Goodbye Brother: In Memory of Hardware Grill’s Russel Frame

by Fred Frame

Hi Everyone. Thank you all for being here and a special thanks to Melinda and Larry Stewart of the Hardware Grill for inviting us here to use this beautiful place to honour Russell. Russ worked in this lovely room for many years and was very happy here. And this is where he met the love of his life, Pauline.

My name is Fred Frame and like all the men here, I’m Russ’s brother. Only Rusty called you all brother, and I got stuck with Fritz or Fritzy.

I think that was my brother’s greatest gift – the ability to make everyone feel a special bond with him — even if it was the briefest, most casual encounter. -Fred Frame

Russ changed almost everyone’s name — no one else ever called me Fritz. We’re not German as far as I know. But if your name was William, Russ called you Billy, unless everyone called you Billy, then he called you William. I used to wonder why he did this and now I think I know why — it was another of Russ’s little ways of making you feel a little different around him, a little special — a member of his exclusive club where there were only two members – you and the Rooster.

I think that was my brother’s greatest gift – the ability to make everyone feel a special bond with him — even if it was the briefest, most casual encounter. (He, like us all, could be impressed by fame and power but he still treated the bum on the street with the same enthusiastic warmth as he did the high rollers he met in his life.) That was Russ’s special charm in his work, and as a brother and a friend — he made us all feel a little bit special.

And that charm and enthusiasm doubled when it came to the ladies. Russ sometimes abused that great gift of charm in his early years.
And I’d probably be smart to avoid his earlier years all together, ’cause my older brother was trouble — with a capital T. Our family of five kids was split up when our mother died, and our father dealt with his grief in some distant place. Our grandparents raised Russell and me — Russ was a ten year old when we went to live with them, not that far from here. We bought blue jeans and hockey sticks in this very building when it was a hardware store. Not all that long ago.

He set my poor grandparents up big time. Russ was a fine athlete, an A-student, the McCauley school president, a big strong boy for his age and handsome and fun and, yes, charming — and then somewhere around 15 he tasted trouble and I think he liked it, ’cause he sure went looking for it. Or at least, it found him.

There were some very turbulent times in Russ’s life — some wild adventures and travels, and stories of barroom brawls and life on the lam in Vegas and Vancouver and Florida and Montreal and Sydney, Australia.

Let me tell you about Sydney. Russ hightailed it to Australia back in the 70s (we won’t go in to how he got the money, that’s another story) but anyway, he arrived in Sydney Harbour on the bridge of the ocean liner, stone broke, dead drunk and wearing the first mate’s uniform. He found work as a bricklayer’s assistant until he met a very wealthy woman who, of course, had a very wealthy and powerful and pissed off husband. He put the law on Russell who had somehow managed to overlook some of the finer points on his immigration documents and ended up in a deportation camp on the outskirts of Sydney waiting to be bounced out of a country settled by criminals, apparently with very short memories. Of course, being the fierce criminal he was, they handcuffed him to a large, cranky, unhappy guard to fly him back to his port of exit in San Francisco.

The first few hours were tense and unpleasant. The guard glowered at this man who was taking him away from his family all the way across the bloody Pacific. But he wasn’t so cruel as to deny Russell a beer, and well, maybe he’d have one too. The handcuffs came off. To cut it short, this tough harness guard ended up phoning home and taking a weeks’ vacation to party with Rusty in Frisco, a city Russ knew well from his hippy days. That was Russ — sometimes he’d make lemonade from those lemons and sometimes he mixed too much vodka with the lemonade and it would all start again.

For many years he was no angel, but it all helped make him the loveable rogue he was. And perhaps contributed to his talent as a waiter — the world’s best waiter. When Russell came to your table, immaculately groomed and beaming his big smile you knew that this was a man who could tell a story and a man with a story to tell.

Russ was a man.

He was very spiritual and I think his life was a quest for his personal holy grail.

Finally an angel found him and helped make the last years of his life the very best years. Russ had turned things around pretty well for himself — gave up the hard drinking and his wicked, wicked ways — and then, when he met Pauline, she gave him all the reason he needed to say goodbye to all the blues and heartache that had followed him, and he began to celebrate fully how wonderful life and love can be.

Russ found so much delight in the little details. No one enjoyed a breeze on the golf course, a blues song, a pretty wildflower, or a kitten in his lap more than Russ. He had an amazing enthusiasm for life’s small pleasures.

So, Russ died far too young, but there were times in the early days when making it to 61 seemed like it would take a miracle. And it saddens me to know that Russell would have enjoyed so greatly the years ahead of him with Pauline and my lovely sister Sharron and his new friends in his new home of Watson, and the old friends who would come out to visit him in his quaint, cute house and big yard with lilac trees, and he could play that lovely little nine-hole course with his great friend and golfing buddy, our Uncle Ron.

My son and I spent a week with Russ just before Christmas. Russ was quiet and peaceful and full of grace. He was ready to move on and concerned that no one be sad. He told me it wasn’t sad.

So let’s honour that: put our sadness on hold for a moment at least and raise a glass to our fallen friend, and though we won’t see you again, know that we miss you and love you.

And know that we’ll carry you in our hearts and laugh at the fun times we spent together, and ache just a little.

To Russ, our blues-loving, junk-shopping, leftist, Buddhist, Catholic animal lover, our friend — the song has ended but the melody lingers on. Goodbye for now brother.