We Celebrate Our Mother and Father

By Joseph Patrick Meissner, Brian Gerard Meissner, Rose Elizabeth Meissner Vernon and 2 more

“Honor thy father and thy mother.” This is the fourth commandment from the ten God gave us through Moses in the Bible. This fourth follows the initial three signifying our duties to the Supreme Being. After God, our next obligation is to our parents. This shows the importance of parents. Notice the word is “honor.” It does not say “obey”; but “honor” certainly includes “obedience.”

Furthermore, this commandment does not end when we each reach maturity. The commandment of honor signifies we must respect our parents all their lives. Our mother was Norah Attracta Cusack. Our father was Joseph Charles Meissner. By the usual social standards, they were very ordinary people on this planet. However, they possessed their own wonderful beauty and intelligence. They were most extraordinary parents who welcomed us to life, took care of our needs, ensured we received great educations, and devoted their lives unselfishly to us for decades. But they gave us much more than our mere bodies. They gave us faith, hope, and love during their long lives. They showed us how to live as God urges us to live. They continuously nourished us spiritually from our mother’s nightly “demands” to kneel in the living room praying the rosary to our Blessed Virgin to our father who drove us even in the blinding snow, freezing cold, and storms to church every week, ensuring we arrived on time. Here are words from my brother Robert for our parents: “As for our son, Scott, [who suffering from severe PTSD, ended his life], I agree he is somewhere around and still present in the universe. So are our mom and dad. I think after we die, we will learn how all this is done—you know Mom and Dad are the greatest proof of God, religion, and an afterlife. They were so good and worked tirelessly for our family. If you asked them about religion, the church, and faith, they might say it really doesn’t matter, except you treat your fellow human beings with dignity and acknowledge God as Father. The rest of the argument really doesn’t mean that much.” So to Mom and Dad, we celebrate your lives and say an enormous thank-you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546251590

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© 2018 Joseph Patrick Kevin Meissner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/09/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5157-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5158-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5159-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018908295

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CONTENTS

Thank You

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Beginning Years: 1902 to 1920

Story 1: Opening Words About Our Father and Mother

Story 2: We need you in the fields! Not in school!

Story 3: Robert’s Summary View about the early and late life of our parents

Story 4: Just the facts, Mam; and accompanying statistics of Dad’s family

Story 5: That pat of yellow butter wasn’t meant for you!

Story 6: Who was permitted to Play the Piano in the Front Living Room?

Story 7: Borrowing Grandfather’s REO car

Story 8: Rose’s Story of the Chicken that Got Away

Story 9: Rose tells the Story of the Apple Pie and Dad

Chapter 2 Family Tales from the early Middle Years of 1920 to 1941

Story 1: Dad was patient, quiet, and enduring

Story 2: Dad and the war of the Milkmen

Story 3: Dad’s Trip in 1931 with his parents to our first Fatherland of Germany

Story 4: Mom and Sarah on the train to Aunt Sarah’s home of Syracuse

Story 5: How did our Dad and Mom ever Meet?

Story 6: Cousin Bob and his wife, Mary Ellen, Reveal all

Story 7: Why Mom—Dad’s navigator—never drove the car

Story 8: Mom is the boss in charge of the household

Story 9: Should the Meissner Family thank the Monster Hitler?

Chapter 3 LOTS OF LOVE on Navahoe Road from the years of 1942 to 1952

Story 1: Robert and Joseph enjoy Artic Experience: No heat in the Attic during the Winter

Story 2: The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin causes sore knees on the living room floor

Story 3: Philosophy Discussions at our Bath’s before Bed

Story 4: Mom bakes her scrumptious Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies for us

Story 5: Sharing Some Golden Moments with Dad and Mom on Navahoe Road

Story 6: Enjoying our Irish heritage in the fine art of thumb sucking

Story 7: Robert’s vision of The Irish versus the German

Story 8: The Bogey Man attacks our Navahoe Home

Story 9: Dad feeds The Giant Fiery Beast in the Basement

Story 10: Discipline at Navahoe Road

Story 11: Last testament to the Navahoe home by Epistle Writer Robert

Chapter 4 Living in Independence in the Middle Years of 1952 to 1957

Story 1: Dad building his masterpiece for our home

Story 2: How much Robert loved Independence, especially the witch Miss Bartak

Story 3: Differing with his brother Robert, Brian really did Love Independence

Story 4: The Mystery of Dad Talking

Story 5: Rose’s Recollections of Mom, especially Mom’s love of handicrafts

Story 6: Rose’s story of Dad losing the battle of the Aluminum Glasses

Story 7: My Children, Get ye to the Vineyard!

Story 8: The Meissner Family encounters the Sleepy Hollow Golf Country Club

Story 9: Brother Robert praises our Father’s carpentry skills

Chapter 5 Return to the Heights Home on Woodridge Road as we kids leave the nest in the years 1957 to 1980

Story 1: Meissner Family Escapes Back To Cleveland Heights from Independence, Ohio

Story 2: Robert’s Premonition of President Jack Kennedy’s terrifying future

Story 3: Mom and Dad Shop the Martha Stewart Way

Story 4: Dad and Rose conduct their biological experiment on their friendly rats

Story 5: Dad nurses his beloved cars

Story 6: Our Mom’s Motto: There’s always room for one more.

Story 7: Thanksgiving: Mom’s favorite holiday, featuring her prize roasted turkey meal

Story 8: Saga of Robert, the Jesuit, versus the Jesuit novitiate at Colombiere

Story 9: Blessed are the peacemakers as Mom Settles a long-lasting Meissner Family Feud

CHAPTER 6 Dad and Mom fighting the devil of old age

Story 1: Our Mother’s shrewd counsel: Do not get old!

Story 2: The sad curse of old age: Mom Falls and Breaks her leg

Story 3: Driving and Aging: From four wheels to two wheels

Story 4: Memories from Anne of Dad getting Older

Story 5: Robert’s Letter of many subjects on Mom and Dad

Story 6: Triumph—Fifty years of happy marriage and the 50th Anniversary Celebration

Chapter 7 Joseph’s Tribute to our Mother, Norah Cusack

Section A: Introduction: My Mother’s days were always filled with good

Section B: When we were young: Our own youth was a wonderful time

Section C: Money Always a Worry: Mom encouraged us to find jobs outside the home

Section D: Mom: We say the Rosary now. (This was the very best gift that our Mom could give us children)

Section E: My Dying Mother—on the very last day of her long stay on this planet—asks, Is the kitchen clean?

Chapter 8 Diary and Letters of Visits with Our Father

Story 1: Email Letter dated June 3, 1998: Anne’s Coupon reduces the restaurant bill

Story 2: Email letter dated July 25, 1998: Dad’s Early Childhood Memories

Story 3: Email letter for August 1998: Fighting the High Price of Gasoline

Story 4: Email Letter for September 7, 1998: Dad’s Date

Story 5: Email Letter for October 31, 1998: Dad states, I did a lot of things in my life that others said I could not do.

Story 6: Email Letter for February 7, 1999: Dad loves black bean soup

Story 7: Email letter for February 11, 1999: Brother Tony’s Sad life

Story 8: Email Letter for February 20, 1999: More of Brother Tony’s Sad Life

Story 9: Email letter for March 16, 1999: Dad’s Memories of his father

Story 10: Email Letter for March 29, 1999: Was Grandpa a millionaire?

Story 11: Email letter for April 17, 1999: Walking joyfully through the cemetery

Story 12: Email letter for April 18, 1999: It would have been nice to have met our Grandmother

Story 13: Email letter for April 18, 1999: Enjoying a cup of hot tea and Anne’s warm cherry turnovers with Dad

Story 14: My Sister Anne ‘s letter to me: Dad revisiting the Family Farm

Story 15: Email Letter for May 1999: Dad and we visit Mom’s grave

Story 16: Email Letter for June 11, 1999: Once again Dad holds my hand

Story 17: Email Letter for Oct 22 1999: Dad conquers the disease of Shingles

Story 18: Email letter for November 11, 1999: Who was ‘Craigler?’

Story 19: Email Letter for January 1, 2000: Urging Dad to get on the airplane.

Story 20: Email letters for June 13, 2000: Poor Dad has to work hard to pay for Joseph’s playing ‘Guns and Robbers.’

Story 21: Email Letter for September 3, 2000: Dad’s advice to a senior citizen, You have a long way to go before you catch up with me.

Story 22: March 2000: Who will take care of you when you grow old?

Story 23: Email letter for March 26, 2000: Dad looking for inexpensive life insurance

Story 24: Email letter for April 2000: Employer ‘playing slick’ with his workers

Story 25: Email Letter for April 8, 2000: Where are we headed?

Story 26: Email Letter for September 3, 2000: Taking care of the elderly

Story 27: Email Letter for Spring 2000: The electric shaver does not shave Dad’s tough skin

Story 28: Final Notice of Dad’s Leaving Earth at age 102 in the year of 2004

Chapter 9 Dad’s final years, the end of his gardening, and his brief Nursing Home Stay; Anne and Rose helping at Dad’s Last Days (Years 2000 to 2004)

Story 1: Brian and I meet on a telephone conference call.

Story 2: Dad lets the good times roll in New Orleans

Story 3: What Medications is your Dad taking? asks the Doctor.

Story 4: Our Dad in the Nursing Home: What’s next?

Story 5: Dad sadly predicting: I’m going to die tonight.

Story 6: Dad asking the world: Why am I still here?

Chapter 10 Recollections about Grandma and Grandpa from some of the Grandchildren

Story 1: Betina relates her Memories including afternoons with Mom and Dad

Story 2: Laura remembers Christmas Midnight Masses with her Grandparents

Story 3: Julien, the Frenchman, remembers our Dad salvaging and treasuring pennies

Chapter 11 Ending memorabilia and collectibles about Dad and Mom

Story 1: Gardening and canning forever with Dad and Mom

Story 2: Letter of Joe to Robert, on Dad’s funeral in 2004

Story 3: Rose remembers Mom’s skill at making Leather purses and colorful hooked rugs

Story 4: Rose’s Final Memories of Dad

Story 5: Even more sweet reminiscences from Rose discussing Dad

Story 6: Robert and Joseph Talking about Dad

Story 7: Visiting Mom on her 100th birthday

Story 8: Anne and I talk on Mom’s 102nd birthday

Story 9: Anne and Rose return to our First Motherland

Chapter 12 Robert’s view of all our clan coming to our Heavenly End

The Book Ends

Endnote Warning

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Appendix 6

Appendix 7

Appendix 8

Appendix 9

Appendix 10

Appendix 11

Appendix 12

Appendix 13

Appendix 14

Appendix 15

Appendix 16

Photos of Our Family

THANK YOU

Every book has many fathers and mothers. There are many people who help us authors as we worked with each other through the struggles of the soul and the typewriter/computer.

We the authors of this book have been blessed by many assistant authors and contributors.

First, there have been our Mother and Father who left us with so many memories, and conversations, letters and photos, and more importantly the wisdom inherent in what they did for our family in life. So Mom and Dad, we thank you!

Second, each of us brothers and sisters labored on the writings and materials we have contributed. Our sister Anne has provided many fine documents which are public records but so hidden away it takes a Sherlock Holmes or a Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) to discover them.

Our brother Robert has written so many letters at 4 AM in the morning. I mean written. These are all hand printed in his unique block style which nobody can imitate. We thank him and wife Barbara for their thoughts and doses of Michigan philosophy. We had thought of presenting his letters just as he had mailed them to us.

However, we decided to reduce these to normal 12 point type through the computer. This is a little digression, but we must thank Mrs. Patricia Hollack who, Lord knows how, translated Robert’s letters into the computer language. She deciphered and typed these letters over several months. So we owe a big thank-you to her.

Also, Robert probably contributed the most to this book, including his discussion of The Irish versus the German. You know, commented Brother Brian from New Orleans, I learned so much about Robert that I had never known before. That included how Robert did not love living in Independence, Ohio, which I myself—to the contrary—loved.

Our sister Rose, inspired by her published-author husband Bill, contributed her fair share of stories about Dad and Mom, their love of books, and their life-long hobbies of gardening and handicrafts, as well as tales about Dad living in their Dayton home and protecting his pet guinea pig, Monica. We also thank Rose’s daughter Laura and her husband Julien who submitted their own memories for this book.

Brian and his wife Madeleine filled in all the blanks about Dad’s and Mom’s journeys to New Orleans. Who can forget Dad at age 100 sitting on the front porch of their house, wearing his Elvis Presley’s outfit, and welcoming the neighborhood kids for Halloween treats? What about Dad and his trips to the local winery where the owner had to learn that a wheel chair is no picnic? What about the Hispanic princess and her tongue contribution?

Also my daughter Betina deserves thanks for her memories of wonderful youthful afternoons spent with her Grandfather and Grandmother. Her brother Paul contributed much of the Introduction of this book and his sharp questions about the merit of this project may gain positive answers for our readers.

We want to thank Rhea Nolan and especially Jose Ortega from Authorhouse for all the work they did on our book. We particularly must mention all the editing, recommendations, and arranging which was accomplished so efficiently and expeditiously by Jose Ortega for our book dedicated to our Mother and Father.

There are others we have not listed, including so many relatives in the Meissner and related families who aided and supported us. We say thank you to all of you. Also we are sure there will be a family sequel to this first book and we will guarantee to provide more individual recognitions for everyone.

Thank you very much to Attorney Tim Russo who helped us so much with classifying, reviewing, and properly submitting to the Publisher all the many photographs for this book.

INTRODUCTION

The Reason why we are writing this book

I look across from my Driver’s seat toward my Dad resting in the navigator seat as we drive slowly through this Euclid Creek Metropolitan Park that Dad loves so much.

It is a beautiful warm sunny afternoon, a weekday, and I am AWOL from afternoon duties at the law offices. The trees outside slowly race by our car with the sun shining through the green leaves and all the park grounds have dappled patterns stroked by the late afternoon sunbeams.

Dad breaks the silence while we drive up the gradual hill to the Park. There must be a book in all of this somewhere. What did he say? I review in my mind what I thought he said, about a book.

I was so surprised. His statement surfaced from nothing we had been discussing. He just uttered his view and then never said anything more about that…..ever.

However, I have always remembered his words. It seemed like this book writing was a mission Dad was giving us.

Dad is fast approaching well over ninety-five years old when he declares this.

I come by the family home a couple times a week and take him out for the walk through the park. In later years he will have to sit in a wheelchair. Oh, he can still walk, but the going is slow and he likes to just sit as I wheel him about the asphalt pathways and down the high banks of the creek. We both watch the waters rushing along below, still cold from the winter.

I now hear him again: There must be a book in all of this. All right, we obey his vision.

But who are the we? There is my Sister Anne who takes good care of Mom and Dad in their longtime family home. Robert is the silent one dwelling in Michigan who has five children, now all adults. There is Rose down in Dayton, where she and her husband have taught for years and are now retired and guarding their retirement plans and programs like hawks as the coyotes close in to steal the capital. Then there is Brian and his wife Madeleine living near New Orleans where his law practice keeps him very busy. So these we are the five children of our Mother Norah Cusack Meissner and our Father Joseph Charles Meissner.

How will we accomplish our goal? Will we all travel to one locale and for several months jointly compose and type away?

I shall later learn that Brian and his wife hate traveling. Hate is too weak a word. Even detest is not strong enough. They will not travel. Period. The others also have sufficient excuses against coming together in one place at the same time as the authorship team.

That is another problem. Mom died in 1997, twenty years past. Dad passed away some ten years ago when he was just about to celebrate his one hundred and second birthday.

So we five children will have to find a way to merge our efforts together as the authors of this book on my Dad, despite living apart. Of course, it is also about our Mother. At first, I had thought of only writing about Our Father. But that would have been ridiculous given that the two of them spent over fifty-five married years together in their joint venture of loving each other and nurturing our family.

There is another more serious question in my mind as I type on this blustering winter January day while the sun pours out its cold breath from an icy blue sky on our Cleveland landscape.

Were Mom and Dad just nobodies? What did their lives matter in this vast universe (which we are now told in the latest calculation is thirteen billion years old) with its 200 billion stars in our medium-size galaxy which is only one of over a trillion galaxies so far as we know today? So given this vastness, someone might ask: why should your Mother and your Father deserve a book about their lives?

We, their children, are also nobodies. So why should we think we even deserve any opportunity to author anything, let alone a book? In fact, given this universe not only with its distances and times, but also with its black holes and dark energy and even darker matter and that the visible matter that we know is only about four percent of what is in the universe—why waste energy writing any books? The whole human race from the poorest beggar on Mother Theresa’s streets of Calcutta to the Wall Street trillion—dollar financiers in their ten thousand dollar suits—we are all nobodies.

But such dismal thoughts will not stop me as I try to pull all the stories and pages together in this book.

Yes, Dad, there is a book in all of this.

Let’s begin. What about our Dad and our Mom?

They were the kind of people like many other hundreds of millions who did not need the rich and the powerful and the mighty. Mom and Dad did not need them. But those people who inhabit the top layers in this world and in global society, they need my Mom and Dad. The superrich and impressive, they needed the billions like my Mom and Dad to recognize they are really wearing clothes, unlike the emperor.

Let me pause for a short story. Mom and Dad made certain we kids went to the best schools—the Catholic schools with their black-robe dedicated nuns who always awed us and whose wrath we feared. It is 1953 and I am in the sixth grade at St. Michael’s School in Independence, Ohio. I am sitting in my assigned seat made from dark metal and brown wood, exactly similar to the desks of all the other students, as we await our teacher.

She bursts through the side door in a manner calculated to make us all tremble and to stop any of us from fooling around with our neighbors.

She walks to the front of the class and announces, Dictator Joseph Stalin in Russia has died. Let us all bow our heads and say a prayer for his soul.

You see, Dad lived through the time of the Kaiser, and then of Hitler. Now both are long gone to wherever tyrants go after they die. Dad also witnessed the departure of other arrogant leaders such as Mussolini and Tojo. Dad furthermore lived through the Stalin era and now the Georgian-born dictator is gone.

A children’s loving prayer for cruel heartless tyrants—that was the kind of lesson and experience that my Mom and Dad made certain we enjoyed.

Dad, let me warn you that your Grandson—my son Paul—will have some words about this book mission.

I have enlisted my family, my siblings and their children to contribute to this enterprise. While talking on the phone with my attorney son, Paul, we discuss the practice of law and Paul’s dealings with his tenants. We also debate politics and the news of the day. I turn the subject of our conversation toward the book.

Have you been getting the various sections and stories for Dad’s book? I finally ask him.

Yes, I get them all.

So what do you think? Are they interesting?

Yes, he says quietly. But I cannot quite put it all together. What is this all about? I know it is about grandma and grandfather. But what is the overall message?

That startles me a little.

Well, I try to explain. These are all pieces. It is like a mammoth jigsaw puzzle. You are getting each individual piece. I do not send these in any order. I just want to see what you think of each piece. Later I have to position all of these together.

Well, you seem to be getting a lot of material for the book from Robert. I am surprised that he is the main one sending.

There is still time for everyone else to send whatever they want, I state. I do want to get this book finished, however. It is too long waiting already.

Well, good luck on it, my son wishes me.

We both hang up the phone simultaneously.

Paul and I would discuss the book again when we met at the annual Meissner Reunion in Salem early one Sunday morning. It is our mission to bring some good tasting chicken to the Meissner Buffet table where all share their best, and usually they bring something special prepared from their own kitchen cooking. Despite not being homemade, we still plan to find some of the best chicken in Salem.

(Every year we publish one or two Annual Newsletters for the Meissner – Donhauser Family Reunion. See Appendix 3 for parts of one year’s Newsletter.)

So we begin. We are opening Paul’s car door and climbing inside. Paul drives while I navigate the narrow Salem streets.

While traversing this small Ohio city, I tell Paul a feral butterscotch-colored cat lives under my porch and I have been feeding it. I wonder if she’s still there taking care of her kittens.

You’re the one, Paul recalls, who got me into being aware of God’s little creatures. Remember the little bird you found on the ground and tried to help? Paul and his gorgeous wife Shannon take care of cats, providing a shelter and home for those that are homeless.

Oh, the poor little bird, I remember, you know a key part of the Bible for me are the words that not a sparrow falls to the earth but God doesn’t know it.

Okay, Paul brings us back to the arduous task at hand, we have to find some mouthwatering chicken for the reunion.

What about the universal Kentucky Fried? I suggest.

We should get chicken at a grocery store, rather than surrender to the Colonel, Paul’s face turns sour. It tastes better.

So we continue our crusade looking for yummy chicken. Paul also fingers away on his cell phone.

This search through the cell phone takes a little time, but saves much more, Paul defends his cell screen journey to find a chicken outlet in Salem.

Yes, I realize that, I respond to Paul. I now can see his cell phone screen.

Don’t tell me you make lists? I question. I notice his numbered list on the screen.

Paul: Yes, great and minor things I put into the list.

Me: How is Mistress Law treating you? [‘Me" is me.]

Paul: Like fun.

Me: "How’s your wife doing?’

Paul: She’s okay.

Me: You know I am doing this book on Dad. I really have to go at it every day if I am ever going to finish it, but I am done for today’s effort. I did some typing this morning on one chapter and that’s it for now.

Paul, the prosecutor: Are you doing this for your Dad, or are you doing this for yourself?

Me: I’m trying to put something together with many nice photos that will honor him. The book starts out with Dad and me driving through Euclid Creek Park one afternoon. He is the one who suggests ‘There is a book in all of this.’

Paul: Yes, but he is not saying, ‘Joe, go write a book.’ You may be taking it too literally.

Me: I want to put the book together. I have sent out little parts of this book to people in the family. Over the years, Robert has been giving me a lot of stuff. I have a woman helping me with the typing. That is Mrs. Patricia Hollack…

Paul: But how will this turn out to be a cohesive piece of literature? It seems like a thousand post-it notes attached all over a wall. How do these turn into anything? It almost seems like watching a television show and then they make reference to the television show in the show. Usually that comedy does not work.

Me: It may not.

I remind Paul that he should contribute to the effort.

Paul: This is something for your brothers and sisters. That is if they want to participate. But I have nothing to contribute. Your Dad did not raise me; I did not grow up with him. When I met him, he is already the man that he was. Perhaps if you were able to locate people who joined him in his construction work with your Uncle George and they built houses with him…but that is not possible. Those people have probably been dead for twenty-five years. So, I just don’t know how much of a complete unified story you are going to get.

Me: How do you remember your Grandfather? I try to goad him to responding.

Paul: I am not going down that road.

Me: "Everything in this life for me has gone very quickly. Yesterday I am 12 years old and buying baseball cards accompanying a pink rectangle of fragrant bubble gum, and now I am in my seventies. The box containing the cards is stuck away on the back shelf of a closet.

Paul: Then this book is about you. I am saying about you because you just remembered yesterday and your baseball cards. But how can you know what Grandpa was like when he was 12 years old?

Me: "My father would tell me different things. His father was very hard on the kids commanding them, working them in the fields. Father took my Dad out to the farm fields and told him, ‘We need you to work in the fields, not go to school.’ You know your grandmother went back to school. Dad never did. Mom was so proud when she got her High School diploma.

"Dad read a lot, especially books, on the old buildings and the old architecture, and how they built houses for families back then. I do not know what his reading skills were like, but he liked looking at the photos.

"You know I have returned to Viet Nam many times and then come back to Cleveland. Dad always was curious about what I had seen and learned. When I returned the first time in 1994, he wanted to know all about how people lived and what kind of houses did they inhabit. What were the houses made of? What was inside them? He spent all day one afternoon questioning me. I had some photos of homes which he eagerly studied. On my subsequent trips, he always asked me lots of questions from the weather in Viet Nam to the streets to stores and office buildings.

The other thing you bring up—I do not have that much time left to finish this book. The other book I did on Legal Aid and my fifty years of legal practice there, I started writing that when I was at Legal Aid. The Director told me when I was being pushed out at the end, ‘You do not even have to come into the office. Take whatever time you want off.’ So I started writing in April or May 2013 and worked away.

Paul: This all sounds like a form of hoarding. I also try to remember everything of mine. I have to retain everything. My wife calls me out on that. I put my old college homework assignments on the cloud, all my work, such as how I answered a particular accounting question in 1995, that is all still available.

Me: Are you able to draw it down and recover it?

Paul: Yes, all my files.

Me: Do you have letters to people?

Paul; Yes, electronic ones. I don’t have very many handwritten letters.

Me: I worry about the computer, someday all will get lost. All those ancient tiny floppy disks, and the hard square ones—who can read these anymore and on what machine?

Paul: I have scanned things like bank statements; I keep a lot of stuff. Shannon calls me a ‘digital hoarder.’ [I think of the Sumerians, preserving all their accounting records thousands of years ago on immortal clay tablets with their wedge-shaped cuneiform writing. What good are these now?]

Me: Well, your neat computer records may be better that the two hundred molding boxes I have filled with all my smelly files and cases and writings, stuck in the dusty back room of a building.

Paul: I have all my real estate closings, all my apartment dealings—all sorts of stuff from my school classes to things I don’t really want. I tell myself, ‘You’ll never use this again.’ But I still store them away.

Me: "I always wonder if Dad had any letters to Mom. Maybe Anne has all of that. Dad had lots of photographs that he took with his black Kodak box camera. I would like to recover these if possible. So, anyway, this book and what photos I can recover are meant as a tribute to him and all he accomplished.

Dad, I summarize, was not a famous man, not a politician or whatever. Dad did not need those people, but they needed people like my Dad. When Dad worked on some carpenter project, my cousin Robert told me that when he got a call for a craftsman for the project, they wanted my Dad to come and do it. He was a master carpenter and I want all of us to get something from all of that.

Paul: Are you pushing people too hard on this idea?

Me: First thing, my brother Robert has written me many letters; they are all there in the book word for word. I do wish Robert would use a computer and make my job easier, rather than burying me under dozens of handwritten letters he does send. Another source for the book are Dad’s words. He talked to me about his family, all that is in there. Whatever people relate to me, it goes in there. All the contributors’ names at the beginning of the book I praise as authors, that’s all I can offer. If they do not want to participate, fine. I know I push, but if I do not, I do not get too far.

Paul: Why are you stressing out about this? Are you just thinking about your immortality?

Me: My brain does not function like it did ten years ago or five, or even last year. I have an eye problem. My right eye is blind. My left eye is one-half gone. All of this requires me to do the book now. [I think of my poor Mom who had only one eye. In so many of her letters to me she would say, ‘Take care of your eyes, Joseph. You must take care of them.’]

Here is the up-to-the minute report on our quest for the family’s chicken. Paul has circled four times through the Salem streets. Four times we have passed the lone Kentucky Fried Chicken place, but Paul refuses even to look at its huge colorful emblem of smiling Colonel Sanders on the front window inviting us inside.

Paul does stop for gasoline and fills the tank.

Paul: Oh, my Lord. Thirteen dollars for half a tank!

Me: What happened?

Paul: Thirteen bucks!

Me: You’re right. Expensive fuel. Thank the Middle East and Putin, and supporting Russian retiree pensions. Your grandfather also complained about that.

Paul: Now where are my keys? Paul exclaims as he climbs back into the driver’s seat. I am thinking they must have fallen under his driver’s seat.

Me: You mention immortality, which brings up God. Do you wonder if there is a God?

Paul: I do think about it. One of my best friends claims he is an atheist.

Me: The Pope said not to worry about that. [I change the subject to what is going on in the world.] Some Muslims do press on people…

Paul: Extremists of any religion do that.

I return to the existence of God: How did your friend find out there is no God? Does he have any proof of God’s non-existence?

Paul: He is of the opinion there probably is no God. Everything he sees leads to the conclusion there is no God. That is silly, I argue with him, because you cannot know there is no God. You can’t prove a negative, but he has not seen any objective evidence there is a God.

Paul (after a long pause): Dad, would your life and work change if there was no God?

Me: I don’t know how my work would change. I would like to believe something marvelous happens when you die. Maybe you turn into a tree. Or a mosquito!

Paul: Whole religions are built around that concept. I know you told me about a client of yours, a Buddhist woman who would not declare bankruptcy for all her heavy debts because she thought that would affect her next life when she came back.

Me: Sometimes I try to think what conversations I had with my Dad. I know there were times we spent together at events, but I do not recall much conversation. I don’t have long conversations in this book. He did not confide. He just endured the bad, embraced the good, and continued marching. On the subject of whether God exists, I do not remember either Mom or Dad even asking that question. They just rose early every Sunday morning, dressed us in our best, and insured we got to Mass on time.

Paul: So who is the book for? What difference does it make to anyone who reads it?

Me: Before we get into all of that, where are we going? When we get to the reunion hall, we will have to help move all the tables and chairs around. And still we have no chicken. We have got to find our chicken and head for the hall so we can help set up the heavy tables and folding chairs.

Paul: I am working on that.

Me: Doesn’t it matter if God exists?

Paul: It does matter, but now it is more pressing to find the chicken.

Me: Please, St. Anthony, help us find a chicken place.

Paul: Who is St. Anthony?

Me: He was an inspirational speaker. People come from all over Europe to Italy to hear his sermons on God and eternity. Then he somehow got tied up with finding things. He works very hard at that. People are always asking him for help to find something they have lost.

Paul: How does that work?

Me: I don’t know whether you get a confidence from praying to St. Anthony. Then that may help you find it. There may be nothing miraculous about it. And St. Anthony may be only as real as ‘the tooth fairy.’

Paul: Well, it is always in the last place you look, you find it.

Me: "But on more than one occasion St. Anthony seemed to go out of his way to help me find something I needed or was missing. In the morning I see something