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| Hugh Brandon |
I'm so glad to see him I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laughter wins.
"Come in!" I hug him, delighted. Then I stand back to survey my old boss. We haven't seen Hugh for more than a year. Nearly 80 years old, he's lean and fit and still smiles with the impish grin that reminds me exactly of his 13-year old grandson Luke. I've coaxed him all the way from Omaha to have lunch with John and me. Hugh Brandon is one of my very favorite people in the world, and I miss him.
We stand there grinning foolishly until it occurs to me he hasn't even said hello. Instead, right out of the gate, he stammers like a little boy. "I, I, I..."
For a terrible moment I fear he will tell me he's sick.
"I've met a gal," he finally says.
Astonished, I stare at him. Then I grip his shoulders hard. "Tell me every thing."
Hugh has been my friend for nearly 45 years. It's because of Hugh Brandon, Central Catholic's former long time principal/superintendent, and his wife Fran that I have the life I do. Many years ago, when we are all young people at Central Catholic, the two of them conspire to bring John Howard to GICC. Well. Fran conspires. Hugh only follows orders.
"You need to hire that young guy," Fran tells him about the applicant for the new social studies job. "He's 6 foot 8. He's perfect." He's perfect for me, she means. I'm the single 6 foot 1 inch English teacher, and Fran has decided something has to be done.
Her instincts are correct. A year later, just before the following school year begins, John Howard and I are married at Blessed Sacrament Church with the entire school in attendance. John asks Hugh to be his best man.
"After all, you hired me to marry the spinster school marm," he jokes.
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| Hugh and Fran with Mike, Kelly, Sean and Erin |
These are my favorite days at Central Catholic. When Hugh arrives in 1978, the school needs him badly. Only 35-years-old, he and Fran and four little Brandons roll into Grand Island from Hay Springs, a small community in western Nebraska, and immediately endear themselves to all of us. Hugh is wise and kind with a funny self-deprecating humor, and Fran is charming and lovely. Her beautiful smile embraces you on sight.
"Well, hello there," she greets you warmly in her low, wonderful voice. She and Hugh are a package deal at Central Catholic. Fran and the kids are every bit as invested in the school as Hugh is. We love all of them very much. In fact, Pat and Julie Kayl, Father Don O'Brien, and John and I spend many evenings in the Brandon home playing Trivial Pursuit, laughing at Hugh's quips, and enjoying the Brandon kids. Mike, Kelly, Erin and tiny Sean are adorable and ornery. Hugh eventually ends up flat on his back on the living floor wrestling with four kids who shriek and laugh and topple all over him. Fran, on the other hand, can hardly wait to show Julie and me her organizational triumphs.
She spends hours sorting dozens and dozens of photo albums and filing away every tax form, utility bill, report card and funeral program. Hugh never understands the need for saving every single document.
"Is it really necessary, Frannie?" he attempts to reason with her.
Yes, it is, replies Fran who holds firm ideas about all things and all subjects. As far as Fran's concerned, danger lurks from every corner. Fireplaces are death traps, stiff winds can - at any second - whip into tornados, and reciting five decades of the Rosary is the only way to survive a family road trip without becoming a bloody statistic. Organizing her possessions helps her to feel in control of the chaotic world that relentlessly threatens her family. It is useless, her family understands, to argue. In the end, mild-mannered Hugh throws up his hands.
"Fine, Fran. Have it your way." After all, he acknowledges, she's usually right.
Fran is deeply Catholic, a Jihad Catholic, we like to tease her. Before she meets Hugh, she even enters the convent. Hugh doesn't exactly talk her out of becoming a nun, but all thoughts of a vocation are affectively banished after she meets him. Fran is beguiled by Hugh's naughty irreverence, his under-stated humor, and even his bad smoking habit.
"My mission in life," she tells him early in their marriage, "is to get you into Heaven."
But Hugh's misspent youth is the reason he's such a savvy administrator. There is not a deceitful teenager alive who can pull anything over Mr. Brandon. At Central Catholic, he cultivates easy but meaningful relationships with the kids. Responsible for the school's financial health, school policy, discipline and building maintenance, Hugh's favorite part of the job is, nevertheless, visiting with kids in the hall. He jokes with them in the cafeteria and the senior lounge and nourishes the warm, family environment that GICC is famous for. But Mr. Brandon is no pushover.
At a school dance in the early 80's, Hugh's informed that substantial numbers of kids have been drinking. The following day he calls a school assembly and expresses his deep disappointment. The students involved have disrespected their school, he says quietly, and all that Central Catholic stands for. Now he expects them to earn that respect back by coming clean and confessing.
It's remarkable - something I've not witnessed before or since. Students hang their heads in shame. Hugh Brandon's good opinion means something. Thirty-two kids, one by one, march into his office and admit their guilt. The consequences are significant. According to school policy, those 32 students - many of them athletes - are suspended for the rest of the winter sports' season. The boys' and girls' basketball teams are decimated, and Fred Northup almost wins the district boys' basketball tourney that year with a team of sophomores. None of us can help but think what Fred could have accomplished with an entire team of talented players.
"Not one coach said a word," Hugh says now. "They supported me. Right was right."
At the end of that painful year, the kids gift Hugh with the "Velvet Hammer Award" - a big hammer wrapped in blue velvet - to express their love and gratitude for the principal who loves them enough to make them do the right thing.
There are other painful times - the death of Dave Rombach, our much loved science teacher - who drowns in the lake behind his home attempting to save his dog. Hugh sobs like a baby at his funeral. Difficult economic stress seems to threaten the school's very existence at times. Hugh depends on Beata Moore, Central's long time business manager residing in her little office upstairs, to guide him through those lean days.
"Beata was a financial miracle," Hugh says now. "She kept every ledger in long hand and always knew how to squeeze another penny out of the budget."
For several years, Hugh can't afford to give teachers a raise. When we don't get a raise, however, Hugh doesn't get one either. "I couldn't reward myself and not the staff," he recalls. "We operated on faith. Even when there was no tangible evidence, we had to believe God would provide."
But there are good times, too. Sisters Mary Leo and Sue rule the main office. Sister Sue shushes students at the office counter so that she can sip her coke and listen to Big Bucks Bingo every noon on KRGI, and Sister Mary Leo fishes every piece of paper out of the garbage to use for scraps. Howard Schumann reigns over all activities, Fred Northup daily forgets his false tooth in the faculty lounge, Pam Krall creates a space for talented orators, Carl Tesmer is building a football dynasty, and Sharon Zavala is on her way to becoming the winningest volleyball coach in the country.
"The first time the volleyball team won State," Hugh remembers, "I sat in the bleachers and wept."
Eventually, after 12 years, the rigors of being superintendent, principal and spending 80 hours a week at school exhaust Hugh. When he announces he's leaving, we feel as though our best friend is abandoning us.
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| Hugh and grandson Rory |
Mike marries his lovely bride Kelly, a trial lawyer, and raises three beautiful daughters: Hannah, Maya and Roan. He's taught at Gretna High School for the last 20 years and has built a phenomental career as Gretna's volleyball coach tallying up 400 wins and three state runners-up in both Class A and B.
Kelly resides in Belleview and has three smart-as-whip kids: Emily, Sophie and Max.
Erin, after living in Seattle for many years, returns to Nebraska with her husband Travis and son Rory. Erin works for International Corporation, Travis is employed by a subsidiary of Bausch, and Rory is in kindergarten.
Sean works for Pitney Bowes and is engaged to marry his Trisha. Sean's 13-year-old son Luke is his grandfather's clone.
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| Hugh with Mike and Sean |
Hugh's devastated, but Fran remains stoically calm.
"She had such faith," Hugh recalls, "and was never worried about it. God was on her side, she believed, however it turned out."
Slowly, Fran's health deteriorates. She endures a stem cell transplant for her disease which leaves her with a nearly fatal infection. As she lies almost comatose, her family huddles close to her preparing for the end, but Fran, with her legendary determination, recovers. During the months and years that follow, she suffers several mini-strokes, is resusitated after cardiac arrest, falls and breaks her arm, and finally receives dialylsis for kidney failure.
During those four years, Hugh refuses to leave her side.
"I can't leave Fran," he tells well-meaning visitors who offer to stay with her to give Hugh a breather. Hugh, in fact, even installs a camera on the refrigerator so that he can keep an eye on her if he has to make a quick trip to the store.
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| Hugh and Fran's grandchildren |
"You know," she says, "you're going straight to Heaven."
On a mild September night in the middle of a terrible Pandemic, Fran breathes her last surrounded by Hugh and her children.
Even now, Hugh says it would have been impossible to survive those dark days without his kids.
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| From left: Sean, Erin, Hugh, Kelly, Mike |
Only a few of us will attend Fran's funeral. It seems cruel that a virus will prevent what should have been one of the biggest funerals of the year. Oh, the stories we could share about our Frannie!
Her ashes rest in a beautiful urn that Fran would love, and Hugh keeps them close.
But life without Fran gives Hugh too much time, he says. When he wakes up in the early morning, there is no Fran to talk to over coffee. "That's when I really struggled," Hugh says. "I stopped taking care of my diabetes. Frankly," he sighs, "I didn't give a damn whether I lived or died."
Then a number of things occur. First, Hugh gets a tattoo. It's on his bucket list. Why not? he reasons. His son Sean accompanies him and is sure the pain will be too much for his old man.
"I refused to flinch in his presence," Hugh laughs.
The second item on his bucket list is a Corvette. Fran would never approve, and Hugh knows it. It proves to be, however, the purchase that sparks new life. Whenever he gets the chance on a flat stretch of highway, he drives his low, black, sleek toy much too fast.
"Because I can, and I have to," he explains.
Finally, his youngest daughter Erin, whom Hugh calls "my little mother", worries about her father's struggle with loneliness and insists he join a senior citizen dating site.
"You need companionship!" she nags in her forthright fashion.
Hugh finally relents and joins Silver Singles. To his surprise, he receives dozens of hits. Hesitantly, he arranges an outing with one woman. Then he takes out another. Finally, he meets Mary. A former educator like himself and a long time widow, Mary is the companion Hugh needs.
"I have found happiness again," my sweet old boss says simply.
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| Hugh and Fran |
He smiles and then shakes his head thoughtfully. The idea that he's met somebody so well-suited to himself seems, he acknowledges, "more than coincidental".
Of course it's no coincidence, I snort.
It's Fran.
I picture her in Heaven organizing throngs of angels, charming the Saints, and making helpful suggestions to the Big Guy.
"I have ideas," she tells God in her determined way: ideas about climate change, the economy, world hunger, and especially about the good husband who tenderly nursed her through the final years of her life.
"I know of a nice woman," she whispers conspiratorially.
God throws his hands up in the air. "Fine, Frannie," he gives up.
Because after all, even the Almighty knows it's useless.
Fran is always right anyway.
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