 
Write To Remember...

by Philip J McQuillan

Copyright 2014 Philip J. McQuillan

License Notes

This free e-book may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration and the reader is not charged to access it. Thank you for respecting the works of these authors. If you would like to add your story to this growing collection of Tributes, please contact me at mcquillanphil@gmail.com.
" _I have only my loved ones to thank"_

Write To Remember ~ Book I is the first book of a growing collection of Tributes/Memoirs. Please consider submitting your story for inclusion in this book-in-progress. Writing a tribute is an act of gratitude —a priceless gift to your children and to future generations. Today's cherished loved ones deserve to be remembered for their merits! With your contribution to these pages, your favorite friends and relatives will live on forever in our readers' minds as the very real and wonderful people they were. Thank you for remembering and honoring them.
About the Authors

Philip McQuillan

Jane Franklin

Liza D Wolfe

 Mehreen Ahmed
Table of Contents

BOOK I~Chapter 1~Philip

Preface

Big Philip

Simple Sundays

A Garden Variety Philosopher

On Others

Mystery Meet

Afterword

BOOK I~Chapter 2~Eddie & Margie

Daddy

Natural Habitat

Neighborhood Excitement

Mama

Happiness

Downtown

You Just Never Know

BOOK I~Chapter 3~Rose

The Story of Rose

BOOK I ~ Chapter 4 ~ Reminiscences of Dad
BOOK I ~ Chapter 1 ~ Philip
Preface

Who among us can remember, much less write even a scrap about our grandfather's uncle? Instead, I write about someone that I can never forget—my father Philip. It is sad and shocking to think that in two short generations, no one alive will know anything about the life that Philip lived, exactly what befell my grandfather's uncle.

I know that it would be a great personal tragedy if my father's memory were to pass into the nothingness of total anonymity just like my grandfather's uncle. To me and to everyone that was lucky enough to know him in the flesh, his life cannot be summed up by name and date marks on a stone somewhere few people will ever go, and a couple hundred words in an obituary few people will ever read. I dedicate these pages to my dear father Philip, and to everyone that ever wanted to write in order to remember, then, publish in order to preserve a story about a departed loved one.
Big Philip

One day I realized that I was beginning to forget the many things that made Dad nearest and dearest to all of our hearts. He had a wide-ranging vocabulary and the exquisite sense of timing needed to deliver his choice words. This made him the unsung comedy king of our little world. His was a wry sort of humor that drew heavily from a vast collection of favorite words. He peppered his conversation with them generously. As is the case with many good comedians, the unexpectedness of his remarks and the asperity of his wit were what set him apart from the crowd. Now only the memories of those rollicking fits of laughter remain. Like the dream I had last night, the vivid clarity of which begins to fade almost immediately when I awake, I could easily lose these memories forever. Writing these lines has helped me recover some of them from the abyss.

The memories that come back most poignantly have him speaking the special words that he alone commanded. I have tried to render a small sampling of these words in story form. They are trigger points meant to bring back fond memories to those of us who knew him personally. For those of you just getting to know my father now, this will be a glimpse into a kind of Daddy's Dictionary that points, succinctly, to a life well worth celebrating. Any words **in bold** from this point on indicates they were some of the characteristic words and phrases that were among Philip's favorites.

* * * * *

Philip Louis McQuillan was born into a large family in Philadelphia, PA on August 23, 1913. He died on November 18, 2011 in Bridgeton, NJ at the ripe old age of 98. He was a man of simple pleasures who loved reading, cooking and getting in a few rounds of golf or tennis. A swim in the ocean, a game of cards, classical music and great literature—these were a few of his favorite things. It always seemed that whatever he was doing, that was also his favorite thing. I have yet to meet anyone with so few dislikes, so few complaints and such a wonderful acceptance of life just as it is.

In family circles, he was often called Big Philip. Big Philip would spice up his conversation with quotes and references to Shakespeare, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, among others. He loved poetry, especially the poetry of Robert Frost. He read and re-read Shakespeare's sonnets and plays, and gradually the master's works became fodder for his very own word cannon. Philip definitely had a way with words; he was a veritable storehouse of odd phrases and **time-honored** classic sayings. He was, nevertheless, a very down to earth, simple man who could laugh easily at any good joke. Most of the time he was the one making everyone else laugh. He had his own **inimitable** brand of understated humor. In fact, that was one of his favorite words. Inimitable: a wonderfully alliterative word that describes him completely. Truly, he was one of a kind!

Two other favorite words immediately come to mind: insipid and connoisseur. I can still see Dad mouthing some food or drink in response to a how-does-it-taste question, and with a mildly pained look on his face reply, "pretty **insipid**." Though obviously repulsed by the taste of whatever it was, he was also too kind and too cultured to blurt out that it tasted like crap. He would then chastise himself for being so critical (in his self-effacing way) saying, "but then I'm no **connoisseur** ," except that he would pronounce it "conna-sewer" with lots of emphasis on the last syllable! You see, he would get you coming and going—with an opening line and a closer too! Sometimes I thought I knew which funny word or phrase was coming next. Then Dad would **alter** things a bit; just like an experienced pitcher throwing a change-up, he'd catch you off guard. He had that kind of an edge. That edge made him the one who would get others laughing—laughing until the tears were streaming down their face.

Dad had loads of pet phrases—one of them was _comme ci comme ça_. I was surprised to learn that _comme ci comme ça_ came from the French—we all thought it was a Latin phrase!...or, maybe Italian, since we lived in a predominately Italian town. My sister Karin and I both knew what the phrase meant, but not its origin. Big Philip had many things he kept exclusively in his head. There were the recipes that he never wrote down. There were the pet words and phrases that he never included in anything written down either. Maybe it was because he spent his days and nights critiquing other people's writing—he taught high school English Literature and had to mark papers — so it would have been a chore instead of a pleasure. Maybe he simply had an aversion to paper. Whatever the reason, he was **averse** to writing, despite a lifetime of speaking in rather lofty terms—odd fellow!

Indeed, he was a **funnyman** with a passion for cooking, quoting Shakespeare, reading poetry and standing on his head... and for saying stuff like "anything you can do I can do better," and still remain a very humble man. He had to be humble because Jean, my mother, could be a hard taskmaster. He once said that his existence under her driving force was "survival of the fittest." His complaints were few; **in the main** , he was a willing soul, well disposed to be at Jean's **beck and call**. If, we all concluded, he wanted something done right, he would just have to do it himself.

I think that was how he came to be the cook par excellence that he became. How good was his cooking? Very good! **Simple fare** , in keeping with his usually modest tastes. Simple was better than merely satisfactory, mind you; people would stop by our house just to get some of his special orange juice! No secret recipe there, but I think he would have kept it a secret if he could.

In addition to his teaching position, Philip also had a job as a radio announcer at night. He worked for radio station WMVB in Millville. This was back in the days when news came in to the radio station on a teletype. Philip had to tear the long sheets of paper off and skim them for any news **of substance** and then read the short headlines on the hour or half-hour. The rest of the time, he mostly played the classical music that he loved so dearly. One of his favorites, that I recall hearing frequently, was _Greensleeves_. It has a quiet, contemplative melody that often matched my father's mood, as did many of the nocturnes that he gave airtime. He also enjoyed rousing music, marches like _Semper Fidelis_ and _Stars and Stripes Forever_ by John Philip Sousa.
Simple Sundays

I used to visit my parents every Sunday almost without fail. Dad loved the lighthearted competition of a card game like 500 rummy or penny ante poker. It just so happened that we **latched onto** a different game though, one called _Sequence_. My father called the game Secret instead, because once or twice he forgot the real name. Over time and with repeated usage the new name stuck. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue on his part, because he liked to keep secrets.

Strictly speaking, Sequence wasn't a card game because it used a game-board and playing pieces in addition to cards. That made it more **palatable** to my ex-spouse Melanie, who didn't like any kind of card play or gambling. Melanie always teamed up with Big Philip in these games and I partnered with my mother Jean. Here is where the goofy/funny side of Jean would surface. She always seemed not to understand what was required to win the game, asking much the same questions over and over. Despite her apparent confusion, she would **invariably** end up the winner! In so winning, seemingly by luck, she would come in for a lot of good-natured ribbing from my father. He could be a wee bit **caustic** at times but that just made him funnier.

Melanie and my father would sometimes try to get cozy and drop subtle and not-so-subtle hints to each other about where they would like their partner to play on the board. Bending the rules a little was their prerogative and always permissible when advantageous to them, but we would be in for serious rebuke if we tried the same **stunts**! The two enablers, Melanie and Big Philip, had in their opinion, **carte blanche** to do this and we most definitely did not; our protests would not change a thing.

I call them the enablers for two reasons. First, they enabled each other in the commission of small crimes on the game board. More importantly, in a very real life sense, they both enabled their respective spouses. I am physically disabled and use a wheelchair, and for years depended on Melanie for **countless** assists every day. My mother on the other hand became somewhat dependent on her husband by choice. She didn't feign any inability; she always had a touch of klutziness **by virtue of** which she profited, just as in the card games. If, as my father used to say, anything that she could do he could do better, she was perfectly happy to let him prove it over and over, letting him do most of whatever needed to be done.

Getting into their house in my power wheelchair on Sundays or any day was not the easiest thing in the world for me. Two ramps were involved, one leading up to the front door landing, and then another smaller one to take care of the final 10 inch rise up and over the threshold. The iffy part was the first ramp, the folding, removable 14-foot ramp. It was ADA compliant in and of itself, but a little scary because the way it was placed it rose at a steeper than normal angle. Although the ramp was well built and strong enough to carry my weight up to the landing easily, my father rigged a support under the hinges at the halfway point just to be extra safe. What did he use? Why, the skinny old briefcase handed down to me from my uncle Andy that I had never really used, salvaged from down in the basement.

My mother was a nervous Nelly indeed, and everybody knew it just like they knew their own name. She could be hilarious with her antics sometimes, but her outsized fears and near hysteria on occasion could get everyone **quasi** -pissed off too. At times like this it was common for my father to tell her something like, "get thee to a nunnery" or "you're worse than a scared puppy dog" or simply, "git, git, git," as he shooed her away. In all fairness to her, the old briefcase did not inspire much confidence as an extra support. Dad however thought it was the best thing on hand for the job. It bolstered the ramp at the halfway point and therefore it **served its purpose**. No one could dispute that. He was marvelous at getting things to do double duty that way. As you now know, he was an eminently practical man. He might not find the perfect solution, but what he did come up with would **suffice**. Suffice and sufficient were two of the **stock-in-trade** words he depended on regularly to sum up anything's usefulness.

On Sundays, my father would usually cook a chicken in the oven, especially if the weather was cooperative. If the weather was too warm then he might prepare sandwiches and a potato salad instead. He cooked other things for Sunday dinner from time to time but **a bird** was his go-to meal of choice. The variety of food he could prepare was almost equal to the **endless** variety of his **chitchat**. Sometimes my mother would chip in with a recipe request of her own—kasha and tabouli come to mind.

Big Philip knew how to make people feel at home in his house, and was never **found wanting** in this category. He enjoyed music very much, and strove to have something pleasant playing in the background when guests were around. He was very **conversant** and people enjoyed his **repartee** , especially his humorous quips, often directed at my mother. Philip and Jean were a riot when they got going. Jean knew how to play the comic foil in the duo while my father was the sarcastic straight man. Long before reality TV appeared, I thought that if I could just have a camera installed strategically in a corner of the kitchen and shoot film all day long, soon I'd have enough hilarious material to base a sitcom on. However, that idea never came into being, never **materialized**.
A Garden Variety Philosopher

Philip was a down to earth person and no story about Philip would be complete without mentioning his love of gardening. It was his hobby, but as was his habit with any hobby, it was a supremely practical one. It had the quadruple purpose of bringing fresh food to the table, recycling kitchen wastes, saving money and providing him with good, healthy exercise. Nothing fit in better with his minimalist philosophy than his back yard vegetable garden. Nothing typified the essential Philip more either.

Philip believed in keeping things simple. " **Simplify, simplify** ," he used to say, and he pretty much lived by that maxim. No need to waste good potato peelings and other organic refuse, stuffing it down a garbage disposal (they didn't have one anyway), when it could be turned into perfectly good fertilizer. So, he dug a hole out back by the garden and buried the garbage there every day; this soon became good compost for the garden. I am sure Thoreau would have heartily approved! While we kids were out there in the back yard sunning ourselves on folding recliners trying to get a tan, Mom and Dad were busy **getting to the meat** of serious matters like fertilizing, tilling, sowing and harvesting. We probably thought they were crazy at the time, but they weren't.

I do not recall that my parents ever asked for any help from us kids in the garden. When you do it all yourself you get all the credit and all the satisfaction. I believe that was an important part of the tacit decision not to ask us to get involved. Every tomato, every strawberry, string bean or eggplant (just to name a few foods), that ever came out of that garden to grace our dinner plates was their work, their creation. My mother pitched in enthusiastically with the gardening; nonetheless, Philip was the one who toiled the most in it, as was often the case with their mutual projects. He didn't do this consciously. It just happened, as Philip would have said, "in the natural course of things."

The natural course of things—that was his way, automatically. He didn't put up any resistance to the way that things were, or the way that things were going. His solution to the constant problems of the human condition was to accept " **what is**." He put a lot of emphasis on those two words. When he spoke these words, you knew that he meant it. He firmly believed in _hic et nunc_ , the here and now of life. While others were **spouting nonsense** about the past and about the imagined future, Philip was practicing staying present in the moment, long before today's modern gurus popularized it.

Philip had a vast store of practical wisdom. "Pull your hair every day," he'd say, "it's good for the follicles." That fit in pretty well with one of his most unusual practices—standing on his head. He used to say that it "brings the blood to the brain" and "clears the mind." That and dozens of other similar **pronouncements** were the stuff of everyday conversation in the McQuillan household.

Philip was nothing if not **consistent**. Everything he believed in he believed in under all circumstances. He practiced what he preached. Simplicity? He was perfectly happy with a used Volkswagen Bug for transportation. A game of 500 Rummy would do for a night of family fun at home. A V-neck white undershirt was perfectly fine for most days around the house and maybe for a round of tennis too. His favorite spot would be the vegetable garden out back; spring, summer or fall, many a good fresh meal came out of it. Can you get any more **basic** than that?

Another thing Philip was famous for was his beloved afternoon nap. He firmly believed that it was responsible for his longevity. He was probably right. He would not miss one of these naps lightly. He would defend them with a quote from Shakespeare saying that "sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care" and that it was "great nature's second course." He had hundreds more of these **nuggets** of wisdom culled from years of study and from reading the great writers and philosophers.

Philip had a proclivity for the horse races. He loved to go to the track and watch the **nags** run; a small bet would be placed otherwise there would not be much fun in it. He was not a heavy bettor; he liked to place what he called a safe bet. He would only take a small amount of risk. This was also true of his investing style. As it turned out, he was very good at making a consistent profit in the stock market. His normally cautious and contemplative personality served him well **in every aspect** of life!

Philip liked to stay always cool, calm and collected. I can still hear him saying, "Let's not make **a big fuss** over it." That was his standard comment to my mother... no fuss, no getting upset about anything, just a sense of letting things flow naturally. One time my mother was concerned about how we were going to find a certain street address that we were looking for in the city. Philip said emphatically, "Just watch it happen." I thought that was hilarious at that time and still do to this day. It was his polite way of saying be quiet, I can handle this! He could handle things, beyond any **shadow of a doubt**.

Dad liked to mix himself a Manhattan after dinner and relax with that while he watched some TV. Usually he drank just one, but occasionally he would mix himself a second. He certainly knew his limits and never did anything **in excess**. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was his favorite late-night program just as it was for millions of other Americans. All good things come to an end, and eventually Johnny retired. My father continued watching the show with Jay Leno, but the new host did not strike my father as equally funny. I think Jay depended too much on sexual innuendo for my father's taste.

In our household so-called **boy/girl stuff** was always frowned on severely. The whole topic of sex was taboo when we were growing up. My sister and I both knew not to get out of line and bring it up. The topic of dating was a close second. Television was the third prohibition, at least while we were youngsters. We did not have a television set in our home when we were growing up in Philadelphia. What you never had you don't really miss. However, I do remember watching in quiet awe, snippets of TV programs at a neighbor's house on Butler Avenue.

Ours was a brick row home right on the corner of Butler St. & Old York Road. It was still a good neighborhood back in the early `60's, with a Catholic church and a school just a few blocks away. We lived there in **Filthydelphia** , as my father sometimes called it, for several years until the time I finished the first grade at St. Stephens School. Then my father landed his first (and last) teaching job in New Jersey in a little town called Millville, near Vineland—where we began to live.

Several years after we moved to Vineland, we did finally get a television set, but my sister and I were not allowed to watch half the programs on it. If there were any kissing shown, my mother would swoop in and promptly change the station or turn the set off. Pretty much all we could watch was Flipper! Remember, this was around 1964-65 and parents, as a rule, were fairly uptight still; my parents were uptight and then some. Over the years, things did loosen up a bit, but the early taboos had already sunk in, probably to the **detriment** of all.

Most of my practical (and not so practical) learning came from my philosophical father. He taught me how to play chess and how to shoot pool too. Just like everything else he took up, he was passing good at both and wasn't easily beaten. I often wondered (much later on) where he had learned to play pool because it seemed a little out of character for him. Maybe it was from one of his older half brothers, George or Lou. At any rate, Philip played pool but he did not **dabble** in pool hall language.

Philip's father was also named Philip, so that makes me Philip III at least. I didn't know this when I was growing up, not that it ever made any difference. For some reason nobody ever played up this little fact, and the further fact that J was my grandfather's middle initial too. Was Jude his middle name then, the same as mine? I may never know unless I pay some ancestry site to dig into his approximately 1883 birth. Even if I do, there won't be much more to discover or **resurrect** there (or anywhere) about him. He has disappeared into the dusty death records of history with nary a trace! Important questions about his life are **bound to** remain unanswered... and some silly ones as well. For example, "Did a trolley car conductor—my grandfather—know how to play pool?"

Philip usually played golf at the same golf course in Vineland and that was Latona Country Club. It was near at hand and relatively inexpensive since it was a nine-hole course. Still, compared to tennis, which my father also played, golf was costly. Philip always preferred to walk the course, never riding in a golf cart. "I'm out here for the exercise and the fresh air," he said. However, I knew he liked to save a buck too. He had an old pair of golfing shoes that must have been from the 1940s—hey, they still fit so why not make use of them. He didn't carry an **excessive** number of clubs; to begin with, he didn't like unnecessary **clutter**. Carrying extra clubs would have made for a heavier burden too. He didn't want that much exercise! A driver, two woods, seven irons and a putter were all that he required, and a canvas golf bag to carry them around. If he hit a bad tee shot, he would sometimes take a mulligan (another shot, a do-over). If he had an extremely easy, short putt he would just pick up the ball and say, "that's **a gimme** ," and if he hit a ball into the water then it was, "Damn, right in **the drink**."

Once in a while Philip would make a somewhat disparaging remark about some old duffer who was out on the course slicing and shanking his golf balls. He would utter a half cry and feign a sob and say, " **poor sucker** ," when one of them made a really bad shot. I think he really did feel for them because Philip sliced, pulled and shanked plenty of balls himself. If Philip found a good golf ball out there, naturally he would keep it along with any decent tees that he might find lying around. Philip wasn't opposed to getting something for nothing, but he never set out to do this completely on purpose. If it were to happen, then que _sera, sera_ would be his refrain. This was way before it was commonplace to hear Americans splicing a little Spanish into their everyday speech like they do today.

Occasionally, he would throw " **mamayakera** " into his conversation —but in a talking-to-himself kind of way—none of us ever thought to ask him what it meant. It was only much later when I learned how to speak Spanish that I realized that it was _Mama yo quiero_ , a Spanish phrase that may have been the title to a song he'd heard and that loosely meant "Mommy I want..."

One of my friends had graduated from Millville High School where my father taught, and knew him from his school days. This was long before he and I became friends at Cumberland County College. We came up with a nickname for my father one day and it stuck. We called him Jive. I know that in common vernacular there are some negative connotations to this nickname, but we didn't give him the nickname for any of those reasons. To us young guys, it meant that even though Philip was getting to be an older fellow by then, we thought he was still pretty hip. We also had a lot of respect for him because invariably he would beat us both at golf and at tennis!

My friend's name was Andy Henderson. In his own words, he thought my dad was "pretty slick." In fact, he thought the world of him. While on his honeymoon in Jamaica, Andy took the time and effort to purchase and bring back a typical carving for my parents. I knew he mainly had my Dad in mind because Andy identified strongly with him. The carving was a native bust of some kind and was made of the hardest, heaviest wood known to man or so it seemed. It was **no easy feat** to lug that back, especially from a honeymoon trip. However, Andy had a strong sense of kinship and admiration for this one-of-a-kind guy. That sentiment was typical of the way most people felt about Big Philip; he was very memorable, completely likeable and quite an inspiration.
On Others

Philip was very descriptive when he referred to other people. "She's a tall drink of water," "He's no prize" or "What a pistol!" He was usually rather kind with his descriptions. It wasn't often that he was **harsh** and when others were harsh, he would ask them to tone it down a little. He would not shout under any circumstance. He would say, "Do you have to be so vehement?" or ask, "Could you be a little less **vociferous**?" "Keep it in a lower register please." His **old standby** was, "Could you moderate your voice?" Essentially, he never even raised his voice much. He could **pooh-pooh** what you were saying if need be in clever and less confrontational ways.

He never called anybody else a jerk or an ass-anything, but he would definitely label someone a **dumb cluck** if he thought the description was apt. His way was always to soften language a bit as if to **mollify** the world at large. A fart was a fluff, shit was excrement, boogers didn't exist and snot was mucus. This reminds me—Philip always had a white handkerchief ready to blow his nose or wipe the sweat off his brow. His nose tended to water a lot, especially after eating a meal; he had what was known in the family as "the McQuillan nose." Partly for this reason (and as a matter of practicality) a handkerchief was his constant companion, always close at hand in his pants pocket.

He didn't go in much for hats. If somebody wore one, he might think it **unsightly**. Then he would say, "Would you look at that **get-up**?" or "I've never seen such **garb**." In dress, the person he was least critical of was Mom—I never saw her wear a hat. Occasionally, Philip would refer to Mom as the **hostess with the mostess** , his tone of voice clearly communicating the dubious nature of that title. Mom didn't do much cooking, and Philip had long ago assumed the role of house chef, so she wasn't overly familiar with the kitchen. She would soften the blow of his hostess jokes by joining in the game, saying stuff like, "I couldn't have done it any better myself" or "I know I was a really big help." Mom always had a knack for making light of herself. Being a good sport, she could turn any criticism into a hearty laugh for all. One of her favorite sayings was, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never harm me." She would roll that out when needed, which wasn't often, because even with her foibles, she was always **top dog**.

At any given moment, something Jean said could meet with this reply: " **Thank you Mrs. News Bomb**!" if Philip thought her remark was truly superfluous. His jesting and his teasing were always in good fun and she knew it. Besides, she was dictatorial enough to raise anybody's hackles at times. Philip dealt with her somewhat **overbearing** nature with delicious comedy. "Where do you bury your dead?" he would ask when she began handing out too many orders, threats and ultimatums.

My sister and I used to call our mother "Pinky," because of the pink fleece bunny suit that she slept in for years. Around the same time, my sister also gave my father a nickname. She dubbed him "Turtel" (accent on the 2nd syllable, making it sound like a French word). This was because when he broke into one of his great fits of laughter, he reminded us of a turtle. It was the kind of laugh where you run out of breath from laughing so hard. Dad's head would bob up and down silently like a great cork in the water, but with a turtle – like effect. Philip had loads of big belly laughs like that, and so did anyone who was around him to hear his jokes. When such a laughing fit struck, he would pull out his trusty handkerchief to **sop up** the tears that came streaming down.

Back in the days when my father taught English at Millville Senior High School, there was someone named Bogle as Superintendent of Schools. I **gathered** , from what my father told me, that he didn't like Bogle much. Apparently, he was not popular with any of the teachers. This was mainly because of the new policies that he implemented—some would say, rammed down everybody's throat. Bogle became the one and only subject on which my father had a whole **litany** of complaints. Philip thought he was a tyrant **of the highest order**. When it came to Bogle, Philip spoke plainly—not mincing any words. He would not get all **worked up into a lather** about him but he did make his feelings abundantly clear.

The crux of the problem with Bogle was his decree that teachers must move their desks to the back of the room. He wanted all teachers to be standing when teaching, not sitting. I **surmised** that when the order went out, teachers objected strongly, and that my father was one of the more rebellious. While the desks in the back of the room could afford **some semblance** of privacy in meetings with students, the main objection was that teachers had nowhere to put their teaching paraphernalia, books, etc. Philip roundly criticized this idea of the desk in the back. It really rubbed him the wrong way that teachers had to teach with no desk in between themselves and those little **shitzas** , as he not so affectionately called some of the students from time to time.

I don't remember Philip ever giving me a nickname. He did compare me (unfavorably) with a so-called Philadelphia lawyer. That was his retort when I would say something like, "You taught me how to play chess, chess is a game of logic, now why don't you want to listen to logic?" during a discussion of some kind. My sister he sometimes characterized as a _prima donna_ —obviously, that had negative connotations. He gave her a second nickname as well—Hot Pipes. To put it mildly, Karin was not very fond of our hot and humid New Jersey summers. To suit herself, she installed her own air conditioner in her room to cool it down to a temperature that she could bear. She slept under a goose down comforter even in the summertime, so you can imagine how cool the room had to be for her.

Dad seldom spoke about his mother or father except to emphasize that his mother was the one who ran things around their house. With a family of twelve to handle, she was very much in command. She knew how to organize the household and keep it running efficiently. I'm quite sure Dad picked up his many practical abilities from her. In contrast, his father had been a very mild mannered man. Seldom was he **brought to the fore** in comments my father made about family life. When he did speak of him, he practically portrayed him as a **milquetoast**. If my father had any great love for either of his parents, it wasn't very **evident**. Perhaps there was reason enough to find fault with them; Dad never was one to harp on other people's defects though, so that question remains a mystery.

I never heard much about his students one way or the other. I do know that he had his favorites and those were the ones who were well behaved, courteous and respectful. The adjectives he used to describe the more troublesome students ranged from **unkempt,** disheveled and **moth-eaten** for the **shabby** types, on up to calling the bold misbehavers little bastards or "those little shits". They were the ones that were more than **a bit much** and they must have tried his patience **to the nth degree**!

A mysterious word that Philip was fond of using was **comalya**. "Let's not have a big comalya," he would say, and we knew it meant let's not make a big deal about something. The word is used in the Irish community to refer to a gathering of familiars ready to sing and chat; however, it also meant a brouhaha or commotion of some kind. The fact that we never heard anybody else use that word, did not strike us as remarkable at the time. We were used to our father being different from others, and to hearing him use plenty of choice words — quality words, as in USDA Grade A Choice beef. Philip wasn't trying impress and would of course use ordinary, everyday words most of the time. Not every word out of his mouth was a **zinger** , but it did seem that he was always working on a zinger and that it would soon emerge. You just never knew when his special brand of wry and dry humor would produce it. He definitely had his own unique style; everything he said and did was **steeped in** that style.
Mystery Meet

My father met my mother in New York City, the city where she was born. That was **the sum and substance** of what we knew about their courtship. Moreover, if there was one, they **papered it over** and **watered it down** to almost nothing. Being a boy it never occurred to me to ask many questions; my sister must have wondered a great deal more about it because she made certain inquiries, inquiries that both our parents greeted with very little enthusiasm and plenty of **half-baked** answers. The topic was never **in vogue** so gradually we just accepted the fact that our parents were going to stay mum on that subject forever.

My father came from a large family of twelve brothers and sisters, many of whom entered the religious life, joining various religious orders. In contrast, my mother was an only child. Right from the **get-go** , they were very different. My father was also much older than our mother, but that didn't matter much to us. As we were but children, we never gave it a second thought. Besides, my father never looked his age at all—Dad was timeless it seemed. While he did stretch the truth a bit regarding his age, claiming to be just 39 years old year after year, not many people knew this fact. If anyone ever became overly inquisitive about his age, he would **slough off** the question with his typical good humor. Later on, it would become a kind of inside joke between us that he would always be only 39 years old.

For a center city Philadelphian, Philip sure had a lot of farm talk. "Don't get yourself all worked up in lather," "Hold your horses," "Don't beat a dead horse" and "We went on a wild goose chase"—these were staples among his favorite sayings. Then there were his Latin phrases. He would challenge my mother with, "Are you the _ipse dixit_?", or on a more **conciliatory** note, " _En medio stat virtus_." She never had a comeback for any of these sallies. She didn't have the background he had in Latin.

Mom was always much more fond of Greek and Russian. She managed to learn a few words and phrases of each language. The Greek that she picked up was mainly from a New York luncheonette owner named Alex. Alex played a lot of Greek music on his jukebox; my mother listened and learned. She fell in love with Greek music; it became easy for her to pick up the words and phrases. My mother kicks up her heels to Greek music to this day; nothing gives her greater pleasure than this. Her Russian she probably carved out of numerous conversations she had with Russian immigrants in the City.

If my mother was trying out (or showing off) her Greek or her Russian on someone, maybe someone she had just met in the supermarket aisle, my father would roll his eyes a bit and jokingly say to the person, "she always was a **little peculiar**." People generally got quite a kick out of them. They made an interesting couple because they always had a very entertaining give-and-take going on between them. Philip was the quiet one with the occasional incisive, hilarious comment while Mom was the great conversationalist... _ad nauseam_ Philip would say. She would go off **on a tangent** ; it was hard to keep up with all the twists and turns. The conversation could go from beans to buttonholes in a New York minute. Philip would have to cut in with, "What's your point?" from time to time.

Mom had some pet phrases of her own, but they were not favorites with her children. We can all laugh about them now, but at the time, they were certainly unwanted admonishments. She raised us up under the specter of "children should be seen and not heard." If that wasn't enough I was constantly reminded by her as a child that, "your play days are almost over." Talk about a party pooper! When we were teenagers we found out she was against contraception of any kind and her only advice was for people to "gird their loins." I do remember her giving me some warnings against using heroin and marijuana, but after having heard the gird-your-loins advice I suppose I didn't listen too closely and it wasn't long before I was trying pot on the sly. I still remember when they found a pound of the stuff on the top shelf of my closet, supposedly well hidden there. I don't think there was much actual pot in that "dope" because I was ripped off on that deal by some other hippy who knew how to make money on dope (and on dopes like me). I suppose I became an embarrassment to my father during my pot phase, but **happily** for us both, I attended Vineland High School not Millville High School where he taught.

You already know that Philip worked diligently to take care of his health. The foods he ate were on balance healthy foods. Nevertheless, how food tasted would sometimes overrule health considerations. Philip liked to savor his food, not just eat it. Philip loved scrapple and would offer it up at breakfast almost every Sunday morning. You would be hard-pressed to find a more unhealthy food than scrapple. Scrapple was one of the treats we grew up with where Philip allowed himself the luxury of eating what he liked too; for example, white bread with icing, ice cream sodas at Haines and mint chocolate chip ice cream. However, our mother cast a **disparaging** eye on almost all meat, and scrapple was certainly no exception. Later, when we children were no longer in the house Mom must have put the final **kibosh** on scrapple, because we never saw it in the refrigerator again.

Then there was butter. Dad never did buy into the margarine is healthier than butter nonsense, although my mother must have promoted the idea repeatedly. There was a period when he did switch, albeit begrudgingly. He returned to butter quickly though, long before the crowd did. When it was discovered later on that margarine wasn't so good for you after all, no one was happier than he was. It confirmed what he had always believed, and allowed him to one-up his spouse again, for the **umpteenth** time.

Butter was not something Philip would simply apply to bread; no, he had to lay it on thick, slather it on. He usually kept the butter in the refrigerator, so it would be cold and go on in great slabs instead of spreading easily. Not a problem for Dad—"Would you like another **slab**?" was what Dad would ask. He would heap a mound of it onto any serving of vegetables, usually dropping it into the little crater he formed at the top of the vegetables just for this purpose. Since he was **generous** to himself in a buttery way, he liked to offset any possible damage done by taking a generous dose of soy lecithin. He believed that lecithin as an artery and vein cleaner had no peer, and was the biological equivalent of Roto-Rooter for your pipes. He would happily show you the pages in Adele Davis's book "How to Live Forever and Ever and Ever" (or some such title) that spoke specifically about the many benefits of taking liquid lecithin.

One thing our parents did agree on was the miraculous properties of cod liver oil. Apparently, both their mothers had been firm believers in this yummy substance and in oatmeal too. You have probably heard that some special shampoos, like the ones for sensitive skin, contain oatmeal. One day I saw first hand just what oatmeal could do for hair, and let me tell you it was not what you would think, or what you would expect to see in a shampoo commercial. In our household it turned out that if you made too much of **a stink** about a food you didn't like, you just might end up wearing it on your head! One deft move by Dad, and suddenly my sister found herself digesting a bowl of oatmeal cereal through those famous hair follicles he was always talking about. I never saw Dad make an aggressive move like that again, and not surprisingly, Karin did not fully forgive the indignity until much later on!

Looking back, Philip's life was a study in selflessness. A marvelous sense of humor and a **never-ending** willingness to help, remain his two most memorable characteristics. That and the image of him tossing a kitchen towel over his left shoulder as he went about the business of cooking and serving three meals a day... and serve he did for more than half a century as a husband and a father and a good friend. If ever there were a man, happy and willing to serve others, that man was Big Philip.
Afterword

Writing these chapters has helped me to realize how much of what my father was, is also a big part of me—more than I ever thought possible. It taught me that I could write, although you will surely be the final judge of that. My hope is that you will set out on a similar journey of self-discovery, a journey in which you will do your level best to ensure that your cherished loved ones do not fade into complete anonymity in a few short generations. In the process, you might make some surprising discoveries of your own. Bon voyage!

Was there someone special in your life that was one of a kind in a gloriously great way? I encourage you to write a chapter of your own about him or her. Join me in preserving those precious memories while you can still remember them—before they are lost forever. Fading memories can be restored their clarity; forgotten moments recovered and savored again for all posterity. In so doing, you tell us your story; here I have told you mine.

We are just at the beginning of the Golden Age of self-publishing and e-books are clearly in the forefront of this revolution. Should you want to contribute a Chapter of your own about someone special to you, contact me at mcquillanphil@gmail.com. This book is a work in progress. I will be happy to assist you with your manuscript should you choose to add your story here.

I would love to know how you felt about this story; please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer. A thousand reasons to say... thanks for reading! Phil

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BOOK I ~ Chapter 2 ~ Eddie & Margie

Copyright 2014 Jane L Franklin
Daddy

My first real memories of my father are of a tall, good looking man who liked to kiss my mother and never went to work without kissing her goodbye. He was a warm man who always kissed my little sister and me Goodnight before we went to bed. Mama was more reserved about affection. Daddy had a very deep masculine voice and he loved to tease us about things, he was a practical joker and you never knew what he might do. He never attended college, but he was very intelligent. He was an avid reader and we always had lots of books in our house. Daddy used to say that just because you didn't go to college doesn't mean you have to act like it.

Mama loved reading too. One of my fondest memories is Mama taking my sister and me to the library downtown-I loved the smell of the books. I still go to our little library; a Kindle is nice, but nothing feels as good as a real hardcover book. Both my parents loved animals and we adopted many a stray, along with an assortment of guinea pigs, hamsters, turtles, and once a lizard. Our little house always had a dog or two as well. Mama hated to go into my room because she never knew what I might have in there!

My parents went to the same high school, but they never dated. Mama said Daddy ran with a faster crowd than she did. After high school they ended up working at the same department store in their hometown of Statesville, North Carolina. Mama worked at the candy counter and Daddy put stock away. I guess without so many people around Daddy noticed the cute little blonde who didn't talk much because after a few dates they were in love. Mama used to sneak candy to Daddy when he stopped at the candy counter to flirt.

They dated for about a year and then decided to get married. Immediately after that Daddy got drafted into the army. He was too late for Korea and too early for Vietnam; I guess you could say he got lucky. They said their tearful goodbyes and Daddy left for California. He was stationed at a tiny base in Marysville. I would have loved to see him as a soldier because he never seemed to take orders from anyone. As soon as he was able he sent Mama the money to join him and they got a little trailer off base. For a woman as shy as my mother, it was surprising to know she traveled all the way across the country to be with Daddy. It says a lot about how much she loved him. I don't think I'd have the fortitude to take a bus trip alone across the country.

When Mama talked about their time in California I could tell it was one of the happiest times in her life. Everything was going fine and then they found out they were expecting me. Poor Mama had to take that long bus trip back to North Carolina; thankfully Daddy's time was almost up and a few months later he returned to her. They stayed with Daddy's parents until they could get their own place and prepared for my birth. Unfortunately, Daddy got arrested for drag racing through the downtown area while intoxicated and there was a possibility that he would miss my birth.

Now let me explain that my dad's family has a very good name in our town and my grandfather was pretty upset. Mama said she begged him to get Daddy out of jail; not only was he intoxicated; he sped away from the policeman and had to be chased down. A young man barely twenty years old and fresh out of the army, Daddy had some wild oats to sow. Finally, my grandfather went down to the jailhouse to bail Daddy out. He came home alone and when Mama asked him where Daddy was he told her he was still in jail.

When the jailer took Grandpa to the cells in the back of the jail, he found my father loudly singing a song titled, "We're in the Jailhouse Now." "If he likes it so damn much he can stay there," Grandpa said and left the jail without bailing Daddy out. My poor mama could look really pitiful when she needed to and I guess her condition tugged at Grandpa's heartstrings and Daddy was bailed out of jail in time for my birth. My father and my grandfather were never affectionate with each other, but I could tell that they loved each other very much.

Two young people barely out of their teens with a little baby and not much money, it happens every day. Not only were they poor, Daddy had never been around babies and Mama said he had no idea how to take care of one. One of the best stories that Mama told was about the time that she and Grandma had an errand to run and they left Grandpa and Daddy with me, I was about two weeks old. I guess they thought everything would be fine and I would be in good hands with Grandpa there too.

Mama said the minute they returned, she heard me screaming bloody murder in my crib. Daddy and Grandpa were calmly sitting in the den as though nothing was wrong. Mama immediately went to check on me and see what all the screaming was about. To her amazement, I was kicking and screaming with my tiny butt in a brown paper bag. When she asked what the heck was I doing like that Daddy told her that I used the bathroom in my diaper and they were afraid to change me because they were terrified they'd stick me with a safety pin-there was no such thing as Pampers back then. When I think about those two big tall men afraid to change a diaper and cutting two leg holes in a paper bag and putting me in it, I have to smile.
Natural Habitat

Daddy found a job at a J.C. Penney distribution center and he and Mama set up housekeeping in a little apartment near downtown. I sometimes wonder if it was hard for a man like my father who was so intelligent to spend his days packing boxes. At work Daddy was popular-Eddie Long was the kind of guy who had a lot of friends, everybody loved him. He had a dry sense of humor that would make you laugh at something even if you felt guilty while doing it. I remember when a man who was a regular at Daddy's favorite tavern died suddenly. Everyone went to the funeral home for visitation, but skipped the funeral because it was on a work day. After work, while having a beer they noticed a funeral procession passing the tavern. It was their friend, on his way to the graveyard about a mile away. Everyone stood up respectfully and Daddy remarked, "Poor bastard, it's the first time he ever drove past and didn't come inside for a beer." He had a quick wit.

The tavern Daddy frequented was his second favorite place in the world. All his friends were there and I think he enjoyed the fellowship more than the beer. They were a close knit group; married guys, blue collar workers who liked to drink, smoke, and discuss the problems of the world. When it was first built it was called a Stag Tavern meaning women were not welcome. It stood on the corner of one of the roughest sections of town, but nobody ever bothered the patrons. Later on the original white frame building was torn down and a nice brick building took its place. The crowd was the same, though. I used to stop in after I got my driver's license; all the men were like uncles to me and my sister and I used to joke about visiting my father in his natural habitat.

I can still see him, his long legs dangling from a stool at the bar, holding court with his admirers. I don't know what it is or why some people are endowed with it, but my father could quietly walk into a room and everyone immediately seemed to decide he was the leader. I never saw him bully another person or raise his voice or fight anyone. It was just a natural thing and he never tried to assert that power. I often think if he'd been born into a wealthy family or a family that stressed college Daddy would have ended up being a very important person; the only thing equal to his intelligence was his total lack of ambition. Work for him was simply a place he had to go so he could support his family.

I think that Daddy got married too young and perhaps he'd have made different choices with his life if he'd waited to settle down. Sometimes I'd see him sitting in front of the television staring off into space and I wondered what he was thinking about. Did he regret his choices, probably, but don't we all at one time or another? My favorite thing growing up was to wait up for Daddy on a Friday night when he went out with his friends. It would be late and my mother and sister were in bed asleep. I'd pretend I couldn't sleep and when he came home, we would sit up until the sunlight came peeping into the windows. We talked about everything, politics, religion, books, movies; he had a vast storehouse of knowledge and I think he made me a better informed person because of it.

Oddly enough my parents didn't seem to talk to each other a lot, they never argued, but they rarely had deep conversations either. Sometimes I think that Mama was so in awe of Daddy, his looks, his smarts, his personality that she was almost timid in front of him. My sister was the same way; she never knew what to say to Daddy. Oh how I treasure those nights now that I look back. We were very similar in our philosophies and I wonder-did we share that because I worshiped and emulated him or was I like that on my own anyway?
Neighborhood Excitement

My father was a very law abiding man after he reached his thirties and got some of the wildness out of his system. He married my mother when he was nineteen years old and he never really settled down the way he should have. Daddy was very protective of Mama and my sister and me. He must have felt terribly outnumbered in a house full of females and sometimes he would worry about my sister and me when we started dating. I felt sorry for the young men who came to the house to pick us up. Daddy was a gun enthusiast and he would usually be cleaning his guns when the unfortunate young man showed up.

Daddy especially disliked a group of hoodlums who lived a couple of streets over. Our little cul de sac was not paved when we moved into our modest frame house. The road was covered in gravel and these kids would drive into our circle in the middle of the night and spin their wheels making horrible noises and throwing rocks everywhere. One night their antics made a rock come flying through our large front window. It was called a picture window and the sound of that glass shattering scared my little sister and me something awful. We were almost afraid to fall asleep for fear the car would come back.

I was about ten years old and I will never forget Daddy's angry face when he found the broken window. He called the police and they sent a patrolman to take a report. He didn't seem to be very interested in actually catching the perpetrators and my father was pretty irritated. Basically the policeman said they had to be somewhere close enough to catch the guys when they were actually speeding.

A few nights later the boys showed up again and we were awakened by the deafening roar of a car with a loud muffler. I was terrified they would break our window again or my dad would get hurt trying to stop them. I will never forget what happened next. My dad calmly walked out into the middle of the road in front of the idiots and leveled a huge pistol at them. Wearing nothing but his boxer shorts he bravely drew a bead on the boys. To my amazement, they stopped, and stayed right there while Daddy held them at gunpoint. He told Mama to call the police and bring him some pants.

When the police got there Daddy calmly walked over to them and handed them his gun. I heard him ask them if they would arrest the guys since he got up out of his bed and caught them. He asked them if they wanted him to drive the little pukes to the jailhouse and lock them in a cell, since they were too sorry to do so. The cops rather shamefacedly took the boys away and charged them with speeding and I guess their parents had to come and get them. The other men in the neighborhood complained, but none of them was brave enough to come outside and back my father up. Not that he needed them; he took care of the problem all by himself.

My father had a temper, but it was slow to come to a boil; if you disturbed his sleep and broke his window you stood a good chance of meeting his wrath. He rarely raised his voice any of us; now Mama, she was another story. If you got her mad, then you had to deal with all five feet one inch of her wrath, she could be pretty terrifying and even Daddy knew when to shut up if Mama was pissed. We used to laugh at the memory of Daddy standing under the street light in his boxers with those long skinny legs and huge pistol. We never saw those guys again so I guess they learned a lesson from my dad.

I grew up in a house full of guns, but I knew better than to ever touch one of them. My dad enjoyed guns and he loved to shoot at targets. He never hunted because he couldn't bear to hurt an animal. When I was old enough, Daddy took me somewhere that I could learn to shoot and have target practice. I enjoyed shooting guns and I was a good shot, but like Daddy I would never hunt. He taught me about gun safety and how to have respect for a gun. They are deadly in the hands of people who are careless and nobody was allowed to be careless in our house.
Mama

Daddy came from a family of only three children; Mama's family was much larger. Mama was the fourth of seven children, five girls and two boys. My maternal grandmother was widowed young and she remained a widow the rest of her life. The older kids who still lived at home worked to help out with the small pension check grandma got. Mama's baby brother left school in the seventh grade and took a job stocking and sweeping at a grocery store near home. By the time my uncle retired, he owned a chain of grocery stores in Texas-he was successful and wealthy. He took good care of grandma and bought a pretty little house for her because the old home place was too large for her to take care of.

Maybe a child born near the middle of a large family gets overlooked a lot. I saw a picture of my Mama's family standing on the front porch, seven children of varying ages gathered around a father and mother. I immediately recognized Mama even if she was just a child. She stood a little apart and while everyone else smiled she didn't. She was very small and thin. When she was young, she had a disease called scurvy, caused by not being able to have fresh fruit and vegetables. With a large family at the table and not enough food someone like my mother would have been on the short end of things pretty fast.

There are a lot of things about my mama that if I'd known them earlier, I would have been a lot more patient and understanding with her. She was a gentle little spirit in this world, but she had more strength than anyone I ever knew. She loved fiercely and would do anything to keep someone she loved safe. Daddy was the outgoing one but Mama was the one you knew you could count on. Mama was the one who would do without gladly if there was something my sister and I needed. There were things about my Mama's childhood that shaped her into the person she was; I doubt if a soul ever gave one thought to the quiet child, the child who kept to herself and did what she was told. My aunt told me one time that she and Mama were barely a year apart in age, but my aunt was more outgoing and clever than my mom. My grandmother used to tell people if you want something for heaven's sake, don't send Margie for it, she's too slow to figure things out.

When I found out about my mama's childhood, I never felt the same about my grandmother. Mama always got whatever was left over after everyone else got what they wanted. I guess things like this happen in a big family with few resources; the loudest kid gets the most attention. I'm sure my grandmother loved all her children, but she should have realized that just because Mama was quiet, it didn't mean she was slow. It must have been a great relief to Mama when she fell in love with Daddy and got married; somebody wanted her, she had value. The things we say to kids can ruin them if we don't pay attention.

My grandmother went to her grave not knowing why her middle child was so quiet and fearful of things. She never knew her child was the victim of a molester or that the molester wasn't some stranger, he was someone she adored. Grandma never knew her beloved younger brother was molesting her five-year-old daughter or that he would continue to do it for three years after that. At least I want to think she didn't know. Mama told my sister and I after our father died-she was too ashamed to tell him. If she had, it would have explained a lot of things to him that bothered him about Mama. He would have loved her even more than he already did. He would have realized she was brave to keep something like that to herself. I find myself hoping there's a God and a heaven and a hell. If there is, Mama's uncle is consigned to a dark hot corner.

I remember one time it snowed and snow doesn't happen often in our part of North Carolina. My little sister and I wanted to play out in the snow. Mama wouldn't let us go outside because we both had colds and she was afraid we'd get pneumonia if we got wet and chilled. She told us to look out the window and then she put on a coat, gloves, and boots. Mama made us a snowman right in front of the window where we could see it. It took a lot of love for this woman to go out in the snow; she was always cold and reminded me of a cat wanting to lie in front of a fire. I never considered this until my sweet Mama was gone and I missed her so.
Happiness

For some reason I have a very good memory of past experiences. I have to think hard about what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I can tell you who starred in a movie I saw forty years ago, usually who directed it too. I can see a commercial on television and name an obscure soap opera actor who nobody else would remember. I can recite the bloodlines of certain racehorses six generations back. If it's useless information then I know it. If it's something important, like where the hell did I put my debit card then I'm screwed.

This memory of mine helps me to take past experiences and recall them in detail almost to the point of re-living them. This can sometimes prove to be more of a curse than a gift. Now that I am writing these things down I consider it to be mostly a gift. I remember very clearly an incident when I was a small child; I find myself amazed every time I summon up this memory. The first time I mentioned it to my mother, she was not sure if I was correct or not, but when I described my memory in detail she had no doubt.

My mama was pushing me in a stroller down Front Street, a very busy street in our town. She was wearing a yellow dress with tiny white buttons near the collar. I kept turning around to look at her. I felt the soft summer heat and I looked across the street at the Hobby shop on the corner that sold bicycles. There was a big white house on our side of the street, or it looked really big to a little girl. Mama was walking like she had a purpose. She had her shoulders back and she looked very happy and proud of herself for some reason.

Her blonde hair was shiny and she had this little smile on her face, the kind of smile that I like to call a secret smile. The kind of smile you have when you are remembering something happy. Confidently she strode down the street watching the cars go past. I kept looking back at her and I remember having the thought in my child's mind that my mama looked pretty, her eyes sparkled and she seemed to almost glow.

When I told Mama about this memory years later she said she didn't believe that a person that young could have such a vivid memory. When I described the dress to her, she looked surprised; I told her about the blue stroller with a little Dutch boy and girl painted on the back of the seat and she said she believed me. There she was, so proud to be a mama, so proud to be married to a handsome man. She was young and in love. Nothing makes a woman look prettier than knowing she is loved and cherished by the person she loves.

I never knew until I found out about my Mama's childhood, that having a morning like that to enjoy a walk in the sunshine was a victory for her. She had dark and terrible memories but somehow she didn't let them take over her life. She fought for her happiness and she won. Sometimes victory looks like a walk in the morning sunshine, a yellow dress and a chance to hear the birds sing. All these years later when I think of my mother and all the facets of her nature, I like to bring this memory up. I think that's how she'd like me to remember her: young, strong, beautiful; a girl in her early twenties who turned heads and captured my father's heart.
Downtown

Every Saturday Mama took my sister and me downtown to either see a movie or shop. We never had much money, but Daddy gave us enough for the movie and snacks. Or we ate lunch at the little downtown restaurant that we loved. It had black and white tile floors and wood booths; usually an elderly man cooked and he made the best cheeseburgers in town. They always brought your soft drink to the table in a glass bottle along with a glass full of crushed ice. Laura and I felt so grown up when Mama took us to Troutman's Café.

We lived within easy walking distance to downtown and we loved to walk there during the warmer months. The library and all the shops were there. A bakery near the library had the best cupcakes and brownies; it's gone now, but life never stays the same forever. We would go to the Woolworth's Five and Dime and sometimes we ate at the lunch counter there and Mama would let us have a hot fudge sundae. I know the town seems sort of like an old Norman Rockwell painting, but it really is a pretty little town.

There is a community college at the beginning of Broad Street; it started out over a hundred years old as a female college. The main building is white with tall pillars across the front of it in antebellum style. I love driving up Broad Street and seeing the college and all the people walking to class. I have lived in other places, but I'm never completely happy unless I'm in my hometown. All of my friends and family mean a lot to me and I hate being apart from them, especially my sister who is my best friend in the world.

One Saturday while we were shopping an incident happened that made me look at Mama through different eyes and I learned that no matter how much I saw her as perfect she was human and sometimes humans mess up. It was an icy day and after a snow earlier in the week we were going stir crazy. Mama didn't drive so we took a taxi into town to shop, but mainly to get out of the house. I was about nine years old and I remember picking my way across the pavement and trying to avoid the ugly gray piles of melting snow.

The day was frigid and there was ice on most of the sidewalks. We were walking to the furniture store to look at furniture; we were always window shopping. I was standing at the curb and Mama was behind me, I turned around just in time to see Mama's feet slide out from under her when she slid on a patch of ice. Her feet went straight up in the air and when she landed her wool skirt flew up revealing a pair of lacy, bright red panties. I just stood there frozen because it was so embarrassing.

A man was standing about ten feet away getting ready to get in his car. He took one look at that fall and the horribly undignified sight of a woman lying out on the sidewalk with her red underwear showing and did something I didn't expect. I thought he would rush to Mama's side and help her up; after all she had taken a nasty fall. Instead, he put his head down and started laughing. He laughed so hard he started sliding down the side of his car and almost fell himself. What followed was shocking. My mother scrambled around and got up. She walked the few steps to the guy who was still laughing and she let loose on him a stream of invective that would have made a sailor blush.

"You rotten asshole," she screamed at him. "I could have been injured seriously, what if I'd hit my head or something?" The poor guy was scrambling around trying to get in his car and make a quick getaway to avoid the five foot tall woman screaming in front of him. She called him every kind of bastard and son of a bitch that you could think of. I got scolded if I said damn, but she rolled off a string of obscenity that would have made my daddy cringe if he heard it. The man finally got in his car and sped off throwing snow and mud everywhere. Then, as if to seal the deal, Mama flipped him the bird.

My sister and I stood there with our mouths hanging open; we'd never heard Mama cuss like that. Mama looked around in humiliation to see if other people were watching, which of course they were. I don't know how she managed it but later she pretended the whole thing had never happened. She never mentioned to Daddy that she'd stood on a city street and cursed a total stranger. Mama used to tell me that a lady never did things on the streets that made her look trashy. A lady never walks down the street smoking a cigarette. She never has an altercation with strangers where other people can see it. A lady always dresses neatly and never lets anyone see her underwear-she never told me it was because your mama so prim and proper might have red lace panties on!
You Just Never Know

Every day we meet people and they show you their public face, the one that doesn't let on about private troubles. My mother was like that, she always seemed pleasant and happy no matter what. I always thought my father was a strong man and he was, but not compared to my mom. After a difficult childhood and a marriage that was not the best (although they never separated and I never really saw them argue in front of my sister and I), she never seemed sad or depressed.

When Mama was forty-eight years old and should have been enjoying her first grandchild, she found a lump in her breast. My dad and my sister and I waited in her hospital room to find out the results of the surgery. My dad was terrified; I saw his hands shaking as he chain smoked. It's hard to believe, but there was a time when smoking was allowed inside a hospital, unless someone was on oxygen. About an hour after she was taken to the operating room a nurse found us and told us that she had breast cancer. The nurse walked in and said it was CA. How bad is cancer that some people don't even want to say the word without using a substitute?

The operation went from a lumpectomy to a mastectomy. This was in the early eighties and the practice was to just cut out everything including lymph nodes if necessary. Mama went home two days later; she always had a good figure and I can't imagine how it felt for her the first time she had to really look at the results of the mastectomy. Mama never went anywhere without looking neat and well put together. I don't think she ever stepped out of the house without make-up on. She wasn't vain; she just seemed to always have a natural sense of style. It wasn't until years later that she told me how devastating it was the first time she saw the ugly scar and realized she was never going to not see it. Nobody mentioned breast reconstruction back then; there was surprisingly little comfort for women facing such a frightening disease. Not only did she have to be disfigured, she had to worry about if they got it all and if it would come back in the other breast.

My father was very gentle and compassionate to Mama and I think maybe he realized that he could lose her and it frightened him. He took her for granted a lot of the marriage, but it was more due to the times they lived in than anything else. Their marriage seemed to become closer and more companionable and I could see that both of them seemed happier. After she healed physically and got some prosthetic aids to make her look like nothing had happened, she never mentioned the cancer again. She never tried to make anyone feel sorry for her; she just put it behind her and went on. I honestly think that her main strength was she never dwelled on something that concerned her. She was too busy worrying about her family to think of herself.

I started writing because I wanted everyone to know what a great father I had, but I am aware now that Mama was the star. Mama was the one who had our backs no matter what. I don't know why I didn't know that, except maybe putting it in words made me realize I was very lucky to have both of my parents for as long as I had them. They were not famous or wealthy, but I will never forget them and the things they endured in their lives.

BOOK I ~ Chapter 3 ~ Rose

Copyright 2014 Liza D Wolfe
The Story of Rose

The story of Rose isn't complicated; she's not a complicated person. She sees life as a simple thing. Do your best, be kind, and trust God - everything will happen as it should.

Rose was born to sharecroppers in the spring of 1934. Her father broke and trained horses on the side and her mother also cooked in the local restaurants when work was available. Her older sister was delicate and couldn't be out in the sun so, as soon as she could walk, Rose worked the fields alongside her parents, napping in the shade when she tired, eating crackers and cheese when she got hungry, and then going home at lunchtime to stay with her sister until her parents returned. As Rose grew older and her sister married, it was her turn to stay home and care for her younger brother and sister. By the time she was seven, Rose took on the chores and responsibilities of an adult – cooking, cleaning, laundry, and caring for her siblings who were only two and three years younger. She took her responsibilities seriously. I've heard many stories told of this time from my aunt and uncle, though Mama has always claimed they exaggerated the juicy parts. Uncle Walt tells one of my favorites –

When Rose was about nine or ten, she was caring for her brother and sister, as she did every summer day. They were to play outside while she did the chores and cooked the evening meal. When she checked on them, Uncle Walt was nowhere to be found. Calling and searching, she finally saw him running across a field, headed for the woods. She whistled through her cupped hands (a tactic she used on her own children when we were too far away to hear her call us in), but Walt refused to come home. Mama climbed onto the buckboard, got her daddy's shotgun from the bootbox (loaded only with rock salt), and shot into the air. When he turned around, she yelled, "The next one is yours!" - Yes, she took her responsibilities very seriously.

Rose's parents were very forward-thinking, in that they believed women could do anything a man could. Mama, of course, learned all the things a good southern woman should know in order to keep a proper household – cleaning, sewing, crocheting, tatting, cooking, gardening, raising children, and managing a budget – but she also learned how to rewire a lamp, rebuild the engine of a Model T, and remove the pee trap under the sink to rescue a ring or remove a clog. She could shoot and skin rabbits and squirrels with the men, then cook them on an open fire to finger-lickin' deliciousness. Rose learned quickly about equalizers like levers, pulleys, and such, since she lacked the physical strength to accomplish 'men's work' (she was barely five feet tall and ninety-eight pounds as an adult). She performed all these tasks while maintaining the gentility of a lady.

In 1950, at the tender age of sixteen, Rose quit school to marry the man with whom she would spend the next fifty-nine and a half years. Fifteen years later, she had given birth to thirteen children – eleven girls, including a set of triplets, and two boys. Three girls were lost as babies– one at birth, one of the triplets at six months, due to an iron deficiency disease, and her eighth baby three years later due to an overdose of glucose administered in the emergency room when my parents took her in for dehydration caused by a stomach virus. When she was forty-two years old, Rose gave birth to the third baby boy, who, needless to say, we all spoiled, although he doesn't show it. She was already a grandmother twice by the time he was born. Uterine cancer necessitated a hysterectomy only a year later.

Rose raised her children in the church, although Daddy didn't attend. We were taught God's tender love and fiery wrath in equal portions. God's rules were Mama's rules, to be interpreted as she saw fit. The punishment for breaking these rules was swift and sure. One of her many hobbies was woodcarving and she applied this talent to a 1"X4" board, about eighteen inches long. A handle was shaved into one end and the whole thing sanded to a fine finish. She would carve flowers, birds, ivy – whatever took her fancy – on one side. The other side always bore our last name, backwards in beautiful script, surrounded by more vines; then the paddle was stained and varnished, making it a true work of art. She wielded this weapon of discipline with the consistency of a parent responsible for the proper upbringing of her offspring, and all the compassion of a mom who hates that it needs to be done. There was no running in circles for us, or the punishment doubled. Admit your transgression, bend over, take your licks, and done. The only exception was when we were brave (read – stupid) enough to sass. If the mouth offends, the mouth gets whacked. Have you ever heard the term, 'dough-popped'? If Mama was making biscuits or piecrust and she heard us sass or be disrespectful, we had dough dripping from our lips, and not in a good way. It didn't really hurt; it just reminded us that it would not be tolerated. I have a brother who was in trouble so much, he developed a taste for raw dough.

Rose's days began before dawn, when she would make the coffee and lay out Daddy's clothes – freshly starched and creased machinist uniform, ironed handkerchief, socks, and undies. While he was getting dressed, she would cook his breakfast. As he was eating, she would make his lunch and heat water on the stove. (We never lived in a house with hot water or an indoor bathroom; Daddy said it just ran up the water bill.) When Daddy was through eating, Mama would use the hot water to shave him and wash his face; then, with a quick kiss, off to work he'd go. He almost never missed work.

More water would be heated on the stove for baths and breakfast was cooked for all the children. Rose would begin waking us, starting from the oldest, so that the bigger kids could help with the younger ones. No matter how organized Mama tried to be, it was a madhouse every morning. Just imagine getting all those children bathed, dressed, fed, and out the door for school! Shoes disappeared overnight (mine, everyday). Homework was put in someone else's notebook. Fights broke out over which cartoons to watch. Most mornings, we went outside with strict instructions to watch for the school bus and stay clean, in that order. We could still attend school with dirty knees, but, if we missed the bus, she had no way to get us there, the three separate schools being up to seven miles away and Mama not being allowed to drive. There was also no phone to call the school or for the school to call Mama, so, if we came down sick while there, the nurse would drive us home. Everyone knew Mama was always home.

While the big kids were off being educated and Daddy was earning money, Rose took care of the little ones and prepped the meals for the day. After gathering eggs and feeding the chickens, she performed the chores that you just can't do with so many people in the house – sweeping, mopping, and wiping down the furniture – that kind of thing. The floors were bare and splintery, so instead of a mop, she would sprinkle soap on the floor and bring the waterhose in the house. She would use the broom to scrub the boards and sweep the excess water out of the door. It was one of the few times the kids were allowed to play 'hot lava' on the furniture.

She repaired rips in our pants and replaced missing buttons on our shirts. Rose also made all of our clothes with an ease I could never fathom. Patterns were just a guide for the more intricate designs. Mama kept a list of each child's measurements and preferences. She could look at a picture from a magazine and the finished product would be identical. She made us blue jeans that only lacked the name brand. Word got around and she was drafted into making all the uniforms for the dance squad at school while my sister was on the team. My father was always in a country music band and, through these connections, she starting sewing for a square dance club, making dresses and matching shirts with all the sequins, ruffles, fringe, and piping for extra money so she could buy us each three sets of store-bought clothes and shoes for school each year. She also babysat for extra money so we could buy school pictures and the extra supplies that are needed throughout the school year; after all, what's a few more kids, right?

In addition, Rose would take this relatively peaceful time while we were gone to do repair and maintenance on anything that needed it – reupholstering chairs and couch cushions, rewiring lamps and fans, gluing broken toys, sanding and refinishing furniture we had scratched, taking apart her sewing machine motor to find and replace worn out parts and belts, and a multitude of other tasks that I was probably too oblivious to notice. Mama's birthday was always celebrated by washing all the walls in the house. I was one of the younger kids (fourth from the bottom), so I witnessed much of this first-hand. All these chores and tasks were done with a cigarette in her mouth with ashes that never fell and a faint whistle through her teeth that was a tune only she could hear.

Somehow, she found time to work on her woodcarving and painting – her stress relievers. She carved ornate candlesticks and bible covers from scrap wood and painted pictures of beautiful meadows or colorful cartoons on glass panes because the kids would tear down curtains. She made cigarette boxes for the coffee table and new spindles for the chairs we broke, and painted big bright flowers on lampshades. I managed to save some of her pieces and I treasure each and every one.

Amongst all this busyness, at noon, every day without fail, Rose took a nap. She would put all of the children in bed and lay herself down across her own. Our house only had two bedrooms, but it was old, so the rooms were large. There are eight years between the first and second boy, and twelve years between the second and third, so there was only two of them home to share a room. The eight girls, however, were crammed in with three full-sized beds, a chifferobe, dresser, and a built-in closet. Mama and Daddy had their bed in the living room. Rose's naps weren't really about sleep, but just rest. She had the 'mom hearing' in spades, so she knew if one of us tried to sneak out of bed. The guilty culprit got 'brush duty'. Rose had waist-length, thick, wavy brown hair with sun-bleached highlights that she usually twisted up into a French roll. If we misbehaved at naptime, we had to brush her hair while she rested. That way, she knew exactly where we were and we received our discipline in the form of sore arm muscles and Mama's disappointed gaze.

Around 4:00, the school kids would arrive home. Supper was almost ready, at this point, so whoever's turn it was set the table. Someone else fixed drinks. Another child put condiments out. As Daddy's car pulled into the driveway, one of us would meet him and carry in his lunchbox. Another child would meet Daddy at his chair to remove his shoes. Dinner was a fairly quiet affair. Once all the food was on the table and all the plates were filled, Mama would pull out whatever paperback she was currently reading and Daddy would feed whoever was the baby.

Mama's food is a story in itself. As poor as we were, we had meat every meal. Sometimes, it was whatever Daddy shot or caught, but, usually, it was beef or pork roast, meatloaf, chicken & dumplings, stew, or, occasionally, homemade corny dogs – lots of comfort food. There were cathead biscuits almost every meal, too; the only exception was if we had cornbread, hotcakes, or bean patties. Mama's biscuits were legendary within our community. The neighborhood kids would come to play and would ask if there were any leftover biscuits for a snack.

Most of our veggies came from our own half-acre garden and were either frozen or canned in Mason jars for use during the winter and spring. I remember all the orderly and colorful jars of jams and jellies we canned from the fruit trees and berry vines lined up beside the pickles and beets. This was a massive undertaking and required many weekends and lots of hands, but was worth every blister and burn, and probably saved us from scurvy.

Candy wasn't part of the daily diet, but was a treat we were given on Friday nights when Daddy and Mama came back from buying groceries. Rose would bake a cake or cookies every Sunday after church, but my personal favorite was her teacakes. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember how she made them and none of the recipes I've found taste the same. Nothing Rose baked came from a written recipe. Everything was made from scratch and amounts were 'dabs', 'pinches', and 'just a touch'. Her creations could have been on magazine covers.

After supper, the children cleared the table, put up the food, and washed and dried the dishes – then homework. Daddy and Mama would begin work in the garden or on projects until the children were done; then it was either more chores or playtime, depending on the need. Rose made sure we always had outdoor playtime to burn off excess energy and, well, just because kids need it.

At dusk, the dirt and grime was removed and the younger children were all put to bed. The older kids were allowed to stay up an hour longer, but, when the news came on, it was Mama and Daddy's turn to wind down in peace. They would read in bed until they fell asleep – a habit I picked up and still do every night. When Daddy worked the swing shift, things were reversed and he would arrive home just as the news came on. Rose would have food ready when he walked in the door and Daddy would wake up whichever child was the youngest to eat with him. One of my fondest memories of Daddy is sitting in his lap and sharing his food while he read to me. It's probably why I could read by the age of three. Daddy loved to tease and teach, in equal measure. It was rare that any of us had one-on-one time with either of our parents so I cherish the ones I remember.

I haven't talked much about my father. He was a big man, made stronger by his many years as a farmer and machinist. He was the oldest of twelve and was raised working the fields and on cars. His father ruled with an iron hand, so Daddy did, too. Rose protected us as much as she could and took most of his aggression. We didn't know until much later that it continued on, even after all the children were grown and gone. I know Daddy was under a lot of stress – raising and providing for all those children. He took his vacation each year – hunting or fishing trips with his friends – but his big love was music. Daddy was self-taught and couldn't read a note of music, but he could play as well as anyone I'd heard on the radio. He played the guitar – six and twelve string - mandolin, lap steel, stand-up bull bass, and electric bass. He was much sought after locally and he was usually in a band. When he came home after a night of drinking, no matter the time, he would have Mama fix him a meal or make cinnamon fried pies. If it was the latter, he would wake all the children. We ate with him, sleepily nodding over our treasured pies and burning our tongues, until he took pity on us and sent us back to bed, leaving Rose to clean up before trying to get what sleep she could.

Summer break was a little easier. Meals, Daddy's job, and church were the only schedules we had to keep. There are memories of sizzling hot days, cool water from the garden hose, scraped knees, bare feet in the garden, and fireworks. Rose believed children should get dirty and we didn't disappoint her. She allowed us to make mud pies, build forts (nothing permanent and it had to be dismantled before Daddy came home), play in the rain, fish for crawdads, and listen to classical music. I lived idyllic days of riding my bicycle until my skin was brown from the sun and my hair was plastered to my head with sweat. There was always sweet watermelon or Kool-Aid popsicles to quench my thirst. Chores were done in the cool of the morning or evening, and the heat of the day was for naps or reading under the shade of a tree. The constant drone of cicadas accompanied my childhood like the background static from an old transistor radio.

Living in the south, the nights weren't much cooler. We'd chase fireflies, play hide-n-seek among the plum trees while dodging the evening bats, and listen to Daddy strum his guitar. We didn't have air conditioning, only box fans, so we would sleep with the windows open or on the porch in the hopes of catching an errant breeze to ease our dreams.

There were always farmers looking for cheap labor to help pick the fields of okra, cantaloupe, peppers, tomatoes, etc. They usually made a stop at our house, since we had a multitude of hardy kids not afraid of hard work and needing pocket money. The summer I turned ten, I left behind those lazy hazy days and loaded into the back of the rusted pickup with the rest of the neighborhood kids. I still had plenty of time to enjoy my summer break, but I also learned the value of a hard-earned dollar.

In 1994, the last of Rose's babies graduated high school and entered college. He graduated four years later and moved to his own apartment. She couldn't have been more proud. She filled her time with helping raise her many, many grandchildren, sewing wedding dresses, and making baby clothes and quilts, as needed. She still cooked every meal for Daddy, bathed and shaved him, as she always had. Since there were no children at home, Rose began going to Daddy's play-dates in the band and Daddy allowed her to have a few friends, although this was the only time she was allowed to see them. A few years later, she nursed him through congestive heart failure and ulcers.

In the spring of 2005, Daddy called my sister, saying that Mama was acting strange. When she arrived, Mama was walking back and forth from the freezer to the stove with a frozen pot roast. She knew she needed to make Daddy's lunch, but couldn't remember how. Between the two of them, they convinced her something was wrong and she needed to go to the emergency room. She had suffered a stroke during the night. One carotid artery was 100% blocked and the others were 60%-80% blocked. Emergency surgery to restore circulation and minimize brain damage would be required. The doctors were amazed that nothing had happened before this. The pre-surgery tests required before cleaning out her carotids showed that her coronary arteries were also blocked and would require a quadruple bypass. The surgery on her neck would have to wait, which meant that, there would be no improvement in the circulation to her brain or her memories.

Rose was fortunate in that the bypass went well and the stroke could have been much worse. There was no paralysis, thank God, but there was memory loss, hearing loss, cognitive malfunction, disorientation, severe anxiety, and claustrophobia. Recovery was slow and required a patience Daddy didn't have.

Daddy's decline into Alzheimer's was a badly kept family secret. We all noticed how he would tell us the same things every time we saw him, as if he hadn't ever told us. We heard about him getting lost while driving to places he'd been every week for years. We knew he was still violent, but Mama wouldn't talk about it. We were helpless. The situation escalated until the police became involved. They took Daddy in for evaluation. The diagnosis was progressive Alzheimer's, paranoid hallucinations, bi-polar with violent tendencies – it explained so much, but, even with medication, he could never come home.

We found a nursing facility for people with dementia-related diseases less than an hour's drive away. Once Daddy was stabilized on his medications, we were allowed to visit. He didn't recognize his children by name right away, but he knew we were his. He always knew Mama. He would ask her where she'd been and always seemed okay with whatever answer she gave. On his meds, he was loving and considerate – the man the rest of the world knew. His biggest complaint was about the coffee and the food, so we started bringing Starbuck's and he was satisfied. He talked a lot – told stories as he used to. Daddy could hold a room enthralled with his stories. Now his words weren't always the ones he intended, but he didn't notice. 'Two cars and a truck don't make a muddle' when he was trying to explain waterfall erosion. I still use that when something doesn't make sense to me. After several weeks, they asked Mama not to come back, because he would walk sores on his feet looking for her after she left. It broke her heart. Because Alzheimer's changes your ability to taste, Daddy refused to eat and died after being there six months.

Rose had never been alone. She lived with her parents until she married Daddy and then all the children came along. Even after we were grown and gone, if Daddy went on vacation, one of us stayed with her. It wasn't that she was afraid; it was at Daddy's insistence. She was accepting of her new situation – lonely, of course, but her faith in God and the natural order of life helped her through. Her children, however, couldn't leave her alone. Someone visited almost every day. I spent so much time with her instead of looking for a job that she hired me at a minimal wage to help around the house, and with the renovations and clean-up we had started after Daddy passed.

Rose was the most lenient boss ever. She discovered shopping and many days were spent wandering the shops - sometimes buying, sometimes not. She always wanted to eat out instead of having me cook every day. If anyone else came to visit, I was sent on a lunch-run. She insisted that we take a nap every day and never complained if I needed to leave early. Sometimes my grandchildren had doctor appointments or school functions I had to attend. If she saw that I was sweating from whatever task I was doing, she would demand that I take a break. If I was tired or sore from yard work or lifting, she would declare it a television day. I love working for Mom.

One Friday in July, almost two years after Daddy passed, my workday was over early so that I could get Mama's meds from the pharmacy before they closed. My grandkids had gone to visit their mom for the summer, so my schedule was pretty much whatever Mama and I decided. Mama gave me a hug and kiss, and her debit card to pay for her prescriptions, saying she didn't need it over the weekend – just to bring it back Monday. On the way back from town, I realized it wasn't too late to stop back by Mama's to deliver her meds and card. I was never comfortable keeping her card or using it without her present. When I walked in the back door, Mama was sitting on the couch where I'd left her only forty minutes before, but she was looking down at her hands. I sat beside her and asked if she was okay. She said she knew she'd had something in her hands, but didn't know where it had gone. She also thought I'd been gone for three hours. The longer I talked to her, the more confused she became. She understood 'emergency room' though and made arguments every time I mentioned it. Finally, she relented.

At the ER, the doctors said Mama needed a pacemaker. Apparently, after I'd left her, she fell asleep and her heart slowed to a detrimental rate. They also said that, if I hadn't come back, she would have died over the weekend. Whatever intuition or God-given impulse made me go back saved her life. It was recommended that she be put in a nursing home, since she could no longer live alone. No – just no. Because I was the only one who didn't own my own home and I was spending most of my time with her anyway, my grandchildren and I moved in the weekend she was released from the hospital, and we've been here ever since. The only way Mama will not be at home is if some illness or injury occurs (knock on wood three times) that her daughters are not capable of nursing her through. She took care of me for my first eighteen years, sacrificing much and without complaint. She helped raise several of her grandchildren. She's always been a sympathetic ear for all my whining, only giving advice when asked. Mama deserves to have loving care in her own home by someone who knows how wonderful she really is.

Our days and nights are slow-paced. She (and therefore I, too) only sleeps two or three hours at a time. Rose's disorientation and anxiety attacks mean that, if she naps, I have to be within her line of sight when she wakes. We've spent many nights pacing the length of the house, my hand on her arm to hold her steady, until her anxiety passes. I live in fear that one day she won't wake up, so if she sleeps too long, I check her breathing. Her memory comes and goes so she's taken to writing herself notes; we just have to remember where she puts them. When we are having a casual conversation, it's amazing how many details she can remember, but, if I ask a direct question, her memory takes a dive and she gets upset. I try not to ask.

As old age creeps up on us, we all turn to the past and Rose is no exception. She regales me with stories of an old Rhode Island Red biddy that could brood twenty chicks at a time and would fight hawks to protect them. Her father had an albino chow, Trixie, that he rescued from euthanasia at a kennel and she tells lots of stories about him – how Grandpa trained him to round up the horses he broke - how he was taught to fetch the children for dinner or find Grandpa's cane - how, if one of the kids ran from Grandpa, Trixie would chase them down and sit on them. She talks about living in west Texas among the field workers and doctoring their children because the women were young and didn't know how. She talks about her favorite uncle, Roscoe, who lost his leg in the war. She giggles like a little girl when she tells me how her mom couldn't pass the driving test, so her sister took it for her, but they looked so much alike, no one ever caught on. She tells me about the cousins who came to live with them and how she misses them. No matter how many times she tells her stories, I listen.

Rose remembers how to crochet, so she's been teaching my granddaughters. They understand how important it is to her and what a bonding time it is for them. She can still work her sewing machine, and nothing gives her more pleasure than to mend or tailor their clothes. Mama can't work in her flowerbeds like she used to, so she sits in her chair on the porch and supervises the digging, planting, and weeding. She still swats my butt if I say a swear word, which means I said it pretty loud, since she refuses to wear her hearing aids. She totters through the kitchen, dipping her finger in everything I cook and telling me what it needs... and she's always right.

Rose can be crotchety and, some days, refuses to accept her limitations. She doesn't wear her false teeth, so everything I cook for her has to be soft, but if I cook separate meals – say, tacos for the grandkids and me, and chicken & dumplings for Mama – she won't eat. She also has a cane and a walker, but she will not use them; she holds on to me. Rose has hearing aids, but won't wear them, so I look her in the face and repeat everything that is said to her until everyone around us gets irritated. Mama says it's my fault for yelling. As sweet as she is, that's how cantankerous she can be, but as long as she can make an informed decision – and she can, given all the information and enough time - I'll deal with it.

One time, after a long night pacing, Rose lay down on the couch for a nap. I was relieved because it meant I could get a little sleep, too. I was awakened a short while later to the sound of a power tool. There was Mama, using the jigsaw to cut a new spindle for her wind chime that had broken during a recent storm. I held my breath until she turned it off because I didn't want to startle her into hurting herself. The jigsaw had been stored in the shed on the top shelf. Not only did she manage to go outside without me, she climbed on a bucket to reach the tool – and then used it. She forgot she couldn't, so she did.

Yesterday is another good example. It was hot, but cloudy out. We'd just finished lunch when, bored and with bellies full, Mama declared it naptime. I did not argue. The smell of smoke woke me. Mama wasn't asleep on the couch. I saw the flames through the window that led to the backyard. There was Mama, leaning on her garden hoe. In her sleep, she had decided the brush pile needed to be burned. It wasn't very big yet and she didn't want to wait until it was. She didn't call to check if it was an authorized burn day for the county. She does not have a valid burn permit. Violations of either of those rules bring a hefty fine where we live. I grabbed the waterhose and pulled it to the fire, just in case it got out of hand. I called the county and, thank God, it was a burn day. I went back in the house and got the makings for hotdogs out of the fridge so that, in case someone called to report us, we could call it a cookout. In her mind, she saw something that needed to be done and she was saving me the trouble. She's still feisty and we have had several such breath-catching moments.

Being a full-time live-in caregiver can be stressful so I occasionally write short stories on Readwave as a therapeutic coping technique. This is a true story.

### Late-Night Terror

<Knock-knock> My eyelids crack open. _What was that?_ <Bang, bang, BANG!> The sound was coming from the other side of the wall. _Oh, no! Mama! If Mom fell..._ "Mom, are you okay?" I called out. No answer. Of course not; she's hard of hearing, dummy!

I threw off the covers, scrambling out of bed. My legs tangled in the quilt and I tumbled to the floor. I used to love that quilt. Rising quickly, my hair caught on the doorknob, pulling my head back. I ripped my hair free and ran around the corner to her room, tripping over a stack of books that had never made it to the shelf, and skinning both knees in the process.

Mom calmly sat up in bed and laid her cane beside her. Turning her gaze from the new dents in the wall, she held out her kindle. "Baby, find me another book? I'm through reading that one."

* * * * *

### Epilogue

I'm still blessed to have Rose as a part of my daily life. I'll always have these memories in my heart and her voice in my head. She's left a legacy of love, determination, and compassion that her many children will pass down, along with her strong sense of _family_. Speaking of family, as of this writing, Rose has ten living children, twenty-nine grandchildren, and twenty-five great-grandchildren. The legacy lives on.

As I watch her daily decline, I'm thankful for each and every moment of clarity, every heart-stopping moment when she forgets she can't do something – and then does, and for every conversation with even a shred of true memory. It's a gift. So, before it's taken from me, and for every night I have left with her, I will check the locks, close the blinds, turn down her covers, and lay her gown on the foot of her bed. I'll turn on her reading light and put her book on her pillow. Then, when she's ready, she'll fold me in her arms and squeeze me tight. She'll say, "Thank you for taking care of me. You try to get some sleep. I love you, baby," – and I'll say, "Thanks for taking care of _me_. Goodnight, Mama. I love you, too."

BOOK I ~ Chapter 4 ~ Reminiscences of Dad

Copyright 2015 Mehreen Ahmed
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge my mother Mrs. Sarwari Alam and my husband Dr. Soheil Ahmed for reminding me of vital anecdotes that I might have missed otherwise.

Storm raged outside of the window, which caused it to rattle noisily as the winds threatened to fling it open. A baby was born and it was a boy. Second son of the House of the Zamindars of one of the villages in Dhaka called Paragram. My grandma looked at the baby smiling stilly and asked the maid to call her husband, my grand-dad. Excitement ran through the house as the arrival of the second son was announced. A mullah from the village mosque was brought in to sing the azan into the newborn's ears. The mullah suggested that he be named Manzoor, with the family name of Alam Chowdhury. In Arabic Manzoor means 'accepted'.

He was a perfectly built baby. Manzoor grew up nestled in an extended, close-knit family of cousins, aunts and uncles in his grandparents' house. This lifestyle made him caring and family oriented. However, a few years after his birth, our ancestors moved out of the village and went to live in many places in Bangladesh and Kolkatta until they decided to settle down finally. The city of Dhaka in Bangladesh, a place called Khajedewan in one of the old suburbs, had to be that place.

My earliest memory of our ancestral home in the city is a pleasant one. It was a magical place, with an orchard full of oriental colourful fruits. Birds flew in from all directions to nest in those tall trees. Dad must have spent many idle afternoons in the shade of those trees playing hide and seek with his siblings —by then, he had four more. Sometimes cousins dropped in for a sleep over too. At night the family would gather in the enchanted garden, down by the front yard of the house. Under a full moon they would sing together many poignant love songs and songs of separation.

It was a talented family and my Dad and his siblings had incredibly tuned voices. Such soulful singing would often draw the attention of neighbours to their house; soon they'd arrive with musical instruments to join the party. These songs had powerful effects on people. Notably, one young woman was driven to such madness once that she fell completely in love with one of my uncles. They married later and live happily now.

Dad, he went to a good school here in Dhaka as a lad. Among many worthy stories related to his school life, one that comes to mind deserves attention. As a child, he often walked to school with his cousin, the renowned F.R Khan, a structural engineer who built the famous twin towers blown up in 9/11. Once they were coming back from school together when they decided to stop at the corner store to buy some food. They put together enough money to buy lemon pickles in a jar, thinking that they were exotic sweets. Not realizing that they were bitterly sour, both bought two each. The shop keeper sold them the pickles and did not think it necessary to alert them for he thought they already knew what they were buying. The hungry boys each put the whole pickles straight into their mouths. Oh my God, readers, one can only imagine what might have followed. Both started to vomit immediately on the side of the road blaming each other for the gaffe.

In the course of time, through life's many unpredictable windings, ups and downs, he became a grown man one day. Then he married my mother Sarwari Ahmed from one of Dhaka's highly respected old families. In a few years time I was born. His was a life full of adventure. He studied Jute technology in Dundee, Scotland. Jute is a natural fiber grown in abundance in this part of the world. Gunny bags, carpet backing and many other things are manufactured with it. Deemed as the golden fiber of Bangladesh, it is emblematic of a cash crop, exported all over the world and earning huge amounts of foreign exchange. He wanted to study jute because he thought he could make a difference in the country's economy. Therefore, after graduation, on his return, he started his career in Jute Mills Corporation.

Little did he know though, as an inexperienced young man, what he was getting into – one of the wealthiest, yet most corrupt places. Like a rough diamond, well known for its honesty and integrity, his mettle was tested somewhat by the Jute mill corporation. Time and time again, he passed with flying colours.

Some memories related to his work-place are still vivid in my mind. I remember him crying once as he came back from work. He sat in the verandah of our house and I stood by the window of my bedroom over-looking a river. I could hear him talking to my mother... how the poor labourers of the mill would always stay poor because of the corrupt officers. Their stealing would always affect their salary. I was small at the time so did not always understand much but I felt his pain and realized how genuinely he cared for those poor labours. Additionally, he also had many enemies. To remain honest, he always struggled to keep them at bay. Those who took advantage of the mill also tried relentlessly to pull him into their chain of corruption. A broken link in the middle made it harder for offenders to steal; dad did not want to be a part of it. Resisting was a difficult task. He seemed to be continually getting into trouble, one after another.

One day, I remember quite clearly that he had entered the house with an arm fully bandaged from his shoulder down. He could not go to work for many days after that. There was an incident in the mill when this happened. A machine in the mill had broken and he thought he would try and fix it. So he had turned off the machine from the main switch board that afternoon and put his arm down one of its shafts. However, as soon as he dug his arm deep into it, someone deliberately turned it back on from the main switch board. My dad cried out in pain almost losing the arm in it. Oh! How painful it must have been. He screamed so loudly, that another man heard it and quickly turned it back off. The person responsible for this was never found. An ambulance took him straight into the hospital, where the doctor had to put it in a long twisty bandage all the way from the palm up to his shoulders. The serrated machine had punctured through his flesh and bone. The red flesh was actually hanging out of the skin, it was so exposed. Thankfully, dad was strong and was able to withstand it.

Such was his work place. It was not conducive but he managed to survive. My dad was a real survivor. In spite of it all, he was able to rise to the top in the hierarchical order of the corporate system. He became a general manager not just of one mill, but of the entire zone, which consisted of 70 mills. His position was then the Regional General Manager –the big boss.

He could have got carried away with corruption, but he did not. He stayed firmly rooted to his core values and tried to help whomever he could. At the end of a long service when he retired, his colleagues called him a hero as one of the most honest men who survived such crimes, where bribing was a common fare. Most people buckled under pressure whereas dad remained steadfast.

One of the highlights of his career was during the war of independence in 1971, when Pakistan declared war on Bangladesh, former East Pakistan. East and West were the two wings of Pakistan initially. In a civil war, the country became divided and formed the independent country of Bangladesh. The atrocities of the Pakistani army in Bangladesh are well documented. Anyway, here I discuss the role my dad played in the movement. He was then the General Manager of a Jute Mill called The Platinum Jute Mills in Khulna. On the 25th of March 1971, the army decided to move in. As one of their brain-drain policies, they were given unlimited rights and the license to kill. In ruthless operations, intellectuals and educated people were killed alike. My dad's name was on this hit-list. Their plan was to slaughter every officials of that mill.

That day all the officers of the mill kept gathering in our garden. I was not sure what was going on. And then I saw sailing boats at our jetty being secured. Suddenly, in a frantic move everyone started to get into those boats. I heard dad screaming, the army is on its way to slaughter us. This is the only way left to escape. Men, women and children were all on board trying to get across the river to escape. Dad had taken everyone under his wing to save them from this impending disaster. We could have left home alone without so much as a word, but dad felt morally obligated to save others as well. The boat took us into remote villages where the army could not reach us, as we became refugees. Villagers fed us but we had to move from one place to another to get to safely. Dhaka city was the ultimate destination. We all walked together until we arrived there. Then each went their ways. Some escaped to India. However, we turned to our ancestral home of Paragram.

By then dad had forgotten what Paragram looked like because he had not been there in ages. But as we continued to walk through the green paddy fields, in the balmy scented afternoon, a boy working in the fields saw us. Dad saw him too and asked him the name of this village and he told us that we had just entered our own. Trepidation filled up the air. We walked hurriedly towards our house, the house where my dad was born, following the boy's directions. Getting there was not easy. We did not even have any mental map of the place. Scuffling haphazardly through from one village to the other, we appeared on its horizon somehow. Our folks came out straightaway to welcome us the moment they saw us approaching. Mum started to cry out of stress and dad sat down to tell them the tale of our great escapade. Luckily, our relatives in the city had also taken refuge in the village —the city had fallen into the hands of the enemy and in many ways, was not a safe place to live anymore. The village on the other hand was safe, as it was harder for the army to get there. Its under-developed infrastructure posed an impediment, a condition which worked very well given the situation — sail boats or dinghies were the only means of transportation to remote villages in those desperate days.

Dad was a strong man; eventually the wars ended, but his adventures did not stop there. Again he went to Africa, this time to set up a new jute mill. There he encountered yellow fever. After his return, he was ill for many days with no one else but mum by his side, nursing him to back to health. Yet another time, in Africa once more, he was served horse meat for a meal. Did he eat it? Well, I leave that to your imagination. All these experiences were later documented in his brown diary.

Backtracking to Scotland, this early experience moulded his character greatly, as he lived there for many years. Some interesting Scottish stories that he shared with us are quite unique. He told us that he would wake up every morning to a field of tulips strewn in black, yellow and red. Passionate purple was an expression he often used to depict the beauty of those tulips in the morning's first dew. In winter though, the same field would be covered with frost in white magnificence.

They were both lovers of nature, my mum and dad, and they loved reading. Rain affected both my parents as did Spring. I remember my dad's rose-garden. In spring, the atmosphere would be steeped in perfume emanating from this garden full of red roses, which he planted laboriously each rose season. I would often get lost in its magical enigma. Mum would cut the stems sometimes to put them in our flower vases. There was an orchard too, the trees of which he planted himself —mangoes, guavas, betel nut trees and coconuts to name a few.

When the clouds gathered darkly and a storm brewed in the distant sky, when the wind in the willows whistled just outside our window, my dad would sit down to write in his brown diary with a cup of tea. The diary collected his memories of Scotland and how he left his native shores on a ship bound for England, and then came back in many ways a changed man. Homecoming was never sweeter, but the memories of this distant, foreign land haunted him forever. He would be a divided soul, loving both lands as he loved his own. Another passion shared by both was reading. We had a very literary atmosphere at home. Mum and dad would read and discuss poetry written by both Shakespeare and Tagore alike. Eastern as well as Western literature made a fine pile and a fantastic collection on our book shelves.

When I think of dad, my eyes well up in tears. After I got married and left home, he told me in not so many words that our home was always mine. No matter how far away I went I am always welcome in my father's house both in sickness and in health. Although he has passed away now, as long as I live homecoming will always be as magical as it was for him when he returned from Scotland. Then Dundee or Bangladesh alone could not restrict this romantic spirit of his. Yes, romantic is the right word... a deep love for nature combined with an insatiable desire for adventure paved his life to a great extent.

Romantic and strong do best describe his character too. He was unstoppable in his creative endeavours. He put all his learning and effort into his jute work, turning out profits one after another in some of those fallen mills fearing closure. He was driven with an ideal to make good things right out of those that went terribly wrong, creatively pursuing a dream. Excelling in challenging situations, he became an adorable friend to many. They gathered almost every night in our house to socialize until midnight. His popularity grew by the day in the community of his friends. Scotland had taught him how to dance the fox trot. He taught my mother and they became award winning dancers at a club they visited. Interestingly, when he showed us his report card of how well he did in his subjects in Dundee, I realized that he had aced in all except for one. When asked about that, he told us that he got a B on that one because he danced away the night before the exam and did not go to bed until the wee hours of the night. This just went to prove how brilliant he was.

Once, on one of his travels, his aeroplane shot right through an alarming lightening storm —this time he was traveling to Nepal. He knew about the coming storm and could have cancelled his flight, for Nepal is not far from Bangladesh. But he did not. His heart was set on this journey. As a result, he took the bumpy ride on the chin. As soon as the flight attendant served the afternoon meal, the not-so-sophisticated plane of the day hit something in the sky. There was great jolt followed by passenger outcries in flight. At first, it was impossible to know what had struck. And then when the plane had suddenly plunged a few dangerous notches with an increase of air turbulence, the pilot announced what had occurred. Indeed, it was a frightening experience and at the time dad did not think he would live to tell the story. He was glad it happened in a way, because this disaster led him to experience another of nature's beauties up close, with its splendour of deadly ferocity on the flip side. Wow! I would have died straight away from cardiac arrest.

In many ways dad was quite cosmopolitan. This contributed to his upbringing as a free and boundless spirit. Nothing could pin him down to any convention. He was a Muslim by birth, but adhered to no religious norm as such. But I know how deep his spiritual convictions were and morally grounded they were. Once he was traveling to Nepal on a different mission than the one discussed above. This time, he was taken to a golden Buddhist temple where everything starting from Buddha was moulded in gold. People came to pay homage, as did my dad, and he found something really spectacular here. Surprised by their honesty, he asked his guide. "Does any of this gold ever get stolen?" The guide responded in all earnestness, "No of course not, people come here to give, not to take". The temple door was kept unlocked at all times and nobody stole a thing. That was how much Lord Buddha was revered — what a remarkable story of faith; one that he remembered all his life.

I would like to incorporate an anecdote here to sum up his spiritual life and reverence to our God. He was not a practicing Muslim, but respected all religions around the world. As I was growing up, he thought that I should marry a man whom he knew dearly. Well intentioned and in all sincerity he brought the proposal home one day. The boy's mother was a Hindu, father a Christian, the boy himself was a Buddhist who now wanted to have a Muslim bride to add to the pantheon of their multi religious family. An all inclusive world is what he had envisioned and he wanted it to begin with family. This was too much for mum, who decided against it reckoning that I would become their trophy bride. Silly as it may sound to many of my readers, but when you come to think of it, have you actually met anyone so liberal in mind and noble in spirit? In today's divided world, this mind-set would be a gift.

The world as we know it would alter radically, if only mankind could be united under one banner of human race in appreciation to one Creator. Heaven and earth would have to be moved to get religious conflicts reconciled, although we worship the same God at the end of the day. Such was his philosophy of the world, which I believe will be established in some distant future, certainly not in our lifetime. Religion was the root of all trouble, he used to say. I admired his extraordinary courage to speak up and argue passionately with those who opposed him. I cannot say he was wrong either.

Dad taught us to be honest and frugal. Over-materialism was a curse, he often said, one that blinded people in many ways and kept them from leading a life of simplicity and high thinking. That's why, when he built his simple house, it stood for an abode that one used temporarily, for life would end shortly. Come to think of it, if everyone had his ideals and people made such lifestyle choices, it could save many from running into big debts today. Dad certainly did not owe anything to anybody. Rather, people took from him. A lot of the people took advantage of his expertise in the way of advice, and borrowing money, giving him nothing in return.

After he retired he led a peaceful life, watching his favourite games of football and cricket, and reading and writing in his diary. He also published a few detailed articles in the newspaper about the fate of the Jute industry in Bangladesh and everywhere else. They were very well written. In this process of writing, he invented something marvelous — Cut and Paste. He accomplished this by manually cutting large amounts of white paper in long, narrow strips with scissors. Whether over undesired sentences in his diary or published works, he used a lot of cut and paste in his works. Writing short sentences on these strips, he would squeeze glue out of a bottle on the unwritten opposite side. Then he pasted them meticulously over the sentences that he wanted to delete or to add. In an age of no word processing, to think of cut and paste, in this manner was a rudimentary, yet brilliant idea to remember. When I sit down at my computer, I often marvel how he could have thought of this out of the blue. Necessity is the mother of invention, I guess.

Admittedly, he looked very well even in the fullness of life, at his ripe old age of 70. Once I invited him to Australia; he was in his late seventies at the time. One day dad was taking a walk down the street in front of our house. Suddenly, he heard a honk and a car stopped in front of him. A chubby bearded face about the same age stuck his head out of the window and asked him, "Aren't you Manzoor?" Dad was totally flabbergasted, "Yes, but how do you know me?" The man said, Don't you remember me? I'm Jim. I was in your class in Dundee some 50 years ago." "Oh goodness me Jim, you recognized me after all these years? What were the chances of meeting you here in Australia on the streets of Brisbane?" he asked, and Jim replied, "Purely an accident, I'd say. But you haven't changed much. By Jove, I could recognize you the moment I saw you there. I was nearly having an accident! Still the same – tall, dark and lean; haven't changed a day." Wow! I could not believe it when he told me later. Jim on the other hand had changed quite a bit with age. My dad was still more recognizable than him. In dad's view the soul remained always young, no matter how badly the body might be affected with age. Time passed incognito. The reminiscence of a strapping lad boarding the ship for Dundee and then returning young remained forever fresh.

Five years on... One day, dad went for a walk in Bangladesh and had not come back until really late. This gradually became habitual and recurrent to the dismay of my family. When he did not come back from one of his walks one day about a week later, somebody had to be sent to find him. He was found a long way away from home. Walking all that distance, was impossible, but he was able to do it somehow. After this incidence, he was taken to the doctor and was diagnosed with the most unfortunate disease. He was struck with dementia. There was no treatment; therefore, he could not be cured. As his condition progressively deteriorated, we had to accept that he was beyond everything. He would sit down to eat, and straight after eating would declare that he had not eaten. Even his many friends had stopped coming, because they missed the old, vivacious, intelligent Manzoor.

That summer, one afternoon, he passed away. My mum was feeding him soup in bed as he laid his head in her lap. Dad suddenly looked at her in the eye and smiled. It was random, but not unintelligent. That he did it in forgetfulness or mindlessly, was not like this at all. It was an intelligent smile as though for a split second his faculties became functional. Mum had a glimpse of one of those rare moments of divine munificence. She smiled back, and that was that. He inhaled his last breath and exhaled it peacefully as he died smiling in her lap. He was born of respectable parents, enjoyed a life of seemliness, and his death, it was one of quiet dignity. No hospitals, pricks or prods would mutilate his body. He was built beautifully when he was born and he died beautifully too, with a body fully intact.

