A few months ago, I received a meticulously wrapped package in the mail, marked fragile. Inside was a 16-ounce sour-cream bottle labeled “Rojek’s Dairy,” of North Tonawanda. Andy Gardiner, my friend of more than 40 years, had sent it from his home in Vermont.
Andy collected classic dairy bottles. Now he was shipping some of them off to friends. Andy had cancer and didn’t know how much time he had left. The handwritten note that came with the bottle left that part unsaid; he wrote instead that I could use it as a beer mug or a flower vase, or just enjoy it for its solid self.
The gift of a vintage bottle was vintage Andy. Spreading joy was his thing. He was the sort of sportswriter who made Dagwood sandwiches for the other writers covering Alpine skiing at Winter Olympics around the globe. For this and other avuncular kindnesses, his fellow mountain scribes took to calling him Uncle Andy.
I met him in 1982, when we were founding members of the sports department at USA Today. Andy liked that I had come to the new national newspaper from Buffalo. He was born in Tennessee and lived most of his life in Vermont, but he had family roots here. When Andy covered the 2003 Frozen Four for USA Today, at HSBC Arena, he found the house on Greenfield Street where his mother grew up, and the one on Dewey Avenue where his father was raised. They met at Bennett High School and married at St. Mark’s. Andy visited the church, too.
We lost him last week, at age 72. Upon hearing the news, I got out my dairy bottle, filled it with a favorite ale, and raised a toast. In that moment, I realized Andy had given me a gift of goodbye.
“He treasured those milk bottles,” says his older sister, Ellen Morgan. “Most of them are from dairies in New England that are gone now. He gave some away as sort of dying going-away presents. Those were things he cherished and loved.”
Only later did I discover that Andy had given me a second gift: What could be better,…
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