A Frenchman, an Artist, a French Resistance war hero, and my friend

December 17, 1922 – December 2, 2023

I met Michel Mockers in early 1981. He passed away on Saturday, December 2, 2023. My deepest sympathies to Ann and his children, François, Marie, Cecile, and Claire. This remembrance could be 400 pages long and still not cover everything Michel and I talked about, experienced, and did. Never mind the glasses of wine we drank, OK, bottles of wine. It is difficult to write this in the past tense, but alas my dear friend has passed.

In 1981 Michel came into the frame shop I ran and convinced me to visit with Linda Sutton of the Flemington Gallery of the Arts. He said she had to see the fantastic antique prints I sold. So, a plan was hatched and I met with Linda and Michel. Linda asked Michel to pick the art and she bought it. We argued about the discount I could give her and we finally agreed on something. That’s how we met.

But we became friends because as I was leaving the gallery, Michel handed me his brochure on Phoenix, his political party conceived on the Dialect of the Arts. Over the years I would receive hundreds of revisions and it would be renamed many times. I should have kept them, but he wanted them gone when he replaced them with a new one. It would be quite a historic treasure trove of his thought process over the past four decades.

I never learned to speak French. That was a mistake on my part, as I was immersed in a family who spoke French as natives. For years Michel and I spent a lot of time working on his political party. I loaned him my old computer and made him learn how to type. I said you can’t write properly if you have to look for the keys. Michel learned to touch type. Later I taught him how to use Ventura Publisher and that unleashed the printer in him as he could now typeset his brochures on his computer. I’m sorry world, I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, it seemed like a good idea. With a laser printer, computer, and Ventura, he had his own modern-day print shop.

Michel was a wonderful cook and baker. There was always fresh bread and wine to enjoy as we whiled away the hours on politics and how we would change the world. I’d say foolishness of youth, but neither one of us was particularly young, but we dreamed like young men of a better world. The “house wine” was Avia white. Michel discovered this inexpensive (not cheap he said) wine and we made it our own.

To Michel I was Jzhozef! (I have no idea how to spell it phonetically) Said with an enthusiasm that makes me weepy to think about it now. After he said it, he always laughed, knowing I was always Joe to everyone. When he turned about 95, he started calling me Joe. So, the voicemails I have left don’t have that enthusiastic name, I had hoped one of them did. Ann has done a pretty good imitation of it though, including the laugh afterward…

When we both lived in Princeton, NJ it was easy to get together. We were less than a mile away. But we still spoke on the phone a lot. Michel liked to share his ideas as he had them. “Joseph, I thought…” I would respond with questions because his concepts were almost always abstract and drawn from concepts he’d been thinking about for years. To be completely honest, I never did quite get where he was going with all his politics. Rather I was along for the ride and enjoying the company, food, wine, and his family.

After a few months of collaboration, it became clear that Michel slept far less than I did. That required setting a limit on how early and late he could call. For those of you familiar with The Big Bang Theory, Penny told Sheldon he couldn’t knock before 11 am on the weekend. So, he looked at his watch and knocked at 11:00:01 am. Michel was the same way, don’t call before 6 am. The phone often rang at 6 am. I’m laughing writing this as it was comical how much like clockwork those calls came.

As anyone who was a computer geek in the 1980s and 90s knows, you became tech support for your friends. There was more than once Michel trudged over to my house with his laser printer to get me to help him unjam it, or figure out why it was erroring, printing wrong, etc. He and I both cursed the Windows version of Ventura Publisher; it lost its pure typography lineage and became more of a desktop publisher. Michel continued to complain about that for years, as did I.

For years Michel and I were best friends, inseparable. I was the man he turned to and there were some tough times. One day I stopped by and was told he was in the backyard. I found him there with some empty bottles of wine and two glasses. Joseph, I knew you would be by. He poured wine into my glass. He said, “My life is a disaster, my dear.” We talked for hours until long after sunset. You never know someone fully until you know them at one of their lowest points. Michel was there that afternoon. We worked through it and went on to talk of Phoenix. What else?

No story of Michel would be complete without talking of his children. He always spoke with pride about who they were, and what they did. I got to know most of his family well through all the years. We met up at various get-togethers, and parties, or just sitting around the kitchen table eating and drinking, laughing. But most of all, I got to know them through their proud father’s words and stories of their lives, loves, and successes. He was proud of them most of all.

Michel was a few months younger than my dad. He was in the French Resistance and my dad was in the US Marines. They both fought in WWII. My dad didn’t talk about it much. Michel wrote a book about it “Rene’s War.” I am glad to have seen him receive his French Legion of Honor Medal, if only via the Internet. It is here, in all its messiness, joy, and love; this is very much like hanging out with the Mockers at home, all those many years ago. Godspeed Michel.

Michel Mockers receives the French Legion of Honor Medal. – YouTube