ProetryPlace Blog 57

A TIME AND PLACE ODYSSEY

    I hope folks enjoy my funeral service one day as much as we enjoyed my brother, Ron’s.

    Yes, there were sad and touching and difficult moments as we paid our final respects. My voice was unsteady in spite of my efforts to control it as I shared memories of the near and distant past, childhood experiences of young boys growing up in the city.

    Ron’s daughters, Lynn and Lauree, shared poignant memories as they spoke and in the form of picture-boards, collections of photos that depicted Ronnie’s life and accomplishments. Our sister, Audrey, added another photo collection of happy moments of the past. Kites, hobby horses, carvings and other creations of Ron’s able hands and mind were on display around the room. The spirit of celebration of life well lived prevailed, a productive and loving life before the cruel, crippling effects of Alzheimer’s held sway. Now he is free again.

    At the visitation, prior to the service, and later at the dinner his family provided in the church hall, we caught up with family and friends usually scattered over many states. Some we had not seen in decades.

    Two of our four children, Jennifer and Dan, plus Dan’s two children and fiancé were able to attend too, so we had a mini family reunion of our own. On the day after Ron’s service, we gathered for a memorable Sunday brunch at the wonderful Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee. Then we made a quick run to Menasha, 100 miles to the north. While Dolly and I visited friends, Dan, Jenny, et al visited their old homes and haunts and managed to survive one of Mimm’s famous cardiac arrest, butter soaked burgers.

    Monday was departure time. Dan’s crew left early and drove through to Georgia. We left Jenny in Milwaukee after a late lunch and proceeded to drive north again to Sturgeon Bay while she caught an airport shuttle for her flight back to Colorado.

    Sturgeon Bay is in the Door County peninsula, the thumb of the Wisconsin map mitten that juts out into Lake Michigan forming Green Bay to the west. The peninsula is home to many quaint and curious shoreline villages where shops, art galleries, restaurants and tourists abound. Millions of cherry trees and a few wineries occupy the interior.

    Audrey joined us at our rented cottage on Tuesday morning. We rendezvoused for lunch with our cousin Tom and his wife, Sandy, who live in Casco, nearby. Later, we visited one of the wineries, sampling from the great variety of vintages they offered.

    Wednesday, Dolly, Audrey and I visited most of the remaining shops in the county—Ephriam, Fish Creek, Gill’s Rock, Egg Harbor and others—lending our support to the local economy while acquiring a variety of gifts, souvenirs and Wisconsin food delicacies like cherry doughnuts, Original Old Wisconsin summer sausage and Cherry Chipotle Cheddar.

    Early Thursday morning the fishing boats left their moorings in Snug Harbor. Audrey returned to her lovely Wisconsin home, and we commenced our 1066-mile drive back to Georgia. Nine hours and 570 miles later we pulled into the Holiday Inn at Mt Vernon, Illinois to spend the night.

    Here is where the story gets nasty. Simply put, the remaining 500 mile drive was a bitch.

    Interstate construction slowed, stopped and snarled highway traffic on several occasions. Navigating Nashville through a blinding rain storm with bumper to bumper traffic was a white-knuckle experience I will not forget. Had I opened my eyes, it would have probably been worse.

    Then there was the #@%&ing idiot redneck who decided he would set the speed limit for everyone. Try to pass, he speeded up to prevent it. Drop back and he slowed to block the other traffic lane.

    I’d had sufficient occasion on the trip already to use some of my select highway vocabulary in reference to other drivers: dip-squat, numb-nuts, ass-bag—even the seldom used favorite, shit-for-brains. Mr. Redneck was in a class by himself, and I stewed and steamed at a loss for words.

    My definition of redneck does not include geographical qualifications. It is determined by attitude alone, one’s treatment of one’s fellow man. Ignorance and intolerance are highlights. I may have been influenced to refer to the #@%&ing redneck as a #@%&ing redneck because he drove a pickup truck. Had he driven a Mercedes SUV, a simpler and more refined expletive like asshole would have sufficed. Finally he swerved through both traffic lanes and raced off an exit ramp while we bid him a fond, #@%&ing farewell.

    Every motorized conveyance in the state converged on Chattanooga as we attempted to pass through, proceeding with glazed eyes and rapt attention through the agonizingly sluggish congestion reminiscent of a bad head cold. Shoulders and forearms began to cramp, and we left the interstate north of Atlanta to cruise home on rural byways.

    Now we will happily resume our normal hum-drum existence after sorting through the accumulated bills and trash mail, checking the gardens and pond, and scheduling the necessary medical appointments. Details of our Wisconsin odyssey will gradually fade away.  Ronnie will remain ever in our memories.

Richard Allen Anderson     http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com      29 June 2014

Dad's Confirmation Gift

ProetryPlace Blog 56, A Memoir for Father’s Day

DAD’S CONFIRMATION GIFT

    “Here it is!” Mom found the old pinstriped suit, hanging limp and dingy on a wire hanger at the back of the closet.  “It was your dad’s years ago, and it’s still in wonderful condition,“she said with honest pride. Maybe memories more than the condition of the suit prompted her enthusiasm. It was an enthusiasm I did not share nor understand. “Stand up straight and let me check the fit,” she ordered.

    I had grown like a summer weed the past year and passed through time’s one-way portal that made me a teenager. I was rod-thin: six feet of knees, ribs and elbows, not an ounce of fat, inches taller than my father.

    I had taken the required religious instructions, and it was time for our pastor to quiz me and the eleven others seeking confirmation of our religious faith, the affirmation of adult status in the Lutheran Church. The special ceremony that would establish that we were ready to support the ideology of our faith would take place before all members of the Resurrection Lutheran Church congregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in just ten days. Mom and Dad sought to assure I would be properly attired for the occasion. My usual jeans and Tee would not do.

    My class of twelve young aspirants would be shorn, shined and dressed to look our very best for the event. Custom said I would wear a suit. But suits cost money. With four young children to clothe and feed, our family budget was always stretched thin, so Mom and Dad were hopeful when they remembered the suit, saved, as all things were, but not worn for years.

    I stood for the fitting, doubtfully inspecting the heavy, wool material, hoping they would see, as I did, that the garment was totally unsuitable. My mother held the suit jacket across my back and lifted the sleeve to check the length against my outstretched arm.  “Okay,” she mused.

    She instructed me to put the garment on and stood in front of me to check the style and fit. She cocked her head, raised a brow, nodded. My shoulders and chest had not broadened to a grown man’s proportions.  The dark blue wool jacket hung on my gangly frame not quite as well as it had on the hanger.  

    The sharpness of naphtha mixed with the musty aromas of past years filled my nostrils.  I felt sick.  Mom, a talented seamstress, said positively, “Uh-huh!”, but I detected the hint of skepticism that crossed her face.  

    Maybe I had a chance. Maybe she would realize that besides not remotely being a fit, the suit was old and ugly. Maybe, maybe the suit would go away.  I felt a flash of hope when the suit was hung away again, but out-of-sight might not be out of mind.

    The next day when Dad came home from work, the family gathered in the kitchen for supper. The subject of the suit was not discussed as my older sister provided stimulating and sophisticated dinner-time conversation as only older sisters can. Maybe the suit is a dead issue, I hoped, but later, in bed, I heard snippets of parental debate.

    “It was a good, expensive suit.” . . .

    “It needs an awful lot of adjusting, I don‘t think I can do it.” . . .

    “What about a new one?”

    “We don’t have the money!” . . .

    “I wonder what old Saul, the tailor, would charge to fix it.”

    I drifted into sleep, free of sartorial responsibility, knowing fate and my parents would resolve the problem, somehow, and I would live with that decision.

    Late the next afternoon, before supper, Dad asked me about the dreaded dark blue pin stripe.  I lied.  “It’s fine,” I said, and added the obvious, “but it doesn’t fit.”  

    “Okay, then, come with me,” he said, and we started our trek of fourteen or so city blocks to find Saul. This was about the same distance Dad walked to work every day and we children walked to school.  The family car, a 1932 Buick, the same age as I, ran fine but was reserved for longer trips through town, an occasional weekend excursion, or the one-week per year family vacation.

    We found the small shop. The single word, Tailor, was lettered in gold on the glass of the dirty front door.  A man‘s suit hung on a headless mannequin behind the small, single front window that advertised alterations, new and used clothing, and suits made to order for men and women.

    Inside, the small shop was dimly lighted and seemed to be unoccupied. I looked with amazement upon the disarray of cloth and clothing strewn about on a variety of tables and wondered how my father knew of this unwholesome place.  Had I known the word, appalled, that’s what I would have been.

    Momentarily, Saul pulled aside the curtain that separated the cutting tables and machines in his back work area from the equally disorganized front counter and display area where we waited.  He shuffled forward and leaned with his stubby fingers on the worn counter while my father explained our mission and showed Saul the dark blue suit.  Finally, the tailor said, in a thick, wet accent unfamiliar to my ears, “No problem, no problem.”  He waved a finger at me and held out the jacket for me to put on.  “Come here boy, behind the counter.”

    I glanced toward my father who nodded. I stepped reluctantly toward the hunched little man in a stained suit. Pins were stuck like bandoliers up and down each of his lapels. I could see that he had eaten eggs recently, sometime that day probably. Spots of yolk on his jacket retained a hint of their color and a faint, repulsive sheen.  Numerous other stains, spots and streaks were older and unidentifiable, blending with the uncertain color of his worn and aged clothing. Tailor, clothe thyself!

    He sat on a stool to measure and assess the magnitude of his tailoring task, while I faced him, feeling as uncertain and uneasy as a guilty schoolboy facing the principal.  Saul draped a measuring tape over this shoulder, then the other. I grimaced and glanced around at Dad. Did he not see the condition of this shop and this man? Was he serious?  How could he expect anything but disaster from any service he sought at this place?  

    Head down, grunting like a rooting hog, Saul pulled the pants and coat this way and that on my body. My shoulders were hunched, and my eyes fixed on my feet while he chalked a mark here and pinned a crease there. Finally he assured Dad that there was a lot of work, but the suit would fit—maybe not perfect, but Okay. The price was agreed. It would be ready in less than a week.

    Still wearing the marked and measured clothing, I saw myself in the suit for the first time in a large, cloudy oval mirror, with Saul, proudly, off to one side and my father standing silently in the background.  I could not disappoint my Dad, and besides, there were no other options. I knew how important it was for our family to conserve and save money. I nodded my head in reluctant agreement, trying to look pleased, eager to leave this place, knowing it would be necessary to return in a week to face the disgusting tailor and retrieve the altered suit.

    We spoke little, if at all, on the walk home. I did not want to face the grotesque tailor again. How could I stand tall in front of church wearing that old, dreary, reshaped suit?  Dad seemed to have something on his mind too.  

    At dinner, I was not hungry. No one raised the subjects of the tailor and the suit at the table.  My sister and brothers always had plenty of newfound knowledge of the day to share. No one seemed to noticed my silence

    My preoccupation with the suit faded as days passed with the endless variations of day-to-day life of a large family. Then, a day before our appointed re-visitation to Saul, the tailor, my father said to me “Get in the car, we’re going shopping.”

     He drove a few miles to a small, family clothing store, the kind that seemed always to have just about what you wanted at a price you could afford to pay—until the malls and department stores put them out of business. “Let’s see if you can find a nice sport coat and some slacks here. Take a look around.”  

    I didn’t bother to ask, but, what about the suit?  I followed Dad’s directions immediately. From the racks I picked a powder-blue coat and tried it on. It fit—no chalk or pins were necessary. The price was reasonable and seemed acceptable to Dad, but I worried where the money would come from.  

    As we drove home with the new coat and slacks in a large, flat box, I shared all the latest news with Dad about school, my friends, and their parents.  Dad just nodded and smiled.  I jumped from the car to open the garage doors, and Dad parked the well-preserved Buick.  We walked together to the house, both proud and eager to share our news, to show Mom the contents of the box I carried so proudly.  I paused at the door to face my father and said, “Thanks, Dad.”

    “That’s okay, Son,” he replied.

                                                             E. C. Anderson, circa 1945

Richard Allen Anderson     http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com     15 June 2014

Remembrance for Ronnie

REMEMBERANCE

    I had not seen my brother, Ronnie, for five or six years when I visited him with my sister, Audrey, in a nursing home last Thanksgiving. The occasional, brief telephone conversations had ceased, too, as he had fallen deeper and deeper into the chasm called Alzheimer’s disease. At Thanksgiving, he made no sign to acknowledge our presence, much less recognize that we were the siblings of his youth. He seemed essentially unaware of his surroundings, his condition, his self. He displayed no distress, nor any joy.

    Ronnie died early in the morning of 28 May 2014. He was 85.

    I have other, better memories of my brother from our youth and from our adult years. Being four years, three months my senior, Ronnie was a mentor to me in many ways. He taught me lessons in self-defense that proved valuable dealing with schoolyard bullies. Other lessons were less overt, learned simply by unconscious observation and emulation of an older male figure in my life.

    Not all that he taught me worked out well, however. He taught me how to hold a baseball bat, how to keep my eye on the pitch and how to swing. Then he taught me to throw the ball high in the air and hit it on the way down in order to practice solo hitting. So I threw the ball high in the air, kept my eye fixed on its descent and swung. Ronnie meanwhile had decided to play a little trick by dashing in to snatch the ball before I connected. He was successful, except I connected with his forehead instead of the ball. It raised a nice egg that he explained somehow to our mother. Had I swung harder I would have cracked his skull like an egg shell.

    One fall afternoon Ron invented a new and exciting game. Woody stalks of some plant had grown tall and tough at the end of our backyard—perfect for fashioning into spears about an inch in diameter with the pocket knife he carried. The hewing and sharpening done, we stood across the yard from each other, a distance of about 55 feet, each armed with a handcrafted spear. The object of the game: dodge the projectile hurled at you by your opponent. I got the first throw. Ronnie zigged when he should have zagged, and the spear struck and stood jutting straight out from his lower leg just as we were called in for supper.

    Ron always had a fascination with and an aptitude for mechanical things. His high school education included many practical “shop” courses where mine focused on literature, science and math. After high school, he owned a series of ever-grander motor vehicles that got as much tinker time as riding time. The first was a Cushman motor scooter, soon superseded by a motorcycle of the style seen in WWI movies. Being underage, I was not allowed to drive these exciting vehicles except in my imagination as I sat on them while stationary.

    Ron soon graduated to four wheels. The first car was a vintage, black Packard coupe that proved too much for even his mechanical skills. By the time I was in high school he was driving a beautiful, yellow Plymouth convertible. This time I got to drive. Without my asking, he lent me that dream-chariot to pick up my date for the school prom—only after instructing me in the proper etiquette of door-holding for young ladies (and a few other tips).

    Ron was stationed in Germany with the Army where he was assigned to the motor pool. I sent him some money to help him buy a Volkswagen. When he returned home, he insisted on buying me a new suit and topcoat as repayment I did not ask for or expect. He was married to Virginia Ware while I was serving my own duty with the Army in France. Shortly after I returned home he stood at my side as best man at my wedding to Dolly Krahn in January 1955. Later that year he and Ginny asked me to sponsor their first born, Lauree, at her baptism.

    Ronnie had a long career with ATT. His first job there and the one he liked best was telephone installer. He loved climbing the tall wooden poles with his strap-on spikes and heavy leather belt as aids. He thought it was great sport and won some company climbing competitions. Closer to retirement, he installed and maintained mainframe computer equipment. It was a job that called on his intellect and ability with electronics more than physical ability. I thought it curious that later, when PCs hit the consumer market, he never owned one.

    Ron and Ginny visited Dolly and me in Pennsylvania while I was completing my graduate courses and research at Penn State, but later, our lives intersected more rarely as our families and domestic responsibilities grew. After my degree, I took a job with Kimberly-Clark Corporation in Neenah, Wisconsin, some 90 miles north of Menomonee Falls where Ron and Ginny built their home. I recall remarking on one of our visits there about the beautiful cabinetry in the family room. I should not have been surprised to learn that Ron had designed and built it.

    He designed and built kites too and flew them in exhibitions and competitions. I often think of Ron that way now, skillfully guiding his beautiful creation, flying high in the bright blue sky.

Ronald, Richard and Audrey Anderson, circa 1939 and with their parents, Edward and Helen Anderson

      on their 50th wedding anniversary in September 1976. (Audrey’s the sib without the beard.)

Richard Allen Anderson

1 June 2014

ProetryPlace Blog 55     http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com