Through the past brightly
Next month, my son, Michael, will be moving back to California after spending the past two and a half years with us. It was a gift and a blessing to have him here with us during the whole COVID horror show.
“Dad, let me carry those bags of salt downstairs.”
“Mom, let me take that trash out.”
And so on.
One of the things I’ll miss the most following Michael’s departure— besides everything— will be our music-listening sessions. He and I are both huge music freaks and our favorite listening format is vinyl.
For me, this has nothing to do with the recent revival in vinyl popularity and everything to do with my massive record collection, stretching back to 1964. Popular music, in the form of folk, jazz and rock and roll has always maintained a high degree of importance in the lives of many members of my generation. My son grew up with my collection with predictable results.
I was in Mt. Pleasant’s New Moon records twenty-something years ago when the owner told me, “Your wife and son were in here yesterday. We don’t get many 12-year-olds looking for ‘Robert Johnson: King of the Delta Blues.’”
“That’s my boy.”
On our “music nights,” we’ll each select a record from our respective collections and listen to each, in silent appreciation. Just like my friends and I used to do 50 years ago.
I don’t like to begin a column on a sad note, so I didn’t, but unfortunately we have to finish on one. Earlier this week, Deb and I were shocked and saddened to learn that our friend, lifelong Remus resident and businessman, Bill Lipar had passed away on May 16, just a week shy of his 68th birthday.
For the past 38 years, Bill owned and operated the venerable and beloved Remus Tavern which his father had opened shortly after the Dawn of Time. I met Bill just after Deb and I moved back from Northern California and bought a farm just a few miles east of town.
I got to know Bill even better when he called me at home to compliment me on something I’d written in one of my old Random Trails columns. I don’t recall what I was writing about but evidently Bill approved and he was not one to keep his opinion a secret. Whenever Deb and I stopped into the Tavern for dinner, we could always count on a visit to our table and a friendly chat with Bill.
Bill was a hard worker and a genial host who constantly worked to improve the tavern in particular and Remus in general. He redecorated and expanded the Tavern. He was an enthusiastic hockey fan and the walls o the Tavern resembled a Red Wings museum.
A couple years ago, Bill improved main street by demolishing some disintegrating architecture in town, installing additional restaurant parking, and making the space available for a local farmers’ market. He was an inveterate booster who was proud to be from Remus.
While I was writing this, Deb reminded me of the time she and her mom were spackling the ceiling in our rental property across the street from the Tavern. It was a sweltering summer day and the girls decided to run over to Bill’s for a couple cold Cokes.
“Bill served us himself and when he saw all the white dust in our hair and on our faces, he laughed and laughed.”
A visitation will take place Sunday, May 22, from 2-5 p.m. at Janowicz Family Funeral Home in Remus and. a mass at Saint Michael’s Catholic Church will be held Monday, May 23, at 11 a.m. Bill’s family will receive relatives and friends one hour prior to the service, and a luncheon will be held in the Parish Hall after the service.
All of us who call Remus home are richer for having
Bill Lipar in our lives and the poorer for his passing. Deb and I wish to express our profound condolences to Bill’s family and his many friends.
And so it went.