Jay's Jayburgers

“Success is measured not by the position one has reached in life but by the obstacles which he has overcome.”

– Booker T. Washington

At the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Virgil Avenue in Los Angeles, there used to be a little burger stand, Jay’s Jayburgers. It had only six stools around a U-shaped counter.  Bite for bite, there was not a better mix of tastes and textures than a Jayburger. Each one was made to order: a toasted bun, a dab of mustard, and freshly cut tomato and onions, topped by a sizzling burger with a scoop of homemade chili. I must have been to Jay’s more than a hundred times over the years; it was perfect for satisfying the midnight munchies.  Jay’s even achieved a degree of celebrity by being featured in one episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

My most memorable visits to Jay’s were with Ted Jackson, my freshman roommate at Santa Cruz.

Ted and I met in September 1972, when we were paired as roommates. We roomed together through the spring of ’73—not a long time, but those nine months generated a lifelong friendship and a boatload of memories. It’s hard to imagine anyone more pivotal than the person with whom you spend your first significant year away from home. And I hit the jackpot with Ted Jackson.

Early in our relationship, Ted taught me the value of brute honesty. The summer before entering Santa Cruz, I had my first real romance, a big crush on a free-spirited high school classmate I’ll call Jenny. She wore patched blue jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts, loved Led Zeppelin, and drove her dad’s ’64 Cadillac. Jenny and I had a blast in L.A. that summer—getting high, riding horses in Griffith Park, going up to Lake Arrowhead and out to the Magic Mountain theme park in Valencia.

When it came time to head for college in September, we didn’t really talk about the “future of the relationship.” We knew that trying to script the future would only complicate what had been a great summer. Saying our teary goodbyes outside her house with the white picket fence overlooking Silver Lake felt like a movie scene. She headed off to UC Santa Barbara, and I started the six-hour drive to UC Santa Cruz.

For most of that fall quarter, I probably talked about Jenny every day—and Ted was kind enough to actually listen. But enough was enough. One morning when I mentioned her name one too many times, Ted exploded, “Ken, shut up! How much longer are you gonna talk about her? It’s over, man. Move on!”

Ted’s words stung but were exactly what I needed. He delivered a true gift to me that day, and I finally broke out of my funk. I didn't see Jenny again until our ten-year class reunion in 1982. Though she was as attractive as ever, I was able to simply appreciate her for being a first crush and a great person, channeling the timeless lesson from Stewart Emery: You can be attracted to someone and not do anything about it.

Ted and I shared a holiday ritual that spanned 25 years. Beginning in 1992, we’d meet at Jay’s the morning after Christmas—always at 9:00 a.m., no need to confirm, we’d both just show up.  When Jay’s closed in 2005, we carried the tradition to the Original Pantry Cafe in downtown LA and kept it going through 2017.

As we enjoyed our perfectly crafted burgers, we’d run through the pillars of life: work, relationships, family, music, and sports—particularly sports. Growing up in LA, we had the blessing of rooting for a golden age of legendary teams including the Sandy Koufax–Don Drysdale Dodgers, the Jerry West–Wilt Chamberlain Lakers, the OJ Simpson USC Trojans, and the Lew Alcindor–Bill Walton UCLA Bruins. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, we could count on one of our teams winning a championship.

Ted was also a huge Springsteen fan. We always marveled at Bruce’s notable streak of six classic albums in a row from 1975 to 1987: Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, Nebraska, Born in the U.S.A, Tunnel of Love. We even saw Bruce together at the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena in 2016.  At one point during the concert, I looked around and then elbowed Ted. “Hey, you’re the only Black guy here!” I said. He gave me a little chuckle and said, “Look around; you’re the only Asian dude here.”

Ted read and thought deeply about the racial divide. From 2015 to 2017, I co-chaired the Yale Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which was charged with producing a report to guide the university in creating a Yale community that fully addressed issues faced by students and alumni of color. Whenever I came across a thorny issue, I’d reach out to Ted for his reasoned opinion. I leaned on him often for nuanced and honest feedback on issues that didn’t have easy answers. This is the power of long-term friends: No matter what happens, they are there. You only get a few, so choose wisely.

We realized that the key to being legendary was longevity, and our shared goal was excellence over time. On December 26, 2017, we toasted our twenty-five-year streak and wondered how long we’d go. Sadly, our run of consecutive meetups ended in 2018. In August that year, Ted suffered a massive heart attack while hiking in the Sierras. He was only sixty-three.

Ted had a long and distinguished career as a California State Park ranger. Five years after he passed, his family organized a memorial service in Redwood National Park, a few miles north of Eureka. The service fell on September 17, my birthday. It was a beautiful day. As the crowd gathered in a grove that the Park Service dedicated in Ted’s honor, I gazed up at the redwoods, some nearly 300 feet high. In my eulogy for Ted, I shared how his character had the same quiet strength and steadfast presence as the magnificent trees surrounding us—and that the deepest friendships, like the tallest trees, reach for the sky while being rooted in shared history that runs deep.