Al West

Al West…is this the one you’re looking for? It’s a rather common name you know. If you google “Al West” you will get lots of hits, especially for the American League West. In fact, one time Al’s Mom, Maxine, called him because there were a bunch of newspaper articles about Al West. It took a bit of time to explain that not only did he not make the daily news, but they were not talking about him!

I was told by the patrons of this obit that this could be as long as I wanted it to be. So sit down, get a cup of coffee and read on.

This particular Al West was born on February 5, 1953 as Frederick Alan Woestendiek in Chicago Illinois. Is that narrowing down the search for you? He moved to Carpentersville Illinois as a very young boy and spent all of his school years and young adult years there. He legally changed his name to Al West in his late teens leaving his then wife and son, Slade with the last name of Woestendiek. He lived in several of the northwest suburbs of Chicago ending up in Hoffman Estates Illinois. There he met and married his neighbor Carole – but we’ll get to more of that later. Then he moved to Orlando Florida and then moved to Hollywood Florida and finally ended his 71 orbits around the planet in Brown Deer Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee.

Are we getting closer to the Al West that you knew?? Let me tell you a bit more about him. He worked his whole life and continued to work and work and work. A poem…
All I do is work all day,
Never do I get to play.
Working working glibbidy glerk
All I ever do is work.
This beautiful poem was penned by Marilynn Kupersmith at about age 8 and Carole taught it to Al – we both recited it often feeling that work was way too much work. But I digress. Generally Al worked sales, face to face, cold calling, retail, phone service, hospitality, internet, just about every kind of sales. He sold hardware, leather goods, burgers, pet supplies, people (as a recruiter/head hunter) services, a steam ship, my wisdom teeth, and continued the sales hustle selling whatever he could. He worked hard and played hard.

Marriage seemed to come easy to him. He was married 4 times, Darlene Whiting, Chris Hoppe, Lisa Clasen, and Carole Kupersmith. 3 of those marriages were in his 20’s. I used to joke that Al never realized that he could just go steady, he didn’t have to get married again and again and again. I am grateful for the last and final “again” because that was me.

We were both scared to marry again as between the two of us we had failed at it 4 times before. So it took 8 years and Carole almost dying to finally marry. We began to lie to doctors so Al could make medical decisions for me. Al decided to make an honest woman out of me. On a beautiful sunny day on February 29, 2000, Al and Carole got married in Orlando. Chris Hoppe West, wife number 2, gave him away. Brother Dan Kupersmith gave me away. Al had been in a garage band in high school, one of the most formative experiences he’d had. After well over 30 years, all of the band members came to Orlando to celebrate with Al – Dan Golden, Fred Olson, and John Clasen. Thank you for that. Dan Golden, the hollywood director and producer, filmed it for us, managing to disperse throughout the video the pretty girls coming and going past the party room to the pool in their tiny swim suits. Thank you Dan.

The funny thing is that marrying changed us. We kept getting closer and closer and closer. So much for getting married just being a piece of paper. We were split aparts, imzadi (Star Trek reference: Similar to the concept of soul mates, those who refer to one another as Imzadi could be said to have a deep, almost spiritual, conection. Although Commander Riker and Deanna Troi are not romantically involved throughout the seven seasons of TNG, they often refer to one another as Imzadi in times of danger or stress) We were best friends, and 24/7 companion’s for just about all of those years since 1992 when we met.

Why would anyone get married on Leap Day you might ask. We would come up with brilliant theories all of the time and this was definitely one of them. Since neither of us had a long term relationship, we figured the Lord wasn’t terrific at math. We decided to marry on 2/29 and only celebrate every 4 years and maybe the Lord in Heaven figured it was really only one year and let us be together longer. Well He did. We were together for 6 wonderful years And they actually seemed longer than that! (Because it was 24, get it?)

By the time we got to Milwaukee in 2010, our health was beginning to take it’s toll on both of us. For the most part, when I was sicker, Al became the most incredible care giver ever created. When he wasn’t well, I did the best I could but Al had already set the bar higher than I could reach on that front. In the last few years, life found us equally aching and complaining together making care giving a hit and miss attempt at best.

But we always laughed. No matter what was happening, we found times to make jokes and come up with crazy topics to talk about. In 32 years, you run out of things to talk about so we became creative at new topics, that is – we made them up. He taught me sports and rock and roll and I taught him Broadway Musicals. He’d come up with Yiddish Phrases after reading Yiddish for Dummies because he was an ousted Lutheran and looking into Judaism. When he found out he’d need to have a ceremonial circumsision, it stopped that adventure. One of the more entertaining diversions came with the Milwaukee Brewers and New Rules. We watched almost all of the televised games on TV. Here are some of the New Rules we invented:
1. the warning track should be a trampoline to help the outfielders catch home run balls.
2. Now, when a player makes an error, nothing really happens. We decided they should be put into a penalty box for the remainder of the inning.
3. If a batter gets hit by a pitch, the pitcher leaves for the rest of the inning and the remaining batters get to hit off of a T-Ball stand like the kids do early in playing little league
We fought about who was funnier. Only at the end did he begin to give me that award. We talked about becoming a couple comedy act, like Gracie and George Burns. But we were both kind of lazy so never did that. But I bet we could of been a contender. It got to the point that we’d look forward to unusual circumstances happening to us alone so we could share the oddity with one another for a laugh.

I can’t forget the Scientology years and on our first new year’s eve we crashed a Scientology celebration party. He loved telling his stories about that chapter in his life and people seemed to enjoy it.

Wonder how Al would like this obituary. Wonder how differently he saw his life from the way I saw his life. Probably a lot but I dont care. He left first so I get to write it my way. I am crazy about him and he knew it. He was pretty crazy about me and people knew that as well. This is how I saw his life, maybe through rose colored glasses. He was kind, incredibly funny, smart, grateful for what he had, looked like Santa Clause so he was as cute as a button and an all around friendly and wonderful man. And he loved me and showed it to me all the time including regular love letters on birthdays, Valentine’s Days, and other gift giving holidays. He thanked me for loving him like he was the lucky one. Silly man. I was the lucky one.

He will be missed by family and friends. But mostly me.

Al was uploaded to the Cloud on September 19, 2024 from Brown Deer Wisconsin. There will be a Celebration of his life; the life of Al West – a get together October 27, 2024 at Carole and Al’s home in Brown Deer. We will get you the time shortly. Do you have Al stories?

Survivors: his son – Slade Woestendiek (Julie Ducharme), his grandchildren -Shaa, Faylaa, Slade(Maxx),Slade (Deuce). Gage Woestendiek (grandson preceded in death). Brother in law – Carl (Maryellen) Kupersmith (along with their 4 children and 11 grandchildren), nephew – Dr. Eric(Dr. Nicole) Kupersmith, niece – Sherry (Jason) Fahs. Brother in law – Daniel (Ellen Kupersmith), Nephews – Nathan Kupersmith, Michael (Sandy) Heller, Neal Heller, Daniel (Christie) Woestendick, and Carrie Woestendick Mitchell.

Also survived by lots of friends and Me, Carole Ann Kupersmith, proud to be his wife. G–d Bless You Al West. Thank G-d for you!