A gray, rainy afternoon brought news of the same somber hue to my Recorder desk late Monday afternoon: old friend Walter T. Kostanski Jr., known playfully to me as Honorable Walter T., was dead and gone at 91.

I had just put to bed the first draft of a column suggested by a female reader explaining my unscientific take on ticks when Recorder advertising sales rep. Mike Currie passed by as he often does at that time of day. He stopped to chat, not unusual, but this time his quip suggested something worse.

“Isn’t it strange how things happen sometimes?” he said, standing over my right shoulder in a tight cubicle. “Chip (Ainsworth) and I were just talking about Walt Kostanski and the 1942 Turners Falls High School state-championship baseball team this morning.”

“Why? Did he die?”

“Yes … I guess this morning.”

It didn’t surprise me. Walter had been through a rough go in recent years, including risky open-heart surgery he took in stride five or so years ago. No, I would have never known his perilous situation from the limited exposure I had to my old friend with those kind, confident, compassionate, pale blue eyes that met yours square and whispered he had nothing to hide. A regular, affable guy always chock full of local news, he could mix it up with just about anyone, and made a habit of it.

The man did OK for himself, rising from Depression hard times in Erving/Millers Falls to make a name for himself in the athletic arena before going off to war, coming back and building a successful funeral enterprise with brother Henry. He then moved on to a stint as a popular state representative before a long tenure as Franklin County’s elected Register of Deeds. Once there, he was not one to hide out behind closed doors and his desk, either. No, that wasn’t Walter’s way. He was there to greet you with a warm glow, a man of the people who loved to chat and laugh and join in playful banter with the fellas, be it under the Statehouse’s glittering golden dome, at formal glad-handing affairs or just playing pinochle with his K Street cronies.

I got to know Walter in my early Recorder years, when he used to pass through daily from his courthouse office across the street. That was back around 1980, and we’d talk mostly baseball, maybe salmon and shad, better still bluegrass music — whatever spontaneous subject came to mind.

Like I said, Walter was a talker, and so am I. In many ways, we were made for each other, despite being cut from radically different political fabric. My rebel bedrock was formed during the Sixties and early Seventies, his, more conservative, was borne of The Depression and World War II era, when he joined the Navy and toured the world in service for his country, likely robbing him of a chance at pro baseball. A tall, blonde, lanky righty pitcher known in youth as “Whitey,” he was a pretty fair country ballplayer in his day. You never know where his talents and fierce competitive spirit would have taken him had it not been for Pearl Harbor. Nonetheless, he never lost his love for the diamond game. One of his favorite baseball sayings I heard many times was, “The change of pace is the back-breaker.” No truer words have ever been spoken.

Once we got tight, Walter often called me on the phone just to chat, and even stopped at my old South Deerfield home when passing through. Quite the organizer, he set up many a trip to Lake Ontario for memorable charter-boat excursions, which, for me, brought more interesting camaraderie than rich fishing memories. I’m what they call a fish hunter, preferring hip boots or waders to a swivel chair and trolling-rod holsters. But what a cast of authentic Franklin County characters those trips lured in for two or three days away from it all with the fellas.

Had it not been for Walter’s promotional acumen and encouragement, I would likely never had the chance to know county characters the likes of Zip Caldwell and Sid Parsons, both long dead and gone, like I did. And although I knew Walter Jones and Bruce Van Boeckel before the fishing trips we attended, I definitely got to know them much better through those unforgettable junkets on which sleep was limited, if not prohibited. Bruce and I were young then. The others were old enough to be our fathers, maybe even grandfathers, yet they were tough to keep up with, always eager for all-night poker games that left a man impaired indeed when afloat the next day in the hot summer sun. Thank God for Walter’s Tupperware-cased onboard “schnackies,” and marine coolers of convivial refreshments to take the edge off.

Even my wife mentioned “schnackies” when told of his passing Monday night.

“I have nothing but fond memories of him,” she said, “such a nice man. I remember him taking you and the kids ice-fishing and telling me not to worry about the kids because, ‘we have plenty of snackies.’ But, as I recall, he had a special way of saying it.”

“Yes,” I responded. “He put a ch in there, pronouncing it ‘schnackies’.”

“Oh yeah,” she smiled, “that was it.”

I got to know Hon. Walter T. best on our one-on-one rides to and from the annual “fishing derbies” hosted by the late Rep. Silvio O. Conte (R-Mass.) at his vacation home on Pittsfield’s Lake Onota. We’d leave early in the morning, bluegrass music blaring, and have quite the spirited conversations driving Route 116 through Conway, Ashfield, Plainfield and Windsor before descending into Dalton and passing the Tyler AC and Wahconah Park to get the lakeside retreat early enough for kitchen prep work. There — cutting up fruit, vegetables and finger foods with Conte’s retinue of aides, political hacks and retired-military body guards, one with a black patch over an eye — was where the banter got real interesting over a stiff bloody Mary or bourbon on the rocks. By the time the rest of the cookout crowd arrived, our chores were done and the conversation only got louder and livelier, enduring way too late for early-morning anglers.

Then, after awaking to pre-derby coffee and pastries, we’d head out onto the lake, fish until an early-afternoon cookout and light-natured awards ceremony, pack up and head home the same way we came, through the hilltowns.

There was one minor modification for the travel plans home. Instead of keeping my Jeep Cherokee on the pavement, I’d kick it into four-wheel drive and show my buddy the big woods over unimproved roads long ago discontinued. He’d often provide the fatherly advice to turn around and retreat once I reached for groaning low range, but I had been there, done that and knew we’d make it unscathed. And make it we did, albeit a bit jostled.

Walter got quite a kick out of those rides, interrupting the bluegrass fiddle riffs with, “Wow, that fiddle goes right through you, doesn’t it? Sends shivers up my spine.” And oh how he loved the off-road yarns I spun, reminiscing about hunting maneuvers and hormone-fueled teenage shenanigans on Henhawk Trail or Grass Hill Road. Walt often laughed out loud, suggesting he wished he had been there for the more outrageous capers. Then we’d hit the pavement again and re-enter the respectable world he handled with aplomb, far better than his chauffeur.

The last time I sat down and talked to Hon. Walter T. was maybe four years ago at his Turners Falls home on “The Hill.” I don’t recall why I stopped. I was probably in the neighborhood and figured I’d say hello to an old pal I’d lost steady contact with since I stopped playing softball in the early Nineties. Recovering from open-heart surgery, he was weakened but far from defeated or feeling sorry for himself. Those kind, soft, pale blue eyes of his were clear, confident and compassionate, still wearing a glint of mischief. We chatted under a comfortable canopy table out back, me, him and his wife, Virginia, a retired registered nurse doing what she was born to do. I knew he wasn’t right. It was sad though predictable for a man north of 85. But his eyes and diminished laugh, probably softened by post-op chest pain he refused to acknowledge, were still full of that playful spirit that took him a long way in life, be it at the ballpark, the Statehouse or over a friendly game of pinochle in a dark, smoky barroom.

I will never forget that grin, his eyes — those of a good man who wanted to be friends … and beat you at any game you played.