Stuck in a Lifetime Movie. (pt. 1 of 5)

Grandma Edna before

Grampy may be an old geezer but once upon a time even he had a mother. The loins from which he sprang were named Edna and she was born at the turn of the 20th century. I Never knew anything about her until a few years ago. At that time his half-sister in New Hampshire called to tell him that she'd been going thru her attic and found, hidden in the back of an old abandoned framed oil painting, a portrait that had been done of Edna when she was a young bride. Grampy told me about this phone conversation and said he'd forgotten what his mother looked like. His sister mailed it to him but wrongly sent it to my address instead of his. It was a justifiable mistake. He had  lived with us for 6 months about 13 years ago and it takes awhile for old people to update their address books. Grampy's name was clearly written on the package so naturally I opened it up right away. It had been carefully wrapped in toilet paper (single ply) and scotch tape. The large, black and white portrait was of a beautiful dark haired woman dressed impeccably in the style of the day. She had a haunting look of innocence and fragility about her. It had been done in the early 1900's and it was stunning.The canvas was, however, badly damaged. It was ripped in some places, folded in others and covered with countless mold spots.  

Grandma Edna after

Right then and there I had an epiphany. By, jingle, I'd restore it! Contrary to what Grampy thinks— he thinks I'm some sort of secretary/typist ever since I told him I work on a computer—I'm the director of Creative Services for an ad agency and a graphic artist. This is what I do for a living. The next day I scanned it and spent several hours in Photoshop lovingly and meticulously repairing it.

I printed it out and had it framed and decided to give it to Grampy as a surprise—an early birthday gift. When it was done, I admired how well it turned out, and it looked so good in the new frame. I wrapped it in my best wrapping paper and took it right over to his trailer park, proudly presented it to him and waited impatiently for him to open his gift. Finally I'd come up with a gift idea for him that would easily top boring white socks and a half-priced can of peanuts. When he took off the paper and saw what it was he just sat back and stared at it in silence for a few seconds. It was such a tender moment and tears began to well in my eyes. Then, shaking his head, he handed it back to me, proclaiming in disgust "Yeah, that's my mother—the Slut".

(part 2 to come....)

Road Bumps Along the Journey...

It was December 29, 1970 when I first met my husband. I was a baby, a mere child. I was all of 18 years old, Miss 1300 on the S.A.T.'s going to nursing college, working in a hospital, living the successful life my parents had planned for me and feeling hopelessly trapped by the Establishment. I was a starry-eyed teenaged flower child looking for my way into the world; he was an 20 yr old disillusioned Vietnam Vet looking for the way out. We were a match made in heaven —and every mother's nightmare for her young daughter.

Me in 1971 with our Great Dane, Lakaya

Mike was barely 20, an AWOL sailor with PTSD and fresh off the ship from a year's duty in Vietnam. He'd hitchhiked from San Diego to our home town in Lancaster, CA to see his mom. He'd been denied Leave when he requested it and was told that he was confined to the ship. Mike said “like hell” grabbed his duffle bag and promptly left. He was rebellious and dangerous — two of the qualities I was looking for in a man.

We met at McDonalds (one of my hang outs) that fateful night. He was dressed like a Sears catalog hippie, trying too hard to be cool. I wasn't impressed. His hair was short. His clothes were too new. I only dated bonafide long-haired Freaks. But he stalked me for a couple days until I would go out with him. I must have let my guard down. I must have been looking for something I-didn't-know-what and I gave in. We spent every day together for a full two weeks before we he swept me off my feet. We fell crazy in love and during the third week, announced our engagement to my parents. You can imagine my mother's reaction. The blood drained from her face as she stood there speechless. My dad, detached and unemotional as ever, just shook his head, muttering "Well I don't think it's a good idea" and walked out of the room.  We deemed that response our patriarchal blessing and a mere week later, sans wedding ring, I left home for good. I gathered up my tie-dyed shirts and patched up jeans as well as my guitar, climbed into the back seat of Mike's brother's Plymouth, and shook the dust of Lancaster, California off my sandals.

Looking back I should have read the signs. I should have seen the clues that might have deterred me from my hapless quest to Paradiso Perdu but I was too enmeshed in the throes of new love—whatever that is. And the first sign should have been meeting my future In-laws.

Bernie and Tex in their back yard-1971

We had been seeing each other for a full week when Mike asked me to meet him one morning at his parent's house. I had a VW bug and was fully mobile. He had his two young feet and a good left thumb for hitchhiking. I was to be there at 10 am and he would introduce me to the people that birthed him. I was foolishly excited. DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! I should have had orange flashing warning lights going off in my brain...that should have deterred me. But no.

I showed up on the doorstep at 10am sharp and knocked. I knocked several times before a middle-aged, short, red haired bespectacled woman with a cigarette in her mouth answered the door. (None too cheerful I might add.) “Yeah?” she stood there at the door looking me up and down, obviously disapproving of my appearance. “Um....I'm here to see Mike”. “Heh!?” she said, in a deep Bostonian accent, cupping her hand behind her ear. “Mike?” I squeaked. “Well shit, I can't heah a word you say.” At that she turned her head and yelled to the inside of the dark house, “Tex! Come heah! There's some girl at the doah!” So a few seconds later here is Tex at the door, standing next to her staring at me with the same frown on his face as his wife. He had a shock of greased black hair high on the top of his head and a matching cigarette perched between his lips. His resemblance to a bantam rooster was remarkable. He got right to the point. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. At this point I was inching my way backwards, hand in my jeans pocket fingering my car keys. “Speak up!” the woman yelled. “Um...Mike told me to meet him here at 10 am?” I asked more than announced. Tex turned to Bernie (for the red haired woman was, indeed, Mike's mother Bernie) and shouted “Where the HELL is your son! This girl is here to see Mike. Where IS he?” Nonplussed, Bernie pulled the cigarette butt out of her mouth, flicked it to the gravel driveway in back of me and shouted back at him “How the hell do I know? He's not heah!” They both glared at me again. Tex began ranting and this time it was aimed at me. “If he said he'll be here at 10 then he SHOULD be here at 10! So where IS he?!”

The camel's back broke. I burst into tears right there on their doorstep. I was speechless. I was horrified. My mascara was running. I had no idea where Mike was and desperately needed rescuing. This was the catalyst to a brand new wave of nagging from Bernie. “Aww Tex now look what you did! You went and made her cry. What the hell is wrong with you! You made her cry!” Tex countered with a disgusted “Oh shut up woman!” and stormed off, back to his recliner to finish The Rifleman.

Bernie w/her first grandchild, Kevin in 1971

It was precisely at that moment that Mike drove up in his friend George's car. He got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Oblivious to my tears and degree of humiliation, as well as his mother's scowl, he enthusiastically embraced both of us in a communal hug, and said “Oh I'm so glad. You two have met!”

He then stepped into the house, whistling like a fat canary and I, like a fresh young lamb being coaxed into a Greek restaurant, carelessly and innocently followed right behind.

For a good time to come our road to happiness would be paved with shattered dreams and salty tears. But that is another story for another day. Suffice it to say that now, over 40 years later we all know that the story did, indeed, have a happy ending. And I am quick to add “by the Grace of God” with gusto and conviction here because that is the only reason. I toughened over the years. Learned to ignore Tex's rantings and Bernie's disapproving glares...and I am still married to that same impetuous Vietnam Vet who actually turned out to be a wonderful man, a great husband and a good apple —who thankfully fell a decent distance away from the family fruit tree.

Mugsy and Other Tails...

Grampy is going on 87 now and his life has become very small. He can no longer drive, so the few activities he has to do every day have taken much more importance in his life than they would yours or mine. His days are pretty much centered around copious cups of coffee, the Western channel, collecting coupons and doctor visits.

Susie looks like this...but fatter

The highlight of his day, however, is walking over to the double-wide next door to his trailer to visit Susie. Susie lives with Alice. Susie and Alice are best friends. Grampy visits Susie every day at 1:30 sharp. He takes her treats and hand feeds them to her, massages her neck and lets her sit on his lap. He told me he doesn't really care about visiting with Alice but he has to in order to see Susie. Susie is a fat, wheezing, Russell Terrier. Alice is a 85 year old grizzly haired widow. The three of them together in Alice's living room is Grampy's idea of the perfect ménage a trois.

“But Dad” I tease him, “Alice is available and has most of her teeth. Aren't you interested in women anymore?” “Aw hell” he spits at me “She's got one foot soaking in epsom salts and the other foot in the grave. I've BEEN married and I don't want to go through that again.”

But we all need companionship, even Grampy. For 16 years he had his little dog Mugsy. Mugsy was a rescue dog from the SPCA and Grampy swore the dog was a purebred Cock-a-poo. “With Papers?” I asked, just to be a brat. “Well of course not. Me and mama got her from the pound. They don't give you the Papers at the pound unless you pay more.” Purebred or not, Mugsy was his life and his raison d'etre. He might have been a handsome dog with proper grooming, but his grungy gray and white hair was more often than not shaved close to the skin, “to keep the hair out of his eyes and from being matted” he'd say. Then Grampy kept a ratty sweater on that dog—mostly all year round cause Grampy said Mugsy had no hair to keep him warm. He has always been practical that way.

Grampy and Mugsy 2005

Grampy and Mugsy were rarely more than 3 feet apart. The dog slept with him, watched TV with him, went with him everywhere and ate his meals out of Grampy's hand. Grampy would curse at that dog like the dickens. Mugsy was a little deaf—nevertheless, I think Mugsy considered Grampy's rantings his love language. And he swore the dog talked back to him. He'd cut up leftover meat after family dinners and put it down on my kitchen floor for Mugsy to eat. Mugsy was finicky and would sniff at it for awhile then more often than not, walk away. We would wait expectantly for what always came next. Grampy would get down on his hands and knees close to that dog and shout in his ear “Eat it or go to Hell!” Booyah! Take that, Mugsy you ungrateful flea bag! We would laugh ourselves silly—silently behind Grampy's back. He was always calling the dog a liar. Mugsy would patiently sit by the back door staring outside till Grampy would finally get up and let him out. Grampy would watch that dog pee on every tree and bush outside, nagging at him to “do potty” (which means number two, mind you, not number one) the whole time. When Mugsy would prance back into the house, without performing his “doody”, Grampy would be so disappointed and would cuss at him like a sailor “You're just a (blankety blank) liar! You wanted to go outside to do potty and you did nothing!” Personally I think Mugsy just liked going outside to chase birds and mark his territory. I told Grampy that once and he just shook his head then proceeded for the next ten minutes to describe in detail to me the state of Mugsy's constipated bowels. Clearly I know nothing about purebred Cock-a-poos.

Mike and I really worried that when Mugsy passed on to wherever it is good doggies go, Grampy would not be far behind. I think he loved that dog more than he loved breathing...or even Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty. But Mugsy passed about two years ago and although he does NOT want another dog, Grampy is still going strong. I'm thinking we can attribute some of that to Susie. And everyday when he cooks up his hot dogs, cuts them into tiny pieces, takes them next door to give the little dog her “treat” and nag her to do potty, I imagine he's getting his battery charged to go on living... just a little while longer.

One Man's Junk...

Remember Gemco? I loved that store.

Tex has always been the thriftiest person I know. He has every cottage cheese carton he's ever used since 1998 stacked up on a side counter in the kitchen and every baggie tie from every produce bag he's brought home from the grocery store, along with the bags. He bought the plaid shirt and brown polyester leisure bell bottom pants he wears on sale at Gemco back in the 80's. The shirt is threadbare but usable so why buy a new one? When a hole breaks through he brings it to me and asks me to patch it. And polyester, as we all know, never wears out. Thousands of years from now when archeologists are digging through the dirt heap that used to be Grampy's trailer park they'll find his polyester pants still intact...and maybe his 12 mayonnaise jars full of root beer barrels.

Grampy's Mailbox

For some reason he is compelled to save every receipt he's ever gotten as well. His kitchen table is covered with organized stacks of receipts, letters, newspaper clippings, and coupons galore. His living room floor is as big as a postage stamp and is stacked with piles of junk mail he receives along with the tchotkes they enclose—plastic indian bead bracelets, greeting cards (that promise 12 novenas are being said in your name), calendars, calorie counter slide guides, bookmarks ad nauseum and Easter/Christmas Seals. The mailman's arrival every day is cause for excitement. One time he got a lap blanket screenprinted with advertising for the Disabled Veterans. That was a good day. He organizes the piles and meticulously keeps track of everything....then he picks out anything with kittens and puppies on them and tries to give them to me. Well I could use the 12 novenas, truth be told but calendars and scratch pads, I'm already up to my eyeballs in. After the January 2011 avalanche of the free calendars he was sorely disappointed I only needed two calendars and sternly told me he'd have to walk up and down in his trailer park and knock on doors, and try to give them away. “Is that a threat old man cause I really don't care what your crazy neighbors think of you.” It is slowly engulfing his living room but the thrifty side to him cannot throw it away. It is his holy mission to waste not, want not and to make sure his junk mail ends up in happy homes.

This is the one I bought, used twice then sold in a yard sale.

Watching him at his task one day, I pondered out loud why on earth he gets so much mail—“I don't know but I wish to hell it would stop” he grumbled. Then it hit me “Dad, do you send them back money in the envelopes they enclose?” “Well yeah ...” he admitted. “not much...and they DO send me all these  gifts.” So I reminded him of what P.T. Barnum said “There's a sucker born every minute”. He said he'd never read THAT book of the Bible and where the hell did I get off calling him a sucker when I'm the one that bought the RonCo Showtime Rotesserie Oven back in 1998.” He had a point there so I took my 2 Scenic America 2011 Calendars, 4 packs of Kute Kittens greeting cards as well as my flourescent, glow in the dark rosary, kissed him on the cheek and left. As I walked outside to my car I could hear him shouting at the TV “Miss Kitty you CAN'T help that idiot Chester out anymore. He's gotta help himself!” Ah Dad....words to live by. Words to live by.

FIRE! Wood

Grampy has many talents. He can build anything with wood, play the spoons and watch 8 episodes of Gunsmoke back to back without falling asleep. But raising three honery, free spirited sons was not something he ever acquired a knack for. You could say he stunk at it and he'd be the first to admit it. In his defense, the only role model he ever had was his own waste of a father who should have had his little head pinched off when he was born...but that's another story.

By 1957 Tex found himself on the parenting end of three rambunctious boys; Ron was 11, Gary was 9 and little Micky was 7. They lived on a chicken ranch out in the Mojave desert with only rattlesnakes and Joshua trees for neighbors, and come summertime there were long, hot days around the ranch with the sublime forecast for those boys of having nothing to do. Grampy vehemently believed that “Idle hands are Satan's tools” and devil be damned, his boys would not be idle. So he had copious chores planned every day in summer to keep those impish hands busy... and those three little guys didn't like it one bit. One odious task stood hands and feet above the rest—that was Moving Wood.

Tex's great passion, was collecting scrap wood. He'd drive by construction sites in his truck after work. In the dark he'd find small pieces (and sometimes long pieces) of 2x4's and 4x6's. He'd help himself, load them in the truck and take them home. He did this for years. He knew where all the new housing tracts and building sites were and what he'd expect to find at the end of a day. “But dad”, I asked when he told me about it, “wasn't that stealing?” He snorted and answered “Naw. They don't need it and they want you to take it.” “Well I don't know if the judge would have seen it that way before he sentenced you to prison” I answered. Once again I was on the receiving end of Grampy's stink eye as he quickly dismissed me, shooing me away like an annoying fly.

The stacked wood might have looked something like this...

By 1957 he had a healthy supply of wood—enough to last him till doomsday. He'd stacked the longer 2x4s in neat little box shaped piles with care and precision, adding more as more was pilfered, er I mean, collected. There was a large hole they'd dug in the ground around back which was meant to be the start of a swimming pool. The pool plan went asunder, so he threw the smaller pieces of scrap wood into it. Over the years the scrap mound grew huge, and filled that hole completely. He got to feeling proudly smug about all his lumber. One morning he was surveying his wooden kingdom when it occurred to him that all that wood would be better placed on the other side of the lot. It was summertime and the boys always needed more chores, he figured, so he commissioned them to move the lumber. “Aw dad, do we hafta?” they implored. “Get your butts out there and move it. Hard work is good for you” he replied with no mercy whatsoever. So out they went and those boys moved and re-stacked that lumber. It took them all week but they did the job. Tex was happy. The lumber DID look and fit better over there. The next day the boys grabbed their bikes and rode off into the desert right after breakfast—out of danger of being bidden for more chores.

Several weeks later Tex was once again perusing his newly stacked lumber piles. By gosh, he'd never realized it before but those piles of wood really were better where they'd started. Why hadn't he seen that before? He woke the boys up at the crack of dawn and once again explained their chore for the week....move the lumber back. They grumbled and complained but to no avail. His mind was set and there was no changing it. So once again Ron, Gary and little Micky moved and re-stacked that wood, moved the scraps back into the aborted swimming pool, and cursed their father with every breath. When finally they finished, they wiped their brows and rode off on their bikes into the desert again to lick their wounds.

The final blow came late summer when Grampy had an epiphany. He realized that the lumber really needed to be farther away from the house. So once again he approached the boys while they were eating their breakfast (and before they could get away). “Me and mama are going into town. I want you boys to get started moving the wood piles out farther next to the back fence. I want to see some progress by the time we get back.” The boys were stunned and speechless. They heard the screen door slam and the car start up and back out the driveway before they could respond. They looked at each other in disbelief. Ron, who was the oldest, the smartest, and therefore the leader, had a plan and quickly took action. He got up from the table and marched defiantly out the back door, yelling over his shoulder “I am NOT moving that lumber again!” Gary and Mike went scrambling after him. “What are you gonna do!” they were yelling after him. He marched right up to that huge hole in the ground full of scrap wood, took a book of matches out of his pocket and by gosh he set that wood on fire.

Into the sunset....

The three of them stood back and watched the lumber burn. It was gorgeous, it was huge and the smoke nearly choked them to death—it was the perfect bonfire. Gary and Mike were in awe of their older brother. His tenacity! His brilliance! Mesmerized by the cleverness of their solution and the burning spectacle before them, they failed to remember that we always reap what we've sewn—that the devil has his due and the piper must be paid. Before too long they all three looked up to see the tell-tale dust cloud of their folks car coming back down the dirt road about a quarter of a mile away. “Crap!” yelled Ron. “RUN!” 

When Tex and Bernie drove up into the driveway they were alarmed by the smoke coming from the back lot. “What the hell?!” Tex was dumbfounded as he exited the car and ran closer to see his wood collection happily burning away. “Is that my....?” Gape-faced, he stared in shock then looked up and across the desert to see three puffs of dust trailing off into the desert— three bicycles with three tiny riders far off in the distance, whopping like Indians and pedaling their bikes just as fast as their little legs could go...away into the sunset. 

He'd deal with them later—and truth be told, he tanned their hides when he finally caught them. But by jingle those boys never moved that lumber again.

Orphans and Rags

In the late 1940's times were tough for many of the soldiers who'd returned from WWII. Especially soldiers like Grampy who had dropped out of school in the 8^th grade and with the advent of war, saw the Army as the easy, go-to choice for employment. The fact that he got drafted also influenced his career preference. These men soon discovered the realities of a life that involved rising at dawn in a cold, wet fox-hole, and daily watching their backs for foreign soldiers wanting to kill them or, worse, killing those same strangers first —all the while missing family and country for far too long.

Ron, Bernie, Gary, Tex and Mike

Soon after the war he shook the dust of military life off his proverbial sandals, returned to Massachusetts and never looked back. He had a gal waiting for him there. Tex and Bernie were married soon thereafter and, as every fairy tale goes, babies followed and time marched on. Ron was the first baby born about a year after they wed, then two years later came Gary. About that time Grampy found himself jobless. Again. Times were tough and PTSD wasn't popular enough yet to validate any problems he might have had adjusting to civilian life. There were no food stamps or government assistance program to fall back on. These sturdy men, these war heros, these G.I. Joes who would become known as the “greatest generation” had only themselves, strong backs, and a clever wit to see them through.

So Tex joined up with an Army buddy of his and the two of them became Rag Pickers. Grampy told me this story with a straight face—as if it were a noble profession—clicking his dentures for effect. Every morning he and his buddy would go to the town dump. The dump trucks would inevitably lumber in with their heavy loads and commence dumping their contents into deep trash pits. “So you'd jump into that crap and pick out rags?!” I asked in disgust. “No! Now shut up and let me finish” he said. Chastised and zip-lipped I sat back and listened. He said the Sanitation workers would set the trash on fire as soon as they were done dumping so he and his buddy got two very long sticks and fashioned sharp hooks on the end. As soon as those trucks started dumping they would lickety split stand on the edge of the pit and fish out whatever they thought they could sell. Rags, cardboard and magazines—quickly before it was set on fire, all the while being careful not to fall into the pit itself, which would spell utter disaster. “LOOK magazines fetched the most” he told me as a final matter of fact. “What kind of 'utter disaster'? What does that mean?” I asked. But he was done. He sat back, rubbed his stomach and glanced toward the kitchen, asking if we had any ice cream. “Wait dad”, I said, “Who the heck would buy that stuff in an era before Goodwill stores and recycling? How did you make money?” He squinted at me...a bit irritated at my ignorance, leaned forward a bit and said “Junk yards would buy them.” That's all. Junk yards. Then he walked off to check out the freezer.

Meanwhile, zoom back to 1948. As his Rag Picking career took a dump (pun intended), Bernie and the boys found themselves evicted from their apt. Rag Picking doesn't bring home much of a paycheck at best so Bernie relied on her own clever wit to come up with a Plan. She went to the local Catholic orphanage and begged for a job doing housework, cooking, whatever they needed in exchange for room and board for her family of four. Mother Superior looked doubtful but even crusty old nuns have hearts so she gave her the job—chief cook and bottle washer. Bernie told me this story herself several years before she died. For many months, she worked from dawn to dusk cleaning and cooking while her boys lived there with the orphans and were cared for by the nuns. She seldom was allowed to see them but she knew they were eating and were warm. They socked away whatever money Tex brought in, dreaming about the day when they would get their own little apartment again at last—dreaming about hitting the high road.

NOT Mother Superior - He just plays one on TV

I asked Grampy about this Orphanage story as he was eating his ice cream, just to see what he'd have to say and fully expecting him to pronounce his dearly departed wife a damn lunatic and a bad liar. But no, he corroborated her story completely, with his own version of course. He added that Mother Superior was a mean old so and so. If the orphans said anything she didn't like she'd pop them in the mouth. Well one night at dinner Grampy said something she didn't like (it was only a matter of time) and she hauled off and hit him. POP in the mouth. Grampy is a doer, not a thinker. He stood up, wiped the blood off his lip, pulled back his left hook and popped her back, BAM! Before she could get up off the ground he'd grabbed Bernie's elbow, ran upstairs for his boys and left that orphanage for good.

Well truth be told, it's questionable the woman actually hit him and I sincerely doubt he'd really hit her back. He likes to exaggerate from time to time. He was only a scrawny 5'3” pencil stick Canadian, while Mother Superior was a corn-fed, bible-thumping Amazonian. Chances are he just ran... and never looked back.

Grampy Meets His Match

Bernadine Ann - 1946

An important part of Grampy's life was and always will be his late wife, my mother in Law, Bernie. When I met her in 1971 she was 90 lbs., 4'10", and a red-headed spitfire, inside and out. The kids called her Grandma B. I called her "Scrappy". (But never to her face.) She was Grampy's perfect sparring partner. And spar they did. They couldn't have a simple conversation without eventually disagreeing and arguing—loudly. Even on a subject as innocuous as the weather. "It was HAWT in the Cah(car)" she'd say in her deep Massachusets accent " What the hell are you talking about old woman?" Grampy would protest " It's only 88 outside! " "Go to hell, Tex!" she'd shout " It's HAWT!"

Current view of the House that Tex Built in 1953

Grampy loved the country, Bernie loved the city. Grampy loved chicken farming and collecting lumber. Bernie loved slot machines and shopping. When he said tomato, she'd counter with tomawtta. For several years in the 50's they lived in a little house Grampy built in the middle of nowhere. A little pink and gray home with gingerbread trim in the California desert with their three young boys—as far from town as Grampy could get without hearing the threat of divorce. Bernie hated it, but she endured. Much to her disgust, Grampy raised and butchered chickens in the back yard. She endured. Grampy eventually let his alcoholic loud mouthed father come live with them there. She endured. The boys rode their bikes like wild Indians in the surrounding desert, often bringing home snakes and tarantulas just to torment mama. Bernie endured.

Endurance was in her genes. Grandma B. was born Bernadine Ann which is a perfectly lovely name For a girl, but it was nonetheless quickly shortened to Bernie. She was the baby in the family and the only sister in a brood of 9 brothers. They all lived in a tiny upstairs apartment on the wrong side of the tracks in Lawrence, Mass. Although her family was French/Italian, they grew up in an Irish neighborhood and so they thought they were Irish. Those boys were rowdy miscreants, known for bar fighting, gambling, and any other sort of mischief they could dream up—often dragging little Bernie along with them on their adventures. Her mother, God rest her soul, provided for those kids alone after her husband was gone. There was no government help in the early 20th century for widows. You just worked two or three jobs instead of one to make ends meet and that she did, leaving her children to raise themselves.

Tex and Bernie knew 41 years of holy (and I use the term loosely) matrimony. She fought and cajoled until Tex finally agreed to move them, in their later years, to Laughlin, NV. They bought a double-wide down by the Colorado river where she was finally content. Slot machines and Bingo games were just a hop, skip and a jump down the dirt road. But it was Colon cancer that finally delivered the knock out punch to my feisty mother in law. She put up one heck of a fight but died in the hospital in 1997, Grampy at her side. When she surrendered her last breath he was watching her like a hawk then climbed into that bed with her, holding her for as long as he could for the last time. In spite of their tumultous past, she was his soulmate and he loved her. That's how the nurses found them.

After the funeral, as we were sorting through and boxing up her things, he seemed to me so lost and defeated. My heart went out to him. "I don't know how I'm supposed to go on without her" he told me in a tiny voice as we were working. "Dad you just endure. You just endure. That's what Mama would do." He nodded his head. "Yeah, I know" he mumbled. He quietly stood up a minute later and pulled the cardboard flaps down on the box he'd been filling, looking around the room while he did— "Now where the hell did that woman leave the damn packing tape!"