Joseph Gutman, who changed his name to Etigson after moving to Toronto, passed away August 10, 2022 after a 2 year battle with pancreatic cancer. He is survived by four children. Joe was an intellectual property lawyer in Toronto.
As some of you will remember, Joe was my best friend in the first couple of years of high school; we were inseparable (at least until Sally Barber decided she'd rather be with him than me :)). I am very sad to hear of his passing, and also sad because I don't manage to keep in communication with my friends, though I stayed in contact with Joe up until a few years ago. (Thanks to whomever passed on the news.)
Joe was always the one with crazy ideas that he talked the rest of us into doing (in high school, usually some combination of me, Steve Leonard, Dave Gurney, maybe Ed Cohen). One news year eve, he was with me and my sisters and parents at Dodge Ridge; he convinced me we should carry our big dreadnought guitars in their heavy plywood cases up to the top of the ski mountain, and play outside. Of course it was so darn cold, neither of us could finger a chord to save our lives after about 5 minutes.
The one adventure that still terrifies me when I think about it was when we were about 16. We were walking around Mirror Lake at Yosemite - pretty sure Steve was with us, not sure if the 4th was Ed or Dave - and Joe decided we should climb Half Dome. Not up the easy backside trail; up the ridge from the right side. The ridge was easy but the route started getting very sketchy as we got closer to the top, and had to make our way across the sheer rock face you can see from the Valley. There was a traverse across the shear cliff (the face of Half Dome) that was literally only about 3" wide, narrower than the width of the hiking boots we had on, that ran for many yards, with a long fall - 1,000 feet? if we slipped. We survived, literally holding on with our fingernails at times. I later learned that we had gone up what is called the old Snake Dike route - climbing books that discuss it say it is not recommended at all for amateurs with zero gear. Although my sister Julie was heavy into the climbing scene at Yosemite later, and my older son Joshua was a serious climber for some years, that Snake Dike experience caused me to permanently lose interest in rock climbing.
In about 1977 I was living with my girlfriend Cynthia in Lompico, overlooking Club Zayante. Joe came and stayed with us for a few days, maybe a week. I had been working at the People's Natural Food Store in Felton, pretty far into the Santa Cruz mountain hippy scene, which led (long story omitted) to selling office equipment, which I was doing at the time. I was shocked when that flower child guitar playing, flute playing, oil painting wild man, leaping gnome pal of mine told me he had become an attorney. That caused me to reconsider my counter culture lifestyle and decide I wanted to pursue a less flaky existence, then once again I found myself following Joe's lead, got in to Stanford Law School, and spent about 40 years practicing law. (I still play guitar, still no where near as well as Joe did.)
In the mid-eighties, with my second wife and our young child (my second son), I went and visited Joe and his first wife Lynn in Unionville (the suburb of Toronto they lived in) - Joe wanted us to move up there and have me join his law practice - which was quite successful. He and his then partner Igor Hughes, as the firm Hughes Etigson, represented Apple in all of the UK countries - Canada, Australia, Great Britain, etc. I decided it would have been too difficult - I would have had to go through a long process to get licensed to practice law in Canada despite being admitted in California. After that, we talked by phone, then on Skype, and exchanged emails sporadically. When I last heard from him by email - probably in 2020 or 2021 - he was unhappy with his second wife (who had been his secretary before they got married), unhappy with Canada, etc., and told me he was getting ready to chuck it all and move to some island - I think Barbados - where he had a big client that had enough business to support him. The next time I emailed him, I think to encourage him to come to our belated 50th reunion, I never got a reply. Now I know why. RIP, Joseph.
It was both heartwarming and sad to read your recollections, Kendall. My youth was certainly more tame than yours, thanks to your good, adventurous friends. Sorry for your loss but you do have the fond memories to carry you on.
thank you, and true enough, I have many good memories. Tame might have been a sounder way to go, in hindsight, but somehow, I chose (or got assigned by a higher power) to wander into the wild unknown. I'm reminded of a T-shirt I saw at Kohl's while accompanyimng a friend who was shopping for rock and roll shirts for bands we were about to go see in concert. The shirt said:
"In my defense, I was left unsupervised." Cracks me up.
Kendall Layne
As some of you will remember, Joe was my best friend in the first couple of years of high school; we were inseparable (at least until Sally Barber decided she'd rather be with him than me :)). I am very sad to hear of his passing, and also sad because I don't manage to keep in communication with my friends, though I stayed in contact with Joe up until a few years ago. (Thanks to whomever passed on the news.)
Joe was always the one with crazy ideas that he talked the rest of us into doing (in high school, usually some combination of me, Steve Leonard, Dave Gurney, maybe Ed Cohen). One news year eve, he was with me and my sisters and parents at Dodge Ridge; he convinced me we should carry our big dreadnought guitars in their heavy plywood cases up to the top of the ski mountain, and play outside. Of course it was so darn cold, neither of us could finger a chord to save our lives after about 5 minutes.
The one adventure that still terrifies me when I think about it was when we were about 16. We were walking around Mirror Lake at Yosemite - pretty sure Steve was with us, not sure if the 4th was Ed or Dave - and Joe decided we should climb Half Dome. Not up the easy backside trail; up the ridge from the right side. The ridge was easy but the route started getting very sketchy as we got closer to the top, and had to make our way across the sheer rock face you can see from the Valley. There was a traverse across the shear cliff (the face of Half Dome) that was literally only about 3" wide, narrower than the width of the hiking boots we had on, that ran for many yards, with a long fall - 1,000 feet? if we slipped. We survived, literally holding on with our fingernails at times. I later learned that we had gone up what is called the old Snake Dike route - climbing books that discuss it say it is not recommended at all for amateurs with zero gear. Although my sister Julie was heavy into the climbing scene at Yosemite later, and my older son Joshua was a serious climber for some years, that Snake Dike experience caused me to permanently lose interest in rock climbing.
In about 1977 I was living with my girlfriend Cynthia in Lompico, overlooking Club Zayante. Joe came and stayed with us for a few days, maybe a week. I had been working at the People's Natural Food Store in Felton, pretty far into the Santa Cruz mountain hippy scene, which led (long story omitted) to selling office equipment, which I was doing at the time. I was shocked when that flower child guitar playing, flute playing, oil painting wild man, leaping gnome pal of mine told me he had become an attorney. That caused me to reconsider my counter culture lifestyle and decide I wanted to pursue a less flaky existence, then once again I found myself following Joe's lead, got in to Stanford Law School, and spent about 40 years practicing law. (I still play guitar, still no where near as well as Joe did.)
In the mid-eighties, with my second wife and our young child (my second son), I went and visited Joe and his first wife Lynn in Unionville (the suburb of Toronto they lived in) - Joe wanted us to move up there and have me join his law practice - which was quite successful. He and his then partner Igor Hughes, as the firm Hughes Etigson, represented Apple in all of the UK countries - Canada, Australia, Great Britain, etc. I decided it would have been too difficult - I would have had to go through a long process to get licensed to practice law in Canada despite being admitted in California. After that, we talked by phone, then on Skype, and exchanged emails sporadically. When I last heard from him by email - probably in 2020 or 2021 - he was unhappy with his second wife (who had been his secretary before they got married), unhappy with Canada, etc., and told me he was getting ready to chuck it all and move to some island - I think Barbados - where he had a big client that had enough business to support him. The next time I emailed him, I think to encourage him to come to our belated 50th reunion, I never got a reply. Now I know why. RIP, Joseph.
Kendall Layne
Virginia Ginny Young
It was both heartwarming and sad to read your recollections, Kendall. My youth was certainly more tame than yours, thanks to your good, adventurous friends. Sorry for your loss but you do have the fond memories to carry you on.
Kendall Layne
Ginny,
thank you, and true enough, I have many good memories. Tame might have been a sounder way to go, in hindsight, but somehow, I chose (or got assigned by a higher power) to wander into the wild unknown. I'm reminded of a T-shirt I saw at Kohl's while accompanyimng a friend who was shopping for rock and roll shirts for bands we were about to go see in concert. The shirt said:
"In my defense, I was left unsupervised." Cracks me up.
Kendall