of like stick ball, but you don’t use a broomstick to hit the ball) to his time at Cardinal Hayes High School in the-then dangerous Concourse Village section of The Bronx, even to warming up for 70s and 80s rock bands like April Wine and The Little River Band – was simply the naked truth.
As I mentioned earlier this year, when we first lost Ray, beyond all the general craziness and all the other things he did (including a tour in Vietnam that he rarely talked about, during which he was wounded and earned a Bronze Star for valor) he was sort of like the pied piper. For a man who never had any children of his own, they all loved him.
Ray was from a large Irish Catholic family with many nieces and nephews, and his sister told me that “Uncle Ray” (or “King Ray,” swapping out the “e” for the “a,” as I sometimes called him) was everyone’s favorite.
He certainly charmed both my daughters, too, introducing them to his own version of “breakfast for dinner” and his beloved egg creams. My younger daughter, Sam, who was all of five when she first met him, liked him right away. In fact, when he passed, she instantly remembered that day with the egg creams at the Midnight Express Diner on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
I guess the irony of that is that a few months before we lost Ray, I was visiting Sam out at school. We went to run an errand together, and she said that it would just take a few minutes. I told her that I’d just hang out and catch up on some emails or something until she got back to the car.
She eventually texted me to let me know that she would be a while longer. That’s when I decided to call Ray K.
We talked like we always did, covering everything from music to film and TV (yeah, that’s Ray playing an NYC patrolman, alongside Benjamin Bratt on “Law & Order”) and to baseball, another one of his true loves.
After a half hour or so, Sam had not yet returned, and Ray and I just kept talking.
Sam returned shortly after, and I hung up the phone.
That was January 14, 2025, the last time I would ever talk to him.
Not that any of you needs – or wants – any advice from me, but for yourselves, try to make time for the people who mean something to you.
Miss you, Ray K.
On that note, please join me in carrying Ray’s positivity – about everything! – along with you, as we trudge towards our finish line on 21 December.
See you tomorrow for Lucky 13.
JFish
@Copyright 2025 by John L. Fischer