{"id":1142,"date":"2014-03-13T22:44:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T22:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2014-03-14T04:09:40","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T04:09:40","slug":"sad-times-alzheimers-taking-away-mr-downtown-and-the-jazzman-cap-demeiro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1142","title":{"rendered":"Sad times: Alzheimer’s taking away Mr. Downtown and The Jazzman Cap DeMeiro"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Terry<\/a><\/p>\n

TERRY MOSHER<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every time I drive over the Warren Avenue Bridge in Bremerton I feel a pang of guilt. When I remember, that is.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about. But from the bridge I can see the building housing Claremont Senior Living and that is where \u00a0perhaps one of the best characters downtown Bremerton ever had is now living.<\/p>\n

For nearly 50 years, Cap DeMiero was a fixture downtown with his union barber shop (it was later changed to Cap\u2019s Hair Design Salon to fit the changing times), cutting hair, telling stories, some of them maybe even true, swapping jokes and having more fun than normally allowed.<\/p>\n

About seven years ago he was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, although longtime companion Carolyn Irwin suspects it started earlier and that he hid it from her. Now he is in the memory care unit at Claremont where his conditioned continues to worsen, as is the case with Alzheimer. No one escapes its chilling effect. There is no known cure.<\/p>\n

What makes me sad and leaves me feeling guilty is I have visited Cap just twice in the two years he\u2019s been at Claremont. The last visit was Wednesday when Mary and I went. Cap grabbed on to Mary\u2019s hand and would not let go. He finally fell asleep and we left him.<\/p>\n

I feel we have short memories, that we soon forget those who have had a large impact on us when they die or, like Cap, are stored away in a nursing facility as they await the Grim Reaper. Maybe I\u2019m too hard on myself. Maybe it\u2019s just natural for family and friends to turn away, afraid to face reality, afraid of the hurt that facing it might bring. But I can\u2019t be more than I am, and I\u2019m sad when we lose people who have been good for us in some way, and sadder that in many cases they live their last moments on Earth alone, forgotten for who they were and the good things they did.<\/p>\n

Cap, if you didn\u2019t know, played football at South Kitsap and at Olympic College. He had started out on the 1950 SK basketball team that won the state championship, but had to quit because it was too difficult to get home in Belfair after practices. He often would stand for hours alongside the road tying to hitchhike a ride home, but that became too much to overcome.<\/p>\n

He got a Purple Heart during the Korean War while serving with the U.S. Marines and right up until a few years ago he annually wore his Marine dress uniform and walked in the Armed Forces Day Parade in downtown Bremerton. He was a proud patriot and was not afraid to show it or talk about it.<\/p>\n

Cap, in fact, was not afraid to talk about anything. That was the attraction at his hair salon. You got the news, good and bad, and some truth, along with that famous smile and his ability to charm, using his mixture of Italian and Pennsylvania (he lived there most of his early years) heritage to overwhelm visitors.<\/p>\n

Because I covered the Seattle Mariners for almost 30 years, whenever I showed up at his shop the talk centered on the Mariners and what he thought they should do to start winning. I was always more interested in getting Cap started on music. He played bass for more years than I know with a jazz trio. In the last years it was with Bud Schultz (piano and vibes) and sometimes Mark Lewis on the sax, but also with plenty of other sidemen, including the famous Overton Beery on piano.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was back in the \u201860s when I was going to UPS,\u201d says Schultz of when he started playing with Cap, who would show up as part of the fan base. In the early days Schultz said they played at the Harbor Inn in Gig Harbor and the Palace in Bremerton. They continued playing right up until a few years ago. Schultz and his trio now play Thursdays at Old Town Bistro in Silverdale.<\/p>\n

If I could place tags on Cap it would be as \u201cMr. Downtown\u201d for his loyalty to the Bremerton core area and \u201cThe Jazzman\u201d for his local leadership for jazz. He used to take his own money to bring in jazz performers to Bremerton, hoping that someday it would be a big mainstay of Bremerton, much like it is in Port Townsend with that Jefferson County city\u2019s annual jazz festival.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t happen, but it would be more than nice if some day there was a jazz festival in downtown Bremerton with Cap\u2019s name attached to it. That would be the highest honor other than his Marine service that could be given to him, and would be well deserved.<\/p>\n

Katherine Izzy of Seabeck, a former public educator, used to sit in and sing with Cap and his trio. She now does the same for Schultz at the Old Town Bistro. It is Izzy\u2019s contention that something should be done to honor Cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it happens before he dies,\u201d says Izzy. \u201cIt should be something big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irwin, who has dinner with him every night at the Claremont and tucks him in at night, says Cap has a couple caregivers who take him for walks in the morning and in the afternoons so his living space is more than just his room and the hallways at the memory care unit. He\u2019s taken a turn for the worse in the last few days, but he still flashes that big smile and still shows his ever present humor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe still is a very social person,\u201d says Irwin. \u201cHe\u2019s always positive with his comments. The last week has been troubling. It could be the beginning of a new normal for him. Alzheimer\u2019s is really a hideous thing. The brain doesn\u2019t communicate with the muscles that well anymore. All the muscle memory thing we do without thinking, a lot of that is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cap has always been bigger than life, a man with a big and warm heart who I never heard say anything bad about anybody. He loved life and lived it to the fullest. I say this as if he was already dead, but in a way he is, tucked away from the mainstream and visited by just a few (Izzy sees him every few weeks).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s terribly sad that such a loud voice, and not just in the jazz world, but in our local world has been quieted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to see him like that now,\u201d says Izzy, wondering why such a good person like Cap has to go through this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe certainly has been a big presence and a big personality\u201d says Irwin. \u201cHe loves people. He loves nothing better than to help people and to promote other people. That is just who he was. He was a hairstylist for 50 years and played music for 50 years and loved every minute of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, the things that happen to the best of us. Why oh why do they have to?\u00a0 But it is what it is and as I drive across the Warren Avenue Bridge I will always feel that guilt that I\u2019m too busy to think about Cap to steer the car to the Claremont. I will try to be better with my visits, but it\u2019s hard to see him this way.<\/p>\n

May your days be blessed, Cap, just as you have blessed us with your wit, your charm, and your presence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TERRY MOSHER   Every time I drive over the Warren Avenue Bridge in Bremerton I feel a pang of guilt.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-column","category-mosher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}