To those of us who grew up in New England, Memorial Day was the official startup of Summer. Those few who had them took the tarps off the swimming pools, beach cottage owners began airing out their real estate and the kids started counting down the few days left of school. The expansive ice cream stands owned by local dairies—I remember Findeisen’s and Glenny’s—were open and people began lining up at the windows for their choices of a kazillion delicious flavors. You could seriously consider going to a Red Sox game without freezing to death. Memorial Day, May 30, was the starting gun.
Memorial Day actually started out with a different name, Decoration Day, to observe a day of honor for the Civil War dead. It was made an official holiday in 1868 and received its new name, Memorial Day, in 1882. As the Civil War gradually receded from memory, Memorial Day evolved over the years to honor all American soldiers killed in any previous conflict. Then, in 1971, some bohunk in Washington managed to get the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed, thus muddying up the meaning of the various holidays for the sake of the fabulous three-day weekend. Only in America. Oh, and since holidays are really just an excuse for a day off, let’s just squeeze the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln into one….they’re too hard to remember, anyway. Jesus wouldn’t want anybody messing with his birthday, so I guess that one is safe and they still haven’t figured out how to make the Fourth of July fall on Monday every year and it IS a little problematic to celebrate that one on, say, the fifth or sixth, but they’re working on it. Cinco de Mayo would often be Cuatro de Mayo in this country.
Like us, Senator Daniel Inouye didn’t like the flexible Memorial Day dates and for years he would introduce a bill before every new Congress (each two years) to have the date changed back to May 30. The efforts all died in Committee. In D.C., “Committee” is another word for “Black Hole.” Then, poor old Inouye went and died, of all the luck. In 2010, however, the New Jersey State Legislature made an official request of the U.S. Congress, asking a return to the May 30 date. And if YOU want to join in the fun, you can rush to usmemorialdayfoundation.org and click on “Help Restore the Traditional Day of Observance.” You weren’t doing anything else, anyway.
Memories Are Made Of This
For us, growing up, Memorial Day also meant a trip to the cemetery to visit my maternal grandfather’s grave. Bill Gosselin, after whom I was named, was a reckless, fun-loving bar-owner who abandoned Earth at an early age. He owned a place on South Union Street in Lawrence called The Whippet Club, with portraits of whippets in stride painted on the windows in a tasteful green and cream. Perhaps seeking to balance his rambunctious nature, he one day married my grandmother, Celia (wisely altered from the impossible “Alphonsine”), not one for a whole lot of frivolity. It probably took a Bill Gosselin to exercise any manner of control over Celia Wickey, who was used to having her own way. At any rate, they took up residence on nearby Garfield street and, being respectable—sort of—business owners, bought a nice Chevrolet. This vehicle came in handy at bar closing times when it was often necessary for Celia to drive an overindulgent Bill home. As testified on other occasions, my job was to sit in the back seat and hold his hat, a job I became expert at, if I do say so myself. Back in those days, people often held wakes for the dead in their own homes and such it was with us. Until then, it never occurred to me that I looked all that much like my grandfather, but at the wake I heard, time and again, “Bill Gosselin will never be dead as long as that kid is around.”
We owe all kinds of debts to our forebears, including the obvious (no grandpa, no Bill Killeen). Aside from that one, perhaps the biggest one I owe to Bill Gosselin is his testimony about smoking cigarettes and strong advice to abstain. My grandfather had lung cancer and had his horrendous neck wound cleaned and repacked daily by visiting nurses. When the old bandages were taken off, the smell was like no other. My grandfather would look directly into my eyes and say, “Billy, I got this from smoking Camels. Don’t ever smoke cigarettes or you will die from it.” Thanks, grandpa. No further advice necessary. The whole experience was so shaking, I never touched the first cigarette. Bill Gosselin died in Massachusetts General Hospital when I was in the first grade. I still remember my mother and grandmother crying and hugging at the bottom of the stairs leading to the latter’s upstairs home. “Bill is gone,” she said, and this was my first experience with death. I remember being led to my grandfather’s casket and looking inside. I didn’t think to cry, I was so in awe of how normal he looked. And how untypically quiet.
I have written an earlier column about my father, who died when I was a sophomore in high school. He was twenty five years older than my mother and when he died at 63, she was a mere 38 with a lot on her plate. A new person to visit at the cemetery, along with my Uncle Arthur—Celia’s brother—who had abandoned his beloved Italian hellraiser sweetie, Rose, to marry the evil Hazel, whose first husband had died under suspicious circumstances, as did Uncle Arthur. My grandmother—Nan, as we called her, and Hazel almost came to blows at the funeral. “Hazel poisoned your uncle,” Nan told me more than once. Gee, where’s the cops, I always wondered.
My mother wasn’t one for being alone too long so she eventually took up with a fireman named—you guessed it—“Sparky.” Sparky was one of those very compact (real short neck, not much waist) fellows who don’t seem to hang around the planet too long. He died one day after work while taking his boots off in the living room. The cemetery was fast filling up. It eventually snared her next husband, Henry, a gregarious man from Nova Scotia, with whom she shared many good years. My mother, Marie, made it all the way to 84, by which time she had fended off cancer but not dementia. It was very gradual and she was feisty about her memory even after a lot of it had departed. We were driving down Interstate 93 in New Hampshire one night on our way to dinner and she insisted I take a certain incorrect exit. “No, Ma,” I told her, “it’s two more down.” She went nuts about how I was going the wrong way and detested that no one would listen to her anymore. When we got off on the correct exit and proceeded promptly to the restaurant, I smiled victoriously and said, “See, Ma, I went the right way.” She looked at me scornfully and spit out, “It would have been faster if you took the other exit.”
My grandmother, Nan, preceded my mother in death by several years. She hung on until 94, however, and died just prior to my visit at Christmas. Nan was unforgettable, one of a kind and tough as nails. I accidentally—and miraculously, I might add—hit a baseball onto her second-floor porch overlooking the ballfield early one evening. She was sitting out there at the time and I grimaced as I saw the ball bouncing around as she tried to get out of the way. Livid didn’t begin to describe Nan. She summoned me home and read me the riot act as if I’d done it on purpose. I couldn’t hit the ball up there again if I tried all day but there was no convincing Celia, who was smoking mad until the next day and reminded me of the foul deed for weeks after. My best memories of her were times spent sitting in her pantry, where pies were constructed from scratch and cake-icing bowls were provided for licking. Also, she was loyal to a fault and took note of people who needed a leg up, though God help you if you ever accused her of being kind. Wherever she is, there is no doubt others in the environs are quite aware she is present. Keep a spot warm for me, Nan. I promise to eat whatever you make for me. Yes, all of it.
Bill And His Mother Chillin’ At Hampton Beach
The Others
My earliest friend, Jackie Mercier, was as happy-go-lucky as a kid could be. Never worried about anything. Always wanted to be outside, playing ball, climbing trees, swinging from vines. He loved Tarzan movies, thought a Tarzan-like career for himself was a distinct possibility. It’s sad how we lose track of such friends, so important at one time—like wives we gradually grow apart from. Jackie grew up to be one of those kids who was always bent over and into a car engine, and I—well, I did not. One day, my mother called and told me that Jackie, still a very young man, had walked off an upper floor of a building, disconsolate over a disintegrating relationship with a girlfriend. No, Jackie—what about Tarzan?!? Tarzan wouldn’t do that!
It’s one thing to make your own decision, another to be felled by bad genes or fate. Pamme Brewer, my partner in the Subterranean Circus, contracted uterine cancer and ascended at an age all too early. Stuart Bentler, my friend of 45 years, was robbed of his life by a stupid disease called amyloidosis, which absolutely nobody gets except Stuart. He always did like to be different. Betsy Harper, one of my all-time favorite girlfriends, died in her fifties for trying to look good, succumbing to skin cancer. She literally tanned herself to death. When her friends used to caution against sun excess, Betsy used to tell them, “I want to look good NOW.” And she did that. Who, really, is ever going to believe they’ll be cut down by melanoma?
One of the saddest deaths was that of old friend, Pat Brown, who encouraged me to start this column, of breast cancer, not 18 months ago. Pat battled back and hung on well past her anticipated expiration date but breast cancer is a tough opponent. I talked to her less than three weeks before her death and she never told me it was imminent, just calmly discussed trying more and different experimental drugs, a couple of which had kept her going this long. Her best friend, my first wife, Marilyn, joined her in the afterlife this January and is the subject of an elegiac Flying Pie column of January 31 titled The Girls Of Summer, a last-ditch attempt to pay off an unpayable debt.
It’s become a bittersweet event to run into old friends not seen in years, for they carry with them tales of others now gone and the sudden realization of their passings cuts to the quick, further seems to accelerate our own mortality. The gifts bestowed upon us all by our families and those others we have allowed to get close to us have seeped into our beings and what they gave to us is now a part of who we are and what we carry forth. It is altogether fitting that we primarily remember the positive attributes of these people, the good times shared, the lessons imparted, while the negatives recede into the shallows of our memories. And they never go away, they are indelible, these mothers and fathers and wives and lovers and friends. We can see them as if it were yesterday, we can hear them laugh. And despite that great chasm of time, they will always ride the gentle winds of memory. And they will always make us smile.
Memorial Day actually started out with a different name, Decoration Day, to observe a day of honor for the Civil War dead. It was made an official holiday in 1868 and received its new name, Memorial Day, in 1882. As the Civil War gradually receded from memory, Memorial Day evolved over the years to honor all American soldiers killed in any previous conflict. Then, in 1971, some bohunk in Washington managed to get the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed, thus muddying up the meaning of the various holidays for the sake of the fabulous three-day weekend. Only in America. Oh, and since holidays are really just an excuse for a day off, let’s just squeeze the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln into one….they’re too hard to remember, anyway. Jesus wouldn’t want anybody messing with his birthday, so I guess that one is safe and they still haven’t figured out how to make the Fourth of July fall on Monday every year and it IS a little problematic to celebrate that one on, say, the fifth or sixth, but they’re working on it. Cinco de Mayo would often be Cuatro de Mayo in this country.
Like us, Senator Daniel Inouye didn’t like the flexible Memorial Day dates and for years he would introduce a bill before every new Congress (each two years) to have the date changed back to May 30. The efforts all died in Committee. In D.C., “Committee” is another word for “Black Hole.” Then, poor old Inouye went and died, of all the luck. In 2010, however, the New Jersey State Legislature made an official request of the U.S. Congress, asking a return to the May 30 date. And if YOU want to join in the fun, you can rush to usmemorialdayfoundation.org and click on “Help Restore the Traditional Day of Observance.” You weren’t doing anything else, anyway.
Memories Are Made Of This
For us, growing up, Memorial Day also meant a trip to the cemetery to visit my maternal grandfather’s grave. Bill Gosselin, after whom I was named, was a reckless, fun-loving bar-owner who abandoned Earth at an early age. He owned a place on South Union Street in Lawrence called The Whippet Club, with portraits of whippets in stride painted on the windows in a tasteful green and cream. Perhaps seeking to balance his rambunctious nature, he one day married my grandmother, Celia (wisely altered from the impossible “Alphonsine”), not one for a whole lot of frivolity. It probably took a Bill Gosselin to exercise any manner of control over Celia Wickey, who was used to having her own way. At any rate, they took up residence on nearby Garfield street and, being respectable—sort of—business owners, bought a nice Chevrolet. This vehicle came in handy at bar closing times when it was often necessary for Celia to drive an overindulgent Bill home. As testified on other occasions, my job was to sit in the back seat and hold his hat, a job I became expert at, if I do say so myself. Back in those days, people often held wakes for the dead in their own homes and such it was with us. Until then, it never occurred to me that I looked all that much like my grandfather, but at the wake I heard, time and again, “Bill Gosselin will never be dead as long as that kid is around.”
We owe all kinds of debts to our forebears, including the obvious (no grandpa, no Bill Killeen). Aside from that one, perhaps the biggest one I owe to Bill Gosselin is his testimony about smoking cigarettes and strong advice to abstain. My grandfather had lung cancer and had his horrendous neck wound cleaned and repacked daily by visiting nurses. When the old bandages were taken off, the smell was like no other. My grandfather would look directly into my eyes and say, “Billy, I got this from smoking Camels. Don’t ever smoke cigarettes or you will die from it.” Thanks, grandpa. No further advice necessary. The whole experience was so shaking, I never touched the first cigarette. Bill Gosselin died in Massachusetts General Hospital when I was in the first grade. I still remember my mother and grandmother crying and hugging at the bottom of the stairs leading to the latter’s upstairs home. “Bill is gone,” she said, and this was my first experience with death. I remember being led to my grandfather’s casket and looking inside. I didn’t think to cry, I was so in awe of how normal he looked. And how untypically quiet.
I have written an earlier column about my father, who died when I was a sophomore in high school. He was twenty five years older than my mother and when he died at 63, she was a mere 38 with a lot on her plate. A new person to visit at the cemetery, along with my Uncle Arthur—Celia’s brother—who had abandoned his beloved Italian hellraiser sweetie, Rose, to marry the evil Hazel, whose first husband had died under suspicious circumstances, as did Uncle Arthur. My grandmother—Nan, as we called her, and Hazel almost came to blows at the funeral. “Hazel poisoned your uncle,” Nan told me more than once. Gee, where’s the cops, I always wondered.
My mother wasn’t one for being alone too long so she eventually took up with a fireman named—you guessed it—“Sparky.” Sparky was one of those very compact (real short neck, not much waist) fellows who don’t seem to hang around the planet too long. He died one day after work while taking his boots off in the living room. The cemetery was fast filling up. It eventually snared her next husband, Henry, a gregarious man from Nova Scotia, with whom she shared many good years. My mother, Marie, made it all the way to 84, by which time she had fended off cancer but not dementia. It was very gradual and she was feisty about her memory even after a lot of it had departed. We were driving down Interstate 93 in New Hampshire one night on our way to dinner and she insisted I take a certain incorrect exit. “No, Ma,” I told her, “it’s two more down.” She went nuts about how I was going the wrong way and detested that no one would listen to her anymore. When we got off on the correct exit and proceeded promptly to the restaurant, I smiled victoriously and said, “See, Ma, I went the right way.” She looked at me scornfully and spit out, “It would have been faster if you took the other exit.”
My grandmother, Nan, preceded my mother in death by several years. She hung on until 94, however, and died just prior to my visit at Christmas. Nan was unforgettable, one of a kind and tough as nails. I accidentally—and miraculously, I might add—hit a baseball onto her second-floor porch overlooking the ballfield early one evening. She was sitting out there at the time and I grimaced as I saw the ball bouncing around as she tried to get out of the way. Livid didn’t begin to describe Nan. She summoned me home and read me the riot act as if I’d done it on purpose. I couldn’t hit the ball up there again if I tried all day but there was no convincing Celia, who was smoking mad until the next day and reminded me of the foul deed for weeks after. My best memories of her were times spent sitting in her pantry, where pies were constructed from scratch and cake-icing bowls were provided for licking. Also, she was loyal to a fault and took note of people who needed a leg up, though God help you if you ever accused her of being kind. Wherever she is, there is no doubt others in the environs are quite aware she is present. Keep a spot warm for me, Nan. I promise to eat whatever you make for me. Yes, all of it.
Bill And His Mother Chillin’ At Hampton Beach
The Others
My earliest friend, Jackie Mercier, was as happy-go-lucky as a kid could be. Never worried about anything. Always wanted to be outside, playing ball, climbing trees, swinging from vines. He loved Tarzan movies, thought a Tarzan-like career for himself was a distinct possibility. It’s sad how we lose track of such friends, so important at one time—like wives we gradually grow apart from. Jackie grew up to be one of those kids who was always bent over and into a car engine, and I—well, I did not. One day, my mother called and told me that Jackie, still a very young man, had walked off an upper floor of a building, disconsolate over a disintegrating relationship with a girlfriend. No, Jackie—what about Tarzan?!? Tarzan wouldn’t do that!
It’s one thing to make your own decision, another to be felled by bad genes or fate. Pamme Brewer, my partner in the Subterranean Circus, contracted uterine cancer and ascended at an age all too early. Stuart Bentler, my friend of 45 years, was robbed of his life by a stupid disease called amyloidosis, which absolutely nobody gets except Stuart. He always did like to be different. Betsy Harper, one of my all-time favorite girlfriends, died in her fifties for trying to look good, succumbing to skin cancer. She literally tanned herself to death. When her friends used to caution against sun excess, Betsy used to tell them, “I want to look good NOW.” And she did that. Who, really, is ever going to believe they’ll be cut down by melanoma?
One of the saddest deaths was that of old friend, Pat Brown, who encouraged me to start this column, of breast cancer, not 18 months ago. Pat battled back and hung on well past her anticipated expiration date but breast cancer is a tough opponent. I talked to her less than three weeks before her death and she never told me it was imminent, just calmly discussed trying more and different experimental drugs, a couple of which had kept her going this long. Her best friend, my first wife, Marilyn, joined her in the afterlife this January and is the subject of an elegiac Flying Pie column of January 31 titled The Girls Of Summer, a last-ditch attempt to pay off an unpayable debt.
It’s become a bittersweet event to run into old friends not seen in years, for they carry with them tales of others now gone and the sudden realization of their passings cuts to the quick, further seems to accelerate our own mortality. The gifts bestowed upon us all by our families and those others we have allowed to get close to us have seeped into our beings and what they gave to us is now a part of who we are and what we carry forth. It is altogether fitting that we primarily remember the positive attributes of these people, the good times shared, the lessons imparted, while the negatives recede into the shallows of our memories. And they never go away, they are indelible, these mothers and fathers and wives and lovers and friends. We can see them as if it were yesterday, we can hear them laugh. And despite that great chasm of time, they will always ride the gentle winds of memory. And they will always make us smile.
