Saturday, May 1, 2021
John was one of my best friends. Going back to late 80’s peddling tomatoes from out of state with his late son John Jr., we had lost another good friend Tommy Monaco from Russo’s farm over on South End. Johnny, as I called him, kinda took me in, and we became really good friends, stumbling and bumbling thru life’s offerings good and bad. With my friend’s backhoe, I helped dig the foundation and also helped the mason construct the concrete block walls. Whew, what a gig! He was a top notch auto mechanic and spent many hours fixing mine and my lady friend’s clunkers up until recently when he kinda just packed it in. He visited me up in VT deer hunting, again with JJr.; we went fishing, and we did some gaming, the ponies at OTB and at the native American attractions. We tried to stay one step away from negative business events and were fairly successful. We laughed, clowned around about politics, state of the economy, people’s crazy disposition to being woke; we reminisced about the way things were back in the day. We spoke almost every other day for years; the expired cellphones attest to it. The younger folks know. Thru thick and thin, he always managed a smile and cared for his family. I’ll miss his telephone update of the daily trivial inertia of things that seemed to matter but really didn’t. It was just somethings going on and in the realm of things, meant nothing. He was my friend. R.I.P John.
Gillette Durkee
