PAUL CORNELL

This friend holds a special place in my memory and a song in my heart. 1/12017

PAUL CORNELL

It is a wonderful thing to make a friend at any age. Paul and I became good and close friends late in our lives. We met in 1993 when Paul attended my “Reminiscence Writing” class. He died in an assisted living home in Scottsdale on February 15, 2007 from complications arising from a heart attack, a stroke, and a fall that broke a bone in his leg. I attended his burial service conducted at the Phoenix National Veterans Cemetery.

Paul’s life had more twists and turns than do most. He grew up on a farm in Rockville Center, some twenty five miles from Manhattan. Despite this proximity to New York, his residence had no indoor toilet.

Only sixteen when WW II began, Paul hoped it would last long enough for him to enlist in the service. He joined the navy when he turned seventeen, and served in the South Pacific.

After the war ended, he obtained his high school diploma, and then attended Wagner College. While an undergraduate, he earned money by boxing. He entered and won a Golden Gloves competition. He went on to obtain a law degree from Brooklyn Law School, although he never passed the Bar.

Soon after graduation, he entered a two-year sales training program with the American Can Company. At its completion, he married a New York City lady, fathered two girls, and moved to Chicago. His unfaithful wife divorced him, got custody of their children, married his co-worker, and moved back to NYC. He did not see his children again until they were adults.

After his divorce, Paul decided to move to California. He proposed marriage to Donna, a woman he met at a square dance. She said, “No,” but changed her mind at the last minute. In San Francisco, and in desperate need of a car and a job, he left Donna at the motel, took a cab to a used car lot to buy a vehicle. In a remarkable turn of events, the owner gave him one to drive back to the motel and hired him to start work the next day as a salesman. This is how things happened in Paul’s amazing life.

Over the years, Paul had thirty different occupations. He earned virtually nothing working as a Long Island farm boy, six-figures as a mutual fund sales manager. At the end of his working days, he had dropped back to the low end of the pay spectrum.

While working in the seed industry in Los Angeles, he founded the Preservation of Big Band Music Society. His collection of vinyl records numbered in the thousands. He became a disc jockey for a local Phoenix radio station for a few years, pretending to be broadcasting from the Starlight Room. He fooled many listeners into thinking his fictional dance emporium existed.

After completing my Reminiscence Writing class, he advertised himself as a Personal Historian, offering to help other people write and publish their memoirs. He completed one beautiful tribute project for the daughter of a quadriplegic mother who defied the odds by living an exceptionally long and fruitful life.

He lived near Scottsdale’s Chaparral Park and spent many hours there. He decided to turn this interest into something useful and tangible. Over a period of months, he stopped and talked to individuals who strolled by, asking their permission to photograph and interview them to determine what they liked about the park. He published a book containing these pictures and vignettes and donated it to the City. Officials of the Parks and Recreation Department formally accepted it at a press conference, and awarded him a certificate of appreciation. Taking this sort of initiative typified Paul’s entrepreneurial approach to life.

Paul and Donna had three children, two boys and a girl. His oldest son left home as a young man and did not surface for over ten years. Paul had no explanation for this, except to say his son did not like moving from one place to another while growing up. His daughter married a local newspaper executive. His other son lives and works in Sacramento.

Paul and I often lunched together, sometimes in the company of Al, Angie’s brother whom Paul always addressed by his naval rank, “Chief.” They loved to swap war stories. Paul told us of the time his ship stopped at a tiny island where the inhabitants thanked his captain for helping rid them or their enemy, presenting him with a bag filled with the skulls of Japanese soldiers they had killed.

He told me the greatest war story I ever heard. In August 1945, a typhoon struck Okinawa, threatening to sink his ship, a destroyer escort, at its dock. The captain managed to put out to sea, after taking three hundred soldiers aboard. The storm lasted for days, making everyone sick, including the captain. Only a handful of seamen were able-bodied enough to keep the vessel afloat. The ship rolled from side to side to such a degree that the radar dome, acting as a scoop, filling it with water. Paul said that two of the bravest individuals he ever saw managed to climb the mast holding the dome and using acetylene torches, burned it off. When the storm ended, the ship had lost all power and radio contact. It drifted helplessly.

This is where the yarn gets good. They continued to bob around the ocean for days. He said they heard a noise and in disbelief saw a Japanese submarine rise from the depths ready to send his disabled craft to the bottom of the ocean. Then, the Japanese sub hoisted a white flag of surrender! Paul had no idea we had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that the war had ended. Incredibly, the Japanese sub towed his ship back to Okinawa.

Paul converted many of his albums to audio cassettes for me. While recovering from hip surgery, he gave me two sets, one called, Joe’s Girlfriends. Beginning with the tune, Angelina, every song is titled with a girl’s name. The other set contains music whose titles include the names of all fifty states, from Maine to Hawaii.

Listening to the music on these cassettes will remind me of Paul, a dear friend whose memory I will always treasure, especially when I go dancing at his Starlight Room.

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