It occurs to me that in order to call a column, "The Final Word," there has to be some sort of finality or termination to the endless spluttering of words, phrases and sentences.
But there really is no Final Word if I don't stop talking. So far, I haven't stopped talking.
The finals words, I suppose, are left to the obit writers. One could only hope to have one such a Diane English, who had a hand in composing the death notice last month in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was a tribute to her good friend, Wesley Carscaden, who was a real American hero.
Mr. Carscaden died of heart failure at his Telegraph Hill home on May 30. He was 86 years old.
"Do you have any idea who that man is?" Michael McCourt once said to me as he poured drinks at the Washington Square Bar & Grill. I turned and saw a powerfully-built elderly gentleman making his way out the front door.
"No, Michael," I said. I don't know who that is."
"It's Wesley Carscaden, a real American hero, not one of those poseurs." I left out a few of Michael's adjectives.
Little did I know that Wes Carscaden was aboard the icebreaker North Star when it reached Antarctica in 1939. He had joined an expedition led by the legendary Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Mr. Carscaden was 17 years old.
"He was the kind of man that Hollywood based their heroes on," said Michael English. "He was the real John Wayne, the real thing."
There were a lot of stories about Wes, and many were recalled at a gathering in his honor at Gino & Carlo on Bastille Day. But his pals from the old days, Glenn Dorenbush, the ombudsman of North Beach saloons, Charles McCabe, the masterful Chronicle columnist, and Jimmy Lyons, who founded the Monterey Jazz Festival, were not there. They've been gone for years.
Lyons and McCabe were Wes' neighbors for decades.
"It amazing to think," said Mr. Carscaden's old friend, Michael English, "that those talented guys lived in the same building on Telegraph Hill."
In the U.S. Navy, Wesley Carscaden was a decorated war hero in the South Pacific during World War II, he chased Japanese submarines in such planes as Hellcats, Corsairs, Scout bombers, and Avengers. He commanded a base in China after the war. He joined the Marines, flew jets, was discharged from the Corps in 1953 as a major.
Mr. Carscaden was always a talented artist, using his natural abilities to photograph, sketch and chronicle his Antarctic adventure when he was a kid. When he returned to civilian life, he worked as an artist and executive for a number of advertising agencies in S.F., including D'Arcy McManus. Later he worked for DDB Needham S.F.
Facts alone are a poor way to describe Wes Cascaden, observed Diane English. He was "a kindly curmudgeon with a barbed wit and colorful language that brightened the lives of all who knew him." That's how Diane described him in the Chronicle.
With an extensive knowledge of all sorts of subjects, and a flair for crossword puzzles, he might have been called -- all too prosaically -- "a Renaissance man."
I asked Michael what it was like to know a man like this.
"For all the many years I knew Wes," he said, "I really didn't know him. He simply did not talk about his accomplishments. Some people do great things, and some people talk about doing great things. Wes did them."
.Mr. Carscaden may have been private, but he was by no means reclusive. He loved saloons and San Francisco saloon characters. But he was not a man who promoted himself. That was poor form.
Wesley Carscaden's life was one that was rich, and well-lived. That stands as his Final Word.
Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay. he also writes for the Marina Times, and is editor-at-large for Rod McKuen's website, Flight Plan. Bruce can be found at bruce@northsidesf.com ... Diane asks that donations in Wesley's name be made to Fisher House (fisherhouse.org), which provides free or low-cost lodging to veterans receiving treatment at military medical centers.
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