Memories of Kathy

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of one of my very good friends, Kathy Lynott. She was a truly wonderful individual who had a heart of gold. In her last years, she fought valiantly against the perils in her own psyche, and succumbed in the end as a victim of a system which treated her illness in the only manner it knows: lots of medication and little sympathy.

The details of her death were related to me later by a friend who worked at the hospital in Ames, Iowa. Kathy died alone in her apartment from toxic shock syndrome at the age of 29 on August 10, 1996, in the Sheldon Munn Hotel in Ames. The senselessness of her death was that she had been to the hospital with her boyfriend on the previous day, complaining of the pains which she was experiencing. From what I gather, the staff there, seeing her history of mental illness, dismissed the pains as being perhaps psychosomatic; in any case, she did not receive the treatment she desperately needed.

I know that she would not like me to focus on her death, but instead upon her life. She was a very intelligent individual, musically- and poetically-talented, who was active in the local peace movement. We dated for a while in the summer of 1990, when the run-up for the first Iraq war was underway. I didn’t agree with her then on the issue--I was, after all, a newly-commissioned second lieutenant--but I see the mistakes in my thinking now. She saw that war wasn’t a good way to solve any problem, and held a basic belief that most people are good at heart. Perhaps this is naïve, but the proposed solution of war as a means of solving differences between nations has been shown to have its drawbacks as well. In any case, whereas perhaps the first Iraq war was just in the sense that the nation of Kuwait was liberated from the forces of Saddam Hussein, the second Iraq war hasn’t solved anything and a good case could be made that it indeed has made the world less secure than it was before. If she had been around for the run-up to the current conflict, she would surely have been on the frontlines of the peace movement again.

I first met Kathy at the Main Street bar, That Place, which was known as “An Ames Tradition” back before the forces of club music and the 21-year-old drinking age put an end to the fun. (The last I heard, That Place is now an antique shop. Score one for the prudent forces of righteousness!) I had seen her at the Ames Public Library that afternoon, and used the somewhat original pick-up line, “I saw you this afternoon at the library!” I then introduced her and her friends to a rousing game of “Which would you rather have?” in the That Place Chapel. So was the start of a brief but passionate summer love affair.

Kathy was an accomplished flutist and a good acoustic guitarist. I still remember two of her best covers: Neil Young’s Southern Pacific and Bob Dylan’s If You See Her, Say Hello. She could also play a killer acoustic version of The Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer, her version perhaps coming in only second in my experience to the raging cover by the almost forgotten cover band, Room 101, out of Ames ca. 1987. Back in 1994, we jammed at Kyle Horn’s place on Northwestern Avenue. Kathy brought her flute along, which naturally caused Kyle to think--Jethro Tull. They played a kicker version of Locomotive Breath together. She used to DJ at the ISU student radio station, KUSR, and once I stopped by to spin a few tunes with her. Kathy also had a love for classical music, and we would sometimes listen to WOI-FM and try to guess the composer. She didn’t share my passion for Wagner, though, and in the rainy summer nights of 1990 would come by to share her disdain as my roommate, Guy, and I were watching the Met’s version of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

After we had officially broken up as a pair, Kathy and I still kept in contact. We reunited as friends at a nice dinner at Spanish professor Joanna Courteau’s home back in the fall of 1992. It was in early 1993 that I learned that she had been suffering from mental illness. I visited her in the hospital, and we had a long walk and chat. I sensed her frustration at having been laid low by this disease, and she told me that she wished she could just be “normal” again. She mentioned that her stay in the psychiatric ward was like the Eagle’s song, Hotel California: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!” After I left for the Army, we wrote to each other occasionally. The last time I saw her was in the fall of 1994, when I returned to Iowa for a couple of weddings. We had a super time with Ted Solomon driving out to Ledges State Park and hiking to the lookout over the Des Moines River, where we talked about Native American mythology: Black Elk, the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, and Wakan Tanka. During that fall visit to the home country, she also invited Loren Christensen and me to sit in on a local talk show on public access television.

Kathy’s friends have made a tribute to her in the Iowa State University Plaza of Heroines, and you can read their tribute at this website.

I’ll close this remembrance of Kathy with a song she dedicated to me once on her radio show. Now I’m dedicating it to her.

Ghost in You

by the Psychedelic Furs

A man in my shoes runs a light and
All the papers lied tonight
But falling over you
Is the news of the day
Angels fall like rain
And love (love, love)
Is all of heaven away

Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade
The ghost in you
She don't fade
Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade

A race is on, I'm on your side and
Here in you my engines die I'm
In a mood for you
Or running away
Stars come down in you
And love (love, love)
You can't give it away

Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade
The ghost in you
She don't fade
Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade

Don't you go
It makes no sense when
All your talk and supermen just
Take away the time
And get in the way
Ain't it just like rain?
And love (love, love)
Is only heaven away

Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade
The ghost in you
She don't fade

Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade
The ghost in you
She don't fade

Inside you
The time moves
And she don't fade
The ghost in you
She don't fade