JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

This is a story about regret. And nostalgia. And the rush of time.

Back in the mid- to late 1970s and early 1980s when I lived at 51st and Grand, next door to my best friend, Dick Arnett, we spent a lot of time at the New Stanley Bar in Westport. We met quite a few young women down there. Two of more than passing interest were Ann Sullivan and Brenda Stremel.

They were good Catholic girls. I don’t remember how or where the introductory meeting or meetings took place, but I presume the nexus was the New Stanley bar at the corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania. Dick and I may have met the two of them there one night, or maybe I met Ann and she introduced me to Brenda and I introduced both to Dick.

Anyway, I began dating Ann, and Dick began dating Brenda. Ann was from St. Louis and worked at Southwestern Bell. She was rail thin, very pretty and exuded warmth and authenticity. Her blue eyes reflected a soul that was alive with curiosity and engagement with the world. Brenda was also very pretty — a little quieter — and had a sweet smile and disposition…For the life of me, I don’t remember what she did for a living.

Back then, when I was about 30, I had few thoughts about marriage or long-term relationships. I had been cut loose from my Louisville, KY, moorings and was out to have a good time. Dick had been married but got divorced after his wife, an editor at The Star, took up with another Star employee. Dick used to say, “The old lady ran off with the hockey reporter.” It was a funny line, but, in actuality, the breakup was devastating to Dick. He had fought in the Vietnam War, which was the first big shock of his life, and then his wife left him. He didn’t talk about the breakup much; he just followed my lead in Westport, where there were plenty of dating prospects.

We had some good times with Ann and Brenda, although I don’t remember us double dating very much. Like me with Ann, I don’t think Dick ever had long-term intentions relating to Brenda. He dated her haphazardly, the same way I dated Ann. With all modesty, though, I have to say those girls were crazy about us. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the carefree attitudes we projected. With Ann, maybe it was the fact that I was a reporter. She used to read all my stories and was delighted one time when I used the word “prattled” to describe a subject’s manner of speaking in a story.

Dick and I subconsciously realized we very lucky that Ann and Brenda liked us as much as they did; we just didn’t appreciate it sufficiently.

Gradually, Ann and I drifted apart, and she moved to Denver. I remember visiting her there once, not long after she had moved. She still harbored hopes of a romantic relationship, but I dashed them, saying I just saw us being friends. That night, those lively eyes turned sad. But then she moved to San Francisco and met a good guy, a co-worker named Lew, and they married. After they retired, they moved to Denver.

…It was a bit rougher go for Brenda. She was head over heels for Dick, but she was naive. He strung her along and took up with another woman, whom he was crazy about. Brenda didn’t realize for a long time that there was someone else. When she found out, she went to her parish priest for consolation and consultation. Several years later, she met a guy from Minnesota through an online site that catered to Catholics. They married and either settled here or lived there for a while and then came back here.

Dick, meanwhile, had moved to Chicago for a while, and the “new” girlfriend moved up there with him for about a year. During that period, she decided she could never be married to him, and she moved back. He moved back pretty soon thereafter, in the early 1980s. He continued pursuing her, but it wasn’t working. He became very depressed, clinically depressed, and on the first Friday of August in 1984 — I remember it vividly because I tried unsuccessfully to call him all day — he went over to her house and blew his brains out while she was at work.

The girlfriend was crushed; Brenda was crushed; I was crushed.

The girlfriend went on to marry a man in the window business and they moved back to her hometown in northwest Missouri and had a couple of kids.

I married Patty the year after Dick committed suicide. After we had Brooks, we moved from Grand Avenue to Brookside. Then we had Charlie and settled into the years of going to work and raising children.

Once several years ago, Brenda got in touch with me and said Ann and Lew were coming to town and suggested the four of us get together. We went to lunch at Gates on Cleaver Boulevard. It was a good time and it was gratifying to see both of them happy.

More years went by, and the last time I saw Brenda was about a year and a half ago, in mid 2020, when she knocked on our door in Romanelli West. (She had found out where we lived but didn’t have an email address or phone number for me.)

She told me Ann had died. I don’t remember what the cause was. Maybe cancer. She was 70. It was tough news to hear. Those old, guilty feelings of having left her disappointed welled up. The thought of those lively, gleaming eyes gave me solace, though, as did the realization she had ended up happy.s

I got Brenda’s email address, but we didn’t stay in touch.

Then came today — and it’s now more than 40 years since those halcyon days in Westport — and I was going down the list of obituaries in The Star. And there, second from the bottom, was the name Brenda Alice Stremel.

It was my Brenda. Dick’s Brenda. Ann’s Brenda. There was no fleshed out obituary — not even on the link to the McGilley website — just a three-sentence notice with the date of death, date of visitation, date of funeral service, date and place of burial. She would have been 72 next month.

All the thoughts, all the memories, all the regrets, all the losses poured over me. I went into Patty’s sewing room and gave her the news. She stopped what she was doing and said, “She was just over here at our house!”

Surely, it did seem that way.

Now, three of the four members of that quartet that intersected and enjoyed some good times and tender moments are gone.

But weren’t we just down at the New Stanley? It sure seems that way.