The Pieces Come Together

In a previous post I mentioned that I’d written a first draft of a memoir. And that I had put it on the shelf…there to remain until either I felt the inspiration to begin a rewrite or until someone in the future would someday stumble across and dispose of it. It’s been some time now and I’m still not inclined to start a rewrite, but it has bothered me off and on that my memoir had no title. A book with no title is just not right, even if it’s only a first draft. And it’s untidy. I am a habitual list maker and all my lists have titles…you know…like ‘grocery list’, ‘things to do list’, ‘tasks for today list’, and so on. I usually don’t capitalize the titles and sometimes I feel guilty about that. Anyway, without a title how do you know what the written words are about? A title is what ‘hooks’ potential readers. Yes, I know my memoir will not be read but that’s not the point. The point is that it’s sitting there on a shelf incomplete without a title!

A couple of months ago I was talking with Maribel’s son Brian about my early college days when I remembered a writing assignment we were given in a literature appreciation class. We were told to write a brief story about an early childhood memory, and to write it as if the child was telling the story. Before I left that classroom an image came to me that I knew would be my subject.

As a young boy I didn’t like Sunday afternoons. Sunday afternoons meant two things…chicken for dinner and visiting grandparents. You could smell the aroma of cooked chicken everywhere on the streets, and see families all dressed up in their Sunday clothes getting into the family car to visit relatives. I liked the chicken part, but visiting grandparents was a pain because it stopped our gang from getting together and playing games like ‘kick the can.’ Whoever wasn’t visiting grandparents had to sit around waiting for the other guys to get back home. A whole afternoon was wasted! This is what I chose to write about, and did it in the form a short poem. I wondered if there was any chance of getting a copy of the poem. I knew it had been published in the university's annual literary magazine, but I had forgotten all but a few lines, so I sent an email to the university library; gave them my name, the title and approximate year (1975) and within two hours received a scanned copy of my poem. Immediately after reading it I knew that my memoir had a title........

Chicken Sunday Afternoons

Chicken Sunday afternoons always happen when

            the dumb sun is up about there↑

an’ the trees an’ houses an’ cement are bright all over

an’ they ain’t doin’ nothin

an’ the dirt in the gutter ain’t doin nothin but eatin fried chicken smell

an’ it don’t wanna be touched.

Baldy’s house ain’t doin nothin either cause Baldy ain’t home

(what’s the big deal about visiting gramma and grampa on Sunday?).

Ed’s parents got company an’ he has to sit there so he can’t come out.

Pinky is home but don’t feel like doin nothin (who cares about him anyway?)

an’ the whole world (which is this block)

Don’t feel like doin nothin.

I wish the dumb sun would

            go down↓

Cause then Baldy would come home

An’ Ed could come out

An’ we can play kick the can.

I don’t like Chicken Sunday afternoons

cause it’s kinda sad when the whole world (which is this block)

is bright and empty an’ don’t feel like doin nothin.

Night time is better cause ….HEY!... BALDY!... ED!... YOU GUYS

WANNA PLAY KICK THE CAN?

-------------------

I was surprised at the reception the poem received. The professor liked it and shared it with other teachers and soon I was being congratulated for providing a description and giving a name to what apparently many people had experienced as a kid. “Yeah…chicken Sunday afternoons…that’s what they were” was a comment I heard often. As mentioned the poem was published in the university's annual literary magazine and I was asked to do a reading for a literary group.

Okay, so my memoir had a title, and I typed it onto the cover. It looks like this:

Chicken Sunday Afternoons

A memoir

By Tom Filipowicz

Do you see the problem? There’s a big white space between the words ‘memoir’ and ‘By’. There is no graphic. What kind of a book has no graphic on the cover? Maybe even more so than the title, the graphic is what ‘hooks’ potential readers. Walk through any book store and you’ll see all kinds of cool, grab-your-attention graphics. Mine has a big white space and I couldn’t come up with one single good idea to fill it.

In Chiclayo during the course of the year many institutions such as the Cultural Center, City Hall, banks, hotels and outdoor artisan events sponsor arts and grafts exhibits. At several of these exhibitions I saw paintings on display by an artist named Rubên Saavedra Corbeñas. I don’t know anything about art…I either like something or I don’t and have a difficult time explaining why. I liked what I saw in Rubèn’s work and a question occurred to me. Could he provide the graphic I’m missing…more specifically, could he paint Chicken Sunday Afternoons? Having gotten his phone number from the Chiclayo Cultural Center curator we phoned Rubèn who agreed to meet us for lunch the next day.

During lunch I described to Rubèn an image in my mind of a small boy sitting on the curb in front of his house on a bright Sunday afternoon, patiently waiting for his friends to return. I showed him a photo of the street and my house. Rubèn, who is in his early 20’s asked many questions. What was the boy thinking and feeling, what were his social and economic conditions, what was his life like as he grew and how did he view himself in later life? I responded that the boy was born into a poor family; that he had a tough road to travel and would not have anything given to him along the way, but ultimately carved out a good life for himself; a story not uncommon for many people born in poor conditions in that time period between the end of the Great Depression and the start of World War II. 

Some weeks later Rubèn phoned and invited us to his studio in Tumàn to view what he had done with the painting thus far. I was struck by the divergent subject matter and interpretation of the more than 30 paintings on his studio walls.

And then one recent day my painting was ready. To anyone not familiar with the imagery in the painting it probably would not be worth a second glance. To me it speaks volumes of my early years. It is Chicken Sunday Afternoon, but it’s also my mother sending me to Lindners grocery store with 25 cents to buy sandwich meat. It’s the street where horse drawn wagons delivered milk and ice for our ice box; where we rode our bikes and played games. It’s the street where the dreaded polio quarantine signs would appear on the front doors of houses in the summer, and the house where Eugene; one of our gang died of the disease in 1948. The boy on the curb is me but he’s also Eddie K. and Eddie T., Baldy, Eugene, Pinky, Ray, Danny and others. It’s all the things that each of us took from that neighborhood and from each other as we left our youthful innocence behind us and went our separate ways.

Adding the boy as an old man to the painting was not my idea but I love the concept and now understand why Rubèn asked those probing questions. The boy didn’t often think about his future but did occasionally wonder what life would be like when he grew up. The old man knows what lies down that road and wishes he could cross that street and prepare the boy for both the triumphs and tragedies he’ll face, but of course he can’t do that.

The memoir has a title, and it has a graphic. And I have a painting mounted on the office wall above this computer that, when I pause to look at it, fills me with memories and makes me feel good.

Peruvian Pride

According to reports on television and in the newspapers we are in the grasp of La Niña…we being most of costal Peru. We’ve had no rain in Chiclayo but over the past few months each day has begun cloudy and cool; not at all our usual weather. During mid-day the sun breaks through but the wind has a slight chill to it. In the late afternoon the clouds roll in again from the south. The clouds are dark and ugly. In Wisconsin they would be a sure indicator or an impending storm. Here their only purpose seems to be to obscure our usually red/orange sunset. Palm trees and colorful exotic plants just don’t look the same in this icky weather. The official opening school date for public schools in the north of Peru has been pushed back to next Monday in because many kids are ill from the effects of the unusual weather. The only plus for me is that I’m able to wear my old motorcycle jacket that I rode with for many years and miles in the mid-west. It is one of the few possessions I couldn’t make myself part with. I’m not looking forward to the heat of November through February but neither am I enjoying this visit from La Niña.

The Peruvian girl’s volleyball team recently won fourth place in the FIVB under 18 tournament in Thailand. Natalia Mâlaga is the team’s coach and could probably be elected president of Peru right now. Peruvians have a lot of interest and pride in their sport teams. In fact they display pride in most activities that have a local or national cultural focus. Every Sunday morning in every town in Peru there is a ceremonial parade honoring one or several institutions in the context of the nation. You can see love of country in their eyes and posture as they sing the national anthem, as opposed to the United States where the national anthem often becomes an individual spectacle performed by someone attempting to screech as many notes as possible into a single musical bar.

One of my values is loyalty to and love of my country and I appreciate the often fervent pride I see expressed by Peruvians toward Peru, which started me wondering why Peruvians would be proud of their country. After all, it’s a third world country with over 30% of the population living in poverty and in many ways is primitive by western standards. The more I thought about it the more curious I became and decided there was no better way  to satisfy my curiosity then by simply asking friends, family and acquaintances why they are proud to be Peruvian. The overwhelming initial response was, “Because I was born here.” When asked to be more specific the answers generally fell into three categories, with history being the most often mentioned.

Peruvians are intensely proud of their Inca history. Many of the older folks spoke sadly of the Spanish conquest that imposed by force the acceptance of a different language, religion and customs. A younger woman teacher wiped away tears up as she lamented that young people no longer know about Peru’s heroes who fought for independence and in the Pacific War…equating their names with streets instead of deeds. I found that comment to be a bit puzzling because in many of the schools we’ve visited, walls and shelves are decorated with paintings and craft work with a patriotic theme, including such personages as Miguel Grau and Francisco Bolognesi. Many people spoke with pride that pockets of pre-Spanish Peru still exist in the highlands, where clothing, customs and even the Quechua language have been preserved. There was a time when teaching or even speaking Quechua was prohibited.

Geography was the next most common answer. I was several times asked rhetorically, “Where else can you find costal desert, forested highlands, snow-capped mountains and jungle?”  A fair question and it dovetails with the rich diversity of plants, animals and birds which was the third most common answer to my question. With most of the people I spoke with the conversation stopped there, but with several younger university educated people I pushed a bit farther, pointing out that what I had heard so far was either ancient history or a gift of nature….was there nothing of the present that Peruvians are proud of? This question resulted in a potpourri of answers ranging from Peruvian writers led by Mario Vargas Llosa to Peruvian cooking to the potato (and Pisco Sour) originating in Peru, the Peruvian Paso horse and Peruvian music and the Marinara dance.

No one mentioned the modernization that is taking place in the cities or the increasing number of young people completing high school and college. Perhaps those concepts are not meaningful to them now, but I suspect they will be recognized as another source of pride in the future.

A Cursory Look at Health Care Costs and Services

Health care costs in the United States are a common topic of conversation among expatriates here in Peru. Many of us in our group are getting up there in age and visiting clinics more frequently. And most of us know of Americans who come to Peru when confronted with major surgery or treatment for a serious illness or disease. In every case the story is the same…the cost of transport, hotels and restaurants added to the cost of medical treatment is still significantly below the cost of medical care alone in the United States.

Not too long ago out of curiosity I contacted a well-known major insurance company and asked for information for a middle of the road health insurance policy for Maribel. The quote was $375 per month with a deductable of $3,000. The agent added that the monthly premium could be reduced if we would consider a larger deductable such as 6, 8 or $10,000. Have we really reached a point where we can casually talk about a $10,000 deductable without going into shock? According to the latest census the median income in the United States is $50,054. A $10,000 deductable is 20% of that income, and for the so-called lower middle class blue-collar worker with an income of $30,000 or less it’s at least 33%. Who can afford that cost; beside a monthly premium of $300 or so?

Let’s leave the realm of generalities and look at some medical services and expenses that I recently incurred in the United States and Peru.

A week prior to a visit to the United States I pulled an upper back muscle while doing weight lifting exercises. The occasional stabs of pain were uncomfortable but bearable until the strain healed itself – so I thought. Two weeks later I awoke in a Wisconsin hotel room literally unable to move even a finger without triggering excruciating waves of pain. Twice in my life I’ve experienced pain that I rated a 10 – appendicitis resulting in an emergency operation, and nerve pain from shingles. This pain equaled them. It took an hour just to get dressed and into the car of a friend, who drove us to a hospital emergency room. There I was given a muscle relaxant injection and a 5mg diazepam pill. The doctor also wanted upper body X-rays to rule out causes other than a muscle strain. Verbal and written instructions called for diazepam to be taken three times daily as needed and for 800mg of ibuprofen three times daily for pain. Costs amounted to:

Emergency room services…$409

X-rays………………………….162

Diazepam -10 pills…………….12

Total………………………….$583

The pain gradually disappeared over the next two days but resurfaced three weeks later in Chiclayo.  Maribel phoned a doctor friend who recommended a clinic and orthopedic doctor. In Chiclayo, in private medical clinics, you pay in advance for an appointment. To see this particular doctor, who is both an orthopedic surgeon and traumatologist the consultation fee is $36; about three times the fee of a general practitioner. The doctor concluded I have a severely contracted muscle and prescribed Arcoxia (etoricoxib) and Tensodox (cyclobenzaprine) for seven days. He was critical of the doctor in the United States for prescribing ibuprofen. He also said therapy was necessary to “teach the muscle to relax” and recommended a therapist, whom we phoned and visited the next day. After an examination and some discussion the therapist said I would need at least five sessions consisting of fifteen minutes of muscle manipulation (I call it muscle mangling) and twenty minutes of electrotherapy. The cost for each session is $7. I’m through four sessions and am vastly improved, though even as I type this I can feel that muscle pinching me, as if to say, “go ahead…make one wrong move and I’ll contract again like you wouldn’t believe.” Anyway, the cost of treatment in Peru has been:

Consultation.........$36

Arcoxia..................22

Tensodox...............14

Therapy ($7x5).......35

Total....................$107

I am not suggesting that costs can be compared because the services are different, but I think conclusions can be drawn. I know that in the United States you're not going to find an orthopedic surgeon/tramatologist who will consult for $36, nor a physical therapist for $14 per hour. The only remaining question is the quality of health care and I'm sure those Americans and others coming to Peru for treatment would join me in saying that health care here seems to be comparable to that in the United States.

Been to Hoosick Falls lately?

If not you’d better hurry because the village is seriously considering dissolving itself as a unit of government. The problem as I understand it is that the village has been experiencing negative growth for a long time (the present population of 3500 is half of what it was in 1910) and there is no longer enough revenue to provide basic services. Don’t know what affect that would have on the physical village or its inhabitants but I hope it wouldn’t change because it’s a fun place to visit.

We were in Hoosick Falls because we’d driven from Brattleboro Vermont to Berdnardston Massachusetts for an early breakfast, then drove to Bennington Vermont to check out the museums and the Battle Monument after which we had brunch, and decided that it would be cool to eat a late lunch in New York. We chose Hoosick Falls mostly because it was close, but also because we’d learned it was the home and burial place of Grandma Moses (more on that later).

Approaching Hoosick Falls from the east on Route 7 will take you past the Big Moose Deli. We didn’t stop, but there were a ton of cars parked outside and lots of photos on the internet so I assume it’s a popular tourist attraction. What it does is create the expectation that maybe Hoosick Falls is a fun place to be. And we did enjoy our visit though I think we brought most of the fun with us.

While eating lunch at the Falls Diner on the outskirts of town we inquired about the location of the tourist information center: a sign on route 22 indicated there was one, and about the location of the grave of Grandma Moses. We pretty much got blank stares for responses. Undaunted, after finishing lunch we set out in quest of Grandma’s remains.

The Hoosick Falls downtown area presents a pleasing appearance. Streets and sidewalks are clean and the building exteriors are well maintained. It doesn’t at all look like a dying town. But where was Grandma Moses? People on the streets were familiar with the name but nothing beyond that. Having driven through the town twice we were about to give up when I spotted a senior center. Surely seniors would know about Grandma…after all she died in 1961, not all that long ago. I asked the woman at the desk if she could direct me to anything in town related to Grandma Moses. After a few moments of hemming and hawing she admitted she vaguely remembered hearing the name. But she was young. She more than made up for her lack of knowledge by taking me into a large room where a group of about a dozen seniors were engaged in various activities. The young woman announced that “…this man is from Peru and looking for anything to do with Grandma Moses.” Silence. Everyone was searching the faces of the others, apparently in the hope that someone would know something. After a few moments Paul stood and volunteered that he knew where she was buried because his parents were “….only a few plots away.” That broke the ice and there followed about 10 minutes of warm conversation. Finally Paul offered to show us the way to the cemetery and we turned to go. I will never forget the comment a woman shouted out as we were leaving…”Come back and visit us sometime! We don’t know much but we’re friendly!”

We followed Paul to the Maple Grove Cemetery where he led us to the grave. Both the headstone and a commemorative plague had accumulated a coating of mold and were difficult to read. We happened to have a brush in our car and used it to remove the mold as best we could.  The cemetery is located on a hill and Grandma’s grave appears to be on the highest point. Paul used the view to point out various buildings and places and to talk about the glory days of the town.

Just one block from the cemetery is the Ice Kreme Kafe. It was a hot afternoon and after the work of cleaning Grandma’s headstone (I wonder how many people can say that) we stopped for a cone. Maybe it’s the clock, or perhaps what looks to be an old railroad station sign. But for whatever reason this photo is one of my favorites. Hoosick Falls was a memorable experience. 

About Bellows Falls Vermont

We began to notice the difference shortly after entering Bellows Falls from the south on highway 5. We had left the town of Brattleboro, where we were based during our recent visit to Vermont only a brief 30 minutes ago. Though the towns are only 20 miles apart, it is much more than distance that separates the two.

Brattleboro, like most small New England towns has its history and has attempted to capitalize on that history while encouraging modern growth. That it has done that successfully is shown in the downtown area where the old stands alongside and merges with an eclectic, urbane, cosmopolitan atmosphere reflected in its buildings and inhabitants. Much of the literature available at the welcome center and chamber of commerce stresses the existence of a “sizable and hip artist community.” Walking the streets it’s not difficult to equate the town’s culture with parts of Boston located only 100 miles to the east. Brattleboro speaks of a past and a present. Bellows Falls whispers only of the past.

We were in Vermont both to pursue our ancestors and to explore the offerings of the state. This photo of the Bellows Falls ‘square’ circa 1908 is what our grandfather would have seen when he arrived in 1910, having decided to leave forever the tiny village of Jaskiewicze in what was then Russia and today is Belarus. Grandfather Michael was coming to join his brother John who had arrived a year earlier along with hundreds of other immigrants to work at the huge International Paper complex. In 1910 the economy of Bellows Falls was growing quickly and was based on largely unskilled labor. Beside the paper mill there was the Vermont Farm Machine Company…a world leader with patents on several types of farm machinery, and many other employers eager to hire the immigrants arriving daily at the train station.

The new arrivals needed housing which resulted in an explosion of three, four and even five-level square multi-family buildings being erected throughout the town. Most of these still exist today in various states of repair or disrepair. In this photo is a house where our grandparents lived in 1917 - 1918.

Bellows Falls was a healthy and vibrant if somewhat raw community but all of that changed abruptly when the paper mill decided not to deal with a labor strike and instead closed its facility. That closure had a mushrooming effect and before long the Bellows Falls immigrants were forced to look to other communities for employment.  In our grandfather’s case he moved to Windsor to work at the Cone Machine Company, and it was here that our father was born. For reasons we can only guess at the family moved back to Bellows Falls two years later.

Beside the economic woes in 1918 an influenza epidemic ravaged most of southern Vermont. Our grandmother Teofila was one of its victims. She died on October 26, 1918 at the age of 25 but not before giving birth to three sons. For me one of the biggest highlights of this visit was the moment we discovered her grave marker at St. Charles Cemetery in Westminster Vermont. We were also able to locate most of the houses they lived in; the church they attended and the factories grandfather worked at.

This is the Bellows Falls square today. There is a different clock tower; the streets are paved and the hoop skirts and horses are gone but our grandparents would have recognized it. And they probably would have noticed the lack of activity. Walking main street in Bellows Falls is like walking through a museum. It feels like a representation of what used to be. There is an occasional person on the street and a car passing by. There is a Subway restaurant and a couple of other small businesses open, but the feeling is that they are the reluctant ‘last blooms’ on the tree among the many vacant store fronts and are waiting to fall. The welcome center was closed on two consecutive days and no one we asked could tell us when it would be open. Even the people in the businesses we entered seem to be just going through the motions; showing little interest in their visitors.

There are many things of interest to see and do in southern Vermont and we spent many enjoyable moments discovering them. Some of them I would like to revisit and spend more time exploring. While Bellows Falls was a necessary and enjoyable stop on our tour it is not on that list. 

Mother…the Color of Life

That’s the name of the art exhibition that is currently showing at Chiclayo’s Cultural Center through June 14th. The building has the appearance of a remodeled hacienda that had been carefully maintained.

There are three smallish exhibition halls that for this showing contained paintings and sculptures from local artists representing the communities of Chiclayo, Ferreñafe, Trujillo, Cajamarca and Piura.

The exhibition theme is intended to be a celebration of Mother’s Day, though to my untrained eye in some of the more expressionist paintings it was difficult to see a connection between what I was looking at and the honoring of mothers. 

The photos are scanned from the brochure handed out at the door and unfortunately do not accurately depict the vibrancy of the colors and contrast. 

Comparing this photo I took with its counterpart above in the brochure will illustrate the difference.

I was impressed with all the works on display, but there was one painting that I returned to several times during our tour. There was something about the woman’s expression that spoke to me. Maribel claimed to appreciate it also, though I don’t believe she did. We stopped at the administration office on our way out and got the phone number of the artist. We phoned him and a day later met at a restaurant for lunch. In discussing his painting he explained that the woman was his mother; that she had had a hard life and that both her expression and the surrounding symbolism  was intended to portray her courage, strength and dignity as she faced her difficulties and carried out her responsibilities without complaint. I think that’s what I saw….that’s what she was saying to me.

I made him an offer. There was some discussion. We shook hands. He chuckled and said, “I can’t believe I’m selling my mother.” I think his mom will approve.

Looking Back

Three years ago I started to write a memoir. The purpose was to hopefully help my grandchildren to better understand who I am, and to try to preserve, at least for myself, the memories of people, places and events that no longer exist as I knew them. A couple of weeks ago I completed the first draft. It consists of 312 pages of rambling, disconnected, disjointed words, sentences and paragraphs completely lacking in literary form or merit. But despite its crudeness I think it comes close to accomplishing my purpose. It took three years because frequently I walked away from it; deciding that what I had written for the past hour was garbage and the entire thing was trash and I should tap the delete key and be done with it. But I could not bring myself to delete it, and each time after several months had passed I’d take a hesitant look at it; decide that it really wasn’t too bad and could perhaps be salvaged. And so I plodded on until it ‘felt’ finished. I have printed it, had it spiral bound and placed it out of the way in a desk drawer. At some future time…I don’t know when, I’ll pick it up again, read it from cover to cover, and at that time if I think it’s worth the effort begin the lengthy process of rewriting…rearranging, adding, eliminating, expanding and contracting. In other words, as Stephan King has labeled it, I'll do the housecleaning. Finishing it would be solely for my own satisfaction. It will never be published and only a handful of people at best will read it before it’s consigned to a landfill somewhere.  But even if no one reads it, it was worth the effort, in part because it set free hundreds of moments in my life that had been locked away in the recesses of my mind.

In the 1940s coal was delivered to our house once monthly. Each home had a room in the basement called the “coal bin.” It had a window accessible from the street where the coal truck would park and lower a chute into the room. Two to three workers would pour coal from buckets onto the chute. I remember how black the clothes and faces of the men were, and how coal dust settled on everything in and outside of our house.

To get Ice for our ice box we put a sign in the window. On one side of the sign were the numbers 25 and 50. On the other the numbers were 75 and 100. Depending on how you placed the sign told the delivery truck how many pounds of ice you wanted. Later, when things settled down after the war most of the homes in our neighborhood bought refrigerators and ice delivery stopped. We didn’t have a refrigerator so it was my job to take my coaster wagon to the ice house about eight blocks away to get ice when we needed it.

When my parents decided we could afford a telephone mom went to the neighbor and used their phone to call Ma Bell at the telephone company. The person who answered asked if we wanted a desk or wall phone, and if we wanted a private or semi-private line. It cost less for a semi-private line so that’s what we chose. It was that simple. Two days later we had a black rotary dial phone and anxiously waited for it to ring. If it rang just once the call was for someone else…you never knew who you shared the line with. When it rang twice the call was for us. If you wanted to make a call and heard someone talking when you picked up the phone, you hung up and tried later. To this day I remember that phone number.

School environment was completely different in those days. Teachers and other authority figures – doctors, priests, lawyers, police, etc were respected. Misbehavior in school was rare and limited to petty infractions with sometimes amusing consequences. For example if you were caught chewing gum, you were made to stand in front of the class with the gum on your nose until class ended. If didn’t bother us guys but the girls were usually embarrassed.  

And then there was the ragman. Toward the end of the 1940s horses had pretty much disappeared from Milwaukee’s streets. There were still a few horse drawn milk delivery wagons but if you heard the unmistakable ‘clop-clop’ sound of iron on asphalt you knew that the ragman was in the neighborhood. He would announce his presence with a singsong cry of…”Aaaaa raggggs.”  We kids would always rush up to the horse and pet it while asking the ragman, “What’s the horse’s name?”  Apparently most horses were named “Getouttahere!” If our mothers had rags to sell the ragman would weigh them and pay a few pennies per pound. The woman always complained among themselves that the ragman’s scale was wrong and he was cheating them, but they’d be out there again the next time he came through.

The street in Milwaukee that for many years was my neighborhood, and the house next to Linder’s grocery store where we lived and had coal and ice delivered. This is a recent photo but nothing has really changed in these past seventy years. The Lindner store is long gone (I altered the photo to try to recreate it) and the residents are mostly Hispanic now, but the street, houses and trees are pretty much the same. Often my mother would send me to the store to buy some small item she had run out of…butter, bread and other things. I distinctly remember her giving me ten cents to buy lunch meat for sandwiches. Ten cents! And if I asked him, Ed Lindner would give me a large chunk of beef liver so me and my friends could go crabbin’ at Jackson Park lagoon. If I caught enough crabs I’d take them home and mom would boil them with some ingredients I’ve forgotten and after they cooled, me, my sister Joyce and our parents would sit at the kitchen table and peel and eat them.  There wasn’t much meat on them but they sure were good eating.

Those are just a few of the times in my life I’d forgotten about and through writing a memoir was able to experience them again. Thinking of them warmed my heart and brought a smile to me face. I don’t think being old is necessary to write a memoir. I do think that having the maturity to objectively look at the past and your role in it is crucial because not all memories are pleasant. Like everyone, I’ve had moments of elation and despair; triumph and failure. And like everyone, I’ve done things I’m proud of and others I’d rather forget. In that vein there were some things that were painful to write about but I considered necessary to present a balanced picture of myself to my grandchildren. Other memories were left buried simply because they were too personal to write about.

In looking for information to fill gaps in my memory I discovered what historians already know…memory is the worst tool we have for accurately recording and recalling events. Often I discovered that I remembered things as I wanted them to be, not as my research later proved them to be. It’s hard to give up long held beliefs when confronted with evidence to the contrary. That’s why I say maturity; as well as courage is necessary to write an objective memoir.

Writing a memoir has proven to be much more than I’d anticipated. I was expecting a purely intellectual process involving the arrangement of numbers, dates, places and people in some logical order. I was not prepared to sometimes be put through an emotional wringer, being forced to continuously ask myself “why?”…why did I act as I did…why did I make the choices I made? Why and how did I form the beliefs, values and perceptions that I did? In being confronted with those questions I developed a different, and I hope wiser perspective of the environment I lived in, the people I knew and more importantly, how I became the person I am today.