Mike Talarico

North Central High School

Class of 1978

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Mike Talarico - Class of 1978 - North Central High School

First Name	Mike
Last Name	Talarico
Graduation Year	Class of 1978
Gender	Male
Current Location	Spokane
About Me	MUST READ: Mike passed away on 1 May 2014. way too young at 55 years old. It still stings more than any loss should. Mike led a life after High School, that was just plain normal. He married, and had two fine young boys; now fine young professional men. Mike led the normal, boring, mundane, but wonderfully, storybook-perfect life of hobbies, activities, involvement, and faith. The worst thing Mike ever did, was to leave us far too soon, and to leave us with gaping holes in our hearts. The "Love Story" below, was delivered as a eulogy at his funerary gathering in Vancouver, WA where he lived. This love story applies to the very many boyhood friends and Classmates who walked with Mike throughout his life, but especially in his youth. Laugh, and cry, and always remember our friend Mike Talarico. A LOVE STORY : The Story of Mike Talarico's First Love. It was 1965. I was 5 and we had just recently moved into the neighborhood on West Sinto. I was playing by myself out on the sidewalk in front of our house and another kid walked up and without any fanfare blurted, "hey, wanna be friends?" And so it began. We were so inseparable, we were together in every waking moment, and people thought we were twins. We were both very small, with pure white blond hair and brown eyes. Mike's Grandmother, "Gramma Reekie" would get confused which one was which. One summer day, I happened to be hanging around, when Mike's Aunt Rosie arrived from Alaska. She grabbed my cheeks and pinched them up real tight and remarked how big I had grown--until someone told her I was not Mike's little brother Jimmy. Mike and I started sleeping together at an early age. Because we both shared a bed with our older brothers, these were often three-ways with Mike's brother Mark, In the summer months. we slept on mattresses on the open front porches. We ate at each other's house nearly every night and quickly realized we could invite each other to dinner at each other's house on the same day! "Mom! Can Pete stay for dinner?" "Mom! Can Mike stay for dinner?" We had the same 1st Grade teacher with Mrs. Eddy, for whom Mike made this rhyme: "Miss Eddy spaghetti with the meatball eyes, punch her in the belly and you get french fries." The neighbor kids called us "PDQ" for Pretty Darn Quick because even though we were VERY small, we were the fastest in the neighborhood without challenge. Oddly, we never had the definitive showdown footrace, because I don't think either wanted to unseat the other, so we were both "PDQ." We started out in T-Ball and played Little League for the "Doyle's Softies" for Doyle's Ice Cream Store two blocks away and Mr. Doyle treated us to softies and banana splits after every game. In January of the worst winter in recorded human history of 68-69, we moved overseas, but my folks kept the house. Departing for what we thought was going to be two years, was only mildly emotional and we left it at, "well, see ya in a couple years." Two years turned into 4 1/2. Those years from 3rd grade through 7th grade was an eternity and just long enough to fear that the other might have moved away or maybe moved on to other friends. In the summer of 73 we returned to the same house, in the same neighborhood, and I went in search to see if the friend I left behind was still there. Neighborhood kids assured me "that Mike kid" still lived there, but they were out of town. For the next week, with more anxiety than I had ever experienced in my entire life, I waited for "that Mike kid" to return, to find out if our love story had survived, and if it would continue. Finally, one day Mike rode up on his super-cool stingray bike with an extra long fork, banana seat and long sissy bar. I said, "hey, do you remember me?" With more edge than I ever heard from him again, he said, "yeah, you're Joplin." In those four years Mike had grown a lot compared to me. When we had parted we were both the same height. Now, Mike was a full head taller and I was still very puny, which might account for his bigger-kid edginess. After four and a half years, I feared we might have drifted apart but the more likely truth was that it had been a third of our lives since we had said, "see ya in a couple years." For the next couple weeks there was a lot of catching up and filling each other in on just who we had become in those years. I had to make good impressions if I was going to unseat the neighbor friends to regain my title as "best friend." I can't put my finger on it, but I think being clean-cut and well-mannered at least kept me in good graces with his parents. We had free reign over our neighborhood turf. Cannon Park was a couple blocks away and our lives there were straight out of the movie, "The Sandlot," We went swimming almost every single day of the summer. We particularly liked the rainy days because we had the pool to ourselves, the lifeguards let us do stuff we could never do, like bounce 3, or 4 times on the diving board and throw balls to each other going off the board. Just like the movie, we fantasized about the older lifeguard girls, and spied on their antics in the guard-shack. We lived a few blocks from the banks of the Spokane river and would occasionally trek to the "Trestle Bridge" to jump into the river and venture to the other side into Riverside State Park. We prided ourselves in knowing where every vegetable garden and fruit tree was within a mile and we frequently inspected these gardens late at night; we called it "raiding." Once, on the other side of the river, we discovered the greatest garden in the Western Hemisphere. It was a vegetable garden at the Sisters of Holy Names Convent. It was a gold mine and we set about creating a sneaky plan to "raid" the Sisters' garden. It was there, for the first time ever, we were busted in a raid. The Sisters hauled us into the convent chapel and led us in prayers (a foreign concept for us at that time). When finished, they took us into a cafeteria and gave us milk and cookies. We were very remorseful, and for the rest of the summer, we were caught only three more times. We used the railroad tracks as our highway from our neighborhood all the way into downtown. Like cockroaches we traveled at night and stayed in the dark. During Expo 74, we knew precisely where every gap in the fencing was, and we sneaked in most days that summer. Our highway also went right past the Spokane Coliseum. In our travels one night we could hear the roar of a Spokane Jets AAA Hockey game inside. Being so very very small, we figured out that one of us pulling up ever so slightly on the giant roll-up doors was just enough to slip underneath. So taking turns holding the door up, we saw nearly every home game for a couple years. In similar fashion, we also saw quite a few Spokane Indians games out at the stadium at the Fairgrounds. From the beginning, the Talaricos included me as nearly a member of the family. Over the years, they welcomed me at the table for every major family gathering and event. Pete Talarico's "spaghet" feasts were legendary. Mike and I routinely attacked and double-teamed on Mark in the living room, which never once worked, but always got a yell from his Mom (which generally didn't happen). They took me on their summer vacation to Ocean Shores, where Mike and I both, and in succession, got the Plymouth stuck on the beach. I vividly recall his dad was remarkably calm that day. Street hockey, line ball, broom ball, and two-square were the popular Sinto Avenue games. But, as we entered our teens and girls became interesting, hide-and-seek with April and Becky Wilson became a favorite. They were prudes in the worst way, and try as we might , neither of us got anywhere with them, but that made the quest all the more important. Mike was just really cool with the girls. He had no shortage of sweethearts and it seemed as if the girls lined up. I know, because I was the dumb-ass buddy that the girls had to talk to get his attention. I was fine in that role, because otherwise, girls generally didn't want anything to do with me. There was no real good reason whatsoever for Mike to double-date, but we double dated anyway. He had the car, he had the good looks, he had the girl, and he had the spending cash. To my knowledge, I brought nothing to the table in this arena, and I still can't figure out why he ever did it. I was, however, the quintessential and most loyal "wingman" ever. I jumped on a few grenades for Mike and I was always quick on the scene with a bottle of "heartache medicine" to clean up the mess, and ease the pain of a breakup. It truly is a magnificent love story: I knew his secrets and he knew mine and we remained forever faithful. As we graduated High School, I headed off to college and Mike became the youngest-ever Assistant Manager of a Pizza Haven down in Pullman. A couple of times a year, depending upon events and schedules, Mike would buy a Greyhound ticket to get me down there for a party or kegger or as a ringer on his softball team. We both began to see that geography and grown-up stuff was going to affect our complex love story, but that was OK. Eventually, Mike saw that I could not give him what he really wanted, so he settled for second-best when he met and married Karen. Again as if a member of the family, I traveled with the Talaricos and participated in Mike and Karen's wedding and two years later, he stood up for me as my Best Man. Within two months of that wedding, our separation would be drastic as I headed around the world with the Army. We got together after the first six months, after I finished Airborne School, and then every three-or-so years, whenever we came home on leave. From then on, in separation, we made sure to recognize birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. Mike was a little enamored with my Army service and he thought it was kinda cool. But I found out he worried a lot when I went to Desert Storm. I think that's when he named his ugly dog "Captain" after me. Fortunately for us, within a couple months of the war's end, the Army brought us right back to Spokane, to teach ROTC at Gonzaga University. Mike was still kinda new to hunting and he was thrilled that I handed down all of my Desert Storm Army uniforms for his first cammo. For that short year that we were both in Spokane, we were able to rekindle our love story and began to include our growing families. They had Eric and Ian in Spokane and Maureen and I had both of our daughters in Spokane before we would separate again. Through our childhood and teens and into adulthood, I was a half-step behind in everything. In all the rites of passage like girls, jobs, cars, marriage, and kids, I was last in everything. We were in our 50s when we discovered that we were holding each other up as a standard to reach. We had spent our adult years secretly working to live up to the other and be good enough in the other's eyes. Until now, just like our PDQ status, this remained unresolved and we would each have preferred to declare the other the winner. Since I'm not in a hurry to follow him from here, and since he's not here to argue, I hereby declare Mike was the better man. As for the love story? The story of Mike...(read more)