THINKING ABOUT HAL (AND SMILING)

Look up FOMO in the dictionary, and you’ll see Hal’s picture.

Asheville, North Carolina. May 2018:  Our oldest son Matt’s wedding.  Three days brimming with activities, culminating with the Saturday ceremony and celebration.  And then, of course, the after-party at Wicked Weed Brewing.  And the after-after ad hoc brew crawl.  But there’s more.  As the Burial Beer Co. was closing down at 2AM, and the revelers began drifting back to the Aloft Asheville Downtown Hotel, youngest son Robby asked if anyone was up for one more bar.  And the next morning we learned that he’d found one.  I can’t remember, these seven years later, the name of the bar he closed down at 4AM — but I do remember the name of his partner in this late-night/early-morning escapade: Hal.

What a surprise.

There was no hint of fun Hal ever wanted to miss.  No lively group he didn’t want to be part of.  Nothing on earth he didn’t want to learn more about.  Nothing new that he didn’t want to try.

Hal and I shared a lot of passions, but our approach to them was different.  Once I was really into something, I didn’t want to mess with it.  Fair to say, I suppose, that I’d become set in my ways.  Hal was much more experimental.  He always wanted to tinker.  To do it different.  To make it — if possible — even better.

We did a ton of ski trips together.  Hal was an excellent skier.  But when the cool kids started switching to snowboarding, Hal couldn’t resist.  He tried it.  And became very good at it.  So good that he became a snowboard instructor at Okemo, in Vermont.  Did it for over 20 years.  I was still skiing, of course.  At one point Hal said to me, “You’re a good skier.  Give me one weekend, and I’ll have you snowboarding like a pro.”  I looked at him like he was crazy.  “Are you kidding?” I said.  “No way I want to spend the whole weekend on my ass!”  Hal’s look told me he thought I was just being Stubborn Hank, missing out on something good.  “Suit yourself,” he said.

We both loved Bourbon.  I like mine neat.  Give me a nice, generous pour of Buffalo Trace — no ice, no mix, no nothing — and I’m a happy man.  Hal would always want to shake things up.  Maybe he’d offer me a glass from a brand-new distillery.  Try to get me to drink it with an over-sized cube.  Recently he developed a hankering for an Old Fashioned — traditionally, Bourbon mixed with sugar, bitters, and garnished with an orange peel.  Hal being Hal, he, of course, toyed with the basic formula, sweetening the pot with maple sugar.  Offered me his new concoction.  “You know I don’t really like mixed drinks,” I said.  Again, the pursed lips, the shake of the

head from Hal.  I knew exactly what he thinking: How can you not even give it a try?

Hal’s interests were all over the ballpark.  His kids, of course — Greg and Maddy.  Traveling the world with wife Carole.  Sports (Mets-Jets-Islanders-Knicks).  Politics.  Cars — and motorcycles.  Dogs (Frankie-Canyon-Roxy).  The New York Times crossword puzzle.  But ask any of his close friends about his Number One interest, and they’d say music.  All music.  To listen to.  To play, on his Rickenbacker bass guitar — first in college, then 40 years later with his beloved band, The Clams.  To enjoy it live at a concert.  For Hal, hearing a good, local garage band at a festive outdoor setting with a bunch of buddies was heaven.  On a Saturday last August, he wanted us to join him at Porchfest in nearby Black Rock to hear not-quite-household-name bands like Dingus, Parks and The Wreck, Cougar Slayer, and Zambonis + Coveralls.  “Hal,” I reminded him, “we’re out in Montauk. We’re 150 miles away!”  He

didn’t see this as a good excuse.

Though I’ve described Hal as a Renaissance man, always growing and evolving, there were, even for him, a few things that had to be just so . . .

Montauk, Long Island, July 2011:  Though Hal cared abundantly about all his food and drink, few things were more important than his Sunday morning bagel.  On the particular Sunday in question (with Hal and Carole visiting us at our beach house), while most of us were happy to settle for whatever we could find in the fridge at the end of a long weekend, Hal was on a mission.  He went and purchased his bagels from Goldberg’s (nearby), but they didn’t have the particular cream cheese he wanted.  So he drove to Cavaniola’s Gourmet in Amagansett Square (only about five miles from Goldberg’s) and found what he was after — but he still needed the lox . . . and God knows what other special ingredients.  Next stop: Citarella in East Hampton (another three miles or so).  Bingo!  Back to the house.  Put it all together on the kitchen counter.  Perfection!  Leave the counter for just one second to let the rest of us, out

on the deck, know that he’d be joining us momentarily.  And then . . . a blood-curdling yell that could be heard at least three houses down the beach.  Ricky, my Beagle, had snagged Hal’s bagel from the counter top and was snarfing it down.  The bagel that had only taken Hal all morning to put together.  If you think fun-seeking, good-natured, dog-loving Hal didn’t have a temper, think again.

Long before Hal developed the cancer that took his life last week, he had an Achilles heel: his Achilles heel.  He tore it while pitching in a big wiffle ball game in Vermont.  But that wasn’t the first time.  Oh no. the first time was while we were playing our Sunday morning three-on-three basketball game on the Greens Farms Academy blacktop court.  Hal went up for a rebound and came down on another player’s foot.  I can still see it now — Hal rolling around in the grass alongside the court, clutching his lower leg.  We all tried to convince him it was a high ankle sprain, that he’d be all right, so that the game could continue — but he was truly in agony.  So we switched to playing two-on-two, with one man rotating out.  Hal was on his own.  Ask me how guilty I feel now that we allowed him to drive himself home in his stick shift Miata with a floppy foot that turned out to be a torn Achilles!!!

Hal and I shared two other passions that gave us considerably less joy, and considerably more angst, than skiing, bourbon, and

music:  The Mets, and the Jets.  Every Sunday afternoon we’d text each other constantly, mostly cursing, as the Jets would find yet another way to blow a game.  (At this writing they’ve won two and lost nine.)  I’m glad he’s at peace now and won’t have to keep suffering along with the rest of us loyal (insane?) Jets fans — though I’ll still probably text him out of habit.  If there’s any justice, things in heaven will be flipped just enough so that the Mets will win the World Series for the first time since 1986, when Hal and I went to several of those games together, both in New York and Boston.  And the Jets will be Super Bowl champs every year.

Hal Fass

1957-2025

“Press on regardless” 

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