When I started this newsletter, it was neither my aim, nor my intention, to make a habit of writing about death. It’s well down on my list of favorite topics, even lower than UFC and entitled rich people. But let’s face it: death happens and it doesn’t often give us much notice. So here I am, days after posting about the passing of Carl Erskine, star big-league pitcher and an even better human being, circling back to share a few thoughts about another person who has departed. Her obit didn’t run in The New York Times, but that has no bearing on the special place I have in my heart for her.
Her name was Carol Voss Beers. She died at age 92 in Farmington, Connecticut after a short illness earlier this month. Her son, John, has been a dear friend since we were five years old. If I have an older friend, I don’t know who he or she might be.
Journalism – my line of work for decades - tends to be an informal, first-name business. As a 22-year-old intern with the Associated Press in Cleveland, I didn’t give a thought to calling my boss “Neil,” even though he was probably 40 years older than I was. A colleague in the bureau who was 50 years my senior was “Bob,” right from our first handshake. But Carol Beers, mother of Joanne, John and Linda, will never be anything to me but Mrs. Beers. That’s what I called her when I was six, and when I was 36 and when I was 56. It was the same with all of my friends’ mothers. The idea of calling Mrs. Neumeyer, literally the mother next door, Christine, was unimaginable. Mrs. Young could never be Lynne, Mrs. Beighlie Shirley, Mrs. Crawford Eleanor, Mrs. Roman Gloria or Mrs. Herman Ginny. Would I ever knock on the door of the Hansen home and say, “Hey, Ruth, can David come and play?” No, I would not. A few doors down from David, on Godfrey Lane, was my pal Paul Cuerou’s house. When his parents were on his case about something, Paul would often talk about how “Tom and Flo are busting my chops,” so we would take his cue and refer to them that way, too, but never to their face, of course. As close as I got to informality was with Mrs. Williams, who we all knew as Mrs. Willo. Her sons were Big Willo (Bob) and Little Willo (Bill), so there really was no other option.
I spent more time at the Beers house – 41 Bunkerhill Drive, Huntington, New York – than any place else as a kid. Mr. Beers – a Princeton-educated engineer who built the first color television I ever watched – was the strictest father in the neighborhood. Very good-hearted, but stern. You didn’t mess around with Mr. Beers. Mrs. Beers called him the “High Command.” If John was misbehaving (often because I instigated something), Mrs. Beers would say, “Johnny, you are going to get it when the High Command gets home!” And more often than not, Johnny did get it.
The Beers loved their dogs and cats, and their musical instruments. They were an incredibly musical family. Everybody played an instrument or three. John was a music major at Princeton and still plays the trombone in an orchestra. Linda is a professional violinist. Everyone in the Beers family could play by ear. For a tone-deaf person whose musical career began and ended producing ghastly sounds from a trumpet in 4th grade, and dropping it way too often, I viewed this as nothing short of magic.
Mrs. Beers – along with Mrs. Willo – was one of the den mothers of our Cub Scout troop. We were Den 10 in Pack 241. We had a lot of fun but did not bring much glory to Cub Scouting. Mostly we fooled around and threw M & M’s and popcorn and exasperated our den mothers. Sadly, I was one of the ringleaders of the mischief, and not just during Cub Scouts. Once John – who we all called Bocca for reasons that remain unclear – and I were in the basement when we found some of Joanne’s old dolls, all of them undressed. Bocca and I decided it would be fun to dismember them, limb by limb, since they were no longer in circulation. It’s not as sadistic as it probably sounds, but Mrs. Beers wasn’t happy when she came downstairs and saw a pile of doll arms and doll legs and doll torsos. Mrs. Beers scolded me, very appropriately, for my role in the activities, but she didn’t lose it, which she certainly could’ve done. I am sure Johnny got it when the High Command got home.
Mrs. Beers could be hard, and sometimes acerbic, with her kids, but she was always a soft touch with me. She brought me along everywhere the family would go – the Bronx Zoo, Jones Beach, their favorite restaurant in Northport, always in her big blue Buick station wagon. In the pre-seat belt era, Bocca and I and his cousins, Ritchie and Billy, would be rolling around in the back like bowling balls. The first time I ever went fishing was on the Beers’ boat in the Long Island Sound. I caught nine flounder and thought that was what always happened when you fished.
“You are a born fisherman,” Mrs. Beers said.
One thing I admired most about Mrs. Beers is that she wasn’t off the suburban housewife assembly line. She started her higher education at Pembroke College at Brown University, and after getting married, got her associate’s degree from Hartford College for Women. She raised her family and then resumed her education, along with her beloved sister, Linnie, getting a B.A. and M.A. from SUNY Stony Brook. (Linnie was always Linnie, never Mrs. Spehr. I can’t tell you why.) Mrs. Beers and Linnie were the closest of sisters, for their entire lives. The love they had for one another could fill a whole room, and often did. When they continued their studies together at paralegal school, nobody was surprised. Mrs. Beers enrolled in St. John’s and got her law degree in 1988. She was 57. She and Linnie joined a firm in Bay Shore and practiced family law for years.
My warmest memory of Mrs. Beers dates to the night of my first sleepover. It’s an important and sometimes anxiety-provoking rite of childhood passage for most kids, but for me it was especially fraught, because I occasionally had issues with wetting the bed. I was 5 or 6, I think, and should’ve outgrown that problem by then. I was embarrassed about it. Anyway, my mother spoke to Mrs. Beers, and when I arrived with my overnight bag, Mrs. Beers took me aside. We were in Bocca’s room, but he wasn’t there. I was sitting on the bed and she bent down so she was eye level with me.
“Wayne, I just want you to know that your mother and I talked and you have nothing to worry about,” Mrs. Beers said. “Everything is going to be fine. I’ve got a plastic sheet on the bed just in case, but I am sure you aren’t going to need it. I’m glad you and Johnny are having a sleepover. It’s all going to be fine.”
“Thank you,” I said. I wanted to hug her. I was so relieved, not just because of the crux of her message, but the way she delivered it. I was even more relieved when I woke up to a dry bed. The Beers had a unique way of starting the day. They had an intercom system in all the bedrooms, and first thing in the morning, Mr. Beers would come over it. “Good morning, Johnny! Good morning, Wayne!” he said in a perky, raspy voice. For breakfast, Mr. Beers made his specialty – girl-scout eggs – a piece of bread with a hole in the center and four pieces of cooked bacon around the edges. He’d drop an egg in the hole, give it a minute and flip it. It was a great breakfast, and an even better sleepover. I never wet the bed again. Mrs. Beers had given me a wonderful gift: complete peace of mind. She was right. There was nothing to worry about.
I realize that I am quite biased, but I love this piece, and I know my mother would, too. She adored you. ♥️
Very nice! It was a great neighborhood to grow up in. Lots of lifelong friendships.