A lot of kids grew up with a favorite pet. Perhaps a
dog or a cat or a hamster named Stanley. My sister and I grew up with a rabbit.
Not the domestic kind but a wild cottontail, named of course, Nosey.
Now why would a grown man want to write about a
rabbit? This is a man that doesn’t side up to dogs very well and the only cat
he likes is an ornery self-absorbed Calico by the name of Medbh (pronounced
Meave) who was named after a legendary Irish warrior queen. Go figure!
Nosey was remarkable on a number of different levels
not the least of which is that she survived out of the wild after just five
days here in God’s playground.
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about
that ‘silly wabbit’ who was such an important part of our household for a
number of years. While other kids had cats and dogs, we had a wild rabbit
living with us and never thought it strange.
Nosey and her siblings were born in a small hole in
the ground and then covered with dead grass and twigs. Four tiny week-old
newborns left in an empty field. It looked just like an Easter basket full of
cotton-tail bunnies. Mother rabbit probably went off to shop for food when her
litter was discovered by four rag-tag urchins one Saturday morning.
Like the kids we were, there was no thought of
leaving the nest alone. Instead we found a box to put them in and took them home.
Three died in the first couple of days but one lived and started to thrive
under a constant infusion of warm milk and affection. We had a fourth member of
the family.
Nosey was like a dog with its affection and a cat
with its independent streak. It lived in the basement during the day when we
were at school and our Mom was at work. It traipsed through the house at night like
it owned the place and sat wherever it wanted to. It ate when we ate and used
to beg for scraps from my Mother. It watched TV when we were allowed to and it
did its business in a litter box downstairs. It was one
very remarkable rabbit.
Growing up during my grade school years Nosey was a
constant. My sister would take it for long walks on a lease and I would let it
roam the backyard when I was around. During the summer it would sit in our
window sill for hours on end and often we’d catch it looking in wonderment at
the world outside.
It would eat the tinsel off of our Christmas tree
and nap in my Mother’s lap. It would share an apple with me and even came to my
18th birthday party.
On
the surface it might seem rather conceited of me writing an article about
myself. Perhaps it’ll be mistaken as some self-absorbed treatise on the
wonderment of youth and the trials (slash) tribulations of growing up in the
50’s in the Midwest. Like some opening act or shadowy prelude to my oft-mentioned
‘Lost Years’ during the Sixties.
Mother's Wedding Day
Our Backyard
At
first glance it might seem that way but perhaps not so much after a second
glance. My Mother only appears in two of these pictures; the first on her wedding
day and the second with some skittish grade-schooler in her own backyard. Yet
her presence can be felt in every picture…at least in my mind.
Fourth of July picnic with the cousins... enough said.
The
pictures don’t necessarily unleash a plethora of fond memories flooding my
consciousness with warmth but nor do they harken back to a darker period in my
life. Instead the pictures tell a simple story. It was what it was. That would
be defined as growing up in a single parent household and raised by an
emotionally-scarred woman who was just trying to survive under some very tough
circumstances. And she did it with little to no support from other family members.
Boyed by her Catholic faith and the resiliency of her rural upbringing this
woman made the best of numerous life-changing events in her life.
But,
of course, she came from farmer stock. Much like the woman I eventually
married. Beneath that façade of modesty was one tough, hard-working, and
determined woman. With little more than her own mental smarts and
street-learned determination she made her way through a hard and ever-changing
world…with two kids under tow and no husband at her side.
I
look back at these pictures of myself now and see them quite differently than I
have in the past.
My Jack Kerouac look
Just Faking
Another Kerouac imitation
I
used to see a scared kid unsure of himself with no father or father figure to
guide him along. Now I see a kid heavily influenced by the work ethic and
penny-wise attitudes of his Mother. She started working at age three by
cleaning out the chicken coop. I started working in seventh grade with my first
paper route.
I used to see a teenager desperate to find
love and affection and someone to be close to. Now I see an ordinary kid just
like every other kid I knew who was searching for love…only I didn’t know it at
the time.
I
used to see kid so proud of his ROTC training and the Lieutenants bars pinned on
his shoulders even if it was only in high school. Now I see a kid who got the
message early on that education was everything and he HAD to pass that on to
his own children and grandchildren.
I
used to see a young man in his hippie beads trying to express himself with a
Mother who never quite understood. Now I see that same young man in his hippie
beads and understand what she was smiling about. I think I’d be smiling right there alongside
her now.
Mom & Step-Dad Erwin
I’ve
never said it before, Mom, but you did good. With little help and lacking any
formal education, you managed to pull off what a lot of other married women and
single mothers weren’t able to do.
You
built your home with your own hands; made sure your kids got a good Catholic
education and raised them both to do well. You even managed to finally find the
joy of love later on in life. And near and dear to your heart, you were loved
by your grandchildren who still treasure their memories of you long after you
left for that Novena in the sky.
I’m
sorry I wasn’t able to see the whole picture when I was growing up there alongside
you. It was cloudy and vapid back then…and it’s taken a long time for me to put
that puzzle together.
I
should have told you how very proud I was to have you as my Mother.
I have a friend who has written a book entitled “I’m
in Love. Am I Crazy?”
The short answer to that question is yes, you are
crazy-of sorts. Your mind, if not spinning out of control, is at the very least
in another state of consciousness. Love is a subject that has been talked
about, analyzed, reduced to statistics and become fodder for a billion songs
and movies and plays and books. It’s the fuel that keeps civilization happily
buzzing along century after century. It’s a universal phenomenon that continues
to afflict people around the planet on a daily basis.
A
quick Google search reveals a plethora of information on the chemical warfare
that goes on inside your head when you ‘fall in love.’ Most of us know that
estrogen and testosterone can be the fuel that ignites our sex drive. What I
didn’t know, but apparently the scientists did, is that there are other
chemicals that play a crucial role in our reaction to someone else we find
attractive.
A chemical called Dopamine is thought to be the
‘pleasure chemical.’ So when you’re giddy or goofy about someone new in your
life and your heart is racing and your palms are sweaty, you’ve just had an
infusion of Dopamine. Another chemical called Norepinephrine backs up Dopamine
with a feeling similar to that of an adrenaline rush. Phenyl ethylamine is a
third chemical that backs up the other two to produce this cocktail of love.
This might explain how an argument between loved
ones can not only raise tempers but also churn up stomach acid, weak knees,
headaches and confusion. What is it about love that can cause such
a strong physical reaction between two people who fundamentally still like one
another?
On
another level, what is it about love that can cause someone to make what seems
like very irrational choices? Then taken to the extreme, how can someone give
up family or career or life just for the love of another person?
Those
are pretty powerful signs of the enormity of that strange and mysterious
affliction called love.
I love my grandchildren differently than I do my own
wife and kids. Yet it is still a powerful emotion wrought with highs and lows,
good times and frustrating times and everything in between. It’s a bond with
five little people who are just starting out and may need a little assistance
along the way. It’s an opportunity to share with them the wisdom I’ve gleamed,
taken, borrowed and mimicked throughout my own life. Seventy years on this
planet has given me some insight into how things work around here.
What I now find fascinating are those silly pop
songs of the 50s that used to put me into such a wonderful trance with their
rhythmic melodies and catchy lyrics. Those songs, if listened to carefully,
actually had some poignant things to say about love. Of course, back then I was
caught up in the mood and simply thought it was a great song because it had
such an emotional impact on my naïve confused mind. I heard the lyrics back
then but didn’t truly understand what they were saying – not really.
It turns out those tunesmiths in the Brill Building
down in Tin Pan Alley knew what they were talking about. Remember some of those
titles: Love Potion # 9, Devil or Angel, Love is Strange, Two Faces Have I,
It’s in his Kiss, Tossin and Turning, Tragedy, Going out of my Head, Don’t be
Cruel, Book of Love, Tears on my Pillow, I Wonder Why and so many more.
One song that does a great job of summing up the
ethos of teenage love is “Young Love” by Sonny James. The beauty of those songs
is that they were able to capture the innocence of that era before sex and
drugs and rock & roll painted a much different portrait of the times. Now
as a struggling wordsmith, I can really appreciate the strength of those lyrics
and the truth behind the words and the mental images they painted through those
picture-songs.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to infuse my own kids
with a love of the poetry of Bob Dylan, the lyricism of the Beatles and the
energy of Led Zeppelin. Each artist/s approached the subject of love from a dozen
different perspectives yet each one is as powerful as the next.
With the advent of my new career as a writer, I’ve
been exploring my past to glean a more mature perspective into material I might
use for future stories. It’s been an interesting journey back in time replete
with fresh insight into past actions, loves, mistakes and ‘what if’s.’
After reflecting on my own upbringing, I can now
understand my confusion at those feelings first experienced in high school then
on to college and finally that wondrous expanse of time and place
euphemistically called ‘growing up.’
It was surreal to experience the thrill, angst and
pain of a college romance again in “Love in the A Shau.” It was an opportunity
to be able to say things through my protagonist Daniel that I wasn’t mature
enough or wise enough to say back then to my girlfriend.
As it turns out, all of my novels have two story
lines. The first is the main story line that encompasses the heart of the
novel. The second line is a love story between the two main characters. In the
case of “Debris” it is multifunctional and multifaceted, each covering a
number of interrelated relationships.
Creating two story lines wasn’t a conscious decision
on my part, at least not a first. I just started writing the story as I saw it
unfolding in my head. But as I set up the scenes and wrote the dialogue between
characters, feelings started to grow between my hero and heroine. It wasn’t
foreshadowed nor even expected. They started to talk, I wrote down what they
said and their relationship started to grow.
After it happened in my third novel, I finally
recognized a familiar pattern and accepted the fact that I find this intrinsic,
vapid, mysterious thing called love a key ingredient in my stories. It was
simply too powerful to ignore and too much fun to end halfway through the novel.
The love element added flavor, depth, confusion and a million possibilities of
where my characters might go next. It added layers of emotions to the story
that was really fun to explore. It’s love on many levels and between different
genders.
What has fascinated me from the very beginning is
the different kind of love and affection and attraction that my characters have
for one another. More often than not, they determine where to take their
feelings and where to take their relationships. I just write down what they say
and do.
The relationship between Daniel and Colleen (Love in
the A Shau) is very different from that of Brian and Katherine (Follow the
Cobbler). Robert and Miranda are yet at a different place (Debris) than Jeb and
Charlotte (Apache Death Wind). Ree and Clare (Apache Blue Eyes) have the most
subtle of attractions but I think my readers will still feel it as I did when I
wrote their story.
My friend claims that love is a chemical imbalance
that renders most rational folks incapable of any rational decisions. While I
don’t quite feel that as my characters begin their dance of attention as part
of their mating ritual, I can still vicariously feel
those first pangs of confusion and excitement as my fictional characters circle
one another and I, as an interested third party, get to experience the same
chill and sweat that goes with falling for someone else…all over again.
