"So Now You Know"
"Thank you Lisa for the honor and privilege to speak here today. Lisa is my longest running friend…we went to nursery school together. Erica, Ryan Michael, Jay Sara and David, thank you for allowing me this. I was proud to know your dad.
I’ve had a lot of best friends in my life. In my old age now I think back on all of them regularly, and when I do Larry always comes out at the top of the list. If best friends can be ranked, Larry ranks best best friend. Not many people have been as close to me as Larry and Lisa, and I never liked a man as much as I liked Larry Allen.
I remember the first time Larry and I bonded. We sat on the hood of my car on graduation night and talked about what we would do now that we were out of school. I was going to be a chef. Larry was going to do art. Over the years Larry and I would check in with each other, and congratulate ourselves we were still doing what we said we were going to do.
I haven’t cheffed professionally in years now. But I want you to know the last time I saw Larry, just a few weeks ago, it was at an art studio in downtown Fort Worth called Dang Good Candy. The exhibit was titled “Larry Allen: A retrospective”. The gallery was filled with Larry's artwork, and also a life time of his friends. His pieces were professionally displayed, with captions, descriptions and details of the provenance of the particular pieces. Tip o’ the hat Larry, still doing art.
Larry said later it was the greatest night of his life. Most of y’all were there, and I was amazed by the sweet sweet spirit in the place. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life as well, to see this tribute to my good friend.
Some of you may have been unfortunate enough to be cornered by me to view the portrait of the old man Larry had gifted me long ago. I held people hostage to read the story and poem that I associate with the portrait. It was only a lack of vanity that kept me from taking the portrait down from the wall and making them read the inscription on the back Larry had written 28 years before. The inscription reads:
"In life, there are people who affect the way you see the world, not by what is said, more in how they assist in one’s illuminations of what is; those people are friends. I am grateful, as well as a better man, for your friendship.”
This inscription probably says more about Larry than it does about me.
The Old man is one of my most prized possessions. I told Larry that night that if he ever wanted it back he would have to fight me for it. From his chair Larry gave me his biggest smile, and put up his dukes.
A few months after high school there is a story that I cant tell here that earned me the first Larry Allen raised eyebrow I had ever seen. Y’all know the eyebrow, yes?
A few years later Larry and I went to the HOP. I taught him how to drink Peach Brandy. Then to the Old South for Dutch Babies, and back to my place where we unwrapped Waiting For Columbus, littlefeats latest release in 1978. Larry fell in love with Dixie Chicken, and the album became a mainstay of gatherings and parties among our peers.
The day after Erica was born Larry and I went to dinner. He told me all about what it meant to be a father, and reminded me that soon I would be a member of the club.
Back about ’94 Larry bought a house. Larry spent a month preparing for the move and I helped. It would be the most organized move ever. He had shrink wrap, stretch wrap, bubble wrap and boxes. His boxes were meticulously labeled. You know Larry could not make a check mark without it being a work of art. Shoot, he couldn’t request Dixie Chicken at a Buddy show on a cocktail napkin without it being a work of art. We saw that at his retrospective, cocktails napkins saved through the years with Larry's artful requests.
I'm going to cut to the chase here. On the day of the move the movers came. The the house sale fell thru. Somehow a rent house was located and movers were redirected. By 4 O'clock that afternoon I would have helped Larry move TWICE. But it wasn’t over yet because when Larry finally saw the rent house, he said “This place is a dump, I’m not letting my family stay here”
Well, we sat and had a discussion for the next hour about what to do.
At some point I said “I tell you what we could do Larry. We can move all your stuff into my garage and onto my back porch. We'll put pallets up for our kids to sleep on. Y’all can stay with us until you figure out what to do”
And do you know what?
That’s exactly what we did.
All night that night we moved Larry's stuff into my house. We finished up about 8 the next morning, both a bit punchy. I said “Larry, you couldn’t have planned this more perfectly; you paid movers to move all your worldly possession's to two different locations, then all night long we moved them all to my house. And right now our kids are sleeping on pallets in my house, and all is right with the world.”
I asked Erica if she remembered this. She said she did not. Of course she didn’t …it was just part of the grand adventure.
Two weeks later a group of friends loaded a U-haul in my driveway with Larry's stuff. He had determined to move to Florida. There was Gary, and Bill and Jeff maybe, Billy Baker and Curtiss Pilcher (Hey guys). They got the truck all loaded, and I noticed Larry frantically looking through his well marked boxes. He pulled one off the truck and took it into my living room. He was being kind of furtive about the whole thing, but at some point I knew what he was doing. I went and took a shower while everyone sat in my drive way. I stood in the shower and I cried. Partly because Larry was moving away, and partly because I knew that Larry was about to gift me the portrait of the old man.
So now you know. So now you know part of the story of the Old man that is seldom told.
There are people that help illuminate for you what is. Not by what they say, but more but what they do. Larry was that kind of friend to me. Our friendship wasn’t based on self improvement, for the self or the other. I don’t recall we ever gave or sought each others advice. But just by virtue of the companionship, we appealed to the larger parts of each other; the smaller parts of ourselves diminished, not from critique but from participation as a witness to each other on a journey that cant be taken alone.
I’ve been struck by pictures I’ve seen of Larry the last year. Handsome with a beaming smile, but ravaged from his disease. I see him at the farm, on the beach, home with family. And always that beaming smile. Larry didn’t want to go. He didnt want to go because he loved you guys so much.
I’d said earlier that he couldn’t have planned that disaster of a move more perfectly. But I was wrong. In addition to Erica, Ryan and Michael on pallets, we could have had Jay, Sara and David as well. And there was no way we could have known that that would come later."
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This is what I wrote for Larry's servce in its entirety. I did not read it for the service, I just wanted to tell it. A lot of it fell off as I spoke, including the last two paragraphs. The description of our friendship seemed a perfect place to end it.
I never liked a man as much as I liked Larry Allen.
