Old friend throws an unusual party

Afew months ago I attended a unique event.

George Hinkle, former resident of Davis, hosted his local friends and his relatives from Oregon for a luncheon and music. He has thrown a party like this five times.

Since his death.

I’m using his real name because I think George would be happy to share what he has done. Before his death in 2016 at age 95, he was an active member of this community and even penned regular letters to The Davis Enterprise.

I met him when he moved here in 2005. I was a driver for Road to Recovery, a program of the American Cancer Society that uses volunteers to take patients to their medical appointments. Then in his mid80s, George had recovered from his second or third bout of cancer, but needed rides for checkups. We hit it off and next thing I knew I was taking him for a different kind of ride with me in my inflatable kayak down the Class 2 section of the South Fork of the American River. I wouldn’t do this with just any person over

80, but George was an athlete. He paddled harder than many of my younger guests.

I’m not sure why he chose Davis for his final years, but it was a match made in heaven. In 2009 he wrote, “If my life got any better, I'd be embarrassed.” He volunteered for several nonprofits, including the Cancer Society where he participated in the annual Relay for Life by walking with other cancer survivors and doing a dance performance.

His dancing was a surprise to me, but he explained that he learned tap at 62, around the same time he got hired by cruise ships as a dance partner to women of his generation who were traveling alone. Before that, he had been a barber, a high school teacher and a real- tor. At some point he did well financially and became a regular donor to good causes.

In death, he was even more generous, leaving large bequests to local nonprofits. His gift to his friends is his annual party. The organizer has a list of about 20 people plus partners and children. Usually we’re invited for lunch, but one year the group went on a boat ride in Sacramento. At this year’s event, the organizer hinted that we’ll have an exceptionally big, possibly final, event, next year. It depends how long the money lasts.

What is it like to attend a party given by a person who is dead? One thing I’ve noticed is that there is no tradition of what to do. This is the only party of its type I’ve ever been to.

For another, most of the guests don’t know each other; they knew George. I like meeting his friends but it’s hard to remember folks from year to year based on only one brief contact. George is the one who would enjoy this crowd the most. These factors make it a little harder to socialize, but at certain moments the guests, even those who are strangers to each other, share both grief and laughter, probably more of the latter than at most funerals.

This year, the organizer couldn’t attend due to COVID, but George’s brother Jack welcomed us and spoke about George. He wasn’t the only one moved to tears when he told us about George losing five buddies all at once in a battlefield incident during World War II. He also recalled for us some of George’s hobbies which included fiddle playing, dancing, writing, running and attending reunions of high school classes he had taught. One of the classes that remained actively in his appointment book was the Class of ’65, whom he always called “his kids.”

That’s the year I graduated from high school, so in a way I was one of his kids, too.

But then again, our relationship was more complicated than that. We were friends but not intimates. For several years we saw each other regularly, but I noticed an ebb and flow of relations with his children that puz- zled me. At the time he died, I hadn’t seen him in a while. Then he surprised me with this gift of gatherings, which are sort of in his honor, although I’m not sure that’s what he meant them to be.

I think what he really wanted was to honor his friends. Each of us must have done something for George, something he thought was mighty special.

After his brother Jack completed his touching remarks at the recent luncheon, the guests were invited to speak as well, but few took the opportunity. I’m usually quiet at memorial services, so my silence was not surprising, and this crowd overall seemed on the shy side.

But I wondered if my silence, and their silence, also had something to do with not knowing each other well, with the seven years that have passed since George’s death, and most important, with the fact that George couldn’t attend his party. He would have been the life of it.

— Marion Franck has lived in Davis for more than 40 years. Reach her at marionf2@gmail. com.