Taking Back Sunday: Remembrances of Love, Life, Loss and Grief

By Phil Fields

Losing his wife to breast cancer after 50 years of marriage, forces Phil to seek an answer to a question. Did he and his wife Terry have a real marriage, or was it more of a charade? Did they endure all those years together in quiet desperation, or was it as a friend once said, "You and Terry had a 50 year love affair and never knew it."

Travel with Phil and his family as they ride over roads that were straight, narrow with sharp curves, and at other times unpaved with potholes and detours.

Phil candidly shares the personal joys and sorrows of his life with Terry in an attempt to relinquish his own feeling of guilt, remorse, and loneliness. Taking Back Sunday is his permission slip to let go just as he gave the same permission slip to his wife moments before her death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503549210

Phil Fields

Phil Fields is a native New Yorker who holds a B.A. in Political Science and History from Kent State University in Ohio, and a Master's in Education from the University of New York. He moved to California in 1957, after serving a 2-year stint in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In 1961, he met his wife Terry, and together they had 3 children, and 2 grandchildren. Married for 50 years, Terry lost her battle to cancer and passed away in 2012. Phil still lives in their Southern California home that holds so many memories. He continues spending time with his grandchildren, tending to his wife's rose garden, and exercising at the YMCA. He hopes to live long enough to see his beloved Dodgers win another World Series.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Phil Fields.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5035-4922-7

                eBook           978-1-5035-4921-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/12/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

706805

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

I COULD WRITE A PREFACE

IN-US-O-LATION

BLAME IT ON DAVE

THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY

HAWAIIAN DELICACY

A WEDDING FOR STARTERS

ON CRYING, ON LAUGHING, ON LOVING

BEFORE THE BRUSH & ROLLER

I’M ONLY A PAINTER

THE THREE FACES OF ME

PHILLY – THE GODFATHER

PHILIP DESERVED

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO TERRY

A MEASURE OF SUCCESS

NEVER BEFORE DARK

THE SAVER AND THE SAVED

WASHING CLOTHES 101

HER HAIR AFFAIR

PAUL – A LIFE NOT LIVED

NATURALLY ADAM

HALLOWEEN IN JULY

ON ADAM

FROM ASHES TO ASHES

WORDS AND MUSIC I

WORDS AND MUSIC II

NAKED AND ALONE WE COME INTO EXILE

OUR EXILE

IT COULD BE WORSE

EXILE ALIVE

PETER COMES, THE POOL GOES

PETER GOES A FULL NINE

DOING BY NOT HAVING DONE

FOOD FOR THOUGHT ONLY

HER TRAIN OF THOUGHT

DOING THE TWIST

HE MADE THE PIECES FIT, DIDN’T HE…

GOING SOLAR

HE HAD HIGH HOPES – OOPS!

IT’S GOTTA BE HIM

PRESERVING MY UNION

BE CAREFUL WITH WHAT YOU ASK FOR

TEMPTING THE FATES

SETTING THE TIMER AHEAD

FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY

BOYS YES, KATHY NO

TAIL WAGGING THE DOG

REACH NOT, GRAB NOT

PAY ME NOW OR PAY ME LATER…

THE PAY-OFF WINDOW

THE WAY WE WERE

ON THE EDGE

CHICAGO, NOT HER KIND OF TOWN

HITTING THE BOTTOM

MOTHER – DAUGHTER

THE WAY UP

PORTRAITS NOT THE SAME

SHOW AND TELL

ADVANTAGE KATHY

MY TWO GIRLS

THE HONEYS BY ANY OTHER NAME

BORN TO TALK

PHONE-ETICS AND BY ACCIDENT

NO, MR. WATSON

EMOTION HIGH WILL FIND YOU

ON TATTOOS AND MARRIAGE – RENEWAL AND RE-AFFIRMATION

THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

DO I HAVE ENOUGH TIME?

THE CAR THAT WASN’T

AT MY BACK

DRESSING UP TO DRESSING DOWN

MORE THAN A VILLAGE

LOCATION, LOCATION BE DAMNED

THE DOG DAYS OF THE FOUR SEASONS

I SAVE THELMA – KATHY SAVES ME

COST EFFECTIVE EDUCATION

MATH-OL-OGY FOR MARRIAGE

PROCURER RENAMED

LEXI COME LATELY

THE PRINCESS WORE NO CLOTHES

THIS OLD HOUSE

MONEY MANAGEMENT 101

HER CARTE’ BLANCHE

ON SUITS AND LADDERS

ON SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

TAKING A CHANCE…ON…

THE BENEFACTORS

COME OVER FOR DINNER

ON THE SEESAW

A TALE OF TWO LAUNDRIES

DRESSING

WITHOUT THE FASTBALL

TERRY AT OUR BEST

WITHOUT THE SEVEN VEILS

CANCER CAN WAIT

POST MORTEM

TERRY GOES TIPSY

FANS COOL PEOPLE

FAN-ATIC II

FAN-ATIC LIVES ON

SPRINGTIME IN PARIS

LOST AND FOUND

THE PHILLY CALL

DOING THE TWIST

THE HERO WHO WASN’T

ROMANCE AND REVIEW

OUR CAVALCADE OF CARS

TEACHING THE TEACHER

PUSHING THE INTEGRA

OLDS IN THE FAMILY

ON NOT GOING THERE

IN PLAIN VIEW

RESTAURANTS A LA CARTE

HER SET OF SIX AND MORE

FOOD FOR THOUGHT AND…

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH

A HOUSE WITH A VIEW

CRANING IT

THE ANATOMY OF SEPARATION

WHEN IS – IS

HER PERFECT MOMENT

AT THE DRAWING BOARD

BY DESIGN

THE DRACONIAN DRAGON

THROUGH, OVER AND OUT

JACK-ASS ON JACK HAMMER

YOU DIRTY RAT, YOU

A FEW GOOD MEN

IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND

BY-PASS SURGERY

WILL THE REAL SMOKER PLEASE STAND UP

BY A NOSE

AN ACT OF GOD

A BLANKET FOR ALL SEASONS

LEFT PETRIFIED

FOOD FOR GENERATIONS

BEING BI-CULINARY

PERSPIRATION IN RECREATION

WHAT’S COOKING, NANA?

CARMEN IS COMING

IT’S BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE

EXPIRATION AND EXASPERATION

ON THE LEASH LOOSELY

SO EASY TO REMEMBER AND SO HARD…

A THOUSAND CUTS

COME FLY WITH ME

CAMOUFLAGE TWO-RETIRE-MEANT

OVER AND OUT

THE FAMILIES PULL IT OFF

SMILE WHEN YOUR HEART IS BREAKING

WE SHOULD HAVE ASKED

ON DEATH AND TAXES

TAXES CAN BE TAXING

WOMAN TO WOMAN – EMPATHY OR BETRAYAL?

IN THE MIDDLE GROUND

GAMES WITHOUT LOSERS

THE REAL PITCHMAN

WATTS ABOUT IT

SAVE THE LAST ONE FOR ME

IT WAS HER CALL

COSTCO FOR CASKETS

A ROAD NOT TRAVELED – A LAMENTATION

HELP WANTED

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

THE CAR

THE CHIMING CLOCK

RUNNING ON EMPTY

PLAY ONE MORE FOR ME

THE LAST TIME I MADE HER CRY

CAREGIVER, CARE GIVER, CARE-GIVER

CALL WAITING

EPILOGUE

FROM THE MOUTH OF TERRY TO PHILLY…

To my wife of 50 years

Your feathery light touch on a piano keyboard was the very same light touch you effectively used in elevating me, in challenging me, inspiring me, and deftly diminishing me. Sometimes you could even strike a lofty note in loving me.

If by chance, you are critically looking down from up above, or from wherever, I hope you will not judge this book too harshly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to my typist, Jeanie K., who built the chassis of this book from over 400 hand-written pages, and to my editor, Nancy M, who put the engine in the chassis and made it run smoothly. In addition, I’d like to thank Catharine R., who gave this vehicle a face.

And, to those in my immediate and extended families who gave me no encouragement to go forward with this book, and who will have issues with how they were depicted, I say thank you.

PROLOGUE

Taking Back Sunday is free-spirited and free-flowing. In many respects a stream of consciousness that contributes to a lack of coherence and order. I went to the place my feelings took me. My wife, a college professor, would probably give me a passing grade for organization – but just barely!

I never intended to write the book for the reader to smoothly transition from A to B. It is not tied together as a tidy bundle. It has many loose strands that are often times left hanging. Being able to pilot your way successfully from one subtitle to the next may be a test of mental acuity, and mental gymnastics.

If my wife were seated at the dinette table in what became her reserved chair, she could very likely be balancing my check book off by a seismic single penny.

Or, she could be beside me in the passenger seat of the car constantly reminding me that I made a wrong turn, and that I never knew where I was going. Meanwhile, she would be wrapping herself snugly in the gray blanket that we keep in the car because I like to drive with the windows open, or the air conditioner on.

Perhaps she could be found in the kitchen leaning over a cutting board preparing all of the ingredients to make a smoothie, while under the watchful eye of our granddaughter.

If only I could will it so; then there would be no reason for Taking Back Sunday.

I COULD WRITE A PREFACE

If they asked me, I would write a book. But they didn’t ask me, so I am going to do it regardless of not hearing a chorus of voices urging me to go forward. Furthermore, I seriously doubt whether they asked the apostles to write the gospels according to Mark and Matthew. Or, if Margaret Mitchell was recruited to write Gone with the Wind, and then select Clark Gable to play the role of Rhett Butler. So why should I be held to a higher standard? Besides, I have never been able to determine the identity of the generic word they.

Throughout this book, I took the liberty of borrowing some song titles and verses from The Great American Songbook, changing a word here and there whenever it served my purpose.

The songs, and the artists who sang them, are what my wife Terry and I enjoyed listening to together. We would even challenge one another to come up with an appropriate song to capture the moment. These popular songs from another time, our time, are sprinkled throughout this book.

IN-US-O-LATION

Repetition, unlike imitation, is not the highest form of flattery. If I have gone before, to where I am about to go, it is because the repetition is important to the flow of the narrative. This book is free flowing with no sequential pattern. It’s not written as a reference book, nor is it meant to be neat and tidy. I say this as I felt our family was not modeled after the Brady Bunch.

Now it’s time to talk about our isolation from the pack.

BLAME IT ON DAVE

My friend Dave was born with a structural spinal defect that made him a smaller version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was short in stature and had an oversized head. Some people found him grotesque, while others were more attracted to his great wit and intellect. Dave attended prestigious Cal Tech on a scholarship from high school, however, his degree did not come from Cal Tech. For personal reasons, he chose to attend another college. Dave became a special education teacher in the Los Angeles County School District, but I never found out why. He chose not to discuss it.

I was hired on a provisional credential by the Los Angeles County School District to teach English and American history, and Dave had already been working there for 2 years.

We hit it off well and soon became good friends. After struggling in the trenches my first year, (barely surviving unlike 6 of my fallen comrades) Dave was very upbeat after learning he was about to be relieved of his combat duty with a transfer to a junior high school in Anaheim.

We still managed to stay in touch and get together for a beer a few times a month.

At the start of the new school year, I jokingly asked my friend to be on the look-out for a young, attractive teacher. Dave took me seriously. That is how I came to meet the future Mrs. Fields.

At the beginning of the fall semester, Dave convinced me to drive from Los Angeles (in heavy Friday afternoon traffic) to the Kettle Cocktail Lounge in Anaheim where the math department congregated after a hectic work week. I looked through a sea of faces before spotting Dave at the bar. He was engaged in a lively conversation with a young lady who must have been one of the newly hired math and science teachers. He and the attractive blonde were sipping on a frothy tall one.

There were 3 equally young attractive gals at the bar who appeared to be fresh out of college. Before making an entrance, I looked over the field, but not in the same manner as when I wore a baseball glove on my right hand!

One of the young ladies stood out. She looked uncomfortable and completely out of place, like she didn’t belong in a cocktail lounge. She kept re-positioning herself on the bar stool, squirming from side to side. She also kept re-arranging her feet on the bar stool railing, unable to decide whether to toe it, or to heel it. If that weren’t enough, she had an issue finding a comfort zone with her elbows and forearms. I was pretty sure that the drink that sat before her was not a Bloody Mary, but merely tomato juice on the rocks.

I noticed that she had the most beautiful jet black hair that I had ever seen. It was not long and flowing over her shoulders and down her back, it was tightly knit and alive with natural waves, defying any strong breeze to ruffle even a single strand.

I had my share of women who would be very comfortable sitting on a bar stool who knew exactly what to do with their feet and elbows. Their drinks were poured by the bartender from an array of bottles in front of them, and they rarely had to pay for a drink. Moreover, I didn’t have to drive 25 miles away to find them.

For the next few Fridays, I faithfully made the long drive to the Kettle Lounge to sit beside the girl with the tomato juice drink and beautiful hair. I tried to engage her in small talk, but all I could get for my efforts was, It’s you again. She asked if she was the only girl at the bar, and I told her that as far as I was concerned, the other bar stools were all empty.

A few Fridays later, she surprisingly accepted my offer to refill her drink. Of course it was tomato juice on the rocks! I didn’t dare ask her if she preferred Libby’s or Del Monte. When I called her Terry and asked her to call me Phil, she seemed quite surprised that I knew her name, however, when she saw me talking to Dave she made the connection.

The following Friday, I sang her a few bars from I Can’t Get Started With You – the one liner, and I Can’t Get No Place with You. She told me that it was grammatically incorrect.

I finally decided that I needed to do something bolder to break through the ice. I had concluded that without Terry’s home phone number I would remain marooned on the ice. I needed my friend Dave’s help. He had access to all the files in the main office, including the teacher data cards. Access to, and authorization to snoop, are not synonymous.

I can’t take the chance, Dave said in a tortured, conflicted voice. I could lose my job and have to go back to LA. He could find humor in everything.

Dave, I just need you to do this for me – a small favor for a friend.

Her phone number was easy to remember. It ended in 3 fours. I involved Dave one last time – and that was to tell Terry that I was a wonderful man. What else can one do but lie for a friend? Nine months later we were married.

Terry’s first display of gut emotion was the time she smashed a perfectly good bottle of Jack Daniels in my kitchen sink which sent particles of glass flying into the living room. She had gone down this road before with her father Peter, who unlike me, could not hold his liquor. The kitchen sink at their home in Chicago was also victimized by a display of Terry’s rage.

I remember an episode on the television show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, when Larry David attended a Jewish wedding. The groom, in keeping with Jewish traditions, stomps on a glass as a reminder of the fragility of most marriages. Terry shattering my bottle of bourbon may very well have been portentous of how fragile our marriage would become. Terry came into our marriage from the morning side of the mountain and I came from the twilight side of the hill. If she were asked to describe the prototype man her father would absolutely reject, that man would be me. I had all the physical, ethnic, and social characteristics that made me a persona non grata.

Dave’s life tragically ended a year or so after serving as the best man in our wedding. This could very well be ammunition for those who believe in pre-destination. After trying unsuccessfully to reach Dave by phone for a couple of hours, I had a premonition that all was not well with my friend. I thought that Dave may be walking the Huntington Beach pier where he had taken refuge so many other times when he was troubled. Sure enough, there was Dave sitting on a long bench with no one else in sight. The pier was bathed in moonlight, a great place that night for lovers to meander. As I approached him, I saw that unmistakable look of despair and anguish on this face. When he saw me, he quickly stood up and leaned against the railing of the pier. Dave was trying to conceal the revolver he had tucked in his belt. He did not intend to take target practice on the sea gulls flying overhead.

Fortunately, I was able to coax him to hand the revolver over to me – my best pitch ever. I disposed of the revolver in the ocean and watched it disappear into the crashing waves. I had given him a short lease on life.

Dave lived until late August. His wife Wilma was driving their Volkswagen Bug returning from visiting her parent’s farm on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dave was asleep in the back seat when Wilma hit a soft shoulder in the road causing the poorly balanced rear engine car to spin out of control and turned over. Dave was thrown out of the door onto the hard pavement, and suffered a broken neck. The coroner said he must have died instantly. Wilma emerged with only a few abrasions and a feeling of deep guilt.

Long after Dave’s death, I would cringe whenever I heard Get Your Kicks On Route 66. That historic highway is now only a tourist attraction.

THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY

Terry would have done far better without a window seat on our honeymoon flight to Hawaii. She had an unobstructed view of the propellers whirling around belching smoke and what appeared to be flames. We had not gotten into a discussion of clockwise and counter-clockwise. That would have been a welcomed diversion. She was far more uneasy than I was. My experiences in the military made my level of tolerance superior to hers. We landed safely in Honolulu on Transcontinental flight 41. That was not to be interpreted to mean that the airline had successfully completed forty flights before ours. The ticket stubs are still in our scrapbook.

HAWAIIAN DELICACY

In the 18,000 days of our marriage we could not bring ourselves near, much less eat, a bowl of cooked cereal which reminded us of Poi. Anything totally repellent to your sense of taste could be slipped under the table for the hungry dogs. There was no table and no dogs.

Poi is a Polynesian delicacy in Hawaii, made from the root of a taro plant, ground into a thick paste, and eaten as finger food. Terry and I were treated to this island delicacy at a luau by our gracious hosts, the Chings’. Koon Yoy was my college roommate for 2 years.

A WEDDING FOR STARTERS

Scheduling our wedding to coincide with the last day of the school year took masterful planning, and gave us both little time to reconsider.

I was hopeful that Terry would show up at St. Phillip Beneze Catholic Church in North Orange County on time. In our short courtship, I had become accustomed to her setting her own clock.

Aside from the iron fist she brought down on my Jack Daniels bottle, the only condition Terry demanded was that I receive religious instructions on Catholicism. She wanted to be married in the church. She was making life-altering changes; risking much more than I was risking. Marrying a man 10 years her senior, who just 9 months prior was living with a married woman and a Jack Daniels bottle, made for a risky replacement from her closely-knit family.

Father Keenan was an old transplanted Bostonian who pronounced all his r’s the same way President Kennedy did. He was very charming and disarming – not at all what I expected. He broke down my resistance when our conversations spilled over to his beloved Red Sox and the curse of the babe, familiar to every die-hard Red Sox fan.

For me, Father Keenan became the face of the Catholic Church; but not the body that was revealed years later with the scandals involving the priesthood that shook the church to its foundation.

At the beginning, I intended to uphold my promise to Terry to take religious instruction in Catholicism to pave the way for a ceremony in the church. I made no commitment to even listen to what was taught. However, based upon the strength of his personality and conviction, I became a student. He gave me a short exposure to Catholic liturgy and the Seven Sacraments of the church. He did this without being doctrinaire or overbearing.

A Catholic priest and a Secular Jew found out that they had much to talk freely about – an unholy alliance. Father Keenan was, and is, the only priest with whom I interacted. Many of my mischaracterizations of the church came under scrutiny. I shared my experiences with one church and its parishioners in a small upstate New York town. Prejudice and open hostility to Jews were legion. Father Keenan was not in the conversion business. Had that been the case, I would have turned him off as fast as I tear up credit cards in my mail box.

Terry’s sister Maria was a nun. She became disenchanted with the Catholic church and discarded her habit. Shortly thereafter, Terry also cut her ties with the church. She had no religious affiliation until the later years of her life. Our son Adam’s brief position as Pastor brought Terry back to church for as long as his tenure continued. The last 10 years of her life made her active in church again.

It was very ironic that I was introduced to Catholicism before marriage and was helped by her favorite minister at Vineyard church to get through my long presentation at Terry’s memorial service.

ON CRYING, ON LAUGHING, ON LOVING

I don’t think I knew how to cry until you came into my life, she said. Sounds like an indictment on the face of it – but not so.

She also said that I taught her how to feel and