July 27, 2022

Mary Ann, Karl, and family,

We could have bought a Hallmark card and scribbled a few paragraphs of condolence, but we cannot let Greta’s death go by without properly memorializing our truly wonderful memories of her and expressing the crushing weight we’ve felt continuously since we heard the tragic news.  And so this is not a message, but a document.  And a rather long one at that. What’s more, it is a celebration of a story that starts in 1957.

Section 1.0

Foreword by Cliff

Somewhere in her early teens, Greta made a spectacular transition from being a rather shy and withdrawn child to such a popular, outgoing, life-of-the-party teen that she qualified for a term we math teachers would call an “extreme outlier” (see image 1.0 below).  In fact, when Craig broke the sad news to his friend Rob Santangelo, after a long moment of silence, Rob characterized his profound reaction: “My God…I feel like we spent half our high school years in her kitchen.”

When questioned about the veracity of Rob’s statement, Craig’s initial response was, “my lawyer will handle this line of questioning.”  However, after we signed a Waiver of Prosecution, he opened up and shared his recollections (Section 3.0 below).

Before we digress to Craig’s court-protected anecdotes, the math teacher in me is compelled to provide Image 1.0.

Image 1.0 – Greta as a five sigma social status outlier.

Section 2.0

Cliff’s Memories

1957-1970

I met father Jim in 1957.  For me, this is where the story starts.

It was the summer of my junior year in college, and my father arranged for me to work at the NY Telephone Company in a training program that Jim also worked at.

He lived just a few miles from me, so we began commuting to and from work together.  

One of my first impressions of Jim was that he would frequently ask for favors.  As Kay said, he always had a big smile and had such a charismatic personality that I couldn’t resist helping him move from one apartment to another, run this and that chore, etc.

Jim was, in fact, such a dynamic figure that if he were anyone else, I wouldn’t have enjoyed these otherwise menial tasks.

Let me give you a few examples.

One night, while Jim was working for AP as a freelance photographer, we were out to dinner when Jim got a call that he needed to leave immediately because he only had a few minutes to get a photo.  This sort of thing would happen frequently – we’d all pile into the car and Jim would drive us to an accident scene or some other shocking catastrophe.

But this one night was different.

Jim got a call that a mob boss had been shot and killed.

Within minutes, Jim was at the home of the mobster.  The wife answered the door.  Jim told her he was an AP photographer, they had won a big prize, and he needed a photo of her husband for the big story.

The wife provided the photo and just as Jim was getting into the car, the police showed up to break the news to the wife that her husband had been shot and killed.  

He was such a magnetic personality that in the late 70’s, while he was working as a salesman, I learned he was so good at selling that he was making more money than the president of the oil company he was working for.  The apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Greta.

I met Mary Ann while we were both teaching math.  This was the early 60’s.  Kay was teaching at the same school, and I met Kay at a weekly Friday night bar outing that many young teachers attended.

This was a period when Mary Ann had her own transition to, as Kay put it, “aggressive pursuit of social interactions” (the apple, once again, didn’t fall far from the tree).

I immediately thought Jim would be a perfect match, and introduced the two, and as they say, the rest was history.  And that history includes the births of Karl and Greta.

Jim and Mary Ann have been among our closest and dearest friends for over 60 years now (cumulatively), and we can say with absolute certainty that the qualities we’ve loved in the parents have shined like diamonds in both Karl and Greta.  

Karl was born in 1967, Kara in 1968, and Craig and Greta one month apart in 1970 (Craig’s birthday is tomorrow – July 28th).

I won’t discuss the impregnations, though I can assure you each and every one got high ratings from all involved, but I will comment on the results of those fine acts.

First came Karl.  As everyone in the Garden City school system knew, Karl was also a unique outlier in his own ways.

As a retiree living on the 10th hole of a golf course, I can say with certainty that Karl’s incredible golf playing would make him a revered king in my crowd.

I’ll steal some of Craig’s thunder and share one of his famous Karl stories.

On one of our numerous golf vacations, Craig was struggling to compete with Karl in an 18 hole match.  Karl, with the sense of humor that could only come from his parents, declared that he would even the playing field and play the rest of the round using only his putter.

For the remaining holes, Karl used his putter to drive off the men’s tees on par 5’s, chip out of sand traps, and hit over hazards, while Craig capitalized on his unfair advantage using drivers, 5 irons, sand wedges, and putters.

Nonetheless, Karl delivered a painful butt-whooping to Craig.

Greta was born in 1970.  She and Craig began playing together at the age of two.  While neither of them spoke recognizable English, they clearly had a knack for collaboratively improvising games, a talent they carried well into their beer-drinking years.  I’ll let Craig describe that chronology.

My fondest memory of Greta was having the honor of accompanying her to the high school father/daughter dance, a night I was proud to honor the many memories of my good friend Jim and step into the role for him.  I know Jim would have asked me to do him this favor, and while his charm wouldn’t be there to bring the thrill of the many preceding favors, Greta – the social capital outlier – more than made up for it. 

There are many less eventful, but meaningful nonetheless, regular occasions that became the glue between our families. Mary Ann and the kids would come over on warm nights and we’d eat hamburgers (and sometimes drink beer) and talk for hours. 

The last thing I’d like to mention is how honored I was that Karl would call us during the last few, and most difficult, days of Greta’s life.  We’ve always felt like an extended part of the family, and despite the tragedy of the situation, it meant a lot to us for Karl to reach out when he did. 

We will always be there for you, as if family.

Section 3.0

Craig’s Memories

Legal Notice: Any and all anecdotes, facts, claims and statements are protected by a Waiver of Prosecution in all criminal and civil courts.

If someone told me, when I was in sixth grade, that someday I’d need a Waiver of Prosecution to share my high school and college memories of Greta, I would never have believed them.

My memories of Greta go back as far as I can remember.  She was always a good playmate during those years.  We must have played hundreds of rounds of miniature golf and Marco Polo, hit dozens of water slides, and countless games of the go-to neighborhood hide and seek. 

While she was comfortable and gregarious around me during those years, as stated, she was quite shy and reserved around classmates in the pre-teen years.  She was new to the district, which can give a slow start in the social scene, but as previously described she underwent the most astounding social status metamorphosis since possibly Napoleon.  

The once silent, withdrawn child rose unapologetically to not just the LIFE of the party, but the Gatsby-like regular host of spectacular and increasingly popular social gatherings.  Rob Santangelo’s comment about spending half of our high school years in Greta’s kitchen is hardly an exaggeration.

Reminder: all statements are protected by a Waiver of Prosecution

As it turned out, most Friday nights my parents would go out with Greta’s mom for dinner and enough drinks to put her in a chipper mode so that, upon arriving home to a house full of Greta’s friends, she’d make the rounds greeting people with her own unique brand of dry sense of humor before retiring to bed in what must have been a very sound insulated upstairs bedroom.  

Despite Mary Ann’s tacit nod of approval of these parties, an alert system was in place that quickly notified our group of friends the moment the parents left for dinner.

Within minutes, cold beer would be en route to Greta’s home by the sophisticated and coordinated group of friends.  

While our fathers got to know one another by working together one summer, Greta and I spent four full summers life-guarding together at a wealthy condominium complex  (where no one ever went in the water lest they get their hair wet).

Those days were so uneventful that, in the four years we life-guarded, there was only one “save”, and it would have to go down in life-guarding history as the most unlikely event, as within four minutes the lives of eight youth were saved from imminent death.

Greta and I were sitting by the pool on a quiet, sunny day when we heard a disturbing commotion coming from a wooded area behind the pool.  Greta and I left our post to investigate.

There, in a five foot deep ditch, eight fallen ducklings were struggling to stay afloat in about a foot of water.  The mother duck was flapping her wings and shrieking.

Greta and I approached to plan our rescue strategy, but as we got close the mother duck would violently lunge at us.  Don’t underestimate the ferocity of a protective mother duck – this was clearly a dangerous situation.

Precious minutes were passing and we could see the ducklings were growing tired and there wasn’t much time left.

“What are we going to do?” Greta asked.

“Grab the leaf blower and I’ll get the pool skimmer,” I said.  Within a minute, Greta had forced the mother duck into a nearby bush, and I began the particularly difficult task of volleying each speedy duckling to safety.  

But mother duck did not know this was a rescue operation, and despite Greta’s leaf-blowing air defense, the duck made repeated efforts to lunge at my head.  But Greta managed to blow the angry bird back every time.

One by one, the ducklings were tossed high in the air and landed next to the ditch.  Mother duck would call to the retrieved duckling, and, after a moment of crash-landing vertigo, each duckling scurried over into the bush.

After the first few ducklings, mother duck realized that this was, in fact, a rescue operation underway and the attacks ceased.

The duck knew how many ducklings she had, and when the last one was tossed to safety, she got them in line and I can still see them marching off.

During those long, overstaffed, and uneventful days (excepting the famous duckling event), I sat next to Greta 8-10 hours each day.  

Greta was that person you could go on a long car drive with, have hilarious and spectacular conversations, and then suddenly, before you know it, a five hour car drive went by in no time.  Then, the next time you do that drive with someone else, the drive feels like it’s taking forever.  

To put this into perspective, each summer, the 800+ hours we logged at that pool was equal to 160 of those five hour car drives.

And yet every one of those days went by quickly with Greta there.  To prove the point, a few nights of each week, I’d spend an additional 5-10 hours in Greta’s kitchen (great parties, as they say, always end up in the kitchen) drinking beer with our group of friends.  One doesn’t choose to spend so many hours with another unless they are an unusual breed.

Greta’s closest friends were always a great group, and they loved her endlessly.  We will all feel the silent void of her absence as we continue the long car ride we call life without her.

All our love,

The Hordlow family