Mike: a Man for Others

By William Allen Quinlan Jr.

When Michael Andrew Quinlan entered the world in 1942 in Washington, DC, his birth was a miracle. According to at least one physician, his very conception was impossible. Twelve inches long, two-and-a-half months premature and weighing just over three pounds, Mike survived and thrived for the next sixty-six years. But in 2009, he died suddenly, just twelve days after being diagnosed with mantle cell B lymphoma, a virulent form of cancer that is difficult to diagnose.

In Mike: A Man for Others, author William Allen Quinlan, Jr., Mikes brother, narrates Mikes story and the significant impact he had on those around him. The author presents a personal history that is part memoir and part biography, chronicling his brothers lifehis birth as the youngest of three boys; his parental background; his upbringing in Bethesda, Maryland; and his days as a student, US Marine, successful food and beverage manager, dedicated and accomplished golfer, certified member of the Golf Nut Society of America; and a loving husband, brother, father, and grandfather.

Always heartfelt and sincere, and sometimes humorous, Mike: A Man for Others celebrates Mike Quinlans life, shares his stories, and teaches about loving life to the fullest, about giving, not taking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Dec 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781458211828

William Allen Quinlan Jr.

William Allen Quinlan, Jr. is a freelance writer, journalist, English teacher and tutor, brother, father, and grandfather. He lives in Haines City, Florida.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 William Allen Quinlan Jr..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Abbott Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Abbott Press

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.abbottpress.com

Phone: [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

For copies, contact William A. Quinlan, Jr., 2498 St. Augustine Blvd., Haines City, FL 33844; telephone: [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail].

ISBN: 978-1-4582-1181-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-1182-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918173

Abbott Press rev. date: 12/11/2013

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Appendix

Dedication

This love story about my brother Mike is dedicated to three people who were enormously positive influences in his life. His parents Grace & Bill instilled in my brother the values that made him the success that he was. His wife Jean served faithfully as my brother’s beloved partner for his last seventeen years.

William Allen Quinlan, Jr.

Haines City, FL

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the many people who told me their stories about my brother Mike. In particular, I thank Mike’s widow Jean Quinlan; Mike’s and my brother John Quinlan; Mike’s first wife Joy Pierlioni; Jean’s daughter Erin Padovan-Rodgers; and Mike’s mentor Michael Keskin. Jean gave me, or in some cases loaned me books, pictures and other memorabilia, many of which still mark Mike’s presence in the home they shared in Haines City, Florida. John supplied stories and other recollections of Mike’s time with Marriott. Joy recalled good times with Mike. Erin told a touching story of what Mike meant to her as a stepfather. Keskin provided valuable insights into Mike as a professional food and beverage man. I am also thankful for the wealth of genealogical information and family stories left behind twelve years ago by our dad William Allen Quinlan. Forty-six years after her passing, vivid and loving memories of our mom Grace Elizabeth Quinlan remain etched in my psyche and have made an enormous contribution to this story. Those seven individuals and the many others who have contributed to this story, or are simply named in it, are listed in the Index at the end of this book.

I also am indebted to C.J. Chip Newton who edited this biography. Chip was my first editor at Your Haines City Herald in Haines City, Florida when I worked there as the newspaper’s chief correspondent. He is a friend and respected colleague.

Much of this story is the fruit of my own research and my own sometimes faulty and sometimes subjective memory. Some of it is part of my parents’ story as well as my own story, included because it is context within which Mike became who he was. Hopefully, my story is a reasonably accurate part of Mike’s own story, were he to have written it. Naturally, any opinions, errors, misleading statements, and important omissions are solely my responsibility.

William Allen Quinlan, Jr.

Haines City, Florida

Prologue

This is my story about my brother, the one who is dead. It’s not quite a memoir and it’s not quite a biography. So it’s both: a hybrid of sorts.

My story begins with an attempt at explaining my brother by putting him in a genealogical context that of course is my own as well. My story goes on to record what I remember about my brother and what I think I remember about him. But, and in a way, it’s also an attempt to record what I wish, now that he is gone, that I had taken the trouble to know about my brother. Can one record what one never knew about a loved one? Yes, to some extent. So I have sought out others who knew my brother. I have made their stories about him part of my story, the story told here. Somehow, the stories of others who knew my brother help me hold onto him. They enable me to explain my brother more fully, and in a very real sense more accurately. That’s the part of my story that’s biography, not memoir.

When my brother Mike died suddenly at age 66 on February 20, 2009 from mantle cell lymphoma B, a virulent type of cancer that is hard to diagnose until it is too late, I was brutally shocked. The cancer had been diagnosed a mere twelve days prior to his passing. I hope Mike heard me when I leaned close and spoke directly into his ear at Winter Haven Hospital in Winter Haven, Florida on February 14. He was hooked up to various tubes and such and in a restless sort of sleep, his eyes ever so slightly open. I had driven 900 miles non-stop to be at his bedside, to tell him that I loved him. Family members held a long vigil at Mike’s bedside while doctors ran more tests on him.

Five days later, the doctors dashed any last desperate hopes of recovery. Mike’s wife Jean, knowing it was her husband’s wish, ordered all life support devices removed. I was at Mike’s hospice bedside at the hospital throughout his last night on Earth, while he drifted away. I noticed once that he was restless so I ordered an injection, hopefully to kill whatever pain he might have been feeling.

I had always thought Mike would go last. He was the youngest of us three boys. He took reasonably good care of himself. He stayed trim, gave up smoking at a fairly young age, tended to use alcoholic beverages moderately; and got a lot of exercise, including regular stretching exercises for his problematic back as he got older. Despite all that, Mike didn’t always take the best care of himself. He had a tendency to overeat, to consume some less than healthy foods, and to rush through meals standing up, a habit he may have formed walking through kitchens for many years as a food and beverage manager.

Writing this biography has helped me deal with the grief and sense of loss that has yet to dissipate fully more than four years after Mike’s passing. Writing it has helped keep Mike in my mind and in my heart and give me a sense of having honored my brother. My hope is that it will educate and entertain others, and help them keep Mike in their minds and hearts as well. Mike would like it, I’m sure, if some of the anecdotes written here make people chuckle, even laugh out loud.

Chapter One

The Last Round

I t is part of the human condition to be in periodic if not constant need of healing. Grief comes in many forms. Among those forms is the loss of a loved one, or the result of a word or deed or the lack of a word or deed that brought pain to oneself or another, or the hurt caused by neglect or abuse hurled by another, or maybe just the memory of a squandered opportunity to be what one might otherwise have been. All too often, humans fail to heal because they fail to acknowledge their grief, or don’t even know it exists.

In the course of struggling to grieve the loss of my brother, I received a bit of sage advice from a licensed clinical psychologist, Kevin Kindelan of Kindelan & Associates, in Winter Haven, Florida. Dr. Kindelan suggested I write a story about a round of golf I played with Mike after he died. I immediately liked that arguably bizarre suggestion. I played the round and wrote the story. I found the experience healing, quite spiritual in fact. Mike’s widow Jean told me the story made her cry. My friend Emmy Collins, who knew Mike, said the story brought tears to her eyes. My daughter Judy loved her Uncle Mike and she loved the story. The story was published in The Ledger, a Lakeland, Florida newspaper, on January 3, 2010. Here is the full text:

My brother Mike and I went around 18 holes at Sugarloaf Mountain Golf Course in Minneola recently.

As usual, I wrote his name on the scorecard on the line above my own name. It was just Mike and I, although usually we play in foursomes. We’ve been doing it for more than 50 years.

I was glad Jason, the course manager, allowed us to go out alone. Single players generally are not allowed on golf courses.

Like motor boats approaching sail boats, single players have no rights when coming upon other players.

Sugarloaf is a special place to me because it was special to Mike. He loved the many challenges the long holes and rolling holes presented.

But perhaps most of all he loved the people he had served as a food and beverage consultant. Because they loved him, I wanted to be around them.

The previous manager, Jim, told me once before he moved on and was replaced by Jason, We all loved Mike. He wasn’t just our food and beverage consultant. He was our friend. He would do whatever was needed: grill hamburgers, wash golf carts, whatever.

I don’t know whether Mike wanted to hit any shots that day but I do know that he couldn’t.

You see, the ashes that had for far too fleeting a time been Mike’s body had been spread on the wind at Sugarloaf two months prior.

In spite of that, Mike did appear that Friday, in a familiar stance.

He was quiet, staring at the target, fingering the three clubs in his hands while he decided which he was going to use, and then hitting his best shot of the day.

Mike and I were out there together, alone for three-and-a-half hours. I spoke with him frequently and think (believe, wish?) that he heard me and that what I heard was him.

Forget about the shot. Focus on the next one. Stay calm, he said a couple of times when he saw I was frustrated by a bad shot. Don’t think about your score. Just try to put the clubface on the ball. Remember: the golf gods giveth and the golf gods taketh away.

My aging injured spine prevented me from taking a decent turn on the ball.

On the back nine, the Darvocet was wearing off, my back was getting stiffer, and the pain was becoming more of a distraction.

Mike and I talked about that, too.

What did the last doctor you saw say? Are you doing your exercises?

For Mike, golf was almost larger than life. He wanted that for me as well.

Forget that! with uncharacteristic emphasis, even angrier late last year when I told him I might have to have back surgery and give up golf.

By the time I got to the thirteenth tee, my lower back felt tied in a knot. But as I surveyed the long stretch of fairway lined by trees with Lake Apopka beyond, I was acutely aware that this is where I needed to be.

This is why I had come. In the distance, at the crest of the hill, probably farther away than I could hit my tee shot, was the spot where Mike’s loved ones, myself included, had taken turns praying, reading poetry and spreading Mike’s ashes on the wind.

No day has passed in the 78 days since Mike left suddenly, the day when I sat through the night next to his bed in the hospice section of the hospital, when I haven’t thought of him.

Mostly, those thoughts jut sadden me. Mostly, I just miss him. I wonder why I haven’t cried.

But as I addressed my teed-up ball on the 13th, my sadness, in fact all feeling, seemed to ebb from me.

Mike would have said I was in the zone. I swung smoothly and hit it pure: an uncharacteristic slight draw rising above Apopka and hanging in the air longer than I thought possible.

It rolled and rolled, and came to rest at the crest of the hill, exactly in the middle of the fairway.

When I stepped on the brake of the golf cart and arrived at my ball, a Bridgestone #4 Mike had given me, I was in awe.

How had that happened? The scenic spot where the ball lay was exactly where we had spread Mike’s ashes. Well, except for the handful brother John had spread.

He’s in the trap, John had announced in his inimitable style after spreading some ashes in a nearby sand trap, a place John said later Mike was otherwise unlikely to have ever been.

I remembered spreading some of Mike’s ashes. I remember some of them sticking to my hands.

Was I weird to have wished those ashes were still stuck there, I wondered.

I walked over to the trap, bent over and ran my fingers through the sand. I marked the spot with an x, then as an afterthought extended it into a crucifix.

God, where are you? I asked Mike. Or was I asking God where He himself was? I felt angry. I felt deserted. I even felt bitter.

Minutes later, as I approached the 15th tee after having butchered the previous hole, my angst was interrupted by the cart girl: Hannah her name tag announced.

She offered me a cold towel. I took it and asked her for an orange juice. She insisted I not pay for it.

Did my brother Mike Quinlan hire you, I asked.

No, I’m new. Jim hired me. But I heard about Mr. Quinlan.

I gave her a $5 tip, wondering whether he would have given her more, and wished she had known Mike.

Not a moment too soon for my aching back but far too soon for my aching heart, my round with Mike was over. It seemed he had slipped away, little more than an ephemeral memory.

Where is my brother? I wonder every day, and wondered two days later as I stood up to read to the Sunday congregation.

Maybe the answer is embedded in the Bible. We are taught God is love; that He is in us; and that, when we love one another, we are in Him. A comforting concept, and yet …

Mike, can you hear me? Did you hear the birds that sang their songs while we were together that Friday?"

Chapter Two

Roots

M iracles happen. My brother Mike was a miracle. His very conception was impossible, so said one physician. Later, Mom’s obstetrician said my brother’s birth could cause his death, as well as hers. Both survived and thrived to live out remarkable lives: a man and a woman for others.

Michael Andrew Quinlan was born November 16, 1942 at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., the third and last child of Grace Elizabeth Quinlan (nee Anderson), then 36,