ANNIVERSARIES

October 5 would have been the 71^st anniversary of my parents, Walt and Monica.  It was also the 16^th anniversary of my mother’s death.  She died on the date she and her beloved were married, which seems fitting.  (October 5, 2004 was also the last day my hometown Minnesota Twins won a playoff game!  That’s a whole ‘nother story.)

 

Although I never thought about it exactly this way, I realize both of my parents were anti-fascists.  Both served in World War II. Mom was a WAC, and among other things helped in the training of French pilots, who were then sent to bomb their own country to free it from the Nazis.  I imagine some of those young men died doing that.  Dad was in the Army Air Corps in the Aleutian Islands on December 7, 1941, closer to Japan than Pearl Harbor was. He served in combat in France and Germany, and in the occupation of Germany after the war.  Then his German came in handy for his country, unlike in 1917, when he went to kindergarten speaking only German, and was told that children who spoke “the enemy’s language” would be hit.

 

I wish I could call them up and talk about our current political situation.  They voted in every election, and my mom worked for over 10 years as an administrative assistant for the county.  Dad was a barber and as I note in my poem “Cutting Away”:

 

You can learn a lot by holding

a man’s head in one hand

and a razor in another. 

 

I’m pretty sure there aren’t elections in the next life.  But if you can hear me, mom and dad, I want you to know that we are still fighting the good fight!

 

Here is a poem from my upcoming book that celebrates how my parentage came to be:

 

 

AUSTIN MINNESOTA

 

Austin, Hog-Town,

city of bent shoulders.

Maybe the hair of the men on the kill

grow more quickly over their ears,

so that you made a killing

with your scissors and clippers

and the fine hand broom that whisked

the dead hair off their shoulders.

You roomed at Maw Daly’s on Main

Street, where husband Bill left each

morning to work in the plant, and

daughter Monica checked the accounts

at Kresge’s and came home to work

for the house, cleaning the roomers’ rooms,

stuffing the laundry through the wringer

into galvanized pots.  I wonder how

often she washed your sheets, and how

much she wondered.  Mom said she thought

you were ugly and stuck up when she

first met you, but something must

have caught her heart—your mustache,

the scent of pomade and powder

on your hands, your fervency at Mass.

Somehow you ended up talking, then

dancing, then walking down the aisle

at Queen of Angels, Mom’s brothers

still alive, Grandpa Bill delighted to see

his daughter finally married, Grandma

Daly wondering who would clean the sheets.

 

 

Be justice.  Be beauty.  Be anti-fascist, as effectively and peacefully as you can.

 

Patrick