Thursday, October 27, 2011

Steve Simmons

I spent a few days in Orlando at the end of 2009, and asked my friends if they ever heard about or from a mutual friend, Steve, who had moved to Lakeland Florida a long time ago. No one had heard anything about him in many years, and they were the only people I still knew who remembered him. I had been looking for Steve recently because I had already found so many other old friends.

Steve and I worked together making pizzas for a couple of years in the early 1980s. I met him while working at Mr. G's Pizza. We each usually worked six nights a week, closing together, and then we went out afterward. Charlie and all my other close Tallahassee friends had moved on or away by then and Steve and I became fast friends during that time. Each evening was an adventure, as we met so many new people in our line of work, and we always knew where the parties were. We would often return home at daybreak and then go back to work at 11 am to open at 4 pm that afternoon and do it all again. Steve was the hardest working person I knew. 

I can still clearly remember Steve's deep voice telling me how amazing it was that we had done something so wild, whatever it had been that evening -- or morning -- and about how such good friends we were.

We once held a UFO Watch Party outside my apartment one evening, to which Steve gave Matt a ride after work. We stayed up all night but didn't see any UFOs.

Steve would often tell me about other jobs he had had. He had worked at many restaurants, and at least once delivered beer from a truck to businesses and residences, to however inconvenient their locations were, but said that he had had the most fun working together with me, and that meant quite a lot to me.

Steve was a very good friend. We both eventually moved onward and away.

In early January 2010, I received and acknowledged a Facebook friend request from my father's former neighbor, Susan. Hours later, Susan posted an obituary notice for her old friend, Stephen, with whom she had attended Florida High School. He had passed away a few days earlier, and I confirmed with Susan that it was indeed my old friend, Steve.

I attended Steve's memorial service a few days later and met most of his family and friends for the first time. They are the kindest people and treated me like an old friend of the family, just as Steve would have done. I met his sons that day, Anthony and Nicholas, both serving in the US Army, and thanked them for their service. The family arranged for a tree to be planted for Steve in downtown Tallahassee and I was there for the dedication.

Six months later on July 8, 2010, Steve's son Private First Class Anthony Warren Simmons was killed in action in Afghanistan, and I saw many in Steve's family again at what was a community-wide effort to honor his sacrifice. I attended the service with several hundred other people, and stood with the line for several blocks as the procession drove by, and then I walked to the cemetery for the graveside service. Diana and her son gave me a ride back to my car.

Anthony Simmons was a 2003 graduate of Amos P. Godby High School. Four months later, I nominated him for Godby's highest alumni recognition for lifetime service and achievement, induction into the Association of Godby Graduates (AGG) Hall of Fame. The AGG is Godby's official alumni organization, and we raise money for scholarships for graduating Godby Seniors.

PFC Anthony Simmons was posthumously inducted into the AGG Hall of Fame at a record-attendance banquet at the Godby High School Media Center on April 1, 2011. It was my privilege to introduce Anthony's mother, Renee, to accept the award on Anthony's behalf.

I am honored to consider myself a friend of Steve Simmons' family.

1 comment:

  1. VERY moving words, Mitch. I'm sure Steve, as do all of us, consider ourselves blessed to know you as "friend".

    When I get back in town we'll need to have a "UFO-Watchn'-Party" of our own ;-)

    Marty

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