The "Smudge Pot"

You see, a "smudge pot" is a container which has some combustible in it which, when lit, emits lots of smoke. According to Dad, citrus and grape growers used this technique for many years to keep the fruit from freezing by thickening and absorbing the moisture in the air. I don’t know if that’s actually 100% correct, but I suspect it probably has some merit. However our use was different. Dad knew that where there was smoke, mosquitoes dared to go. He used to say "no self respecting mosquito would be caught dead in this smoke" as he probed the smoldering leaves in the perforated coffee can at our feet. It did work. It did repel mosquitoes, of course many times it repelled whoever was sitting downwind too, but it didn’t matter. They just moved.

Conversations I had had with Dad over many years and many evenings sitting in folding chairs in the driveway in front of the smudge pot all came echoing back one evening a short while ago. And it was a statement that my wife made one evening while we were sitting in the family room with a small group of people in a discussion group that brought it all back. The topic was forgiveness and reconciliation and sin. And it was a statement that stunned me in its clarity and simplicity of understanding.

Dad was staying with us for a couple weeks in Chicago like he always tried to do a couple times per year no matter where we lived; just to be with us and to spend time with the kids. He was really good that way. Especially after Mom had died, it became part of what he needed. He used this time I’m sure to get away and to visit with us, and just to think and pray. He was always praying!

My wife described the time she said on a Saturday afternoon: "Dad I’m going to be out of the house for a little while because I want to go to confession at Church." His answer was: "If you’re going, can I come along too?" She was surprised because he had just gone the week before, and he was 85 years old, and well...it goes like this... "Dad why do you want to go to confession again? You went just last week. At your age, alone in the house while we’re at work, what could you have possibly done so wrong in a week that you needed to go ask for forgiveness again?"

She said that he looked up in surprise and said "dear: It’s not about what you do right or wrong from time to time; it’s how you live your life and use the little time God has given you every day".

What a powerful statement! In those 30 words was a summary of his life; an insight deep into his mind and soul; not something he just considered to be true, but a glimpse at the faith that he really believed and lived. As I think deeply about it, its clear to me that, that statement defined who he really had become.

It seemed that from the moment I heard her say it, and I had asked her to repeat it to be sure I heard it right...I have felt almost compelled to capture and preserve and re-experience all the stories and thoughts and emotions he shared with me that had been stored up (maybe even pent- up) over many years. As I sat to write, it began to flow freely and I think I smiled with joy and pride through the entire time of writing this.

There are so many stories that Dad shared over the years about what he remembered as a child. These are stories he shared with us, both at the smudge pot and in the shade of the big maple trees in our front yard on lazy weekend afternoons. There were stories about him as a child and stories of my grandparents’ lives, that I could go on forever in retelling; and may write more over time. But there is one story line of events in his life I feel compelled to follow and tell here as it relates to who he became as a man, what was in his heart. This is that story line revealing to me who he was inside, in his heart; a story revealing what defined his authentic self.

I’m sure Dad was no angel in his boyhood and later young years. There were a number of cute and funny stories about how much trouble he got in for chasing the ice wagon and for hopping a train, or whatever other boyhood hijinx he did that he wasn’t supposed to. But I feel strongly that I got to know him very well as a person and as a man over the years as I grew up. Because I feel I knew him so well, I never, for a moment even considered that he could do something major and morally wrong or against his faith; nor could he ever consciously do something to hurt anyone. This was a gentle, noble and faith filled man; qualities of whom I find myself striving to emulate in many ways.

I remember one story about the time he and the guys played stick ball or football in the street (tackle football too!) and literally broke his kneecap, daring not to tell grandma or grandpa for fear of not being allowed to play anymore or not being able to work. He literally walked on it until it healed! All his adult life he was proud to show us his "double knee" he called it! Talk about tough! Wow! And there were lots of stories like this. These were such innocent things after all.

You see, Dad was a "depression child" like so many first generation Italians, and Irish in those days. Young boys had to grow up quickly in those times, and start working to help the family survive. Times were hard. He shared with me once, that they had meat to eat only once per week if things were good and no one was sick. It was always meatballs, because grandma used to stretch the ground meat to feed everyone by adding bread. He also shared with me that for breakfast he usually had one piece of home made bread with a little lard and sugar on it for breakfast. And probably a peanut butter or a cheese sandwich for lunch.

He also shared with us that he would have been one of 7 children if three hadn’t died in childbirth or earlier. There was simply not much medical care available or affordable back then. I’m sure these life stories are not unlike many thousands of others during that time. Hard choices were made, because the times required it, and even the younger children understood. Choices had to be made back then, choices to forego his education and to go work very young, to help feed his younger brother and sisters.

And so it was... after only the 6^th grade, he began working for the railroad with grandpa, starting as a water boy and working for years as he worked all the way up to become a yard crew foreman. He followed his Dad, who was a career railroader, and the family rented homes here and there up and down the New York Central Railroad line as jobs required. Eventually as he got older and after his mom died he moved into his own place, a room in a boarding house, so as not to be a burden as his brother and sisters were married off and his mom had died. It was lonely but he had friends and family nearby.

Then came the war. Dad was short and flat footed and couldn’t enlist right away, but as the war grew long and terrible, the rules were relaxed and he was able to enlist with no problem. The war changed everything, as it did for countless millions of people. His sense of call to serve and an opportunity to change things and experience things was the transition point from a time of getting by day to day and surviving, to a time of truly finding himself, of moving to another level of wholeness and sense of purpose.

This story of life in the third decade of the 20^th century was a common one. The first generation of the immigrant families, struggling to survive the depression. Then the world turned upside down in a war in which young men and women found themselves leaving their home to go to country with a strange name and even stranger language. They all now had to use all that they had learned in the workplace and school and home, and had been trained to do, and in addition be trained to be soldiers in order to fight for and defend their country...a country that in many cases had disappointed the immigrants and where life wasn’t lived on streets "paved with gold" as they had imagined. Instead this country they loved was paved by the blood, sweat and tears of the immigrant masses who came before them, and they loved it with a deep sense of patriotism.

It was a time of inconceivable things – of fear and destruction, of hate and pride, of inhumanity and at the same time of faith, patriotism and selflessness. It was also a time of forced self discovery shaped in the heat of conflict which forged a generation of young people who learned quickly how to grow up and discover quickly who they were. They were a generation produced by the faith of their fathers, a faith in God, in country, in family, in humanity. Soon he found himself in the Army and in Camp Belvoir Virginia going through basic training on his way to Europe or somewhere. He really didn’t know where he’d be going; no one did. But he’d have to take all he knew about railroading, and help the war effort as he could.

In addition to the conversations many evenings we had at the smudge pot and hot summer afternoons under the shade of the maples, Dad, left me his tiny little pocket note book which he kept all through the war. And in his short handwritten notes and in his stories he recounted the trip across the Atlantic. As he described it, it was brutal. He said he’d never been so sick in his life even to this day. The ship was a converted merchant ship originally built for hauling tons of freight, now fitted out to uncomfortable transport over 5,000 men. He shared many stories of the crossing when we talked night after night in our lawn chairs. And because of my youth and imagination these stories were very clear for me and seen in the living color of my imagination. I wanted to romanticize this adventure in my mind, but Dad’s stories over time straightened me right out to the realities of this time not long ago. These were stories of real life, of the reality those men faced willingly and with a conviction that even today I don’t fully grasp.

I suppose, that if I had been called up and served in Vietnam that I’d understand this more fully; but alas, I can only live it and recount it through the images and emotions his words painted on the relatively clean canvas of my imagination. (my draft lottery number ended up really high while I was in college and I never had to go. But I would certainly have gone if drafted).

Anyways back to the journey. He described times during that sea crossing into the unknown when this overloaded ship struggled through the beating of an Atlantic storm with hundreds if not thousands of seasick soldiers on deck, day and night (including Dad) just wishing that anything would happen- just stop the relentless rolling and pitching of the ship. He described the smell, and the crying and moaning of the grown men. My romantic vision of brave and mature soldiers, transported by polished and experienced men of the sea, quickly morphed into a wide eyed curiosity and amazement about my Dad’s stories of fragile humanity instead. Dad, who was the strongest man I knew!

He told me that it was during an incredibly bad Atlantic storm one night that he said he had started saying the rosary again. His father Andrew had given him a rosary as a going away gift to carry with him while he was overseas in the war. He said that night was the most frightening night he ever remembered as the ship slammed into wave after wave; and in its’ over loaded state it just couldn’t keep from rolling side to side. It rolled so much that the ships officers ordered the men in large groups to run from one side of the deck to the other in order to keep the ship from rolling too far and capsizing. That image of the stormy night of terror has never left me – now some 40 years after he shared it with me. "I really thought that was it and we were goners" he said. Dad said that he prayed to God that night that if he lived through this he’d promise to say a rosary every day for the rest of his life in thanks for getting out of it alive. This was a pivotal point in the transition in his life...a transition into a life where faith began to take first place and moved into and toward the core of his being.

I remember him telling me that twice he was saved from the front lines. After looking back on it, he said that the first time he felt the hand of God was when their ship was diverted from landing in England. Instead of off loading as they were ready to do, the ship was only docked quickly, re-provisioned and it sailed again for North Africa. He had missed being part of the troop build up for the D-Day invasion by just a twist of fate caused by some military decision that his battalion was needed elsewhere. He told me how incredibly dangerous it would have been for a railroad man to be rebuilding track in Europe right behind the front lines in order to keep supplies rolling. They’d be plum targets for the fighters and bombers to blow up!

Instead, the ship sailed through the straits of Gibraltar, across the Mediterranean, went through the Suez Canal then into the Red Sea. Yup he said "the water really had a reddish tint to it. I wouldn’t have believed it unless I had seen it myself". He said it had something to do with the iron content of the sediments which flowed into it or something. Then he said: "we sailed into the Arabian Sea and up into the Persian Gulf. There we off loaded and dispatched battalions to various cities and places in countries with odd sounding names, even spelled with letters we couldn’t read!"

They traveled across the desert by rail to a dusty town after another then by rail again to a town about 100 miles south of Tehran near Qom (he said it was a very ancient city, (a sense of history of ancient places was always a curiosity of his) to a small base, where, with a company of Russian soldiers, they his company was jointly assigned to maintain and protect about 100 miles of track. It seems that their war was from marauders who would attack their trains heading from ports in the Persian Gulf across Iran into Russia (our ally in this conflict), carrying war material to the Russian front.

This experience was incredible. Here he was, a guy raised in an ethnic neighborhood in a small blue collar city in upstate New York, in Iran with Russians and Iranians, and a mission to keep the trains rolling. Together with their new Russian counterparts they did just that. It was an interesting partnership, a sharing of responsibility whereby the Russians rode "shotgun" on the trains, protecting them from attack from the nomadic tribes who would repeatedly attack by horseback. Dad shared stories with me about how the nomads would just come over the dunes with swords and rifles and horses and attack at any time, sometimes blockading the tracks or destroying them to stop the trains. He described how the Russian soldiers would just "mow them down" by machine gun and celebrate the numbers killed when they returned.

He always seemed incredulous of the lack of value for human life shown on either side of this crazy war. He always shook his head and leaned forward looking down when he recounted one of these stories, marveling about how the "Arabs" (as he called them) seemed to want to die. He said "they just didn’t seem to think about life the way we did" – not saying it in a demeaning fashion, but in wonderment and shock at their ethics, and their different value system. Here there were not only armed comabatants to defend against, but battles unrelated to the spread of the Nazi ideology, battles of culture clash, greed, and belief systems.

I’m convinced, that as I got to know Dad’s deep spirituality over the years that its formation was built on the foundation stones of this experience. Experiences of seeing the dark side of human conflict and culture clash, strengthened his value system and his relationship with God and his faith.

I have a photo or two of Dad with his Russian "comrades" as he called them and always found it interesting to stare at and imagine. Interesting, that although they were together in all this; and clearly had to work together and got along well; their relationships never really formed at a personal level. At least there were none which Dad ever shared with me.

Although I’d have to say that it wasn’t a completely dark and scary time for Dad during the war. He shared some really funny stories with me, and with my brothers and sister over the years; stories of young men enjoying hard work, a good laugh and some mischief of course!

One particular story was of the day when they discovered a special freight car with warning signs al over it in English and Farsi and Russian, to "Keep out – Private Provisions for Senior Officers, Tehran Command Headquarters Violators Will Be Persecuted". "Well, they might as well had printed an invitation and laid out the welcome mat" dad said. "Then they found out through who knows who, that the car was full of liquor and wine and candy and cigars for the huge wedding of a very high ranking senior British officer at Persian Gulf Command headquarters in Tehran!

It had been months since leave, and they’d living in brick huts (barracks) in the sand and heat. And now an entire freight car of liquor and treats!! As Dad remembered and recounted the story to me: he described how, somehow, an entire freight car was misplaced somewhere between the port in the gulf and Tehran, and coincidentally some of the guys in his company had been able to buy really cheap on the black market a case apiece of the finest liquor and boxes of cigars. He said that he’d never forget how his friend Sam almost cried the day he took Dad to his secret hiding place where he had buried his "stash" of 12 year old Scotch in the sand. When he dug down, there it was, his half case of scotch whiskey, but because of the incredible heat of the sand, sometimes during the day reaching 120 degrees (he didn’t bury it deep enough) and all the bottles had exploded. It was truly a sad day, but it provided a lot of laughs for a long time every time they thought about it.

According to the story, (probably embellished a bit over the years), he heard that the rail car itself was taken off onto a siding then at night moved to an area where it was buried in a sand dune. Who knows, its probably still there today the way the sand buries everything. So someday archeologists will discover a rare find...100 year old bottles of 12 year old Scotch! I guess Dad’s company commander got in a lot of trouble, but no thing was ever found, as MPs and attache’s from Tehran traveled down the entire line to investigate and promised a promotion to anyone with information and court marshal to anyone involved!! I’ll never know Dad’s part in this tale (he said he’d have no part in it). I don’t care to speculate, but I do have a photo of him standing with Russian comrades in arms which shows them smoking cigars and drinking Vodka obtained from some source. I’m sure its just a coincidence.

I smile when I remember Dad’s "Snagglepuss" laugh when I recall two other stories he shared with me of "a stranger in a strange land" from his war years. Both stories had to do with weekend passes which soldiers were all given every few months; and had to do with a man’s desire to eat something / anything beyond those dreaded K- rations. The dreams of real fresh cooked meat were really vivid and strong to him, after the lack of it at their small base.

One story goes that he and his buddies checked the bulletin board on base on which local restaurants were listed as "ok to dine at" or conversely "out of bounds" for a number of unsavory reasons. That weekend they all decided to go out for a steak at a very popular and approved restaurant in town. He recalled the joy to me of entering the restaurant and hearing the sizzling of steak cooking as he and Sam and who knows who else (maybe even a Russian or two) sat in anticipation of the arrival of their steak. He said "we just dived into those steaks like we’d never seen food before", and recalled that they were pretty good too! Of course he said, "we realized that they were not like the steaks they were used to." The meat, as he remembered it, just had a different consistency and flavor. He figured that the cattle probably didn’t even eat as well as the people do, and the people were almost starving most of the time, so he shouldn’t have expected much. But they enjoyed it nevertheless.

Upon returning to base that evening he said that they had to walk across the front of the Mess tent, and by the bulletin board on the way to their barracks. That’s when one of his buddies saw it and yelled it to the rest of them – the restaurant they had just eaten at was banned that day. It seems that they were serving camel meat!! Dad had no fondness for camel and he and the guys didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry or to throw up! He just looked at me in the driveway and said "Phooey" camel meat...they are so dirty and smelly and tough and have a mean demeanor." Needless to say that was the last risk Dad took in that town.

The second story happened about a year later when another weekend pass came. This time with permission to go to Tehran, the big city! Again Dad and Sam and the guys were dreaming about a meal at a great and popular big city restaurant. The food at camp was ok, in fact it had gotten better over the last year but was still ok at its best. So, given a chance to go to the city they leaped at it. This time making sure that the restaurant list showed the approved places they could go to for at least a couple months straight before they went. More camel meat was not high on the list of delicacies they ever wanted to sample again. The way to assure no problems was to choose one of the higher end restaurants, and that they did. Dad couldn’t remember the name but only that it was "Chez" something...a French one.

Guys form the US could only dream of the wonderful experience of French food and had heard such great things about this and a couple other restaurants. They were genuinely excited! After all, the French ran this country for years, and their food and the language became part of the national landscape, especially in the big cities.

As Dad described the event to me: there it was; with everything they had imagined: ceiling fans, table cloths, male waiters, just like an expensive restaurant in New York. And the menu....well the menu...it was all written in French and almost impossible to decipher. And the waiter only spoke French (at least he acted so). Did any of the guys speak French? Nope!...But Sam thought he recognized a couple words. He said he saw the word on a can of soup in the base kitchen, the word "poulet" which meant chicken. And they both agreed that the word "boeuf" was probably beef. So they laughed together and pointed to what they wanted to the rude waiter. All the guys ordered something with the word "boeuf" in it, and sure enough they all got a beef dish of one sort or another, with all the French sauces and nice looking food designs on the plates. Well Dad saw "poulet" which he now knew as chicken, and "froid" which was probably French for "fried". He had such a craving for fried chicken and he hadn’t had any since he was back home. The one thing they all ordered well was the wine. The ordered a bottle and 4 glasses, and it was great.

The waiter came to the table with Dad’s fried chicken, and he could almost taste it before it reached the table. Well it looked a little different, but hey, like everything else in this strange place, it just wasn’t like home. "MMMM...fried chicken...with some sort of cold vegetable cut to resemble a star and... What!" He called the waiter immediately, "this chicken is cold" (he rubbed his hands together to communicate cold to him). And the waiter just shook his said, and said something in French about GI’s and pointed to the word "froid" in the menu and then pointed to the chicken. He was saying it was cold chicken and the word "froid" in French means cold not fried! He remembered that they all laughed hysterically at him, and even he joined in after the disappointment wore off. All this waiting and anticipation for COLD CHICKEN! It still was tasty after all; oh well, two weekend passes, two meals in great restaurants, two disasters!

Dad again looked at me in the folding chair across from him with the smoke of the coffee can smudge pot (for the mosquitoes) between us, shook his head and said again "phooey... cold chicken! I hate cold chicken".

The sheer fun and innocence of these cute stories he chose to share with me gave me a really clear image of a well meaning, somewhat innocent, hard working young man. He was a man with a joy for living, for the simple things like good friends, a good meal of steak or fried chicken and time away. And it occurs to me now that I’m older and more adept at looking into things and stories and events rather than just looking at them, that there was always something present in his stories.

Even at restaurants, he knew the natives couldn’t afford, there was always a thought in his mind about how poor they were, how even their animals didn’t eat very well, and that their food wasn’t what we in the developed world were used to, but it was all they had. There was always a care and empathy there. This care and empathy really flowed through the stories he shared with me about the people he had direct relationships with in his railroad work, about the men he saw crying that stormy night, and saying the rosary on board ship; and about the poor people and day laborers who barely survived in the desert while he was on leave ordering meats and wine.

One particular night I came down from my room after studying to join him and found him listening to his radio on a short wave frequency setting as he did quite often when no one was around. He loved tuning in to a European station or a station from far away in the western part of the country like WOWO Fort Wayne Indiana or any place really. I think it helped him stay connected to the bigger world out there. Between his job and his kids and Mom, and his garden and occasional work for the Holy Name Society, he really didn’t have much of an outlet. That is, other than he and mom visiting with his brother and sister-in-law on Thursday nights for pinochle, and with family visits to mom’s relatives every weekend. His brother passed away relatively young and his sisters both lived quite far away by travel standards back then.

But tonight there was a station coming in that was from very far away – it sounded like Arabic or something, and it had weird sounding instruments and singing that I’d never heard before. He explained something to me about a very rare phenomenon involving the ionosphere which was allowing radio signals to travel great distances. I didn’t really understand it, but he did. He tinkered with radios in the basement all the time, finding old big radios at curbside and bringing them home to work on them late at night after we’d all gone to bed or were doing our homework. Mom used to watch TV till late at night, Dad just couldn’t do that. He taught himself to fix radios and could repair virtually anything. I was always amazed at the breadth of his general knowledge of everything from history to science to religion; and all learned from books and papers and magazines he had read on his own, with barely even a complete 6^th grade school education as a foundation!

When I was a small boy I used to tinker with the dials of his big old radios myself sometimes when I was in the basement at his worktable, trying to receive foreign stations. I’d slowly move the tuner left then right to pick really interesting sounds and pretend that I was in an airplane or something and I’d get a little lost in the sounds myself!

As I came down the garage stairs that night, he said "turn down the radio Andy. That’s one of the Arabic languages on the radio." "I haven’t heard that in a long time. It helps me remember things from back in Iran. That’s all I heard on the radio over there. I can’t help thinking about them...the Iranians who helped us during the war. It was the only work they could find to feed their families. It was hard work but they really tried hard to get those jobs and for only about $2 per week. And they were able to survive...in fact better than most!" He described to me how little they had and how hard they worked in the blazing heat all day for almost nothing. They all came to work with a sash around their waists. One of them would have a small teapot tied to his sash and the others each had a small metal cup tied to theirs. When lunch break came he remembered that one of them would take a few small sticks he gathered during the morning or ones they brought with them and they would start a small fire. They’d put water in the teapot and make tea. As they all poured a cup for themselves from the pot they’d each reach into their sashes for a chunk of sugar which they’d put in their mouths and drink the tea through the sugar...it was so strong it was the only way! They each pulled out a crust of bread or dried something or other from their sashes and drank their tea. That’s it. They’d make it all day on that little sustenance, and the work was very physical. But he said they never complained like a lot of the American and Russian soldiers did. Dad just shook his head and some of those memories of 30 years before seemed to still burden him somehow.

I remember one day in the kitchen when I took a sugar cube and sipped black coffee through it- how sweet it was; and I guess that was when the story imprinted on my memory, because I burned my tongue and drooled hot coffee and melted sugar all over my white shirt just before leaving for work.

I think that at those times, when I had a glimpse of Dad’s gentle care for others clearly visible in his statements, were some of the most important moments for me. I got to see the side of him that represented his best and caring nature. No matter what he had done wrong or right in life, it was his caring nature that counted; it was how he lived his life that was important. He said one time that if the poor Iranians he worked with had seen one of our grocery stores they would have thought they’d died and gone to heaven.

There was a mini ghetto mentality among each ethnic group in those days including the Italian immigrant families. It manifested itself as a mistrust for the ways of others sometimes, but above all this, their deep faith helped them all look and see deeper into what was really important: family, love, faith in God and being neighborly, genuine and caring.

I’m sure that all the moments and events in Dad’s service years weren’t as memorable and insight-filled, and that the GI’s their Russian comrades, had their share of fun at times, but its in these stories that I could see something special in Dad, something that gave me a glimpse of the man I’d like to be. Some of these sweet stories were his teaching moments for me, whether he intended them to be or not. I’m sure there were frightening moments for him over there, sad moments, mistakes he didn’t want to repeat, etc. like we al have in our lives; but his driveway stories at the smudge pot were an opportunity for him to choose stories and lessons and deliver them well.

Another night I remember we were sitting in the folding chairs at the edge of the garage, with a smoldering smudge pot emitting a brackish who knows what into the air to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Thunder and lightning animated the sky in the distance. I was still in high school and had just returned from work at the supermarket. He was usually there every evening when I came home with two chairs set up...Mom would only stay out there with him for a few minutes or so until the first mosquito buzzed in her ear..."that’s it"... she’d say and go in the house. She hated mosquitos. I went in the house and washed up and grabbed a cookie or a sandwich and some ice tea and headed outside. We sat for a minute, he asked me how work was, and I mentioned how hot it was. Dad said something about heat lightning in the distance. I never understood what heat lightening was and still don’t. Well anyways, Dad got really quiet for a minute. "Yup. It is hot, I checked the thermometer on the kitchen window and it must be still over 80 degrees, and its after 9 o’clock"!

He went o to say: "but I couldn’t believe how hot it got in the desert in Iran. During the day we couldn’t touch anything metal because it was so hot. And we could always see mirages which looked like lakes of water in the distance because of the reflected sun and radiated heat". He said"many men lost in the desert died of thirst chasing those mirages. And at night it sometimes cooled right down so quickly it felt cold, but other nights in the summertime, it was so hot that I thought that if we didn’t have that one big fan I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Sometimes it was too hot to lie down so I just sat on my cot leaning against the wall with the fan on my face. Of course the natives didn’t have a fan, or electricity. Those poor people! How did they do it", he said? "Although apparently they knew how, because they had been living there for thousands of years. I guess they are used to it. They even had very little water...just enough to drink a couple times a day and to make tea (that awful tea)."

They didn’t take showers, I asked? "No way." Dad said. There just wasn’t enough. Their sanitation was not at all what we had, even at our small base, you know we lived like at scout camp." Yuk! I remember thinking. But Dad was quick to say they were very happy people. "They took care of their families, and respected their older people. And they were devout in their faith too (Dad seemed to stress that point). They prayed many times per day in the direction of Mecca no matter where we were or what we were doing. When time for prayer started they prayed – in public, unashamed."

As I look back on these stories and the experiences he had in Iran I believe that observing these people in their poverty stopping to pray thanks and praise many times per day helped Dad to move to another level of his faith life too. He said their prayer beads were very much like our rosary, and described an event one day when one of the Muslim men saw him during a break when Dad was praying his rosary. He said, "the man stopped, looked at him, held up his own prayer beads and smiled, saying something in Farsi and pointing to heaven".

He went on to say that "the Iranians were a very gentle people in everyday things, but their laws were strict and their value for human life was quite different from ours. Maybe it was because they had so little in terms of worldly goods and necessities that it was much easier for them to sacrifice their lives and leave for a greater place, a greater reward. They’d think nothing of chopping a man’s hand off if he stole something or killing a woman if she cheated on her husband. And their tribes were always killing each other." "Here we have different churches, but respect each other’s faith. There, even different Muslim sects would hate and kill each other", he said.

May years later when I mentioned the sad situation in the Middle East to him I remember him saying: "I have to laugh." "who do we think we are? Do we think we’re going to change the way these people think? They’ve been killing each other intribal and religious conflicts for thousands of years. And these "boneheads" in Washington and the UN think we’re going to stop it all by negotiating some agreement? Who is going to sign it? For Who? What a laugh!" He said. That always stuck with me, although I don’t agree necessarily with us staying completely uninvolved as a country. But who knows where foreign relations with those countries will all end up, if ever!

Anyways, he said: "giving them a bar of soap was a huge gift. I remember once a month giving one to "Ali" and it lasted him a long time."

Who was Ali, I asked? Dad got very pensive and poked his stick into the smudge pot, to make it smoke, and put more leaves and twigs and whatever, in it. Mom hated the smell of it coming in the house and usually the kitchen door to the garage would close, sometimes gently, but early each evening to keep it out of the house.

"Well, Ali was a boy about your age." He stopped for a few moments and then began telling me of how he met him and about the relationship they developed. I didn’t realize it at the time but this was the benchmark story defining his sensitivity and revealing his true heart and compassion. This was the story of how he thought, felt, and lived his life.

It seems that Ali was an Iranian boy with whom Dad developed a very special relationship in the years he was stationed there. He went on to say that this small boy who had a slight limp, just showed up one day and started working without really being hired.

Dad always had a love for an opera by Giancarlo Monetti called "Amahl and the Night Visitors", which featured a very young and very poor crippled boy from the Middle East visited by the three Wise Men on their journey to Bethlehem. Now I understand why a bit more. Dad said that "Ali was very young, but he saw an opportunity in bringing the water to the workers, to save them a trip to the well or the big barrels attached to the side of the caboose. He’d fill the bucket and bring water to them with the ladle to drink out of and when the bucket was empty he’d run back to the barrel and fill it and run back to the job. Ali did this job all day, and at the end of the day one or more of the workers would give him some bread left from lunch."

The water bucket was a very special symbol for Dad because he too, when he was very young had to leave school and work on the railroad as a water boy during the early years of the depression; hard and thankless work just to bring in a few more cents per week to the family. Dad said he never found out if Ali had a family and Ali would never talk about it. "It appeared that Ali was an orphan on his own at a very early age. Who knows; maybe his parents died or something." "And its not like there were orphanages or social services over there except those run by the French missionaries and nuns in the big cities; he said." "Young boys were expected to help provide for their families or make it on their own completely."

"I remember Ali very well" Dad said through a soft smile tinged with a bit of sadness. "I took him under my wing over there. One time I gave him a candy bar and he said "thank you" in Farsi (their language over there which I think they still speak). I didn’t speak their language, so when I said "you’re welcome", he repeated it and tried it again in English, then he said it in Farsi again and I repeated it in Farsi. That’s how I began to learn the language."

You can speak Arabic I said? It’s called "Farsi", Dad said. "It’s the Arabic language they were speaking at that time over there. There were a lot of other languages and dialects around over there. Lots of people spoke French too because of the French influence. But they preferred their native tongue, so I learned it!"

Cool, can you still speak it? "Not much", he said. "Just a couple phrases. Its just like everything else. If you don’t use it you lose it. I found that if I spoke to the workers in Farsi, or at least tried to, they liked it and treated me very well. I remember Ali learned some English very quickly and did ok with Farsi I guess. He taught me and I taught him; and I gave him candy and some canned food and soap from time to time. Lots of kids hung around the GIs at that time because we were always good for candy or a stick of gum or something. I remember giving him his first candy bar and watching his eyes as he tasted chocolate and caramel and honey for the first time." I remember he proudly said in the broken English he had learned... you have so much good to eat...I love America."

Dad never really told me about how close they must have become, but clearly a beautiful friendship of likely a fatherly nature based on kindness and respect ensued. The depth of that relationship became clear to me when he said: "You know I tried to bring Ali home with me because he was all alone, and I even tried to adopt him thinking that would be a way to do it. But that wasn’t going to happen over there during the war in those days." He looked away and said, "I’ll always wonder what ever happened to Ali and his life after we all left. At least he learned a little English. That gave him at least a little something that maybe could help him make a living."

Wow! I had no idea that had happened and it’s the first and last time Dad ever talked with me about Ali. But I remember that I was certainly proud of Dad at that moment and feel even prouder today. He was willing to cross the lines of prejudice and discrimination with his caring and self giving nature for a young boy who he barely knew, and bring him into his own life to help him. Just because he cared and wanted to do something. Another glimpse at what he meant by "it’s how you live your life".

I remember wondering, what would have happened if Dad had brought him home? It would have been interesting...an Iranian boy in a small Italian / Polish / German community like ours. Would Dad have married? Would I have had Ali for a brother? Would he have stayed or moved to Iran? I had so many questions racing through my head. But what a clear look at Dad’s heart in those days in the early 40s, which weren’t exactly times of racial and intercultural understanding and integration.

He marveled at these people who had almost nothing in terms of worldly goods by any standard, but worked hard, cared about their families, helped each other, prayed together and had done so for a thousand or more years before and likely would continue long after the GIs left, as things returned again to the mundane, until another regional conflict arose. The history of that part of the world, as Dad said more than once, was one of continuous conflict over one thing or another for centuries.

The stillness of night and the deafening sound of the crickets joining in an evening cacophony of high pitched noise was interrupted by a passing car on the street out front, and Dad commented on the driver’s lack of coming to a complete stop once again. He and Mom worried so much about that stop..."someday there’s going to be a bad accident, a real fracas on that corner" they’d both say. As I think back on the one car every half hour or so that would pass that intersection in our quiet neighborhood, I have to smile thinking about the traffic here in Chicago suburbs. Dad leaned back to look at the stars and said "I’ll never forget VE day the day Nazis had finally surrendered."

The war in Europe and the Western World was over and the Germans had been defeated. He recounted to me that night that the message had reached their camp and the joy and celebration with their Russian comrades as they enjoyed lots of food, cigars and fine Vodka (which appeared from somewhere). The party they had that night Dad described as a "doozey"! I have a picture of him posing with his Russian comrades with a cigar in mouth and a wide smile. They had earned it. He described the train that came through in the morning with flags flying on it and soldiers hanging off it yelling in English and Russian, the war is over, we won; we’re going home!

It was time to leave this desolate place and no one was saddened by it, except some of the villagers who would now need to find another source of income. Although I could only imagine the bittersweet time of leaving Ali behind with a finality that probably troubled Dad for many years.

There wasn’t much to pack. Dad had collected a number of coins. He had an attraction for ancient coins being truly affected by living in a place so full of the history of the near eastern roots of our civilization. He said that in his off ours he’d visit the local market and buy coins that looked interesting, not knowing what they were worth, but would spend hours studying them closely in his spare time. I have this collection and value it highly today. The coins range from old roman to Turkish, to Libyan to Egyptian to various old kingdoms of that region, some in strange shapes, some clearly stamped by hand, some of various colors and materials from metals to glass. Just going through them from time to time is a fun way to touch the ancient. But other than coins and a couple pictures, there was little he brought back.

Another night our conversation somehow wandered to the subject of atomic power. Dad was really proud of the fact that the company he worked for had built an atomic power plant in upstate New York and was explaining how it worked to me. His breadth and depth of knowledge always amazed me. But he read constantly and kept sharp as a pin right until his last days by doing his crossword puzzles and always keeping occupied, and I am absolutely convinced...by taking a nap every chance he got. These short refreshers are now called "power naps". I really think he’s the inventor! He could nap anywhere, at any time in any position!

I guess in those days atomic power and danger was on everyone’s minds and we were uniquely reminded of the times every hour or so in our neighborhood as huge powerful and frightening B52 strategic bombers took off and landed at the SAC Base in an approach path not too far from our house in those days. He said: "you know I probably wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for Truman dropping the A-bomb on Japan." That made me really curious...What do you mean, I asked?

Well, he said, "as soon as VE Day was announced there was a period of weeks I think, of waiting and winding things down until our orders came through to break camp and be ready to move. So we did...and gladly! We thought we were going home so we boarded the trains and headed for a port to the South. I think it was called "Abadan" he said. I remember looking back for the longest while at that place as the train pulled out for the last time", he said. "I watched until our camp disappeared into the sand and rock of the mountains and the desert."

He said, "I remember thinking about all those people we had met and the lives we were a part of, and that I’d never see them again. I was leaving there for a better place, but I knew they never would. This was their home and they and their ancestors had lived here for thousands of years. Our years here would make very little difference in their lives after we were gone." I wondered at that point how he must have felt about leaving Ali, and if Ali was there as the train pulled out of town with the GIs for the last time.

Dad said he wondered how the local workers and bosses they had trained would be able to take care of the tracks and switches and track beds after they were gone. But "soon", he said, "we were back in port from where we had entered this country which at that time seemed like a lifetime ago. We boarded ship. This time it was a passenger ship, a French cruise ship which had been commandeered by the allies when France was occupied by the Nazis. It was called the "Isle de France" and he remembered thinking... "well, this is a lot nicer than the troop ship we came over on, and it was...although it was designed for 800 passengers and now carried 3,000 of us!" "We were stacked up like sardines in the rooms which were already really small, so most of us spent all day on deck and only even slept below if we had to. The ship was packed with men and materials, but no more sand again, and hopefully decent food again."

They sailed out of the Persian Gulf down into the Indian Ocean and were going to go around India, hopefully headed home. It was a much smoother trip than when we crossed the Atlantic, but oh was it hot. He told me that it was on this trip that he saw flying fish for the first time. I remember saying yeah right, flying fish Dad?! "Yup. They would leap out of the water through the air and go a surprising distance before splashing back. I couldn’t believe my eyes, he said. God must have grinned when he created them." He said, "some of the guys hung over the railings trying to catch one but never could."

Didn’t it feel good to know you were finally going home, I asked? "Well for a few days it did; then our orders came through and we found out that we were going to part of the invasion force heading toward Japan. We’d go in right after the Marines secured an area, wherever we landed; and our job would be to get the railroads rebuilt and rolling to supply the front lines. This was one of the times I got really scared he said...good thing grandpa gave me that rosary. Starting on that ship in the Atlantic a few years before, I said a rosary every day. We felt sort of safe from the war while we were in the desert. Now it was really frightening. I had read about the Kamikazee pilots and the hand to hand fighting in Iwo Jima and I knew that this would be very bad."

I thought Japan surrendered, I asked!? "They did", Dad said, "but only after we dropped two atomic bombs on them! We were all now really scared, but resolute that we would do what we needed to do. All of a sudden we wished we were back in the desert at that small base! So it was a very quiet ship after we found that out. Some guys were mad, some were excited, some were scared. Soon the celebrations over the defeat of the Germans stopped and we all prayed and prepared and thought a lot about life and home."

"We sailed for a week or so toward the Philippines and I remember how unbelievably hot and still everything was. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I had gone from the frying pan into the fire! It seemed like weeks went by at sea. I guess when you are in deep thought you can lose tract of time."

Dad went on to say, "I remember when the message came over the PA system to all hands and passengers that the US had dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and on Nagasaki; that a lot of guys were really excited that this would speed up the end of the war – and it did! Some time later, as we were approaching the Phillipines, and beginning to head north, the announcement came that the Japs had surrendered. I think everyone on the ship cried and laughed and prayed thanks at the same time as the reality hit us that there would be no invasion, no rebuilding a railroad system in another strange land, no risk of being killed by Japanese who we knew would fight ferociously defending their homeland." "After refueling, our ship turned away from Japan and headed for home."

Dad stopped at that point and mused out loud that "it was sad that so many innocent people had to die that way, but I’ve read that if we had invaded the mainland, they would have fought us like they did in Okinawa and over a million or more GI’s (maybe even us) would have been killed in the invasion and in the occupation." "Who knows if I’d be here right now, he said." That thought really hit me hard right then; and in my later years I have come to realize the power of those moments in Dad’s life to shape him and form him as a man, as I’m sure it did for many.

I remember thinking to myself. Wow! I wouldn’t be here either if Dad didn’t make it! A lot of people say Truman should have never done it, but who knows. All he knew was that this was going to be a fight to the finish for the Japanese, so many hundreds of thousands of soldiers had already lost their lives and so many lives had changed forever on both fronts; and he had a way to end it. So he did. I pray that it never happens again.

I’m sure that lots of GIs felt the same way as Dad in terms of the awfulness of war. The fact that so many died in such a terrible way and so instantaneously really bothered him deep inside; but he understood both the horror of how terrible mankind can be, and also at the same time how gentle mankind could be and is called to be to each other...a dichotomy which characterizes our very human existence as imperfect beings. I’d like to think that we in this country value human life too much and have felt the pain of that decision to bomb so deeply so as to never do that again. This is something that a whole generation of soldiers and politicians had to live with. But they did. They returned to this country, to their homes and their lives, started families and continued living, although with an inner knowledge of man’s cruelty to man in times of war.

I can’t help but ponder on Dad’s gentle spirit, which was such an opposite from how so many soldiers in the war were characterized in movies. It truly bothered him deeply and always would. Although he was spared the personal horror of combat, it left its mark just the same. I believe his faith life was not only deeply effected, but was formed by his experiences during his years in the service.

He shared with me more than a few times, stories about how he had served as an altar server for the visiting chaplains who would visit the base once per week. He truly enjoyed doing that, and its something he clearly always wanted to do as a boy, but with moving a lot because of his Dad’s job on the railroad, and going to work as a boy himself, it never really worked out that he could do that. As he mused to me about the priest who came to say Mass on the hood of his jeep, he remembered that the Russian soldiers would come too. Even though they were Russian Orthodox he said, they still knew what was going on and went to communion. Even some of his non catholic friends like Sam would come sometimes, just to pray and listen. "It was more than ok he said: "God knew what was in everyone’s hearts."

There’s not a lot of further detail I can remember from his stories of the return trip home, but I can piece some together from his notes to describe the experience he shared. One night he told me about his trip across the South Pacific and how amazed he was that the sea which he remembered being so rough and cold in the Atlantic, could be so smooth like glass for days at a time. Someone called it the "doldrums". It was so hot that nobody slept inside, everyone who could was on deck looking for some kind of shade and some little breeze from the movement of the ship to cool them off. And the stars, wow, Dad looked up into the sky and said: "you’ve never seen them until you look at them at night from the middle of the ocean. There are so many billions more than we think and can see from here, and different constellations too...ones you can’t see from up here in the northern hemisphere." It makes you feel so small and insignificant, and marvel about God’s creation."

The ocean was a totally new experience for most of the men on that ship except for their trip over, which they all tried to forget. But the incredible vastness and serenity of it was impressive. Dad described the dolphins which would swim along side the ship as if keeping guard and escorting it. How about sharks , I asked? "Well, yes, he said, we saw quite a few off the side of the ship, really big ones too." Dad told me the story of all the sailors who were eaten by sharks after their Navy ship was sunk by a Jap sub a month or so earlier in the South Pacific, and how the story was that they all locked arms in the water for 3 days to fight them off, but hundreds of them died before their eyes. "How awful to watch your buddies go like that," he said. It seemed that all through many of his stories, Dad always, (no matter what the adventure of travel brought) was bothered by the sadness of the plight of others, and could really feel it.

Some time later he shared some of the details of his long trip home and how they saw the mountains of Hawaii in the distance and sea birds. Land was near. He described the stark difference between the mountains of Hawaii and the barren rock mountains of Iran. "Everything was so green and the colors, well they were almost to beautiful to describe!" He said, "no wonder

the Japs wanted this island and it was referred to as a paradise!" Their ship needed to take on food and fuel and supplies for the rest of the trip to America.

But there it was, "Pearl Harbor". Dad said "the captain ordered all hands and company on deck for entry into the harbor." And as the ship slowly entered the battered harbor, there it was, the Arizona, and other sunken ships, lost with all hands still on board. The Chaplain said a prayer over the PA system and all on board lined the railings in salute as the ship slowly passed these monuments to men who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom."

I never had the honor of serving our country in the military as Dad and many thousands have since them, because of circumstances and twists of fate like getting a high draft lottery number during the Vietnam war... But I can still put myself in their shoes that day in honoring those who had given it all for us.

I said; you were in Hawaii? How was it? "Yes" he said. "But only for a day. We never got to leave the ship. All we could do is enjoy the perfect weather and quite literally "smell the sights of the palms and tropical flowers," from the ship." He remembered the sweet smell of the islands I think very vividly for a long time after.

After what seemed to be forever at sea from Hawaii, the end of Dad’s literally around the world tour was coming to an end. About 5 years before my Dad’s passing he gave me a little pocket diary he had with him throughout his time in the service. Over the last year or so, since he passed away I’ve opened it a few times, each time to a different page to look at his writing and explore his thoughts. He only wrote in it a few times and very few words each time but I can really feel his emotion...one of his last notes to himself was "We all knew we were getting close to America and San Francisco because we could smell the pine trees even before we could see the coastline. The smell was so sweet and wonderful and welcoming. It had been so long."

After all those weeks at sea with nothing but salt air to breathe this must have been like breathing the hint of a woman’s perfume as she passes "it took your breath away" he said to further describe it in his notepad. In describing the return one night he remembered the joy of seeing the golden gate bridge for the first time and noting that it looked exactly how he had seen it in pictures, tall and majestic with its piers coming out of the early morning fog, and the huge banner "Welcome Home" and the escort boats and sail boats that all came out to meet them.

He was finally back . He and Sam (a buddy from central New York he had met in Iran) didn’t stay in San Francisco very long. They had to wait for their discharge papers and spent a few days there visiting Chinatown, The Wharf, and eating real food. The local restaurants rolled out the red carpet for the returning GIs he said. They ate like kings.

But they wouldn’t feel like they were really home until they were back in central New York and the trip across the country by rail would be a great adventure for a railroad man. He looked forward to it. In fact, on one of his birthdays, I remember of us giving him a book of trains which showed trains and engines and railroad scenes from across the country. In this book was a picture of one of the tunnels going through the mountains in Californa or one of the western mountain states. He marveled at the picture saying that he saw and went through tunnels just like this and couldn’t believe that they had been cut into the mountains the way they had...by hand in many cases by Chinese immigrants / laborers. You know he said; "they worked incredibly hard just for food and a little money, almost nothing just like slaves to dig those by hand. Back then many of them died on the job or had terrible injuries."

There he was again, thinking about the poor workers and their suffering and genuinely caring for them; almost taking on their suffering with a sadness amplified because he enjoyed the ride through those tunnels at their expense. He went on to say, "who knows how many hundreds died in the digging of those tunnels with their bare hands. There weren’t any power tools like we now have, nor laws to protect workers from unsafe practices. It almost reminds me how some of the soldiers treated the locals back in Iran. And for the same purpose...to build the railroads! So when I have hard work to do he said, I always think about what they had to do just to survive; and then its not so hard anymore."

So you took the train all the way across the country, I asked? "Yes we did" he said. "We slept most of the way through the mountains at night but to see this country was an incredible treat." He then said, "I remember stopping a few times for coal and water for the locomotive boilers (we had mostly steam locomotives although diesels were beginning to appear)." "As morning broke I couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty and richness and power of this country." He just leaned forward and shook his head in marvel and wonder even this many years later as he described traveling what seemed for days on end through vast fields of grain of every kind as far as he could see. So vast were the fields that they had waves like an ocean in the wind. "We’re so blessed in this country, he said. If you could have only seen what we saw in the desert it would be shocking. You wouldn’t believe it. If those people saw this they’d think they had died and gone to heaven and this was their eternal reward. And we take it and so much for granted."

Again, as I remember his statements and stories from years ago I catch a glimpse of his heart; a heart of gratitude, humility, sensitivity, and awe at the wonders of God’s gifts to us. There were a number of stories about that trip across the country he recalled to me from time to time, like the one when they had to spend the night in Kansas City to change trains in the morning and had what he still referred to as the greatest steak he had ever eaten. He said, "they are corn fed out there you know. ...not like the camel meat I had eaten in Iran"...as he fell back in his chair still laughing at the memory.

What was it like getting off the train and knowing you were back, finished, and home, I asked? Dad was surprising quiet for a minute. He shared with me that Grandpa was out of town in Florida or somewhere (life of a railroad man you know), but he said: "I remember uncle Mike and Aunt Trae and Aunt Jennie were all very happy to see me and it was a wonderful day." I sensed a quietness and a pensiveness about him and asked; where did you stay? "Oh I stayed with Uncle Mike for a while, but they had their lives so I moved to a hotel for a while until I could find work." It sounded lonely to me but being young and never really experiencing loneliness in my few years, I never really understood what he meant until later in my own life having been away from family for a little over a year (but with twice a month visits).

I never asked much about that period and Dad never really went there in his stories, except in bits and pieces. He shared that he had lived in the hotel for a while then moved to a boarding house after he got a job in the switching yard at the coke plant and bought a car. A coke plant, what’s a coke plant, I asked? "Oh" Dad said. "They used to burn coal until it got glowing hot then bathe it in water producing steam and gasses, which were used to power turbines for electricity and gas to burn in industry and for heat. They didn’t have much natural gas distribution yet." Neat I said! "Well yes Dad said, but incredibly smelly too." Hard work seemed to be what Dad always did as far back as he could remember.

When did you meet Mom, I asked? "I remember one night after work I had had dinner and finished listening to some radio show "Fibber McGee and Molly" or "Edward R. Morrow" or something, I was saying my rosary..the same rosary grandpa gave me when I left for the war and I said every day since that terrible night at sea on the way over there." Dad had formed an attachment to that rosary and to a regular prayer life that was very important to him. It was part of who he was and how he related to things both good and bad.

He paused and said quietly; "that night was particularly gloomy and I was really down. It had rained and as I looked out the window into the night I could see the steam from the hot streets rising by the glow of the streetlight below my window. I had prayed really hard that night and many nights before for a long time asking God to please send me a wonderful woman who I could love and care for and who’d love me and build a family with me."

For all the years I’ve known Dad since he said that, it always reminded me of what a blessing he considered Mom to be...a gift from God. And I understood. Every time seeing them together, with him always holding the door for her, and treasuring her...sometimes "smothering her" she’d say. But I remember that prayer he said that night, knew the strength of his faith and understood his passion. And when after 40 years of marriage and a wonderful family, she so suddenly was taken from us after we had all figured he’d pass away first, he was just as broken hearted as a man could ever be. I think that former memory of loneliness, of not having anyone to love and love him from so many years before returned that night for a while, and was just multiplied by having her as wife and mother to his children for over 40 years.

On that night long ago below the hotel window, the steamy aftertime of rain on a summer night just added to his melancholy and loneliness. As he told it to me; "It was just then that a shadowy figure stepped into the light", and he saw her. It was as if God had said OK Tom, here she is! And there she was, as he remembered so vividly, "so beautiful, with a wonderful figure, with perfect hair and hat and clothes." He said, "I wondered...who was this woman waiting for the bus that night?" He shared with me that at that moment he said to God: "if only You would send me a woman like that I would take care of her and love her all of my life. God please send me someone wonderful like that."

Little did he know at that instant, that soon, as he was at a first communion party he was invited to for a relative’s daughter, he would be introduced to that very woman by a cousin who had invited her as a friend! Well, as he described it, they were introduced; and I can only imagine how Dad must have felt that day. It was her! The woman in the streetlight who was not only beautiful but successful (she owned two beauty shops) and she was Italian, and from a good family, and not yet married!!!

If Dad ever had faith in a divine plan and the will of God, it certainly was solidified that day. Yes. He was finally home

It wasn’t long before they dated, were engaged, and decided to get married. I treasure a picture I have of the two of them in a park which I keep on my nightstand. Mom is in a swing and Dad is gently pushing her. She has the most beautiful smile on her face, and him...well the soft glow and deep felt gleam of happiness and love and contentment is like no other smile I’ve ever seen. She was God’s gift to him, to treasure, to have, to hold, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death did they temporarily have to part.

This moment in Dad’s life with Mom brought all the depression years, the war years, the lonely years and the time thereafter to a perfect point of juncture. He had grown as a man in faith and prayer during his time in the service and was ready to live in God’s love when he met her. And they did live in God’s love. Their faith was very important to the two of them and in how we were all raised. Every night from when we were old enough to understand, it was prayer with every meal, and guess what..."a rosary" every night as a family. There was Church every Sunday and Holy Day, and active participation in parish life. With Mom (always the business woman) organizing it seems, every event; and Dad quietly working as an usher and with the Holy Name society and supporting a number of welcoming and service ministries behind the scenes.

I’m sure Dad would reminisce a lot when I was much younger, even before the "smudge pot" years when he’d take Mom downtown to shop on Saturdays. We’d drop her off and always drive down to the railroad yards, where we’d park and watch the trains switching tracks and moving freight back and forth. Dad named all the different type engines and cars and systems and switches and genuinely loved the sounds and all. It was a special time every week when he’d revisit all his memories of working on the railroad as a young man; full of memories of his youth and formation as a man.

Just as the tracks carried all the trains on journeys to destinations unknown, so did the railroad play an important metaphor in his life; with life’s tracks sometimes straight, sometimes curved, long dark tunnels of loneliness, and switches of change, and stops to refuel and refocus, with steep grades of new challenges to climb, and the need for air brakes to apply caution and care along the way, carrying him through his life’s journey.

Upon visiting him in the rehab and nursing facilities in his last year or so I was especially moved by his compassion for those who were there who were worse off than him. As I wheeled him to lunch more than once, he’d stop and say "how are you dear" or "you’re looking good today" to someone slumped over in her chair, and comment to me how bad he felt for some of the people who just didn’t seem to know what was going on any more. And every nurse or orderly who visited had the experience of hearing what a good job they did and how much he appreciated it. This spirit of gentleness and caring was a part of him that instead of fading with the years seemed to flower as he got older and closer to the end of his life.

There’s a special example of his sense of self and his spirituality I treasure. I asked him one time in his last year, Dad...how are you really doing? He said: "well you know for an old man I’m doing ok. I’m an old machine. Do you know of any machine almost 90 years old that works like the day it was built? Every day when I wake up I say Oh!...I have another day! Thank You God. I’ll try to use it the best I can." All I can say is Wow!

The rosary became his special devotion many years before as I have recounted in this story; and took on extra significance for him the older he got. He told me one time that he said at least 5 or 6 rosaries a day. I asked why so many Dad? His answer "Well, you all are working and raising families and so busy, but I have been given the gift of time. I have lots of time. So I might as well say rosaries for you kids and your families to fill the time I have been given. I don’t pray for myself too much anymore. I pray for all of you, that you are all safe and happy and that God will take care of you." Again I only can say is Wow! What a gift he was; and is still. I’m sure he’s still praying for us. I can feel it.

Beginning as a young man saying the rosary on deck of that tossing and swaying ship on the way to war; and continuing throughout his life, the rosary was his anchor, his connection with God, his track through the tunnels of life carrying him safely to the light on the other side of the mountain. When he got on board for his last trip from this earthly station, for his journey to everlasting life with God and all those, his brothers and sisters in family and faith who went before him, he was looking out the window of his room out on the beautiful green rolling hills of central New York while saying his rosary. I think God might have said to Him. Well done Thomas. Welcome home. All aboard!

There are so many stories my brothers and sister and I have of our growing up with Mom and Dad: some funny, some strange, some embarrassing, some sad, some happy, but all very special and I will surely write on them at another time. It was another time, a time of innocence; of pure, deep and trusting faith, of honest and genuine people finding their way, making a life together whether it turned out good or sad, still always bound tightly with love. A time we all need to reach back and hold on tightly to.

And I have to say. They truly raised us the way he said life should be lived:

Copyright © 2005 by Andrew M. Cirmo