My grandfather on my mother's side was that way, albeit in a more countryfied version. He was a jolly, happy-go-lucky sort, and nothing ever really seemed to bother him too much. The rest of my mom's family (except for two of my uncles) are a bunch of certified nuts, running the full gamut: I have criminal cousins, hysterical manic-depressive aunts, befuddled henpecked uncles, and crack-whore nieces. In the midst of this ongoing maelstrom, this human flying circus, this anthropologist's nightmare, my grandfather was untouchable cool personified, and the whole family looked to him for what strength it had. When he died, the whole thing just flew apart. One aunt attempted suicide. So did a cousin. At the burial, one aunt threw herself onto the coffin begging to be buried with him. If I remember right, she hadn't even spoken to him in 20 years.

And even the way he died was cool. He had a heart attack coming home at dawn from an all-nighter at an illegal whiskey-and-gambling house in rural Cabarrus County. He was 66. I never found out, but I'd just bet he had a pint of Rock & Rye in one pocket and most of the other poker players' cash in the other. It would have been just like him.

So that's the kind of guy he was, and the kind of guy Gleason was too, or the Brooklyn version of it anyway. The man knew how to live, and he lived till he died. In these days, when real male role models are only just beginning to claw back up from the ground they'd been buried in by Birkenstock-clad treehugging politically-correct pseudohippies, sniveling pretentious yuppies, and hypersensitive New-Age types, Gleason's life looks like some sort of bizarre, buck-wild anachronism. It's a good thing he's gone, really. I don't think he would've been very thrilled with life in the no-smoking smarm of the Tofu Era.

Gleason was never the only one, either. Where have all the badasses gone? The guys like Robert Mitchum, say, or Clark Gable? Can you imagine Babe Ruth getting hired on by any modern-day MLB™ team? My God, they'd require him to go through booze-and-hot-dog rehab and a year's worth of sensitivity training first. He'd give the patrician puppies running baseball nowadays a coronary, and it sure wouldn't be because their arteries were clogged by too many Dodger Dogs either.

Fats Waller was another one. Fats played in the clubs half the night, then spent the rest of it playing some more at whatever house party was going on in Harlem, a jug of whiskey at his feet, a cigar between his teeth, and a platter of fried chicken on top of the piano. Everybody knew Fats, and everybody loved him. The joint was never jumpin' until Fats was in the house. By the time the sun came up, the jug was dry, the plate was empty, the cigar was a forgotten stub, but Fats kept right on swinging. I saw an interview with his son a few years back on TV, and he claimed he hardly knew his dad when he was little because he was usually asleep during the day after being out all night making the music he'll be forever remembered for. When he got a little older, Fats would take him around some, and the great thing about it all is that his son didn't seem to resent the whole near-absentee-father thing at all. He didn't spend a moment grinding any of those "I'm neurotic because I was neglected" axes; he flat-out said that he realized his father belonged to the whole world, and he actually felt privileged to have had as much of him as he did. If the Waller phenomenon had happened in the modern era, not that it possibly could anyway, the kid would be singing in some poor-pitiful-me whiny-assed emo band by now. Or he'd maybe be suing somebody, or both.