Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Geno sometimes comes back to visit

By Daryl Glen

Last year at Christmas, a friend who claims to be clairvoyant whispered to me, "I saw Geno today. He's back in town for the holidays. I walked into the Black Watch, and I could see him sitting in his old seat."

I checked in at the Watch and squinted at the stools in the corner where I'd spent many evenings discussing everything from theology to theater arts with Father Geno Harasyn, Los Gatos' late, lamented spiritual conscience, who died last year at this time. I could see nothing but an empty seat, but I don't doubt that he was there in whatever form one takes in the afterlife, and I know Geno would have been the first to agree with me.

"I believe in God," he said to me in confidence, more than once. "And I believe that when you die, you go to a better place."

One of the sad facts about being a younger, healthier latecomer to this small town is that I have seen so many old-timers pass in the few years I've acclimated myself to the community. And when they go, they take with them a little bit more of the old Los Gatos, which for me is the sense of warmth and closeness the community exudes.

Geno epitomized this and made me feel like part of an extended family. I'm not the only one who felt this way. Mention Geno today, and you're sure to get a nod of recognition from more than one local. For Geno was an exceptional soul. A native of Minneapolis, Geno often regaled me with stories of the maiden aunt who raised him or of his experiences in the priesthood.

"I had an Auntie Mame," he was fond of saying. It was Auntie Mame who encouraged him to join the Jesuit order in Minnesota, where he served for many years before finally settling in Los Gatos.

He claimed there was nothing he hadn't seen or heard while a priest, and he still served as a sort of informal father confessor for the new breed of Los Gatan.

On many a Friday night I would observe a young executive approach Geno with "a question," which the Father would listen to in absolute seriousness and hold in absolute confidence.

In later years, Geno had taken a sabbatical from the church, but he had continued his spiritual counseling both as a professor of philosophy and at the funerals over which he officiated in town.

Once I attended a service for a local and was impressed by Geno's sincerity and erudition. I was not surprised, then, to learn that Geno was a connoisseur of the finer things in life. Often he excused himself from a conversation to do his "tasting" for Valeriano's Restaurant, where he helped the management compile their wine list. Another time he spent an entire evening explicating to me Judith Anderson's performance in Medea, which he had seen as a young man.

Alas, by the time I met him, Geno's health was failing, and he was gone from the community almost before I knew him. I still remember the evening he died, when a nurse friend and I went to visit him in the hospital. While she held his hand, I told him a joke and he laughed.

For that experience, the first I'd had of its kind, I was grateful.

Even in death he had been a teacher. Later in the week there was a celebration for him at Oak Meadow Park, and a tree was planted in his honor. Literally hundreds of his friends turned out. Many spoke tributes to the man who had helped them through one or another dark period in their lives, but none spoke so eloquently as the man himself could have.

I found myself asking, Who will say the eulogies now?

Daryl Glen is a Los Gatos resident.

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