Last Friday night, Julia and I went down to the local antique shop where one of my friends' artwork was being sold off to support the Ice Age Trail. The artist, Saheed, was a coffee shop customer who I later grew to know quite well. When I first met him at the Roxbury Tavern, he introduced himself as "Mike". I asked him about his accent, and he said that it was German.
It turned out that he was Iranian and afraid of anti-Iranian biases in our country so called himself Mike. Even with good friends, he would softly say that he was Persian. We shared a love for good coffee, beer, and hiking. He was one of the few customers who was invited to join me when I was roasting coffee in the back of the coffee shop. Saheed loved to watch the process.
The shorter one-story building to the right was the roastery; the taller one to the left was a bar. Historically, they were connected. The coffee roaster is long-gone, but you can still see the roaster's smokestack at the far right of the building. It was a custom Class A chimney that cost as much as the old roaster. It's not connected to anything now.
It wasn't until Saheed invited me to his home that I learned he was an artist. Saheed's house was full of sculptures with vivid colors. He didn't make art for money; he made art because it gave him pleasure. For work, Saheed worked many years at an industrial valve manufacturer. He lived simply and kept up a beautiful garden. When one of his neighbors went on vacation, he always volunteered to take care of their gardens.
I later learned that Saheed was a wealthy man, but due to U.S. laws, he was unable to access that wealth in Iran for many years. Something changed after he retired, but money didn't change Saheed.
My daughter has a special memory of Saheed during a local race that she was running as a high school senior. She could hear footsteps from behind, and then soon ahead of her. Saheed was 70 years old and had just passed her by like she wasn't moving.
He was a runner, biker, and hiker. In the years just before the pandemic, he started having knee issues and stopped running. Then the memory issues began, and later speech failed him. During the pandemic, his safety became a concern to family and friends. He would drive places and not remember how to get home and was unable to talk when people asked if he was okay. "I just can't get the words out," he complained to me when he was still talking.
Saheed no longer remembers who or where he is. Saheed's daughter moved him to a memory care place in the Milwaukee area, where she lives. His house in Lodi has been sold; only the artwork remained. By the time we arrived to the event, all of the ones that I liked were already sold. That's okay. The Ice Age Trail will benefit, and my memories of him will remain.
