Horatius at the Bridge

                   

In 1842 an Englishman, Thomas Babington Macaulay, a poet, politician and historian, wrote a poem about the Roman hero Publius Horatius Cocles and his feats of courage when Rome first gained their independence from the Etruscans. The poem tells how Horatius and two others held a bridge against thousands long enough for it to be destroyed and prevent the Etruscans from entering Rome. At the end it is Horatius alone on the far side of the bridge when it falls. 

You may have heard the expression that someone fought “like Horatio at the bridge” when referring to someone’s heroic efforts on behalf of others. It was a famous poem, and long. I read it while I was interested in Roman history in my 6^th grade year and I liked it very much—despite struggling with some of the names and Victorian English. Later I found out that as a boy Winston Churchill had memorized the entire poem so impressed was he by Horatius’ actions. 

Note: you can read the entire poem at the link below--but it is a long poem--one of the few long poems I still enjoy reading

http://www.bartleby.com/360/7/158.html

So why do I bring Horatio at the Bridge into the story? Whenever I think of what my mom did to keep things together while everything was crumbling around her I compare her efforts to those of Horatius.

She had three kids, 12, 10 and 8, little money, a husband on his deathbed, an apartment house to clean, a job at the bakery, a coal furnace to fill and stoke, and still had meals to cook, shopping to do and—this is the biggie—no one to help.

Someone told her about Social Security for Aid to Dependent Children—about $50/month/child and she applied for that. It was a big help, and maybe was what kept us off the streets. Her family was in Wisconsin, dad’s dad in Moline, Illinois, and his sister Laura and her husband Jim in North or South Carolina.

After the ADC money came she was able to hire the daughter of one of their friends to do some babysitting, and once word got out how bad dad’s condition was there was another nice surprise. Dad’s old buddies from the stag bar Lindy’s—the one across the street--sent a delegation from the bar to tell her, “Mrs. Mac, anytime you need help you just pull those blinds down and one of us will be right over.” The same signal she used to use to call dad home. She did get further help from a sweet upstairs neighbor, Theresa Hart, whose husband Tom wasn’t in very good condition himself.

Towards the end, dad’s sister and husband came to stay with us for a while, and I have to spend some time explaining the lessons I learned from observing the differences between my dad and his sister Laura.

I’ll begin this way: Dad and Laura had the same parents and step parent. Dad was pretty much driven from home at 16 by his stepmother while Laura was allowed to stay. Dad had to make it on his own during depression times and Laura had a home.

While dad was beaten daily by a religious zealot before he could escape, nearly killed in a forest fire and worked his way around the country as a teenager Laura stayed home, finished high school, and soon married a fellow who, according to family reports—including mom’s—was a well to do and highly intelligent person. That marriage produced her first child, a daughter.

Dad had nothing and liked everyone. Laura had everything and hated everyone. The picture below of her and her third husband Jim is the closest she ever came to a smile unless she was drunk and making some racist joke. Her sneer would have made Dick Cheney cower.

On the rare instances they would visit before dad’s illness she would complain about how mom cooked, kept house, and raised us kids. Oh yeah, she made sure to be drunk every day as well. So did her husband.

Laura never liked me. I supposed it was made easier by how much I hated her. One time when she had criticized mom and re-arranged mom’s kitchen to her liking I pulled mom aside and asked why she didn’t snap back at her. Mom said, “Son, Laura is your daddy’s only sister and he loves her. That is why I put up with her and let her run things while she is here. She’ll be gone soon and I’ll put everything back to normal.”

Laura was always smart enough to be nice to mom when dad was there, and only got crosswise with him once. One of my sisters reached for some food at the table without asking first and Laura scolded her and called her rude. Dad’s response was, “That’s enough, sis. I remember when you and I would fight over a piece of gristle.”  That ended that.

It would be fair to ask here why I am spending so much time on this. (And I haven’t even spoken of how poorly Laura treated her first daughter, Beverly after she had her second by her second husband—So badly in fact--that Beverly came to live with mom and dad for a time). But back to the the reason and lesson:

When I was older and thought back about dad and Laura I saw two kids who had the same upbringing by the same parents and stepparent, and how dad had to scramble for everything through the depression while Laura had it easy; when I thought of what a struggle it was financially for dad and that Laura made three marriages with husbands that had at least more than average incomes—the last a top engineer for DuPont; and when I thought how Laura would drive nothing but Cadillacs and dad rode buses or drove older cars without complaint; and finally when I saw that my dad was kind to everyone while Laura hated the world, I came to the conclusion that being a kind person instead of a bitch is a conscious choice. 

By any logical analysis if anyone had a right to be bitter and angry about how life had treated him it was my dad. And I decided, when I finally had worked out the biggest part of my own anger issues, that I wanted to be like him—not like her.

Every person has tough times in their life. Some more than others, some just a few—but each one of us can point to some bad break or some tragedy and use it as an excuse for our own lousy actions or attitudes. We can try to make them someone else’s fault. Or, we can rise above the hard times and enjoy the blessings we have and take responsibility for our own errors. We can treat others with respect rather than disdain.

I know that first hand, because after dad’s death I became an angry, bitter and hateful kid. I’m going to talk about that; as well as more about my Horatius beginning with the next post, but we’ll leave things here for now.

Some Days are Diamonds. Some Days are Stone.

Before I begin about my 7^th grade year and what took place then I have a few loose ends to tie up. I’ll start with some stories that I didn’t use earlier to keep the posts to a reasonable length, or because they just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the text.

When I was ten mom and dad bought a used 26” bike for my birthday. They paid ten bucks for it—a lot at the time—but it quickly became my prized possession. I rode it everywhere. Even to Mt. Lookout, perhaps two miles away.

Mt Lookout had the nearest bowling alley and became the site of my first job; setting pins. I would perch on a roost in the side of the pit, and after each ball would jump into the pit, put the ball on the ball return, pick up all pins not standing and load them in the setter. Then I would jump back on the roost. I got paid fifteen cents/game. I didn’t last too long on the job.

Occasionally someone would be talking and roll their ball while I was still in the pit—a hazard for all pin setters—and I’d get blasted with the pins. They hurt, and so it made you very fast.

One Saturday afternoon I was setting pins for a group of four women. They simply didn’t look before taking their shots; they just yammered away with the other players and to hell with the pin boy. I was getting pummeled pretty hard, and I even yelled at them to please be careful. It made no difference; I was dodging pins or getting nailed by them constantly. 

This is how I lost my job:  After the umpty-ninth pin clobbered me instead of putting the ball into the ball return I just heaved it back down the alley as hard as I could. Unfortunately, although it scared the heck out of them and they scattered in every direction, I didn’t hit any of the women. I did get fired and so ended my career as a pin setter.

But before the end of my career in bowling as I was riding my bike past St. Stephens Catholic Church on the way home, two older boys—known trouble makers and bullies—Mike and Don were sitting on the steps. When I went by they jumped up, knocked me off the bike, and before I could get up they had taken the bike and ridden off; Don driving and Mike on the handlebars. Oh, yeah, they were laughing like crazy.

St. Stephen's as it looked then and today.

Crying, I ran the four or five blocks home, raced in the house slamming the door behind me and grabbed a baseball bat. Dad heard the commotion, saw me and the bat and made me stop and tell him what happened. I did, and then he and I went for a walk. Dad knew where both families lived.

When we arrived at Don’s house dad had me stay on the sidewalk while he went onto the porch and knocked. A man’s voice said, “What do you want?” in an unpleasant sort of way. Dad said “My son’s bike.” “It ain’t here,” was the reply. Dad, without missing a beat said, “Bring the bike out or I’m coming in.” There was a short silence and then a much chagrined Don appeared wheeling the bike with him. I went home grateful to have my bike once again, but so proud of my dad I got teary-eyed writing this.

There were so many other great moments. Often dad worked until three or four AM closing a show. Whenever that happened (on non-school nights) he would stop at Willie’s bakery downstairs and get a dozen glazed donuts still warm from the oven. Then he would wake up mom and we kids and we’d have a early morning feast.

On the rare occasions that he was home on a Friday night he would usually let one of us kids stay up and have some one-on-one time as he had his pre-bed beer. We picked the subjects and he was interested in all of them. That was where I had my first taste of sardines, limburger cheese, and a host of other “adult” treats.

There were teaching moments, too. Nineteen-sixty was a presidential election year; Kennedy vs Nixon. Our class had a mock election and Nixon won. I told dad that he probably should vote for Nixon because everyone thought he would win. He responded by first telling me that because someone else said I should do something didn't mean I should do it. I should do my own research. Then he asked me why I thought he should vote for Nixon. I had no reason other than what I had said earlier. Then he told me something I have never forgotten:

He said that politicians main goal was to get elected and so most would say or do whatever was necessary to make that happen. He also said that often politicians on both sides were dishonest. I believe his actual words were, "All politicians steal." Then he added, "But the Democrats steal from the rich and the Republicans from the poor--and son you ain't rich." That advice is still good today. And I still adhere to it. 

In the picture below of dad you can see the Kennedy/Johnson sticker on our door.

So this was where we were at—a pretty good place—by the end of 1959. I had an opportunity to see Dad’s 1960 tax forms (for his 1959 income) and he had made $6900. I was much older when I saw this and making more than that so I wasn’t very impressed. Then I looked up what the average wage earner made in 1959: it was $3,855.80. After years of struggling to get by, with dad now a full journeyman stage hand we were coming into the money. (I’ve mentioned before the car, the TV, new radio, mom’s hearing aid and many other recent additions) That journeyman’s card made all the difference.

Of course it didn’t last. Dad was pretty sick.

He had emphysema, today not a quick death, but this was the 1960’s. No portable oxygen and not even a lot of knowledge of what the disease was. It was serious with dad. He had been caught in that forest fire, smoked Lucky Strikes for years, and spent time operating carbon arc spot lights. A deadly combination.

I later found out from mom that dad’s union brothers had been carrying him up the stairs to the spots until the beginning of 1960 when even being carried was too hard on him. That, my friends, is what a union is supposed to be and why I will always support them. They did all they could to protect a brother in need—and that is why I was—and am proud to have been both a union worker and representative for the United Auto Workers. 

Through his union connections they found him a job at River Downs Racetrack as a ticket seller. He could take a bus right from our apartment building to the track and home again. (Our car had broken down and we couldn't afford to fix it. The towing company kept it.) It did take him ten minutes to climb the two flights of stairs to our apartment. Then he was done for the day.

During our time in the apartment he had always taken care of the coal furnace in the winter. That job, which including shoveling coal into the furnace and removing the unburnt coal—known as “clinkers,” now fell to mom. She had already begun cleaning the lobby, stairwells and laundry room after dad lost his stage hand work.

Dad had two surgeries. In the first they removed a couple of glands—I don’t remember which—and in the second they removed a lung. That would be unthinkable today, but then they were just doing the best they could. The scar was huge and frightened me badly.

Below is one of the last photos of dad before he became housebound. He had lost an enormous amount of weight. When he died he weighed just eighty six pounds. 

He was now for the most part housebound, sleeping on a chaise lounge so he could keep his head elevated. He could no longer work at the track so another unlikely set of angels stepped in—his old acquaintances in the gambling world. They gave him book to run from the house—all via telephone. It paid him a small, but living wage. It also ended we kids being allowed to answer the phone!

Just after I began my 7^th grade year in the college prep program I made mom tell me what was happening. I knew it was bad. She told me dad was going to die, and soon. I was not to tell anyone else—especially my sisters.

As I have mentioned before I was an avid Christian and church goer. After mom told me I went into my room and cried and prayed that God would let dad live and take me instead. I meant it. I prayed that dad would be there to take care of mom and my sisters and that they needed him more than me. I prayed that prayer every night before bed until it was obvious it wasn’t working.

Finally dad was too weak to even run the book. Mom began working in the bakery in addition to being the building janitor and taking care of us. She made $24 per week and Willie would let her go up and check on dad regularly. Until that time there had never been a morning when we kids were at home that mom hadn’t been there when we awoke. It was quite a change. Mom left clothes out for the girl’s next day, dad would inspect us from the chaise lounge and we would grab a roll at the bakery and head off to school.

Before I close this post I have to mention one more very important thing that happened. At Christmas 1960 we received not one, but three, baskets of food: One from the church; one from the union, and one from the mob. Mom cried and cried as they came. We didn’t have much. They were a God send, a job  send, and a mob send.

I’ll leave things here until the next post.

Church and the Child

When I was small and living at 4102 I don’t ever remember going to church. Then, in our gypsy time (Ogle farm, Circleville, bed bug/Blondie house, summer camp) we were too far away to even try. When we returned to the East End we kids were older and began going on a regular basis.

We went with neighbor kids because neither mom nor dad attended. Mom had stopped going in high school. She was angered when, in the church she attended, two girls got pregnant. One was poor and was thrown out of the church. The other came from a family with money and they sent their daughter away to “boarding school” until she had given birth and her child put up for adoption. She was welcomed back to the church as though nothing had happened. Mom thought this hypocritical—and of course she was correct. She never attended a church again as long as she lived. She did read the bible, however, and when hers began falling apart late in life she had me buy her a new one for her 81^st birthday.

Dad was another story. His job had him working nearly every Sunday. He did go with me to father & son night, knew all the hymns, etc., so it was clear he had gone regularly at some time, but  didn't attend any longer. Perhaps it had something to do with the farmer who had taken the belt to him every morning because, “He was a sinner bound for hell.” I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell.

We first attended a Methodist church about three blocks away, but in school I became good friends with a kid who was the son of the Baptist pastor. His name was Billy Evans and his dad was Pastor William Glenn Evans. As a result I began attending the Columbia Baptist church—a great decision for me.

Columbia Baptist as it looks today: It hasn't changed.

I went to Sunday School and the main service—but most importantly—I went to their Friday night Boy’s Club. It consisted of about 40 or more boys between the ages of 9-12. That meant that on each Friday there were that many kids that couldn’t get in trouble in what was becoming a rough area.

The club was run by two brothers, Gil and Reynolds Owens, plus any other helpers they could rustle up—but Gil and Ren as we knew them—were always there.

They worked out a deal with the YMCA (about five blocks from the church) that allowed us access so we could play basketball, volleyball, wrestle and work off energy in general. When we weren’t at the “Y” we made crafts or had activities in church. Below is a picture of a hotplate I made mom and still use today. We also painted ceramics, built bookends and who knows what else.

  

Once there was a chess tournament in two classes. I won the one for young kids and was slaughtering the champ of the older kids when I stalemated him and he got off with a draw. I had never heard of stalemate before and couldn’t believe he could get a draw when all he had was his king and I still had four or five pieces. It didn't seem fair, but rules were rules.

I was baptized in 1958 and received a bible from mom and dad that Christmas. It is shown below along with a couple of perfect attendance pins. In the Garden and Rock of Ages are still among my favorite hymns.

(L) The Bible my folks gave me and (R) My sisters and I set for Easter with my friend Darb Dewar.

There was a drug store two doors west of the church. It was owned by Lee Douglas—a very committed Christian. Mr. Douglas supplied free stamps weekly to the stamp club at McKinley school, sponsored a picnic for the boys club at his house in the country—complete with a stocked pond for fishing contests. He also provided much of the cash to pay for the ceramics we boys went through at meetings and very likely a whole lot more. 

Later he helped arrange an opportunity that would never have been available otherwise—but more about that when the proper time comes.

I don’t want to leave him here without mentioning something I realized later. In all he did, Mr. Douglas never stipulated it was only for church members. He just wanted to help children. A fine Christian man.

Of course there was much more than church going on. There was baseball at McKinley every day in the summer. We’d begin about nine o’clock and play until it was nearly dark—or until I heard dad’s whistle. The whistle signaled it was time I high-tailed it home. Or else!

Little league would interrupt the McKinley games, of course. Any chance to wear a baseball uniform trumped everything else. It helped that I was a good player, too. It is sad, but dad never got to see me play. When I’d come home we’d talk about the game, but at first he would be working and toward the end he was too weak to go.

Mom, bless her heart, would walk the ten or eleven blocks to see the games when her friend could watch the girls. The first time she came, although she said she hollered the entire game, I was so engrossed in playing I didn’t even know she was there! It was a complete shock for me to see her when the game ended. After that I paid a bit more attention to the spectators.

There were many trips with dad. He once took me to a little diner outside the city—to an amazing place. The food was delivered from the kitchen by an electric train! How cool is that?! Another time, when I had discovered music on the radio, he let me play my first songs on a counter juke box in another restaurant. I played One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater and Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini and my all-time favorite—Blue Moon.

 

There were more baseball games—one to see Willie Mays play. My dad said he was the best player he had ever watched—and he had seen Dimaggio et. al. He told me he had attended a game in every major league park until the Dodgers and Giants moved to California.

I also got to go with him to a couple of Cincinnati Royals games to watch Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas. Once we had courtside seats near one basket. I hadn’t imagined how much brute force basketball players used in there. Watching a 280 pound Wayne Embry pound his way into a position for a rebound was quite the sight.

At home dad taught me a little about cards, how to play chess and shared much advice. One of the things he said many times was to always respect another person unless they proved to be unworthy of your trust. Another was that if I paid attention I could learn something from nearly everyone I met. Years later I read this in the Analects of Confucius, 

"The Master said, Even when walking in a party of no more than three I can always be certain of learning from those I am with. There will be good qualities that i can select for imitation and bad ones that will teach me what requires correction in myself,"  Book 7:21

And I thought of dad immediately.

 

This was the best time of my life. I got to spend time with dad, my hero, and had a great church to attend, and could play without a care. I want to leave things here for now and take a deep breath. Why? Because my next post will be tougher to write and I want to get it right.