Sheila Horn (Kaplan)

Another childhood friend who lived in Upper Hastings Ranch like I did. We attended Don Benito together.

Karen Andrews (Randall)

Karen Andrews Randall

Steven and I both lived on Medford Rd. in Hastings Ranch.  Our families were close and we did alot together.  I remember one crazy time we threw our bikes on the ground, covered ourselves in katsup and wrapped eachother in toilet paper--terrible crash!  Didn't scare his mom at all.  We climbed trees, raced wagons, played in his backyard fort, and he brought the tomboy out of me.  Death was the furthest thing from our minds.  Thank you for the memories

Gregory Prout

steve and i cruised thru life in the '60's laughing and exchanging experiences, never thinking there might be an end to it all. he loved music and would often imitate famous songs and singers, mouthing the words, lip-syncing, and catching the magic. he suffered from an illness of the mind and never received the posthumos celebration his newspaper obituary promised. i guess those in charge too busy to follow through with promises, another tragedy. i visited him weeks before he died, travelling to paso robles in a day to have lunch and remember. he complained of blood in his cough. i worried, and just weeks later i heard he died of lung cancer. i thanked the Powers that be, for having those last closing and few moments of his life where we remininsced and laughed oursleves silly, not knowing separation and death lurked around the next moment. damn. steve was a dear friend whose presence has never died. too early, too soon, and too unexpected he came to his end, his heart full of fun, love and friendship, and enduring beyond the shit life sometimes delivers. i will never forget him, i can't. a friend forever...

Gregory Prout

Steve Langstaff, a Tribute

Memories lodged in the back rooms of my mind where in sacred hush I sit in silence, my friends and events appearing resurrected. I relish their presence. They symbolize a part of me that once existed, a friendship once shared in the petri dish of this crazy life. I am there I am here. Sobered yet smiling I remember. Memory is like heaven, with many rooms (John 14:2), where we store those we can't let go. In one of those rooms is Steve Langstaff.

I forget how or when I first met Steve, I think it might of been cheerleader tryouts in eighth grade. Soon after we were fast friends. I remember his mom taking Steve, Dick Fisher, Danny Roe, and myself to Nash's in Pasadena to get our orange shirts and black shorts, the colors of Marshall Tigers. We shared a passion for the beach, (who didn’t?); Steve loved surfing I couldn't. The beach launched our spirits soaring over the horizon's line of no return wondering what life lingers there while feeling the glory of being alive. 

And of course the beach paraded us girls, girls, girls. Girls. We both knew we were here on earth to enjoy the female gender, God's most glorious creation. Steve dated much and we often double-dated. At one time he had a crush on Linda Robbins but i don't recall much else. He spoke of Andrea Supernaunt, Jill Leveredge, Silvia Morgan, Jill Ohannesian, and Barbara Funk, but my mind draws a blank who he actually dated. Old age. There were so many pretty girls at PHS, the selection was ridiculous like catching fish in a  barrel. And to keep us humble there was always one or two who dwelt only in our dreams.

I was blessed with an abundance of friends in high school, or maybe it was just my high school had a lot of very nice people, and Steve was one of the nicest. I can still see him, a Marlboro in his left hand, with the uplifted index finger of his right hand as a mic, him lip-syncing, doing the tongue-twirling staccato perfectly along with Billy Stewart's 1966 hit 'Summertime.' Steve had rhythm for a white boy and he loved mimicking songs with Motown inflection and lyrics exuding body and soul, like Stewart's 'Summertime.' Music oozed from his core and usually these performances of rhythmic choreography materialized after a few beers or a joint or two, like keys unlocking his soul. He was always fun. Loved to laugh and frequently, my kind of person. Strangely, after all these years, I can still hear his laughter. Steve loved cars and any fossil-fuel thing (sorry earth-warmers), something his father instilled in him. Frequently I would find him at his Medford house on a Saturday or Sunday tearing apart either his mother's '55 nomad's carburetor, soaking parts in gasoline, or tinkering with some other doo-dad from his Honda 150, and asking me if I was mechanical, like asking a gorilla if he understood nuclear physics. I would have to be told to put my cigarette out around gasoline. No, mechanical I wasn't, but watching him work intrigued me knowing we would ride in or on one those things later that night. Driving around in his mom's red and white 1955 Nomad Chevy was too cool, even then Nomads had an enviable reputation, his radio always blaring whatever songs KFWB, KHJ, or KRLA broadcasted. Steve would start jivin' at the wheel when one of his favorites played. I sat transfixed entertained by the show. He was a perfect friend. Steve had intrinsic goodness that flowed through his body like a fine-tuned mechanical thing whatcha-ma-call-it.

One late night in Sierra Madre, we followed a skunk down the middle of Highland Ave., while driving at skunk-speed. We were headed to Garcia's on Grove, feeling no pain, and here's this little stinker meandering down middle of the street, unable to walk a straight line, dressed in his black tie and white silk scarf blowing behind him, obviously wasted. He wouldn't let us pass; we howled at his intransigent cockiness. 

Full of life, full of ourselves, we flew across New York Drive on Steve's Honda one midnight, like two comets scorching the black sky, beers in hand and he singing 'Summertime' at the top of his lungs and me noticing how blurry things got that time of night. Reckless as hell but young and eternal, two adolescents fleeing the promise of adulthood with all the 'shoulds' and 'you must' and responsibility and productivity and 'your place in society' and all that crap we sensed coming; to be alive un-smothered by adultness. A plethora of fond memories, Steve fills my mental room, my existence enhanced for having known him, like a summer day blessed by the warm sun. He was a loyal, likable friend; kind, full of life with that laughter ebullient and jocular. 

Or, having learned that a young grown-up couple had chaperoned some of our fellow travelers during a week of Spring Beak, 'Ball Week,' and under the influence at a party the Mr. passed out and the Mrs. very drunk was passed around. We wasted no time in approaching them to chaperon us the following year. They lived in an upstairs in apartment I think in South Pasadena. Climbing the stairs Steve and I noticed a pie cooling on the stair railing just outside their front door. We reminded ourselves not to knock it over. She answered the door very suspicious of our innocent stammering inquiry about her and her could-not-handle-his-liquor husband being our caretakers for another Ball Week. She declined and then asked where was the pie. Ooops, it was gone and so was any chance of an appeal we might have conjured up. We offered to retrieve it from way below. Agitated, she said that would not be necessary. Disappointed we shuffled down the stairs leaving our schemes and fantasies lying in that smashed pie.

Once, his parents gone (party on! remember?), we decided we needed beer. Our classmate Dick Hubik worked for Happy's liquor store in Sierra Madre and they delivered, a perfect formula. We called Happy's and in the rehearsed voice of his dad he ordered a case of Bud. Minutes later there was a knock at the door and there Hubik was standing with that maniacal grin even Satan envied handing us our order. Later we crashed at the Sands restaurant, a favorite landing spot, wondering how we got there while eating fries and salad with blue cheese dressing. 'Summer time when the livin' is easy...'

After we graduated I went away to school and basically didn't return to Pasadena to live again until 1980. Somewhere in the early 80's Steve and I re-connected. I was renting a house in north Monrovia and he came by with a camera. He had developed a passion for photography and he shot a bunch of pictures of my 5 year old, Natalie. Then he vanished. By now he was getting sick, enveloped by darkness tortuous and haunting; a disease that swallowed him, a black hole from where all of us would run. Then in the mid-80's, I had a serendipitous run-in with him on the street in Temple City, not far from where I was teaching. It was my lunch break and there he was on the sidewalk. I shouted with glee and gave him a bear hug, but something was different, very different. He had that locked-away look; he was in a place I could not reach. Steve's suffering both devoured and embarrassed him simultaneously. My heart sunk immediately overcome by despair for my friend who seemed already dead. We shared a brief empty conversation, my time very limited, and then I was gone. Tragically, so was he. 

In September, 2005, the anniversary of the death of James Dean, a call from Steve fell out of the sky. His voice was the old Steve back from the dead, alive and free, as if it was 1967 and we're on the 150 sailing into the hot idle time of year. He was energetic; almost excited to tell me he had found a relationship with God. He lived in Paso Robles; I had to see him. The following day I drove to Paso Robles, to his tiny cottage, to visit for a few hours. He was robust, heavier, sporting a go-tee, his eyes clear and my heart leaped for joy. My friend who was dead was now alive, a foretaste of the ultimate Gift. I could hear Billy Stewart's twirling tongue doing 'Summertime.' We looked at old photographs, took a few of our own, had lunch and talked endlessly. He had found a medication with unnoticeable side effects. He was naturally buoyant and proudly announced he had quit smoking, but in almost a whisper, he mentioned on occasion he spit up blood but I was not to worry, he was under doctor's care and all was fine. I studied his eyes wanting to believe it was so. We returned to his tiny house, shared a few more memories. We hugged, said good-bye and i drove home tickled to have him back.

A month later another phone call. This time he was very depressed, had resumed smoking, and felt abandoned by God. The conversation was intense. I reassured him a 1000 times he was loved by me and God, and he could conquer his smoking, and if not, he was still important, loved, needed. He seemed reassured. I said I would try to get back up as soon as I could and hung up. I wished he had implored me to come immediately. I wished he had told me what was really bothering him, what was in truth terrifying him, but he didn't. I think he wanted to but he didn't/couldn't. To express his fear of his imminent death was just too horrifying, made less real by not speaking of it. We deny death until the end. I think about that not a few times. 

Not three weeks later his sister Carol called to tell me Steve had died. Steve had passed on to a place he had visited before. He had had lung cancer but never told me. They were planning a memorial at a beach and I would be notified. I never was.

Summer time evokes the freedom and warmth of adolescence in full bloom, unrestricted, open-ranged, exploration, and experimentation. Summer time is the most fun time of the year. 

My friend, there is another summer coming and another tale to be told and you and I will tell it together. 'Til that day when we meet again to laugh and watch you mimic the celestial hipsters...we will gather in the room in my mind next to my heart. 

'Summer time and the livin' is easy...hush little darlin,' don't you let a tear fall from your eye...'