Dear friend, Eric Wazners stunning eulogy: (The Whos Blue, Red and Gray got it started. I saw tough-guy Stephen Rinaldi sobbing, then I lost it. Heres the Eulogy.) The world is a lot less interesting today…………….. but I’ve got a story. No seriously, it’ll only take a minute. One of my first jobs when I came back to Detroit after college was to give tours of the city. One Sunday, I was dropping a group of Japanese auto guys at the Detroit Institute of Arts. As we approached the entrance, about 40 scooters headed up Woodward, flight jackets and parkas flapping in the breeze. This didnt seem too out of place to me, since Detroit has always offered up a little bit of everything, including, in this case, a little bit of 60’s and 70’s British sub-culture. The Japanese guys all smiled and pointed at the Vespas and Labrettas buzzing by. On the way out, the same group was headed back, south on Woodward. More smiles. I think about that, and just how cool it was to see this in Detroit. I met Mod Steve shortly before this, musta been 1990, decked out in a shark skin suit that changed colors, some sweet two tone wing-tips, and his signature pork-pie hat…by the way, Steve would wear a suit to the zoo. I might have met him at a Skatalites show, or Gangster Fun. Anyways, I learned shortly thereafter the scooter rally had been to the Motown Museum, and at least a couple people were from Toronto. I was pretty sure Steve was one of the brains behind this, and he was. Steve, along with Chris Palmer and a couple guys in Windsor had formed the Ambassadors Scooter Club. The shared Canadian and American flags, along with the Ambassador bridge made up their logo. What no one then probably knew was that Steve Gosskie would live up to the name “Ambassador”, as he has consistently been one of Detroit’s greatest. And to those of you here today who are recent Detroiters, I’d like to say welcome. He spent his entire life in the east-side neighborhood he grew up in. He was the first one of my friends to own his own house when he was only 22, two blocks from his childhood home. The driveway was filled with Volkswagens, a Nash, his 63 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors and angled dual exhaust, and the envy of all the Mods, the coolest scooter of them all: a 1958 Durkopp. Now the Durkopp originally came with a jacket (which he didn’t have) that when attached to the cooling vents via a hose, actually blew warm air into the jacket (causing it to poof) so you could ride in cold weather. 10 years later he bought the Cadieux farmhouse, the last of the tenement farms left by descendants of the Cadieux family, who moved to Detroit 300 years ago. At the back of the property remains the oak tree at least that old. Now you have to understand Detroit in the late 90s. It was finally happening. For those of us that grew up here, the comeback we and our parents had waited for was finally here. People were buying houses in their own neighborhood and home values were consistently going up. Steve bought the farmhouse with a vision. Zoning laws prevented him from making it into the coffee house that he really wanted. He wanted an urban farm long before it was fashionable with ducks and chickens. He did at one time have ducks, but the chicken turned out to be a rooster, so the city told him he couldn’t harbor farm animals. He did run an antique shop out of the farmhouse on weekends with his Mom, and for those who didn’t know, there wasn’t really a sign, but there was a clawfoot tub set up by the curb on Cadieux. But this was no ordinary tub, this one had flames painted on the side of it. Pure Steve. All this was part of a bigger plan: Along with the Cadieux Stage across the street, the hardware store that he worked at, the paint and glass store, and the lumber yard further down Warren, and helping to save the old Alger Theater, Steve imagined the East Warren corridor and East English Village as thriving and sustainable; a destination Grosse Pointers would no longer drive thru but utilize. All that was needed was that one or two people to invest in it. The hardware store was a destination not only for his neighborhood, but for the people in Indian Village or Grosse Pointe who had old house hardware issues or vintage plumbing that modern plumbers had given up on. Despite his efforts and hope, Detroit reverted back to its normal path of frustration. Just as quickly as Detroit’s comeback looked imminent, POOF, it was gone, and still a few years before the great recession. Yet in spite of the love / hate relationship we all have with Detroit, the enthusiasm Steve had was always contagious. I’ve worked with Steve, and often our friend Milan for the last 6 years. We had fun. Bugs Bunny quotes every day. We invented new terms for every day items. Saw horses became sea horses, the shovel became a spoon. Steve spelled sponge with out the G. It became a spoge. Those tedious jobs were known as “dickery.” The really small teeny tiny tedious jobs on your hands and knees became “micro-dickery. We would mock the same songs played over and over on CKLW. Steve’s solutions were often out of the box, and rather ingenious. “Have at it Steve.” Then there were days Steve would set the auto-pilot and paint the same spot on a wall three or four times, usually if he stayed out too late the night before, usually after Feather Bowling. If his car was down, which seemed common, his mom would drop him off, and I’d drive him home. And as you can imagine, after working 40 hours a week with these guys I appreciated coming home to my wife. And while working with the same people and their work habits can sometimes be frustrating, I only really lost it once. We were downtown in a high-rise. Steve walked over to the Capuchin Monastery on Mt. Elliott. Then he took the crosstown bus home. Now as many of you know, most of these houses are near 100 years old. I’d get the referral, and before I could take out a tape measure, Steve, just by his enthusiasm alone, at this complete stranger’s house, had already sold the next four jobs. Dormant shower stalls sprung back to life. That “old” original bathroom nobody used since the 80’s became beautiful once again. That sink with missing parts all of a sudden had old porcelain handles. “Out with the new in with the old” we liked to say. Steve would educate them on their old Delco refrigerator/icebox, where the compressor was in the basement. We had regular customers with houses both big and not so big. He could sketch the picture of what their kitchen should look like on an envelope. Steve constantly reminded people of all the beauty and craftsmanship in their house and in their neighborhood. Steve made people feel like their house was special. He made them feel special. We all had a running joke about Steve that he relished. Steve was a man of the 90s. The 1890’s. Steve was as much a relic of the past as the stuff he collected. Steve parlayed his knowledge and fascination of the architectural wonders of this town and on old stuff in general. He had an old Edison sign in his house: “This house is equipped with Edison electric lights. Do not attempt to light with match. Simply turn the key on the wall by the door. It is not harmful to health and will not disturb the soundness of sleep” As someone mentioned last night, Steve would take apart and rebuild anything. Old Garland Stove, no problem. Vacuum tubes on your old Hi-Fi, Steve. If the needle on your wind-up Victrola needed to be repaired and soldered, Steve was the guy. He asked me a couple weeks ago, “who else does that?” No one. Old fans, old tools, Old sinks, old plumbing parts….He would make mechanical drawings of old sink parts and send them out with the customer, detailed down to the tool he had to make to fix it. That little tiny stuff where your fingers are twice the size as the piece you’re working on, the details. Steve. Old Detroit artifacts. New life. Old bottles. Old cars, old scooters. That diesel VW Rabbit is the closest thing to a Model T on the road. It has a sticker on the window that says Powered by Steam. Steve. But it was more than the collection of Americana and vintage everything. Everything had a story. Even down to the slightest detail. And why that tiny piece in the 1914 model was better or worse than the one made in 1913. And if you had time to burn….. or not….………you got the entire story. Steve was the consummate story-teller. To use an early 20th Century idiom, He could spin a most unbelievable yarn that bobbed and weaved its way down multiple roads, often landing you at a destination no where even close to where you assumed when the story first took off, say 15 minutes ago. Many were crazy. Some were truly bizarre. I had friends from out of town at my house a couple years ago. Steve called. “Hey, man what are you doin”? I got some friends from outta town here and some beer swing on by. “Alright I’ll be right over.” The diesel Rabbit would rattle into the driveway, Weezy would bound out of the car and play with our dog, and half a beer later those wonderfully crafted stories started. The out-of- towners were riveted. While Steve went to grab more drinks, they looked at me, wondering what the heck just happened. They couldn’t wait for the next one. But Steve had stories of all of us, and he collected US as much as he collected the stuff. We were his real treasures and he made all of us feel special. He gave of himself. He gave us his time. He did work for us, and never charged enough. He gave us gifts. It is often said that the man who gives you the shirt off his back is probably the one who needs it the most. And despite his frailties, his vivid imagination, colorful personality and his enthusiasm for the greatest city in the world drew us all in. Steve is that one-degree-of- separation that is Detroit, and his Full Moon parties were as much about the music and the records as much as it was about Steve surrounding himself, in his house, with his friends. And he wants all his friends to be friends with each other. THIS is Steve’s legacy. Steve was so self-unaware, he spent the last couple months scrambling to leave one. He did not realize that he had already done so. But he never gave up. On us, on his city, or on himself. I picture Mod Steve on the Durkopp, wearing that poofy flight jacket with the hoses attached to it, emblazoned with rally patches and the Ambassadors logo, tire gauge in that little slot on the sleeve, riding along an eternal Lake Shore Drive not into the sunset, but into a chilly beautiful sunrise. And this is mainly because he was out all night. Although I had several chances, I never actually said good-bye to him. I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to hear it either, so I’ll offer you this: I love you Steve. Travel Well My Friend. Travel well. Waz https://youtube/watch?v=a7SliN-82P0
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 12:53:26 +0000
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