A GOOD MAN IS HARDY TO FIND

 In a small town, you can meet a person at any time and make a connection that will change your life. 

A friend of mine spotted a pool table for sale in the Sierra Reader. I said what the heck and called. A very nice man named Jerry answered and we set a time for pickup the next morning. 

The table was in great condition. I got the feeling it had been used mostly as a table top for stray papers and such in a bonus room Jerry had off the living room. 

But Jerry was a pretty organized guy. Frankly, it just hadn’t been used. He said his kids used to play when they were in high school. 

I took a closer look at Jerry. That was a long time ago. 

I would soon learn almost fifty years ago. 

I had friends with me. And you know how moving a heavy, bulky object goes. There’s 

 twists and turns and grunts and – well, no swearing, because I didn’t know Jerry too well – then eventually removing the legs to better maneuver it into the pickup bed. 

Done. 

I hand Jerry the money and we go inside to retrieve the bag of ‘extras,’ cues and racks and chalk and so forth, and he nods to a piano in the bonus room. He asks if I’d like to buy that, too. 

I tell him I’ll have to ask my daughter if she’d be interested. 

-My wife used to play, Jerry offers. 

-Is she no longer with us? I ask gently. 

-She died in 1977. 

-Of what? 

-A brain tumor. 

-Did you ever remarry? 

-She was my high school sweetheart. 

I leave and tell him I’ll think about the piano, but what I really think about is what it must be like to grieve the person you loved most in your life who died 47 years ago. And how you got through it at the time with two boys in high school. How you coped with loss and how you found meaning in your life in the intervening years. 

So I called him back a few days later and asked if I could interview him about exactly what I described above. 

By now I can tell you a few other things I had gleaned during the pool table transaction. His name is Jerry Hardy. He’s 88-years old. He’s the father of former Inyo County District Attorney Tom Hardy. And he taught at Bishop High School and then Cerro Coso College for more than three decades. 

Now Jerry is of my father’s generation – the Silent Generation. By nature, they’re reticent. And even at one point during our 90-minute conversation in Jerry’s living room on Tuesday morning, he stops and says, “Do we really need to use my full name for this?” 

And I said Jerry, once the details of your life and career are revealed, won’t everyone know who you are, anyway? 

So he relented. And we continued. 

Here’s the biographical sketch. He was born in the Central Illinois town of Monticello. His future wife was a classmate. They began dating their senior year of high school. After high school, they continued to be long-distance sweethearts. She went to Chicago to train to be a nurse. Jerry? Well, his future wife (Donna) kept gently suggesting that perhaps he might attend college. Jerry wouldn’t refer to it as nagging, She was very sweet about it. But the suggestions kept coming until he enrolled at Eastern Illinois University. 

“We supported the post office [financially, via letters] for quite awhile,” he said of this long-distance period in their relationship. 

While “she was the smart one” according to Jerry, it turns out he was no slouch. He was the first member of his family to graduate college – with a degree in business education. He had decided he might like to be a bookkeeper or an accountant – until he did some student teaching, which was a requirement of his major. “I loved teaching from day one,” he said. 

The couple married on December 27, 1958, as Donna finished nursing school after the fall term of Jerry’s senior year. 

Going to California 

Jerry had two older brothers, one of whom served at a now-defunct Air Force base in Victorville. 

One summer while he was in high school, he visited this brother, his wife and their young child. 

A brother-in-law who lived in the area made a living repossessing cars. 

Her gave Jerry a part-time job going with him on calls, so instead of having to tow cars home Jerry could drive the repossession home instead. 

This afforded Jerry the opportunity to travel all over the Mojave Desert. “I grew up in the flat plains of Illinois. I instantly fell in love with the desert and the mountains.” 

At the end of his three-year, post-college teaching contract, Jerry convinced Donna to move to California. At the time, L.A. County schools were desperate for teachers and had recruiters canvassing the country looking for potential transplants. 

By then, the couple had two small children, Jim and Tom. 

Jerry interviewed in Chicago and three days later had a contract offer. First stop: Granada Hills High School. And then later, Bishop. 

He bought his Bishop home in August, 1966. 

The Illness 

Donna worked at Northern Inyo Hospital. She was absolutely dedicated to the hospital, medicine, her career, her patients. In this day and age, says Jerry, she would have been a doctor. 

One day she passed out at work. 

Tests revealed she had a brain tumor. 

She received treatment at UC-San Francisco. 

After her first surgery, she had to go in for daily treatments. The family had a tent camper and camped just north of San Francisco. 

Then there was a brief respite. Donna even felt well enough to return to work, though her husband worried about taxing her strength too much. She was still returning to the Bay Area for treatments, and then there was a second surgery. But after the 2nd surgery, she was never the same. 

Son Tom recalled that during this period (his mother was diagnosed when he was 14), his father was remarkably composed and present. “Even though he was dealing with all this stuff, he still made time to make sure we were taken care of. It was stressful and traumatic, but Dad made sure that everything we needed always happened.” 

Tom especially remembers the kindness of neighbors, and the many meals he and his brother shared with football 

 coach Irwin Spector, who lived down the street. 

Jerry recalls all the little things the hospital staff did for Donna – that even though she was in a double room at the end, it stayed a single room. And when another person needed a bed, the nurses moved her to the OB section where they could better look after her. 

The Aftermath

The boys were respectively entering junior and senior years in high school when their mother passed. Jerry threw himself into work and the church (Catholic) to keep busy. He wasn’t interested in dating, no matter how many of his high school teaching colleagues tried to fix him up on dates. 

“At the age the boys were, I wasn’t interested in them having a stepmother,” said Jerry. 

What really threw him was after the boys left on their life paths, the dog died, leaving him by himself. It was almost too much. He never got another dog, probably because he couldn’t bear the idea of another future loss. 

But loss has a way of finding you. 

Jim ended up going to trade school to become an aircraft mechanic and ultimately taught at that trade school. 

Jim passed away in 2005. 

Tom was valedictorian of his high school class and attended Claremont McKenna college and then UCLA law. He ultimately returned to Bishop to take a job in Doug Buchanan’s office. He found that he loved small town law. 

In terms of advice on dealing with loss, Jerry said, “Just don’t give up. There were times I felt like saying to hell with it, but … I found it helps to lean on your friends a little bit.” 

“I think of her nearly every day,” he continued. “I find myself having conversations with her.”

Sheet: What was the last conversation about? 

Jerry: Leaving Bishop. I don’t want to leave her alone (she’s buried in Pioneer Cemetery). 

Son Tom has moved to Oregon and Jerry thinks perhaps he should move there, too. But he’s been in his home for 58 years. And he “absolutely loves” Bishop. 

We rose from our chairs and shook hands. Jerry pointed to the carpet in the 

 next room – noting the difference in the color of the carpet where the pool table had stood – for close to fifty years. 

And then at the door, “Hey, let me know if you want that piano. I’ll give it to you. But it probably weighs 400-500 pounds. You’re gonna need some help.” 

A little help from some friends.