Ron Funk died on October 7.
Because Ron plays an almost continuous part in my life, with only a couple breaks, from the time I met him until the present, I was going to wait until I got my memoirs caught up to the present day to report his death, but then I realized that at the rate I’m going, it might take until about 2040 before I get caught up to the present day.
Anyway, no sooner had I published the previous piece about Ron than I received a missive from Pat, a former co-worker of the two of us, letting me know that his obituary was online.
I had been periodically checking for it myself, as I was expecting it, so it didn’t come as a surprise.
I don’t know who wrote the obituary, as he no longer had any close relatives, and there are some glaring errors in it. For example, it says that he met his partner Jerry DiFalco in the mid-1970s, when actually the two of them met in approximately 1990.
It also says that Ron received a bachelor’s degree in art history from Penn State. That’s probably correct; I had assumed that Ron was a grad student when I met him because of his age, but I don’t ever remember confirming that.
In any case the obit is correct that Ron provided support for Jerry as he built his art career. The problem was that most of Ron’s friends didn’t much care for Jerry, and anytime someone said anything the least bit negative about Jerry, Ron stopped speaking to them.
That might have included his longtime pals from Erie, Pennsylvania, Dennis and Bart, except early on, Ron gave them an ultimatum that it was Jerry or them, so they knew enough to hold their tongues.
I’m not sure if I fell into some special category, perhaps because I worked at the same place as Ron. While I didn’t care at all for Jerry, I tried to make a point of not letting my feelings show openly.
Still, there was that incident when a group of us had gone out dining. Jerry was sitting directly across from me, and being a fast eater, he finished his meal before everyone else, and then he lit up a cigarette, this being before smoking was banned in restaurants. As politely as I could, I asked him if he could please wait until I had finished eating to smoke. Jerry looked as if I had slapped him in the face. I thought that there was going to be a major incident right there, but he finally got up and went outside to finish his cigarette. For some reason, I did not suffer any penalty for my infraction.
On another occasion Ron invited me to join him and Jerry to see a show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Jerry was kvetching through the whole thing, and he and Ron had to leave before we had gotten through the entire exhibit. About an hour after I got home, my phone rang. It was Jerry. Ron had insisted that he call to apologize for his behavior. I had thought it was simply Jerry being Jerry and didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary for him, so I was rather surprised. I’ve never heard of anyone else receiving that kind of apology from Jerry.
In 2000 Ron sold his house on S. 8th Street, which he had bought in 1982 for $60,000, for the tidy sum of $132,500, and the two of them moved into a condo on the other side of town. Had he waited a few years, he could have doubled that figure, but I believe at least part of the reason for the move was because Jerry was having difficulty navigating the stairs.
When I moved to the house in the Wissahickon neighborhood, I invited Ron and Jerry for a visit, but when Ron found out that there were stairs, even on the outside to get to the entrance, he declined because Jerry couldn’t climb stairs any more.
By this time Ron only called me when he wanted something, like a recommendation for a computer purchase, but he always sounded happy to hear from me when I called him, which as the years went by was increasingly rarely.
Ron’s parents in Manheim, PA, died in the 1980s, and his only remaining close relatives were his brother and sister-in-law, with whom he maintained a tenuous relationship. Finally, when he and Jerry got together, Ron told his brother that he was gay, and he never heard from his brother again.
In November 2021 I received a note from Pat that Jerry DiFalco had died, so I called Ron. It was the first I had spoken to him in several years. He seemed to be glad to hear from me, and he sounded like himself, with only a little wobble in his voice, understandable given he was in his mid-80s. He said that Jerry had gone downhill very rapidly towards the end, and the last ten days were awful, he needed oxygen to breathe. Ron also mentioned that his brother had died two months previously, but he only became aware of it because Jerry had found the obituary. And no, they had never reconciled.
In April 2023 I received another note from Pat. Her friend Nancy Weatherbee had died, would I please let Ron know. Nancy and Ron used to be very close at work, and they maintained that friendship after Ron retired in 2000. However, that friendship was another casualty of Nancy saying the wrong thing. Apparently Ron, Jerry, and Nancy had gone on some sort of outing, and Jerry was being Jerry as he usually was, and Nancy finally had enough of it and told Jerry so. Ron never spoke to her again. Although she did call him to offer condolences when Jerry died.
I had a difficult time getting through to Ron at that time. I kept getting a message that his voicemail box was full. I did eventually get through, however, and I let Ron know about Nancy’s death. He didn’t have much of a reaction.
In January 2024 I called Ron for what turned out to be the final time. I couldn’t get through on his cell phone because he didn’t have a cell phone anymore, so I called his landline. He sounded a bit weaker. He complained about being lonely and missing Jerry. I couldn’t help feeling that if he hadn’t blocked all his friends out of his life, perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so lonely.
He also complained about his washer overflowing the month before. It had ruined the hardwood floor in his condo, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage, and it had dripped down into the two units below him, which caused even more damage.
I asked about his two oldest friends. Bart had died about a year and a half earlier. Dennis was traveling the world.
That was the last we spoke. I now see from the obit that he must have entered the nursing home shortly after that. I tried calling his landline several times in the ensuing months and years but never got a response. I thought it was possible he had already died. If I had known he was in a nursing home in Center City, I’d have gone to visit him.
PS There’s a lot more that I remember, but this is already long enough.