The Bible and Me

Meaning no disrespect to Peter, Paul, and the other wordsmiths of their time but my bible has come in at a back-breaking 856 pages. This kettle drum of mystery and intrigue is the longest and most detailed book I’ve ever written. It’s an around-the-world suspense thriller that took a year to write and kept me guessing as to its outcome until the very last page.

For several years now this edifice to an imagination run amok was lost in a pile of completed manuscripts desperately in need of some very good editing. Other writing projects such as my ‘Apache Death Wind’ trilogy and then the ‘Debris’ trilogy overshadowed its completion. Just about the time I thought I could venture back into that morass of foreign languages, country details, and a subliminal love story ‘Riot at Sage Corner’ captured my imagination. So, off I went in yet another direction; playwriting.

The solution to dealing with that heavy weight orphan came last fall when I submitted it as an unpublished manuscript to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for their serialized novel competition. It wasn’t chosen (for many reasons) not the least of which was that it wasn’t just based in Minnesota. While the story line starts in Saint Paul, it quickly leaves town and travels around the world. Two locations; Macchu Picchu and Angor Watt play prominent roles in the storyline.

It was Vida, my insightful editor, who suggested that she tackle the herculean task of reading, organizing, and then editing this momentous project. I couldn’t have been happier. I’ve long felt, as has my wife, that ‘Follow the Cobbler’ was one of my best works thus far. It certainly was a labor of love. I have a stack of reference files that if piled up could easily measure eleven inches in height.

For this mystery travelogue, I had to research old Saint Paul, Custer’s Last Stand, the San Francisco Bay area, Macchu Picchu, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam, Angor Watt, Rome, the Roman Coliseum, and Bethlehem.

In addition, I had to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the origins of the birth of Christ in addition to a hundred-thousand (a bit exaggerated) facts and details of my protagonists travels. I had to familiarize myself with Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Street view, various country maps, the Celtic religion, and its ancient texts.

My nebulous character called ‘the cobbler’ was a mystery right from the start. Even as its creator I wasn’t sure what it was that my protagonists were chasing around the world. I knew this thing; icon, person or spirit possessed magical powers and had a sinister intent. Was he the son of God, his half-brother or second cousin? I really didn’t know what it/he was until the very end of the story. Even I was surprised at my ending.

It’s also really two stories in one. First it is a suspense thriller that takes my readers around the world. It’s also a love affair between two totally opposite individuals who find commonality in their shared passion for finding the Cobbler and gradually for each other. Their love story as well as their pursuit of the Cobbler unfolded in front of me every time I opened their computer file.

Right now, editing is an ongoing pursuit with Vida pouring her energies into making sense of the trials and challenges facing my protagonists. Once that hurtle is passed then book design and printing will rear its dominant head. After that, marketing will once again present a formidable challenge for me.

Marketing aside, upon completion this literary colossus must compete for space inside my head alongside Club 210 and marketing my other products. It’s like a freight train a-comin’ round the proverbial bend and I can’t stop it.

Then what do I do?

A Basket of Rabbits

 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 18^th birthday party.

 One cool dude and his rabbit.

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.

On the Corner of Fairview and Summit

Its strange how one street corner can so clearly define a person; caught between the intersection of middle class and poor. How one location can highlight specific milestones in a person’s life amid critical junctures of multiple careers verses a mundane existence.

I guess it all began on the corner of Fairview Avenue and Summit Avenue in Saint Paul around 1924. Just 18 years old, my Mother had left the family farm for the big city. With just a sixth grade education (because she had to stay home to feed the chickens-seriously, you can’t make this stuff up!) she ended up as a maid for ‘those rich people’  on Summit Avenue. Think ‘Upstairs, Downstairs or ‘Downton Abby’ without the accent. It was back in a time when the delineation between rich and poor was very clearly defined and enforced.

 

Fast forward many years to a home on Randolph Avenue (not that far away) where my mother, with the help of her brother, built her own home and my sister and I were raised. Then it became my neighborhood and upon reflection, I’ve come to realize that a lot of my life was defined, refined and affected by that neighborhood.

 

 There were some good memories back there. Bus rides downtown to St. Louis Grade School. Walking to Cretin High School. A paper route that netted me $70.00 a month which was enough to pay for Cretin and give me a start at St. Thomas College. Finally graduation and the beginning of my ‘lost years’ and eventually focus and direction.

 

I discovered foreign films at the Grandview Theater while I was searching for myself. Beginning with the ‘Carry-On’ comedy series from Great Britain. Then French films with their candor in speech and skin, the Italian films that I could never understand, a few Australian films and finally back to the English films that probed the soot-covered grayer part of the life over there and in my own life. 

My first concrete recollection of Fairview Avenue and Summit Avenue was one of reflection amid the angst of an exaggerated demise of a fractured relationship. In retrospect, it was a long-time dying. I think she knew it was over between us long before doubts began to scratch at my brain. Even a trip back out east to mend fences fizzled and smoked but never flamed. It continued to linger on…at least in my mind. Until I finally got the call that inevitably ended with ‘but we can still be friends’ and that was about it.
 

The next day, I hitch-hiked to school and got as far as Fairview and Summit. I walked the rest of the way down Summit Avenue on that late winter sunny morning, humming a song I’d just heard on the radio, “Where have all the Flowers Gone” and in an instant the song created a memory implant that I still experience very clearly whenever I hear the song again.

For reasons I don’t really understand, that song became a wonderful standard for me to reflect upon the end of that part of my life and the wide open expanse of whatever might lie ahead. Of course, at the time I wasn’t so clear and focused and reflective. Instead I was feeling very sad and sorry for myself. Like Colleen in “Love in the A Shau” it was probably a smart move on her part but it hurt me a lot nevertheless. I love that song now not because of that incident but instead because of the memory it congers up of the bright sunlight reflecting off freshly fallen snow, the sound of my boots crunching on hard-packed ice and the self-induced bravado I filled my mind with to overcome the overwhelming sadness still lingering just beyond my consciousness. It worked and the song stuck.

Fast forward many years later, 16 to be exact, and I had investment properties just a half block away. After college, living in Europe for a while, a burgeoning career in television and starting up my own business, I took the next step. I’d always wanted to get involved in real estate. So with income from my business, I became a landlord.

 I should have taken better notes because the stories I could tell would either be regarded as pure fantasy or ‘Tales from the Crypt.’ I tried to do everything right and for the most part I was re-warded with wonderful folks to serve as their landlord. But with a large number of people moving in and out of my buildings over thirty years, there were always a few standouts.

The fellow who lived in the basement for more than 16 years. He collected recyclables and had most of his apartment space covered with black bags of pop cans, paper ware, etc. He slept on a couch because his bedroom wasn’t passable. Nowadays, he’d be considered a hoarder. I just saw him as a bit eccentric and a great conversationalist. Despite all trash bags of stuff, he never once had any problem with pests or other bothersome critters. Amazing.

The time I got a call at 3:00 am because part of the ceiling in the living room had just collapsed on a guest sleeping on a sofa there. It turned out that the ceilings in each unit had been anchored (years ago) by wire instead of being nailed to the ceiling supports. I had to vacate each unit over time and redo each one of those ceilings.

The time I got a call around midnight in the middle of winter because water was pouring into a tenant’s closet. It turned out that the drain pipe which exited the rain water off the roof had frozen and was blocked up. I got drenched as I pried the outside pipes apart so that the water could drain off the roof and not backup into the building as it was doing.

The list could go on but it really wasn’t any different from any other landlord in an older apartment building. There was the peeping tom I never could catch. The wonderful garden I planted for myself and the tenants. My kids made good money there helping me on weekends. Ax Man and Riding Shotgun with Peter Pan

I had another couple who never owned a car and just got around by their bicycles. They were way ahead of their time. The rest of us are just catching up to bicycle transportation now. We still exchange Christmas cards with those folks.

I had another tenant who delighted in doing all my yard work for several years because she liked to work outdoors. I bought the flowers and plantings and she did the rest.

I lost heat in the middle of one winter. It was twenty below outside. That phone call came at 3:00 in the morning and the furnace wasn’t going again until 9:00 the next morning. Made for some scary hours with the fear of pipes bursting all around me.

But, once again, I met some wonderful folks over the years, anyone of whom I’d love to see again. Well, almost every one of them?

The corner of Fairview and Summit became my starting point for my almost daily four mile runs. My route took me past the College of St. Catherine’s, down along the river boulevard, past the Monument and finally back past the College of St. Thomas.

Passing the College of St. Catherine’s always brought back a plethora of memories from visiting friends in the smoker and being all nervous around so many girls (women, really), to school dances (like I knew what I was doing), to getting my date back just before curfew. I can still remember the one time I saw her maroon ‘66 Chevy two-door hardtop parked on the street right after our breakup and ironically never knowing that my future wife was on campus at the same time.

The duplex on Randolph Avenue that was our first home right after marriage. I remember the crazy lady downstairs who was always listening to our footsteps and complaining. Taking care of my sister’s kid there and wondering what it would be like to have one of our own. We lasted for just over a year in that location before shipping off to another job in Chattanooga, Tennessee…but that’s another story. 

               

Summers were glorious on the river boulevard with their cooling breeze off the river and hordes of other runners, bikers, joggers, boarders, walkers and dog-handlers. Winters were a bear with the cold harsh wind blowing off the river and my slow methodically trudging through hard-packed ice and blowing snow. By the time I returned to my corner, I usually sported a walrus mustache and soaked layers of clothing. If I had stopped, I probably would have frozen in place. 

                   

The Monument was where a lot of couples have consummated their friendship. Not me…I was never that brave or foolish. Although I’m told it’s still a great make-out place.

My college career began and ended at the College of St. Thomas over a six year period of time. I first started in the fall of 1961 and finally graduated in the spring of 1967. In between was two years struggling at CST then running out of money and transferring to the University of Minnesota which was an unmitigated disaster. Then the service and finally back to St. Thomas and finally graduation and off to Europe.

I’ve been in a number of foot races down Summit Ave over the years. Some went well, others not so much. My kids never understood why I was running if I was never going to win the race.

It was also the starting point for my training runs with Melanie for the Twin Cities Marathon. The first summer of training ended with an undiagnosed stress fracture that put me under for six weeks. No marathon that year. The second summer of training was shorted by a popliteal cyst which cut my training time down to sixteen weeks. That turned out to be the exact distance I ran in the marathon before ‘dying’ out there. A Life in Pictures. 

Now, long after the buildings have been sold and my marathons are a thing of the past (I think),  I still find myself occasionally on that corner, bicycle under foot and ready for another one of my long distance bike rides. 

I’ve paid my dues and I don’t have to go back there anymore. Yet it’s always a joy to be biking down the Avenue, letting the wind blow between my ears, thinking happy thoughts and humming that familiar refrain “Where have all the Flowers Gone” amid the beauty swirling all around me.

And in my memories.