I met Luigi Tinonga when I was too young to remember meeting him. My family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980s before I entered kindergarten. My aunt and uncle lived in Oakland and they were neighbors and friends with Luigi and his wife Calleen. My parents would take my sister and I to visit my aunt and uncle, and at some point a four- or five-year-old version of me met Luigi and Calleen.
Shortly thereafter my family moved to southern California. As a child I would hear stories from my aunt and uncle about the time they spent with their friends Luigi and Calleen. And, a couple of times during my youth, I would visit with our family’s friends. But, it was not until I was a university student in San Francisco that I began to spend more time with Luigi and Calleen. I recall dinners at the Levi’s Plaza Il Fornaio, enjoying live music at Jazz at Pearl’s in North Beach, and delicious Thanksgiving dinners at their home in San Leandro. They were always warm, always welcoming, and always eager to hear more about my life in college, my thoughts on politics, and my plans for the future.
After my undergraduate studies ended, I moved away from the Bay Area and lost immediate contact with them. But, in 2013, my wife and I moved to western Oregon and a year later, Luigi and Calleen retired to southern Oregon. We reconnected and began to enjoy each other’s company on a regular basis. It was during this time that I came to really know the intelligent, creative, loving, and fascinating person that was Luigi Tinonga.
My wife often jokes that I am a grumpy old boomer trapped in the body of a middle-aged Generation X’er. It is true that I tend to find ease with people 20 or 30 years my senior. For reasons that are multitudinous and boring to recite, my cultural touchpoints reach back to a previous generation: beat and hippie culture, jazz of the bebop era, the pastoral sleepiness of baseball, My Three Sons, The Donna Reed Show, On the Waterfront, and the like. Thus, as I spent time with Luigi over the past eight or so years, we found copious realms of shared enthusiasm.
We would discuss music at length. We traded texts alerting the other to our latest obscure rhythmic discovery and played tunes for each other on our mobile phones as we sat on his deck overlooking the bucolic Rogue Valley. Discussion would shift to sports and we would analyze the performances of the Golden State Warriors, the Oakland Athletics, and the NFL’s Raiders. Then came the game of back-and-forth questioning regarding the latest television shows and films we had enjoyed. Have you seen the new Chet Baker flick? The new HBO sports documentary? That old movie with what’s his name and that one lady? Then on to books: a new biography of Miles Davis, a treatise on world history, a retelling of a nature-based adventure.
Luigi read John Daniel’s Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone, raved about it, and then lent it to me. I devoured the text, admiring Daniel’s authorial skill in conveying the details of his solo winter residing in a remote cabin in the Rogue Valley, while reminiscing about his father’s life as a brilliant, but troubled labor organizer and inveterate alcoholic. Once I finished the book, Luigi and I recounted the tale, complemented Daniel’s style, and expressed what we had each gained from the title. There are few people in my life with whom I can revel in astute literary analysis and I cherish those conversations we shared.
Luigi was a polymath and an autodidact. A true renaissance man whose talents far exceeded mine in multiple ways. He was an astonishingly brilliant painter worthy of gallery showings, an amateur entomologist, a knowledgeable landscaper, and an adept carpenter and all-around handyman. Always curious and quirky, he was a collector of rocks and seashells, a collector of antique radios, and a classic packrat who perpetually had a planned future use for the odd screw or bolt, the remains of a broken window, or a discarded scrap of lumber. His sense of humor was stellar and his impressions of his friends, family, and acquaintances were hilarious and spot-on. In short, he was a more than impressive man whose company was an absolute pleasure and whose friendship was altruistic and numinous.
In the spring of 2019, my wife and I were visiting Luigi and Callen at their home. I told Luigi that I was fortunate to take advantage of a paid sabbatical offered by my employer and would be off from work for the following month. He asked me how I was planning to spend my time. Other than relaxing, catching up on some reading, and completing some deferred home improvement tasks, I told him my wife and I would be spending a week on Maui. After returning from Maui, I might head to the Oregon Coast for a short camping trip. For the past few years I had made an annual solitary sojourn to a campground overlooking the Pacific Ocean where I would walk for miles on tepid sand, stare obtusely at the waves, and spend far too many hours simply thinking. A coastal camping trip, Luigi said, sounded like a lark. Would I be interested in some company this time around? Indeed I would! Well then, it was settled, we would camp together on the Oregon Coast for a few days once I returned from my tropical holiday.
On the appointed day, I drove my compact coupe to his house with my spartan camping supplies stuffed in the trunk. My approach to a few days of car camping is pretty austere. A tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, a couple of bottles of water, some granola bars and beef jerky, a submarine sandwich, a little whiskey, and a good book. Since we would only be gone for a couple of nights, I had planned to simply “wear the stink” and forgo showering until I returned home. But Luigi’s idea of car camping was much more elaborate than mine.
After picking him up we headed over to his friend Gerald’s house to borrow some of his gear. Once we were done raiding Gerald’s gear stash my tiny car was packed to the gills with a six-person tent, a steel frame cot, various pots and pans, a camping stove, a cooler filled with gourmet food Calleen had prepared for us, and a varied collection of other sundries. Fully loaded up, we headed out for the coast and arrived at our assigned camping spot a couple of hours later.
After assembling our tent and getting settled in, we headed down to the beach. Once there, I walked through the warm khaki sand, waded in the chilled ocean waters, explored the surrounding area, and stared out at the vast expanse of blue water. Luigi, on the other hand, wasted little time wandering about or contemplating the Pacific. Almost instantly he began creating an impromptu work of art on a sandy area abutting a rocky outcropping. He arranged driftwood, stones, seashells, seagull feathers, twigs, and other bric-a-brac in a geometric pattern. He found a tree branch with pine needles still attached and employed it as a broom to sweep sand off the tops of the various items he had carefully situated. Transfixed, he continued to work diligently as I ambled about and periodically stopped by to admire his creation and chat with him.
As the sun began to set we walked back to camp and cooked a sumptuous dinner of steak on his small camp stove, cracked open a container of Calleen’s tasty German potato salad, and broke off some pieces of crusty bread. As supper cooked, Luigi found some Roy Ayers on his iPhone and provided a soundtrack for our campsite meal. Following our luxurious dinner, I began to build a fire in the provided pit as my companion packed up a small bag and announced he was heading over to the campground’s bathroom complex to have a shower.
A little under a half hour later, as the fire began to crackle and grow in size, Luigi emerged on the trail toward our tent donning his bathrobe and slippers. Traipsing down the dusty pathway he declared the shower facilities more than adequate, equipped with plenty of hot water and cleaner than expected. The sight of watching him proudly stroll through the campground in his robe and slippers will stay with me forever—a reminder of his quirkiness, but also his unique approach to enjoying life and his ease with traveling to the beat of his own drum.
The next day we hiked, read our books in the shade, toured a campground yurt where the somewhat surprised inhabitants provided us with a tour upon Luigi’s request, and ate another stellar meal. But, what stuck with me the most, was our second trip to the beach.
Again, while I waded ankle-deep in the surf and checked out starfish in the tidepools, his mind turned to artistic pursuits. He found a large staff and began drawing swirls, lines, and geometric patterns. Spread out over maybe 100 yards of damp sand, he busied himself with his creation for an hour or more. Watching him work, it came to me as a sort of epiphany—the man was an artistic genius. An artistic genius in that same way that all other artistic geniuses operate: quirky, singular, visionary, intelligent on a different plane than my rational mind functions, and compelled to the creation of beautiful things. He did not manicure his sandy design to show it to me or to take photos of it on his mobile phone or to impress the other folks on the beach. He created it because it was what he enjoyed doing, but more so, I think, because it was his obligation as a true artist. In that cliched but authentic idiom, it was art for art’s sake.
Luigi passed away in early 2022. It was much, much too soon. Technically a senior citizen, he was still leaping into the swimming pool from the diving board; still toiling for hours at a time engaged in his eternal landscaping projects; still with a list of movies, books, and music to experience; still cherishing time with his friends and family including his beautiful new granddaughter; still writing poetic accounts of watching the sun rise from his deck over the Rogue Valley on a random autumn morning while sipping his coffee; still telling jokes and cracking us up with his garbled Irish brogue; still recounting his trip to visit family in the Philippines and his time spent playing in an rhythm and blues band in his youth; and still sending everyone he knew his now-famous texts laden with phonetic peculiarities and a cornucopia of seldom used emojis that elicited smiles and chortles from the fortunate recipients.
I could write 15 more paragraphs about my memories of Luigi. I could include a dozen more anecdotes. I could describe in detail his method of reading a book and sharing with those in earshot the surprising new facts he encountered. I could paint a picture of him manicuring his nails or twiddling his toothpick between his lips after lunch. I could write about his warm smile, his infectious laugh, or his comical Fred Flintstone-esque cursing at himself under his breath as he fiddled frustratingly with some form of handiwork. No collection of sentences could ever entirely convey his anomalous eccentricities, or his expansive love for his family and friends, or his subtle brilliance. But, in the end, there is no need for me to try and describe all of these traits. Show, don’t tell.
Over the Memorial Day Weekend, Calleen and her family hosted a remembrance and celebration of Luigi’s life at a lovely venue in southern Oregon. The proof of a life well lived was all present. Nearly 100 people joined together to make speeches, swap stories, and testify to the man, the myth, and the legend. Neighborhood friends from the Bay Area made the six-hour trek up the interstate to be there. Friends from Maui found their way to the mainland to honor him. Friends from his high school days ensured they were in attendance. As we sat at a table drinking wine and munching appetizers, I turned to my wife and told her that if half this many people are obliged to care so intensely about me when my time on this planet comes to a close, I would count myself a very lucky man. There was laughter, singing, reminiscing, and many, many tears. While numerous folks delivered splendid speeches and retrospectives, one line spoken at the event, I think, told the whole story:
“Everyone here who knew Luigi felt like he was their best friend. But how could one man have so many best friends? That was why Luigi was so amazing—if you knew him he treated you with such love and care, sent you so many thoughtful text messages, called you to ask about your children or ailing mother, cherished his time with you so fully, that you were convinced that you were his best friend.”
I am quite sure that I will never know another person like Luigi Tinonga. How could I? He was one-of-a-kind, eluding duplication or imitation, without equal. Every hue had been expertly selected, every brush stroke made just so, every detail thoughtfully placed, every layer of meaning revealed beneath the surface impression. A masterpiece.