Wednesdays With Wes

Wednesdays With Wes

Noel Laflin

5-7-19

For Paula

When I was a much younger man I would spend Wednesday mornings in Leisure World with old Wes Klusman and his wife, Gertrude. They were wonderful mornings, as Gertrude would whip up pancakes, bacon, eggs, juice, coffee – the works.  In hindsight, as with time spent with my own parents and other beloved elders, the only thing missing was a portable tape recorder.  Oh, Jesus, how I wish I had brought a tape recorder and a pocketful of cassettes.

They was supposed to be working breakfasts between the eighty-year-old volunteer Scouter and the young, cocky professional -  but would, with just a little prodding from me, turn into story time – Wes’ stories about meeting Gertrude as they picked fruit together in the World War I era – their courtship, marriage, the starting of a family; what California was like at that time; how Wes became a shaker and mover of the early national Boy Scout movement taking place in the United States –  what Dan Beard was like - how Wes loved to sing and went on to write the official songbook for the BSA; how he formed a national troop to take to the 1937 World Scout Jamboree in the Netherlands, but scrapped the trip when it was learned that they would be traveling through Germany en route to the event and feared for the well being of one of their Scouts, as he was Jewish.

The stories went on like this for nearly fifty Wednesdays.  Then one warm Sunday morning Wes bent over to tie his shoe laces and died of a massive heart attack before he even hit the carpet of his bedroom.  He was getting ready for church, according to Gertrude.

Not a bad way to go out, I have often thought.

And if I had been thinking back then, I would have brought a tape recorder to every one of those breakfast meetings. I have no recollection of what we spoke of regarding the business end of things, but oh, how I loved the stories. I only wish now that I had the narrative of Wes’ voice – and maybe a song or two – to refresh my memory.