When I was in 7th grade I was assigned to an altar boy team that included Wally Brill. He was the son of our long-time family doctor and was a year younger than me (and about 100 pounds heavier). We struck up a friendship that continued into our college years. During that period I spent a lot of time with the Brill family.

Dr. Brill knew me well, having treated me as a child through two hospitalizations and multiple bedridden illnesses at home. He was one of the few doctors who made house calls. He used to call me “Rapid Robert”, a moniker given to Bob Feller who was a star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and who in that era threw the fastest fastball. His office was in his house which was just a block and a half from my house. He kept an inventory of pills in his office, so that if you saw him there it often was unnecessary to go to a pharmacy for the medication he prescribed. A feature of his office that I will always remember is the large aquarium in the waiting room. I had never seen an aquarium before and I was mesmerized by the fish. In later years Dr. Brill decided to limit his practice to treatment of obesity and I recall that he was somewhat scorned for that.

Before I met Wally I knew his sister Marilyn. She was in my class at St. Patrick’s School from grades 1 though 7. She contracted the dreaded polio infection when we were in 1st grade and was in an iron lung for about two weeks. The whole class went to the hospital to visit her. She recovered with the only lingering effect being that one leg developed smaller than the other so she had a bit of a limp. I always had a crush on Marilyn (a redhead!) which continued even after she went to Marywood Seminary for grades 8 through 12. At the end of my senior year she told me that if I hadn’t already asked anyone else to the St. Patrick’s Senior Prom she would like to go with me. So she was my prom date and I thought that would lead to us having a boy friend-girl friend relationship. It didn’t, though. She just wanted to go to the prom because she had remained friendly with girls in my class and wanted to be at the prom with them. A couple of years later she married a college classmate of mine and to add insult to injury she asked me to be the driver of their wedding car. I guess that was some consolation.

Wally had seven siblings and his mother assigned chores to all her children. I think Mrs. Brill took a liking to me. She was always kind and hospitable. On several occasions she invited me to dine with the family, especially when they were having a Polish meal. Mrs. Brill loved to play cards with her family, particularly a game called “31”, and many a night I sat at their kitchen table eating snacks and playing cards with Mrs. Brill, Wally, and a couple of his siblings, often until midnight.

The Brill house was such a stark contrast to my house. Our lower level was a damp cellar with a furnace and coal bin. The Brills’ downstairs was a paneled recreation room, with comfortable furniture, portable bar, dart board, and second TV set. It was the first “rec room” I had ever seen. They had parties there and I was invited to several. We never had a party in my house. While our attic was nothing more than a cold storage area their attic was livable, providing Wally and his younger brother Richie with a place to steal a smoke in front of an open window. Our backyard was mostly a dirt field. The immediate rear of the Brills’ house was a paved half-court with basketball pole and backboard, and further back there were landscaped bushes and a covered barbeque area with picnic tables.

The Brills’ lifestyle was also certainly different than my family’s. They belonged to the Scranton Country Club, and Wally and his parents and Richie all played golf there. As I recall Mrs. Brill won the woman’s tournament there one year. I played the course several times with Wally and on one occasion with Dr. Brill as well. That was on a warm Saturday after Thanksgiving when Wally first came home from college for Thanksgiving break. Dr. Brill suggested that we play golf since it was such a nice day and invited me along. After we finished our round he led Wally and me into the pool table room to play a little pool before going home. A waiter came by and Dr. Brill asked Wally and me if we would like a beer. Wally was 18 and I was 19 and the drinking age in Pennsylvania was 21. I was shocked, but I enjoyed the beer. I’m fairly certain it was the first beer I ever had. I felt like saying, “hey, Doc, I guess Rapid Robert isn’t a kid anymore, right?” My other social interaction with Dr. Brill was on two occasions when I went with Wally and him to Philadelphia to see the Cardinals play the Phillies. Dr. Brill was Polish and his favorite baseball player was Stan “The Man” Musial, a baseball superstar of Polish ancestry who played for the Cardinals, so Dr. Brill always tried to see a game when the Cardinals played in Philadelphia.

As for Wally and me we had many friendship experiences and shared interests, such as playing basketball and wiffle ball, bowling, miniature golf, and card games. We even shared rigatoni as our favorite late night meal! Wally attended college at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York which was his father’s alma mater and since I went to D.C. for law school we didn’t get to see one another much after he entered his junior year in college and fell in love with his future wife. I was, however, one of his groomsmen in his wedding party in 1969.

The Brills, of course, could never replace my family, but my times with them were happy times that I should acknowledge. I think they enjoyed my company. When Aunt Ann and I were looking for a suitable nursing home for Jackie where he would get special attention, we learned that Richie Brill was the administrator of Taylor Nursing Home. I know that he pulled a few strings to get Jackie admitted there and I know that he regularly looked in on him to say hello and to ask if he needed anything. On one visit there I went to Richie’s office to thank him, and he said, “hey, you’re like family, right?”.

I still think Marilyn made the wrong choice.