Monthly Archives: May 2019

My Best Friend Died on Sunday (May 2019)

5 Replies
“Touchdown Mikey” visits “Touchdown Jesus” at Notre Dame

Mike Busch’s funeral service was held on Tuesday April 16th.  Below is a complete video of that service.  I was one of several eulogists.  This post repeats several items from that eulogy (0:57:54 minutes to 1:12:02 minutes in the video).  Mike and his wife Cindy were married for 25 years and their daughters, Erin and Megan stole the show (1:31:16 minutes to 1:37:22 minutes). https://bit.ly/2IBPeOy

On Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 3:22 p.m. (EDT), my best friend, Michael Erin Busch, died.  Flags in Maryland were lowered to half-mast as he was the longest serving Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates and a formidable, respected and well-liked political leader.

We have been friends since 1986 and weekly golfing partners where we fought over a two dollar Nassau bet as if it were a fish caught between two cats.  We referred to that bet as the “death match” and, for us, no other bet in the golf foresome really mattered. 

I called him “Mikey”

The rest of the world called him Mike or, more often, “Mr. Speaker” as he had presided over the Maryland House of Delegates for 17 years.  Years ago, a political opponent said about a Maryland governor that “he was like a baboon because the higher he went up the political tree the more you saw of his ass”.  When I mentioned this to Mikey, he replied, that this was not the case with him.  He said the higher he went in politics the better looking and the smarter he became or so he was repeatedly told by lobbyists preening for his favor:  “Delegate Busch, then Chairman Busch, then Speaker Busch, you are the ONLY ONE in the legislature who understands this particular issue, this particular industry or the need for this particular bill.”

One of H. L. Mencken’s more memorable quotes was about politicians:  “A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”  Mencken never met Mikey who was not only a “good” politician but a great one and, boy, could he count, probably a leftover from when he doubled his starting teacher’s salary at weekend poker games (see Andrew Green’s remembrance in the Baltimore Sun: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-0408-mike-busch-20190407-story.html). 

For 17 years he presided over the fractious 141 member Maryland House of Delegates.  He led them through contentious debates on same sex marriage, death penalty repeal, numerous bills aimed at affordable health care, casino gambling, and countless mundane matters, all the while presiding with good humor and openness to all. 

Mikey was appalled by greed and self-dealing, both of which regularly reared their ugly heads in legislative proposals.  Perhaps the clearest example of this occurred when he was Chair of the House Economic Matters Committee.  The executives of CareFirst (Maryland Blue Cross and Blue Shield) proposed to take this “nonprofit” company public and to sell it to a California “for profit” insurance company.  The real winners in the proposal:  the executives themselves.  CareFirst executives had lobbied this proposal well with the Governor and the Presiding Officers of the Legislature having given their “thumbs up.” 

The hearing in the Senate Finance Committee could not have gone better for the CareFirst CEO who stood to cash in to the tune of $34 million.  The hearing in Mikey’s Committee did not go so well for CareFirst.  Not only were the executive payoffs questioned, but the issue became whether it was a sensible idea for the Maryland healthcare market to be determined in California.  Mikey alone was savvy enough to organize outside lobbying groups against the proposal and with the help of a number of senators was able to turn the predetermined tide.

The final result:  the CareFirst proposal was turned down; the CareFirst Board was reconstituted and it remains today a Maryland not-for-profit health insurer subject to the General Assembly and Maryland’s regulators.

Mikey was both funny and gregarious

One summer, I had a “Midsummer Night’s Dream Party” in which invitees were asked to repeat some portion of Shakespeare’s play.  When Mikey’s turn came, he declaimed one of the famous soliloquies from that play:

“The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day / The score stood 4-2 with one inning to play / Then when Kearney died at first and Barrows did the same / A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.”

13 stanzas later, Mikey delivered the final line: “but there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.” 

Too often to remember, my befuddled secretaries would interrupt a meeting saying things like “Jay, Joe Bagadonuts is on the line, says he is a new client and he’s about to be arrested and he must talk to you” or “Jay, Knute Rockne called but he wouldn’t leave a number, he said you had it.”

What makes a “best friend”?

I have a fair share of close friends but only 2 “best friends”, Mikey being one and a college classmate being the other.  I think Mikey had probably four or five “best friends”.  Typically, you and your best friend share a social and professional life together.

And, it seems that one has various “best friends” at various stages in their life.  For example, my best friend in grade school calls me on my birthday every year and I try to call him on his (just to keep up) but I have only seen him four or five times in the last 50 some years.  My best friend in high school died of AIDs at age 43, almost 30 years ago, and we lost touch almost immediately after our high school graduation when we went to different colleges and then different lives.

I do know one thing for certain.  When your best friend leaves, there is a hole in your own life which he or she once occupied.  Even after the grieving stops, that hole will remain as telephone calls will not be made, lunches not attended, jokes and pranks not shared, old stories not told and retold.  And so as we grow older and lose family members, friends and “best friends,” we realize ‒ in the words of Mary Oliver ‒ “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”

Bucket List

Mikey’s “bucket list” included a trip to South Bend for the Temple/Notre Dame game.  Temple was his alma mater where he had been a star football player  and Notre Dame was mine where I watched the games from the stands.  Temple played extremely well, satisfying Mike, and Notre Dame played slightly better, satisfying me.  Otherwise, it would’ve been a very, very long ride home listening to him sing, and off key, the Temple fight song over and over again.  I am quite sure that, if he knew all 13 stanzas of “Casey at the Bat,” he could more than muddle through the Temple fight song.

The second “bucket list” item was to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  On the Wednesday before he died, he told me that, once he was out of the hospital, we were going to Cooperstown.  This is not to be.

So Mikey, in the language of the Church when both of us were baptized 72 years ago, “Requiescat In Pace”.

But, too soon, Mikey, too soon.

Other People, Other Places (May 2019)

5 Replies

This post was originally written in October 1967, a few days after my grandfather died.  It appeared in the Notre Dame student newspaper, The Observer.

The only word for the old man was “amazing.”  A product of the fish markets of Baltimore, he had voted for Al Smith in ’28, Roosevelt in ’32, and supported Joe McCarthy in ’54.  He had taken his wife and six kids through the Depression in good style and yet was unable to figure out his income tax.  He loved the Orioles, despaired with the Senators, and carried on a love affair with Lord Calvert whiskey for the last 30 years.  We had always called him Pop.

Pop finished third grade and then his education started.  When asked what he did, Pop would say he was a “nipulator” – his fractured version of “manipulator” – meaning that he did whatever he had to do to make a living. 

There is often a tryst that develops between grandfather and eldest grandson.  Sometimes they share the same cigarettes and the same liquor by the time that grandson reaches the age of 17.  That’s the way it was between Pop and me.  For the last three years we had always puffed and sipped in the bedroom discreetly out of sight of all relatives.  Off and on at every Christmas and Easter we had been secret companions.  Pop had brought the Lord Calvert and I contributed the forbidden Winstons. 

I suppose that the head of every dynasty is toasted and feted for his wisdom and love.  Pop was like this too but there was something different.  I think everyone believed that there was something a bit satanic about the old guy and perhaps that’s what made him so human and so good.

Pop had loved the good Catholic from New York in ’28 and had probably voted for him five times.  But Smith lost and forgot to take Pop with him.  Pop lived in Washington and Mr. Hoover was now in the Capital City and Mr. Hoover’s friends were coming to see his inauguration.  Come March and the old man was in the taxi service for the grand swear in.  Mr. Hoover’s friends streamed into Union Station and Pop was ready and willing.  “To the Willard, you despicable cur” and to the Willard they went, sort of.  The grand old hotel of the cosmopolitans sat on one side of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Pop would let one of his charges out on the other side, bid them a fond farewell, take their Republican money, and utter a salutation to the President elect.  All that they had to do was pick up their valises and trot across the street.

That act is a virtual impossibility when the new man comes to town; to cross Penn Ave. takes the guts of a Kamikaze, the strength of a work horse, and the daring of a Tennessee rum runner.  The old man would look at them with a twinkle in his eye and wish them a hasty death as he sped back to Union Station.

After Mother died less than a year ago Pop had gone downhill.  He had to be put in a home and everyone was about to give up his spirit.  But Pop still had a lot of fight in him.  He demanded release.  My own father, worried after a 3 a.m. phone call, had gone to rescue him.  He found the wily old codger at the front door with his suitcase, attired in his pin stripe suit with that impeccable diamond stick pin.  As he walked toward him the old man had fainted into his arms, frantically murmuring that he had to leave.  Halfway home Pop had sat up, lit a Winston, and inquired whether he was a good actor.  That’s just the way he was.

A couple of days ago Pop was rushed to the hospital.  They thought he was dead in the afternoon but by 6 p.m. he was up and at them.  He was ready to leave.  At 9:25 the next morning Pop was dead, victim of a massive coronary attack.  Over the weekend the old man was laid out and buried from his parish church in the Southwest section of the city that he had known, loved and “nipulated.”  Pop had gone to other people and other places.