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New Memento mori
I learned on Friday that my old boss GLS—never the top dog here, more’s the pity, but the guy who taught me the ropes in the old International Division back when I was a snotnosed kid—died suddenly about three weeks ago. A contractor/handyman, unable to reach him by telephone to confirm a scheduled meeting, found him on the floor. He appeared to have pegged out the previous day.

GLS, or “The Chief,” as it always pleased him to be called, headed up our steel trade operations for thirty years until his retirement in 1995. He could be an irascible and demanding boss back in the day, but he and I always got along well, and although it was Division practice to move the young journeymen (almost all of us men back then) around to different product lines, assignment to to the steel line was typically greeted by the victim with such plangent wails of despair that when I volunteered to extend my tour each year, management accepted with indecent alacrity. I remained the Chief’s assistant (and presently what amounted to his XO) for five years, until I accepted the “art director” gig now winding through the latter months of its ignoble diminuendo. Interrupted only by a brief chill attendant upon my defection (for he so regarded it, and was exasperated to have to train once again a series of replacements), we remained fast friends. I installed his first computer at home (purchased it for him, now I think of it) and his second, and got him started on the internet years ago. We spoke by phone half a dozen times each month—the last time, as it turns out, just two or three days before the end—and were in regular email contact. I saw him last at Thanksgiving, when the frau and I cooked Mr. and Mrs. GLS a full Thanksgiving meal and brought it over to them in San Francisco.

I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks by the time I learned the news, but I knew that he had his hands full dealing with his wife, whose incipient dementia was lately complicated by slow recovery from a broken hip last year (Mrs GLS is almost ninety). The Chief himself had been lamed by polio in childhood, and was increasingly not equal to the physical demands of caring for even so tiny a woman as Akiko. I had promised to enquire on his behalf about at-home care options: a friend’s wife did this for a living until recently, but they were on vacation until, as it happened, the day I learned of my old comrade’s passing. Akiko was hospitalized when that happened, and is presently in some kind of care facility, about which more in a moment.

Thing is, I’m fairly sure the Chief died without a will or comparable instrument. He had spoken recently about drawing up a will or trust, and was hoping that Mrs. rcareaga (who adored him) might help him to this end. This she declared herself perfectly willing to do, although she recommended that he engage a specialist in estate planning. The Chief, however, was a parsimonious midwestern child of the Depression who, as he himself put it once, inclined to squeeze a nickel until the buffalo shat. In consequence, absent a designated executor or trustee, the authorities have sealed his house (purchased in 1974; presently unencumbered) in the San Francisco hills—the expression “million dollar view” is not here inapt—and he himself is running out the clock in a refrigerated drawer at the county coroner’s office. No arrangements have been made. No one is stepping up to the plate.

Sigh. That appears to leave me.

We made some preliminary, highly general inquiries over the weekend. Lina has consulted some associates conversant with these matters, and this morning has bravely threaded the phone trees of several city offices to glean information on the case. We have discovered, almost by accident, that an acquaintance of ours (a “cordial” acquaintance, natch) is head of Alzheimer’s unit at the facility at which Mrs. GLS presently passes her days (this individual is returning from her own vacation this afternoon). My predecessor as XO from decades ago is married to a woman who has specialized procedural experience that will be helpful in dealing with the bureaucratic machineries of deceased folks.

What concerns me is that the city will assign the liquidation of the dead man’s affairs to a legal scavenger, who will help himself to generous incidental fees and expenses from the estate. There have been many, many examples of this locally: the most egregious ones make the news, but I do not doubt that this class of vultures routinely fatten themselves upon the corpses of the intestate. He leaves no children; had no siblings; his only relatives are a couple of cousins in Missouri to whom he has never been close and to whom he explicitly mentioned to me more than once were to have no share in his estate. His wife, obviously, should be the beneficiary of his assets, and these should be sufficient to maintain her in a high quality of life (if we may so speak of this in connection with senile dementia) for as long as she lives. We are accordingly preparing to apply for conservatorship of his affairs, to liquidate the estate and apply the proceeds to the welfare of the widow. When she is gone, there is a brother still living in Japan, and as far as I’m concerned the remaining funds can go to him.

God, I really don’t need this. But I admired the Chief as much as any man I’ve ever known, and while by the terms of my own belief system he has been absolutely indifferent to this whole raft of issues since moments after his heart ceased to beat, I feel obliged to make sure this is handled properly, and to keep his affairs out of the hands of profiteers. I hope I can.

In the meanwhile (addressing this to the entire roster here, including myself): buckle down and do some estate planning, you lot!

cordially,
New the vulture class usually digs in before death, in the form of state appointees
to folks whom the state declares as unable to manage their own affairs. I'm glad you are there to defend his spouse.
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New You're a good man, RC. Thanks for the story and the reminders.
Condolences to you and Lina, and Akiko.

:-(

Cheers,
Scott.
New Condolences, Rand.
I've had only one boss at IBM that I've visited after he retired. And at that, only once.

You had a gem there.
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
     Memento mori - (rcareaga) - (3)
         the vulture class usually digs in before death, in the form of state appointees - (boxley)
         You're a good man, RC. Thanks for the story and the reminders. - (Another Scott)
         Condolences, Rand. - (a6l6e6x)

Might as well recite a poem in Swahili.
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