Life’s Review… Part One

Dear Louie,

Today a casual request set me thinking.  Abbey aka Abbie, asked if I was writing again. After a negative reply, I was informed that having lived a long life without any significant episodes or accomplishments, I probably did not have much to write of.  That set me thinking.  If I don’t write, I have not had anything worth recording, if I do write I might just have some things to write of and to share, not only with those who are near and dear, but those who might share some genetic material in the future, and perhaps someone might ask, “just who was your grandfather?”

And so I might add to the material, which I have written in the past.

THE KOREAN CONFLICT

Tonight I used the web to look up a friend from 54 years ago, a friend who died on July 3, 1952, on a hill in Korea; a friend with whom I had gone to grade school and high school, a friend who stayed on the farm during the second world war, only to be drafted into the Korean conflict of 1950 – 53.  That ill-advised conflict killed 20,000 soldiers and many other servicemen.  It started in June of 1950 when poorly understood and fanatically aggravated Koreans from the north invaded the South Korean peninsula.  I was working at Libby’s, in the pea receiving shed, when on walking home during the noon hour I heard of the invasion.  I remember how incredulous I was,  how could another war come about, when only 60 months ago WW2 had been declared over. For five years we had lived the good life and had been happy. We were reconstructing our lives, and rebuilding families and a country.  How could this happen, why was it happening? How long would this conflict go on, would I be drawn back into the navy?  

All of these thoughts went through my mind that June day of 1950.  I remember not eating lunch - I said a few words to Mother, and sat outside, deeply depressed. But I continued on. In the days and years ahead, all worked out well for me. I continued school, and in three years graduated from Medical School.  But for Leander, he died.  He had great promise, he was smart both as a student and also he was street smart.  He and I were the better students in Mr. Beatty’s geometry class and had a competition, which I recall, he won.  For once I couldn’t believe he knew the theorem better than I and knew how to apply the principle to a farm project on land division.  I admired his application of the problem and have never forgotten the humbling experience.  I suppose being limited as I was, it was a blow.  I never really was too smart, I had to study more than most, but was stimulated to do well by my parents who never preached, but somehow let us know that education was important.

MY PARENTS

My Father had a sixth-grade education, was raised on a poor farm in the sand country of Dunn County, and was listed in the 1900 census as “Johnnie” having a sister “Rosie” and a brother ”Charlie”.  His parents were first-generation of immigrant families who had arrived here from Germany in the 1850s.  They farmed on the Red River, lost the farm to a banker in 1929, and had come to Hartford, slowly over five years in the 1920s.  My Grandfather died of a gastric hemorrhage in 1932, my Grandmother died of congestive failure and chronic lung disease in 1942.  My father lived to the age of 93 and died of multiple strokes, his wife Lucy, my mother died at the age of 97 of multiple small strokes and some understandable memory loss.  They both were remarkable people, as honest as one can be, hard-working, intuitive, and people, understanding feelings, hopes, and hard work. They were never too judgmental, but not naive.  They may have been fooled once, but never twice. (To be continued…)

Today is Dec. 25, 2006, Christmas Day, the day of Christmas, and last night we had the family over for dinner and opening of gifts.  A pleasant yet frenetic evening, the meal was sumptuous, the wine, usually red, was abundant and eventually soporific.  A wonderful night of laughing:, and drifting to remembrances of Christmases past. So many events, so many people have come and gone over the years.  Relatives have entered, played their parts, and have not returned for curtain calls. Their seats are empty, others speak their lines, but still the embers of dying wood in the fireplace glow like good memories.

COLD NIGHTS

I recall one winter night when I was about 13 years of age.  My father worked as a janitor at St. Kilian Congregation.  It was a hard, demanding job; it paid little and demanded the time and energy of two, but he was only one.  Consequently, my brother and I had to help daily in cleaning rooms, stoking the Gehl coal stokers in the school, church, and houses.  As I filled the stoker, from a platform about two feet above the yawning chasm of the hopper, I often thought the stokers had an appetite, which was never satisfied, was always glutinous and demanding; yawning with a mouth of blackened coal dust and grim, demanding more and more, never satisfied, calling at two a.m. on very cold nights for more and more. 

We lived a mile away and that meant some nights I would get up and walk through the snow, up Rural Street, over the tracks, up State Street to the church; enter the dark basement, turn on the dull electric bulb and fill the damn thing. On occasion, a nail or other object would lodge in the drive mechanism, shear the pin, and one would need to reverse the augur and replace the pin.  This usually happened on the coldest nights, usually after one in the morning. It was so quiet under the church, so many shadows, so many creaks in the old timbers;  the wind would howl, the spirits would move through the spider webs of the beams, and my imagination would be on fire.

It didn’t take long to fill the hopper and move to the automatic auger-driven school furnace.  There, one would not need as much care because the coal was shoveled over the horizontal auger in a pit of coal.  John would always caution not to push the coal by foot over the auger and I was cautious, thinking always of the foot in the augur and no one finding me until seven a.m. Then to the sister’s house, and after that to the priest’s house.  Each basement had its resident sounds, smells, and shadows.  It was so nice to finish and to walk home in the blowing snow, down State Street, over the tracks, down Rural Street, and home.

My Father never missed awakening me and saying, “Thank you, Jim.”

More to come, Louie.

Jim