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Marlene McIlroy! Who was Marlene McIlroy?
I hate asking thBt>
I rather be askng Who is Marlene Mcilroy.
But we have to stay real.
So Who was Marlene Mcilroy?
Marlene was my very best friend for the past 35 years.
And I can say she was my very best friend throughout
my entire life. How do you properly cover all the assets
in the character of a person you have known for 35 years?
You dont. And I cant. I would be pretending to know
everything about Marlene, which I dont. But I do know a lot
about her fine qualities.
So let me tell you how I came to know & love Marlene over
the past 35 years. To do so, I have to break our relationship
into 3 periods of 5, 10, and 20 years.
The first 5 years I would call OUR ROMANTIC PERIOD.
This was when we did the usual thing of dating.
It was during this time that we did a huge amount of things together:
Going out for dinner, going to movies & plays plays.
Attending social functions.
And then there were the extraordinary & particularly memorable trips:
Campimg out in Bishop & floating the Owens River.
The exotic trips we took to places like:
the Mexican Riveria,
New Zealnd,
and Alaska.
Then we discovered house boating with bridge friends on:
Lake Meade
& Lake Powell.
I could spend hours recalling the details here.
But for the most part you can see the videos of these on this web site.
The next 10 years I wold call OUR FRIENDSHIP PERIOD.
Even though we were not so intimately involved, we continued to
enjoy going to breakfast, followed by walking or biking to the beach.
We worked in real estate & invwsted in a property together.
And of course, a bridge game was always on the plate.
It was during this time that we went on the Rv Trip From Hell.
I am sure many of you have already heard about this fiasco.
For those who dont know about it, I'll just recap it briefly here.
In 1999 I bought a used RV. I had a mechanic check it out before
going anywhere in it. Thinking it was good to go, I invited
Marlene to travel with me to Colorado, followed by going to
YellowStone. She accepted. The first three days appeared to go okay.
We got to Zion Park without any trouble, followed by Bryce Canyon.
It was the 4th day when we got to Colo Springs that things started
to go wrong. Without going into all the details, unsolvable problems
with the RV took us the point of having to terminate the trip.
Marlene flew home, leaving me to bring the RV back home from
Colorado Springs. On my return trip home, I got to an indian town
called Kayenta in the four vorners of Arizona. Fourteen miles beyond,
I found a place to spend the night. Next morning, the RV would not run.
I was so angry that I was willing to leave the RV right then & there.
But there was absolutely no mass transportation to get me home.
I called Marlene to see if she could come get me home.
But she had understandably had her filll & told me "NO WAY JOSE".
I couldnt blame her. She had already been a good sport & through enough.
It was beginning to look like I was going to become a permanent resident
of Kayenta. But then a tow truck arrived coming 200 miles from Flagstaff.
The RV was towed to a gas station where they got it running again.
I drove that RV at 90 mph all the way from Eastern Az to home in 10 hours.
After that episode, Marlene & I made ammends.
We continued our walking, biking & dining out.
And of course we continued to enjoy our unending interest in
bridge which enabled us to make and share a great number of
bridge playing friends who ultimately became our extended family.
Now, for the last 20 years which I call
OUR ENDURING COMPANIONSHIP PERIOD.
This is what I consider to be the most inportant & meaningful of all,
because it is when we really got to know each others true values.
We had far more in common than we had previously realized.
I began to see a strength in Marlene that had never before come to light.
She was a fighter with principles, more than just a pretty face.
And she was willing to sacrifice her own freedom for those principles.
This made me admire her all the more. In addition, it seemed there was
nothing we could not tell each other about ourselves. We understood
well where each other had been emotionly & found the cure. We bonded
accordingly & better than ever. A feeling of complete trust was mutual.
We had healed each other of our terrible respective pasts. That is
what I call "a really important partner,companion and friend".
Oh, and yes, we did finally make it to Yellowstone in my Matrix car on
a fantastic trip to BC & Alberta, Canada in 2011.
But all of this does not describe the incredibly good person that
Marlene was. So again let me ask, "Whow was Marlene McIlroy?
First of all, she was a peace maker.
She could not stand to see people fighting.
But bickering might have been one of her favorite sports.
She recently told me that after bickering with her
mother,they asked each other "Why are we bickering?"
Secondly, Marlene was a very light hearted soul.
It was her light hearted spirit that introduced friends to each other.
And it remains her light hearted spirit, even after passing, that
continues to bring friends together in her memory.
Marlene had her humorous quips.
Who can forget her standard greeting of "HELLOO"?
And how about her "Anybody seen my glasses? STOP LOOKING."?
In talking about finances she would say,
"I got had, but I dont remember enjoying it."
And this one really gave me a chuckle.
"Well there is a man who is really in his element"
as a guy zipped past us in his boxy Honda.
Speaking of cars, who here would be surprized to learn that
Marlene loved Elon Musk and his new Tesla Truck?
I mean I am a nerd, but I never thought Marlene to be one too.
And that brings us to what were some of Marlenes likes?
Let me mention a few:
Being an intellectual person, she love doing puzzles & reading books.
She was a connoisseur of music, loving all kinds of genres.
She loved children & cats.
She loved the movie WICKED naming her black cat EL PHABA.
Her last cat was LITTLE.
And lets not forget SCRUFFY.
Marlene loved people. And people loved Marlene.
Any time I went to a bridge game on my own, people would ask
"Where is Marlene?". If I ever go to another live bridge game,
I will hate answering that question.
She was such a lovable person.
However, there was one time recently when I saw her fierceness
for the first time. We were dining at the Olive Pit in the
patio area & sitting close to an extremely loud woman.
It was very aggravating. We could not even hear ourselves talk.
I wanted to say something to the woman to quiet her.
But before I could, Marlene truned her head toward the woman &
continuously glared at her. It was a look I had never seen before.
The woman quieted down. I thought to myself,
"Boy, Ild hate to be on the receiving end of that glare".
It really cracked me up.
Marlene loved HALOWEEN.
VAMPIRE STEW.
Who does not like Vam[pire Stew?
I believe our first date was in late October of 1990
when we went to a Halloween party.
That was my first taste of her delicious Vampire Stew.
And I think it was then that she conveyed to me some of
her past & that she loved the movie "WAR OF THE ROSES".
Upon hearing that I thought to myself,"Now I can relate to that.
This woman is far too good a person to have her boat rocked".
I have always thought that & never felt like or tried to rock it.
Although there were some times I found myself biting my tongue
during the bidding at bridge. But she was too good a player &
partner to upset the apple cart.
We continued to see each other and enjoy a meal regularly,
right upto her next to last month. As she grew more weak & not
wanting to drive herself, I would drive over to pick her up.
Sometimes I would drive over just to pay her a visit. The last
month I visited with her as she was obviously sufffeing without
showing it. In her old age she was still beautiful and awesome.
So Let me end this by saying
This is the way I felt about her then.
And it is the way I feel about her now.
We met in late October 1990. And she passed away
almost exactly 35 year after our journey began.
I will truly miss her, as will all who knew her.
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