That I was his friend at all was itself something of a minor miracle since he often chose the talented and famous as friends, but he justified my friendship I suppose by elevating me to the status of “crackerjack computer professional” who was able to help him up off the “floor in a pool of blood” as he bombastically would describe the occasional difficulties he encountered in using his computer.  However those problems and questions occurred often enough that from about 2004 until his stroke ended our ability to communicate regularly, we spoke almost every day by Skype.  He would often even call to ask me to hold his “virtual hand” as he opened some piece of correspondence he had received that he feared might contain ominous or unwelcome news. 

The picture above at the right, taken by his friend Wayne Gallasch, was his favorite picture of himself.  Holding Maxe in his arms and wearing that rakish, leather Aussie hat that Greg Dixon gave him and his favorite coveralls is the way I will choose to remember him for it was the quintessential Paul that I knew in happier times. 

I invite you to read back through the entries he made here on this blog when you want to enjoy his brilliant writing and wit, and I encourage you, his other friends, to use the comments section below this entry to post your memories of him and to celebrate the unique soul that he was.  I think we might all agree that the Heavenly Choir had better be on its toes and sing on key or he may just get up and walk out at intermission.

I feel sure that you find this picture of him to be as reassuring as I do.  There is not much other news of note about his health except to say that in response to my queries Wolfgang has confirmed that he isn’t suffering any life-threatening health problems at the present.

Paul and I met, as I said in that first essay, online in iLink Writers in the early 1990s. We’ve been in each other’s physical presence only two times during our entire friendship — once in 1995 in San Francisco for less than a week and once in Berlin in 2003 for about two weeks, when Paul invited me into his home. Back then I was much more committed to blogging than I am now, so I wrote about that 2003 visit with Paul rather extensively (beginning here and continuing for about 16 consecutive entries until this one).

But through the years we’ve become closer as friends as we’ve moved further apart physically. Perhaps the irony is that there’s an inverse correlation between physical proximity and being really close friends. I’m sure if he and I were confined in the same space for any prolonged period of time, we’d drive each other insane. He tolerates me best, and with just cause, in small doses.

When I think of him, it is with great fondness and profound admiration. I really like him and spending time with him, in spite of himself. I sense he feels the same about me, and I find that very rewarding.

Today is his 86th birthday, so I want to tell him this.

Paul, I hope you get what you want for your birthday, whatever that is. I have already gotten everything I could have possibly hoped for in return for the time I have spent being your friend. I look forward to whatever time we have left to share.

I love you, Paul, and I thank you for rewarding me with your friendship.

To those of you who may read this, I invite you to write your own essay about your friend Paul in the comments below. And even if you can’t get it completed on his birthday, I’m sure he will treasure reading how you describe your friendship with him, and it will give you a way to share your wishes for him. Thank you, if you take the time to do so.

I’ve just spent the last 45 minutes on the phone with him, helping him resolve a computer issue that he was having. I was only able to do that because Dr. Wolfgang Petri made me aware of and assisted by installing a program called TeamViewer on Paul’s computer with which I can connect to his system and provide him remote assistance. This application is free for non-commercial use, as it is being used in this case to help a recovering friend who is 4,586 miles away from where I live. I must pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that I think that’s pretty doggone cool. Paul too was very impressed by how well it worked.

Today’s conversation was the longest and most productive he and I have had since his stroke almost a year ago now. He is doing much better, I’m pleased to say. He can communicate reasonably well though he still has trouble with particular words or concepts and his memory is not what it once was. Today I asked his permission to interrupt him when I noticed his beginning to bog down trying to communicate something IF I thought I knew what he was saying. He agreed to allow me to do that, in the interest of having a more fluid conversation, and to not interpret my interruption as being rude. Normally, I give him plenty of time to say things, but for some time now, I’ve been having to reflect what I understood him to have said to ask him for confirmation if I were right, and that has helped us communicate even when he was having the most trouble speaking. He will even occasionally say something like, we’ll I’m not making much sense so let’s put this conversation off until later. That’s easy enough to do, so most of our conversations are for no more than 10 to 20 minutes in length.

Earlier this week on Monday when I spoke with him, he was very concerned about Maxe who was behaving listlessly, causing Paul to believe he was ill. I did not call yesterday because I didn’t see Paul online and presumed he might be attending to Maxe. When I didn’t see him online again today, I called primarily to check on Maxe but of course also on Paul. He greeted me enthusiastically, more or less as someone who was being washed away by a fast-flowing river and had already gone down twice might do. He related his computer problems to me, which was the metaphorical river that was sweeping him away, and we managed to connect via the TeamViewer program, which enabled me to solve the problems. Once we had addressed that technical crisis, I was pleased to learn that Maxe had made a miraculous recovery the next day and was back to his usual barking, tail-wagging self, much to Paul’s relief.

Some of you have asked me to talk about how Maxe was fairing and how his needs were being met. Those charged with visiting Paul on a daily basis walk Maxe frequently, but Paul no longer goes out on Maxe’s walks with him. Paul does leave the house on occasion with friends who stop by and take him to dinner and other outings. To be honest though, I do not have a sense of how frequently those outings take place. People like Wolfgang stop by and visit with Paul and help him with things that need to be done, from his television to his computer. So he isn’t isolated and without company. I can guess that there may be times when he’d like people there more often, but there may also be times when more people are there than he was used to before. When he and Maxe are there alone together, Maxe is often playing the role of a lap robe, keeping Paul’s lap warm while they watch television together.

As Paul’s 86th birthday approaches on March 3, 2010, I’d have to say that my friend and yours has made significant progress in recovering many, though not yet all, of his abilities.

We are still configuring his setup so that he can handle his email in Outlook rather than having to use the web interface, not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Some problems never die; they merely recede temporarily.) We’ll eventually get it to work I’m sure, because I’ve been able to configure my own Outlook 2003/Gmail connection without any problems.

So for the moment Paul will be using Gmail’s web interface to deal with email. Though it may be a bit less convenient than Outlook, on the upside it does contain the addresses he had accumulated up until his recent medical problems. So for now I won’t make any promises about how quickly he’ll reply, but he should be able to receive your messages and read them without any problem at the Gmail website.

Now then, at long last, you may resume your previous direct relationship with Paul and I’ll tip my hat and step back into the shadow. Thanks for all of your help and for your kind words during this interlude. It has been a pleasure for me to get to know you and to add you to those whom I think of as friends.

Perry

Paul believes he will still have the same telephone number as before and he said that he would welcome your calls.  If you are a frequent correspondent of his (and who isn’t?), his phone number is listed in his signature on all but the rarest of his emails.  I’m not sure yet whether he will be able to connect electronically, so telephone calls rather than Skype calls computer to computer are going to be the most ideal way to reach him.  Also it may be a while yet before he’ll be able to carry on email correspondence, though given his progress so far, I wouldn’t rule anything out.

He acknowledges that he is still unsteady with his balance, yet despite that he is planning to have Maxe return to live with him to see how that goes.  We discussed that he is going to have to be very careful when playing with Maxe since his toppling over is a distinct possibility.  Paul is very aware of that concern so he assures me he’ll be cautious about any rough housing with his friend but just being together again will have to be a tonic to Paul.

I know you all join me in breathing a sigh of relief and feeling very good about Paul’s progress.  I’ll leave it to you to tell him yourself when you find it convenient.  I assured Paul that I would be happy to post a note here to ask you to stop calling if and when that ever becomes a problem.

Welcome home, Paul!

Paul seems to be recovering nicely from the stroke. I spoke with him as recently as earlier today and his speech has definitely improved, though his problem with balancing himself with which he was troubled even before the stroke resulted in his taking a nasty fall backwards down some stairs. He has, fortunately, almost fully recovered from that mishap. Though still unsteady, he does seem to be improving as time goes on.

Here are a few of Dr. McClelland’s comments.

As promised, here’s a little report on Paul and the dinner in his honor last Wednesday (17 June).

To my surprise Paul himself appeared in the Restaurant Entrecote, a nice French place that happens to be just around the corner from where I live in Mitte. There were over a dozen people present, and the meal (and Paul) lasted about 3 hours. I am attaching a few photos I took.

Paul’s friends at the dinner ran the gamut from people who had only recently met him and were looking after his dog Max to old fraternity brothers. One of these, Gert Dyckerhoff (who lives in Bavaria and travels a lot on business), hosted the dinner. I gather he, Dr. Moeller and the lawyer Ms. Salein (who were not present) had gone out to visit Paul earlier in the day and decided to work toward getting Paul back into his apartment, with appropriate look-in help, in maybe 6 weeks. I think that tells you a lot about the visible progress Paul has been making.

I learned a few tidbits about Paul’s biography I had not known. When he was a student in Munich (long before I was!) he had been one of the first Americans to be invited to join one of the exclusive duelling fraternities! As a university historian I am aware how important these are, but I had no idea (as one of them explained over dinner) that theirs has a fund to help out “brothers” in difficulties. There were in all four of his “brothers” at the dinner. That is very reassuring to me.

Charles, I know I speak for everyone who depends on this blog for news of Paul when I say how much I appreciate your report and your sending me the pictures.

On a personal note, let me thank you all for your comments made to Paul on this blog. I do try to convey them to him whenever he and I talk. And also I’d like to thank you for your expressions of appreciation to me for my effort to keep you up to date at this stage. I am only doing what I would hope one of my friends would do for me if I were in Paul’s predicament.

Because Paul has so many of you out there across the globe who care about him, this blog probably provides the best way for me to reach out to that considerable network of people. I encourage you, if you wish to, to talk to each other in the commentary section and discuss your concerns, suggestions, hopes and fears for Paul so that this blog becomes not just a place to hear about Paul, but also a place for you to share your input and thoughts. Maybe together we will stumble over a way to do more than just spectate and instead contribute in some meaningful way to his recovery.

I’ll let you know the crucial details of how to communicate with him as soon as I know them and I can conveniently do so. Of course if he tells us he’s getting too many calls after the phone is installed, we’ll just have to get him one of those 900 numbers and charge an exorbitant fee to talk with him and then we could apply the proceeds to help pay for his care.

I will close with the Helmut’s own words which I find very encouraging. He ended his email by saying “then there is much hope he can get back in his own apartment.”