The recent outrageous spike in gasoline prices has got me thinking…no, not about knocking over a bank or forging lottery tickets, but about what the oil companies think they’re doing.
Maybe I’m a graduate candidate for the Bumblebrain School of Economics, but it would seem to me that, in this burgeoning green climate of petroleo-electric hybrid vehicles and the looming advent of practical hydrogen fuel cell technology, the oil companies would be competing for market share by lowering the price of gas. Granted, there’s the whole supply-and-demand ethic at work, and deeper thinkers than I remind me that the oil suppliers – meaning the OPEC – are the ones who set the prices for crude oil, and the rest of us demanders pay accordingly down the line, the recent record profits of the American oil refining companies notwithstanding.
This spike in prices has me thinking the oil companies – the producers as well as the refiners – realize the jig is up. I think they think the world is at the edge of the abyss, looking down into the limitless expanse of alternatives for fueling our world that don’t include crude oil, and it’s more than willing to leap. And the oil companies are trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the consumers that they can before the cows come home to roost.
That, or they’ve seen the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, and are padding their futures before they leave the world dangling in the breeze….
(Oooh! Hey! Bank.... Lottery tickets.... Hmmmm....)
Dad Update
On Tuesday April 22, Dad moved out of the nursing home and into the Illinois Veteran’s Home, in Manteno, about 50 miles south of downtown Chicago, straight down Interstate 57. Not like he did the moving, however, as he was transferred from bed to chair, wheeled into a medi-van, driven to the new place, wheeled in for a medical evaluation, and then transferred to bed. All in all, it was a tiresome day for him.
In the same move one of my fears was unrealized while a co-related fear was fulfilled: when my sister announced about a month ago that Dad would be moved on April 22, I feared that he would not make it to that day, and would die without the comfort (as we perceived it) of being surrounded by men of his generation who share a significant life experience, and who might be able to bring a modicum of emotional comfort and camaraderie to his last days. I also feared he would survive, and thus prolong the misery of his worn out, useless body, the agony of the decay eating him alive from the inside.
But he is still with us. For that, selfishly, I can be happy.
Rope-a-Mope
Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life resenting the who that I am not, who could’ve kept either of the two women I have loved with my whole being from divesting themselves of me? Does everyone who has let a good thing get away go through the same thing I am going through? Or am I just a terminal mope?
Did I fuck up the only real chances I had, or have I still yet to find “the one?”
Does this section even make sense?
Joy
What can better describe the meaning of the word ‘joy’ than this?
Nothing, that’s what!
(Okay... Just so any cat people don't feel left out....
)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
One Year
It was one year ago – yesterday, Saturday by day of the week, Monday by date – that I had a traveling vet come out to the house and euthanize my Dalmatian, Angel.
Just writing that paragraph above caused a tightening in my throat. How raw the pain is still after a full year. I have this photo of her on my iMac desktop,
so I see her every day I'm home. And I have a shot of her I snapped with my camera phone one day at the vet's office, and it's now my phone's "wallpaper," so I see her every day, regardless of whether I'm home or not.
It's been a year… a full year of occasionally driving past the vet's office I took her to – more frequently in the last few years than in her youth – thinking that I have no reason to stop there any more; a full year of walking past the pet foods aisle at the grocery store, or the pet supplies stores, knowing that there's nothing there for me to get; a full year of seeing other people's dogs and getting on the floor with them and making a silly fool of myself trying to give and get as much lovin' the brief minutes will allow me.
At moments it is difficult to comprehend that so much time has passed, that so much life has happened to me, since I sent Angel out of existence. Too often and too easily the images return of sitting in the grass in the shade of the garage in the back yard that pleasant Saturday afternoon and holding her while the life slipped out of her eyes and her breathing slowed to nothing, and time has disappeared, and it feels like now.
Some may read this and think me silly to wax poetic about a "lesser" animal a year dead while my marriage lies in a coma awaiting the plug to be officially pulled. Don't get me wrong; I have mourned the death of my marriage. I very often still do. But we're not putting an end to a life, just a life together. It was love that died…or, if not love, then devotion. With Angel, the devotion was in her eyes right until the moment they lost focus and she slipped away. That and the reality that it was my decision hit me more powerfully. It was the most difficult decision I've ever had to make, and the worst thing I've ever had to do. Leaving the house in which I had shared nearly nine years with Mrs. Farrago comes a close second.
I guess, as far as my life is concerned, I would have to call 2007 The Year of Pain and Loss. Except the pain lingers, and the loss echoes.
So I think it's time to put something else on my desktop, something innocuous, like a photo of my car or a naked woman, anything to stop bringing my mind back to the most difficult day of my life, yet one of the greatest joys I ever knew. But what to replace her with…the Macintosh Swirly Screen?
Just writing that paragraph above caused a tightening in my throat. How raw the pain is still after a full year. I have this photo of her on my iMac desktop,
so I see her every day I'm home. And I have a shot of her I snapped with my camera phone one day at the vet's office, and it's now my phone's "wallpaper," so I see her every day, regardless of whether I'm home or not.
It's been a year… a full year of occasionally driving past the vet's office I took her to – more frequently in the last few years than in her youth – thinking that I have no reason to stop there any more; a full year of walking past the pet foods aisle at the grocery store, or the pet supplies stores, knowing that there's nothing there for me to get; a full year of seeing other people's dogs and getting on the floor with them and making a silly fool of myself trying to give and get as much lovin' the brief minutes will allow me.
At moments it is difficult to comprehend that so much time has passed, that so much life has happened to me, since I sent Angel out of existence. Too often and too easily the images return of sitting in the grass in the shade of the garage in the back yard that pleasant Saturday afternoon and holding her while the life slipped out of her eyes and her breathing slowed to nothing, and time has disappeared, and it feels like now.
Some may read this and think me silly to wax poetic about a "lesser" animal a year dead while my marriage lies in a coma awaiting the plug to be officially pulled. Don't get me wrong; I have mourned the death of my marriage. I very often still do. But we're not putting an end to a life, just a life together. It was love that died…or, if not love, then devotion. With Angel, the devotion was in her eyes right until the moment they lost focus and she slipped away. That and the reality that it was my decision hit me more powerfully. It was the most difficult decision I've ever had to make, and the worst thing I've ever had to do. Leaving the house in which I had shared nearly nine years with Mrs. Farrago comes a close second.
I guess, as far as my life is concerned, I would have to call 2007 The Year of Pain and Loss. Except the pain lingers, and the loss echoes.
So I think it's time to put something else on my desktop, something innocuous, like a photo of my car or a naked woman, anything to stop bringing my mind back to the most difficult day of my life, yet one of the greatest joys I ever knew. But what to replace her with…the Macintosh Swirly Screen?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Living Up To the Name of the Blog
This is one of those periods where I really have the urge to write something, but nothing meaningful comes to me. I have the few personal projects that have lain dormant for a long time and, thanks to my attitude, will remain so indefinitely. (One is in research hiatus…waiting for me to make some phone calls and/or visits.)
And so I write here nothing meaningful. I'm left but to journal…poorly.
Last weekend I paid a visit to my father, though via a circuitous and reminiscent route. I decided to drive through the sadly dilapidated town I used to call home, and stopped at Hi-Way Bakery, just around the corner and on the other side of the next block from the house in which I grew up. For as long as I can remember, Hi-Way Bakery has made these unbelievably scrumptious chocolate covered cinnamon rolls – not too sweet, not too chocolatey*, and oh, so good – that have at times been the object of my obsession. The place has changed hands only a couple years ago, from the original(?) owners, the DelCotto family (unsure of the spelling), to a middle-aged couple who seem to really have a passion for the business, but are staring down the barrel of bankruptcy due to the local poverty; the town is made up these days only of the elderly and the very poor young, neither of which has any disposable income to speak of. I wish I could have bought every last pastry in the place to help the guy out, but I know I would have only eaten the chocolate covered cinnamon rolls….
From there I drove over to the home of my father's brother, Joseph (Giuseppe), and his wife Angela, or, more colloquially, Uncle 'Chooch' and Auntie Ange. 'Chooch' recently had his own brush with death, as a doctor was overmedicating him with a blood anti-coagulant, which caused internal bleeding and… well, suffice it to say that 'Chooch' almost bought the farm. And he can barely walk, due to his diabetes, and to the fact that he has seldom left the sofa in his living room since he retired 25 years ago.
When I left there I decided, while eating the first of two chocolate covered cinnamon rolls I had bought, to drive past Dad's place and head down to the speck of a town called Sherburnville, just a stone's throw from the Indiana border, about 60 miles due south from Chicago. According to an old obituary that we found among my mother's keepsake possessions after her death, Sherburnville is where my maternal grandfather was buried in 1968. As my mother was estranged from her family for most of her adult life, I know very little about my grandfather. What I do know I learned from other family members or from preserved records; Mom rarely spoke of him.
Oddly enough, as I learned a few years ago, it is through Mom and, of course, her father that I, along with my siblings and their children, am a Mayflower Descendant! More on that in another post, perhaps, but I have seen the family tree linkage! Somewhere in the centuries which intervened between a fortuitous marriage in colonial New England and the birth of my mother in 1928, the family went from relative riches to literal rags, from white linen to white trash. But I think Mom did a good job climbing out of that heap, marrying a respectable, self-motivated, if not-yet-self-employed man (never mind that they "had to" get married!), and I only have vaguely revealing traces of white trash in me. I mean, I have in the past lived in a single-wide trailer.
But I digress. I had been to the cemetery at the church in Sherburnville before, but I had not been able to find my grandfather's grave marker. This time I made sure to look for other cemeteries. I looked in Sherburnville, first, at the same cemetery, but again I was unsuccessful, and began to believe I was in the wrong place, or worse, that the information I had was erroneous. I headed to another church, another cemetery plot, where I encountered an old woman whose father used to be the pastor at this particular church. I asked her if she knew the area, particularly Sherburnville. She confessed she wasn't too familiar with Sherburnville. I told her of my quest, and she suggested I contact the local area historian, and gave me his phone number. As I left the church parking lot, I called the man and left a message on his answering device.
I drove back to Dad's place where I spoon-fed him his favorite soup, and a McDonald's strawberry shake, the only types of food he will eat. After a short visit, which included a brief pissing contest with Dad's asshole roommate who watches golf incessantly and at high volume, and who cranked his TV's volume to 11 when I turned Dad's TV on so he could watch The African Queen at a volume he could hear, I left. With a tummy full of soup and milk and cream, Dad was sleepy again. Rather than sit and watch him snooze, I let him sleep in relative peace. (Asshole roommate had been convinced to turn down his volume when an orderly threatened to go get a nurse.)
On the way home I (ate the other chocolate covered cinnamon roll!) received a phone call from the local historian with whom I had left the earlier message, and he had found my grandfather! I was looking in the right cemetery after all, but in the wrong place(s)! My next visit to that cemetery will be on a sunny warm day.
Monday I flew to Houston for what turned out to be a rather fun shoot on Tuesday. A corporate VP for a client company whose annual meeting is approaching had agreed to appear in a spoof documentary about the lost city of Atlantis (the meeting this year is in the Bahamas) as all of the "expert" interviewees – a bald man with a serious overbite, a very stout woman, and an Einstein-ish professorial type! They had hired a professional theatrical make-up artist who did a fantastic job on the skullcap and the characterizations in general. The guy in the video is not an actor, though he clowns around quite a lot, doing impressions and character voices for the pleasure of his friends and colleagues, so he fit right in, blending into the characters seamlessly. Despite the fact that it was fully a twelve-hour day, it was much fun…until we had to leave on Wednesday. It was a 6:22 am flight, for which we had to leave our hotel at 3:40 am. UGH!
When I arrived at the office – at 10:00 – I had to jump right into a script revision for Thursday's shoot for the Despised Product. Then, when I revealed to a freelance technician that I was shooting in our studio the next day, he shifted into foul-mood. When I asked him what the problem was, he told me that Thursday was the only day he had available to him to dismantle said Despised Product, an activity which would interfere with our shoot, and vice-versa. After learning how much more it would cost to reschedule the freelance shooter and the actor to Friday, I then asked the technician what the Thursday shoot meant to him. He said he would have to try to knock out most of the dismantling on Wednesday afternoon. Since it was my communication failure to let everyone know about the Thursday shoot, I volunteered to help him dismantle Despised Product. I left the office at 6:30 pm.
And I returned to the office at 7:00 am the next morning to help the shooter set up and prep for the shoot. We finished setting up with a couple of hours to spare until the noon call time for the actor, so I ran an errand to pick up a hand-prop for the actor, a "miniature model" of a car that was actually a radio-controlled toy Corvette.
The actor showed a little late, but, after a few lighting tweaks and wardrobe choices, he proved to be an absolute dream to work with! Many live presentation actors use what is called an ear-prompter. It's just a mini-tape recorder that he reads his lines into and then plays it back into a tiny earphone. He then speaks along with his own voice, and it looks and sounds like he has memorized pages worth of monologue! It's one of those things that relatively few people can do, and even fewer can do well. This guy was fantastic! He made the shoot very easy to get through, and he incorporated suggestions very well. Certainly worth the small fortune we're paying him. Maybe.
After helping the shooter to strike all the lights and the backdrop, and then cleaning up the rest of my mess, I left the office at 7:00 on Thursday. I was physically exhausted, after my extremely long days Tuesday and Wednesday and the early wake-up on Thursday, plus the mental exhaustion of directing a shoot (it sounds funny, but it does take a lot out of a person!), and I quite literally passed out on my bed at 10:00, feeling like I had truly accomplished something.
All day Friday I was dragging my ass around the office. Despite getting a full eight hours of sleep, not counting apparently being awaken briefly by the earthquake that shook Illinois, I felt like I could have used another 4 hours!
Next week I have to hand the Despised Product project – the supervision of the edit – back to my boss, as on Tuesday I am helping my sister to facilitate Dad's move from his nursing home to the Illinois Veteran's Home, and on Wednesday I fly to Phoenix for a three-day shoot with a client.
As I say "UGH! What a long week!" surely you must be saying "UGH! What a frikkin long, boring post!"
And yeah, I got it. Stop calling you "Shirley."
*I know… you're saying, "How could anything be too chocolatey?!"
And so I write here nothing meaningful. I'm left but to journal…poorly.
Last weekend I paid a visit to my father, though via a circuitous and reminiscent route. I decided to drive through the sadly dilapidated town I used to call home, and stopped at Hi-Way Bakery, just around the corner and on the other side of the next block from the house in which I grew up. For as long as I can remember, Hi-Way Bakery has made these unbelievably scrumptious chocolate covered cinnamon rolls – not too sweet, not too chocolatey*, and oh, so good – that have at times been the object of my obsession. The place has changed hands only a couple years ago, from the original(?) owners, the DelCotto family (unsure of the spelling), to a middle-aged couple who seem to really have a passion for the business, but are staring down the barrel of bankruptcy due to the local poverty; the town is made up these days only of the elderly and the very poor young, neither of which has any disposable income to speak of. I wish I could have bought every last pastry in the place to help the guy out, but I know I would have only eaten the chocolate covered cinnamon rolls….
From there I drove over to the home of my father's brother, Joseph (Giuseppe), and his wife Angela, or, more colloquially, Uncle 'Chooch' and Auntie Ange. 'Chooch' recently had his own brush with death, as a doctor was overmedicating him with a blood anti-coagulant, which caused internal bleeding and… well, suffice it to say that 'Chooch' almost bought the farm. And he can barely walk, due to his diabetes, and to the fact that he has seldom left the sofa in his living room since he retired 25 years ago.
When I left there I decided, while eating the first of two chocolate covered cinnamon rolls I had bought, to drive past Dad's place and head down to the speck of a town called Sherburnville, just a stone's throw from the Indiana border, about 60 miles due south from Chicago. According to an old obituary that we found among my mother's keepsake possessions after her death, Sherburnville is where my maternal grandfather was buried in 1968. As my mother was estranged from her family for most of her adult life, I know very little about my grandfather. What I do know I learned from other family members or from preserved records; Mom rarely spoke of him.
Oddly enough, as I learned a few years ago, it is through Mom and, of course, her father that I, along with my siblings and their children, am a Mayflower Descendant! More on that in another post, perhaps, but I have seen the family tree linkage! Somewhere in the centuries which intervened between a fortuitous marriage in colonial New England and the birth of my mother in 1928, the family went from relative riches to literal rags, from white linen to white trash. But I think Mom did a good job climbing out of that heap, marrying a respectable, self-motivated, if not-yet-self-employed man (never mind that they "had to" get married!), and I only have vaguely revealing traces of white trash in me. I mean, I have in the past lived in a single-wide trailer.
But I digress. I had been to the cemetery at the church in Sherburnville before, but I had not been able to find my grandfather's grave marker. This time I made sure to look for other cemeteries. I looked in Sherburnville, first, at the same cemetery, but again I was unsuccessful, and began to believe I was in the wrong place, or worse, that the information I had was erroneous. I headed to another church, another cemetery plot, where I encountered an old woman whose father used to be the pastor at this particular church. I asked her if she knew the area, particularly Sherburnville. She confessed she wasn't too familiar with Sherburnville. I told her of my quest, and she suggested I contact the local area historian, and gave me his phone number. As I left the church parking lot, I called the man and left a message on his answering device.
I drove back to Dad's place where I spoon-fed him his favorite soup, and a McDonald's strawberry shake, the only types of food he will eat. After a short visit, which included a brief pissing contest with Dad's asshole roommate who watches golf incessantly and at high volume, and who cranked his TV's volume to 11 when I turned Dad's TV on so he could watch The African Queen at a volume he could hear, I left. With a tummy full of soup and milk and cream, Dad was sleepy again. Rather than sit and watch him snooze, I let him sleep in relative peace. (Asshole roommate had been convinced to turn down his volume when an orderly threatened to go get a nurse.)
On the way home I (ate the other chocolate covered cinnamon roll!) received a phone call from the local historian with whom I had left the earlier message, and he had found my grandfather! I was looking in the right cemetery after all, but in the wrong place(s)! My next visit to that cemetery will be on a sunny warm day.
Monday I flew to Houston for what turned out to be a rather fun shoot on Tuesday. A corporate VP for a client company whose annual meeting is approaching had agreed to appear in a spoof documentary about the lost city of Atlantis (the meeting this year is in the Bahamas) as all of the "expert" interviewees – a bald man with a serious overbite, a very stout woman, and an Einstein-ish professorial type! They had hired a professional theatrical make-up artist who did a fantastic job on the skullcap and the characterizations in general. The guy in the video is not an actor, though he clowns around quite a lot, doing impressions and character voices for the pleasure of his friends and colleagues, so he fit right in, blending into the characters seamlessly. Despite the fact that it was fully a twelve-hour day, it was much fun…until we had to leave on Wednesday. It was a 6:22 am flight, for which we had to leave our hotel at 3:40 am. UGH!
When I arrived at the office – at 10:00 – I had to jump right into a script revision for Thursday's shoot for the Despised Product. Then, when I revealed to a freelance technician that I was shooting in our studio the next day, he shifted into foul-mood. When I asked him what the problem was, he told me that Thursday was the only day he had available to him to dismantle said Despised Product, an activity which would interfere with our shoot, and vice-versa. After learning how much more it would cost to reschedule the freelance shooter and the actor to Friday, I then asked the technician what the Thursday shoot meant to him. He said he would have to try to knock out most of the dismantling on Wednesday afternoon. Since it was my communication failure to let everyone know about the Thursday shoot, I volunteered to help him dismantle Despised Product. I left the office at 6:30 pm.
And I returned to the office at 7:00 am the next morning to help the shooter set up and prep for the shoot. We finished setting up with a couple of hours to spare until the noon call time for the actor, so I ran an errand to pick up a hand-prop for the actor, a "miniature model" of a car that was actually a radio-controlled toy Corvette.
The actor showed a little late, but, after a few lighting tweaks and wardrobe choices, he proved to be an absolute dream to work with! Many live presentation actors use what is called an ear-prompter. It's just a mini-tape recorder that he reads his lines into and then plays it back into a tiny earphone. He then speaks along with his own voice, and it looks and sounds like he has memorized pages worth of monologue! It's one of those things that relatively few people can do, and even fewer can do well. This guy was fantastic! He made the shoot very easy to get through, and he incorporated suggestions very well. Certainly worth the small fortune we're paying him. Maybe.
After helping the shooter to strike all the lights and the backdrop, and then cleaning up the rest of my mess, I left the office at 7:00 on Thursday. I was physically exhausted, after my extremely long days Tuesday and Wednesday and the early wake-up on Thursday, plus the mental exhaustion of directing a shoot (it sounds funny, but it does take a lot out of a person!), and I quite literally passed out on my bed at 10:00, feeling like I had truly accomplished something.
All day Friday I was dragging my ass around the office. Despite getting a full eight hours of sleep, not counting apparently being awaken briefly by the earthquake that shook Illinois, I felt like I could have used another 4 hours!
Next week I have to hand the Despised Product project – the supervision of the edit – back to my boss, as on Tuesday I am helping my sister to facilitate Dad's move from his nursing home to the Illinois Veteran's Home, and on Wednesday I fly to Phoenix for a three-day shoot with a client.
As I say "UGH! What a long week!" surely you must be saying "UGH! What a frikkin long, boring post!"
And yeah, I got it. Stop calling you "Shirley."
*I know… you're saying, "How could anything be too chocolatey?!"
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Pieces In Parts
Sleeping Broody
As I have written several times, I work at a company that produces business meetings and conventions large and small. We also produce our own video support for the meetings, and that’s where I come in. I’m the staff “shooter,” the guy who runs the video camera – as well as sets up lights -- when we shoot interview pieces all over the country. Additionally, when a particular client has chosen so, I go to a business meeting/convention with other guys from the video department and I shoot as much wacky footage, as well as straightforward documentary footage, for the highlights video that we produce and show to the attendees on their last day at the meeting. And this explains all the traveling I do. However, when things are slow, or there are no videos to shoot, I am very often given shit jobs around the office. This has lessened in the past couple of years with the addition of younger, stronger and more "abuse-able" staff, which leaves me with even less to do, and a greater pressure to look busy.
Lately – and largely due to the past lousy year of my life – I’ve felt fairly burned out, as though I exist in a fog. My passions don’t ignite like they used to. My dreams aren’t as possible as they used to be. My tolerance for frustration is lower. My sense of humor has dulled, and I don't laugh as much. Now that I find myself free to break free, I don’t … want to. I seem only to want to be home in the solitude of my apartment. Ironically, while numbly going through the motions of my job and my life in this fog, I’ve been acutely aware of how automatic and uninspired I’ve been. And of how powerless I’ve felt to change it. The divorce looms. My father still slips away from me. Am I just waiting for these clouds to clear?
A few years ago I made it clear to my immediate supervisor that I was interested in taking on more responsibility; specifically, to helm video projects as a producer, which means booking shoots, lining up interviewees and sometimes actors, supervising or overseeing edits, some writing, taking the client’s vision and throwing it away to replace with my own, though it’s usually the other way around… With my eye as a shooter and my desire to write, I think I could be a decent producer. I know… okay, well, I believe I already was a decent producer when I made local commercials and promos at the broadcast and cable TV stations in the golden days of my career, so if I could blow the dust off of the gears I’m sure they’ll spin freely again.
But, with rare exception, this wish has gone unheeded. Until now.
A couple weeks ago the boss handed me a project to produce a demo video for a product our company’s owner is trying to develop and market. Personally, I think the thing is just a huge albatross around our corporate neck, but it piqued some interest at an expo last year, so he has hope.
So I get to produce a video for a product I despise.
And then the boss threw another project at me, to update a video we originally produced (which I shot) two years ago, a tool to be used as a fund-raiser for a Catholic college-prep high school. After an initial meeting with them, we’re now producing a new video from scratch. Get me! The company's token atheist working on a video to try and suck money out of people’s pockets for a Catholic enterprise!
But this is a pretty neat school. I won’t name it, but it is a member of this network. If you read about them you'll see what I mean. So if you have a spare thousand dollars lying around that you don't know what to do with, give it a thought. And don't worry. None of your money will go to me – this project is pro bono.
After a slow start over the past couple of days, much like a reluctant waking from a sound slumber, I spent much of today handling tasks for the despised product project, contacting a talent agency and deciding upon an actor, script review to see what might be cut, feeling the wind get knocked out of my lungs when learning what the chosen actor will cost, and then knocking out three brief scripts for skit ideas being considered for an upcoming highlights video at a business meeting.
Suddenly I felt awake. Alive. I was functional again, wading into waters I hadn't visited for quite a while, feeling the exhilarating kind of fear the unknown and the unfamiliar instill in an eager explorer. I felt a tremble in my hands and arms and chest that was almost electric – though most certainly caffeine-induced…not to mention the sweaty pits. I only hope I do well enough for the boss to value me as a producer, and maybe I can climb out of the rut a little.
Okay. I'm awake again. So whadd'I miss?
Dad Update
Enough old fogeys have died in the past several weeks to allow my father to move up from #46 to the top of the list at the Illinois Veteran's Home. He moves there from the nursing home on April 22nd. That's the good news.
He recently told one of my sisters that he is not afraid, that he is ready to die. I guess that can be viewed as a good thing. At least he's not terrified at the thought, as long as he's telling the truth. But, knowing his beliefs, and knowing as much as I can about the life he led, I don't think he has anything to fear. He was a good man…IS a good man.
It's Not Cold, But It Is Sore
This morning the tell-tale tenderness started on my bottom lip, and by mid-afternoon a mean cold-sore had sprung up there. Since 2001 I've been taking a prescription medication to quell the frequent eruptions I had been having. It doesn't stop them all together, but it truly has made them fewer and far betweener. This is the first full-blown, blistering, aching flare-up I've had in probably two years or more. The medication has also worked to keep the few flare-ups relatively minor. But, obviously, it doesn't stop them completely.
This is the first one I've had since my breakup with ts2bx Mrs. Farrago. It reminds me of how, when I got one – or thought I might be getting one, kissing her was out of the question for about a week. And that's got me thinking.
I really miss kissing.
As I have written several times, I work at a company that produces business meetings and conventions large and small. We also produce our own video support for the meetings, and that’s where I come in. I’m the staff “shooter,” the guy who runs the video camera – as well as sets up lights -- when we shoot interview pieces all over the country. Additionally, when a particular client has chosen so, I go to a business meeting/convention with other guys from the video department and I shoot as much wacky footage, as well as straightforward documentary footage, for the highlights video that we produce and show to the attendees on their last day at the meeting. And this explains all the traveling I do. However, when things are slow, or there are no videos to shoot, I am very often given shit jobs around the office. This has lessened in the past couple of years with the addition of younger, stronger and more "abuse-able" staff, which leaves me with even less to do, and a greater pressure to look busy.
Lately – and largely due to the past lousy year of my life – I’ve felt fairly burned out, as though I exist in a fog. My passions don’t ignite like they used to. My dreams aren’t as possible as they used to be. My tolerance for frustration is lower. My sense of humor has dulled, and I don't laugh as much. Now that I find myself free to break free, I don’t … want to. I seem only to want to be home in the solitude of my apartment. Ironically, while numbly going through the motions of my job and my life in this fog, I’ve been acutely aware of how automatic and uninspired I’ve been. And of how powerless I’ve felt to change it. The divorce looms. My father still slips away from me. Am I just waiting for these clouds to clear?
A few years ago I made it clear to my immediate supervisor that I was interested in taking on more responsibility; specifically, to helm video projects as a producer, which means booking shoots, lining up interviewees and sometimes actors, supervising or overseeing edits, some writing, taking the client’s vision and throwing it away to replace with my own, though it’s usually the other way around… With my eye as a shooter and my desire to write, I think I could be a decent producer. I know… okay, well, I believe I already was a decent producer when I made local commercials and promos at the broadcast and cable TV stations in the golden days of my career, so if I could blow the dust off of the gears I’m sure they’ll spin freely again.
But, with rare exception, this wish has gone unheeded. Until now.
A couple weeks ago the boss handed me a project to produce a demo video for a product our company’s owner is trying to develop and market. Personally, I think the thing is just a huge albatross around our corporate neck, but it piqued some interest at an expo last year, so he has hope.
So I get to produce a video for a product I despise.
And then the boss threw another project at me, to update a video we originally produced (which I shot) two years ago, a tool to be used as a fund-raiser for a Catholic college-prep high school. After an initial meeting with them, we’re now producing a new video from scratch. Get me! The company's token atheist working on a video to try and suck money out of people’s pockets for a Catholic enterprise!
But this is a pretty neat school. I won’t name it, but it is a member of this network. If you read about them you'll see what I mean. So if you have a spare thousand dollars lying around that you don't know what to do with, give it a thought. And don't worry. None of your money will go to me – this project is pro bono.
After a slow start over the past couple of days, much like a reluctant waking from a sound slumber, I spent much of today handling tasks for the despised product project, contacting a talent agency and deciding upon an actor, script review to see what might be cut, feeling the wind get knocked out of my lungs when learning what the chosen actor will cost, and then knocking out three brief scripts for skit ideas being considered for an upcoming highlights video at a business meeting.
Suddenly I felt awake. Alive. I was functional again, wading into waters I hadn't visited for quite a while, feeling the exhilarating kind of fear the unknown and the unfamiliar instill in an eager explorer. I felt a tremble in my hands and arms and chest that was almost electric – though most certainly caffeine-induced…not to mention the sweaty pits. I only hope I do well enough for the boss to value me as a producer, and maybe I can climb out of the rut a little.
Okay. I'm awake again. So whadd'I miss?
Dad Update
Enough old fogeys have died in the past several weeks to allow my father to move up from #46 to the top of the list at the Illinois Veteran's Home. He moves there from the nursing home on April 22nd. That's the good news.
He recently told one of my sisters that he is not afraid, that he is ready to die. I guess that can be viewed as a good thing. At least he's not terrified at the thought, as long as he's telling the truth. But, knowing his beliefs, and knowing as much as I can about the life he led, I don't think he has anything to fear. He was a good man…IS a good man.
It's Not Cold, But It Is Sore
This morning the tell-tale tenderness started on my bottom lip, and by mid-afternoon a mean cold-sore had sprung up there. Since 2001 I've been taking a prescription medication to quell the frequent eruptions I had been having. It doesn't stop them all together, but it truly has made them fewer and far betweener. This is the first full-blown, blistering, aching flare-up I've had in probably two years or more. The medication has also worked to keep the few flare-ups relatively minor. But, obviously, it doesn't stop them completely.
This is the first one I've had since my breakup with ts2bx Mrs. Farrago. It reminds me of how, when I got one – or thought I might be getting one, kissing her was out of the question for about a week. And that's got me thinking.
I really miss kissing.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Onds & Edds
The Farrago World Tour 2008: Raleigh, North Carolina
By some strange coincidence, ten of the fifteen bloggers in my “Better Blogs Than Mine” list – ten out of all the blogs I frequent regularly – are women. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, though most of them are married. Of those ten women bloggers, three of them live in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina! I don’t know if that means I have a thang for southern women, or if maybe it means that Raleigh women don’t have anything bett – erhm… ah, I mean that Raleigh women are just darn good writers!
I guess there are a couple of other ladies from the area whose blogs I have not yet latched onto, and I guess there are a couple of male bloggers there, too, but who cares about them? (just kidding Biff!)
So, anyhoo, my wonderful* job sent me on an assignment into the Raleigh-Durham area (pronounced, I like to believe, by the locals as “Rollyderm”) and, in a rare bout of presence of mind, I managed to remember to contact the Rollygirls with plenty of time to spare and to let them know I was coming down for a couple of nights, AND I had one of them free!
In a surprising bit of schedule synchronicity, kenju, Tiff and Claire all cleared their dockets and came out to greet me. Kenju brought her hubby, Tiff brought The Things, and even the blogger formerly known as Biff Spiffy showed up (and I’d like to know how he found out about it!) (just kidding Biff!)
There was absolutely no effort on my part; the ladies took over from my notification, choosing the venue, the time, the decorations, the band, the set list, the menu, the potpourri scents that changed with each progressive meal course…
Nah! Just kidding. They agreed on a sports-bar kind of place that is reputed to have great burgers. I ordered the ribeye steak.
The food was great, the company was outstanding, and as I knew would happen, the evening wasn’t nearly long enough to enjoy fully. In other words, I wanted to be able to hang out until we were all tired of each other, but I had to leave first thing in the morning, and I wouldn’t have gotten tired of any of them until around noon at the earliest.
And the best part of the whole evening is that we snuck Biff’s credit card and passed it around for everyone to pay for their meal with, so the whole night was on Biff! (just kidding Bif… no, wait. We really did that one. (Thanks, Biff!))
A photo was taken, but since I was wearing my Snow White outfit, I’m afraid there may be trademark issues with the Disney Corporation, so I won’t publish it.
So, thank you ladies and Biff for letting me enjoy your company for a couple of hours. It’s good to know I have a passel of friends in Raleigh I can hang with next time I’m there.
Fork A!
I don’t know for sure, but it would seem my presence amid the likes of Kenju and Tiff, the local Blogger Hit Queens, has gotten some of their mojo on me, for today SiteMeter indicates that by 7:00pm CDT, FARRAGO had 21 hits, a new world’s record** and a surge that pushed me past a new benchmark!!
Whoever you are in Miami, at some labs that shall remain nameless, and using Sprint as your ISP, you are my 4,000th hit! If I had money I’d send you a prize. Maybe I’ll send you a personalized, autographed copy of my list of Better Blogs Than Mine.
Thank you everyone! You like me, right now, you like me!†
*written through gritted teeth
**for farrago-mish-mash.blogspot.com
† ©1979 Sally Field™ and the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences®
By some strange coincidence, ten of the fifteen bloggers in my “Better Blogs Than Mine” list – ten out of all the blogs I frequent regularly – are women. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, though most of them are married. Of those ten women bloggers, three of them live in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina! I don’t know if that means I have a thang for southern women, or if maybe it means that Raleigh women don’t have anything bett – erhm… ah, I mean that Raleigh women are just darn good writers!
I guess there are a couple of other ladies from the area whose blogs I have not yet latched onto, and I guess there are a couple of male bloggers there, too, but who cares about them? (just kidding Biff!)
So, anyhoo, my wonderful* job sent me on an assignment into the Raleigh-Durham area (pronounced, I like to believe, by the locals as “Rollyderm”) and, in a rare bout of presence of mind, I managed to remember to contact the Rollygirls with plenty of time to spare and to let them know I was coming down for a couple of nights, AND I had one of them free!
In a surprising bit of schedule synchronicity, kenju, Tiff and Claire all cleared their dockets and came out to greet me. Kenju brought her hubby, Tiff brought The Things, and even the blogger formerly known as Biff Spiffy showed up (and I’d like to know how he found out about it!) (just kidding Biff!)
There was absolutely no effort on my part; the ladies took over from my notification, choosing the venue, the time, the decorations, the band, the set list, the menu, the potpourri scents that changed with each progressive meal course…
Nah! Just kidding. They agreed on a sports-bar kind of place that is reputed to have great burgers. I ordered the ribeye steak.
The food was great, the company was outstanding, and as I knew would happen, the evening wasn’t nearly long enough to enjoy fully. In other words, I wanted to be able to hang out until we were all tired of each other, but I had to leave first thing in the morning, and I wouldn’t have gotten tired of any of them until around noon at the earliest.
And the best part of the whole evening is that we snuck Biff’s credit card and passed it around for everyone to pay for their meal with, so the whole night was on Biff! (just kidding Bif… no, wait. We really did that one. (Thanks, Biff!))
A photo was taken, but since I was wearing my Snow White outfit, I’m afraid there may be trademark issues with the Disney Corporation, so I won’t publish it.
So, thank you ladies and Biff for letting me enjoy your company for a couple of hours. It’s good to know I have a passel of friends in Raleigh I can hang with next time I’m there.
Fork A!
I don’t know for sure, but it would seem my presence amid the likes of Kenju and Tiff, the local Blogger Hit Queens, has gotten some of their mojo on me, for today SiteMeter indicates that by 7:00pm CDT, FARRAGO had 21 hits, a new world’s record** and a surge that pushed me past a new benchmark!!
Whoever you are in Miami, at some labs that shall remain nameless, and using Sprint as your ISP, you are my 4,000th hit! If I had money I’d send you a prize. Maybe I’ll send you a personalized, autographed copy of my list of Better Blogs Than Mine.
Thank you everyone! You like me, right now, you like me!†
*written through gritted teeth
**for farrago-mish-mash.blogspot.com
† ©1979 Sally Field™ and the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences®
Monday, March 24, 2008
The 2nd Best Thing I Ever Did
Dad was getting ready to retire, and the party we were planning just didn’t seem adequate. So I made a few calls to see if anyone might be interested to know that a veritable institution was closing its doors. One columnist/reporter called back, interviewed me over the phone for about 15 minutes, and then said that Dad’s was certainly a story worth sharing.
The Chicago Sun-Times is one of the city’s two big dailies – it’s the home newspaper to both Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert(!) – so I was quite surprised when the reporter said he would head down to the far south suburbs and visit with Dad, and I was quite tickled that his story could be seen by potentially several hundred thousand people! (Click on the image to make it bigger.)
From Sunday February 29, 2004:
(Special thanks to ts2bx Mrs. Farrago for
preparing this image.)
The Chicago Sun-Times is one of the city’s two big dailies – it’s the home newspaper to both Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert(!) – so I was quite surprised when the reporter said he would head down to the far south suburbs and visit with Dad, and I was quite tickled that his story could be seen by potentially several hundred thousand people! (Click on the image to make it bigger.)
From Sunday February 29, 2004:
(Special thanks to ts2bx Mrs. Farrago for
preparing this image.)
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 3
June came and we endured the hardships of traveling with an elderly man hobbled by neuropathies in his hands and feet. We flew non-stop to Frankfurt, Germany, where I had rented a car. The younger of my two older brothers flew a different airline (frequent flier miles) and met my wife, my father and me in Frankfurt. We loaded up the car and drove four hours to Nancy, France. The older of my two brothers had preceded us by a couple of weeks, and he and his son had been visiting his Army nurse daughter in Heidelberg and touring central Europe with her, and the three of them drove to Nancy and met us at Sylvaine’s home. Sylvaine insisted that we all stay with her, but my brothers and my niece and nephew declined, and stayed at a nearby hotel. (Click on any image to see it larger.)
Jimmy at Sylvaine's home. From upper left: Sylvaine,
son Sebastien, Jimmy. Front left, daughter Carole,
son Thomas, with gifts we brought them from Chicago.
The next morning we headed in a two-car caravan to the home where Tresi lives. When we arrived, her daughters went in to help her get ready. They let us into her room while she finished in the bathroom. Tresi had recently hurt her leg in a fall, and so was in a wheelchair. When Sylvaine wheeled Tresi out, and Jimmy saw her for the first time in sixty years, he immediately burst into tears. He bent to her in the chair and, through sobs, cried, “I’m so sorry I didn’t write.”
Tresi wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”
The emotional reunion.
I videotaped the moment, but I couldn’t be sure I had captured it until later, as I couldn’t see the viewfinder through my own tears! I looked around the room and saw mine weren’t the only wet eyes.
We stayed for lunch at the senior home, and Jimmy and Tresi reminisced in four languages: when Tresi didn’t understand something Jimmy said in English, he tried in the limited Italian that stayed with him, then he tried in the little French he remembered from his time in the war, and failing that, he tried in the little bit of German he can recall. When those failed, he fell into the bits of Spanish and Polish he knows from his 45 years in the changing ethnicities surrounding his barbershop. They were cute together: his sense of humor transcends any language barriers, and she gently “slapped” his face when he made his wisecracks.
Jimmy and Tresi, long lost friends together again.
After all that buildup, the months of anticipation for the trip overall, and for the side-trip, I regret that we only spent one afternoon with Tresi. And I soon would discover that wouldn’t be my only regret.
Tresi with Jimmy and his entourage. Standing, from
left: Jimmy's grandson Thomas, son Jim, yours truly,
son Dan, Jim's daughter Rebecca, and Mrs. Farrago.
Later that afternoon we trekked up to Differdange, where we met up with Marc, the man who had found Tresi, and toured the town and the grounds of the old school where Jimmy was bivouacked for 5 months in 1944. Either the school has changed drastically in 60 years, or Jimmy's memory of the place is shot, for he could not remember any details about the place while we were there.
Jimmy speaking with Marc, the man who
made it all happen.
With the school as a backdrop, Sylvaine, Rebecca
and Marc fiddle with a camera while Jimmy offers
sage advice.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same..." The photo on the
left, obviously taken during the winter, was sent to me by Sylvaine a few
months before our trip.
We split up again: my brothers and nephew boarded a train in Nancy and made the entire trip, through Switzerland, through Milan, to Castel di Sangro; My wife and my father and I drove back to Frankfurt (a story in itself!) and resumed our journey to Italy. Upon our arrival in Rome, we walked through the airport right into the attached Hilton hotel, where my oldest brother had booked rooms for us using his many hundreds of thousands of Hilton points. We spent one night there, and woke early the next morning to catch the first of several trains to reach the Abruzzo mountains and Castel di Sangro.
Back in the land of our roots.
Upon our arrival we experienced some confusion. I had apparently forgotten to bring with me the phone number to the pensione where I had booked our rooms, and none of the railroad officials at the train station had heard of it. It seemed like forever, but then one of the officials noticed the name on a luggage tag, my family name, which is quite prolific in the small town. Suddenly he stepped outside of the small rail office and called to another railway worker, who was a couple hundred yards away tending to the tracks in some way. The younger man hopped on his bicycle and rode toward us and up to the man who had called him. They conversed briefly, and then the younger man pulled some folded-up papers from his pocket, plucked one out and handed it to the older man. The older man looked at my father, the only one who had said anything the man understood, pointed to the paper and stepped into the office. He dialed the phone and spoke very briefly to the person on the other end, and then told my father that someone was on the way. We found out later that my brothers and my nephew had arrived several hours earlier, pointed to the name and phone number of the pensione which I had e-mailed them a few days earlier, and the young man had phoned the proprietor to tell them they had arrived. When the proprietor came to collect them, he had told the young man that there were others arriving later, and to call him at the pensione when they arrived. I had never even thought to name-drop my own name!
The confusion was over, and Enzo, the proprietor of the pensione, showed up only minutes later to gather our bags and stuff us into his little car for the brief ride back to his establishment.
On arrival to our room, my wife and I discovered a card, written in English, from Simona, someone I had contacted years earlier during my genealogical research, a woman with the same family name as mine, though, apparently, unrelated to me, and whom I had sent a last minute e-mail to notify her of our impending visit to Castel di Sangro. In the card she had written that there were people in town who were eager to meet us, and to call her when I arrived.
A few hours later Simona arrived with her husband and daughter in tow, and our entire entourage walked the few hundred yards to Albergo Corradetti (the Hotel Corradetti) which, it turns out, is owned and run by the wife of my first cousin thrice removed, Federico. Simona spoke with Federico and his wife, Berenice, and told them who these Americans were whom she had brought along. Federico became very excited and phoned his mother, Maria. Only a few minutes later the elderly Maria entered the restaurant area of the hotel, and instantly welcomed us into her heart as family.
Jimmy with his 1st cousin-once removed, Maria.
Before long our entire entourage was seated at a long table with Simona and her family, including her mother, who was divorced from – and harboring a deep hatred for – our family’s namesake! Berenice, the hotel proprietor and head chef, was preparing a family-style Abruzzo-Italian feast. Poor Simona, the only truly bilingual person in the room, was translating to and from English as quickly and efficiently as she could, but the questions kept coming at her faster and louder with each passing, wine-soaked minute. The food (particularly the tagliatelle tartufo) was delicious beyond words.
Too soon the locals had to call it a night, for the Americans were the only people in the room on holiday, and the others had jobs to get to the next morning. Maria, however, insisted that we all gather again the next evening, and she would make sure to call her sister and brother to join us, and, hopefully, her sister would bring Concetta’s pillowcases to show us. It seemed a curious thing, but we were nonetheless intrigued.
The next day’s agenda included some genealogical research at the local biblioteca; lunch at Enzo’s restaurant (across the road from his pensione); some sightseeing at the obvious geological highlight of the town, a huge hill around which the town was built; and then back to Albergo Corradetti to meet the rest of the cousins.
At the biblioteca, where we discovered no simple
connections to "cousins" back home.
While we climb the big hill, Enzo details its tactical
significance to conquering armies over the centuries.
When we arrived Maria was there, and her sister Elisa was on the way. Pietro had been told about us, but she wasn’t sure if he would show up. When Elisa arrived she carried two gift-wrapped boxes, and, with the help of Simona (alone this time), gave us a bit of history and family lore:
At the height of World War II the German army occupied Castel di Sangro and used the town’s great hill to military advantage, keeping an eye on everything around it for miles. Allied British and Canadian ground troops sweeping north through the country were brought to a standstill miles outside of Castel di Sangro by the Germans, who rained artillery on them before the Allies even knew anyone was watching them. Battles raged for days as the Allies attempted to reach the town, but were repeatedly driven back. Finally the British called for an airstrike.
My earlier genealogical research had revealed that my grandmother, Concetta, was the only one of her parents’ many children who survived childhood, the others all dying before the age of 9 of what Simona described as “the syphilis.” It is only my conjecture that, by Concetta’s 18th birthday, her parents were desperate for her to escape the town and their certainty that she, too, would succumb to her siblings’ fate. Again, it is only a guess, but it appears that a marriage had been arranged between Concetta and a man who was already in the United States, for in April of 1915 she left to begin her life in America, leaving her parents behind her, alone and otherwise childless. And four months later she was married to Rosario.
By the time World War II had swept Europe, Concetta’s father was dead, and her mother lived alone in the family’s home in the center of town. And the British called an airstrike on Castel di Sangro in an attempt to flush out the Germans.
The tradition in Old World Italy, as in many other European countries, has been that, starting around age 8, young girls would begin work on their hope chests, learning the skills along the way as they stitched the lace for their wedding dresses and stored other items they made or acquired, preparing for the day they married. Concetta had begun these items in line with tradition, but when she left for the United States she could not bring her hope chest with her, instead leaving it with her mother until the day she could return and retrieve it. Concetta never was able to return to Castel di Sangro, but she had achieved a sort of hero status in her family as a survivor and as someone who had made a life in the USA. Though they had never met her, Concetta’s cousins, Maria, Elisa and Pietro, were forever in awe of her.
According to family lore, the first bomb dropped by the British planes destroyed Concetta’s mother’s home. Her mother, fortunately, survived the event, but Concetta’s hope chest was all but demolished. Her mother was able to salvage only the four pillowcases Concetta had left behind, white linen squares embroidered with Concetta’s initials, “C” on two, “I” on the other two.
Shortly after the war Concetta’s mother was ill and, feeling death was imminent, passed the pillowcases on to her deceased husband’s oldest niece, Elisa. Elisa cherished the pillowcases as she cherished the cousin she had never met, washing them regularly and letting them dry in the sun, and wrapping them tightly and storing them away out of the reach of uncaring hands. She did this for nearly 60 years.
Elisa finished her story and, before any of us realized what she was about to do, she handed the two gift-wrapped boxes to Jimmy, who opened them to reveal two bright, white pillowcases, one with a delicately embroidered letter “C,” the other with an equally elegant embroidered letter “I.” Jimmy was visibly moved and, once again, there was not a dry eye in the room.
Jimmy and another 1st cousin-once removed -- and
Maria's sister -- Elisa.
Jimmy and Pietro, his 1st cousin-once removed, and
brother to Maria and Elisa.
We feasted again, but this time Maria insisted on paying for it. She was an old woman. I don’t think she had a job. We pleaded with her to let us pay, or at least help her pay for it, but she absolutely would not hear of it. And again, too soon the evening was over. This was our last evening in Castel di Sangro, our last time seeing our cousins and, as we made for the door, Jimmy broke into sobs, blubbering in two languages about how he hates good-byes, and hugging his cousins as if he’d known them all his life.
Jimmy and our family in Castel di Sangro.
The next morning, after we squared up the bill at the pensione, we were chauffeured by Enzo to the town’s older cemetery, where most of our relatives were buried. “Were” is the operative word because this cemetery is very small and has been around for centuries. When they run out of room they disinter the oldest, most dead remains to make room for the newer, not-as-dead dead. The only marker for my grandfather’s only sibling who didn’t make a life in the United States is a line in a roster of burial entries. My grand-uncle Francesco, who may have gone to the USA with his father, but returned to Italy sometime afterward, died in 1901 in the military as a result of an accident “with a horse.”
Could you think of a better ornament with which to
adorn a cemetery gate? No, you couldn't!
And then we were back at the train station saying our good-byes to Enzo, who, though not family, had endeared himself to us by volunteering to accompany us everywhere, to drive us where it was too far or too difficult to walk, and to explain to the best of his ability about features of the town. At the end of it all, right as I was convinced that he heard the “cha-ching” of the American tourist dollar racking up with every “favor” he did for us...Enzo refused to accept our gratuity for every kindness he had shown us during our three days in town.
We spent the next four days in Rome, four days that, for the experience, could not compare with even one hour we spent in Castel di Sangro; four days in which I found myself regretting that I had yet again shortchanged our time in a virtual paradise of hospitality and kindness and family because of doubt, and because of the fear of changing plans at the last minute.
By measure of dollars, I didn’t really spend much on the trip; we went about it in rather a frugal manner. By measure of other things I’ve done, I don’t consider myself to be a particularly generous person. But I think I made this one count. I know that my father was truly touched by his experiences, truly moved by the connections he had made and by the connections he had re-established, and was truly glad he had allowed himself to be convinced to make the long journey. By the look I saw on his face several times during the trip, I know I really made this one count.
Jimmy at Sylvaine's home. From upper left: Sylvaine,
son Sebastien, Jimmy. Front left, daughter Carole,
son Thomas, with gifts we brought them from Chicago.
The next morning we headed in a two-car caravan to the home where Tresi lives. When we arrived, her daughters went in to help her get ready. They let us into her room while she finished in the bathroom. Tresi had recently hurt her leg in a fall, and so was in a wheelchair. When Sylvaine wheeled Tresi out, and Jimmy saw her for the first time in sixty years, he immediately burst into tears. He bent to her in the chair and, through sobs, cried, “I’m so sorry I didn’t write.”
Tresi wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”
The emotional reunion.
I videotaped the moment, but I couldn’t be sure I had captured it until later, as I couldn’t see the viewfinder through my own tears! I looked around the room and saw mine weren’t the only wet eyes.
We stayed for lunch at the senior home, and Jimmy and Tresi reminisced in four languages: when Tresi didn’t understand something Jimmy said in English, he tried in the limited Italian that stayed with him, then he tried in the little French he remembered from his time in the war, and failing that, he tried in the little bit of German he can recall. When those failed, he fell into the bits of Spanish and Polish he knows from his 45 years in the changing ethnicities surrounding his barbershop. They were cute together: his sense of humor transcends any language barriers, and she gently “slapped” his face when he made his wisecracks.
Jimmy and Tresi, long lost friends together again.
After all that buildup, the months of anticipation for the trip overall, and for the side-trip, I regret that we only spent one afternoon with Tresi. And I soon would discover that wouldn’t be my only regret.
Tresi with Jimmy and his entourage. Standing, from
left: Jimmy's grandson Thomas, son Jim, yours truly,
son Dan, Jim's daughter Rebecca, and Mrs. Farrago.
Later that afternoon we trekked up to Differdange, where we met up with Marc, the man who had found Tresi, and toured the town and the grounds of the old school where Jimmy was bivouacked for 5 months in 1944. Either the school has changed drastically in 60 years, or Jimmy's memory of the place is shot, for he could not remember any details about the place while we were there.
Jimmy speaking with Marc, the man who
made it all happen.
With the school as a backdrop, Sylvaine, Rebecca
and Marc fiddle with a camera while Jimmy offers
sage advice.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same..." The photo on the
left, obviously taken during the winter, was sent to me by Sylvaine a few
months before our trip.
We split up again: my brothers and nephew boarded a train in Nancy and made the entire trip, through Switzerland, through Milan, to Castel di Sangro; My wife and my father and I drove back to Frankfurt (a story in itself!) and resumed our journey to Italy. Upon our arrival in Rome, we walked through the airport right into the attached Hilton hotel, where my oldest brother had booked rooms for us using his many hundreds of thousands of Hilton points. We spent one night there, and woke early the next morning to catch the first of several trains to reach the Abruzzo mountains and Castel di Sangro.
Back in the land of our roots.
Upon our arrival we experienced some confusion. I had apparently forgotten to bring with me the phone number to the pensione where I had booked our rooms, and none of the railroad officials at the train station had heard of it. It seemed like forever, but then one of the officials noticed the name on a luggage tag, my family name, which is quite prolific in the small town. Suddenly he stepped outside of the small rail office and called to another railway worker, who was a couple hundred yards away tending to the tracks in some way. The younger man hopped on his bicycle and rode toward us and up to the man who had called him. They conversed briefly, and then the younger man pulled some folded-up papers from his pocket, plucked one out and handed it to the older man. The older man looked at my father, the only one who had said anything the man understood, pointed to the paper and stepped into the office. He dialed the phone and spoke very briefly to the person on the other end, and then told my father that someone was on the way. We found out later that my brothers and my nephew had arrived several hours earlier, pointed to the name and phone number of the pensione which I had e-mailed them a few days earlier, and the young man had phoned the proprietor to tell them they had arrived. When the proprietor came to collect them, he had told the young man that there were others arriving later, and to call him at the pensione when they arrived. I had never even thought to name-drop my own name!
The confusion was over, and Enzo, the proprietor of the pensione, showed up only minutes later to gather our bags and stuff us into his little car for the brief ride back to his establishment.
On arrival to our room, my wife and I discovered a card, written in English, from Simona, someone I had contacted years earlier during my genealogical research, a woman with the same family name as mine, though, apparently, unrelated to me, and whom I had sent a last minute e-mail to notify her of our impending visit to Castel di Sangro. In the card she had written that there were people in town who were eager to meet us, and to call her when I arrived.
A few hours later Simona arrived with her husband and daughter in tow, and our entire entourage walked the few hundred yards to Albergo Corradetti (the Hotel Corradetti) which, it turns out, is owned and run by the wife of my first cousin thrice removed, Federico. Simona spoke with Federico and his wife, Berenice, and told them who these Americans were whom she had brought along. Federico became very excited and phoned his mother, Maria. Only a few minutes later the elderly Maria entered the restaurant area of the hotel, and instantly welcomed us into her heart as family.
Jimmy with his 1st cousin-once removed, Maria.
Before long our entire entourage was seated at a long table with Simona and her family, including her mother, who was divorced from – and harboring a deep hatred for – our family’s namesake! Berenice, the hotel proprietor and head chef, was preparing a family-style Abruzzo-Italian feast. Poor Simona, the only truly bilingual person in the room, was translating to and from English as quickly and efficiently as she could, but the questions kept coming at her faster and louder with each passing, wine-soaked minute. The food (particularly the tagliatelle tartufo) was delicious beyond words.
Too soon the locals had to call it a night, for the Americans were the only people in the room on holiday, and the others had jobs to get to the next morning. Maria, however, insisted that we all gather again the next evening, and she would make sure to call her sister and brother to join us, and, hopefully, her sister would bring Concetta’s pillowcases to show us. It seemed a curious thing, but we were nonetheless intrigued.
The next day’s agenda included some genealogical research at the local biblioteca; lunch at Enzo’s restaurant (across the road from his pensione); some sightseeing at the obvious geological highlight of the town, a huge hill around which the town was built; and then back to Albergo Corradetti to meet the rest of the cousins.
At the biblioteca, where we discovered no simple
connections to "cousins" back home.
While we climb the big hill, Enzo details its tactical
significance to conquering armies over the centuries.
When we arrived Maria was there, and her sister Elisa was on the way. Pietro had been told about us, but she wasn’t sure if he would show up. When Elisa arrived she carried two gift-wrapped boxes, and, with the help of Simona (alone this time), gave us a bit of history and family lore:
At the height of World War II the German army occupied Castel di Sangro and used the town’s great hill to military advantage, keeping an eye on everything around it for miles. Allied British and Canadian ground troops sweeping north through the country were brought to a standstill miles outside of Castel di Sangro by the Germans, who rained artillery on them before the Allies even knew anyone was watching them. Battles raged for days as the Allies attempted to reach the town, but were repeatedly driven back. Finally the British called for an airstrike.
My earlier genealogical research had revealed that my grandmother, Concetta, was the only one of her parents’ many children who survived childhood, the others all dying before the age of 9 of what Simona described as “the syphilis.” It is only my conjecture that, by Concetta’s 18th birthday, her parents were desperate for her to escape the town and their certainty that she, too, would succumb to her siblings’ fate. Again, it is only a guess, but it appears that a marriage had been arranged between Concetta and a man who was already in the United States, for in April of 1915 she left to begin her life in America, leaving her parents behind her, alone and otherwise childless. And four months later she was married to Rosario.
By the time World War II had swept Europe, Concetta’s father was dead, and her mother lived alone in the family’s home in the center of town. And the British called an airstrike on Castel di Sangro in an attempt to flush out the Germans.
The tradition in Old World Italy, as in many other European countries, has been that, starting around age 8, young girls would begin work on their hope chests, learning the skills along the way as they stitched the lace for their wedding dresses and stored other items they made or acquired, preparing for the day they married. Concetta had begun these items in line with tradition, but when she left for the United States she could not bring her hope chest with her, instead leaving it with her mother until the day she could return and retrieve it. Concetta never was able to return to Castel di Sangro, but she had achieved a sort of hero status in her family as a survivor and as someone who had made a life in the USA. Though they had never met her, Concetta’s cousins, Maria, Elisa and Pietro, were forever in awe of her.
According to family lore, the first bomb dropped by the British planes destroyed Concetta’s mother’s home. Her mother, fortunately, survived the event, but Concetta’s hope chest was all but demolished. Her mother was able to salvage only the four pillowcases Concetta had left behind, white linen squares embroidered with Concetta’s initials, “C” on two, “I” on the other two.
Shortly after the war Concetta’s mother was ill and, feeling death was imminent, passed the pillowcases on to her deceased husband’s oldest niece, Elisa. Elisa cherished the pillowcases as she cherished the cousin she had never met, washing them regularly and letting them dry in the sun, and wrapping them tightly and storing them away out of the reach of uncaring hands. She did this for nearly 60 years.
Elisa finished her story and, before any of us realized what she was about to do, she handed the two gift-wrapped boxes to Jimmy, who opened them to reveal two bright, white pillowcases, one with a delicately embroidered letter “C,” the other with an equally elegant embroidered letter “I.” Jimmy was visibly moved and, once again, there was not a dry eye in the room.
Jimmy and another 1st cousin-once removed -- and
Maria's sister -- Elisa.
Jimmy and Pietro, his 1st cousin-once removed, and
brother to Maria and Elisa.
We feasted again, but this time Maria insisted on paying for it. She was an old woman. I don’t think she had a job. We pleaded with her to let us pay, or at least help her pay for it, but she absolutely would not hear of it. And again, too soon the evening was over. This was our last evening in Castel di Sangro, our last time seeing our cousins and, as we made for the door, Jimmy broke into sobs, blubbering in two languages about how he hates good-byes, and hugging his cousins as if he’d known them all his life.
Jimmy and our family in Castel di Sangro.
The next morning, after we squared up the bill at the pensione, we were chauffeured by Enzo to the town’s older cemetery, where most of our relatives were buried. “Were” is the operative word because this cemetery is very small and has been around for centuries. When they run out of room they disinter the oldest, most dead remains to make room for the newer, not-as-dead dead. The only marker for my grandfather’s only sibling who didn’t make a life in the United States is a line in a roster of burial entries. My grand-uncle Francesco, who may have gone to the USA with his father, but returned to Italy sometime afterward, died in 1901 in the military as a result of an accident “with a horse.”
Could you think of a better ornament with which to
adorn a cemetery gate? No, you couldn't!
And then we were back at the train station saying our good-byes to Enzo, who, though not family, had endeared himself to us by volunteering to accompany us everywhere, to drive us where it was too far or too difficult to walk, and to explain to the best of his ability about features of the town. At the end of it all, right as I was convinced that he heard the “cha-ching” of the American tourist dollar racking up with every “favor” he did for us...Enzo refused to accept our gratuity for every kindness he had shown us during our three days in town.
We spent the next four days in Rome, four days that, for the experience, could not compare with even one hour we spent in Castel di Sangro; four days in which I found myself regretting that I had yet again shortchanged our time in a virtual paradise of hospitality and kindness and family because of doubt, and because of the fear of changing plans at the last minute.
By measure of dollars, I didn’t really spend much on the trip; we went about it in rather a frugal manner. By measure of other things I’ve done, I don’t consider myself to be a particularly generous person. But I think I made this one count. I know that my father was truly touched by his experiences, truly moved by the connections he had made and by the connections he had re-established, and was truly glad he had allowed himself to be convinced to make the long journey. By the look I saw on his face several times during the trip, I know I really made this one count.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 2
In 1962 Jimmy and Mary moved the family from Joliet, Illinois, to Chicago Heights, Illinois, now only a five minute drive from his barbershop. And soon I was born. Many times over the next decades Jimmy told, in bits and pieces, the story of the two Italian girls in Differdange, Luxembourg, and how he came to be loved by their family. (Click on any image to see it larger.)
Damn, I was a cute kid! What the heck
happened? February-ish, 1965.
Flash forward to the year 2000. Jimmy and Mary’s children had all grown up and flown the coop. Mary had died suddenly in 1993, and Jimmy lived alone. His youngest child had been hit with the genealogy bug. In preparation for a huge family reunion we were planning, I was putting together the first issue of our family newsletter which was to feature a brief biography of Jimmy. In a visit with him at his home, I asked him about his war experiences. I had heard little snippets of his "two girls in Differdange" story, but he had never explained the whole thing. He told me of the nearly 20-year correspondence with Tresi. He told me that she had mentioned her illness. He showed me the last letter he had received from her, still accompanied by the envelope in which it had arrived 39 years before. Then he broke down in tears of grief over the loss as, certainly, she was dead by now; tears of guilt that he had never written back to her to offer words of comfort or wishes of good luck.
I was at a loss for what to say to comfort him, so I managed to say that maybe she wasn't dead. He said that he doubted it. After all, she never wrote again. I wrote in my research notebook the last known address of Teresa Civitareale Arrigoni.
I was in the middle of genealogy fever. My research gears were already greased and spinning. I had the power and the reach of the internet at my fingertips. I felt that anything was possible, so what the hell?
The first thing I did was post a message at The Genealogy Forum, which is where I had made the most meaningful connections in my family research. In the Italy, France, Luxembourg, Ohio, and Massachusetts forums I asked if anyone had ever known of anybody named Civitareale who had lived in Differdange during the war. I also briefly mentioned the 20-year correspondence that Jimmy had with a Civitareale from there.
Then I went to Yahoo.com's people search and did a white pages phone directory search on Civitareale and Arrigoni in Differdange. Then I did the same in the village of Hussigny-Godbrange, France. That time I came up with the name, address and phone number of Egidio Arrigoni, and it matched the address on the envelope that Jimmy had shown me! I immediately wrote a brief letter telling who I was, who my father was, and with whom he had corresponded for 20 years. I humbly asked if this was the same person that Jimmy knew. I leaned on one of my contacts from the forums - my newly discovered fifth cousin - in Altoona, Pennsylvania, for help. He is a high school teacher of foreign languages. He is fluent in Spanish, German (I think), French and Italian, so I e-mailed him the letter I had just written and asked him to translate it into Italian and into French. I transcribed all three versions to paper and sent it off, crossing my fingers for a response.
The first edition of the family newsletter went out, and then the second three months later. Jimmy’s sister, Mary – the eldest of Concetta’s children – and his younger brother, Ray, died within months of each other. Time slipped into 2001. I started a new job with a heavy travel schedule. The family reunion weekend came and went. The world cried on 9/11. I lost steam and the family newsletter went into limbo; 2002 slid into 2003. I never received a response to my letter to Egidio Arrigoni.
Sometime in the middle of 2003 I had begun to think about using my frequent flyer miles to take my father to Italy to visit Castel di Sangro, the Abruzzo town from where his parents had emigrated. It took some convincing, as he was unsure that his failing hands and feet could carry him through all the walking. One of his friends convinced him to go by telling him that, if he never went, he would spend the rest of his life regretting it. My two brothers, upon hearing of my plans, signed on to make the trip as well. The itinerary was firmed up: four days in Rome, four days in Castel di Sangro. The travel dates were agreed on between my two brothers and me for summer of 2004.
In December of 2003 I got an itch and I opened the genealogy research notebook for the first time in over a year. My Altoona, Pennsylvania, cousin had disappeared from the forums, his e-mail address now defunct. I felt like I was starting from scratch again. So I started over. On December 9 I searched on my own name in The Genealogy Forum. There's a page where it offers a link to "see all of this member's posts." I clicked on it and saw a list of every message I had posted to the website, and all of the follow-ups that people had posted in response to my posts.
And there, at the bottom of the page, was a response link to "Civitareale in Differdange!" It was exactly one year old, written two years after my original query. After leaping out of my chest, my heart sank. There was no way this person is still at the same e-mail. Against my better judgment I opened the message. The author claimed that he knew a Civitareale when he lived in Differdange; he had gone to school with him.
I replied personally to the posting, and discovered a .lu domain name; he still lived in Luxembourg. A few days later I received two e-mail messages from him asking why I don't respond to his e-mails. His name is Marc. I wrote to him, copy-pasting the only e-mails I got from him and explained that there must be a problem with the connections.
In subsequent e-mails Marc told me that he knew how to get in touch with the Civitareale that he grew up with, and that he would ask him about "our" Civitareale. The holidays came and went, and I figured that Marc had struck out and didn't bother to write back.
Then, on January 10, 2004 I received another message. Marc wanted to know if Jimmy stayed in Differdange. He wanted to know dates. Did my father know any other families or soldiers from the same period? I answered all of his questions to the best of my knowledge.
On January 11, 2004 he wrote again to say that he will contact the Civitareale schoolmate, and that he will also check in Hussigny, which is only about thirty miles or less from Differdange(!). At this point I was giving him every bit of information I could think of, to include the address in Hussigny that I had confirmed from Jimmy's envelope.
On January 12, 2004 Marc wrote to tell me that the Civitareale family he knows is not the one Jimmy knew. However, the father of his schoolmate knew of Tresi in Hussigny, and thought that she was still alive! By this point I was almost on fire with excitement! Then I read the next message, sent on the 13th, and he told me that he had just spoken with Tresi's daughter, Sylvaine!! She was VERY delighted to hear about my efforts to track down her mother, who was by then 83 and living in a senior center in Nancy, France. Tresi's husband, Egidio, had died in 1997, three years before I had sent the letter to him.
Then on January 14, 2004, Marc sent me a copy-pasted e-mail exchange he had with Sylvaine - all in French - where he basically told her that he had been in contact with "le fils de Jimmy," or the son of Jimmy. I couldn't tell from their exchange if she had heard of Jimmy, or that her mother had ever told of the American soldier who had helped her family. But what I could make out - and Marc told me as well - was that she was going to visit her mother the next morning, and that she would write to me directly!
A few days later Sylvaine wrote to me. She is a medical researcher and teacher in a university, and her written English is only what she’s picked up from studying medical journals, but it was enough for me to understand, and much better than my French. She told me that, indeed, her mother, Tresi, had told them the story of Jimmy, the American soldier who had gotten a letter through to her mother’s cousin in Massachusetts, and how Tresi’s parents so desperately tried to win him into their family!
Sylvaine also told me of her mother’s frailty since Egidio’s death. Tresi had never quite accepted that her husband was gone, and, seven years later, still asked her daughters where their father was.
In a subsequent e-mail Sylvaine told me that she had informed Tresi that Jimmy’s son had found her, and she told me that Tresi was thrilled to hear that Jimmy was still alive. I asked Sylvaine if Tresi was well enough to receive visitors, should my father feel up to visiting. A few days later Sylvaine informed me that not only was Tresi well enough, but she was telling everyone that Jimmy was coming to visit her! Tresi had memory problems, but she remembered Jimmy vividly!
During all of the positive correspondence to this point, I had kept quiet to Jimmy about it. I made a phone inquiry to United Airlines about scheduling a stopover. I compiled all of the e-mail correspondence between Marc and me, and between Sylvaine Arrigoni and me, and all of the JPEG files she sent to me, printed them out and bound them in a folder, and brought it to my father. The look on his face was priceless when I told him that not only was Tresi Civitareale still alive, but that I had been in direct contact with her daughter. He kept reading the pages over and over, running his fingers down the pages, looking at the photo images printed on the pages of Tresi from 1944, with her then-new husband in 1946, and shortly before Egidio’s death in 1997. Jimmy kept shaking his head in disbelief, and kicking himself for ceasing correspondence.
Tresi and Egidio, circa 1946
Fifty years later, Tresi, center, and Egidio, far right,
with her sister, Erna and her husband, far left,
and a few grandchildren.
Then I said to Jimmy, “We can easily alter our trip to Italy to make a stopover in France.” He looked at me expectantly, yet not sure what to expect. “Would you like to make a side-trip to Nancy, France, to visit Tresi?”
“Yes.” His answer came without pause or hesitation.
I notified my brothers and my wife of the altered plans. Whether they wanted to go or they didn’t, I was not going to let my father miss this opportunity.
In part 3: Reunion and Rekindling.
Damn, I was a cute kid! What the heck
happened? February-ish, 1965.
Flash forward to the year 2000. Jimmy and Mary’s children had all grown up and flown the coop. Mary had died suddenly in 1993, and Jimmy lived alone. His youngest child had been hit with the genealogy bug. In preparation for a huge family reunion we were planning, I was putting together the first issue of our family newsletter which was to feature a brief biography of Jimmy. In a visit with him at his home, I asked him about his war experiences. I had heard little snippets of his "two girls in Differdange" story, but he had never explained the whole thing. He told me of the nearly 20-year correspondence with Tresi. He told me that she had mentioned her illness. He showed me the last letter he had received from her, still accompanied by the envelope in which it had arrived 39 years before. Then he broke down in tears of grief over the loss as, certainly, she was dead by now; tears of guilt that he had never written back to her to offer words of comfort or wishes of good luck.
I was at a loss for what to say to comfort him, so I managed to say that maybe she wasn't dead. He said that he doubted it. After all, she never wrote again. I wrote in my research notebook the last known address of Teresa Civitareale Arrigoni.
I was in the middle of genealogy fever. My research gears were already greased and spinning. I had the power and the reach of the internet at my fingertips. I felt that anything was possible, so what the hell?
The first thing I did was post a message at The Genealogy Forum, which is where I had made the most meaningful connections in my family research. In the Italy, France, Luxembourg, Ohio, and Massachusetts forums I asked if anyone had ever known of anybody named Civitareale who had lived in Differdange during the war. I also briefly mentioned the 20-year correspondence that Jimmy had with a Civitareale from there.
Then I went to Yahoo.com's people search and did a white pages phone directory search on Civitareale and Arrigoni in Differdange. Then I did the same in the village of Hussigny-Godbrange, France. That time I came up with the name, address and phone number of Egidio Arrigoni, and it matched the address on the envelope that Jimmy had shown me! I immediately wrote a brief letter telling who I was, who my father was, and with whom he had corresponded for 20 years. I humbly asked if this was the same person that Jimmy knew. I leaned on one of my contacts from the forums - my newly discovered fifth cousin - in Altoona, Pennsylvania, for help. He is a high school teacher of foreign languages. He is fluent in Spanish, German (I think), French and Italian, so I e-mailed him the letter I had just written and asked him to translate it into Italian and into French. I transcribed all three versions to paper and sent it off, crossing my fingers for a response.
The first edition of the family newsletter went out, and then the second three months later. Jimmy’s sister, Mary – the eldest of Concetta’s children – and his younger brother, Ray, died within months of each other. Time slipped into 2001. I started a new job with a heavy travel schedule. The family reunion weekend came and went. The world cried on 9/11. I lost steam and the family newsletter went into limbo; 2002 slid into 2003. I never received a response to my letter to Egidio Arrigoni.
Sometime in the middle of 2003 I had begun to think about using my frequent flyer miles to take my father to Italy to visit Castel di Sangro, the Abruzzo town from where his parents had emigrated. It took some convincing, as he was unsure that his failing hands and feet could carry him through all the walking. One of his friends convinced him to go by telling him that, if he never went, he would spend the rest of his life regretting it. My two brothers, upon hearing of my plans, signed on to make the trip as well. The itinerary was firmed up: four days in Rome, four days in Castel di Sangro. The travel dates were agreed on between my two brothers and me for summer of 2004.
In December of 2003 I got an itch and I opened the genealogy research notebook for the first time in over a year. My Altoona, Pennsylvania, cousin had disappeared from the forums, his e-mail address now defunct. I felt like I was starting from scratch again. So I started over. On December 9 I searched on my own name in The Genealogy Forum. There's a page where it offers a link to "see all of this member's posts." I clicked on it and saw a list of every message I had posted to the website, and all of the follow-ups that people had posted in response to my posts.
And there, at the bottom of the page, was a response link to "Civitareale in Differdange!" It was exactly one year old, written two years after my original query. After leaping out of my chest, my heart sank. There was no way this person is still at the same e-mail. Against my better judgment I opened the message. The author claimed that he knew a Civitareale when he lived in Differdange; he had gone to school with him.
I replied personally to the posting, and discovered a .lu domain name; he still lived in Luxembourg. A few days later I received two e-mail messages from him asking why I don't respond to his e-mails. His name is Marc. I wrote to him, copy-pasting the only e-mails I got from him and explained that there must be a problem with the connections.
In subsequent e-mails Marc told me that he knew how to get in touch with the Civitareale that he grew up with, and that he would ask him about "our" Civitareale. The holidays came and went, and I figured that Marc had struck out and didn't bother to write back.
Then, on January 10, 2004 I received another message. Marc wanted to know if Jimmy stayed in Differdange. He wanted to know dates. Did my father know any other families or soldiers from the same period? I answered all of his questions to the best of my knowledge.
On January 11, 2004 he wrote again to say that he will contact the Civitareale schoolmate, and that he will also check in Hussigny, which is only about thirty miles or less from Differdange(!). At this point I was giving him every bit of information I could think of, to include the address in Hussigny that I had confirmed from Jimmy's envelope.
On January 12, 2004 Marc wrote to tell me that the Civitareale family he knows is not the one Jimmy knew. However, the father of his schoolmate knew of Tresi in Hussigny, and thought that she was still alive! By this point I was almost on fire with excitement! Then I read the next message, sent on the 13th, and he told me that he had just spoken with Tresi's daughter, Sylvaine!! She was VERY delighted to hear about my efforts to track down her mother, who was by then 83 and living in a senior center in Nancy, France. Tresi's husband, Egidio, had died in 1997, three years before I had sent the letter to him.
Then on January 14, 2004, Marc sent me a copy-pasted e-mail exchange he had with Sylvaine - all in French - where he basically told her that he had been in contact with "le fils de Jimmy," or the son of Jimmy. I couldn't tell from their exchange if she had heard of Jimmy, or that her mother had ever told of the American soldier who had helped her family. But what I could make out - and Marc told me as well - was that she was going to visit her mother the next morning, and that she would write to me directly!
A few days later Sylvaine wrote to me. She is a medical researcher and teacher in a university, and her written English is only what she’s picked up from studying medical journals, but it was enough for me to understand, and much better than my French. She told me that, indeed, her mother, Tresi, had told them the story of Jimmy, the American soldier who had gotten a letter through to her mother’s cousin in Massachusetts, and how Tresi’s parents so desperately tried to win him into their family!
Sylvaine also told me of her mother’s frailty since Egidio’s death. Tresi had never quite accepted that her husband was gone, and, seven years later, still asked her daughters where their father was.
In a subsequent e-mail Sylvaine told me that she had informed Tresi that Jimmy’s son had found her, and she told me that Tresi was thrilled to hear that Jimmy was still alive. I asked Sylvaine if Tresi was well enough to receive visitors, should my father feel up to visiting. A few days later Sylvaine informed me that not only was Tresi well enough, but she was telling everyone that Jimmy was coming to visit her! Tresi had memory problems, but she remembered Jimmy vividly!
During all of the positive correspondence to this point, I had kept quiet to Jimmy about it. I made a phone inquiry to United Airlines about scheduling a stopover. I compiled all of the e-mail correspondence between Marc and me, and between Sylvaine Arrigoni and me, and all of the JPEG files she sent to me, printed them out and bound them in a folder, and brought it to my father. The look on his face was priceless when I told him that not only was Tresi Civitareale still alive, but that I had been in direct contact with her daughter. He kept reading the pages over and over, running his fingers down the pages, looking at the photo images printed on the pages of Tresi from 1944, with her then-new husband in 1946, and shortly before Egidio’s death in 1997. Jimmy kept shaking his head in disbelief, and kicking himself for ceasing correspondence.
Tresi and Egidio, circa 1946
Fifty years later, Tresi, center, and Egidio, far right,
with her sister, Erna and her husband, far left,
and a few grandchildren.
Then I said to Jimmy, “We can easily alter our trip to Italy to make a stopover in France.” He looked at me expectantly, yet not sure what to expect. “Would you like to make a side-trip to Nancy, France, to visit Tresi?”
“Yes.” His answer came without pause or hesitation.
I notified my brothers and my wife of the altered plans. Whether they wanted to go or they didn’t, I was not going to let my father miss this opportunity.
In part 3: Reunion and Rekindling.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 1
Jimmy grew up in a poor neighborhood in the south suburbs of Chicago, the child of Italian immigrants. His father died before Jimmy reached the age of five, leaving his mother, Concetta, alone to lead her seven children into the mouth of The Great Depression. (Click on any image to see it larger.)
Jimmy's parents, Concetta and Rosario,
with their first two children, Maria and
Giovanni, circa 1919.
Jimmy spoke only in the dialect of his parents – the dialect of the people of the Abruzzo mountain region of east-central Italy – until he started in public school, where he quickly learned English. And like every boy he knew in school, he lived the hard life of poverty, and he came of age in the face of a war in lands far away that continually threatened to embroil his country.
Vincenzo (Jimmy) and his brother Giuseppe
(Joseph; known to family and friends as
"Chooch") goofing for the camera, circa 1941.
Possibly the oldest existing photo of Jimmy.
Not long after the start of his senior year in high school, Japan’s navy attacked the American ships docked sleepily at Pearl Harbor, and the fear of a nation was realized. It is perhaps that event that convinced him to continue with school and earn his diploma, a feat none of his six siblings accomplished. Shortly after graduation in 1942, Jimmy was drafted.
It was around fall of 1944, and Jimmy's unit, the 129th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, was bivouacked in and around the small village of Differdange, Luxembourg. Jimmy was assigned to the Headquarters company who were camped out in a large schoolyard which was surrounded by a heavy wrought-iron fence.
On the left, Jimmy shows off his trademark schnozzole. On the right,
he performs one of his ancillary duties in the 129th AAA Battalion and,
unbeknownst to him then, his future. Differdange, Luxembourg, circa 1944.
One day there were two attractive young women walking along the fence and Jimmy, being Jimmy, went over to talk to them. At least one of the girls spoke English very well, and French, German, Belgique, and Luxemburgie, as most Luxemburgers do. Her name was Teresa Civitareale (CHEE-vee-tah-ray-AH-lay), or Tresi for short. Her sister was Erna. Then one day, to Jimmy's surprise, he discovered that Tresi, her parents having emigrated from central Italy, also spoke Italian in Jimmy's own Abruzzese dialect! So, over time, conversing in English and Abruzzese, she told Jimmy that she had worked as a translator, which Jimmy assumed meant that she had worked for the Germans before they retreated ahead of the American advance.
The same activities went on for several days - the girls walked the fence, Jimmy talked to them for a while, and then they went on with their business. One day they came to Jimmy with a favor to ask: their uncle (mother's brother) lived in the USA, but they had not been able to get mail to him to let him know that they were still alive and healthy. They gave Jimmy their uncle's address and asked Jimmy if he would send a letter to him through the Army postal service. Jimmy said he would, so they gave him the letter, and he sent it.
Several weeks later a letter arrived from the uncle in the States, and Jimmy opened it, but it was written in Italian. The language of his parents had only been a spoken language to Jimmy. He never learned to read or write Abruzzese, let alone Italian. The next time he saw the young ladies, he gave them the letter, and they took it home to their parents.
With Jimmy's success in reaching the uncle, the Civitareale family vowed themselves forever indebted to Jimmy in their gratitude. In their eyes they could not do enough for Jimmy. Suddenly he was invited to dinner at the Civitareale home on a nightly basis, which, to a soldier who's been in the field for many months of eating meals from a can, is like a dream he doesn't want to wake up from! Jimmy accepted the invitation as often as he could get away with, and soon he felt toward the Civitareale family as he did toward his own.
The Civitareale family, 1944.
As he spent more time with them, and the closer he felt to them, the more desirous the parents became of making him a legitimate part of their family: at the end of each evening as Jimmy made to take his leave of their hospitality, the girls' father would send each of them down in turn for the opportunity to woo, or perhaps to be wooed by, Jimmy. By this point in his relationship with the family he felt toward each of the girls as he did a sister, so a pass at either of them was the farthest thing from his mind. And in Jimmy’s mind, that had to be pretty far!
Tresi Civitareale on the Avenue
Charlotte in Differdange, circa 1944.
History was recorded. The German Wehrmacht punched a hole through the American supply line which linked the 3rd Army in Bastogne, Belgium to the 1st Army in Luxembourg, and the US Army scrambled to contain them, forming what historians dubbed "The Bastogne Bulge." Soon the United States Army, and Jimmy, were on the move again, and Jimmy had to say good-bye to the Civitareale family. He promised them that he would stay in touch with them from that point on, corresponding with Tresi, despite the hardship he would face as a soldier in a global war.
Jimmy marched through Belgium and into Germany, and he wrote to Tresi. The war in Europe ended, and Jimmy was sent back west into France, from where he was shipped back home in 1946, and he wrote to Tresi. Jimmy reacquainted with a girl from the neighborhood, Mary, married her, and he wrote to Tresi. Tresi met and married Egidio Arrigoni. Mary and Jimmy brought Jim and Jo and Pam into the world, and still Jimmy corresponded with Tresi. Tresi and her husband moved from Differdange, Luxembourg, to Hussigny-Godbrange, France. Marie and Denise came into the world, and Jimmy wrote to Tresi. Dan was born and Jimmy entered barber college, and still he and Tresi traded letters. In 1959 Jimmy opened his barber shop, and he wrote to Tresi.
But Tresi didn’t write back. For a long time Jimmy didn’t hear from her. Finally, in 1961, Tresi wrote to tell Jimmy that she had been very sick and, as a suggestion by her doctor, had a second child, another daughter, in hopes, among other things, that her body would strengthen from the antibody boost having a baby would provide. However, it didn’t work, and, though the baby, Sylvaine, was healthy, Tresi was still sick, and showed no sign of recovery.
Tresi (far right) and Erna, and their respective fami-
lies in 1961. To Tresi's right is her older daughter,
Danielle; in her arms is Sylvaine.
To this day Jimmy doesn't understand why, but he never replied to Tresi's last letter. He says that he felt as though there was no point in it. They were four thousand miles apart. He had his life and his family. Tresi had hers. And now she was dying. Maybe he didn't know what to say when he learned that she was ill. Tresi never wrote again. Jimmy quietly accepted that she had died, and stoically absorbed her loss.
Jimmy's family, January 1962.
In part 2: Genealogy and Surprises!
Jimmy's parents, Concetta and Rosario,
with their first two children, Maria and
Giovanni, circa 1919.
Jimmy spoke only in the dialect of his parents – the dialect of the people of the Abruzzo mountain region of east-central Italy – until he started in public school, where he quickly learned English. And like every boy he knew in school, he lived the hard life of poverty, and he came of age in the face of a war in lands far away that continually threatened to embroil his country.
Vincenzo (Jimmy) and his brother Giuseppe
(Joseph; known to family and friends as
"Chooch") goofing for the camera, circa 1941.
Possibly the oldest existing photo of Jimmy.
Not long after the start of his senior year in high school, Japan’s navy attacked the American ships docked sleepily at Pearl Harbor, and the fear of a nation was realized. It is perhaps that event that convinced him to continue with school and earn his diploma, a feat none of his six siblings accomplished. Shortly after graduation in 1942, Jimmy was drafted.
It was around fall of 1944, and Jimmy's unit, the 129th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, was bivouacked in and around the small village of Differdange, Luxembourg. Jimmy was assigned to the Headquarters company who were camped out in a large schoolyard which was surrounded by a heavy wrought-iron fence.
On the left, Jimmy shows off his trademark schnozzole. On the right,
he performs one of his ancillary duties in the 129th AAA Battalion and,
unbeknownst to him then, his future. Differdange, Luxembourg, circa 1944.
One day there were two attractive young women walking along the fence and Jimmy, being Jimmy, went over to talk to them. At least one of the girls spoke English very well, and French, German, Belgique, and Luxemburgie, as most Luxemburgers do. Her name was Teresa Civitareale (CHEE-vee-tah-ray-AH-lay), or Tresi for short. Her sister was Erna. Then one day, to Jimmy's surprise, he discovered that Tresi, her parents having emigrated from central Italy, also spoke Italian in Jimmy's own Abruzzese dialect! So, over time, conversing in English and Abruzzese, she told Jimmy that she had worked as a translator, which Jimmy assumed meant that she had worked for the Germans before they retreated ahead of the American advance.
The same activities went on for several days - the girls walked the fence, Jimmy talked to them for a while, and then they went on with their business. One day they came to Jimmy with a favor to ask: their uncle (mother's brother) lived in the USA, but they had not been able to get mail to him to let him know that they were still alive and healthy. They gave Jimmy their uncle's address and asked Jimmy if he would send a letter to him through the Army postal service. Jimmy said he would, so they gave him the letter, and he sent it.
Several weeks later a letter arrived from the uncle in the States, and Jimmy opened it, but it was written in Italian. The language of his parents had only been a spoken language to Jimmy. He never learned to read or write Abruzzese, let alone Italian. The next time he saw the young ladies, he gave them the letter, and they took it home to their parents.
With Jimmy's success in reaching the uncle, the Civitareale family vowed themselves forever indebted to Jimmy in their gratitude. In their eyes they could not do enough for Jimmy. Suddenly he was invited to dinner at the Civitareale home on a nightly basis, which, to a soldier who's been in the field for many months of eating meals from a can, is like a dream he doesn't want to wake up from! Jimmy accepted the invitation as often as he could get away with, and soon he felt toward the Civitareale family as he did toward his own.
The Civitareale family, 1944.
As he spent more time with them, and the closer he felt to them, the more desirous the parents became of making him a legitimate part of their family: at the end of each evening as Jimmy made to take his leave of their hospitality, the girls' father would send each of them down in turn for the opportunity to woo, or perhaps to be wooed by, Jimmy. By this point in his relationship with the family he felt toward each of the girls as he did a sister, so a pass at either of them was the farthest thing from his mind. And in Jimmy’s mind, that had to be pretty far!
Tresi Civitareale on the Avenue
Charlotte in Differdange, circa 1944.
History was recorded. The German Wehrmacht punched a hole through the American supply line which linked the 3rd Army in Bastogne, Belgium to the 1st Army in Luxembourg, and the US Army scrambled to contain them, forming what historians dubbed "The Bastogne Bulge." Soon the United States Army, and Jimmy, were on the move again, and Jimmy had to say good-bye to the Civitareale family. He promised them that he would stay in touch with them from that point on, corresponding with Tresi, despite the hardship he would face as a soldier in a global war.
Jimmy marched through Belgium and into Germany, and he wrote to Tresi. The war in Europe ended, and Jimmy was sent back west into France, from where he was shipped back home in 1946, and he wrote to Tresi. Jimmy reacquainted with a girl from the neighborhood, Mary, married her, and he wrote to Tresi. Tresi met and married Egidio Arrigoni. Mary and Jimmy brought Jim and Jo and Pam into the world, and still Jimmy corresponded with Tresi. Tresi and her husband moved from Differdange, Luxembourg, to Hussigny-Godbrange, France. Marie and Denise came into the world, and Jimmy wrote to Tresi. Dan was born and Jimmy entered barber college, and still he and Tresi traded letters. In 1959 Jimmy opened his barber shop, and he wrote to Tresi.
But Tresi didn’t write back. For a long time Jimmy didn’t hear from her. Finally, in 1961, Tresi wrote to tell Jimmy that she had been very sick and, as a suggestion by her doctor, had a second child, another daughter, in hopes, among other things, that her body would strengthen from the antibody boost having a baby would provide. However, it didn’t work, and, though the baby, Sylvaine, was healthy, Tresi was still sick, and showed no sign of recovery.
Tresi (far right) and Erna, and their respective fami-
lies in 1961. To Tresi's right is her older daughter,
Danielle; in her arms is Sylvaine.
To this day Jimmy doesn't understand why, but he never replied to Tresi's last letter. He says that he felt as though there was no point in it. They were four thousand miles apart. He had his life and his family. Tresi had hers. And now she was dying. Maybe he didn't know what to say when he learned that she was ill. Tresi never wrote again. Jimmy quietly accepted that she had died, and stoically absorbed her loss.
Jimmy's family, January 1962.
In part 2: Genealogy and Surprises!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Wear Eye Bin; Dad Update
I’ve been away from this thing for a while. No earth-shattering reasons or a desire to be free from making my petty arguments and pointless observations in a public forum. The simple answer is that I was on the road.
Down Mexico Way
Now, before anyone groans with envy when I mention that I was twelve days in Cancun, let me throw cold water on that shade of green by saying first that those days were spent working for a client so dysfunctional it makes the company I work for look like the poster child for organization and employee satisfaction! Second, because of the subject of my first point, almost every last minute of each day was consumed by our combined efforts to please every last-minute whim and eleventh hour crisis of said dysfunctional client.
Over the course of the twelve days I had one day free, during which I slept in ‘til about 9:00, and lounged by the pool until daylight waned. Then two co-workers and I went into Cancun's party zone and watched the Spring Break college students attempt to drain the city of its alcohol supply. They had a little help from us, as well.
Then it was back into the fray of disorganized, ill-informed, shoot-from-the-hip, lead-by-committee decisions made and then changed at the last minute back to the original plan only to realize that neither plan was a good one. Not to mention the client lead whose fear of appearing to lack the respect of her peers and charges got in the way of performing her job effectively. Nor to mention that they seemed to forget that their staging and video crew (us!) were not automatons with no need for food or breaks or sleep. I had just enough time each evening to check e-mails and respond to only a few, and absolutely no energy to blog.
I’ve never wanted to leave paradise for the wintry climes of home so badly, despite my lonely existence!
I was originally booked to leave Cancun and fly directly to San Francisco for three more days, but upon receiving word that my father’s health has taken a decisive turn for the worse, I advised my employer to prepare to cover for me should I have to leave San Francisco suddenly to get home to the family. My employer thought it better to replace me before the start of the San Francisco leg of my trip and let me go home Sunday instead.
Being that I was responsible for carrying editing equipment from the meeting in Cancun to the convention in San Francisco, and that the better plan of getting it into the hands of my replacement came after said replacement’s flight was booked, I wound up traveling Sunday from Cancun to Dallas, where I cleared Customs and Immigration, then to San Francisco where I met my replacement at the airport and handed the editing gear to him, and then back on a plane to Chicago. I left my hotel in Cancun at 4:30am, and arrived home to my apartment around 1:00am. My day would have been so much better had I thought in time to have the other guy’s flight routed through Dallas as well. But then I may have had luggage issues. Who knows?
Dad Update
The cancer has likely spread; to where, exactly, we don’t know. The evidence of further tumor growth in his lung is in recent x-rays taken, and in my father’s complaint that he hurts everywhere. He has stopped eating and has refused his favorite snack, cheese (no, his name is NOT “Curly!”). The two youngest of my sisters, who have taken on most of the responsibility and burden of seeing to his care since he went to the hospital last March, have arranged for him to go into hospice. We’re assured that every effort will be made to keep him comfortable and free from pain. He is conscious and aware, though perpetually tired. Accordingly, he sleeps a lot.
When his doctors first assessed his lung cancer, they told us he had maybe a year. It has been that long, and it looks as if they may not have been too far off in their estimate.
When my mother passed in 1993 (an event I have not yet shared here), she went fairly quickly, displaying symptoms of a “slow-burn” cerebral hemorrhage on a Thursday, and passing away on the following Sunday morning. It’s different with my father. We’ve watched him decline slowly in his old age, especially since his neuropathies became pronounced and made his work as a barber physically difficult. It became evident last March that he had had a series of mini-strokes, and his use of his left hand and leg have slowly ebbed away.
And now, in the past two weeks, he has taken a more drastic downward turn.
In this situation I thought I could prepare myself for his final moments, knowing that his life is essentially over but for the dying. But as he enters what is truly his final countdown of weeks and days, of heartbeats and breaths, I realize the final moment will hit me as hard as if he had dropped dead an otherwise healthy man. While his eyes are open and aware, and while air still passes into and out of his lungs, it’s a damn cruel joke of human nature that I still hold hope for some sort of recovery, for I cannot bear the thought of living without him being somewhere I can visit him and talk to him and hug him and tell him that I love him.
My sister tells me that he is not quite yet at death’s door, so he may have several more months left with us. This doesn’t exactly make me feel better, either for me or for him.
I will continue to update.
Down Mexico Way
Now, before anyone groans with envy when I mention that I was twelve days in Cancun, let me throw cold water on that shade of green by saying first that those days were spent working for a client so dysfunctional it makes the company I work for look like the poster child for organization and employee satisfaction! Second, because of the subject of my first point, almost every last minute of each day was consumed by our combined efforts to please every last-minute whim and eleventh hour crisis of said dysfunctional client.
Over the course of the twelve days I had one day free, during which I slept in ‘til about 9:00, and lounged by the pool until daylight waned. Then two co-workers and I went into Cancun's party zone and watched the Spring Break college students attempt to drain the city of its alcohol supply. They had a little help from us, as well.
Then it was back into the fray of disorganized, ill-informed, shoot-from-the-hip, lead-by-committee decisions made and then changed at the last minute back to the original plan only to realize that neither plan was a good one. Not to mention the client lead whose fear of appearing to lack the respect of her peers and charges got in the way of performing her job effectively. Nor to mention that they seemed to forget that their staging and video crew (us!) were not automatons with no need for food or breaks or sleep. I had just enough time each evening to check e-mails and respond to only a few, and absolutely no energy to blog.
I’ve never wanted to leave paradise for the wintry climes of home so badly, despite my lonely existence!
I was originally booked to leave Cancun and fly directly to San Francisco for three more days, but upon receiving word that my father’s health has taken a decisive turn for the worse, I advised my employer to prepare to cover for me should I have to leave San Francisco suddenly to get home to the family. My employer thought it better to replace me before the start of the San Francisco leg of my trip and let me go home Sunday instead.
Being that I was responsible for carrying editing equipment from the meeting in Cancun to the convention in San Francisco, and that the better plan of getting it into the hands of my replacement came after said replacement’s flight was booked, I wound up traveling Sunday from Cancun to Dallas, where I cleared Customs and Immigration, then to San Francisco where I met my replacement at the airport and handed the editing gear to him, and then back on a plane to Chicago. I left my hotel in Cancun at 4:30am, and arrived home to my apartment around 1:00am. My day would have been so much better had I thought in time to have the other guy’s flight routed through Dallas as well. But then I may have had luggage issues. Who knows?
Dad Update
The cancer has likely spread; to where, exactly, we don’t know. The evidence of further tumor growth in his lung is in recent x-rays taken, and in my father’s complaint that he hurts everywhere. He has stopped eating and has refused his favorite snack, cheese (no, his name is NOT “Curly!”). The two youngest of my sisters, who have taken on most of the responsibility and burden of seeing to his care since he went to the hospital last March, have arranged for him to go into hospice. We’re assured that every effort will be made to keep him comfortable and free from pain. He is conscious and aware, though perpetually tired. Accordingly, he sleeps a lot.
When his doctors first assessed his lung cancer, they told us he had maybe a year. It has been that long, and it looks as if they may not have been too far off in their estimate.
When my mother passed in 1993 (an event I have not yet shared here), she went fairly quickly, displaying symptoms of a “slow-burn” cerebral hemorrhage on a Thursday, and passing away on the following Sunday morning. It’s different with my father. We’ve watched him decline slowly in his old age, especially since his neuropathies became pronounced and made his work as a barber physically difficult. It became evident last March that he had had a series of mini-strokes, and his use of his left hand and leg have slowly ebbed away.
And now, in the past two weeks, he has taken a more drastic downward turn.
In this situation I thought I could prepare myself for his final moments, knowing that his life is essentially over but for the dying. But as he enters what is truly his final countdown of weeks and days, of heartbeats and breaths, I realize the final moment will hit me as hard as if he had dropped dead an otherwise healthy man. While his eyes are open and aware, and while air still passes into and out of his lungs, it’s a damn cruel joke of human nature that I still hold hope for some sort of recovery, for I cannot bear the thought of living without him being somewhere I can visit him and talk to him and hug him and tell him that I love him.
My sister tells me that he is not quite yet at death’s door, so he may have several more months left with us. This doesn’t exactly make me feel better, either for me or for him.
I will continue to update.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Instinct
For being an otherwise physically uncoordinated, athletically disinclined, mental klutz, I seem to have a sharp instinct for survival – or at least for avoidance of disastrous incidents while driving.
One such notable incident occurred early in my relationship with Mrs. Farrago. We were in my old Jeep Cherokee, a reliable relic with an underpowered 4-cylinder engine that didn’t know when to quit. We were headed home on the Kennedy Expressway when we encountered a Saturday afternoon traffic jam. As I have become my father, I decided to seek an alternate route around the traffic.
We were approaching – very slowly – the Cumberland Avenue exit, and I decided to use that to get to the surface streets. I swung out in to the long exit lane leading to southbound Cumberland Avenue. I was up to about 35 or 40 mph when suddenly, not more than two car lengths ahead, another SUV swung out from the exit lane to northbound Cumberland into my lane. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!
Mrs. Farrago braced for impact. I didn’t even have time to honk my horn, which is a sworn duty of every driver in Chicago.
But, without even thinking, I cranked the steering wheel to the right (there’s a wide emergency lane in that area), and I jammed the accelerator to the floor! At that age, the Jeep did little more than let out a disgruntled moan, but it got us out of the collision. And then I cranked the wheel to the left and straightened us out.
Why did I do that? Why hit the accelerator rather than the brake? Afterward, I knew it was intentional – reaction aside – and not an instance of pressing the wrong pedal. I had turned the wheel far enough to avoid a crash, but not so far that I could roll the Cherokee. As we drove away, it all just felt to me like I had done exactly the right thing.
Then, just Monday night the snow had been falling heavily for about an hour and a half. On my way home from work I had “played” in the snow with my Xterra in 4-wheel-drive, cutting the wheel harder on turns than I normally would, giving it more gas, hitting the brakes harder to activate the anti-lock braking system, just to feel how the vehicle reacts in those conditions. That was in an empty parking lot, and on side streets where there were no other cars nearby.
I was done playing. I was practically in the home-stretch to my apartment. I was on a residential street divided by a median, the speed limit on which is 30 mph. About an inch of unplowed snow had accumulated on this street and light traffic had turned it into a hard-packed sheet of slickeriness. Ahead of me, around a blind, gentle curve, someone had poorly negotiated a left turn in the slick conditions and slid past the break in the median and off to the right side of the lane. The driver of the car behind him braked to avoid hitting this person who was then trying to back up and complete the missed left turn!
Admittedly, I was going too fast…about 25 mph. I saw the situation in front of me and I hit the brakes a little too late. The anti-lock braking system engaged, vibrating noisily under my foot and, though I was slowing, it wasn’t enough to stop me in time before I would hit the car in front of me.
This next moment came with the clarity of thought and consideration and weighing of potential consequences that normally comes after an afternoon of contemplation. I simply turned the wheel slightly left and aimed for the median, between a tree there and the rear end of the car I had only milliseconds before been bearing down upon. As I neared the curb, my only fear was that, rather than jump it, my Xterra would have merely been deflected by the curb and back into the roadway and an inevitable crash. All these thoughts in a matter of two seconds!
But my tires ate up the curb and I went onto the median. Deep snow there, deposited by snowplows in earlier snowstorms, stopped me quickly, softly, and I ended up just about directly beside the car I otherwise would have hit! My engine died, as the Xterra has a manual transmission and I had my foot on the brake until well after I had come to a stop. I don’t know if the driver of the car I had managed to avoid crashing into even realized what had happened, but if he or she did, there must have been a loud sigh of relief in that car when I was seen lodged in several feet of snow beside him/her!
The Scene: This is where the Xterra came to rest after missing everything dangerous. Note the small tree to the left.
A closer look at how deep the snow was. And in the background, the Xterra peers sheepishly from behind a sign.
Regardless, the sigh of relief in my car was enough to satisfy us both! Certain I was now stuck, I restarted the engine, put the transmission into reverse, and I felt the 4-wheel-drive move me effortlessly back into the roadway.
I wish I could think as clearly and rationally and decisively in calm moments as I seem to have done in moments of true danger. But then again, seeing as how I’m alive and my car is undamaged (except for the leftovers of this), maybe that’s thinking enough.
One such notable incident occurred early in my relationship with Mrs. Farrago. We were in my old Jeep Cherokee, a reliable relic with an underpowered 4-cylinder engine that didn’t know when to quit. We were headed home on the Kennedy Expressway when we encountered a Saturday afternoon traffic jam. As I have become my father, I decided to seek an alternate route around the traffic.
We were approaching – very slowly – the Cumberland Avenue exit, and I decided to use that to get to the surface streets. I swung out in to the long exit lane leading to southbound Cumberland Avenue. I was up to about 35 or 40 mph when suddenly, not more than two car lengths ahead, another SUV swung out from the exit lane to northbound Cumberland into my lane. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!
Mrs. Farrago braced for impact. I didn’t even have time to honk my horn, which is a sworn duty of every driver in Chicago.
But, without even thinking, I cranked the steering wheel to the right (there’s a wide emergency lane in that area), and I jammed the accelerator to the floor! At that age, the Jeep did little more than let out a disgruntled moan, but it got us out of the collision. And then I cranked the wheel to the left and straightened us out.
Why did I do that? Why hit the accelerator rather than the brake? Afterward, I knew it was intentional – reaction aside – and not an instance of pressing the wrong pedal. I had turned the wheel far enough to avoid a crash, but not so far that I could roll the Cherokee. As we drove away, it all just felt to me like I had done exactly the right thing.
Then, just Monday night the snow had been falling heavily for about an hour and a half. On my way home from work I had “played” in the snow with my Xterra in 4-wheel-drive, cutting the wheel harder on turns than I normally would, giving it more gas, hitting the brakes harder to activate the anti-lock braking system, just to feel how the vehicle reacts in those conditions. That was in an empty parking lot, and on side streets where there were no other cars nearby.
I was done playing. I was practically in the home-stretch to my apartment. I was on a residential street divided by a median, the speed limit on which is 30 mph. About an inch of unplowed snow had accumulated on this street and light traffic had turned it into a hard-packed sheet of slickeriness. Ahead of me, around a blind, gentle curve, someone had poorly negotiated a left turn in the slick conditions and slid past the break in the median and off to the right side of the lane. The driver of the car behind him braked to avoid hitting this person who was then trying to back up and complete the missed left turn!
Admittedly, I was going too fast…about 25 mph. I saw the situation in front of me and I hit the brakes a little too late. The anti-lock braking system engaged, vibrating noisily under my foot and, though I was slowing, it wasn’t enough to stop me in time before I would hit the car in front of me.
This next moment came with the clarity of thought and consideration and weighing of potential consequences that normally comes after an afternoon of contemplation. I simply turned the wheel slightly left and aimed for the median, between a tree there and the rear end of the car I had only milliseconds before been bearing down upon. As I neared the curb, my only fear was that, rather than jump it, my Xterra would have merely been deflected by the curb and back into the roadway and an inevitable crash. All these thoughts in a matter of two seconds!
But my tires ate up the curb and I went onto the median. Deep snow there, deposited by snowplows in earlier snowstorms, stopped me quickly, softly, and I ended up just about directly beside the car I otherwise would have hit! My engine died, as the Xterra has a manual transmission and I had my foot on the brake until well after I had come to a stop. I don’t know if the driver of the car I had managed to avoid crashing into even realized what had happened, but if he or she did, there must have been a loud sigh of relief in that car when I was seen lodged in several feet of snow beside him/her!
The Scene: This is where the Xterra came to rest after missing everything dangerous. Note the small tree to the left.
A closer look at how deep the snow was. And in the background, the Xterra peers sheepishly from behind a sign.
Regardless, the sigh of relief in my car was enough to satisfy us both! Certain I was now stuck, I restarted the engine, put the transmission into reverse, and I felt the 4-wheel-drive move me effortlessly back into the roadway.
I wish I could think as clearly and rationally and decisively in calm moments as I seem to have done in moments of true danger. But then again, seeing as how I’m alive and my car is undamaged (except for the leftovers of this), maybe that’s thinking enough.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
A Matter of Suspense
I signed up for Netflix last week. It’s a two-week trial, but I know I’ll keep it. When I was married (still am, technically) we lost the desire to go to see movies. What’s the point of spending twenty bucks on tickets and getting raped for what amounts to a scoop of popcorn and two cups of bubble-y sugar water, only to sit in a room full of rude, noisy people who can’t shut up when the actors are talking?
And then, while we had the time and energy to sit and stare at the TV set, we didn’t want to set our favorite shows aside to watch movies. At least not that often.
But now I’m in a determined effort to catch up on seven years of missed movies!
And that brings up what I’ve been thinking about for the past few days, probably the most important element to making a successful book or film or television show: the suspension of disbelief.
People have been writing fiction and other people have been lapping it up since the first ink was set to papyrus in the Old Testament, and beyond. What magic it is that a skilled wordsmith can use the same letters as you and I, the same words in our collective vocabulary, and spin a tale to make our hearts race or our hair stand on end, or bring us to the heights of laughter or the depths of sorrow!
We’ve all been there; anyone who can read has read, and has experienced a world of sensations beyond anything we’ve done, yet entirely contained within our brains!
I’ve never watched the action-adventure serial 24 on television. I’ve only experienced the program at my whim via DVD player. I know the people I see on the screen are merely highly paid actors following a script. I know that the setting is a mocked up room within a much larger room, and that none of the computers or phones are hooked up to anything beyond the walls and in the real world. I know that the scenarios presented to me are the products of a group of very active and clever imaginations and, further, stretch the boundaries of plausibility. And yet, the story that script tells the actors to tell, the scenarios in which the characters find themselves, grab me by the throat and pull me in! The program can be addictive, and I will sometimes sit and watch four episodes back to back! On a school night!!
At what point in the expository scenes do we accept the terms of the tale? What determines the breaking point where an implausibility is ignored or is dwelled upon, where the story is moved along or it is ruined for us?
As an aspiring writer I find fascinating the challenge to imagine a scenario that is interesting enough, and to string together the right combination of words in the right order to bring a reader into my story and ignore its flaws and stretches and fantasies, and to BELIEVE. And to stay to the end.
May I someday meet that challenge.
And then, while we had the time and energy to sit and stare at the TV set, we didn’t want to set our favorite shows aside to watch movies. At least not that often.
But now I’m in a determined effort to catch up on seven years of missed movies!
And that brings up what I’ve been thinking about for the past few days, probably the most important element to making a successful book or film or television show: the suspension of disbelief.
People have been writing fiction and other people have been lapping it up since the first ink was set to papyrus in the Old Testament, and beyond. What magic it is that a skilled wordsmith can use the same letters as you and I, the same words in our collective vocabulary, and spin a tale to make our hearts race or our hair stand on end, or bring us to the heights of laughter or the depths of sorrow!
We’ve all been there; anyone who can read has read, and has experienced a world of sensations beyond anything we’ve done, yet entirely contained within our brains!
I’ve never watched the action-adventure serial 24 on television. I’ve only experienced the program at my whim via DVD player. I know the people I see on the screen are merely highly paid actors following a script. I know that the setting is a mocked up room within a much larger room, and that none of the computers or phones are hooked up to anything beyond the walls and in the real world. I know that the scenarios presented to me are the products of a group of very active and clever imaginations and, further, stretch the boundaries of plausibility. And yet, the story that script tells the actors to tell, the scenarios in which the characters find themselves, grab me by the throat and pull me in! The program can be addictive, and I will sometimes sit and watch four episodes back to back! On a school night!!
At what point in the expository scenes do we accept the terms of the tale? What determines the breaking point where an implausibility is ignored or is dwelled upon, where the story is moved along or it is ruined for us?
As an aspiring writer I find fascinating the challenge to imagine a scenario that is interesting enough, and to string together the right combination of words in the right order to bring a reader into my story and ignore its flaws and stretches and fantasies, and to BELIEVE. And to stay to the end.
May I someday meet that challenge.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Celebrities, Infarctions, S.W.A.T. Update & How To Lose Respect In 10 Seconds
Well, I haven’t written much lately. No excuse, really. Just haven’t had much to say…or at least haven’t felt like saying anything.
I spent five of the last seven days in San Francisco, as my company produced our largest convention of the year. I almost sorta got to meet Jay Leno, who was the day one “keynote speaker,” listed in the convention program as “Inspirational Speaker.” He simply did about 35 minutes of standup (and pretty damn funny, too!), and then about 5 minutes of “inspirational” speak, telling the audience that he loves them and what they do for America. Then he was off the stage, down the stairs and, WOOSH! out to his limo and gone! HiJaybyeJay! (passing breeze and loose papers blown erratically in the air). I took photos of him, as part of my job. I was within 10 feet of him for about 5 minutes. I might have even gotten some of his spit on me from his fevered banter. On Sunday Bob Woodruff, the ABC News anchor who got blown up in Iraq, spoke, along with his wife. Monday’s keynote was Tom Brokaw. I didn’t get to meet any of them, though I did speak to Woodruff, asking him if he was okay with me taking flash photos of him backstage. I wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to trigger an epileptic seizure or a brain short-circuit or something. He said “Sure.” That was it. Othernat, I got bupkis.
One of my co-workers had a mild heart attack on the last day of show, about 30 minutes before the final meeting started. He’s only 55, and has had a heart attack before. He knew the symptoms, knew it was most likely a heart attack, and the goofball wouldn’t let anybody call 911. Instead he had another co-worker take him to the hospital in our rented minivan. Yay Hertz! He’s “okay,” now. The doctors put a stent (SP?) in his heart (I’m guessing here), and I heard he was allowed to go home, back to the Midwest, today. Lots of rest, and perhaps bypass surgery in his future.
I finally got an update today on what the hell happened at my apartment complex last week, as detailed in my prior post. The police department wouldn’t let me look at a police report, but an officer familiar with the case did come out and tell me “what he could” about the case. Apparently an adult couple, in an apartment in the building next to mine, were suspected of growing marijuana in their place. The cops stormed their apartment, found several potted (no pun intended) plants and a pistol. The pot was… well… there, and the pistol was off to one side, with no one near it when the cops went in. The S.W.A.T. team – or whatever they were – was there just in case there was resistance…and just to put the scare in innocent bystanders who happened to blunder into their little cat and mouse game....
= = = = = = = = = =
What do you do when, all of a sudden, in one quick moment, you lose respect for someone? On our last night in San Francisco two of my coworkers and I went out with a former coworker who now lives and works in San Francisco. He’s young, tall, athletic and damnably good looking. He’s also a player. One of the coworkers out with us that night is a young, very attractive woman who is engaged to be married. I had warned her about this guy when she was about to go to one of our past conventions for which this young man had been hired by us as a contractor, but she pooh-poohed it. As a necessary part of the job, they had exchanged mobile phone numbers, and after the job was over he would – and still does – call her occasionally. On this night in San Francisco we went to dinner and then he led us around to a few places he knows, and we all had plenty to drink.
We were all buzzing pretty well when we went to a bar where there was some pretty severe club music playing, and a very crowded dance floor. After a few minutes both the young ones had disappeared. My other coworker and I, a decade or two too old for the crowd in which we found ourselves, decided it was time to go. I told him I would let the others know we were throwing in the towel.
I walked onto the dance floor and found them. She had her arms in the air, arching her back while he had his arms around her waist and, crotch to crotch, was literally dry-humping her to the beat of the music. I told them we were leaving, turned and left. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I couldn’t believe that she would do that, that she would let him do that. I’m actually heartbroken.
I tried to blame it on alcohol, but that didn’t work. We were all buzzing pretty good. I’m a lightweight when it comes to drinking, so I’m sure I was feeling it as much as – if not more than – the others, and I wasn’t dry-humping her – or anyone, or anything, for that matter. Am I jealous? Sure, I’ll admit to that…or to envy. My former coworker has been genetically blessed with everything women find appealing before they ever meet him, and he gets way more than his share of attention in that arena. She’s off-limits, yet he focused his attention on her. And she ate it up.
He later told my other, aged coworker, “nothing happened.” Well, maybe there was nothing beyond the dance floor, but THAT happened! Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but if I’m standing there in a crowded room grinding my stuff against a beautiful woman’s stuff (not like it’s ever happened, mind you, but IF!), number one I’m thinking I’ve made a tremendous breakthrough, and number two I’m thinking this has serious potential to continue on another horizontal surface somewhere more intimate and private. And I have to believe that a woman feels the same way in that situation.
I had lost respect for him long ago for other things as well as his player’s game. But, for me, she fell from grace in that moment. I work with her almost every day, and I can’t even look her in the eye.
So… what do you do?
I spent five of the last seven days in San Francisco, as my company produced our largest convention of the year. I almost sorta got to meet Jay Leno, who was the day one “keynote speaker,” listed in the convention program as “Inspirational Speaker.” He simply did about 35 minutes of standup (and pretty damn funny, too!), and then about 5 minutes of “inspirational” speak, telling the audience that he loves them and what they do for America. Then he was off the stage, down the stairs and, WOOSH! out to his limo and gone! HiJaybyeJay! (passing breeze and loose papers blown erratically in the air). I took photos of him, as part of my job. I was within 10 feet of him for about 5 minutes. I might have even gotten some of his spit on me from his fevered banter. On Sunday Bob Woodruff, the ABC News anchor who got blown up in Iraq, spoke, along with his wife. Monday’s keynote was Tom Brokaw. I didn’t get to meet any of them, though I did speak to Woodruff, asking him if he was okay with me taking flash photos of him backstage. I wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to trigger an epileptic seizure or a brain short-circuit or something. He said “Sure.” That was it. Othernat, I got bupkis.
One of my co-workers had a mild heart attack on the last day of show, about 30 minutes before the final meeting started. He’s only 55, and has had a heart attack before. He knew the symptoms, knew it was most likely a heart attack, and the goofball wouldn’t let anybody call 911. Instead he had another co-worker take him to the hospital in our rented minivan. Yay Hertz! He’s “okay,” now. The doctors put a stent (SP?) in his heart (I’m guessing here), and I heard he was allowed to go home, back to the Midwest, today. Lots of rest, and perhaps bypass surgery in his future.
I finally got an update today on what the hell happened at my apartment complex last week, as detailed in my prior post. The police department wouldn’t let me look at a police report, but an officer familiar with the case did come out and tell me “what he could” about the case. Apparently an adult couple, in an apartment in the building next to mine, were suspected of growing marijuana in their place. The cops stormed their apartment, found several potted (no pun intended) plants and a pistol. The pot was… well… there, and the pistol was off to one side, with no one near it when the cops went in. The S.W.A.T. team – or whatever they were – was there just in case there was resistance…and just to put the scare in innocent bystanders who happened to blunder into their little cat and mouse game....
= = = = = = = = = =
What do you do when, all of a sudden, in one quick moment, you lose respect for someone? On our last night in San Francisco two of my coworkers and I went out with a former coworker who now lives and works in San Francisco. He’s young, tall, athletic and damnably good looking. He’s also a player. One of the coworkers out with us that night is a young, very attractive woman who is engaged to be married. I had warned her about this guy when she was about to go to one of our past conventions for which this young man had been hired by us as a contractor, but she pooh-poohed it. As a necessary part of the job, they had exchanged mobile phone numbers, and after the job was over he would – and still does – call her occasionally. On this night in San Francisco we went to dinner and then he led us around to a few places he knows, and we all had plenty to drink.
We were all buzzing pretty well when we went to a bar where there was some pretty severe club music playing, and a very crowded dance floor. After a few minutes both the young ones had disappeared. My other coworker and I, a decade or two too old for the crowd in which we found ourselves, decided it was time to go. I told him I would let the others know we were throwing in the towel.
I walked onto the dance floor and found them. She had her arms in the air, arching her back while he had his arms around her waist and, crotch to crotch, was literally dry-humping her to the beat of the music. I told them we were leaving, turned and left. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I couldn’t believe that she would do that, that she would let him do that. I’m actually heartbroken.
I tried to blame it on alcohol, but that didn’t work. We were all buzzing pretty good. I’m a lightweight when it comes to drinking, so I’m sure I was feeling it as much as – if not more than – the others, and I wasn’t dry-humping her – or anyone, or anything, for that matter. Am I jealous? Sure, I’ll admit to that…or to envy. My former coworker has been genetically blessed with everything women find appealing before they ever meet him, and he gets way more than his share of attention in that arena. She’s off-limits, yet he focused his attention on her. And she ate it up.
He later told my other, aged coworker, “nothing happened.” Well, maybe there was nothing beyond the dance floor, but THAT happened! Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but if I’m standing there in a crowded room grinding my stuff against a beautiful woman’s stuff (not like it’s ever happened, mind you, but IF!), number one I’m thinking I’ve made a tremendous breakthrough, and number two I’m thinking this has serious potential to continue on another horizontal surface somewhere more intimate and private. And I have to believe that a woman feels the same way in that situation.
I had lost respect for him long ago for other things as well as his player’s game. But, for me, she fell from grace in that moment. I work with her almost every day, and I can’t even look her in the eye.
So… what do you do?
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