What’s an Egons?

After dad died I spent a considerable amount of time going through family photos and documents. I looked at models and notebooks and scribbles in the margins of piano music. I even found myself reviewing and processing old audio recordings as well. 

Every little artefact related to Dad in some way, and obviously each one had a story behind it. In some cases I felt like I was pretty close to having a decent understanding of what that story might be. In other cases I at least had a vague notion of the context but in others the story and it’s context was a genuine mystery. Each artefact was a reminder of the depth of character and experience that each of us, as individuals evolving over time, possess. 

As I thought about and considered the complex, interweaving experiences that dad had through the course of his life I stopped when happened upon a photo of me as a child pointing at the back of a t-shirt he was wearing. I was maybe 9 years old. The t-shirt asked, in blue felt letters: ‘What’s an Egons?’ It was about 1982, a time when customising t-shirts with your own text was novel and all the rage.

If I recall correctly the shirt’s message was meant as a conversation starter during some family-orientated team+building event for Proctor and Gamble. As some of you may realIse, Egons is not a particularly common name— particularly in the Midwestern United States, which is where we were at the time. 

But that was a actually great question, wasn’t it? Given the many roles he played and his different spheres of influence and experience, the different phases in his career and personal life: What is an Egons? Who was this Egons that so many of us knew — and continue to know— in our own ways?

I thought a moment. ‘An Egons is generally modest but capable of moments of sheer exuberance.’

I find it inspiring to think of all the very different roles he’s played in his life — for himself and for others. There’s son, father, husband, cousin, friend, colleague, Lettonia fraternity member, Latvian, American, and of course the very unique, hyphenated combination of the two which so many of you here today know, but which is in many ways inaccessible to others who knew him in different contexts. 

I find it intriguing to think about how, at different times in our lives, our different priorities and concerns shift and evolve. It speaks to our notions of memory and identity, and how we each are so capable of assembling fragments of our time with someone into some sort of perceivable whole of that person. We do it naturally. And in doing so we all preserve our own uniquely different versions of the people we meet, know and love. I think that, while perhaps somewhat overwhelming, that’s beautiful. I also just think it’s illuminating to spend at least a little time thinking about some of those moments that made Egons who he was but which you knew very little about. I’ve now spent a fair amount of time doing that myself in the past year, piecing together fascinating fragments of the life of someone who was very dear to me.  

Over the past year I kept on asking myself, ‘What’s an Egons?’ And the artefacts kept delivering answers that provoked interesting questions.

For instance: what was it like to go to Vladivostok in June of 1995? That’s a Russian port on the Sea of Japan, just above North Korea. And you’re over there visiting members of your sales and marketing team, having visited them before, perhaps a year ago. I mean, this is not your first time in early post-Soviet Vladivostok. But this time it’s a little different because you’re on board a boat observing the production of an advertisement for Old Spice cologne and/or deodorant. Here. At this time. What’s that like? Here he is arriving at the airport. 

Here he is on the boat…

…and here he is with his trusty Contax SLR camera in hand and, most notably, with a grin on his face.That grin grabbed my attention, and I think would be familiar to those who knew him well.

Thinking about it… I found it striking: the light from a fraction of a second aboard a boat in the Vladivostok of June 1995 stained a silver coated frame of 35mm film and preserved a moment in time that connects us to the larger essence of Egons. I say that because I haven’t found other photo that quite captured that grin the same way, as I remember it. That moment from decades ago, on the other side of the world, captures a distinct aspect of dad’s mannerisms better than anything else I’ve seen. There’s something wonderful in the fact that this moment, from a context which is so far away from my shared experience with him, can somehow encapsulate a trait that’s so reassuringly familiar. These threads of consistency amid all this difference and complexity, across time, are amazing to me. 

Ok. But… what’s  an Egons?

This particular Egons had various repertoires. As a classical musician there were the piano pieces, obviously. And no doubt there was a panoply of themes and motifs and fugues that he developed to excel at his work at Proctor and Gamble and BrightStar Care also. But he had a repertoire of distinctive expressions too. That one from the boat in Vladivostok is one of my favourites because to me it’s a genuine expression of pure joy. He couldn’t fake that look. He’d get it on an exhilarating speed boat ride or a roller coaster. And he would certainly get it whenever he played the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version of Aaron Copeland’s Hoedown on a piano or keyboard.

His musical performances are also a good place to discover another of his other trademark facial expressions — this being one of extreme concentration. A difficult passage on the piano. Eyebrow slightly raised, staring intently beyond his immediate surroundings. I don’t have a photograph of that expression right now, but no doubt he was wearing it throughout large swathes of his performance at Carnegie Hall. What was it like being an Egons then? Playing there, in 1977, as a graduate student? It’s hard to imagine. But I have this: once, maybe ten years ago, we were in a taxi together in New York City and drove by the venue. I asked him what pieces he had played during his performance there. He wasn’t entirely sure, if you can believe it. But he told me one thing he did remember. How nervous he was. He put it to me this way, as I recall: ‘I was f’ing shitting myself’. I burst out laughing. As I said, ‘An Egons is generally modest but prone to moments of exuberance.’ He had just created another utterly memorable experience for us together. 

When I was having a meal with a friend a few nights ago something she said that tangentially provoked a thought about the less tangible artefacts we all keep with us: Memories, and the way they can pop up in our day-to-day lives, sometimes at unexpected times. 

Now, that friend suggested that when we suddenly remembered someone that might be their spirit reaching out to us for some reason. Well, I don’t know what I think about that, but it did make me think about these moments in a new way. 

Our neural pathways are physically structured and configured by our experiences and reinforced by repeated firings through association. So when something we’re doing right now triggers a memory of something or someone from the past, the actual patterns of neural firings are being revisited. Our mind has actually triggered a physical connection between the present and the past. And as that happens, especially as we all take some time to remember Egons today together, we’re each reinforcing our own neural connections to our past experiences with him, and in the process making new memories too. And collectively, right now, we’re revitalising an entire network that keeps him with us. 

What is an Egons? I wish I could ask him right now. I wish I could ask him a lot of things. And I wish I could have him continue to show me just what an Egons can be over the next couple decades. And I’m sure it would have been fun… and interesting. Because this Egons, the one I know and love, the one that touched the lives of so many of us, left us too soon. And I miss him a lot. 

I have quite a bit more to add here…