My brother, Ringo, drank a bit and many of my favorite stories came out of incidents where he was a little less than sober.

He was home on leave, from Germany,in 1957,and I had gone in to wake him up and noticed the scrape along his jaw. I knew he’d been in a fight, but before I could say anything, Mom came in and, seeing that he was awake, asked him if he’d like some breakfast.

He thought for a minute and said, “That sounds good.”

I got up and left the room to give him a chance to get dressed.

When he joined us at the table, it only took a moment for Mom to see the signs of conflict. There wasn’t a lot of evidence; the scrape on his jaw and a raw place on one knuckle.

Ringo knew by the look on her face that he’d been busted, so he began explaining how it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

“Mom, I didn’t start this one.”
Mom shook her head, “I’m sure you didn’t, son. Did you finish it?”
“Well, nobody really got hurt. Really!”
Her eyes strayed to his knuckles, “Really?”

“Well, not hardly. Look, here’s what happened.”
“I’d been drinking in the Green Lantern (a true hole-in-the-wall type of bar) and when I walked out the door, these three Mexican guys jumped me.”

“Three?”

“Yeah, but they weren’t all that big, and I think they were drunker than I was, ‘cause they wasn’t doin’ much of a job hittin’ me and one of ‘em punched one of his buddies, so I just kind of got them under control.”

Mom’s inquiring look prompted a more detailed explanation.

”Well, I kind of knocked them down, and since I wasn’t in any
shape to fight and they sure weren’t either, I kind of put them out of commission.”

At my mother’s horrified expression, he hastened to explain.
“Well, they were laying there by the edge of the sidewalk and they
were all wearing those tight leather jackets”, here he stopped to grin and take a drink of the cup of coffee my brother, Bill, had placed before him, “so, I picked them up and threaded the backs of the jackets over three of the parking meters and then zipped them up…”

He grinned and opened his arms out until they reached as far behind him as they would go, demonstrating the problem the men were now facing, “then I sat them down and pulled their legs out straight in front of them. They weren’t going to be movin’ until someone came out to help them.

“Oh, son…” Mom was trying to look duly horrified.
“Well, I put money in the meters.”
My mother tried to look stern, but the picture he painted was too funny and all of us fell apart with laughter.

It was on this leave that he told us about his “tailor-made” suit.
It seems that when he got to Germany, one of the soldiers who had been there a while told him that he could get a really great suit made out of fantastic cloth for practically nothing.

Keep in mind that Ringo had never had a suit of any kind, until he put on his Paratrooper’s dress uniform, and the thought of having something that nice, that no one else had ever worn, was a great temptation; so, he went to the tailor, picked out a beautiful dark blue wool, and had a suit made.

“Now, Mom, what good is it to have a new suit, if you can’t wear it somewhere?”

Mom was putting a patch on a pair of Bill’s Levis and just looked up with an understanding smile.

“Well, I got a weekend pass and went to town.” There was a pregnant pause, “Well, I went to Firth-Nuremberg, which was strictly off limits for us Americans, but it was the closest place with any action.”

“I hadn’t even got to finish my first beer, when a fight broke out. I wasn’t even close to it, but in a couple of minutes I heard the sirens and I figured the MPs might show up, so I went out a back door. Just as I got to the end of the alley, a military jeep came tearing around the corner, so I went over a fence, and, Lord, Mom, there was the biggest damned dog you’ve ever seen in your life that came tearing around the building and right at me. I went airborne about four feet from the fence and managed to get over it, but that dog took a piece out of the cuff of my pants.”

“I didn’t even have time to take a breath, when I heard that damned jeep coming closer, so I just kept running.
“It turns out that the civilian police and the MPs had gotten together and planned to hit all of the bars that were serving soldiers. There were cops and MPs everywhere I turned. There was nowhere I could hide and I just kept running.

“After the first couple of miles, I figured, “What the hell, I may as well run back to the base, but, let me tell you, dress shoes are not designed for running, and that damned wool suit was hotter than the hubs of hell, so when I got close to the base and remembered there was a bridge the MPs might be checking, I just decided to swim the river. It wasn’t all that wide.

Ringo paused, as though in remembrance, then he grinned and said, “I’d forgotten how much wool shrinks. By the time I’d run that last mile and a half to the base, that goddamned suit had shrunk like you wouldn’t believe. “The pants were half way up my calves and the crotch was binding something fierce. The coat had shrunk so much that I had to hunch my shoulders to keep from tearing it, and the sleeves were real tight and came way above my wrists.

Again, he paused and then he laughed. “I looked like the biggest goddamn organ grinder’s monkey that you’ve ever seen in your life. When I got to the gate and showed my soggy papers to the guards, they laughed so hard, they couldn’t have shot at me if I was carrying a bomb. That took a while to live down.”

When Ringo came back from Korea, in 1960, he was drinking harder than ever. In August of that year, our local red light district began to have trouble with someone, armed with a gun, holding up the late night patrons of the bars. The drunker they were, the better.

I had been married in 1958, but my marriage was over and my daughter and I were staying with my parents, so I got in on the first telling of this story.

It was after breakfast and Ringo, Bill, Mom and the baby and I were all still at the table, when Ringo said, “Maybe I’m gonna cut back on the drinkin’.

We all looked at him in surprise. This had come out of nowhere. No one said anything to Ringo about his drinking habits.

“After I closed down the bars last night, I went to my car and when I got in, someone stuck a gun in my back.”

Before any of us could comment, he continued, “I was drunk, not stupid, so I put my hands in the air and I told him he could just take the money and go, but the son-of-a-bitch didn’t say a word. I thought maybe he was some kind of nut that just got off on scaring people, so I didn’t say anything else for a while, but the silence began to get on my nerves, so I said, “What the hell are you waiting for, just take my wallet.”

“Not a word.”

“I must have sat there for half an hour with my hands in the air, sweating bullets, and not a word being said. Finally, my shoulders were killing me and I just didn’t give a damn anymore, so I said, “Go ahead and shoot me, ‘cause I’m sick of this shit, and I turned around.” He paused and shook his head.

“I was so damned drunk that I’d gotten in on the wrong side of the car and all that was poking me in the back was the goddamn gearshift. I’d sat there all that time talking to no one and waiting to be shot.”

“Maybe it’s time I cut back on the drinkin.”

A round-faced, sweet, innocent, little girl peers from a tiny black and white snapshot as she begins 12 years of education as a Roman Catholic in 1951. It is more than a decade before the large scale 20th Century reforms transform the Church. I find the picture after rummaging through the Ball Canning Jar cardboard box in which family photos have been stored since the 1950’s. The box was on the second shelf of the hallway coat closet and my left knee protested as I moved the step stool to the appropriate location in which to begin my ascent to bring the box down to sea level. Chronologically this was the fourth photo recording my life as a child and the first one recording my life as a Catholic school girl. This would have to do. Joan, my cousin’s wife, would use a magic wand to scan, edit and crop the photo before putting it in an electronic photo album for which she would pay Snapfish.com to produce as part of documenting family history for her daughters and their children.
My left knee and I meditated on the picture which was taken in front of St. Stephen’s Church on the day of my First Holy Communion. It was the first time I’d worn a basic black dress for a special occasion. Our school uniforms were black cotton smocks with white buttons from the neck to the knee and the merest hint of a waistline. Sleeves extended to tiny wrists and the dress was elegantly polished off with a white cotton collar. Headgear was required for any female entering a Catholic Church at that time and we new communicants all wore a crown made of white satin ribbon bunched up in the fashion of ribbon candy and secured at the base of the scalp by a tight rubber item that reminded me of a garter.
Recently, my knee and I had conferred and come to the conclusion that the various twinges, pops, creaks, and cracking I’d felt started during the 12 years of training to become a faithful servant of Rome. First Communion was actually a graduation of sorts. We had reached the age of reason and were capable of discerning right from wrong. We knew the basics of our faith but more difficulty learning was to come. In our innocence, we didn’t realize exactly how much difficulty would be involved in the learning process. We only knew that this was a festive event involving food, family and gifts. In the 1950’s no one was sensitive to the ergonomic needs of the body. I, among others, had no idea that the restraints under which we were forced to worship would later cause previously unknown pain. The nuns had a motto: “If it doesn’t hurt, you aren’t doing it right!” Our church was large enough to have an upper and lower sanctuary. The upper sanctuary was posh and was equivalent to the unused living room in some of the homes of my more affluent friends. It was just for company. Ninety-nine percent of the time we attended Sunday, daily or weekly masses, and funerals in what was known as the basement. This sanctuary was completed in 1925 and by 1951, the wooden kneelers were well-worn. Generations of knees had preceded mine and had polished the wood to a smooth, if concave, finish with no hidden splinters. We were the last of a generation to worship at ceremonies conducted in a dead language, Latin. We were the last of a generation that attended masses which required kneeling during 75% of the service. Why didn’t we park our gluteus maximus on the pew immediately behind us and thereby relieve the strain on our knees? Dare I say that the nuns did not consider such behavior appropriate for the proper female students of St. Steven’s Grammar School and High School? Those of you who are athletic will suggest that we could have hooked our elbows over the back of the pew in front of us since the people occupying those pews were undoubtedly kneeling as well. Perhaps this would have been an occasion to practice some type of weight bearing exercise. That posture is hardly what the nuns had in mind. I am certain that a Pilates ball or ring, had they been invented, would have been forbidden as well.
To remain faithful Catholics it was necessary that once a month we present ourselves for the sacrament of Confession. The nuns escorted us from school to the parish church all in file according to height on the last Friday of the month since they could not trust us to willingly subject ourselves to this torment on our own. Each of us entered the designated St. Stephen’s church pew and remained kneeling in a meditative mode, pondering our sins, until our turn came to enter a very small closet hidden by a dark green velvet curtain. There, in the dark, we waited on our knees to whisper our sins to the head of a man whose face was obscured by a very dark screen and whose body was hidden by robes and a wooden partition. He too was in a closet but it had a chair, a door and a penitent on either side of him, He listened to each one privately. Unlike our fathers, the facial expression of the priest was not visible and consequently would not reveal any disapproval at our wrongdoings. Not one single artisan had refinished the kneelers in the confessionals since 1925 and sometimes, as I waited for the priest to open the small gate, I wondered what would happen if I slid off the concave wooden step past the dark green velvet curtain into the aisle which separated him and his confessional from the next victim who awaited her turn piously. Undoubtedly the thud caused by my body hitting the marble floor would awaken her out of her mystical trance and cause much amusement. Sometimes I liked to visit the statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague which was enclosed in glass. He had a lot of style. His small garments were of the finest cloth and appeared to be trimmed in gold. The kneeler in front of him was covered by padding which was covered by post 1925 cocoa brown plastic. What luxury that worship spot provided!
In the 60’s, after almost 2,000 years of plodding along the same path, the Roman Catholic Church reversed itself on so many issues. Masses were to be conducted in the language of the worshippers to the accompaniment of guitars strummed by folk singers. Wine and bread would replace the thin wafer that represented the Body and Blood of Christ. We could even all drink wine from the same cup if we wished. Most of all there would be less kneeling and more sitting for the worshipers. It was said that this would make us seem more ecumenical, more interesting to Hippies, more interesting to our own.
I recently did a virtual tour of my hometown via the Internet and found out that my old parish church is now a basilica, which is a super church of sorts. There was no mention of the basement sanctuary which is probably used for Bingo. The number of priests and nuns who had once run the parish and the schools had dwindled and the parish was now managed by the diocesan hierarchy. I read about the history of the church, my hometown, ethnic pride, and genealogies of families I had never known. So much had changed in the last fifty five years but I found that I was still living in the 1950’s in which my childhood had unfolded and where the seeds of knee stress had been sown. In spite of our protests of pain, my knee and I liked visiting those days for their amusing memories.

My Uncle Jo and His Brother Karl

My uncle Jo was a bastard—not by birth but by decision, I would say. My saying this is surprising because I was brought up to think of him as a great fellow and my father’s best friend. Born in 1900, Jo was four years older than Karl and the two of them were on their own a lot during their early childhood. That was the only hint my mother ever gave about being critical of some of their ways. She would say, “Well, they didn’t have a mother around when it counted.”

Uncle Jo and two sisters took after their mother with blue eyes, fine features, slim bodies and reticent temperaments. In contrast, Karl and their oldest brother resembled their father with brown eyes in big round heads, sturdy bodies and extrovert temperaments. Had his mother not died when he was four, Karl would never have been allowed to teach himself swimming in the large river or climb the neighbors' trees to steal apples and apricots. Luckily he had the constitution of a survivor or maybe he developed it in the process.

As adults Jo and Karl loved to reminisce about those days when the two of them went on their adventures. Even in their hilarity it was clear to me that the older Jo put little Karl up to the risky pranks. It would be Karl in the tree, throwing the apples down to Jo who, on the ground, could make a fast get-away if necessary. It was little Karl on the steep tile roof of the three story house. Jo saw Karl's need to prove himself and dared him. Karl didn't fall from any high roofs but had plenty of bruises and scrapes. Jo told him not to tattle.

Jo was a bright student in school and said he wanted to become a priest. But by the time he came back from World War I he had decided to become a lawyer instead. By the time Jo was 25 in 1925, he had settled in Berlin, a European capital of culture and sophistication. Karl, my father, became a mechanical engineer and a passionate amateur sportsman. He competed in anything that let him pit himself against height or speed or distance. In 1928 he, too moved to Berlin with a good job at a printing press company. Karl met and married my mother in 1930 when he was 26 and she 21. Jo went to the same parties but only had affairs.

Karl followed a conventional life path, settled down in the area of his birth, got promotions at his job and had a son. Then came the Second World War. Karl was asked, in fact pressed, to join the Nazi Party. This was an invitation that was tricky to refuse. Jo coached Karl on how to talk his way out of the “invitation”. Being a lawyer in the political center of Germany, Jo associated with savvy people who knew and understood more clearly than people in the provinces, what Hitler and staff were up to. Uncle Jo also avoided joining “The Party” but was drafted into the army.

By 1945, Germany was in ruins. Our city had been 87% destroyed but our family survived. My grandmother and her sister appeared at our door one day and some few weeks later, Uncle Jo. They moved in with us. After a while Jo rented a near-by two-room “apartment” in a partially bombed-out building as office and living space. Karl decided to accept the job offer from a printing press company in Canton, Ohio. At the time everyone feared that the Russians might take over the occupation of our sector from the Americans. Russian soldiers were infamous for rape and pillage. Karl wanted safety for his family but he didn’t want to take us to a victor nation if we would be treated like dirt. After a year’s wait for clearances, he sailed off in October 1948 to scout America out for one year. Soon he reported that America was full of opportunities and friendly people and that we should prepare to join him.

Jo was 48 years old now and remembered a love left back in Berlin. To get her out of Berlin he needed American dollars and Karl provided them. Gretel arrived and moved in at his apartment/legal office. She was a slim, good looking woman with a charming laugh though her conversation was light and flighty. She had no clue about propriety standards in this conservative Catholic town although Jo would have known but was probably unwilling to conform to them. Being seen by clients walking through the office in her silk dressing gown at ten in the morning made a bad impression on the strata of people with who Jo wanted and needed to socialize. This is what my mother explained to me years later. I suppose, had Gretel been bright and interesting, all would have been forgotten after they married. But she wasn’t and undoubtedly she felt isolated, missed her Berlin milieu and was lonesome. Then came the alleged Incident.

After 14 happy years in the United States, my parents moved back to Germany to accept a position that promised to fulfill all of Karl’s life-long professional ambitions. Now the two brothers and their wives met often. By European standards they lived far apart but by Karl’s new American standards, the two and a half hour drive was fun. The two couples would have midday dinner, go for a digestive walk and at six they would have the typical bread and cold cuts supper at Jo’s house. Then my parents would drive back. Jo had a nice home with swimming pool and view over the river valley; their hippie son lived in Berlin and hardly ever came to visit.

Karl had greater professional success and personal happiness than Jo probably because he dared to leap at opportunities. My parents built a large house with a broader view and, importantly, they had many good friends. After Karl retired they traveled around the world, took French lessons in France and visited their daughter in California whenever they felt like it. At 77 years of age Karl laid down after lunch for his usual nap and never woke up from it.

My mother was devastated. On the day of the funeral it rained and it poured. I had to prop her up to keep her from collapsing and suggested we ride to the cemetery with Gretel and Jo. He agreed to take us, reluctantly. After the burial under umbrellas, we were reluctantly invited for the bread and cold cuts. After supper Jo cleared his throat and in prosecutorial manner said that it was time to address a long over-due topic. He accused my mother of some social slight toward Gretel when she had been pregnant 32 years before. He claimed my mother had been ashamed of Gretel’s pregnancy, and that this had been unbearably hurtful to Gretel. For that reason they could no longer be friends with her from now on. I didn’t believe my ears, my mother looked confused and Gretel looked at the wall at in front of her. My mother said she had no idea what Jo was talking about, she didn’t remember any event that she had been when Gretel was pregnant and why would she have been ashamed? The reply was only a retelling of the same story. I tried to arbitrate but Jo didn’t want to hear about bygones, pleas to consider a fifty-year relationship nor about my mother’s need for their support in her new situation. Jo literally turned his back on us.

Jo and Gretel had harbored the grudge for 32 years. They must have promised themselves to get even when Karl was not around to defend her. For the next 15 years, the only communication between the widow and the brother was Christmas and birthday cards. These gestures probably conformed to some ancient code of propriety or maybe it was a left-over habit from a cancelled 50 year friendship.

After that funereal night I personally had nothing but disdain for Jo. However, feeling that Karl would want it, I visited him a few months before his death. He looked terrific, had the old teasing smirk, a confused look and no coherent memory. He had been convicted to long life and died of Alzheimer’s at 92. Three years later Gretel was found floating face down in her swimming pool. Within four years their son had lost all the money he inherited from their estate. I’m glad Karl didn’t witness Jo’s last betrayal. Anyway, that’s how I see it and how I saw my Uncle Jo and his brother Karl.

So here we were having a party with all the trappings --food, drinks, tears, guests, laughter, tears, flowers, presents; did I mention tears?

My thirty-three year old son and his wife of over six years, along with their adorable soon-to-be one year old triplets (two girls and a boy) are moving to South Carolina next week.

How does one say good-bye? Adios, farewell, catch-ya-later, so long? Do you make light of this event, do you blanket the entire thing with sarcasm? Do you pretend it's not really happening after all? Do you suggest that things will be the same --only from a distance? Do you start planning visits in the near future?

The move will take place in stages; I am even a volunteer perpetrator in this crime. I am helping my daughter-in-law and son fly back with the triplets next week. (I'd much rather be robbing a bank.) My son and I will return home after the week-end so he can begin to pack up their house and make final plans to join his family in May or June. I am already planning a visit in October.

For the most part, I am a pragmatic person. I understand the financial strain my son and his family have been under and I know, deep down, that the move is an attempt to alleviate some of the burden. I hope it all goes well; I really do.

Farewell parties, a celebration of sorts; They have them for people retiring; they have them for people sailing off to exotic locations; they have them for loved ones moving away --as if that's something to be celebrated.

Farewell party --now that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

“Goddamnit, you swung too late to hit that one.”
The little boy stood in the batter’s box. He looked determined -- he knew he wanted to get a hit, and he waited patiently as the pitcher, another little boy, slowly lifted his leg, kept the ball hidden in his glove before he deftly threw it down the middle to the catcher. The ball didn’t streak in, it’s motion was slower than a normal pitch, and the batter took his cut only to hear the ball snap into the catcher’s mit.
He turned around and looked at his father, who was sitting in the stands, and waited for the usual paternal insult that followed a mistake.
“Goddamnit, you swung too early again.”
The third pitch came, slower than the second, maybe a gift from the pitcher who was disturbed by the antics of the adult in the seats. But the batter just let it go by, there was no use in trying anymore. He didn’t even move his bat. Tears welled up in the child’s eyes.
By this time, his father had come down to the fence behind the dugout. He was red faced, and his fingers were interlaced in the chain link. He shook the fence furiously. He looked like an angry gorilla at the zoo.
“What the fuck was that all about, Sean?” the man said. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Goddamnit, keep your eye on the ball and anticipate when it’s time to swing. Jesus Christ, you can do it in the backyard, why can’t you do it here?”
Other parents were beginning to get restless in the stands. They were all capable of making outrageous comments when something went wrong with their children, but this man had gone too far. The umpire, who had decided it was time to reel him in, turned at faced the irate man.
“Mister, you’ve got to stop this swearing. Let the kid be, he’s just playing a game, he’s bound to make mistakes.”
It was a warm day. The sun was out and the sky was cloudless. The grassy green carpet that made up the ball field looked spectacular. It was one of those great American days, when everything should be at peace, the warmth should be allowed to soak into one’s bones, time to inhale a relaxing breath. The nation’s pasttime should be savored as a delight, not a place to chastise innocent children.
“Swear one more time,” the umpire said, “and you’re out of here.”
The man mumbled “shit” under his breath, turned and sat down on the first row of the stands. He was closer to the action than the umpire wanted him to be, but he was willing to see what was going to happen next before he ejected him.
The next batter struck out, ending the inning. Sean’s team took to the field, and the youngster positioned himself in right field, a private Siberia for those kids who didn’t know how to play the game right. It was something his father detested. He wanted his son in center field or on the pitcher’s mound or catching the game, playing a position that meant something. Right field was a safe haven because kids rarely hit the ball in that direction. One could fall asleep out there and nothing would happen.
On this day, however, an opposing player took a wild swing at a fast ball, and he connected. It was a mere pop fly headed out to right field. Sean positioned himself to catch it, but he misjudged the trajectory of the ball. He wasn’t even under it, but he held his glove up in the air, hoping that he’d be able to make a lucky catch. However, he anticipated disaster, so he closed his eyes. The ball fell behind him and rolled out to the fence. The hitter got an in-the-park homerun while the boy scampered to pick up the ball and throw it back to the infield. The father couldn’t contain himself any longer. He was up at the fence again, and shook it once more.
“What the fuck…” he said again.
The umpire turned around -- he was furious.
“That’s it, pal,” he shouted, like he was calling a strike. “You’re out of here now.”
The man glared back at the umpire.
“Bullshit. Who made you God? You can’t put me out, I‘m a parent, not a player.”
The umpire shook his fist at the man. “I’m in charge here, if I tell you to leave, you leave.”
“How are you going to make me,” the father said, “if I want to stay here, I’m going to stay here. It‘s a public place.”
“Not if I call the cops, you’re not.”
“I’m not afraid of the cops. So, call them.”
This angered the umpire. He ran around the fence and approached the parent with his fists clenched. He was a burly man and he looked even bigger with his chest protector on. He carried his mask in his hand. He checked out the man. He was middle aged, but he was well muscled. His hair might be gray, but he had the stance of someone who knew how to take care of himself. His dark blue eyes were sharp and penetrating. The umpire wondered if he’d bitten off more than he could chew, but the father held his open hands in front of him, almost a pleading gesture, as if he was ready to make peace.
Parents and ballplayers had gathered around the pair. Many of them were hoping that a fight would break out. The father was aware of this, and he didn’t want it to go that far.
“Look, there’s no reason to get in a fight over this,” the man told the umpire. “I was out of line and, if you let me take my kid, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You got to go now,” the umpire said.
“I know that,” he said, smiling at the umpire, feeling he’d defused the situation.
Sean moved away from a group of ballplayers and his father put his arm around his shoulders and they walked to their car.
The umpire turned around and faced the crowd. “O.K. folks, it’s all over and the game has been called because of this disruption.”
Some of the people groaned -- whether it was because the game had been called or there was no fight, no one would really know what caused their disappointment.
The umpire was packing up his gear in his bag, when one of the parents approached him.
“You really got lucky on that one,” he said.
“What do you mean.”
“Don’t you know the guy you threw out of here?”
“No, I don’t know him.”
“He’s Cornelius Kyle -- just about the most important man in the city.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He’s the union boss. He runs everything, the whole show. Surely, you know who he is.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Well, you’re one lucky son-of-a bitch, because, if he’d wanted to kick your ass, he would have.”
The umpire, picking up his gear, shrugged and walked away.

--Stephen Robertson