Terry "T.K." Kendall

I met TK shortly after I left the nest to start a young person's life in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He was your standard fare Hoosier. Tall and lankey with an unassuming baritone voice and an understated Indiana drawl. He was dating my Mom after her break-up with her second husband.

T (because TK is all too troublesome to say) is the standard bearer for laid back. He is a Zen master of being comfortable in one's own skin. This comfort is given freely to all. The affable sharing and camaraderie of reaching out to all that he meets and listening to see what he can give back to you.

While I was busy with my young person's life in Milwaukee, TK and my Mom were making a life together in a little brick house close to downtown Kokomo. This was a magical red brick cottage where TK set to the handyman role to keep my Mom busy with all manner of painting, home improvements and crafts.

TK started his career working the line at our local Chrysler transmission plant in Kokomo. At some point of reaching into a machine to pull out a part, he found himself seeking any way to pull away from life as a machine; and so he moved to a position as a groundskeeper. This was in TK's wheelhouse. To serve. To simply pitch in and do the things that the people of the factory needed to keep doing their business. [Some among you will remember Captain Jean-Luc Picard talking about the best teacher at Starfleet--Boothby the Groundskeeper. TK was my Boothby, he is one of the great sages of my life.

Mom and T moved to Mom's hometown of French Lick Indiana shortly after I moved to Oregon to make a life in the West. They found a great little house on the edge of town. Mom soon had it packed to the gills with antiques and art projects. TK saw to it that the honey do list was taken care of and that the antiques kept moving like a glacier.

TK took to French Lick like a pig to a sty. The sty liked him too. He was one of them--or one of their best. He was simply a stand up guy who wasn't there to impress or take advantage of them. The bass boat crowd rolled in when Patoka Lake was built, but TK and his brother--in law and temperament Junior Raschee mostly ignored the showboat crappie (largemouth bass) for the regular crappie and his bluegill brethren.

I have logged many hours with this pair, on the bank and in the jon boat, from the skunking, to the little pesky bail steelers, to epic days with a full bucket of panfish.

Over the years Ma and Pa Kendall's home became a sanctuary for family and friends. All manner of people living in stress filled lives in the faster world dropped in for some quality time rocking on the porch. This thin strip of real estate looking out over downtown French Lick, with decaying Americana to the right, an old Catholic steeple in front, and a deer filled Indiana woodland just past the patch of yard to the left, contained the essence of a gazing pool for the soul.

Countless moments more precious than any in life were recorded on this porch with Papaw T helping and enjoying the lives of children, grandchildren, and all souls in need of a professional listener. Summer storms rolling through with purposeful winds rang the chimes on the heaven that TK was the caretaker of.

One of the great honors of my life came at a strange "Bucket List" request from my fishin' buddy TK when he travelled out for a visit to the Pacific Northwest. He said that he would like me to accompany him to tour the Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. I really don't know the full story, but TK had attended this school back in the 50's on a baseball scholarship. It is an all too familiar story of dreams of a leg up from a lucky break getting cancelled by family responsibilities.

TK and I packed the truck and rolled out interstate 84 on a ten-hour drive through the beautiful Columbia Gorge, the Blue Mountains, the Snake River canyon and through the strange irrigated green zone that is Southwest Idaho. (Seriously, Google Map that area. It will blow your mind how the satellite image of this region shows how we harness the water of the Snake to green entire regions). We toured NW Nazarene like strange awkward Japanese tourists on a crisp fall morning during student registration. TK and I wandered around talking to extremely nice and puzzled people telling our story and snapping a few photos here and there.

The Nazarene excursion culminated on a stealing of all of the bases on the ball field. In an unadulterated, Ring Lardner love of the game moment, we took a drink of this empty baseball field. We snapped a few photos and felt the unfolding of a pitch--the honest deceit of a finger whipping at the seam of a baseball to waltz it past a dumbfounded man with a stick.

We lit out of Nampa a little after noon and drove back over the border to pitch a tent at Owyhee Reservoir. We pitched spinners until dark pulling in smallmouth while sitting on volcanic rock piles like it was a mythical gift from God that was as easy as reaching out to catch a raindrop. Wait, I'm tellin' it wrong. TK was not catching many fish. He was perched on a rock--not catching fish. He was meditating on the endless paths that one's life can take with only a slight perturbation that I was in a sacred zone of scooping up gifts from God.

Our trip home to Portland was no less strange and slightly more Odessian in nature. We opted to follow the back way home -- the longest way that one can take without mounting a horse. We traversed Oregon on the reliable and windy highway 26. TK and I hail from a Midwestern home with another highway 26 that has its own stories to tell, but this strip of asphalt carries its passengers from a great slice in the land caused by the Snake River to the majestic Oregon coast. The terrain crossed by this road is nearly as diverse as the entirety of this great continent.

We snaked our way through forgotten dusty farmlands and authentic cowboy diners into picturesque green valleys and a hundred small towns where TK, his mustache and his smile were familiar and beloved reminders to people we encountered of who they had been and who they wanted to remain.

As we approached Mount Hood, the landscape switched to big Ponderosa Pine and then to towering Doug Fir as we hit the home stretch into Portland. We were both too tired from the drive to take in the scenery at this point, but both of us would point at promising riffles in the streams that we passed.

Now my friend has passed away. This great listener and Zen master will not be around to give that great gift of peace to me or the many people who were made better by it. TK did not play by the rules at the end of his journey. He went to his wake--in a Grateful Dead Shirt--and refused the post mortem somber affair that Christendom demands. Again, that is my mentor.

Like many in my tribe, I am sad. When I try to sew something useful from my despair, I come up with emulation and sharing what he gave me. Your bratty kids will not have the same level of patience shown that he could, and I will not be able to maintain focus if your story becomes tiresome, but I will be an instigator of sharing time in leisure. This, I can offer.

See you on the water friends.