Axel

April 18, 1923 - March 21, 2013

 

Axel - A Personal Tribute to Axel Boilesen

By Doug Keister, March 25, 2013

Like most men, I often have trouble articulating my feelings, so when you ask me how I feel, I usually say I feel good or I feel bad. Sometimes, I’m able to elaborate on good and bad and am able to parse out various refinements of good or bad, but most days, good or bad serves me well.

A while back, I stumbled on a quote by Maya Angelou. She said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Axel Boilesen made me feel good.

I don’t recall if he ever was Mr. Boilesen. It seems to me he was always Axel. And sometimes he was Axel and Betty. Oh, how he loved his Betty.

Axel came into my life via his son Doug (DB to me). DB and I were among the many free-range kids that roamed around the newly-minted Eastridge subdivision in the 1960’s. When I transitioned to my teenage years I became...well...a teenager with all its uncomfortableness and angst. During that time, Axel became my second father.

Truth-be-told, my parents didn’t quite know what to do with me. Somehow Axel did. He put up with my antics and adventures, coyly never quite approving or disapproving. Despite his advanced age (he was in his late thirties and early forties when I knew him in Lincoln) he was filled with as much childlike wonder and curiosity as I was.

Although I did things with Axel and DB (playing cards and going to auctions and sleuthing out phonographia finds), it wasn’t what Axel did that was so special, it was how he did it and who he was.

With gentle caring, infectious good humor and a warm smile, Axel drifted through life bringing joy to everyone he touched. In a word, he was the most genuine human being I have ever known. In a world full of trouble and problems and anger and hate and a “if it bleeds it leads” media mentality, Axel was the touchstone of the goodness of the human race.

Every time I came to Lincoln, I’d visit with Axel. In his later years, he moved to Legacy Estates. Either providence or good luck landed him in the apartment next to my mother. No visit to my mother was complete without a rousing game of pitch with Axel. What fun it was. I’ll cherish those memories forever.

Today I feel good that Axel Christian Boilesen was in my life. Today I feel bad that I won’t be able to see him again. But I know I’ll always be able to see him and feel him when I look into my heart. He’s a permanent resident there.

Doug Keister, Chico, California.