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Nov. 14th, 2015 06:15 pmTony's cover photo Posted by Tony Delgado on 14 Nov 2015, 23:15
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On My Mind
Oct. 17th, 2015 11:36 amOther arms reach out to me.
Other eyes smile tenderly.
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.
I said Georgia, oh Georgia,
No place I find.
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.
(Georgia on My Mind: Hoagy Carmichael & Stuart Gorrell – 1930)
The first time I visited the state of Georgia was to see the graduation of a family friend, Ed Killmond, in 1999. He attended SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design – a ubiquitous school of fine arts that was just as indefinable as the city that housed it. I fell in love with Savannah. That city was the closest I’ve ever come to a Brigadoon-like experience with a place. Savannah was a city out-of-time; a magical location that mixed a rich colonial and antebellum past with a laidback attitude toward the present and the future. It was a Southern city with Mediterranean appeal. Besides attending the commencement exercise, which featured an address by Nora Ephron, the talented author and film director of When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle, we spent all our time wandering through the cobbled streets and dockside quays, and walking from garden square to garden square. The city made such an impression on us, that Kathy and I made a point of re-visiting it in 2008, when we drove there from Hilton Head, South Carolina, after attending the wedding of another family friend, Kate Horton. There is only one problem in experiencing such a unique city like Savannah, it seemed completely disconnected from the State of Georgia and the rest of the American South.
Now, when I think of Georgia, I think of peaches, Ray Charles, and Atlanta; and I associate Atlanta with General Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, the famous novel and movie, Gone With the Wind, and the home of Coca Cola, Ted Turner, CNN, and Delta Airlines. However, except for deplaning and boarding airlines at its airport, I’ve never actually set foot in the city of Atlanta. So when Kathy mentioned the possibility of attending the Catholic Leadership Summit of the NCEA (National Catholic Educational Association) being held there, I lobbied mightily to go. I thought that this national conference would finally give us an opportunity to discover the Old and New South for the first time, and at its epicenter.
Our trip to Atlanta has been on our calendar for a few months now, but I have only recently gotten down to actually outlining an itinerary. Of course, Kathy’s ability to sightsee will be somewhat hampered by her attendance at the Summit. I, on the other hand, will be free to indulge myself in an orgy of tourist consumption. What I learned very quickly was that Atlanta, when contrasted against famous coastal cities like Savannah and Charleston, SC, is relatively new. It was established in 1837 at the intersection of two railroad lines, and it literally rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become a national center for commerce and innovation. I was also surprised to learn that it ranked as a “global”, “alpha”, or world-class city, like New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco, and even Los Angeles. However, before Southerners get too carried away by this designation, I should point out that Atlanta was mentioned at the very end of the list.
I suppose this essay is more about my anticipation over the trip to Atlanta, rather that a finished report or critique of the city. At this point I’ve only read up on Atlanta and researched nearby towns and cities. I’ve created lists of places to visit, and outlined some general points of interest in Atlanta and parts of Georgia. I will mention only two of them here:
I dropped the city of Augusta from my “Must See” roster after learning that it was close to impossible to gain entrance into its exclusive “Home of the Masters Golf Tournament”. Although I was disappointed at first because I’d hoped to visit the Pro Shop there and purchase some souvenirs, I quickly found a “literary” substitute for this elitist golfing “mecca”. I decided on the little-known place called Milledgeville. Milledgeville is a town outside of Macon, GA, and it happens to be near the family farm of Flannery O’Connor, the noted Roman Catholic author who was a member of the Post-War generation of Southern writers that included Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ronson, and Andrew Lytle, who edited the Swanee Review. Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, GA, in 1925. After attending the Iowa Writers Workshop, she wrote two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, and published two books of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Tragically, in 1951 she was diagnosed with Lupus Erythematosus, the degenerative disease that killed her father when she was 15 years old, and she was forced to retire to her family farm in Milledgeville, called Andalusia, until her death in 1964. Upon reflection, I was glad that our prohibition from entering the hallowed halls of the Augusta National Golf Club would allow us to pay homage to a distinguished American author who wrote on Roman Catholic themes.
The last place I added was Roswell. No trip to Atlanta would be complete without seeing an antebellum plantation like Tara, in Gone With the Wind. But since Tara was fictional, another had to be found. Roswell fit the bill. Roswell is a town just outside of Atlanta that boasts three outstanding examples of antebellum architecture. Archibald Smith Plantation is the very unromantically named plantation, and two mansions, Barrington Hall and Bulloch Hall, join it in Roswell. All in all, Georgia should prove to be a cornucopia of historical, cultural, educational, and commercial sites and locales. However, what I see, and the places I visit, would be best reported after they are experienced. So for the time being, Georgia will have to remain “an old sweet song” until I drive its highways and travel its streets and roads to see for myself. I’ll let you know in a few weeks.
Other eyes smile tenderly.
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.
I said Georgia, oh Georgia,
No place I find.
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.
(Georgia on My Mind: Hoagy Carmichael & Stuart Gorrell – 1930)
The first time I visited the state of Georgia was to see the graduation of a family friend, Ed Killmond, in 1999. He attended SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design – a ubiquitous school of fine arts that was just as indefinable as the city that housed it. I fell in love with Savannah. That city was the closest I’ve ever come to a Brigadoon-like experience with a place. Savannah was a city out-of-time; a magical location that mixed a rich colonial and antebellum past with a laidback attitude toward the present and the future. It was a Southern city with Mediterranean appeal. Besides attending the commencement exercise, which featured an address by Nora Ephron, the talented author and film director of When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle, we spent all our time wandering through the cobbled streets and dockside quays, and walking from garden square to garden square. The city made such an impression on us, that Kathy and I made a point of re-visiting it in 2008, when we drove there from Hilton Head, South Carolina, after attending the wedding of another family friend, Kate Horton. There is only one problem in experiencing such a unique city like Savannah, it seemed completely disconnected from the State of Georgia and the rest of the American South.
Now, when I think of Georgia, I think of peaches, Ray Charles, and Atlanta; and I associate Atlanta with General Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, the famous novel and movie, Gone With the Wind, and the home of Coca Cola, Ted Turner, CNN, and Delta Airlines. However, except for deplaning and boarding airlines at its airport, I’ve never actually set foot in the city of Atlanta. So when Kathy mentioned the possibility of attending the Catholic Leadership Summit of the NCEA (National Catholic Educational Association) being held there, I lobbied mightily to go. I thought that this national conference would finally give us an opportunity to discover the Old and New South for the first time, and at its epicenter.
Our trip to Atlanta has been on our calendar for a few months now, but I have only recently gotten down to actually outlining an itinerary. Of course, Kathy’s ability to sightsee will be somewhat hampered by her attendance at the Summit. I, on the other hand, will be free to indulge myself in an orgy of tourist consumption. What I learned very quickly was that Atlanta, when contrasted against famous coastal cities like Savannah and Charleston, SC, is relatively new. It was established in 1837 at the intersection of two railroad lines, and it literally rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become a national center for commerce and innovation. I was also surprised to learn that it ranked as a “global”, “alpha”, or world-class city, like New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco, and even Los Angeles. However, before Southerners get too carried away by this designation, I should point out that Atlanta was mentioned at the very end of the list.
I suppose this essay is more about my anticipation over the trip to Atlanta, rather that a finished report or critique of the city. At this point I’ve only read up on Atlanta and researched nearby towns and cities. I’ve created lists of places to visit, and outlined some general points of interest in Atlanta and parts of Georgia. I will mention only two of them here:
I dropped the city of Augusta from my “Must See” roster after learning that it was close to impossible to gain entrance into its exclusive “Home of the Masters Golf Tournament”. Although I was disappointed at first because I’d hoped to visit the Pro Shop there and purchase some souvenirs, I quickly found a “literary” substitute for this elitist golfing “mecca”. I decided on the little-known place called Milledgeville. Milledgeville is a town outside of Macon, GA, and it happens to be near the family farm of Flannery O’Connor, the noted Roman Catholic author who was a member of the Post-War generation of Southern writers that included Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ronson, and Andrew Lytle, who edited the Swanee Review. Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, GA, in 1925. After attending the Iowa Writers Workshop, she wrote two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, and published two books of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Tragically, in 1951 she was diagnosed with Lupus Erythematosus, the degenerative disease that killed her father when she was 15 years old, and she was forced to retire to her family farm in Milledgeville, called Andalusia, until her death in 1964. Upon reflection, I was glad that our prohibition from entering the hallowed halls of the Augusta National Golf Club would allow us to pay homage to a distinguished American author who wrote on Roman Catholic themes.
The last place I added was Roswell. No trip to Atlanta would be complete without seeing an antebellum plantation like Tara, in Gone With the Wind. But since Tara was fictional, another had to be found. Roswell fit the bill. Roswell is a town just outside of Atlanta that boasts three outstanding examples of antebellum architecture. Archibald Smith Plantation is the very unromantically named plantation, and two mansions, Barrington Hall and Bulloch Hall, join it in Roswell. All in all, Georgia should prove to be a cornucopia of historical, cultural, educational, and commercial sites and locales. However, what I see, and the places I visit, would be best reported after they are experienced. So for the time being, Georgia will have to remain “an old sweet song” until I drive its highways and travel its streets and roads to see for myself. I’ll let you know in a few weeks.
Home Again
Oct. 9th, 2015 11:45 amI’ll take you home again, Kathleen,
Across the ocean wild and wide,
To where your heart has ever been
Since you were first my bonnie bride.
Oh! I will take you back, Kathleen,
To where your heart will feel no pain.
And when the fields are fresh and green
I’ll take you to your home again!
To that home beyond the sea
My Kathleen shall again return.
And when thy old friends welcome thee
Thy loving heart will cease to yearn
Where laughs the little silver stream
Beside your mother’s humble cot,
And brightest rays of sunshine gleam.
There all your grief will be forgot.
(I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen: Thomas P. Westendorf – 1875)
Kathy and I have now DEFINITELY decided to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary with a trip to Ireland at the end of December. This has been an on-again, off-again idea over the last two years, influenced in no small way by the age and declining health of Kathy’s father, The Doctor. But during this last vacation after the Doctor’s funeral and burial, we finally decided to do it. Not so strangely (now that I dwell on the conversation), when I told my 90 year-old mother of this decision she reacted quite ambivalently:
“Ay, que bueno, Tony! Pero cuando van a ir a España?” (“Oh, that’s great, Tony! But when are you going to Spain?)
My mother’s question/opinion caught me by surprise, because I’d never been quizzed about wanting to go to Ireland with Kathy, or why visiting the Emerald Isle would take precedence over Spain. The first and obvious reason for going to Ireland was reciprocity. Ireland was the ancestral home of both of Kathy’s parents, and I had already taken her and my son Tony to Mexico in December of 1979 to introduce them to my mother’s family living in and around Mexico City. While there, we visited aunts, uncles, and cousins, and went to museums, the pyramids, and the bullfights. There was an imperative to show them the riches and wealth of Mexico’s history, culture, and arts. Kathy now wanted to show me see the history, culture, art, and geography of her ancestral home. Besides, although Spain is a place I wouldn’t mind visiting some day, it doesn’t rate as my “ancestral home” (unless I wished to consider myself Spanish – which my mother and some of her brothers and sisters do). However, the more I pondered my mother’s question, the more I realized that my wish to see Ireland went deeper than mere “payback” sentiment. In fact, now that we were committed to going, I realized that I always harbored a secret desire to see Ireland, and this desire was fueled by many factors – religion, themes of oppression and resistance, literature, and family.
As far as I’m concerned, being raised Catholic in Cardinal James McIntyre’s Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the 1950’s and 60’s was to be catechized as an Irish Catholic. I belonged to Catholic parishes and went to Catholic schools with many Irish American pastors, priests, brothers, and nuns, who indoctrinated us in an ethnically curious Catholicism. We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day as a religious holy day and a school holiday. We memorized Irish folksongs along with American standards in music class, and we prayed for the Pope, the Conversion of Russia, and the Fighting Irish every Friday before leaving school for the weekend. We were also encouraged to watch an “approved list” of Catholic films with its pantheon of Irish-American stars: Bing Crosby in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s; Pat O’Brien in Knute Rockne, All-American, and Angels with Dirty Faces; and Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy in Boys Town. I identified with these stories and the characters they showcased, and our common religion preserved that relationship. This spiritual baptism into Irish-Catholicism in the 50’s was confirmed during the Kennedy presidential campaign of 1960 and cemented in college with my special fondness for Irish-themed movies and literature.
I think John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the first Democrat my father ever admitted voting for (and my mother openly preferred). My parents were staunch Republicans who were covertly persuaded to support Kennedy because he was Catholic. Of course the nuns in my school made no bones about it – Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, and Catholicism were synonymous. I became a Kennedy Democrat at the age of 12, and despite my father’s influence and my brief infatuation with Goldwater’s libertarianism in 1964, I marched my Kennedy optimism and liberalism into college in 1966. It was there that my Irish-Catholic spirit was awakened anew with my discovery and appreciation of John Ford and his movies. At first, considering him only the John Wayne-director who filmed Stagecoach in 1939, I ultimately learned to value him for the Irish themes and stories he included in many of his films. Some movies were overtly Irish, and became classics, like The Informer and The Quiet Man, but more were subtly themed, like his U.S. Calvary Trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande), The Grapes of Wrath, and How Green Was My Valley. These movies portrayed heroism, humor, and sacrifice in the face of oppression, exploitation, and greed. These were situations that all Catholics and other ethnic minorities in America faced and struggled with. It was also during these college years that I made two more connections with Ireland and Catholicism – literature and James Joyce.
I discovered James Joyce in an English Literature survey course during my sophomore year at UCLA. The Norton Anthology we used included a couple of his short stories, and the professor added Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to the Required Reading List. Portrait was an excellent introduction to Anglo-Irish literature, Joyce, and the stream of consciousness style that he was developing. But more important for me, I made a lifelong connection with the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, a young man struggling to liberate himself from the historical vestiges of British colonialism and prejudice, and from the stifling artistic repression of the Catholic Church in Ireland. His nightmarish chapter describing the tortures inflicted on young students during a religious retreat was reminiscent of the countless guilt-driven lectures and threatening admonitions I heard from priests, brothers, and nuns against pornography, masturbation, alcohol, and general sinfulness. While All-American Holden Caulfield sought liberation from his New England-Ivy League values and expectations, Irish-Catholic Stephen Dedalus sought freedom to pursue a life of artistic expression. I found him a much better person on whom to model myself. Joyce opened the door to a slew of Irish authors and poets who would fascinate me for years to come: Oscar Wilde, Liam O’Flaherty, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, and William Yeats. By the time I finished college, however, my interest in Ireland and the Irish had waned to only a few annual observations – St. Patrick Day celebrations at Irish pubs with my friend Greg Ryan and the Riley brothers, and cheering for Notre Dame football against USC. Dealing with the draft, enlisting in the Air Force, and hanging out with friends took up most of my time until my father’s death released me from military service and set me on a path to teaching. That route reached a crossroad, however, when teacher friends introduced me to Kathleen Mavourneen Greaney and I met her Irish Catholic family.
I had considered my parents’ families as unequaled in their nationalistic pride and passion for their ethnic and cultural heritage. I grew up in an environment where Spanish was spoken by everyone, Mexican Mariachi and bolero songs and music were played all day, and Mexican history, art, and culture were appreciated and esteemed by all. I definitely met their match with the Irish pride of Kathy’s parents, Edward Michael Greaney and Mary Cavanaugh. As early as my first meeting with the Doctor, he proudly proclaimed his staunch Irish Catholicism, related impassioned stories of dealing with the anti-Irish prejudices and biases in the New England of his youth, and explained how an ethnic quota system defined the number of Jews and Irish Catholics who were allowed to attend respectable medical schools. In a much nicer tone and through her stories and sayings, Mary communicated the Irish values, traditions, and superstitions that were a part of Irish-American life in the early 1900’s. Meeting the Irish-Catholic Greaneys gave me a unique perspective from which to compare my own ethnic, cultural, and national pride. I recognized our commonalities and prized and appreciated them both. Eventually I would become part of the Irish-American family with the birth of my son and daughter.
Whew, that was a long meandering road to explaining my reasons for wanting to go to Ireland! Perhaps it serves as a metaphor for the evolution of my feelings about Ireland over time – from a youthful fascination with Catholic rituals that were Irish accented and shaded in emerald hues, an intellectual appreciation of Irish-themed film and literature, and finally to my being welcomed into the Greaney family. Putting intellect aside and thinking personally and emotionally, what ultimately won me over to Ireland, the Irish, and the uniqueness of Irish Americans were the births of my son and daughter, Tony and Teresa. No amount of Irish Catholicism, literature, or history, can trump the fact that my son and daughter are physical descendents of Ireland and Mexico – two very special countries, histories, and cultures. They are very open, proud, and verbal about their Old and New World roots. In fact, they, along with their other 3 Irish/Mexican-American cousins (Maria Teresa Apablasa, and Marisa and Eduardo Samaniego), created their own ethnic designation for themselves. They are the “Irexicans” of the family. So honestly, I suppose I’m most curious to see the ancestral home of my wife and children, because they are my family, and I am a part of them. So I guess I’m going to Ireland because, in a way, I’m going home too.
Across the ocean wild and wide,
To where your heart has ever been
Since you were first my bonnie bride.
Oh! I will take you back, Kathleen,
To where your heart will feel no pain.
And when the fields are fresh and green
I’ll take you to your home again!
To that home beyond the sea
My Kathleen shall again return.
And when thy old friends welcome thee
Thy loving heart will cease to yearn
Where laughs the little silver stream
Beside your mother’s humble cot,
And brightest rays of sunshine gleam.
There all your grief will be forgot.
(I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen: Thomas P. Westendorf – 1875)
Kathy and I have now DEFINITELY decided to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary with a trip to Ireland at the end of December. This has been an on-again, off-again idea over the last two years, influenced in no small way by the age and declining health of Kathy’s father, The Doctor. But during this last vacation after the Doctor’s funeral and burial, we finally decided to do it. Not so strangely (now that I dwell on the conversation), when I told my 90 year-old mother of this decision she reacted quite ambivalently:
“Ay, que bueno, Tony! Pero cuando van a ir a España?” (“Oh, that’s great, Tony! But when are you going to Spain?)
My mother’s question/opinion caught me by surprise, because I’d never been quizzed about wanting to go to Ireland with Kathy, or why visiting the Emerald Isle would take precedence over Spain. The first and obvious reason for going to Ireland was reciprocity. Ireland was the ancestral home of both of Kathy’s parents, and I had already taken her and my son Tony to Mexico in December of 1979 to introduce them to my mother’s family living in and around Mexico City. While there, we visited aunts, uncles, and cousins, and went to museums, the pyramids, and the bullfights. There was an imperative to show them the riches and wealth of Mexico’s history, culture, and arts. Kathy now wanted to show me see the history, culture, art, and geography of her ancestral home. Besides, although Spain is a place I wouldn’t mind visiting some day, it doesn’t rate as my “ancestral home” (unless I wished to consider myself Spanish – which my mother and some of her brothers and sisters do). However, the more I pondered my mother’s question, the more I realized that my wish to see Ireland went deeper than mere “payback” sentiment. In fact, now that we were committed to going, I realized that I always harbored a secret desire to see Ireland, and this desire was fueled by many factors – religion, themes of oppression and resistance, literature, and family.
As far as I’m concerned, being raised Catholic in Cardinal James McIntyre’s Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the 1950’s and 60’s was to be catechized as an Irish Catholic. I belonged to Catholic parishes and went to Catholic schools with many Irish American pastors, priests, brothers, and nuns, who indoctrinated us in an ethnically curious Catholicism. We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day as a religious holy day and a school holiday. We memorized Irish folksongs along with American standards in music class, and we prayed for the Pope, the Conversion of Russia, and the Fighting Irish every Friday before leaving school for the weekend. We were also encouraged to watch an “approved list” of Catholic films with its pantheon of Irish-American stars: Bing Crosby in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s; Pat O’Brien in Knute Rockne, All-American, and Angels with Dirty Faces; and Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy in Boys Town. I identified with these stories and the characters they showcased, and our common religion preserved that relationship. This spiritual baptism into Irish-Catholicism in the 50’s was confirmed during the Kennedy presidential campaign of 1960 and cemented in college with my special fondness for Irish-themed movies and literature.
I think John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the first Democrat my father ever admitted voting for (and my mother openly preferred). My parents were staunch Republicans who were covertly persuaded to support Kennedy because he was Catholic. Of course the nuns in my school made no bones about it – Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, and Catholicism were synonymous. I became a Kennedy Democrat at the age of 12, and despite my father’s influence and my brief infatuation with Goldwater’s libertarianism in 1964, I marched my Kennedy optimism and liberalism into college in 1966. It was there that my Irish-Catholic spirit was awakened anew with my discovery and appreciation of John Ford and his movies. At first, considering him only the John Wayne-director who filmed Stagecoach in 1939, I ultimately learned to value him for the Irish themes and stories he included in many of his films. Some movies were overtly Irish, and became classics, like The Informer and The Quiet Man, but more were subtly themed, like his U.S. Calvary Trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande), The Grapes of Wrath, and How Green Was My Valley. These movies portrayed heroism, humor, and sacrifice in the face of oppression, exploitation, and greed. These were situations that all Catholics and other ethnic minorities in America faced and struggled with. It was also during these college years that I made two more connections with Ireland and Catholicism – literature and James Joyce.
I had considered my parents’ families as unequaled in their nationalistic pride and passion for their ethnic and cultural heritage. I grew up in an environment where Spanish was spoken by everyone, Mexican Mariachi and bolero songs and music were played all day, and Mexican history, art, and culture were appreciated and esteemed by all. I definitely met their match with the Irish pride of Kathy’s parents, Edward Michael Greaney and Mary Cavanaugh. As early as my first meeting with the Doctor, he proudly proclaimed his staunch Irish Catholicism, related impassioned stories of dealing with the anti-Irish prejudices and biases in the New England of his youth, and explained how an ethnic quota system defined the number of Jews and Irish Catholics who were allowed to attend respectable medical schools. In a much nicer tone and through her stories and sayings, Mary communicated the Irish values, traditions, and superstitions that were a part of Irish-American life in the early 1900’s. Meeting the Irish-Catholic Greaneys gave me a unique perspective from which to compare my own ethnic, cultural, and national pride. I recognized our commonalities and prized and appreciated them both. Eventually I would become part of the Irish-American family with the birth of my son and daughter.
Whew, that was a long meandering road to explaining my reasons for wanting to go to Ireland! Perhaps it serves as a metaphor for the evolution of my feelings about Ireland over time – from a youthful fascination with Catholic rituals that were Irish accented and shaded in emerald hues, an intellectual appreciation of Irish-themed film and literature, and finally to my being welcomed into the Greaney family. Putting intellect aside and thinking personally and emotionally, what ultimately won me over to Ireland, the Irish, and the uniqueness of Irish Americans were the births of my son and daughter, Tony and Teresa. No amount of Irish Catholicism, literature, or history, can trump the fact that my son and daughter are physical descendents of Ireland and Mexico – two very special countries, histories, and cultures. They are very open, proud, and verbal about their Old and New World roots. In fact, they, along with their other 3 Irish/Mexican-American cousins (Maria Teresa Apablasa, and Marisa and Eduardo Samaniego), created their own ethnic designation for themselves. They are the “Irexicans” of the family. So honestly, I suppose I’m most curious to see the ancestral home of my wife and children, because they are my family, and I am a part of them. So I guess I’m going to Ireland because, in a way, I’m going home too.
Sometimes We Cry
Oct. 4th, 2015 12:42 pmSometimes we know, sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we give, sometimes we won’t.
Sometimes we’re strong, sometimes we’re wrong.
Sometimes we cry.
Sometimes it’s bad when the going gets tough,
When we look in the mirror and we want to give up.
Sometimes we don’t even think we’ll try.
Sometimes we cry.
Well we’re gonna have to sit down and think it right through.
If we’re only human what more can we do?
The only thing to do is eat humble pie.
Sometimes we cry.
Before they put me in a jacket, and they take me away,
I’m not gonna fake it like Johnnie Ray.
Sometimes we live. Sometimes we die.
Sometimes we cry.
(Sometimes We Cry: Van Morrison – 1997)
The earliest and clearest image I have of Fausto Garcia is from a photo on the day of his wedding to my Aunt Jovita (Jay Jay) in 1953. He’s lounging on the lawn with one arm around Jay, a debonair smile on his lips, and a look of complete bliss. My twin siblings, Arthur and Stela, are also in the picture, along with our father, Tony, his sisters Helen and Lupe, and his brother Henry. Everyone is dressed in tuxedos or gowns, so they must have all been in the wedding party. Fausto looks the happiest. What I remember most about Fausto is that everyone loved him. First, I think, because Jay was so happy with him. He was such a sweet, gentle, and even tempered man. I was never sure if Jay Jay’s brothers, Hank, Tarsi, or Kado, introduced her to Fausto, or she met him first, but everyone loved him and quickly involved him in all brother and family events and activities.
After the wedding, I have a basketful of memories, scenes, and images of Fausto. I remember Fausto and my dad sitting together at the kitchen table reviewing the Meter Reader exam that Fausto was taking to begin his long career with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. I remember cheering for him and my uncles once they formed the Diehards, a park athletic team that played football and softball in local playgrounds around Los Angeles. I remember his gracious greetings at so many Delgado Family Christmases and Thanksgivings, when the venue changed from my abuelos’ home on Workman Street in Lincoln Heights to the Garcia’s house in Alhambra. But I especially remember him for his generosity and kindness in welcoming and taking into his home so many family members in need.
Jay and Fausto always seemed the best matched couple in the family. Their temper, humor, and personalities were so similar and compatible that their names became one in its usage – Fausto n’ Jay: “We’re going to Fausto n’ Jay’s house. Fausto n’ Jay have Christmas. Helen’s at Fausto n’ Jay’s… Faust n’ Jay said this… Fausto n’ Jay did that.” The truth was Fausto and Jay were an extraordinary pair who faced and dealt with happiness and pain, and joy and struggle, with the same attitude of faith, love, and patience. Fausto was a companion, friend, and partner who was always there and never let Jay down in good times or in bad. Fausto was the model friend, husband, and father. He was a “mensch”.
My Dad once told me that when a man married a woman, he was in fact marrying her entire family. I have seen this truism played out in a few marriages, but it is not easy. The key to this transference of family love is the relationship between the husband and wife and its basis on trust, sharing, and selflessness. Fausto was the first husband I saw who embodied these virtues. When I was in the second or third grade (7 or 8 years old), my father suddenly left home on an extended 3-to-6 month trip to northern California. My mother and 4 children had to leave our home in Silver Lake and we moved in with Fausto and Jay’s family near Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Lincoln Heights. To this day I’m still unsure about where my father went and why, but I’m even more astounded at the kindness and generosity of Fausto and Jay in accepting us into their home. My memories are of a seamless merging of our two families with children, with us occupying the basement quarters. For an 8-year old, such a startling move from one house to another can be taken as a novel adventure, but for adults, the lack of privacy and space must have been incredibly inconvenient and difficult. I never felt any strain or discomfort, and I never heard any complaints or concerns of our imposition on the Garcia family. Fausto and Jay were consistently caring and considerate hosts, and their children Teresa and Albert became our special primos, or cousins.
Our family may have been the first of many, many more relatives who would be beneficiaries of Fausto and Jay’s kindness, compassion, and patience. They would repeat it countless times over the years. It would be easy to credit only Jay for this generosity, since so many of her brothers, sisters, and parents were helped by it – but I know better. One spouse cannot sustain such selfless actions. They require support. Fausto was that supporting and comforting pillar to anyone who needed him. I will never see his like again.
Unfortunately, over time I grew distant from Fausto and Jay, especially after I married and started a family of my own. I would see them at the occasional reunion or wedding, and we would greet and chat briefly. Recently it has been only at funerals. Fausto looked tired and weary when I saw him last at the Memorial Mass for my Aunt Espie in August, but he still had a smile and a greeting for me. His brown, moon-face lit up, and he radiated joy when he said, “Hello, Toñito”.
Strangely, Fausto’s passing, so soon after Espie’s death, struck me in a different way. I felt my childhood come to an end with Espie, but I sensed more of a transition with Fausto. Fausto was the first brother-in-law to become Family. Somehow his death felt like “movement” – moving from friend to spouse, from spouse to partner, from partner to father, from father to children, from one generation to the next, and from death to life. Rest in Peace, tió, I’ll never forget you.
Sometimes we give, sometimes we won’t.
Sometimes we’re strong, sometimes we’re wrong.
Sometimes we cry.
Sometimes it’s bad when the going gets tough,
When we look in the mirror and we want to give up.
Sometimes we don’t even think we’ll try.
Sometimes we cry.
Well we’re gonna have to sit down and think it right through.
If we’re only human what more can we do?
The only thing to do is eat humble pie.
Sometimes we cry.
Before they put me in a jacket, and they take me away,
I’m not gonna fake it like Johnnie Ray.
Sometimes we live. Sometimes we die.
Sometimes we cry.
(Sometimes We Cry: Van Morrison – 1997)
The earliest and clearest image I have of Fausto Garcia is from a photo on the day of his wedding to my Aunt Jovita (Jay Jay) in 1953. He’s lounging on the lawn with one arm around Jay, a debonair smile on his lips, and a look of complete bliss. My twin siblings, Arthur and Stela, are also in the picture, along with our father, Tony, his sisters Helen and Lupe, and his brother Henry. Everyone is dressed in tuxedos or gowns, so they must have all been in the wedding party. Fausto looks the happiest. What I remember most about Fausto is that everyone loved him. First, I think, because Jay was so happy with him. He was such a sweet, gentle, and even tempered man. I was never sure if Jay Jay’s brothers, Hank, Tarsi, or Kado, introduced her to Fausto, or she met him first, but everyone loved him and quickly involved him in all brother and family events and activities.
After the wedding, I have a basketful of memories, scenes, and images of Fausto. I remember Fausto and my dad sitting together at the kitchen table reviewing the Meter Reader exam that Fausto was taking to begin his long career with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. I remember cheering for him and my uncles once they formed the Diehards, a park athletic team that played football and softball in local playgrounds around Los Angeles. I remember his gracious greetings at so many Delgado Family Christmases and Thanksgivings, when the venue changed from my abuelos’ home on Workman Street in Lincoln Heights to the Garcia’s house in Alhambra. But I especially remember him for his generosity and kindness in welcoming and taking into his home so many family members in need.
Jay and Fausto always seemed the best matched couple in the family. Their temper, humor, and personalities were so similar and compatible that their names became one in its usage – Fausto n’ Jay: “We’re going to Fausto n’ Jay’s house. Fausto n’ Jay have Christmas. Helen’s at Fausto n’ Jay’s… Faust n’ Jay said this… Fausto n’ Jay did that.” The truth was Fausto and Jay were an extraordinary pair who faced and dealt with happiness and pain, and joy and struggle, with the same attitude of faith, love, and patience. Fausto was a companion, friend, and partner who was always there and never let Jay down in good times or in bad. Fausto was the model friend, husband, and father. He was a “mensch”.
My Dad once told me that when a man married a woman, he was in fact marrying her entire family. I have seen this truism played out in a few marriages, but it is not easy. The key to this transference of family love is the relationship between the husband and wife and its basis on trust, sharing, and selflessness. Fausto was the first husband I saw who embodied these virtues. When I was in the second or third grade (7 or 8 years old), my father suddenly left home on an extended 3-to-6 month trip to northern California. My mother and 4 children had to leave our home in Silver Lake and we moved in with Fausto and Jay’s family near Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Lincoln Heights. To this day I’m still unsure about where my father went and why, but I’m even more astounded at the kindness and generosity of Fausto and Jay in accepting us into their home. My memories are of a seamless merging of our two families with children, with us occupying the basement quarters. For an 8-year old, such a startling move from one house to another can be taken as a novel adventure, but for adults, the lack of privacy and space must have been incredibly inconvenient and difficult. I never felt any strain or discomfort, and I never heard any complaints or concerns of our imposition on the Garcia family. Fausto and Jay were consistently caring and considerate hosts, and their children Teresa and Albert became our special primos, or cousins.
Our family may have been the first of many, many more relatives who would be beneficiaries of Fausto and Jay’s kindness, compassion, and patience. They would repeat it countless times over the years. It would be easy to credit only Jay for this generosity, since so many of her brothers, sisters, and parents were helped by it – but I know better. One spouse cannot sustain such selfless actions. They require support. Fausto was that supporting and comforting pillar to anyone who needed him. I will never see his like again.
Unfortunately, over time I grew distant from Fausto and Jay, especially after I married and started a family of my own. I would see them at the occasional reunion or wedding, and we would greet and chat briefly. Recently it has been only at funerals. Fausto looked tired and weary when I saw him last at the Memorial Mass for my Aunt Espie in August, but he still had a smile and a greeting for me. His brown, moon-face lit up, and he radiated joy when he said, “Hello, Toñito”.
Strangely, Fausto’s passing, so soon after Espie’s death, struck me in a different way. I felt my childhood come to an end with Espie, but I sensed more of a transition with Fausto. Fausto was the first brother-in-law to become Family. Somehow his death felt like “movement” – moving from friend to spouse, from spouse to partner, from partner to father, from father to children, from one generation to the next, and from death to life. Rest in Peace, tió, I’ll never forget you.
Putting It Together
Sep. 4th, 2015 11:07 amBit by bit,
Putting it together…
Piece by piece –
Only way to make a work of art.
Every moment makes a contribution,
Every little detail plays a part,
Having just a vision’s no solution,
Everything depends on execution.
Putting it together,
That’s what counts.
(Putting it Together, from Sunday in the Park with George: Stephen Sondheim – 1985)
I’ve been having some trouble getting back into writing. In fact, I’ve written only 2 blog essays so far this year, down significantly from eleven pieces in 2014 and twelve in 2013. Of course those numbers pale in comparison with the year right after my retirement (2010), when I wrote 36! I’d like to say that 2010 just happened to be a remarkable year. But the truth of the matter is that I was reorienting myself from a busy career as a middle school principal to a new reality in which I needed to find replacement activities. So, I went on regular camera safaris to photograph sites and people in nearby cities, neighborhoods, museums, colleges, and at sporting events – and wrote essays about them later. I volunteered to substitute at Kathy’s school, and became their unofficial event photographer. I joined my high school friends in trips to Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, Joshua Tree National Park, Kelso, Death Valley, and other locales. I also took my camera to family events, parties, graduations, and holidays, to record the occasions. I took up projects and new commitments. I volunteered as a chaplain in the Jail Ministry of the Archdiocese, I began the long-term task of converting my brother-in-law’s vinyl music collection into digital form, and I baby-sat my new granddaughter Sarah two-days a week. All of these activities and experiences were carefully noted in my mind and became sources for later blog essays. I was a “present and mindful” participant in all these events, and a natural desire to digest them, review them, and write about them flowed naturally. That zest for active observation started changing year by year.
I’d like to say that I “outgrew” my passion for writing over the years, but that would be a lame excuse, and misleading. The truth is I became lazy and started looking for justifications to do less and less. Volunteering at the jail in Castaic and babysitting twice a week were too strenuous and draining, I whined to myself, so I deserved more and more time off. Camera safaris required too much planning and energy, and were exhausting, so I needed rest. Writing became an arduous task that I kept putting off and avoiding. Writing took too much time and effort, I moaned. So I substituted binging on Netflix TV series or spending solitary afternoons at local movie theatres. I deserved taking it easy, I told myself over and over, and I was retired! At the same time I assuaged my growing guilt with the idyllic notion that some external, inspirational event would shake me out of my literary lethargy and get me back into writing. Something like that happened after the death of my Aunt Espie and my father-in-law. Those events slammed into use, forcing me to process their impacts by writing. It occurred to me only after my drama-less encounter with a “Stranger On a Bus”, that I was depending on these external face-slaps to prompt me back into the “practice” of writing. I was foolishly expecting the muse of Inspiration to overcome my slothful and indulgent habits and create an imperative to write and resume the struggle of creating something on paper that never existed before. It was only last week, as I sat in front of a blank page in my writing tablet, that I finally wrote the long avoided question: “What do I write about today?”
That’s a hard question to answer when one has been dodging it for years, depending on external events to inspire an effort. Writing had stopped being a practice for me, and became a therapy to deal with emotional experiences. I’d created a bubble for myself these last few years of retirement: avoiding all types of strenuous and energetic activities, eating and drinking what and when I chose, and limiting my stressful responsibilities to family commitments. The “hardest” thing I’d done for the last 3 years was driving to and from Gardena on the 405 Freeway, two days a week, to babysit Sarah and Gracie – and even that “hardship” was offset by the joy I experienced by spending so much time with my granddaughters. So what was I going to do? Writers write. Writing is a practice that must be performed, I thought to myself, gazing down at the question in front of me. If I was determined to resume the regular practice of writing I had to address that question: “What should I write about today?”
My writing guru, Natalie Goldberg, in her book Writing Down the Bones, insisted that the “practice” of writing could only be sustained if it is approached fearlessly and without consideration of its intrinsic merit or quality – as long as the writing is honest. In that case, truthfully, the only topics that have obsessed me, since returning from our vacation after the death of Kathy’s father, have been dieting and exercising. There I’ve said it! I admitted publically the answer I wrote to the question above. Arghh, who likes confessing that they are dieting and going to the gym?
Dieting with Weightwatchers and exercising at 24 Hour Fitness are the two hardest and most obtrusive factors in my life right now. They have taken me out of my three-year somnambulist existence and introduced discipline and hardship, and they were the topics that popped into my mind when I asked, “What should I write about?” Thankfully, Goldberg also counseled that all writing (especially when laced with complaints, self-pity, and whininess) doesn’t have to be “good”. The writing process is about practice, she insisted, not publishing, and the product doesn’t have to be “your best”. The point is to write. My greatest fear about writing about dieting and exercising is that it will sound whiney, self-aggrandizing, and pompous. How does one approach an essay on dieting and exercising? Hopefully one can find a voice that communicates humor and effort without sounding self-righteous.
That was as far as I got during my writing practice that day before I left for the gym. As I rediscovered in my last essay, Stranger On the Bus, the point of any encounter or experience is for the writer to be open to its reality and metaphoric possibilities. I can’t approach writing practice, Weightwatchers, and 24 Hour Fitness as obstacles to be overcome and vanquished, otherwise I’ll miss the creative opportunities they offer. Losing weight, getting fit, and writing is about taking it easy, day by day, step by step, and piece by piece, until it all comes together. That is my plan and my hope. I’ll keep you informed.
Putting it together…
Piece by piece –
Only way to make a work of art.
Every moment makes a contribution,
Every little detail plays a part,
Having just a vision’s no solution,
Everything depends on execution.
Putting it together,
That’s what counts.
(Putting it Together, from Sunday in the Park with George: Stephen Sondheim – 1985)
I’ve been having some trouble getting back into writing. In fact, I’ve written only 2 blog essays so far this year, down significantly from eleven pieces in 2014 and twelve in 2013. Of course those numbers pale in comparison with the year right after my retirement (2010), when I wrote 36! I’d like to say that 2010 just happened to be a remarkable year. But the truth of the matter is that I was reorienting myself from a busy career as a middle school principal to a new reality in which I needed to find replacement activities. So, I went on regular camera safaris to photograph sites and people in nearby cities, neighborhoods, museums, colleges, and at sporting events – and wrote essays about them later. I volunteered to substitute at Kathy’s school, and became their unofficial event photographer. I joined my high school friends in trips to Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, Joshua Tree National Park, Kelso, Death Valley, and other locales. I also took my camera to family events, parties, graduations, and holidays, to record the occasions. I took up projects and new commitments. I volunteered as a chaplain in the Jail Ministry of the Archdiocese, I began the long-term task of converting my brother-in-law’s vinyl music collection into digital form, and I baby-sat my new granddaughter Sarah two-days a week. All of these activities and experiences were carefully noted in my mind and became sources for later blog essays. I was a “present and mindful” participant in all these events, and a natural desire to digest them, review them, and write about them flowed naturally. That zest for active observation started changing year by year.
I’d like to say that I “outgrew” my passion for writing over the years, but that would be a lame excuse, and misleading. The truth is I became lazy and started looking for justifications to do less and less. Volunteering at the jail in Castaic and babysitting twice a week were too strenuous and draining, I whined to myself, so I deserved more and more time off. Camera safaris required too much planning and energy, and were exhausting, so I needed rest. Writing became an arduous task that I kept putting off and avoiding. Writing took too much time and effort, I moaned. So I substituted binging on Netflix TV series or spending solitary afternoons at local movie theatres. I deserved taking it easy, I told myself over and over, and I was retired! At the same time I assuaged my growing guilt with the idyllic notion that some external, inspirational event would shake me out of my literary lethargy and get me back into writing. Something like that happened after the death of my Aunt Espie and my father-in-law. Those events slammed into use, forcing me to process their impacts by writing. It occurred to me only after my drama-less encounter with a “Stranger On a Bus”, that I was depending on these external face-slaps to prompt me back into the “practice” of writing. I was foolishly expecting the muse of Inspiration to overcome my slothful and indulgent habits and create an imperative to write and resume the struggle of creating something on paper that never existed before. It was only last week, as I sat in front of a blank page in my writing tablet, that I finally wrote the long avoided question: “What do I write about today?”
That’s a hard question to answer when one has been dodging it for years, depending on external events to inspire an effort. Writing had stopped being a practice for me, and became a therapy to deal with emotional experiences. I’d created a bubble for myself these last few years of retirement: avoiding all types of strenuous and energetic activities, eating and drinking what and when I chose, and limiting my stressful responsibilities to family commitments. The “hardest” thing I’d done for the last 3 years was driving to and from Gardena on the 405 Freeway, two days a week, to babysit Sarah and Gracie – and even that “hardship” was offset by the joy I experienced by spending so much time with my granddaughters. So what was I going to do? Writers write. Writing is a practice that must be performed, I thought to myself, gazing down at the question in front of me. If I was determined to resume the regular practice of writing I had to address that question: “What should I write about today?”
My writing guru, Natalie Goldberg, in her book Writing Down the Bones, insisted that the “practice” of writing could only be sustained if it is approached fearlessly and without consideration of its intrinsic merit or quality – as long as the writing is honest. In that case, truthfully, the only topics that have obsessed me, since returning from our vacation after the death of Kathy’s father, have been dieting and exercising. There I’ve said it! I admitted publically the answer I wrote to the question above. Arghh, who likes confessing that they are dieting and going to the gym?
Dieting with Weightwatchers and exercising at 24 Hour Fitness are the two hardest and most obtrusive factors in my life right now. They have taken me out of my three-year somnambulist existence and introduced discipline and hardship, and they were the topics that popped into my mind when I asked, “What should I write about?” Thankfully, Goldberg also counseled that all writing (especially when laced with complaints, self-pity, and whininess) doesn’t have to be “good”. The writing process is about practice, she insisted, not publishing, and the product doesn’t have to be “your best”. The point is to write. My greatest fear about writing about dieting and exercising is that it will sound whiney, self-aggrandizing, and pompous. How does one approach an essay on dieting and exercising? Hopefully one can find a voice that communicates humor and effort without sounding self-righteous.
That was as far as I got during my writing practice that day before I left for the gym. As I rediscovered in my last essay, Stranger On the Bus, the point of any encounter or experience is for the writer to be open to its reality and metaphoric possibilities. I can’t approach writing practice, Weightwatchers, and 24 Hour Fitness as obstacles to be overcome and vanquished, otherwise I’ll miss the creative opportunities they offer. Losing weight, getting fit, and writing is about taking it easy, day by day, step by step, and piece by piece, until it all comes together. That is my plan and my hope. I’ll keep you informed.
Stranger On A Bus
Aug. 21st, 2015 11:23 amIf God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with Him in all His glory,
What would you ask if you had just one question?
What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us,
Just a stranger on the bus,
Trying to make His way home.
(One of Us: Written by Eric Bazilian, and sung by Joan Osborne – 1995)
“Oh God”, I said to myself, easing into the patio chair near the corner of Burbank and Van Nuys Boulevard. “I’m next to a crazy man!”
I had just set down my “Grande” coffee cup atop the outdoor patio table of a Starbucks café when I looked up to see a man seated in a corner, talking loudly and looking up into a cell phone he was holding in his extended hand.
“Turn away from sin, brothers and sisters”, he said, “for only hellfire and abomination awaits you. This is the consuming fire that never stops and is never quenched, because it feeds on your sins and addictions. No one can save you but the Lord, our Holy Father. There is no Purgatory, no halfway house to rescue you when you die. There is no second chance. If you die in sin you will burn. There is no salvation without the Father. The Pope is an abomination! There is only ONE Holy Father, and that is God. So repent my brothers and sisters, forsake your sinful ways! Put down your drugs, put away your pornography and lascivious thoughts, and accept our Lord, Jesus Christ as your God and Savior.”
The seated man delivering this soliloquy appeared to be middle aged, wearing a ridiculous red sun visor with black printing all over it. “UTUBE” in big, bold capital letters adorned the crown, with the remainder of his internet address written in smaller letters on the bill. He wore dark sunglasses, on a world-weary, unshaven face, and he was dressed in a blue surgical tunic with more handwritten information, giving his phone number and email address. When he finally ended his solitary address with a perfunctory “Thank you”, I quickly recovered my coffee cup and retreated to another table and chair that was sufficiently removed from him, but not far enough to completely mute his spontaneous outbursts. As this coffee house evangelist put down his cell phone and settled into his chair, greeting customers as they passed, I was able to catch sideway glances of his antics and speculate about him. He was a homeless man, I decided, and a self-ordained preacher with a YouTube blog filled with short homilies and biblical aphorisms. A revelation of some sort had changed his life and given him the mission of publicizing, preaching, and cajoling endless streams of Starbucks customers to repent and accept Jesus into their lives. I also realized that I was becoming increasingly annoyed. I had come to Starbucks after dropping my car off for service at a nearby Subaru dealership, and was looking forward to a quiet hour or so of reading and sipping my coffee until the work was done. Instead a ceaseless string of greetings and religious platitudes, an unsolicited litany of welcome and goodwill, were harassing me:
“Good morning sister, God bless you”.
“Good morning miss”.
“God loves you, brother”.
“Have a good day sir”.
“How are you today miss?”
“Beautiful day today miss, God bless you”.
“Christ is our protection”.
“If I see a crime, I report it”.
I found it hard to concentrate on the book I was reading. His loud words were distracting, his friendliness annoying, and his behaviors were eliciting odd looks from other customers, and ridiculous thoughts on my part:
“Is he panhandling or just crazy? Is he trying to compliment these women or hoping to pick them up? Good luck if they’re pickup lines, because one look at his getup would turn any self-respecting woman into a pillar of salt. Was he anti-Catholic with his Purgatory and Pope remarks? And what did that crack about reporting crimes mean?”
In frustration I put away my book and searched my backpack for something else to do to take my attention away from this man. The situation reminded me of a term sometimes used in my wife’s family – The Greaney Curse.
Curses usually involve the supernatural invocation of some form of penalty or suffering on a person or family for the wrongs done by an ancestor. These curses usually drive members of the family into depression, murder, or suicide. That is the dynamic of a curse, its cause and effect. It is “a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something”. The famous curses I recalled quickly were Edgar Allen Poe’s story and movie called The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Mummy’s Curse, with Lon Chaney Jr. Both movies involved punishments meted out on the offspring of the originally accursed person. It always struck me as unfair, that the sins of the father were passed on to his children, and they were forced to suffer the consequences for acts they never committed. However the Greaney Curse was different from other curses, because it turned this definition on its head, and became a strategy for coping.
The Greaney Curse was the belief that all members of my wife’s Irish-American family were doomed to pay the price for some long-forgotten, ancestral sin, and forced to suffer the eternal punishment of consistently sitting next to the wrong person on a airplane, dealing with the wrong person in an airport security line, or sitting next to, or in front of, the wrong person in a theatre. Surprisingly, this curse never led to depression or despair. Instead, when it was spotted and identified by a family member, they turned it into comedy. The annoying situation was perceived as being SO absurd and SO ridiculous, that it became the seed of a story that had to be shared, compared, and repeated by siblings, aunts, and cousins. I’ve been at countless family parties and get-togethers when one recitation of a cursed situation sparked hours of laughter and mirth, with everyone trying to top each other with their worst manifestation. It was through the lens of the Greaney Curse that I began seeing this coffee house evangelist in a new light. The situation certainly did not reach the level of being a true qualifier for the curse. I was not trapped in a plane or in a theatre with this man. I had choices. I could move or I could leave – or I could see him as someone other than an irritant or nuisance. So I decided to observe him more closely. My rummaging about in my backpack had unearthed an old Moleskine travel journal that I had used to note observations and essay ideas, beginning in 2007. My last entry was dated July 11, 2008. With an unexpected burst of writing energy, I turned to a blank page in the journal and began writing down more observations of this man and my subsequent reactions.
My “Utube” friend was now holding open a student composition book and showing it to customers seated inside the café, looking out through the large plate glass window. When he caught me peering at him, he turned the opened notebook in my direction so I could read the words printed in big block letters:
“THE BIG EARTHQUAKE IS COMING, CALIFORNIA”.
“THANK GOD FOR COMPUTERS AND COUNSELING”.
Chuckling as I turned away to write these words down in my journal, I heard him resume his litany of biblical quotes and proverbs, each ending with the refrain of “Thank you”. When I looked again to see whom he was addressing, I discovered that he was actually speaking or looking into his cell phone, as if recording each message. Was this a clever strategy to loudly proclaim the gospel without appearing completely crazy?
All this time, everyone in the vicinity of the patio preacher ignored him, until a short man wearing a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans finally challenged him in a brief verbal exchange trading biblical quotes. He lost. The preacher was too quick, too dogmatic, and too confident. He simply overwhelmed the t-shirted man with passage after passage, some sounding suspiciously more like proverbs than authentic quotations. He ended this encounter with a line from the Gospel of John:
“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through him.”
“Do you really think that’s true?” the white-shirted man asked, conceding defeat with a shake of his head.
“I don’t just believe it, brother,” the preacher concluded, “I know it’s true.”
Who are these men, I reflected to myself, who frequent Starbucks and other cafés, spouting biblical phrases and religious platitudes? Are they homeless bums, lazy panhandlers, or undercover saints? At one point in his exchange with the t-shirted man, the biblical blogger had admitted to being “20 years sober”. Was he a recovering alcoholic who experienced his spiritual awakening upon reaching the 12th Step of AA and was now carrying the message of God to others? Was this his mission? I couldn’t answer any of these questions, but I suspected that to write him off with a simple generalization was too easy, too dismissive, and too smugly wrong. Instead, I found myself asking some final questions: “Was this man more than an annoying encounter? Was he a ‘messenger’ of some kind?
In the course of a day, I take note of no one in particular, except for people I already know. Sure I look at the men, women, and children around me, but I tend to dismiss them with little more than a glance, and write them off with a single descriptive word: big, young, old, cute, tall, or short. Which people break through our cloud of indifference? Well obviously this unknown “crazy man” did. He might be odd, but some of his words rang true, and he certainly got me to write. He reminded me of an old TV series we watched in the early 2000’s called Joan of Arcadia with Amber Tamblyn, Joe Mantegna, and Mary Steenburgen. In the show, Joan, a high school teenager, weekly encountered a different manifestation of God, each with a different message. God appeared to her as a skater, a Goth, a cute boy, an old lady, a garbage man, a dumpster diver, and as a Nigerian doctor. More than the messages in each episode, what I found most valuable was the idea that we all have the potential of daily encounters with God, or with God’s messengers. We simply have to wake up, look beyond our prejudices and presumptions, and notice them.
As I made my way back to the dealership to recover my car, I thought back on my encounter at Starbucks and considered what I was leaving with. I had arrived with the intention of reading a book, and I left with the desire to write a story about a stranger. He was a gift.
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with Him in all His glory,
What would you ask if you had just one question?
What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us,
Just a stranger on the bus,
Trying to make His way home.
(One of Us: Written by Eric Bazilian, and sung by Joan Osborne – 1995)
“Oh God”, I said to myself, easing into the patio chair near the corner of Burbank and Van Nuys Boulevard. “I’m next to a crazy man!”
I had just set down my “Grande” coffee cup atop the outdoor patio table of a Starbucks café when I looked up to see a man seated in a corner, talking loudly and looking up into a cell phone he was holding in his extended hand.
“Turn away from sin, brothers and sisters”, he said, “for only hellfire and abomination awaits you. This is the consuming fire that never stops and is never quenched, because it feeds on your sins and addictions. No one can save you but the Lord, our Holy Father. There is no Purgatory, no halfway house to rescue you when you die. There is no second chance. If you die in sin you will burn. There is no salvation without the Father. The Pope is an abomination! There is only ONE Holy Father, and that is God. So repent my brothers and sisters, forsake your sinful ways! Put down your drugs, put away your pornography and lascivious thoughts, and accept our Lord, Jesus Christ as your God and Savior.”
The seated man delivering this soliloquy appeared to be middle aged, wearing a ridiculous red sun visor with black printing all over it. “UTUBE” in big, bold capital letters adorned the crown, with the remainder of his internet address written in smaller letters on the bill. He wore dark sunglasses, on a world-weary, unshaven face, and he was dressed in a blue surgical tunic with more handwritten information, giving his phone number and email address. When he finally ended his solitary address with a perfunctory “Thank you”, I quickly recovered my coffee cup and retreated to another table and chair that was sufficiently removed from him, but not far enough to completely mute his spontaneous outbursts. As this coffee house evangelist put down his cell phone and settled into his chair, greeting customers as they passed, I was able to catch sideway glances of his antics and speculate about him. He was a homeless man, I decided, and a self-ordained preacher with a YouTube blog filled with short homilies and biblical aphorisms. A revelation of some sort had changed his life and given him the mission of publicizing, preaching, and cajoling endless streams of Starbucks customers to repent and accept Jesus into their lives. I also realized that I was becoming increasingly annoyed. I had come to Starbucks after dropping my car off for service at a nearby Subaru dealership, and was looking forward to a quiet hour or so of reading and sipping my coffee until the work was done. Instead a ceaseless string of greetings and religious platitudes, an unsolicited litany of welcome and goodwill, were harassing me:
“Good morning sister, God bless you”.
“Good morning miss”.
“God loves you, brother”.
“Have a good day sir”.
“How are you today miss?”
“Beautiful day today miss, God bless you”.
“Christ is our protection”.
“If I see a crime, I report it”.
I found it hard to concentrate on the book I was reading. His loud words were distracting, his friendliness annoying, and his behaviors were eliciting odd looks from other customers, and ridiculous thoughts on my part:
“Is he panhandling or just crazy? Is he trying to compliment these women or hoping to pick them up? Good luck if they’re pickup lines, because one look at his getup would turn any self-respecting woman into a pillar of salt. Was he anti-Catholic with his Purgatory and Pope remarks? And what did that crack about reporting crimes mean?”
In frustration I put away my book and searched my backpack for something else to do to take my attention away from this man. The situation reminded me of a term sometimes used in my wife’s family – The Greaney Curse.
Curses usually involve the supernatural invocation of some form of penalty or suffering on a person or family for the wrongs done by an ancestor. These curses usually drive members of the family into depression, murder, or suicide. That is the dynamic of a curse, its cause and effect. It is “a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something”. The famous curses I recalled quickly were Edgar Allen Poe’s story and movie called The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Mummy’s Curse, with Lon Chaney Jr. Both movies involved punishments meted out on the offspring of the originally accursed person. It always struck me as unfair, that the sins of the father were passed on to his children, and they were forced to suffer the consequences for acts they never committed. However the Greaney Curse was different from other curses, because it turned this definition on its head, and became a strategy for coping.
The Greaney Curse was the belief that all members of my wife’s Irish-American family were doomed to pay the price for some long-forgotten, ancestral sin, and forced to suffer the eternal punishment of consistently sitting next to the wrong person on a airplane, dealing with the wrong person in an airport security line, or sitting next to, or in front of, the wrong person in a theatre. Surprisingly, this curse never led to depression or despair. Instead, when it was spotted and identified by a family member, they turned it into comedy. The annoying situation was perceived as being SO absurd and SO ridiculous, that it became the seed of a story that had to be shared, compared, and repeated by siblings, aunts, and cousins. I’ve been at countless family parties and get-togethers when one recitation of a cursed situation sparked hours of laughter and mirth, with everyone trying to top each other with their worst manifestation. It was through the lens of the Greaney Curse that I began seeing this coffee house evangelist in a new light. The situation certainly did not reach the level of being a true qualifier for the curse. I was not trapped in a plane or in a theatre with this man. I had choices. I could move or I could leave – or I could see him as someone other than an irritant or nuisance. So I decided to observe him more closely. My rummaging about in my backpack had unearthed an old Moleskine travel journal that I had used to note observations and essay ideas, beginning in 2007. My last entry was dated July 11, 2008. With an unexpected burst of writing energy, I turned to a blank page in the journal and began writing down more observations of this man and my subsequent reactions.
My “Utube” friend was now holding open a student composition book and showing it to customers seated inside the café, looking out through the large plate glass window. When he caught me peering at him, he turned the opened notebook in my direction so I could read the words printed in big block letters:
“THE BIG EARTHQUAKE IS COMING, CALIFORNIA”.
“THANK GOD FOR COMPUTERS AND COUNSELING”.
Chuckling as I turned away to write these words down in my journal, I heard him resume his litany of biblical quotes and proverbs, each ending with the refrain of “Thank you”. When I looked again to see whom he was addressing, I discovered that he was actually speaking or looking into his cell phone, as if recording each message. Was this a clever strategy to loudly proclaim the gospel without appearing completely crazy?
All this time, everyone in the vicinity of the patio preacher ignored him, until a short man wearing a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans finally challenged him in a brief verbal exchange trading biblical quotes. He lost. The preacher was too quick, too dogmatic, and too confident. He simply overwhelmed the t-shirted man with passage after passage, some sounding suspiciously more like proverbs than authentic quotations. He ended this encounter with a line from the Gospel of John:
“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through him.”
“Do you really think that’s true?” the white-shirted man asked, conceding defeat with a shake of his head.
“I don’t just believe it, brother,” the preacher concluded, “I know it’s true.”
Who are these men, I reflected to myself, who frequent Starbucks and other cafés, spouting biblical phrases and religious platitudes? Are they homeless bums, lazy panhandlers, or undercover saints? At one point in his exchange with the t-shirted man, the biblical blogger had admitted to being “20 years sober”. Was he a recovering alcoholic who experienced his spiritual awakening upon reaching the 12th Step of AA and was now carrying the message of God to others? Was this his mission? I couldn’t answer any of these questions, but I suspected that to write him off with a simple generalization was too easy, too dismissive, and too smugly wrong. Instead, I found myself asking some final questions: “Was this man more than an annoying encounter? Was he a ‘messenger’ of some kind?
In the course of a day, I take note of no one in particular, except for people I already know. Sure I look at the men, women, and children around me, but I tend to dismiss them with little more than a glance, and write them off with a single descriptive word: big, young, old, cute, tall, or short. Which people break through our cloud of indifference? Well obviously this unknown “crazy man” did. He might be odd, but some of his words rang true, and he certainly got me to write. He reminded me of an old TV series we watched in the early 2000’s called Joan of Arcadia with Amber Tamblyn, Joe Mantegna, and Mary Steenburgen. In the show, Joan, a high school teenager, weekly encountered a different manifestation of God, each with a different message. God appeared to her as a skater, a Goth, a cute boy, an old lady, a garbage man, a dumpster diver, and as a Nigerian doctor. More than the messages in each episode, what I found most valuable was the idea that we all have the potential of daily encounters with God, or with God’s messengers. We simply have to wake up, look beyond our prejudices and presumptions, and notice them.
As I made my way back to the dealership to recover my car, I thought back on my encounter at Starbucks and considered what I was leaving with. I had arrived with the intention of reading a book, and I left with the desire to write a story about a stranger. He was a gift.
Tony's cover photo
Aug. 14th, 2015 07:36 pmTony's cover photo Posted by Tony Delgado on 15 Aug 2015, 00:36
Free Birds Fly
Jul. 31st, 2015 11:38 amBy a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling,
Michael they are taking you away.
For you stole Trevelyn’s corn,
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.
Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing.
It’s so lonely ‘round the Fields of Athenry.
(The Fields of Athenry – Pete St. John: 1970)
Many years ago, Kathleen shared an old Irish superstition that was often quoted by her mother. Whenever a bevy of celebrity deaths occurred in a short space of time, Mary Cavanaugh Greaney would say, “Death always comes in 3’s”. I have to confess that this macabre Irish saying occurred to me a few times in the course of 4 days: on Saturday, July 11, when I received news of the death of my Aunt Espie (Esperanza Delgado Parker) in Tennessee, after her on-again, off-again battle with cancer, and again on Tuesday, July 14, when my father-in-law Dr. Edward Michael Greaney died at home of natural causes. Ridiculous questions, like “Who else died recently, and who will be next?” popped into my head on each occasion. Thankfully I realized that these ludicrous thoughts were just samples of the plethora of feelings, ideas, and reactions that were swirling in my head as I tried processing these two disparate deaths.
Espie was a sparkling and active woman of 70 years – a sister, aunt, wife, friend, mother, and grandmother, who had seemingly won a recent battle with cancer after moving to Tennessee with her husband Larry to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Doctor Greaney, on the other hand, had lived a long and full life, finally expiring in his home at the ripe old age of 96. Espie died too soon, I secretly felt, while Dr. Greaney lived long enough. But these private feelings were personal and emotionally powered. Another person could just as easily shrugged off both deaths, explaining them away as “karma”. One thing is sure to me however, deaths to family members and close friends are always “too soon” and disquieting, because we suffer a personal loss and are forced to look at our own mortality, posing unanswerable questions about dying and what we leave behind us.
The first incident involved Charlie’s bike. From my perspective as a 5 or 6-year-old, Charlie (at 10 or 11) was a master cyclist. It didn’t matter that Lisa could ride one too; Charlie was the daredevil who leapt onto the seat from a running start, peddled with no hands, and transported passengers on his handle bars. If Charlie needed to deliver a message or travel somewhere on a chore or errand, he would often take along a passenger. I found this trick to be amazing, and I accompanied him on many excursions until I witnessed its risks.
It occurred one Saturday, when many of my older aunts and uncles were present in the house, but adult topics and endless conversation had driven the younger children outdoors. I remember Charlie with raven-haired Espie, proud as a queen and balanced on the front handlebars of his bike, telling us he was going to the 5 and Dime store around the corner. It must have happened on the way back that I heard a piercing scream of pain and a crash. Instantly Lisa rushed past me to the front door of the house and yelled that Espie was hurt and needed help. The image of a thundering herd of wild-eyed uncles stampeding through the front door to rescue their baby sister is forever burned into my memory. Although in fact there were probably only 5 brothers present (Tarsi, Henry, Kado, Victor, and my dad) it seemed like a tidal wave of brotherly concern and affection descended on Espie and Charlie, and it was comforting to realize that this emergency squad of uncles was always at the ready to rescue me, and any family member in trouble. Softly weeping, Espie returned to the house cradled in Henry’s arms, with other uncles tending her injured foot and cooing reassurances. There was concern for Charlie (who escaped with only minor scrapes and bruises) and praise for Lisa’s speedy alertness in calling for help, but what struck me most was the realization that Espie was the darling of the family. She was the youngest, “the baby”, “la consentida”, and “the favored one”.
“Esperanza” is the Spanish word for Hope, and in many ways, I think Espie, as the last child, was an avatar, or embodiment, of many of the best Delgado family traits and qualities. She had Lupe’s gaiety, Helen’s confidence and intelligence, Jay Jay’s kindness, Tillie’s innocence, and Lisa’s goodness. She also manifested the disciplined and practical mind that was seen in some of her brothers. But she had something extra. Despite her youth, she had a special way of doing things, and a willingness to be different. I started noticing these traits when she was in high school and before and after her marriage to Larry Parker in 1965.
As far as I know, Espie and Charlie were the only members of the family to attend and graduate from Lincoln High School, the public school up the street from their home on So. Broadway. The fact that my aunt was attending a public school was astounding to me. I was sheltered in a confining Catholic parochial school environment, and Espie, 4 years ahead of me, was attending classes and mixing with Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Anglos, Nisei, and other Mexican-Americans. She was experiencing the Brave New World of the late 50’s and early 60’s, during the heyday of Rock and Roll, teenage rebellion, James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. On one particular Saturday Espie told me all about her high school friends, her classes, clubs, and the career opportunities that beckoned after graduation. At the time, she used words and phrases I didn’t really understand until I entered high school myself – co-eds, sock hops, pep rallies, homecoming, and especially prom. Even though she graduated from Lincoln HS 6 years before the Student Walkouts of 1968, she was already expressing many of the new Chicano views about discrimination, higher education, and equal rights. She used the slang “paddies” when referring to Anglo students. In my Mexican and Mexican-American worlds I’d heard the term “gringos” used sometimes, but never “paddy” (many years later I learned the origins of this pejorative term for the Irish). Like all her sisters, Espie went straight to work after graduation in 1962, and during the next 3 years she worked, partied, and to everyone’s surprise, met, and married a young, fresh-faced, red-haired, Palmdale “paddy” who was recently discharged from the Navy and attending classes at Los Angeles City College on Vermont Blvd.
I was completing my junior year in high school when Espie and Larry Parker wed in 1965, and their parties and wedding celebrations were the perfect testing ground for teenage romance and flirtation. Espie’s wedding (and Charlie’s, which followed later that summer) was my unofficial “coming out” event. In the parties and social gatherings that followed, I chatted, joked, danced, and flirted with cousins and strangers alike, and for the first time got a whiff of that heady brew called infatuation. But of more lasting significance were the times I spent with Larry and Espie hearing about the decisions they were contemplating and the future they were planning. Espie was charting an independently modern course different from any of her sisters. Until her union with Larry, the Delgado family treated marriage as a parenting endeavor, with the husband working close to home and a wife raising a family. Espie and Larry, however, visualized marriage as a lifetime and moveable partnership. Their intertwined futures consisted of leaving Los Angeles and moving to San Francisco, where Larry enrolled and eventually graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in engineering, while Espie worked full time. He then transitioned into a full time career in Southern California, freeing Espie for motherhood, raising a family, and then pursuing future educational opportunities. It was a revolutionary plan in 1965, but to their hardworking credit, they succeeded happily and marvelously for 50 years.
I followed Espie on Facebook in the years after she and Larry moved to Tennessee in 2009, and the last time I saw her was at the funeral of my Aunt Lupe, in 2013. She spent the 24 hours before the funeral dining, talking, laughing, and reminiscing with her eternal sidekicks Lisa and Charlie. She was vibrant, upbeat, and optimistic of the future, talking of her plans for a Golden Wedding Anniversary in the spring of 2015.
While these memories of Espie occurred to me quickly upon hearing the news of her death, I had no sudden insights as to how to approach Dr. Greaney’s life. I’d mentioned him in past essays and I didn’t want to rehash old tales, nor tread on the many stories and anecdotes of his 9 surviving children. It was only when I started thinking back on the liturgy and readings for the Doctor’s funeral mass, and especially the homily given by Monsignor Clement Connolly, that some ideas started to percolate. I was first struck by something Patti, Kathy’s sister, mentioned on the day of the Doctor’s death, while explaining the readings they had chosen for the mass. “The point of the liturgy”, she said, “with it prayers, hymns, readings, and homily, is to teach. People should come away from the liturgy having learned something.” Monsignor Connolly reinforced this message at the beginning of his homily the following Saturday, adding that “every life is the ‘Good News’, or the ‘Gospel’ of that person”, meaning that the life of every person was meant to instruct us as to how to live, and perhaps, how to act. Since there was to be no official eulogy for Dr. Edward Michael Greaney at the mass, the Monsignor’s remarks proceeded to intertwine the readings and the Gospel of the day with his remarks about “the gospel according to Mike”. It was that liturgy and the Monsignor’s homily that finally provided the impetus for the remainder of this essay.
The first reading from the Letter of James, exhorted us to “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves”, and Doctor Greaney was certainly a man of deeds and action. His life was checkered with noteworthy and significant achievements and professional accomplishments: a graduate of Fordham University and Jefferson Medical College, and immediately commissioned in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant, serving as Battalion Surgeon of the 3rd Marine Division in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He married Mary Cavanaugh of Stamford, CT in 1943, and had two of eventually 10 children born during the war years. Upon his discharge in 1947 he completed a residency in general surgery at the Long Beach Veteran’s Hospital in 1951, and began a long and successful private practice in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Monsignor Connolly also noted that despite his towering pride and need for control, “Mike was an enchanter – he enchanted people”. This quality was apparent to me throughout my 40-year association with the Doctor. He had many, many loyal and devoted friends and acquaintances, who came in all sexes, ages, professions, ethnicities, and social levels. He knew cardinals and priests, architects and gardeners, movie stars and parking lot attendants. Some he met at his country club, some he operated on, and some he’d encounter on the beach, walking a dog or inspecting the surf. There was a glamour around Dr. Greaney and his “bedside manner” that stayed with people he met and patients he tended. Kathy would tell me stories of how complete strangers, upon hearing her maiden name of Greaney and discovering she was the daughter of their former surgeon, would go on and on with tales of his care, concern, and expertise. “He saved my life”, they would often conclude, pressing her hand, as if that tactile connection with a daughter would somehow renewed their association with the Doctor. It was at that point of the “gospel according to Mike” when Monsignor Connolly introduced a surprising twist with a parable from the Gospel of Luke.
Monsignor Connolly told of the righteous man and the tax collector: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” I’m no longer sure what Monsignor Connolly was proposing with this parable, and how it applied to the “gospel according to Mike”. Was the Doctor the righteous man or the sinner? Was he the successful surgeon, the glamorous enchanter, who patted himself on the back and went home “justified”, or was he the outcast in the rear, the flawed, imperfect, and sinful man who beat his breast and called to God for mercy. I had expected a veiled but glowing eulogy, and what I heard instead was an unsettling tale of two men, an enchanter and an outcast, a self-righteous professional and a sinner. If “every life is the ‘Good News’, or the ‘Gospel’ of that person”, as Monsignor Connolly suggested, what then were the lessons to be learned from the lives and deaths of Espie and Mike?
For the “gospel of Espie”, I would point to the Letter of James used in the Doctor’s funeral liturgy:
“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Espie was easy to love, and graceful endurance is how I think she lived her final years in retirement with Larry after the cancer was discovered. After blossoming as a wife, partner, mother, and mature woman in Southern California, Espie again packed up and moved with Larry, the love of her life, to live in Tennessee with her children and grandchildren. From what I learned in conversations and in Facebook, she and Larry built a house there and enjoyed each day as it came, until those days ran out. Sadly, her death has left a huge gap in my life that only old memories can now substitute.
As for the “gospel of Mike”, I fear that I have done poor justice to the liturgy planned by Kathy’s siblings and Monsignor Connolly’s homily. I hope this essay somehow reflects the powerful impression they left on me that day. I suspect that I will never again hear a more honest and compassionate tribute to person at a funeral. Doctor Greaney, especially during the waning months of his life, was a difficult and demanding man on family members and caregivers alike. No one saw this better, I believe, than Monsignor Connolly who visited him regularly and faithfully, and who heard his confession and gave him the Last Rites the night before he died. In those last days, I’m sure Monsignor saw past the glamour and enchantment of Dr. Greaney and recognized Mike, the flawed and imperfect man, husband, friend, and father who lay before him. Perhaps there is not one but many lessons to be learned from the gospel of Mike. Some in his actions and deeds, and some in what his 9 surviving children and 26 grandchildren take away from those accomplishments. Then again, in the end, the outcast tax collector in Monsignor’s parable simply asked God for mercy and compassion – perhaps that is what that the gospel of Mike asks of us.
I heard a young girl calling,
Michael they are taking you away.
For you stole Trevelyn’s corn,
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.
Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing.
It’s so lonely ‘round the Fields of Athenry.
(The Fields of Athenry – Pete St. John: 1970)
Many years ago, Kathleen shared an old Irish superstition that was often quoted by her mother. Whenever a bevy of celebrity deaths occurred in a short space of time, Mary Cavanaugh Greaney would say, “Death always comes in 3’s”. I have to confess that this macabre Irish saying occurred to me a few times in the course of 4 days: on Saturday, July 11, when I received news of the death of my Aunt Espie (Esperanza Delgado Parker) in Tennessee, after her on-again, off-again battle with cancer, and again on Tuesday, July 14, when my father-in-law Dr. Edward Michael Greaney died at home of natural causes. Ridiculous questions, like “Who else died recently, and who will be next?” popped into my head on each occasion. Thankfully I realized that these ludicrous thoughts were just samples of the plethora of feelings, ideas, and reactions that were swirling in my head as I tried processing these two disparate deaths.
Espie was a sparkling and active woman of 70 years – a sister, aunt, wife, friend, mother, and grandmother, who had seemingly won a recent battle with cancer after moving to Tennessee with her husband Larry to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Doctor Greaney, on the other hand, had lived a long and full life, finally expiring in his home at the ripe old age of 96. Espie died too soon, I secretly felt, while Dr. Greaney lived long enough. But these private feelings were personal and emotionally powered. Another person could just as easily shrugged off both deaths, explaining them away as “karma”. One thing is sure to me however, deaths to family members and close friends are always “too soon” and disquieting, because we suffer a personal loss and are forced to look at our own mortality, posing unanswerable questions about dying and what we leave behind us.
The first incident involved Charlie’s bike. From my perspective as a 5 or 6-year-old, Charlie (at 10 or 11) was a master cyclist. It didn’t matter that Lisa could ride one too; Charlie was the daredevil who leapt onto the seat from a running start, peddled with no hands, and transported passengers on his handle bars. If Charlie needed to deliver a message or travel somewhere on a chore or errand, he would often take along a passenger. I found this trick to be amazing, and I accompanied him on many excursions until I witnessed its risks.
It occurred one Saturday, when many of my older aunts and uncles were present in the house, but adult topics and endless conversation had driven the younger children outdoors. I remember Charlie with raven-haired Espie, proud as a queen and balanced on the front handlebars of his bike, telling us he was going to the 5 and Dime store around the corner. It must have happened on the way back that I heard a piercing scream of pain and a crash. Instantly Lisa rushed past me to the front door of the house and yelled that Espie was hurt and needed help. The image of a thundering herd of wild-eyed uncles stampeding through the front door to rescue their baby sister is forever burned into my memory. Although in fact there were probably only 5 brothers present (Tarsi, Henry, Kado, Victor, and my dad) it seemed like a tidal wave of brotherly concern and affection descended on Espie and Charlie, and it was comforting to realize that this emergency squad of uncles was always at the ready to rescue me, and any family member in trouble. Softly weeping, Espie returned to the house cradled in Henry’s arms, with other uncles tending her injured foot and cooing reassurances. There was concern for Charlie (who escaped with only minor scrapes and bruises) and praise for Lisa’s speedy alertness in calling for help, but what struck me most was the realization that Espie was the darling of the family. She was the youngest, “the baby”, “la consentida”, and “the favored one”.
“Esperanza” is the Spanish word for Hope, and in many ways, I think Espie, as the last child, was an avatar, or embodiment, of many of the best Delgado family traits and qualities. She had Lupe’s gaiety, Helen’s confidence and intelligence, Jay Jay’s kindness, Tillie’s innocence, and Lisa’s goodness. She also manifested the disciplined and practical mind that was seen in some of her brothers. But she had something extra. Despite her youth, she had a special way of doing things, and a willingness to be different. I started noticing these traits when she was in high school and before and after her marriage to Larry Parker in 1965.
As far as I know, Espie and Charlie were the only members of the family to attend and graduate from Lincoln High School, the public school up the street from their home on So. Broadway. The fact that my aunt was attending a public school was astounding to me. I was sheltered in a confining Catholic parochial school environment, and Espie, 4 years ahead of me, was attending classes and mixing with Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Anglos, Nisei, and other Mexican-Americans. She was experiencing the Brave New World of the late 50’s and early 60’s, during the heyday of Rock and Roll, teenage rebellion, James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. On one particular Saturday Espie told me all about her high school friends, her classes, clubs, and the career opportunities that beckoned after graduation. At the time, she used words and phrases I didn’t really understand until I entered high school myself – co-eds, sock hops, pep rallies, homecoming, and especially prom. Even though she graduated from Lincoln HS 6 years before the Student Walkouts of 1968, she was already expressing many of the new Chicano views about discrimination, higher education, and equal rights. She used the slang “paddies” when referring to Anglo students. In my Mexican and Mexican-American worlds I’d heard the term “gringos” used sometimes, but never “paddy” (many years later I learned the origins of this pejorative term for the Irish). Like all her sisters, Espie went straight to work after graduation in 1962, and during the next 3 years she worked, partied, and to everyone’s surprise, met, and married a young, fresh-faced, red-haired, Palmdale “paddy” who was recently discharged from the Navy and attending classes at Los Angeles City College on Vermont Blvd.
I was completing my junior year in high school when Espie and Larry Parker wed in 1965, and their parties and wedding celebrations were the perfect testing ground for teenage romance and flirtation. Espie’s wedding (and Charlie’s, which followed later that summer) was my unofficial “coming out” event. In the parties and social gatherings that followed, I chatted, joked, danced, and flirted with cousins and strangers alike, and for the first time got a whiff of that heady brew called infatuation. But of more lasting significance were the times I spent with Larry and Espie hearing about the decisions they were contemplating and the future they were planning. Espie was charting an independently modern course different from any of her sisters. Until her union with Larry, the Delgado family treated marriage as a parenting endeavor, with the husband working close to home and a wife raising a family. Espie and Larry, however, visualized marriage as a lifetime and moveable partnership. Their intertwined futures consisted of leaving Los Angeles and moving to San Francisco, where Larry enrolled and eventually graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in engineering, while Espie worked full time. He then transitioned into a full time career in Southern California, freeing Espie for motherhood, raising a family, and then pursuing future educational opportunities. It was a revolutionary plan in 1965, but to their hardworking credit, they succeeded happily and marvelously for 50 years.
I followed Espie on Facebook in the years after she and Larry moved to Tennessee in 2009, and the last time I saw her was at the funeral of my Aunt Lupe, in 2013. She spent the 24 hours before the funeral dining, talking, laughing, and reminiscing with her eternal sidekicks Lisa and Charlie. She was vibrant, upbeat, and optimistic of the future, talking of her plans for a Golden Wedding Anniversary in the spring of 2015.
While these memories of Espie occurred to me quickly upon hearing the news of her death, I had no sudden insights as to how to approach Dr. Greaney’s life. I’d mentioned him in past essays and I didn’t want to rehash old tales, nor tread on the many stories and anecdotes of his 9 surviving children. It was only when I started thinking back on the liturgy and readings for the Doctor’s funeral mass, and especially the homily given by Monsignor Clement Connolly, that some ideas started to percolate. I was first struck by something Patti, Kathy’s sister, mentioned on the day of the Doctor’s death, while explaining the readings they had chosen for the mass. “The point of the liturgy”, she said, “with it prayers, hymns, readings, and homily, is to teach. People should come away from the liturgy having learned something.” Monsignor Connolly reinforced this message at the beginning of his homily the following Saturday, adding that “every life is the ‘Good News’, or the ‘Gospel’ of that person”, meaning that the life of every person was meant to instruct us as to how to live, and perhaps, how to act. Since there was to be no official eulogy for Dr. Edward Michael Greaney at the mass, the Monsignor’s remarks proceeded to intertwine the readings and the Gospel of the day with his remarks about “the gospel according to Mike”. It was that liturgy and the Monsignor’s homily that finally provided the impetus for the remainder of this essay.
The first reading from the Letter of James, exhorted us to “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves”, and Doctor Greaney was certainly a man of deeds and action. His life was checkered with noteworthy and significant achievements and professional accomplishments: a graduate of Fordham University and Jefferson Medical College, and immediately commissioned in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant, serving as Battalion Surgeon of the 3rd Marine Division in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He married Mary Cavanaugh of Stamford, CT in 1943, and had two of eventually 10 children born during the war years. Upon his discharge in 1947 he completed a residency in general surgery at the Long Beach Veteran’s Hospital in 1951, and began a long and successful private practice in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Monsignor Connolly also noted that despite his towering pride and need for control, “Mike was an enchanter – he enchanted people”. This quality was apparent to me throughout my 40-year association with the Doctor. He had many, many loyal and devoted friends and acquaintances, who came in all sexes, ages, professions, ethnicities, and social levels. He knew cardinals and priests, architects and gardeners, movie stars and parking lot attendants. Some he met at his country club, some he operated on, and some he’d encounter on the beach, walking a dog or inspecting the surf. There was a glamour around Dr. Greaney and his “bedside manner” that stayed with people he met and patients he tended. Kathy would tell me stories of how complete strangers, upon hearing her maiden name of Greaney and discovering she was the daughter of their former surgeon, would go on and on with tales of his care, concern, and expertise. “He saved my life”, they would often conclude, pressing her hand, as if that tactile connection with a daughter would somehow renewed their association with the Doctor. It was at that point of the “gospel according to Mike” when Monsignor Connolly introduced a surprising twist with a parable from the Gospel of Luke.
Monsignor Connolly told of the righteous man and the tax collector: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” I’m no longer sure what Monsignor Connolly was proposing with this parable, and how it applied to the “gospel according to Mike”. Was the Doctor the righteous man or the sinner? Was he the successful surgeon, the glamorous enchanter, who patted himself on the back and went home “justified”, or was he the outcast in the rear, the flawed, imperfect, and sinful man who beat his breast and called to God for mercy. I had expected a veiled but glowing eulogy, and what I heard instead was an unsettling tale of two men, an enchanter and an outcast, a self-righteous professional and a sinner. If “every life is the ‘Good News’, or the ‘Gospel’ of that person”, as Monsignor Connolly suggested, what then were the lessons to be learned from the lives and deaths of Espie and Mike?
For the “gospel of Espie”, I would point to the Letter of James used in the Doctor’s funeral liturgy:
“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Espie was easy to love, and graceful endurance is how I think she lived her final years in retirement with Larry after the cancer was discovered. After blossoming as a wife, partner, mother, and mature woman in Southern California, Espie again packed up and moved with Larry, the love of her life, to live in Tennessee with her children and grandchildren. From what I learned in conversations and in Facebook, she and Larry built a house there and enjoyed each day as it came, until those days ran out. Sadly, her death has left a huge gap in my life that only old memories can now substitute.
As for the “gospel of Mike”, I fear that I have done poor justice to the liturgy planned by Kathy’s siblings and Monsignor Connolly’s homily. I hope this essay somehow reflects the powerful impression they left on me that day. I suspect that I will never again hear a more honest and compassionate tribute to person at a funeral. Doctor Greaney, especially during the waning months of his life, was a difficult and demanding man on family members and caregivers alike. No one saw this better, I believe, than Monsignor Connolly who visited him regularly and faithfully, and who heard his confession and gave him the Last Rites the night before he died. In those last days, I’m sure Monsignor saw past the glamour and enchantment of Dr. Greaney and recognized Mike, the flawed and imperfect man, husband, friend, and father who lay before him. Perhaps there is not one but many lessons to be learned from the gospel of Mike. Some in his actions and deeds, and some in what his 9 surviving children and 26 grandchildren take away from those accomplishments. Then again, in the end, the outcast tax collector in Monsignor’s parable simply asked God for mercy and compassion – perhaps that is what that the gospel of Mike asks of us.
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