1947 to 2022
Randy was my closest friend, and he will be dearly missed. We were born 2 months apart and raised in the same coal mining town in West Virginia. I cannot remember a day that he was not part of my life. Over the last several years we kept in touch by phone on a regular basis.
Randy’s parents, Albert and Helen Gleza, owned the ESSO gas station in Galloway, WV. It was a popular place to stop for gas and buy a few groceries and have a friendly conversation. When I was in grade school, I would ride my bike there and buy a soda and a candy bar before returning home a mile away. We went to church together from the beginning of our lives, and we served together as altar boys from a very young age until we went off to college. We were quite a good team as altar boys because we both took pride in serving and being precise.
We probably first became friends at church catechism, and our friendship grew closer thru our mutual interest in roller skating starting when we were about 13. Our parents took us to the skating rink nearly every Sunday afternoon until we were old enough to drive ourself.
When we went to high school, we shared a locker for 4 years, and Randy became my best friend and confidante. I think of him as the brother I never had. Randy had two sisters and so did I, so being the only male child in the family was the first commonality we shared, but certainly not the last. We were the same height and size, give or take a few pounds here or there over the years. We had the same interests in trout fishing and roller skating. It wasn’t unusual for people in the area where we were raised to confuse us and call me Randy and call him John Paul, partially because our stature was similar, but also because we were always together throughout our high school years.
When we got our driver’s licenses, our first and primary ambition was to go trout fishing as often as our parents would let us use their cars - and we went often. We trout fished from early spring until mid-summer. On Friday night we cruised up and down the streets of Philippi, WV. On Saturday nights and again on Sunday afternoon we went to the roller-skating rink near Flemington, WV. We were both good skaters (we had a lot of practice), and we were quite popular with the girls at the roller skating rink when they had couples-only skate.😁 We double dated for both our Junior and Senior proms. There are some funny side stories there that I won't get into here!😀
After high school, we went to different colleges in different towns, but we kept in touch. We remained close friends and occasionally met up to attend events together like a movie or a dance on the weekend.
After college in the 1970s I worked for General Electric traveling far and wide as a power generation field engineer. Around 1973, Randy and I hadn't seen each other for a few years. He was working near San Francisco. I got assigned for a few days to start up a new power plant near Los Angeles. We were about 350 miles apart. One night the plant startup got delayed for 30 hours which gave me some free time, so I called Randy just to catch up on his life. As soon as he found out I was in California he told me to fill the motel bathtub with ice and Coors beer (which we both liked because it was only available west of the Mississippi River in those days, and we were from the East), and he would be there by daybreak. I had to go back to the plant before he arrived. When I got back to the motel in the early morning hours, he was sitting out in front of the room with his feet propped up and drinking a Coors beer with a big smile on his face!
We had a high school reunion every 5 years since we graduated high school in 1965, until the COVID pandemic hit in 2020. We both attended every HS reunion. We always sat together at the reunions with our wives, and just like old times, we went places together when we were not at reunion activities. Because of the distance between us, we didn’t get together often, but when we did, it was as if we were brothers who just saw each other a few days earlier.
My wife and I visited Randy and Faith in their first house in San Antonio. We decided to do a Segway tour of San Antonio. What a hoot that was. Faith’s Segway wheel collided with my wife's Segway wheel, and Faith took a pretty hard fall. We were all concerned, but she got back up on the Segway, and we continued the tour of San Antonio. When we visited them at their next home in Spring Branch, Texas, about the biggest excitement was watching all the wildlife in the field below from the hot tub and pool at the front porch. That was every bit as peaceful and fun as it sounds, and it helps explain why Randy loved it there so much.
I regret now that we didn’t visit more often, and now it is too late. My best friend Randy is gone. Randy and Faith invited us many times, but we seemed to seldom be able to carve out the time to visit. I am very regretful for that, and it saddens me deeply. Please don't let that happen to you. Life is too short, and it can change so quickly. Then you regret you didn't do things you should have, and you can't change it. Live life to the fullest like Randy did! I miss him so much.
John P. Benda
email: jpbenda@comcast.net
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