Ken Bassett

 You should meet my friend Kenny Bassett. 

Kenny Bassett

Of course, he’s so well regarded, you might already know him. You may have had him for an art teacher at Northwest or seen his beautiful artwork gracing the halls of many Grand Island institutions. If you do, you know that Kenny is wonderful, funny, warm and loving.

Kenny is pure of heart.

Ever since I’ve known Ken, which has been - if you can believe this - almost 50 years, I’ve had a soft spot for him. It’s because he reminds me so much of my brother Tommy. You don’t meet many people like that every day. My sweet little brother, who feels almost like my own child, is just like Kenny. I have thought often that if the world was filled with people like the two of them, we would have no more wars or hate or sadness. Even if you weren’t particularly loving or happy yourself, you couldn’t help but feel better about everything and everybody if you had somebody like Kenny to hang around. When I spend an hour or two with Kenny, I walk away feeling better than I did before.

He’s no saint, thank God. He may be pure of heart, but he’s wickedly ornery also. Kenny’s  jokes - which he loves to tell - are sometimes so bad and so irreverent that you feel bad about laughing so hard. I think he loves to tell jokes about Catholics more than anything else, and even though I consider myself a devout Catholic, I’m guilty as all get out of laughing harder than anybody. Well, that’s not true. The person who laughs harder than anybody else is Kenny himself. He can’t help but laugh at his own jokes. There he is - the sweetest man you’ve ever known with his innocent, little boy smile which is SO much like my brother’s rattling off these awful jokes one after the other. For years and years, I sat giggling my silly head off with my friends Connie Allen, Julie Kayl and Jim Rea, who were also Catholics. We fervently hoped God wouldn’t strike us down right there on the spot. Our lovely friend Jim is gone, but Connie and Julie and I are still howling at Ken’s terrible jokes.

Old friends, from left standing:
 Julie Kayl, Arlene Rea, Cathy 
Howard, Ken. Seated: Jim Rea

Kenny is full of beauty. I don’t know any other way to say it. He spills it out with paint on canvas and creates the most breathtaking images. One of his paintings was a winter scene on a prairie which was so real it actually made me cold. I loved it and couldn’t stop staring. It evoked something  - what, I can’t say for sure. But it stirred up some nostalgic contentment. Cows huddled together next to a snowy path. From a beautiful old farmhouse lights shone through the snow conjuring up images of living creatures inside who were warm with togetherness and sheltered from the winter elements. 

Ken gave it to me. Just like that. I kept it for many years in my classroom at school and hung it on an adjacent wall so that I could look at it every day. During the stress of a chaotic class, I had only to raise my head to see it and feel instantly soothed. After I retired, I brought it home with me, and my husband John instantly stole it. He loved it as I did and said it reminded him of the eastern Colorado farmhouse where he grew up. I understood. Since I had claimed its comfort for the last ten years, I reluctantly gave it to him. It now hangs in his “jigsaw room” where he often escapes to spend hours putting puzzles together but graciously allows me to gaze upon it whenever I need its soothing solace.

What Kenny does with paint, he also does with words. How does one man possess so much talent? He’s not only written a mesmerizing novel, but he’s written short stories and a wealth of poetry. Just lately, his poetry especially stirs me and our other friends. Kenny is battling a life-altering illness, and to top it all off, his aging hips are killing him - to the point that he requires a walker. I hate seeing my once energetic and vital friend moving in pain. Do you think he’d ever tell us how exhausting it all is? Not once has he ever complained. In his poetry, however, he shares not only his physical but his emotional pain - the pain that all of us at a certain age would like to shut away as we enter this last part of our lives. 

Some of Ken Bassett's work

Kenny doesn’t claim any particular religion or faith. Unlike me, who hangs onto my Roman Catholic roots like a life boat, he doesn’t express any certain belief but is perhaps willing to be surprised by whatever comes after - you know, after we shuffle off this mortal coil. I need to be comforted by certainty. I need to absolutely believe that I will reunite with beloved family and friends, that all the angst and heartbreak and bad stuff will disappear forever, and that I will be with the Lord to live in safety and happiness forever. I’m constantly putting conditions, however, on Heavenly life - that it won’t BE Heaven unless my pets are there or if the man who ran over my cat Chloe IS there, and that I can still eat macaroni and corn casserole whenever I want. 

I would imagine that the Good Lord labels me as “high maintenance”. 

If only I could be like my friend Kenny. He’s never been high maintenance or demanding in his life, let alone the afterlife. He wouldn’t even know what “high maintenance” is.

I believe he ponders what comes after all of this, of course, but in his patient, gentle manner he seems to trust that whatever happens happens. Maybe we go to some wonderful place, or maybe we fall forever and gently asleep. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right.

This is why God loves him - why we love him. Kenny Bassett demands nothing, enjoys his life and his friends and his cats, and shares the beauty inside him with all of us. 

Can it be any better than that?

Yesterday was Kenny’s birthday. We’re having lunch today at Balz with our loving old crew - Connie and Julie. Always we miss our Jim, but how grateful we are to still have each other after all these many, many years - and especially grateful to celebrate another year of Ken Bassett in our lives.

Happy birthday, my old friend. May we spend many more birthdays with Julie and Connie at Balz discussing the world, our lives, and our mutual hatred of that ridiculous saying: “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”. 

I love you, Kenny Bassett.

From left: Connie Allen, Julie Kayl, Cathy
Howard, Kenny, Jim Rea