A Hard Knock Life

In 1948, she built her home on Randolph Avenue for a total of eight thousand dollars in labor and materials. Her bachelor brother came down from the farm to work on the house during the day. She joined him at night until it got too dark to see what they were doing. My sister and I played among the lumber and piles of dirt in the backyard as far as I can remember.

It was a good solid house that raised a family of three, gave me a place to call home and my Mother a symbol of her hard work and perseverance. All of it earned with a sixth grade education and the salary of a short order cook. For all of her shortcomings, my Mother was one hell of a hard worker.

Today the same home is on the market for $285,000. Go figure. It’s considered a starter home in the tony Highland Village neighborhood. My Mother would be amazed and amused. Mostly, she would feel vindicated and (if allowed by her staunch Catholic faith) a great deal of pride in what she had accomplished.

Reflecting back on that period in my life, I can see now that my Mother had a hard-knock life. She was raised on a farm outside of St. Cloud, Minnesota in a family of twelve. She adored her father but with too many kids to raise and a farm to run, he had little time for the youngest of his brood. There was jealousy and animosity among the sisters; who knows why. That discord among Mom and her siblings continued throughout my youth.

Put in proper perspective, my Mother was raised rural, German, and Catholic. Back then that said it all. She was undemonstrative in love and affection but had a tremendous work ethic. She sincerely believed that to praise a child was to spoil them and pride was a sin to be avoided at all costs. I wasn’t about to abandon my mother but I clearly remember mentally divorcing all of my relatives when I was in Eighth Grade. Years later, writing my first novel ‘Love in the A Shau’ was a cathartic exercise in purging those memories through my protagonist, Daniel.

Hers was a dysfunctional upbringing that she managed to survive and move on past. She clung to her Catholic faith even when her Lord kept kicking her around with a failed marriage, failed business, unsupportive sisters, disinterested brothers and enough drinking to go around for everyone. It was probably the norm of the day but hardly conducive to a solid groundwork for success in life.

Never the less, my Mother made sure her two kids got a good Catholic education then looked the other way when they let their faith shift and change into the self-directed colors and tones of their generation.

Her quirks were legendary.

A pet cottontail rabbit was a member of the family for over 10 years. Nosey had the run of the house, a comfy sofa to lie on, a window to watch the world go by, and a litter box in the basement.

For close to fifty years running, my Mother attended novena every Monday afternoon at St. Louis Catholic Church in downtown Saint Paul. It was Mass every Sunday no matter what the weather. There was a shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary in our backyard but not one damn book in the house for the twenty-one years I lived there.

A priority in her life was the love of dancing at least two or three times a week for over 20 years. The polka was her favorite. Her coffee was made and ready to go at least 23 hours in advance. She religiously put labels on all appliances indicating date of installation, repairs, etc.

She found love at an old age and made it work and it was good.

My Mother couldn’t love my sister and me the way other Mothers loved their kids. But I guess in the end her work ethic was a powerful lesson in drive and desire for more. It was a hunger she had all her life and one that drives me on to this day.

Learning the love and affection part of life came slowly to me but I’ve managed to pass it on to my family and my grandkids.

That circle has been broken.

A Catholic Education

St. Louis Grade School - St. Paul, MN

My mother was a devout Catholic so I had little choice in the matter of my education.  Back in the early fifties my sister and I attended St. Louis Grade School in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. The old relic has long since been torn down but the memories linger in black and white. Attending school there meant a half hour ride to and from downtown for eight years. First by streetcar with their woven mesh seats and no heat (anyone remember those?) then by city bus.

The nuns were strict and mean and very old school. But their approach to education worked and I got educated. Unlike some of my unruly classmates I never got smacked across the head or hit with a ruler. Although once in second grade I got busted after sneaking peeks at my Daniel Boone comic book hidden in my desk drawer. The imposing rotund nun made me stand in front of the entire class and throw it into the wastepaper basket. That hurt!

I’ve always assumed my mother got a discount from the nuns because she certainly couldn’t have afforded full tuition on her meager restaurant salary. I’ll give the nuns that. They did have compassion for a single parent with two urchin’s under tow. There was the free lunch at noon and at times donated clothing that could be picked over after class. Those nuns were tough but classy. It was the Catholic way.

Cretin High School Scrapbook Page

Cretin High School cost four hundred dollars a year paid for out of my paper route plus odd jobs during the summer. Cretin was an ROTC school run by strict Christian Brothers with their no-nonsense approach to life and education. At our fiftieth anniversary we alumni compared jobs and lives; subtly of course. Seems like that educational approach worked pretty well for my comrades and I in our careers as well as in life.

Graduation on May 31^st, 1961 was the launch of my ‘lost years’ although I didn’t know it at the time. It was the beginning of ten years wandering through the wilderness of a young life spiked with bouts of education and life-altering experiences. Back in the sixth grade my belief in Catholicism had been badly wounded by the Baltimore Catechism. Now all those simmering doubts and questions grew in intensity as I experienced real life on yet another level.

For some reason this photo of the quadrangle on the campus of the College of St. Thomas says it all. It’s the winter of 1961 and I’m freezing my ass off cutting across campus. What I remember most of that period were the blustery winter winds sweeping across campus and right through my light jacket. My most poignant college memories don’t cluster around classes or the cafeteria or my girlfriend at the time. It wasn’t the work after school or the hard studying just to keep my grades afloat. Instead it was the bone-rattling cold that nipped at my fingertips and bit into my ear lobes. Funny how some school memories can do that; lose the true essence of the collegiate experience amid the discomfort of a bitterly cold winter’s day.

But St. Thomas never was a smooth fluid experience for me. Instead it morphed into two separate life journeys distracted with interruptions from the University of Minnesota and the U.S. Army. By then Catholicism wasn’t even on my radar any more.

 

The Presidio of San Francisco opened up a whole new world for me. It released possibilities and dreams after my educational collapse at the U of M. The Army proven to be a macho world where I explored life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness all the while trailing other lost souls as I stumbled forth. For two years it carried me around the country and across the border. Then it dumped me back into the welcoming arms of Saint Thomas after an early release.

College of St. Thomas Yearbook Staff

Thanks to the G.I. Bill there was less stress to find work and more time to write for the school yearbook. I had a nest in my basement at home where I could sequester myself and focus on learning to learn. I got two things from that experience; a college education and ‘Love in the A Shau.’ Not a bad ROI for two thousand dollars per college year.

Denmark made me a stranger in a strange land. There were new attitudes toward life and love and self. Religion continued to be this strange ritualistic practice performed by my mother but rejected by my colleagues and me.

After Europe (Snow White and the SevenSeekers) this ex-pat came home and found a dump

to live in and a Sunday sanctuary full of song and fellowship. The Newman Center for Catholic Studies had gone all hippie and folk-like with its mass, its litany and communal singing. It was a haven of peace and friendship and sharing. It hinted of something wonderful but we never labeled it Catholic…just community.

 

Susan was there with me to share that skeletal existence, career explorations, the Triangle Bar and the poetry readings. She was just another road warrior searching for her future as I was searching for mine. We were like two literary hobos riding the rails of life’s jumbled journey but steeled by our dogged determination to succeed. She was like an elixir for my mind on Saturday nights and for my soul on Sunday mornings.

           

‘Suzanne’ was our national anthem, our rallying cry and our homage to the visceral pictures painted in our minds. It was Sunday morning sunshine after the thought-provoking Saturday night salon of the Triangle Bar. Leonard Cohen was our hero and our pied-piper even as the church dared label him our Svengali.

A lot of my life history was left back there. I’ve tried to capture the essence of that period with Love in the A Shau and blogs like Looking for Susan’s House and I found Susan’s House among others.

Back then, I was still wading through the flotsam of those early religious years. The Newman Center showed me another side of Christianity. It was love and compassion and caring. It was exploring one’s mind as well as one’s soul. It was questioning and challenging and accepting. It was finding comfort in who we were and the strength to believe we could be more.  

Then it was all gone. I moved on. Susan moved on. Life carried us both away.

Now years later I’m trying to fashion stories out of those mixed religious experiences. I have wrapped myself in a coat of many colors and tried to decipher the coded messages from the real ones. What truth, if any, was to be found in the Baltimore Catechism? Were there really mess-ages in all those rambling, repetitive boring eulogies on Sunday morning? Is there a commonality among religions despite repeated claims that each is the only one? I wander through this religious wilderness seeking the truth that, in fact, lies only within me. So I let my mind dance across the keyboard and stories come to life.

‘Cafeteria Catholic’ is a play which examines the relationship of an agnostic who finds himself attracted to a devote Catholic. It’s a paradox I find intriguing enough to write a play about it.

‘Frenchy’s Eats’ is a play which examines the dysfunctional and yet poetic relationship between

a man and a woman, an intrusive Catholic church and a father the author never knew. It’s a complicated play in its rag-tag juxtaposition of elements and explanations that danced between my parents, their divorce and the mysterious Canadian legacy that still lurks far back in my own ancestry.

‘Love in the A Shau’ is a trip back in time when a young man was struggling to stay afloat in an Ivy-league world he never knew existed, the tantalizing taste of first love and class differences that he let define him.

My blogs often wander back through that period to rummage and rifle through old memories; both good and bad. I suppose they’re really memoirs of a sort in case a future generation cares to examine their grandfather’s life lived back then.

Because of my Catholic education I learned the intrinsic value of working hard, helping others, being fair and trying to be a good man, a good husband, a good father and grandfather.

Despite my Catholic education I learned the value of self.

Truth be told, I’m a Christian before I’m a Catholic. But I could just as easily be a Buddhist, a Muslim or a Jew. I’m not a religious person but I believe in religion; whatever flavor people may chose. It’s not a bad combination; a double-edged sword to combat the challenges of life while accepting responsibility for what comes our way.

Perhaps way back then those wise women dressed in their penguin attire did teach me something about religion after all. It’s been a long journey.

Guess I’ve circled back now to where it all started.

Portrait of a Young Man Growing Up

My Favorite B-17

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’ve never said that to you before.

But I’m saying it now.