Mike Leonard, my good Australian friend of almost 50 years, celebrated his 70th birthday this 4th of July. I was invited by his daughter Katrina to send a one minute video tribute that was then combined with others from his many friends from all over the world. This morning I was able to view the final collage, reminding me of all our good times working and playing together on four continents. Pennie and I had the pleasure of visiting with Mike and his wife Sue at their home in Perth as well as our cottage on Torch Lake in Michigan (see photo below). We also stayed with them in England when they made a house swap with an English family and where the following took place.
Remembering the Trigger
2007 Somerset, England
It was early evening as Mike Leonard and I sat in front to the fireplace and talked in the sun-room of his “swap-house” in the England’s west country. We were enjoying a glass of wine at the quiet end of a day during our week-long visit with him and his wife Sue. She was in the kitchen with Pennie preparing dinner. I’m sure we talked of many things but the only subject I remember was “Trigger.”
Mike and Sue are Australians but, since their retirements, they have adopted the slogan “Adventure Before Dementia,” and have done house swaps with families between their home in Perth, West Australia, and houses throughout Europe and North America. They were living in this charming home in Somerset for two months and invited us to come stay with them a while. Sue persuaded us that it was a much shorter trip for us to England than to Perth.
Mike once worked for me (and with me) in the mid-70s at General Motors Holden, GM’s Australian subsidiary. We have been close friends ever since. When we both became independent consultants we worked and played together off and on in the U.S., Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, including a couple of visits to Perth. He and Sue have also stayed with us in Michigan. Mike Leonard is one of the nicest guys I have met in my life.
He and I smiled that quiet Somerset evening as we discussed “Trigger.” His name was actually Keith Tragarhd [Truh — guard] but people called him “Trigger” or, sometimes, “The Trigger.” The play on the surname is obvious, but it was fitting metaphorically as well. He was my first client at Holden. As both a manager and a friend, The Trigger was intense, persistent, determined, irascible, full of pride and fun. Mike and I enjoyed sharing stories about him that evening.
After our week with the Leonards, Pennie and I rented a car for another week’s tour of other spots on our England bucket-list. Our first stop was a B&B in Bath. One afternoon, while Pennie was shopping, I stopped at a cyber-café to check on our emails.
For years Trigger occasionally wrote me long letters about his life in retirement, first in barely legible longhand on thin airmail stationery. Mercifully, he switched to email in later years. I was surprised to see a message from him in my in-box so soon after Mike and I had been talking about him. My surprise turned to dread, however, when I saw that the message was actually written by Keith’s son, Wayne.
Trigger was dead.
I can’t say I was shocked — he was in his 80’s after all — but I was stunned. It was sudden and unexpected — no previous news of illness — and the timing seemed unreal.
In a daze, I replied to Wayne as best I could with my feelings:
“If The Trigger took you on as a friend,” I said, “you had better be prepared for friendship, because he was as fiercely intense and loyal as a friend as he was in everything he did.”
We later received a note from his widow, Marjorie. In it she said: “Since Keith passed away I have been dying to contact you, Dick, for the kind message you sent to us. The message was so special that Wayne read it out through tears at the funeral service.”
Good friends.
