at the railing of the steamer in 1919. WWI was finished and it was now safe to
cross the Atlantic.  The  immigrant boy is fleeing with his
 mother from the Old Country where she had to sleep with a gun to protect
 them.  Little Freddy grows up, works in intelligence gathering WWII for the US Navy, has a
Life-long career with the Federal Aviation Administration during which he is asked
to run all of the technical aspects of one of America’s most important airports,
John Foster Dulles in Washington, DC, a promotion he declined because of the pressure of too
many  foreign dignitaries and statesmen coming and going.

    Now he is still our little boy staring up at the statue of Liberty
crying.
                                °°°°
 The two of them traveled north by train from Ellis Island up to Worcester.
 They went to Grafton Hill where Fred’s dad was waiting for them.

   His father’s first job was not much.  He could not speak English  and
had no wealthy connections in Worcester to help. None of his friends nor
family had money.  Gido had to make it on his own
     Eventually he was hired by a man to become a  door-to-door peddler.
  His first assignment was to travel by foot from Worcester to Millbury, Massachusetts everyday.
That is no easy walk to work, 7 miles.
 Once there he could then start to work. A penny was money then.
He was to knock on doors to sell his pins, needles, thread, and handkerchiefs
in his beat-up suitcase.
   By the way, my grandfather was not a debonair, sweet-talking type, he was short and quiet.
       At the very very first house, the lady  opened the door, maybe did
not understand what my grandfather was saying, but, whether she did or did
not, he had no idea at all what or how to say much to her. It was as if he was a deaf mute.
  She told him she did not want any of his dry goods and closed the front door. "Go
away."  However, probably because he did not understand her or he was driven
by desperation, he knocked again. She told him to go away a second
time and again slammed the door.  He  knocked a third time. This time, the man of
the house came to the door and punched my Gido in the face.
He stumbled over to a horse trough to rinse off his head. The
  man yelled at him to get his head out of the
trough. "That water is for the horses, not you!”

    My family would retell this story with humor and a renewed sense of determination
to work hard.   We knew we were not lower than horses.
    Despite The Punch, my grandfather stayed in the clothing business his whole life.
Should one should start off their careers with a punch in the face? Maybe.

 Little Freddy had his own struggles and we will hear about those with the
next post.

    I heard about a  comprehensive sociological survey which showed that new first generation immigrants  in America nearly never need psychotherapeutic services.

    “Well, Roger, your time is up.”

Fred is smiling ever so slightly…kind of a Mona Lisa smile.

The baby is Fred’s younger brother, Philip.  

    Every season of the 4 we recognize in the western world has a turning point at which the present season starts to move the temperatures, nearly imperceptibly, in the new direction toward the next season.  Today is that day for us.
    After today the temperatures will start to get ..basically, in a trend sense…ever so slightly cooler.  This is the last day of getting hotter, now we move toward "getting cooler". As I said, it is nearly not noticeable but the movement has shifted.  Now doesn’t that make you feel nearly  imperceptibly, a little better?

You’re Welcome!

                                    Roger

    I was doing this philosophical waiting night after night waiting for the fan to start. I was connecting that resolute patience with my love for my now deceased hallucinating, dear father, who was imagining little propellers on his toes a few days before his passing.

   I lined up the buttons with the spot where the holes would need to be. I kept searching for the holes with my fingers.  Button holes do not seal themselves closed after a few weeks.   Finally, I cursed myself and looked down with my eyes.    Still I could not see the  holes, just blank fabric.  Oh my, what is happening? Who cannot find button holes on their own shirt?  After  7 or 8 times of searching with my fingers and then my eyes, I found them.  Whew.    I suspect that the shirt’s seersucker material was the deceiver.     I do not want to go gentle into that  type of good night.  

    What I really wanted to give you here was an artistic travel tip not a dementia warning:  If you go to Paris, go to the Montmartre district where you will see many things.  The Moulin Rouge is still there with dancing girls though it is different than in the 1890’s.  Stand in front of the Moulin Rouge where Henri Toulouse Lautrec would nightly drink, fantasize and sketch.     I went there and followed the directions on how to walk to Henri’s last known apartment, just up the hill a bit.   He loved wine, created his own version of American cocktails and was rumored to have his cane hollowed out so that he could have an emergency, covert dose of absinthe.   I would suspect his evenings had many lonely but thankfully, anesthetized, conclusions.    I would also expect Henri to have talked to himself a good deal.  In the early evening for Henri it was a sober walk down the winding old sidewalk with his twisted little legs struggling.  It was not a stroll but a tortured precarious trip….. And, furthermore, surely it would have been a much more difficult hike back up after drinking for some of the day and all of the night.

    But he was not only a drunk.    Can you imagine his daily humiliations as a dwarfed person who then had moments next which were inspired and brilliant?  It would not be the first time struggle and loneliness would inspire someone.  

    I wonder if he had a hard time finding his buttons in the morning?  If you cannot find your buttons, look harder.

    You should walk that sidewalk, if you ever go to the land of the ancient Parisi.

Had another death in the family, but back on me feet.  

 THERE I WAS

      Last night laying in bed waiting for the old fan in my bedroom to start
 turning. I had turned it to the "on" position 5 minutes before, but it could not get going.
The propellers were moving so slowly that it was nearly not perceptible to my eye.  I had to close one eye and watch it barely move with the other eye framing it to something that was stable. In fact, it became one of my many philosophically stubborn routines that I would watch it as it seemed to torture itself trying to start spinning.  The motor simply could not get the blades to move.  I knew it was going to start eventually the way it had every night.
    I lay in bed waiting for some relief. It was just going to take some time.

    Eventually it did spin along happily blowing cool relief it sucked in from the open window by which it sat.  It just took about 10 minutes to spin.

       I have been laying in bed  trying to notice the slightest blade movement every night this summer.
    What kind of person does that?  Be nice now….

    About 4 years ago I was in another bedroom sitting next to my 96 year old dad’s bed at the nursing home.
I did not know he was dying. I would have knocked down walls, burnt up buildings, crashed cars, or done anything
 to keep him alive.  

    Everyone else in the nursing home knew he was dying. He knew. He was calmly ok with it.
    He was cogent right to the end but  because he was not eating nor drinking much he was starting to hallucinate  during those last few days.

    In his prime he used to be an electronics engineer working for the FAA, Federal Aviation Agency. He was the chief of the airways technical field office.  At one point he was asked to run one of the biggest airports in America.

  He ran airports.  Now he was a very weak fellow.  

    Pilots and people relied on his equipment being perfect, absolutely perfect.   What do you think a pilot sees when he looks out the window?  I will tell you what he sees at night: nothing, and during a snow storm even less than nothing.  But he does see the meters and indicators on his dash telling him where he is and how his plane is feeling.
    Did you ever look out on the runway of an airport to see those little white and orange checkered sheds?
Take a look next time you fly. Those little cute buildings are filled with gear that is going to keep you alive.
In fact, those buildings are all around that airport for as much as hundreds of miles or so radiating outward from your plane.  

    Back to the nursing room.    He asked me how we could move things along quicker. We both smiled when I said it was "not easy to die." Not one person in that medical facility would help my dad to die. It was against their oath, the Hippocratic Oath:  do no harm.   …….nor would they go through extraordinary measures to keep him alive  because we all requested that he be allowed to die peacefully.  He was not a whiner nor fearful of death.  He was in no pain, but he was hallucinating a wee bit.  And what do you think he saw out from his starved skeleton?

    He asked me if I saw the little propellers  on the tips of his toes.   I told him,"No".  I told him he was being silly.

    I was wrong.  If I could only go back for those precious last moments and tell him that I did, indeed, see the little propellers on his toes, we both could have shared one more moment before he was forever gone…gone.

    If I could only relive that moment, I swear, I promise, I vow, I would have seen those little propellers.

    I do not mind that weak fan in my bedroom.

    Last night, I had opened my bedroom window to get some fresh air.  When one opens a bedroom window at night one starts to hear the sounds of summer, a few certain birds, owls which you did not think were out there will be hooting away and, almost on cue, you start to hear people who cannot sleep wandering out there.  Last night I heard the pleas of someone who was struggling with a deep personal crisis, maybe an argument…… something.  And just like clockwork, my bedroom walls and ceilings were lit up by the blue and red flashing lights atop a police cruiser.  So, I got up, walked carefully, slowly to the window and watched  as the small tragedy played itself out at 1:32 AM.

    A man without a shirt  and woman with a shirt  were talking loudly but not arguing. The police were asking questions trying to discern what was going on with them.  The man was in some kind of deep emotional strife and the woman was trying to comfort him I surmise.  The police let them both walk away. The two cruisers drove away but he was still crying.  A grown man shirtless, crying in the dark, walking away from the front of my house. He must have been in some awfully sad dilemma to be crying aloud on the street.

    My feelings for him flew right out my window down the 40 feet to the sidewalk and stood by him, feeling all of his sadness and pain.  In the daylight of the very day  before this evening, I had shocking news that my  94 year old mom’s heart was finally failing and she would be immediately put on hospice care.

    So, me and that shirtless man were both stricken by some uncontrollable sadness, him on the street and me behind my window, staring into the night time aching …… and finding an unknowing, perhaps, unwilling compatriot.
    I wonder if he would have found my sadness comforting to him that  evening or would it have been simply just more sadness, too much sadness for one New England night.