Mark White (1965)

I really miss you, Steve, and still think of you often and odd things remind me of you. You were a good freind and opened a world (of juvinile delinquency) I loved to share with you.  I remember the time we drove to Detroit to visit Motown records and we met Smokey Robinson. Good times. 

It was fun blowing up mailboxes with cherry bombs, too. After we blew up a fellow student's mailbox I ended up doing a project with him and he invited me to his house. For some reason we went to the garage where he showed me a pile of new mailboxes. "People keep blowing up our mailbox, so we keep a supply. I'm not sure if he knew I was one of the mad bombers, but I suspect so.

You had a beautiful sister, Kathy. I forgive you for jumping out of the bushes when we were parking in your driveway. You nipped a wonderful romance in the bud, though.

When we last met, you lightened my life with your hysterical story of getting arrested for hiding drugs in your basement. You said you were incensed as a tax-paying citizen that the district attorney was so incompetent. I agree, but I'm glad you got off.

And thank you for introducing me to the wonderful book, the epistiolary novel Bug Eye. One day I found it on the Internet and bought it. It's a rare book now, I paid $165 for mine. It still has uncut pages and I had to read around them.

Another time I heard the somg "Sally Go round the Roses," oenof your favorites and bought it. You will always be in my heart, fellow delinquent. You drank deeply of life and I'll never forget your passion and loyal freindship.

Wally Reese (1965)

Tupalo Honey –-Van Morrison (Lyrics)

Steve Soltow

Steve was my best friend since third grade. He was also an incorrigible asshole. We were closest during our elementary school years and drifted apart as our interests and activities diverged commencing in junior high school. There is something about the bonds imprinted during childhood that are permanent and unbreakable, more like family and stronger than brotherhood. The loyalty and commitment of a peer is special. The half-forgotten and mostly submerged shared experiences molded our lives and personalities.

We traveled to Europe together after we graduated. We left New York on a boat to Lisbon, Portugal in October. We separated in Barcelona, Spain two weeks later. Steve wanted to hitchhike. I wanted to go to Essen, West Germany, and buy a Volkswagen Beetle for $250(DM1000) from the German we met at the bullfights in Barcelona. Steve made it home for Christmas. I spent Christmas with Marlies Immler's family.

I was best man at his wedding. We spent a lot of time together the next two years until I entered the Peace Corps(Togo, West Africa—'68-'70). When the Secret Service interviewed them for my State Department security clearance, they took a double take on the question of morals. The response(non response), “Oh, just like ours.” Smiles and tongues deeply buried in cheeks.

We remained close after I got back from Africa. We even shared my parents' house for six months while they were traveling in Europe.

I left for California in the spring of '73. Actually, I was heading for Oregon but I ran out of money in San Francisco. I traveled back to Michigan frequently over the next five years and visited Steve during many of those trips. I even took vacation time and visited them in Nebraska. We took a road trip north into the Dakotas. Not much happens in Nebraska. We did another road trip up the Pacific Coast to Seattle.

Steve had an insatiable wanderlust. He loved to take long road trips. He traveled extensively throughout Mexico and Canada. Oaxaca, Mexico especially attracted him. He developed friends engaged in artisan textile production and worked the import/export trade.

Throughout his entire life Steve sought new beginnings and moved around frequently. He usually ended up back in Michigan working in the family business. Jet Engineering, a manufacturer of hot formed, precision machined titanium parts for aircraft, automotive and medical equipment industries, is the third largest employer in Lansing today.

Steve bought a 20-acre piece of land in the early '70s, adjacent to the town of Madrid, New Mexico. Madrid was a coal company owned ghost town. The town sold at auction in 1972. The surrounding ranch land was subdivided into 10-acre to 40-acre tracts. The new settlers could be described broadly as hippies, Vietnam Veterans, and various other outlaws, miscreants and misfits. More recently it has become a gentrified tourist destination with art galleries and shops featuring local crafts.

Steve's daughter was born in spring of '78. In May, I traveled back to Michigan to visit my family. Steve wanted to get out of Michigan again. So he and I drove to New Mexico together. He sold me some land to raise cash to move his family. I thought the place looked like the moon. literally. Perhaps it would be a good weekend retreat only a two hour plane ride from San Francisco(SF). Watching the sun rise one morning the place latched onto me and held on tight even after I returned home to Marin County north of San Francisco. That must be why it's called the Land of Enchantment/Entrapment. Come on vacation. Leave on probation.

There is an old saying. La gente no viene a Nuevo México. Dios les envía. People don't come to New Mexico. God sends them.

By September I was back in New Mexico as well. Steve and I stuck the engine in a '55 Chevy pickup. I replaced the wooden floor in the bed and I was mobile. We got a roof on Steve's house and that night, as I slept under the tent lean-to, it snowed six inches. I went back to SF for the winter, wrapped up my affairs, sold my stereo and moved to New Mexico permanently in the spring of '79.

It became clear by fall '80 that four acres wasn't enough. The 300 foot well produced less than a quarter gallon per minute. Town was too close. Steve was an asshole(not me of course). I purchased a remote 60-acre piece of land at the end of the road with no through traffic adjacent to a large 33,000-acre ranch. We didn't see much of each other for the next few years.

We renewed our friendship after my marriage broke up and backstopped each other while his marriage dissolved as well. After getting divorced Steve got pulled back to Michigan and started working in the family business again. His former wife declined to make the move.

In '89, my world in New Mexico collapsed in the cross fire of the war on drugs. Steve helped extricate me and my youngest son from an imminently fatal environment and offered us safe haven in Michigan. I will be eternally grateful for the lifeline and protection as well as the opportunity to start over once again.

Our sons, born two months apart in '81, became good friends. We lived a few doors down from each other in East Lansing. They used to come home from school and watch the Mel Brooks comedy, Spaceballs. They did this for three months until they had every dialog memorized. They would break into impromptu reenactments without encouragement. One of their favorites was a scene where the antagonist, modeled after Darth Vader, queried one of his subordinates.

Dark Helmet: “Who is he?”

Colonel Sanders: “He's an Asshole, sir.”

DH: “I know that! What's his name?!”

CS “That is his name, sir. Asshole. Major Asshole.”

DH: “And his cousin?”

CS: “He's an Asshole too, sir. Gunner's Mate first class, Philip Asshole.”

DH: “How many Assholes we got on this ship anyhow?!”

A whole roomful of people respond, “Yo!”

Dark Helmet: “I knew it; I'm surrounded by assholes.”

Steve's son(age 9 at the time) added a final post script ad lib, “You are never very far from an asshole.” His expression total deadpan.

Raucous roll on the floor laughter.

After the family business sold, Steve moved back to New Mexico and bought property near a very small town called Gladstone, situated between Clayton and Springer. He chose it partially to distance himself from the increasingly congested Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor. We struck up an email correspondence. I helped him develop the property on my summer sojourns to New Mexico for child visitation exchanges.

By '98 I left East Lansing behind and moved back to New Mexico. A few weeks with Steve in Gladstone and I was ready to get back to Madrid and my own land and begin to make it liveable. We saw each other infrequently over the next few years.

I saw him on the road one day. He had been seeing a local weaver and the widow of a good friend. He confided that he had fallen in love and was in a quandary about what to do next. I knew her to be a really wonderful person and I reflexively told him, “Marry her.” And he did. Every time they feuded Steve acted like it was all my fault. It seemed like feuding was part of Steve's relationship with everyone. I almost didn't take it personally anymore.

He still split his time between Madrid and his property in Gladstone combined with many road trips. He drove 50,000 to 75,000 miles a year, five times more than the average driver. Only professional long distance truckers log more miles.

Steve spent much of 2005 on the road visiting friends and family. His health was declining rapidly. Despite making significant lifestyle changes his liver was failing. By early '06 he was home for good. His doctor would no longer certify him for the annual driver's license renewal and he was off the road and in and out of the hospital.

I often wondered if I should have been closer to him at the end. It had been less than a year since my two youngest sons and their best friend had been killed in a truck rollover. I was still too fragile to offer much support. I don't think he wanted it very badly either.

His children are like my children, His former wives are still my good friends. We celebrate holidays together. We are family for better or for worse forever. No way out of it even if you wanted to.

And we are all assholes or not far away from one.

Note; Thanks to Steve's children for helping to edit and create this remembrance. It is approved for posting to the OHS65 website only and is fully protected under applicable copyrights. Please do not duplicate, distribute or transmit this document without express written consent. --Wally Reese

Pat McPherson (1965)

Thanks Wally.

I agree that Steve was somewhat complex.  He was also the first person to make me feel wecome when I came to Okemos. He and Nancy visited me in Madison and we lost contact after that. 

Steve was a better friend than I deserved.

I like the "no job' on his marker. He always called his dad "odd job". He who laughs last.