Category Archives: Night Writing

In My Father’s House, Part 3

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1989 was my first Father’s Day as a dad myself (thanks, Mall Diva). As a first-timer that June I wrote a letter to my father that included the following:

There are things about growing up that can’t be explained to — or understood by — the emerging adult. At those times the elders can only say “Wait until you have kids of your own” to indicate the unseen forces and emotions that will one day come into play. It is an enigmatic, somewhat ominous, prophecy born of instinct, experience and intuition. Given enough words, it can be described but not experienced. Given enough experience, it no longer needs to be described.

The revelation of being a Father, to accept the title that has always belonged to someone else, is almost dizzying. The family armor, passed on for generations, has been taken off the wall and handed to you with your banner. It is your turn.

Some find their armor rusty and decrepit. Corroded by years of venom, its surface has been marred by each coat of blame and accusation they have applied over the years. These men will always find their armor ill-fitting and uncomfortable. Never having learned or cared where the weak points are, they don’t know what parts need to be reinforced, what parts need extra care, what parts need to be protected the most. They clank and creak into battle already spiritually defeated, blaming the previous owner, and scarcely able to defend themselves, let alone carry out their sacred charge. Some even abandon the field completely, leaving it (and the next generation) to the enemy!

Others will be blessed and even surprised to find their armor in good shape, and not nearly as big on them as they thought it would be. Oh, there’s a scratch here, a small dent there, but these only serve to reinforce the necessity of such gear. These men are properly outfitted and equipped, and where necessary they have taken it upon themselves to repair or replace whatever they see missing. Respect, and a good teacher, have kept the pieces oiled and in good working order.

I have been thinking about armor lately; thinking about how it’s something worn on the outside as protection against the things that would pierce or cut us, the mortal thrust to our vitals from an external foe. But what about the poisoned blade that comes from inside?

Think about the wonderful design of our bodies; how they easily and automatically handle the vital chores of our survival: respiration, digestion, circulation, even healing and restoration. From the time we’re in the womb our bodies perform countless tasks dedicated to our survival, including resisting infections and toxic interlopers. In today’s vernacular, you could say our bodies “have our back.” How cruel and crushing, then, for our closest friend and ally to turn on us, for our very own cells to go rogue, even to the point of using our own defenses against us.

And how quickly it can happen! The doctors estimate that from the time my father’s mutinous lymphocytes first went over the wall to the time he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma (lymphoma in multiple locations above and below the diaphragm) was only about two months; this in a person who was undergoing nearly constant check-ups and monitoring due to a previous bout with prostate cancer and a heart-valve replacement a couple of years ago. What can you do?

Then again, maybe there is an internal armor and a toughness after all. Cancer is an insidious foe that, along with the measures used to combat it, strips away virtually every visible vestige of one’s dignity. I know heart attacks can be devastating and life-changing and leave you weak as a baby, but at least they leave you with your hair. The chemo takes your hair and your appetite and nearly every illusion you have about being in control of your own body. When I was down to see my dad in June he still pretty much looked like himself, but the stress of the pain and the effects of the pain-killing medication caused him to throw up — much to his dismay. “I haven’t thrown up in more than 30 years,” he said. At one point when I went to see him in September he was throwing up every 30 minutes. Rather than lurching into the bathroom each time he had fashioned a bucket from a one-gallon plastic milk jug and used that. The first time I went in to assist my mother he was sitting up in bed, spitting up into the bucket. He was well past the point of feeling embarrassed, he just gave me a matter-of-fact look over the lip of the jug and went about his business.

He’s lost his hair, and more that 40 pounds from a frame that can barely spare it. He’s been poked with needles and IVs so many times the nurses can barely find a vein that won’t collapse and there’s scarcely a bodily function he can perform without an audience, yet he still jokes with the nurses even if his voice sometimes sounds more like his 100-year-old mother’s than his own. He struggles to swallow his food, and to keep it down even when he does, yet he’s drawing sustenance from his will and a determination not to give up no matter what fresh hell the day brings, and doing it with a grace that I never would have expected in him.

We think of armor as being made of metal. Apparently, it has more to do with mettle.

In My Father’s House, Part 2

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A childhood memory: waking up in the pre-dawn winter hours to the muffled thrumming of my father’s car warming up in the driveway. In my mind I can picture the clouds of crystalline exhaust illuminated by the back porch light. I would lie snug in my bed and listen to the sounds of my father preparing to go to work: his step (the heaviest in the house) in the hallway, the jingle of the dozen or so keys on the big ring on his belt, the clink of a coffee cup being set down on the counter; finally the closing of the back door to mark his passing. It was familiar and unremarkable, and I would go back to sleep.

When I awoke again my mind was filled with my own thoughts and plans for the day. In this time my father owned his own business and was rarely home for supper. My brother and sister and I would eat with our mother, and go about our evening routine. I would often be in bed again when I heard him return. There would be the sounds of my mother frying him a steak, and of talking; their voices distinct, but not the words. Sometimes the tone was obviously my mother reciting the sins of the day, and if they were heinous enough, we would be summoned from our beds for the promised retribution of When Our Father Gets Home.

As a father now myself, I understand how this had to have been as unpleasant for him as it was for us.

During this time our father was a seldom seen force in our lives, operating outside our understanding, toward ends unknown. We would see him mostly on Sundays, and there was a feeling of awkwardness as if none of us were quite certain about how we should act. And yet there was always food on the table, a comfortable house, and clothes for every season, even though we gave little thought, or saw little connection, to how these things came to be.

It wasn’t until I was 11 or 12 and old enough to go to work with my father that I really started to get to know him, and learn what a just and wonderful man he was. I admit he never seemed to be at a loss for things for me to do: pick up rocks and litter, sweep the drive, clean the restrooms for the rest of the workers and the guests. As I learned more about how to please him, my responsibilities and privileges grew. I came to know the special feeling of joining him in the early morning while everyone else was asleep as we got ready to go to “our” work.

In My Father’s House, Part 1

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The day before Father’s Day this year I happened to be parked at the far pumps at a BP gas station and convenience store in Ottumwa, Iowa, filling up. As I squeegeed my windshield I heard a commotion behind me and turned to see a large pickup rock to a sudden stop in front of the convenience store. It wasn’t the sound of the approaching truck that had caught my attention, however, but the not-so-muffled shouting coming from inside the cab.

A man was yelling at a boy, waving his arms and perhaps throwing some litter around. Outside of several f-bombs it was hard to make out what was being said, but it was a one-sided exposition. I casually and automatically looked away as the man got out of the truck, continuing the barrage. “Happy Father’s Day,” I thought, as he stalked off into the convenience store, my own thoughts suddenly dizzy in my head. A couple of minutes later I hung the nozzle back on the pump, and made my way toward the store as well. I had to walk in front of the truck on my way. Not wanting to embarrass the young man further I glanced sideways at him through the windshield and was impressed to see that, though tears were rolling down his cheeks, he had his head up. I turned my head fully toward him, made eye-contact, and winked.

I hope what was communicated was encouragement, a friendly contact and a silent assurance that things will get better.

Yeah, I’ve been there. My own father’s temper has been known to be … expressive. I absorbed my share of it growing up, though I can’t remember now any particular incident or cause, no more than I remember a particular thunderstorm. I mean, I know there were thunderstorms when I was growing up but I don’t remember any specific ones. What does come back to me now, however, is a time when I was in second or third grade and my dad was trying to get his business launched, working long hours away from the house. He must have felt some need to spend some time with me, however, and out of the blue one Sunday afternoon he took me for a special treat: to play miniature golf. I don’t remember where my brother and sister were, but I’m sure I was delighted that I was the only one to get this attention. The problem was, it was an especially hot day and the putt-putt course was laid out on what seemed like acres of cement, none of which could have been very far from my head given my height then.

I don’t know how long we played, but at some point I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. I didn’t know heat stroke from heat rash then but I was definitely sick and my dad was definitely scared. He got me off of the premises, carrying me to his car and laying me down with a wet handkerchief on my face. We went home and he put me in front of the window a/c unit until I recovered. I’m sure he felt bad that his great plan to spend some time with his son had almost ended in disaster; I know I did, though for different reasons. I remember the concern on his face, however, at a time when I might have expected him to be angry.

Another time when he could have gotten angry and didn’t was when I was 16 or 17 and we were anchoring a mobile home. He was steadying the 4-foot anchoring rods in their crosspiece while I swung the 8-lb. sledge to drive them in. At one point I accidentally clipped the upper part of his ear with the handle of the hammer as I repositioned myself for another swing. It drew blood but no explosion, though I’m sure he didn’t like it. (Which also reminds me of a time when we were trying to level and anchor a trailer on the side of a steep hill near Steelville, Missouri. He wouldn’t let me get under the unit as he delicately worked with hydraulic jacks, concrete blocks and wooden shims along the underframe. Just as he was placing a shim and lightly tapping it into place with a hammer a sonic-boom rocked the valley. I had heard of greased lightning up until that time, but I had never seen it until I saw him crab sideways out from under that trailer!)

Family lore has it that my father’s father was known for a volatile temper. I saw a little of it growing up, but other than a couple of years when he lived near us I wasn’t around him that much. Most of the accounts are from stories my uncles would tell at family gatherings. Most folks today will accept that a temper can be passed on to each generation whether by nature or nurture or a spiritual manifestation. Whichever, my father received his inheritance and passed it on. My brother and I heat up about as quickly as he did, though expressing it is an indulgence that I have tried hard to limit and thankfully haven’t seen it in my children.

Anyway, I survived with minimal trauma and with greater memories such as the ones I’ve just described taking precedence. I don’t know what the future holds for the young man and father I saw in Iowa, but I hope the incident was an isolated one that one day will be acknowledged yet set aside in favor of ones happier and more plentiful, for both their sakes.

As I entered the store I tried to think of something to say to the father; something encouraging, in just a few words, that might give him a different perspective. I could come up with nothing in the moment and even now, months later, I still can’t think of the perfect sentence to calm the situation and allay my own fears. My fears were not for the future of that family, or that whatever I said might provoke an additional outburst. My concern was that in speaking to that father I might end up telling him why I was in Iowa that day and telling him where I was going and why, and that neither of us would want to hear that outloud.

You see, the reason I was standing in that gas-station was because my daughters and I were on our way to Missouri to see my dad as a Father’s Day surprise. He had been feeling sick for weeks and experiencing a lot of back pain. Though we could barely breathe the word, our family was concerned that cancer had returned. Thoughts of the past and the future had been folding themselves constantly in my mind during the drive. If it was cancer, would he need chemo? If he needed chemo, would he put himself through that ordeal or — after what had happened to friends of his — say, “To hell with that”?

He was surprised and pleased to see us when we got there, twisting stiffly in his swivel chair to see what the dog was barking at. He got up for hugs all around, his golf shirt stretching a little around the bit of gut his cardiologist had been after him to lose. He didn’t look much different since I had seen him back in December, but I could tell he was in pain from a fractured vertebrae and the subsequent bone biopsy he’d had the day before. We talked some over the weekend about the pain and the possible implications, but tried to keep things light and positive. The test results would be back on Tuesday, I was heading back on Monday.

The girls and I stood around him and prayed before we left. He acquiesced, but it felt to me as if I was throwing a saddle on a newly busted bronco for the first time. I have personally seen and experienced great, even miraculous, results from prayer, and have prayed many times for people, standing on scripture and faith, the words usually come easily as I follow the leading that comes. This was harder, though; so much I wanted to pour into it, so little that seemed to want to come out. Through the long drive home I took some comfort from the knowledge that it is the power in the words, not the eloquence that makes the difference. We arrived home Monday night.

Tuesday brought the word. Lymphoma, stage four. He would start chemo on Wednesday, no fuss. “Let’s get it done.”

Novella

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“Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the yard and shot it.”
— Truman Capote

I don’t have the experience, yet, of being an author finishing a book so I don’t know if Capote’s words are apt. It seems to me the writing-publishing experience is more like being a parent and having a child leave the nest. As the parent of a soon to be 19-year-old still in the nest but beginning to make her own way I marvel at how what I’ve “created” has taken on a life of her own; how the countless hours spent shaping and imagining and agonizing over just the right word has inspired dialogue with subtleties, nuances and complexities I never realized were possible, and how a true character has emerged fully-formed and bursting to go forth.

For years this book was mainly blank pages; pages that consumed my life and were never far from my thoughts no matter what else I happened to be doing. Day by day those pages were filled, and while there are things I’d like to go back and rewrite there’s no guarantee that the story would be even better than it is now; even so I wrestle with the temptation/obsession to continue to tweak and polish.

Will anyone else understand the humor of page 112, or appreciate how difficult it was to write Chapter 19? Certainly not at the level I do, but that knowledge is for my own book, the one written on my heart. Now, though, it is time to see this through; to be proud to see all the time, work and love realized in a tangible package; to admire not just the cover but the spine; to breathe deep the aroma of the fresh pages and the glue that holds them together.

It is good.

Herb Carneal

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“Some love the sound of the loon or the teal,
but I love the voice of Herb Carneal.”

That’s a snippet from a song I heard Garrison Keillor sing a long time ago. I don’t remember what the song or the context was, but that couplet always stuck with me because it also expressed the pleasure and comfort I took from listening to Herb call a Twins game. There was just something so natural about the way he described the action; you could tell he enjoyed what he was doing, even in the most wretched of seasons – and there were enough of those over the years to have made a lesser man long for laryngitis.

It’s kind of funny, but when I think of his voice now I don’t think of baseball as much as I do night driving on a warm summer’s evening; of settling back in my seat, the windows half open, letting the dark air and the golden tones eddy about me. Baseball is about the only sport I enjoy listening to on the radio. I can barely stand to watch the NBA, let alone listen to it and the college game isn’t much more compelling. Hockey and football have so much going on that, while I’ll listen to a game on radio, it’s only until I can get to a TV, whereupon I’ll dash inside to watch the rest. Many times, however, while on my way home and listening to Herb call a Twins game, I’d sit out in the driveway or garage and wait until the end of the inning before going inside and turning on the set. With Herb there was never any rush.

Herb and former Cardinals announcer Jack Buck were as much of the sound of baseball to me as the crack of the bat, and their style and grace was always a pleasure, and now they are both gone. There are other announcers who are alright, and some who are annoying (it took me awhile to appreciate John Gordon, and I can’t stand Buck’s son, Joe). In recent years I could hear Herb’s voice getting weaker, but it was still a baseball voice and the few innings he’d work each game were like getting the last piece of cake: you knew it was going to be good, but soon gone. Last week when the newspaper had the story that he didn’t feel strong enough to work the Opening Day game, Twins fans knew it wasn’t a good sign. Herb said he hoped his voice would be strong enough to return soon, and even though I read his words in the paper — rather than hearing them — they struck me as having the same note of plucky optimism he’d use when saying “Wait until next year” after another 90-loss season. Like the Twins mantra, he always seemed to know that you can’t take any one loss too hard.

This one, though, is going to be a toughie.

The StarTribune has a collection of some of Herb’s classic calls here.

We were young

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Last night after I finished my blog post I decided to do a little channel surfing — but I didn’t get far. My thumb was barely warmed up before I came across FSN re-broadcasting Game 5 of the 1987 American League Championship Series between the Twins and the Detroit Tigers. By the time I tuned in the game was in the bottom of the 8th inning but I settled in to watch the exciting conclusion because I’d never seen it before.

Yes, Twins fan that I am, I had missed one of the seminal moments in Twins history; had, in fact, missed all but a few innings of this series. “What, where you out of the country or something?” you might ask. As a matter of fact, the answer is “yes” and “something.” I was honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta with the not-yet Reverend Mother, having gotten married on the same afternoon that the Twins played game three in Detroit (which fortunately caused me to miss the otherwise demoralizing Pat Sheridan homerun off of Jeff Reardon in the 9th).

I knew this team very well, however. I’d been working as a scoreboard operator for the Twins since the Dome opened a few years earlier and had watched this squad come together, working 40-50 games a year and watching most of the others on television (didn’t have a blog to take up my time then). I was the same age as most of the guys on the team and felt a certain identification with them as we came into our own in our respective careers. I could sense there was something coming together with that group, but never anticipated playoffs in the early days of 1987; hence wedding plans were made for October with confidence.

It was spell-binding last night, however, to have those heady days brought back to me on the big screen, to see Rat and Herbie and Puck and Bruno all young again and mighty. To be reminded again of how smooth Gags was in the field and to see Dan Gladden and Steve Lombardozzi on the same field — and to laugh again at the memory of how Gladden would eventually punch Lombo out for being such a putz. Watching Stevie run home with a clinching run in the ninth last night I found myself thinking, “the guy even runs like a jerk.”

I also got a little misty at how natural it seemed to see Kirby at the plate, lashing those practice swings, and to see Joe Niekro on the bench as the camera did a slow and unintentionally nostalgic pan through the dugout: hey, there’s Mark “Country” Davidson, Sal Butera, and Bushie, Baylor and Gene-O, and there’s Al “No-No” Newman (the nickname was one I used whenever Newmie had to come to the plate) and Bert Blyleven when his hair and beard were still orange, watching intensely and, uncharacteristically, not trying to give anyone a hot foot or a shaving cream facial. Finally, the crusty old skipper, Tom Kelly, not looking old and crusty at all back then.

Then there were the shots of the Tigers. My God, did the Twins really beat Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, while Sparky Anderson watched? Did anyone, even Gaetti, look more like a rat than Darrell Evans? And yeah, Sheridan, I saw you, too, you stiff prig with your ridiculous glasses, acting as if you belonged on the same field.

It was a strange sensation watching those two innings. Even though I knew the outcome of the game already there was still a lot of drama — probably because I knew of so many other outcomes still ahead. I also remembered what that time in my life, watching these guys in those seasons leading up to ’87, had meant to me, and I thought about how one of the greatest things that could happen to them was about to happen, just at the time that one of the greatest things that ever happened to me happened. And we were all so young!

Just waiting: January 24, 1997

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by the Night Writer
At the end we were just waiting for the practiced heart, which had betrayed him years before and now seemed to want to make amends, to finally lie back and take its rest.

Halfway across the country I listened and could still sense the beat. I also listened through the phone lines as his children gathered and told me of each regression that certainly had to be the last but wasn’t; his life force stretched as implausibly thin yet as miraculously effective as the fiberoptics that carried me into that room as they described sound and color.

Scarcely a week since I had been there to see for myself: told to hurry, and arriving to clasp the withered hand, to see the chalky color, to hear the faint voice, to kiss the papery skin, and to smell…to smell the rubber and the medicine and the institutional disinfectant…and that one scent that they seemed to want to cover up but I could still detect in the back of my throat as I stood at the bedside.

Just waiting, back at home, I stood by another bedside, listening to my wife breathe. Undressing, I fit myself in beside her, our heads touching, our arms around each other, and we talked about the great moments of one’s life — the excitement before a birthday, the joy before a wedding — and how those fall short of the momentous anticipation and anxiety of the days leading up to the birth of a child, of going to bed wondering if this will be the night that everything will change and we awaken to bring forth a new life, at once shuddering in both the hope and the dread of the joy that would be set before us and the trial to be endured. We spoke also of the hope we have in Christ, and of the days leading up to the joy/dread in some distant but nearing future when we go to bed wondering if that will be the night that everything will change and we awaken into new life.

I traced the warm, round firmness of her hip with my hand and sniffed as her hair brushed under my nose, her skin smooth and her lips soft. Still touching, we lay in our temporary cocoon and I remembered that some song describes time as a willow tree, bending over to reach the water, but I knew that the songwriter was wrong. We are the willows, and Time is the river, and we bend and it just goes on, but in that moment we laughed and I said “Naked I came into this bed, and naked shall I go out!”

And from down the hallway came the sound of the telephone. Ringing.

Life is a highway

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One of the things about blogging is that occasionally you can do a little self-indulgent interior-monologuing:

We were bombing down the interstate the other day, the Mall Diva in the driver’s seat, cruise control, good visibility and dry pavement laid out straight in front of us just the way the engineer drew it up. We were going fast, perhaps a little faster than allowed, but the road appeared to roll by langourously with the green highway signs occasionally marking progress as the numbers to our expected destination got steadily smaller.

Life is often like that. It goes by fast, but you get so used to it that you hardly notice. The signposts — birthdays, events — come and go pretty much as expected, letting you know you’re getting closer to whatever is ahead, and large sections of it (at least when you get to be my age) are flat and straight. Every so often, though, you come to a curve; a big, sweeping change of course. You’re still on the same highway, still going the same place, it’s just that this is “the way” and you follow it as the compass (and sometimes your tummy) swings around. It’s not unexpected, if you check the map you’ll see that the curve is clearly marked, but you might be surprised to find that you’ve come so far, so soon.

It just takes the slightest turn of your hands to stay on course; similarly a simple thing, such as a short conversation, can mark a turning point and the familiar road starts to look a little different. Our family swept into one such curve the other day. I’m talking about life, not the highway, but the natural inclination is still to let off the gas a little, slow down, maintain control — if I were in the driver’s seat, that is.

All in all, it’s a good thing, but — sorry to be a tease — I can’t write any more about it at this time. Actually, I think I’m going to write plenty (this, for example) as I sense that a very philosophical vein has been tapped; it’s just that I don’t expect to post any thing further about this particular subject for some time. Everyone is well, everything is secure — did that last sign say anything about there being a rest area up ahead?

Back to other blogging nonsense tomorrow.

50 years on a dare

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They had known each other of course, the basketball player and the cheerleader at the small high school, but neither really liked the other all that much. She was smart, talented, headed for college and, truth be told, probably a bit stuck on herself. He was coarse and gangly with a quick temper shaped perhaps by being the youngest of four brothers, and from a family that sent its sons to the Air Force, not college. Their first date was more of a dare than a launching pad for romance.

Some tender shoot must have inviegled its way through such unpromising soil and gained a toe-hold, however. They finished high school in 1954 and became engaged, but set off on separate paths. She was off to Drury College in Springfield and he followed his brothers into the service, winding up in Germany. Her father wanted her to finish college; his Uncle Sam wanted him to spend 3 years near the Black Forest. Three years! Ah, but if you were a married man the Air Force would only keep you overseas for 18 months, and if you were an only daughter you knew the right combination of foot-stamping and soulful appeals to bend your father’s will. Rules and regulations met with hopes and aspirations and both paternal blessing and a 30-day leave were granted, and a late December wedding date was set.

The cold, waning days of the year are not a traditional time for weddings which more typically occur in the hopeful and promising days of spring, and other portents attending the event were ominous: the flower girl got stage fright at the back of the church and collapsed, crying, in the aisle, refusing to go forward; the ring-bearer wore a gaudy white patch over one eye as a result of a youthful accident immediately after the previous day’s rehearsal; the punch bowl was borrowed from a recently married woman who’s husband would later beat her half to death; and the pastor who married them would run off with another woman a week after performing their ceremony. Following the wedding they had to drive 90 miles through a blizzard to the swanky Case Hotel in St. Louis for their honeymoon (a gift from her parents), only to find the hotel on fire when they arrived.

Fortunately they were able to check into their room, and after the weekend it was back to spend a week with his parents and then a week in Indianapolis with hers before he had to board the bus for the two-day trip to New York and a flight back to Germany. Every time the bus stopped he had to fight the urge to get off and hitch-hike back to her, even if it meant going AWOL. It wouldn’t have been hard to do; in those days soldiers in uniform had little trouble hitching rides, but since the uniform represented the only clothes he owned he knew it was a very short-sighted strategy. He finished his time in Germany, now reduced to just seven more months as a result of his new status; returned to the states in July and together they conceived a son in August.

It would be nice to say that they used up all their hard luck just in getting through the wedding and early days, but nothing is that easy. She quit school and they put ten years and a lot of miles into the Air Force, living in base housing or whatever they could afford as two more kids came along. Real life was a lot harder than perhaps they expected and the knot at the end of their rope could get a bit frayed at times. They both had health issues and the kids had their own array of problems; one son walked funny and didn’t appear to hear well; another son seemed to require stitches for something every other week; the daughter seemed to be allergic to everything and would often swell up, or come down with Scarlet Fever. There seemed to be an awful lot of tomato-green bean casseroles for dinner. Just when the knot would seem about to give-way, though, there would be a timely visit from family or some stroke of fortune or fate to get them through. Later they would launch and sell a couple of businesses, she would go back to college for her degree and become an elementary school teacher and eventually a principal while earning Masters and Doctorate degrees.

The years came and went, as did the challenges and saving graces. That tender little shoot from their youth somehow grew into a strong, thick root — a bit gnarled and twisted, but all the harder to pry out of the ground for all that. They argued some, but hugged more and were absolutely resolute and united in trying to do the best they could for their children, even if the children didn’t always want to cooperate. Last Friday evening they stood in the same church where they were married 50 years earlier, posing for a succession of photos with children, grandchildren and relatives. They certainly knew everything that had gone into getting there, even if they were a bit at a loss to explain it.

“50 years ago all I had was a 1950 Mercury and my good looks,” he said with some wonder, “and now I don’t have that Mercury.” When she was asked for the secret she tried to give a short explanation for a long answer that is still being computed. “You just take it one day at a time, and sometimes, 15 minutes at a time.”

Happy 50th anniversary, Mom and Dad, and may there be many more!

The Greatest Generations

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Emily: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?

Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.

— From “Our Town,” by Thornton Wilder

Fulfilling my earlier promise, I returned to the Ficke Cemetery last week to help clean up the patch of land about the size of my front yard that had become overgrown with trees and sumac from years of neglect as it drifted from the memories of the dwindling generations who still recall it. My family and I had first visited the site last July, and had barely been able to walk through the dense brush or see the headstones covered in brambles, especially the pitiably small stones marking the graves of the children.

We figured the site could endure the passing of another season, and after the autumn frost we’d be better able to get into cemetery that contains the marker for my mother’s great-grandfather, George Marion West and his first and second wives. The former, Henrietta had died when she was 21, just after giving birth to my great-grandfather, William. Our plan was to cut the brush and dress the grounds as best we could, and my father had received permission to get onto the property from the farmer that now owns the land that once was the Ficke farm. He’d also contacted another man who had ancestors on those grounds and who had promised to help.

Tiger Lilly and I left for Missouri last Monday for this purpose, and our mission caused me to pay greater attention to the many cemeteries we pass on our familiar route through Iowa and into the Show-Me state. Rural cemeteries can be a mixed bag in appearance; some that we drove by were out in the open, unornamented, looking as stark and as hard as a trailer-park, or as if they were just another crop sunk into the ground with hopes for the best. In Westphalia, Missouri the cemetery is right in the heart of the town, and begins on the very edge of two-lane Highway 63 and climbs the side of a low hill, under the watchful eye of the crucified Jesus. Just north of Bloomfield, Iowa the town’s cemetery covers another slope that creates a natural, sweeping amphitheater overlooking downtown, giving the impression that the dead rest where they can easily watch the goings on in the community like the scene in “Our Town.” By early evening Highway 63 has turned back into a four-lane and we drive past Ashland, Missouri and another hill that bumps up against the side of the road. Looking straight up we see the silhoutte of a church and steeple, and its graveyard filled with monuments featuring tall, narrow columns and spires. Against the pink, red and yellow sunset the monuments look like so many rockets, pointed at Heaven.

Update:

To see the Google Maps aerial view of the Ficke Cemetery before we cleaned it out, go here. The cemetery is the green square in the center of the image, jutting out to the east from the other woods and located south and west of the McCallister Road.