Listen to the quilt's stories

Quilts are not for sissies.

Not when they march down the whole of American history, comforting the tens of millions, from cradle to hospice.

Not when the quilt's embrace is as joyful as the high sun, not when it protects us from life's arctic nights.

And not when it marks some awful human sorrow, such as AIDS. There is a huge quilt for that, and 96 of its panels made their way to Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad over the weekend.

The whole quilt couldn't make it. It has grown too large since the idea for it took hold in 1987. Now it would probably cover Cincinnati or Sonora if all its 46,000 panels were spread out. (It has been displayed in its entirety only five times.)

This NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt - you can't have a project in the United States without a title that numbs the brain - is in every way remarkable. It is immense.

Yet when you remember what it represents, oohing and aahing lasts only a few moments. Then comes sadness of the overpowering variety. That each panel marks the death of yet another AIDS victim. Marks with thread, written in love, little stories, little memories.

They were men, women and children. Fathers, husbands, brothers, sisters, wives, mothers, kids. They were young or they were in middle years. They weren't old; AIDS victims generally don't make it to old.

What was the aim of the quilt? Essentially, remembrance. It calls gently, in the names of mercy, charity, human understanding and love, not to forget the people who died in the epidemic that will not itself die.

Generally accepted figures - they're estimates, really - for deaths from AIDS in the United States, 1989 to 2004 (the last year for which there is, so far, full accounting), is 529,113. Worldwide, the number soars to more than 3 million last year alone, according to a new study from the United Nations.

Studies and traveling quilts don't appear without cause: Friday is AIDS Day with the theme: "Stop AIDS. Keep the promise." It's a "day" all over the world.

Panels of the quilt appear again at Pilgrim United for a service Friday night and for general viewing Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. This advice seems silly, but it is offered anyway: Go see it. Go study what the panels say, and try to remember the names, the names. Sew them into your mind.

When you see the quilt, you may not find the name of someone you knew. But somewhere on there is a name only six degrees from you, count on it.

One name on the quilt is that of Ted Hook. You may not have heard of him, although he gained a certain fame in the film world before becoming a New York restaurateur. Among other things, he was a chorus boy and danced by actual count in 401 movies, running from set to set.

Then for 10 years he was private secretary to Tallulah Bankhead.

Post-Tallulah he opened Ted Hook's Backstage, a restaurant set in the '40s near Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, and for nearly a decade it was the center of night life for a certain crowd. The denizens had to love old movies and old movie stars. They had to revere the era.

They also had to love the very thought of Broadway, and go to plays a lot.

The stars were out every night at Ted Hook's. So many were regulars - Richard Burton, Liza Minnelli, Robin Williams, Chita Rivera, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Larry Kert, Phyllis Diller - but name-dropping is a serious vice, and that will do for now.

In his 50s, Ted still had the dancer's grace and body, and he leapt and soared through the restaurant as he seated customers.

What mattered most, however, was the Ted Hook persona. He was the most energetic, amusing, charming, thoughtful, helpful, generous and funny man that most of us had ever known. He also was the restaurant, in the sense that when he wasn't there, it was pretty dull.

Ted Hook died of AIDS. His companion of 15 years, Gary, did, too - but years before Ted.

In those days the illness was only whispered, like "cancer" up until the mid-20th century. It carried a stigma, which was understandable early on: People thought AIDS could be caught by shaking hands. And so its name was whispered in fear.

Honestly, Ted Hook was mortified, although he knew it was coming. He sold out and, alone, took to his apartment, which was 44 flights up and from which he could see all of New York - and into three states - and with few exceptions was never seen again by his closest friends.

He's on that quilt, and someday…

- Contact staff writer John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or .