Chapter 1 "Building Blocks"

My father came from a German farming family from a little town in Germany whose descendants traveled up the Mississippi into Minnesota in the mid 1800’s, and settled. I can count lineage back to my Great Grandma who I met on several occasions for she was alive for 14 of my years. Her name is Katherine Ernst she passed way in 1983 at the age of 103 years old. Go check out her bio. While your there Uncle Walt just turned 103. Her son Irving was “Grandpa” to me, to me and 45 cousins for Dad had 7 siblings all of whom were married with children living in Minnesota with all 11,200 lakes. Where the state bird is a kids cover your ears, “A F0oKIN MOSKITO”. Irving “Grandpa lived with Grandma in a little old timey retirement where there were no children and the elders still spoke German to one another. The rest of my cousins were dispersed around the state from top to mid and just a little to the side under the guardianship of a very devout catholic family. No divorces, mostly. My grandpa played the organ in the church for 45 yrs he would often play at gatherings at his house. I still remember his sing song voice as he rocked back and forth swaying with the organ. I mean if you’ve never seen anyone work a full sized organ you should, the hand the feet all moving in a dance of music and voice. In their house is one of all the grandchildren’s fondest memories, an old style Coo-Coo clock which we all had spent at least the time it took to see the Coo Coo once per year. A strange vigil that I witnessed one year that would go on all day; for, that year the Ernst annual reunion was at the little house where our Grandparents resided. I recall joining one or two groups of children who had not seen the Coo Coo and we would wait together until the small blue, white, and black bird would emerge from its little wooden door. I’ll get back to Minnesota later for that will occupy a large part of my life and gives reason to my many facets, yet I bring it up now to give a view of my Dad Jerome Ernst and his humble beginnings that revolved around the Ernst family and how he be came a the adventurer and stood to be on great ground though out his life. His accomplishments range from working his way through college achieving Bachelors in Journalism and two Masters in Philosophy and Theology and after a stint in Seminary school he became a deacon in the Catholic Church. I used to barrow his collar and put on a blue blazer and slacks and pull the “Father John” act, a very serious character who was know even to have attempted to bless Mr. Ribzeke his seventh grade teacher in St Michael’s Catholic elementary school but that’ a story for much later. One of his Articles “The confrontation at Selma Alabama” published in “The Mission” a Catholic Magazine earned him a Journalism award recalled a major turning point in the civil rights movement.  There where two separate confrontations held in Selma the first one was at the bridge heralding all the violent actions and horrifying displays of suffering and terror portrayed in documentaries of that time period, the second the second was different. Up until this time the marches, sit-ins, and freedom rides were organized and implemented by the “Southern Colored Christian Association” The march in Selma was the first time that white Christian’s many of notoriety, Bishops, Priests, and Nuns joined with the black marchers. My father is a white man back then he was very white (as in not hip it’s just not in him.), but also my father has a very clear understanding of write and wrong and the duty that we all share is to treat all people with honor compassion and respect, so when the other white Christians traveled all from over the country to witness and participate in the marches there-bye being willing to accept whatever violence or harm that could come. You see when they started that march they didn’t know that there would not be violence. I had Dad send me the article and as a bonus 13 different responses to his letter in “The Mission” magazine. I expect you will be shocked as I found myself, so take a look. That is the kind of man my Dad is, all through his life he has been the champion of noble and charitable causes one of which is me. Dad is still friends with the Arch Bishop of Boston he told me he flew up to see him a couple of months ago. He came to dinner once and for a catholic school kid who knew quite well the higher-arch of the Catholic Church an arch Bishop is about as powerful as they come. The list would start with nuns just a regular sister, add teacher another level, then Sister Mary Raymond our principle who we all had to stand up for, and greet her formally as a class in one voice no goofing’ off, “Good afternoon Sister Mary Raymond” and then wait for her to speak. The next level up was a priest cause he had his hands on some real powerful God stuff in the form of Sacraments, next up the Priest of the parish until cardinals and bishops and I get lost at that point. I figure along came mom and that was the story, or at least when I come into the story. I saw pictures of my father years ago before the time of my youth where he wore a full beard for a few years in Detroit and Washington, back when he was a clean shaved man in his twenties wearing his wedding tux standing next to my mother before her hair was red she was a deep brunette with long flowing hair. They stood on a great red stair case in Grandma Murry’s house. The other remarkable thing about Dad was that he had a motorcycle, a little 150cc Rice burner with a red tank. He used to give me rides on the tank. I still recall an autumn day when were took a ride on Rock Creek Parkway, and how exhilarating it was.        

            My mother Margaret Agnes Murry, her maiden name in contrast came from an Up-state New York society family, the Murrys and O’Shea clan. Reunion’s in my mother’s family were a completely different matter and often held in Leroy New York a little town with a big herald for Jell-O was born here. We would have so many different kinds of Jell-O, with marshmallow, grape, or chopped carrots or shredded cabbage aligning the table at our Reunion BBQs. What was different about those reunions were their size comparably to an Ernst family reunions and the cousins were often once removed or second or the niece of some great uncles’ sister or some other form of linked up family tree. My Grand mother Lucile Murry was the one who soldiered up the family and made sure all were accounted for and present at all family functions. Grandpa was a dentist and had made well in life he died when I was five I don’t remember much at all about him what I do remember is just a vision of him in the back patio of the house. Him standing there smoking a cigarette. I’m going to start with stories about Grandma Murry and me for after all these years the relationship I had with her was very special, and until now I have never wrote any stories about her.

 I guess it’s because I blame myself still after all these years for not being at her bedside, for not doing what needed to be done, for not being there when my mother’s and uncle Ed’s animosity that had they carried for many years went unchecked until it erupted into a battle that would break the family apart for the last years of my young adulthood. Uncle Michael, Robert, Edward, please help my mom to come to peace because that was the last wish your mother really wanted and to tell me one last thing. Lucile didn’t write that to me in her letter for you all know she wrote me a letter for my own eyes only, written in shaking hand writing and stained with both our tears.  I say that because that is what she left behind in me. The importance and the necessity of keeping family extended or close always on civil terms that is a condition of family she was always unwavering in the lesson she gave me and I still hold them with the highest regard. I dated this Lady and she had two kids the younger of the two Jacob and I became real close. I used to ask to Jacob, “What does O’hana mean?” He would pipe right up and say, “O’hana means family nobody left behind” It was good for Lillo and Stitch I guess if you have a broken or troubled family even if they come from different places or mothers the most important thing to do is keep them as close and cherished, never abandoning the base need for compassion and not forgetting what our elders have taught us by deed and word.

Grandma would call me “Master of the house” in reference to the station upon which she wished me to follow, and I find for another as well, one that held a secret she did not divulge until upon her death bed in a letter written to me. I must be careful to lay the puzzle of my life out a piece at time, but so to say my Grandma held a big one. I have been on an airplane flying to see family as far back as I can remember. My first solo flight was about the age of 7 or 8 and it was to Grandma Murry’s house in Rochester New York. Back then when a kid got on an airplane you could go up to the cockpit and see the captain and look at some of the gadgets. The Captain would point at a dial and that saying, “Well son you can see here we’re flying at 16000 ft at 360 miles per hour” and then he would give me a pair of wings made out of pewter, one year’s flight I got a little cast iron hand painted Pan Am Bowing 737 with little wheels of steel that worked. Grandma would be waiting on the tarmac at the base of the old style rolling stair way or just in side. I would be wearing some outfit my mother had put me in and a “carry on” for my dad was “always” beating the air line by some measure. He carried my sister Alicia on the plane wrapped in a blanket and made her fain sleep until she was 4 ½ so he didn’t have to pay extra air fare. All in all that means I got the biggest possible carry on in one hand and some other bag that was the real carry on for me in the other. Did I mention that I was allergic to tennis shoe rubber until I was in the second grade, so I had to wear hard sole shoes made of leather everywhere? I hope you’re getting a visual of this little kid under a big air plane dragging and fighting with a suitcase as big as him another over his shoulder while the roar of great behemoths of the sky shook the very air about him. Okay that’s a little exaggerated but you get the idea. The moment Grandma she saw me out of her mouth would come a “Pollock” joke, which my father felt were in bad humor, yet I always got a good chuckle out of.

“Two Pollock’s are working on the side of this house ya see” she would start off while we were making our way through the airport terminal on our way to baggage pick up. “and one of them keeps throwing nails over his shoulder. The other one stops and calls out. ‘Why do you keep throwing the nails over your shoulder?” the other replies “All the heads are on the wrong end” Grandma give me one of here quick winks that only I could see for grandma had the fastest wink ever.  “The first Pollock’s yells back “What’s wrong with you? We can use those on the other side of the house.” At this point we would start laughing. My Grandma’s laugh could bring the priest to a chuckle every time, so it left me rolling or grabbing my side as if I were in pain yet, in truth Grandma’s laughter filled me with a warmth that could wash away any trouble and conquer any fear I encountered when we were together. Grandma was short and round with a perpetually slightly pink nose that often marched the shade of her full cheeks especially if she was in the kitchen preparing one of her fabulous Family dinners with the fine china in the main dinning room or the foyer. She had a cute white top often in a perm. She loved running here fingers through my hair when I was young. It was the 70’s, I had a bush, but not like an Afro-bush more like a gentle large curl that could be lifted by leaps and bounds with a pick. My head when all picked out was soft as could be and when really long I would turn a corner and it would follow me later like a huge brown mane. Her eye’s were a gentle gray color and always had that a secret mischievous sparkle which children so readily under stand like how to “play”. Her hands were well manicured long finger adorned with her wedding bands with a slight plumpness that surrounded all of grandma’s features. On the backs of her hands were the liver spots that she so complained about. Her hands had a strength about them, a constant purpose whether in the show of an elegant societal woman with high and regarded standing, or in the course of delivering a point which she always started with the catch phrase. “Now Ned”, is how she usually started. Ed’s my uncle he lived at home most of his life. Grandpa was Edward the first so Ed was his name shortened for calling round the house and Ned was Grandma calling Uncle Ed. Got it, because I’m not writing that again. One day I’m going to stop looking at the keys. Don’t make fun until you hear the layout of the house to say it is big is an understatement it dwarfed the three story Victorian, I grew up in and that is big by all standards it was more a small mansion type a very New England style. She would get started again and then get my name right, “John listen” and so the lecture would start. Her finger would be pointing in gesture for she said it was rude to point. It’s not really fair to say Grandma lectured me.  She lectured my uncle Ed not me, with me everything was different. Mom had her hands just as full of all the love, and strength.  If you’re lucky enough to have had someone when you were young who could reach you and lift you up so you felt you could understand people or life or something big God maybe. Grandma was that person for me. Cause as a mulloto adopted boy growing up in between two cultures that rejected him in the 70’s with all the privileges that the child of two White professionals could give him needed all the help that he could get pretty much because no matter what the deck is already double stacked against him. I’ll go into that later but it helps build the character of this young boy. Few places in his regular life could he be the “Master of the House” in his regular life.  This might have explained the increased time away from home over the years where some summers I spent two months away on vacation from the perils and battles of my life. Grandma and I the Master of the House, we were undefeatable in any measure.  I would fly in a week or two ahead of my parents and it would just be me and grandma for a spell. Grandma Murry had a golden Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a 350 rocket engine. All the mechanics who saw her car wanted to buy it from her and she would always remark on it when we were driving in from the airport. She would tell me Uncle Ned had caught a couple of squirrels with his new traps, and how Pauline was, and catch me up on all the family near and far. We would pull up on the right side of the house parking in back. I can still smell the musty old garage where I would play with my life size plastic bowling ally. We would enter the back into the kitchen area where the breakfast table would be at over looking the back right side of the back yard where lay a plush green lawn. In the early years Grandma had this great big Great Dane that live in dog house and was chained to the house for some untold indiscretion of the past. Surely a life sentence was handed to him after Grandpa Murry died for it was his dog and no one else felt the need to give the dog walks except for Uncle Ed’s occasional gesture which meant Grandma had caught him at one of the meals of the day. It was a BIG house. If you were to be driving west on Park Ave in Old town Rochester and made a left I forget on what street two houses in was the Murry house. It sat upon a great flag stone and slate patio that was wide as well as had length that truly gave one the feeling of passing under the four columns that rose in Romanesque from the slate in stone in brilliant white brightness for two stories giving the House a feeling of great import and so, inviting the guest forward with echoes of more splendors to be regaled inside. After ringing the chimes one enters into a small glass box hallway that was put in to have a proper area for travelers who come in from the cold and often record snow fall upstate New York weather. Once you have passed thru the final portal a door of etched glass you might make it two or three steps before you must stop and admire the whole seen as it invites the eye to cross the great red carpet and travel up the red stair case with a great wide railing with white ornate columns winding up and to the left out of sight on the second floor a good fifteen or twenty feet above. If you looked to your left lay the main living room with a great large fire place with a huge brass screen covering it and a matching set of sweep broom, poker, and shovel by its side like tiny sentinels of the fire. This was the center of the room above it a hand painted picture of my mother at the age of 12 or 13 done while she posed. I can see it in my head the painting itself was a least 4 ft with a Golden Frame further increasing the over all effect, she has just a gentle smile that would be considered very demure and proper, and was wearing a white blouse that was in sharp contrast to her dark chestnut brunette eyes and hair. Two your right laid my Grand Parents room still holding two full sized beds where they slept. In fact this room was the official Dinning room and the one in back for staff, but that was in days before I came when my mom was young. Aunt Regina Murry lived on the second floor in the apartment their in. The other was usually rented out. A stair way continued up to the third floor thru the main stair well opening to the longest hallway in the house. Up here is where I stayed. I at one end of the hall Uncle Ed at the other there was the trophy room with recreation stuff, an old train set, and stuffed critters my Uncle and Grandpa had killed in their days of hunting, including a big old Moose head of great stature and size. At the end of the long hall lay the true attic behind a great big door, a door made even larger when you open it by the insulation cover that was attached to the door.

 Grandma had bad knees so it was real hard for here to go up stairs. Today, I was helping her up the stairs one by one. I was 15 that summer and was pretty strong, my athleticism had been spurned by my growth spurt and traveling everyday to my best friends’ house, and Grandma wanted to get some paper work out of her safe. She leaned on me with her hand gripping my arm the other grasped the railing. In my ear her breath came labored and sweat broke out on her brow, each step became an individual effort. A battle I truly understand as I sit in my own home as I have for a month since my injury that has robbed my body of mobility. We took a rest on the second floor landing on the Davenport that lay next to the wall by Aunt Regina’s room which now was occupied by some foreign dweller.  Grandma turned to me and as she began to catch her breath, and said with a voice touched with a little remorse that now was bereft of the old indifference that she used to refer to her in law sister my Great Aunt Regina, Aunt Regina had died a year earlier and though they were never really close after Grandpa died. I will say this that Aunt Regina was at every family reunion and family dinner that afforded loved ones, so to say my Grandmother was true to her word about family, to the extent she had aunt Regina in the same house with her for 10 years. I come to the second floor and visit her; she would always have a small silver candy dish full of marshmallows waiting for me on her small antique coffee table. Aunt Regina was wild cat in her younger days. I had chance to ask her about these claims made by my Grandma and Mother. In way of proof Aunt Regina pulled out an old trunk which was full of old 20’s vaudeville clothing. “Boy, I won my fair share of Charleston dance contests in my day’ she remarked with a wispy quiet voice. Her funeral was a quiet affaire so I was told she had out lived most of here friends passing away in her mid 80’s.

 “I haven’t been up here since Regina died.” The second floor landing was almost a room in it’s self tucked away in the middle of the house; it portrayed the same red carpet that covered the stairs and downstairs entry way. I really didn’t know what to say. I replied the only way I knew how. “I miss eating marshmallows and visiting her” I said with a voice just as quiet as hers. Grandma gave my hand a little squeeze. We sat there in the quiet until she was ready for the next stair case. I believe we both knew what Aunt Regina’s death meant, but we dare not think it or stay in that place longer than we had to. The reality that life was finite was too much for us.

We finally reached the third floor, and made our way down the hall. I was handed a great big Skeleton key, and put it into the lock and turned. The lock inside the door clicked and the door caught the air in the house and moved just a little. A heavy musty smell punctuated by the smell of mothballs and old paper began to creep into the air. I gave a big push and the door slowly began to move inward. The attic was huge and the door once you were in the room seemed almost small in this cavern. The light was lost in the shadows of the far corners even after I turned on the hanging light bulb over our head. In the middle of the floor sat a great behemoth heralding a four foot cube of black steel studded with great knobs each the size of a small fist embedded in the face and side in regular intervals. I was given the job of turning the dial her bad eyes were useless practically in the dim room, so all her instructions were from memory. After I had successfully entered the combination; I pulled with a great heave and the door creaked with a scream like a raccoon fight. I jumped waiting for the death that must surely come when such a noise is herd. Grandma had made a little face but that was it. I looked at her with a new sense of respect. Grandma was cool like that. I pulled the door again, the same sound echoed, I almost jumped again were it not for Grandma on my back keeping me covered with her security of love and strength, if Smith and Wesson could get that stuff for home defense they could make a mint. The reason Grandma had me come up was that she was the only one in the family who knew the combination of the safe she told me uncle Ed had been trying to get his hands on the Dead to the house for years, and she always relented, and by all rights it was Grandmas house. Those weren’t the papers she was looking for but I do recall it was some form of legal business that required her direct attention. What I do recall were two of the items she showed me other item a solid antique gold pocket watch which she put in my hand just like she used to do with money right in front of my mom, but this time it wasn’t on the sly but it was done with the same thought a silent communication, of a conversation we had a year earlier.

 Grandma had pulled me aside and told me any money she gave to me was to be used as she told me to. I had asked, “Well what do you want me to do with it” I replied cause I wanted to spend it like any boy, yet having great reverence for what my grandma always taught me I was willing to endure any possible plan she may offer even if it meant saving it. Again I was a little boy of the natural order in so to speak if you give me three dollars allowance and tell me I should save 50 cents each week to buy something nice, but if I want I can spend the whole dollar. I would be off and running to the store cause already got planned what buy. You’ve seen it, a little kid practically jumping up and down, squirming all over the place standing in one spot, and the kid finally gets the awaited treat or gift and , ZOOM their off to the races, candy full speed ahead, are you hearing me. That was me. The reverence I held for such gifts from Grandma were above all this; for, I was the Master of the House, “in training” yet I took the appointment with the gravest of resolve taking pride from such a great title. Grandma had been sitting in the house at 7822 Carroll avenue house and had been writing letters home and sending post cards. She leaned close to make point of which she was to tell me, and I in turn leaned close to her.  Her eyes shined with mischief like they did when she was reading me a story of classic mystery and intrigue we were coming to climax in the plot. Her voice gathered a mock solemn tone, cause underneath she was bursting with joy at me, with me, and she said, “I want you to blow it, spend it have fun, and Just” and now her eyes shined with two sparkles, wet with the tears of life and laughter, “Just, I love you and have a good time.”

My mother would grill me later in the car. I was all like, “Grandma didn’t give me any money” in a matter fact tone. Grandma starting making ways up to give me five or ten bucks, here and there, she’d call me back in the house just when my mom was ready to leave or have me put her mug in the sink and palm me the cash. That Easter break was when she came to see us that year and I had raided every Easter basket I could and saved Grandma’s favorite type of jelly bean; I knew she loved black.  

In my hand lay the pocket watch. It was heavy with a long chain gold chain. “This was your grand fathers and I want you to have it some day.” She said while I gazed in wonder at the watch, all I could say was, “Really?”

Uncle Mike’s room was on third floor and this is where I stayed when I became a young man. Uncle Michael had this waxed handlebar mustache that was curled upward brought to two perfect tips. It went well with his laugh which was a rolling deep belly laugh that grew and grew until it burst forward from his mouth causing all in the vicinity to smile. Uncle Robert is my mother’s third brother’ he lives in Texas with his kids Kelly and Brian; for many years the boys were my only close cousins from the Murry family.   

 Up until then Grandpa’s bed was not in use. Grandma loved mysteries only the best because she could figure out any mystery no matter how complicated. I would park next to her with some small book of my own. I remember when I learned to read one day in the second grade it just clicked; for awhile I turned inward to the world that was in reading. Me and Grandma were inseparable.

Uncle Ed was the playboy of the family living life in a Cadillac and jet setting to his favorite getaway Hawaii on a regular basis real-estate pays. I snuck in his room when I was about 11 and found lots of pictures of these beautiful Hawaiian women adorning his walls. He gave me a collection of ties that could be seen from low flying air craft there were so bright full of loud colors one had translucent flowers of all colors that could be herd around corners; I wore it proudly at Saint John De’ Matha Catholic High School were we wore a uniform and Blazer with a school emblem on the corner. No-body I mean no-body wore loud ties in the mid 80s’. I’m not saying my Uncle Ed was a bad dresser on the contrary he was a wearer of Fine clothing tailored to fit or sorting such names as Lord of London or Pier Cardoon He taught me to wash my face when I was a boy, and how to cup my hands and rinse the water off my face. “And” he said, “you can get some water to rinse your mouth and get a drink” Wow I thought to my self. I’ll never have to use a glass again to get a drink of water, pure genius to a six year old boy who was constantly on the look out for ways to cut corners. O yeah and the squirrels lets not forget the battle with squirrels that never stopped. The trapping of the squirrels that lived all around the house so they wouldn’t get in the eves, and then releasing them in a state park near bye. He would have me check the traps with him in the morning, and we would find out if there was a smart one who just nibbled on the peanut butter or a big clumsy one who set the trap off. Some time they would set up quite a racket scratching and banging in the cage. Grandma would be in the kitchen grumbling just waiting for Uncle Ed or me to show up at the breakfast table via the back stair way. If it was me; I would be grudgingly ascend the three stair cases to the third floor and all the way down the hall to uncle Ed’s room my little legs pumping hard, and retrieve

Grandma and I spent our afternoons taking in walks or shows. Grandma would be telling me the ways of gentlemen like appropriate rules of conduct to be observed when being introduced to a “Lady”. This includes directions on how a young “Gentlemen” would shake the hand of said “Lady” rehearsing how many fingers to hold and how this was decided upon a “Lady’s” stature whether it be a “Miss” a single available woman, a “Mrs.” a married woman, or a “Mrs.” widowed woman each station afford a different hand shake with the smallest inclinations in the “Gentlemen’s stature. Grandma and I were inseparable.

One of our outings was at the showing of the 1940’s version of “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Hands Christian Anderson xxx. Grandma instructed me to put on my Sunday and some times Thursday clothes she went to church twice a week, and I had chance to go with her. Today was different we were dressing for the show. I put on brown slacks, a white shirt, short brown tie, and my Tom McCanes. I met Grandma in the foyer; she also had dressed for the occasion in long blue gown that reached just below her knees with white gloves and a bonnet fashionable at the time. When it came to fashion and the times she was always spot on. It was this day that I was quizzed on the ways of a gentleman on our way to the theater by Grandma; for, we were making our society début. We walked down Park Avenue her arm wrapped around mine with her white gloved hand nestled against my wrist. She was awfully proud and to be truthful so was I. We walked and talked about the people I would be meeting. I can’t remember any of their names, yet at the time each person’s name and station if markble were presented to me before hand so I would be able to, “Impress their socks off” as Grandma said. This showing of the “Mutiny on the Bounty” was done in the old high-brow style with the gathering of the patrons before the show, where pleasantries were exchanged, a veritable cornucopia of society people milled here and there saying their hellos’ and regaling each other with stories of their children or other relations. It was at this time I truly realized how well known and respected my Grandmother was. All types of people in their best clothing stopped and said hellos to the both of us. We were treated as “the bell of the ball” and given the head of the parade of people that funneled into the seating area to watch the show. The theatre had been built in the 30’s; it sported a balcony, and box seating lining the sides of the vast room. The molding was painted gold sharply contrasting the red of the curtains and seating. Grandma turned to me and said, “Isn’t this something? And us leading the way.” I could have sworn she walked a little taller, and she smiling indeed beamed in pride as we made our way down the aisle. We took a seat not to far back for her eyes were becoming a problem and settled in for the show. Grandma and I were inseparable.     

  Another time we went to the planetarium to watch a show. It was my first time at a planetarium; I’m sure my eye’s resembled two giant saucers, as the familiar voice took Grandma and me on a journey through the solar system. At the end of the show Grandma told me she had a surprise. We walked to the center of the large half dome towards the speaker. My Grandma stopped and said, “Lenard this is my grandson.”

Lenard Nemoy gazed down at me and replied, “The young master Ernst; I have herd good things about you.”

I was dumbfounded and the only word that came from my mouth was, “Spock… Spock” he found this humorous, and I got to hear him laugh which all things considered no one had ever herd him laugh in his true voice; Vulcan’s don’t laugh.

Grandma was pretty hard on my dad sometimes. Whenever she would come to town Dad would be running through the airport with my mother and I in tow. His goal was the Fannie May chocolate counter. He always did this, a sort of ritual. I wonder what went through his mind on the days before Grandma would arrive. I can imagine his internal struggle and an inner voice telling him not to cow tow to Grandma’s whims and stand his ground. Like I said before my Dad’s a big sap, so guaranteed he would be running through the airport again.

My mother called me at Red Lobster to tell me Grandma was sick and in the hospital. Mom asked if I wanted to go to Rochester to see her one last time. I declined. I have few regrets in life and this is one of them. I just went back to work. In truth this was the only way I knew how to deal with major problems in my life at the time; this will become evident as tell stories of my time at RICA Rockville. Chuck was the manger when the first phone call came in and he had the common decency to allow me to speak to my mother in the privacy of the office. When the second phone call came in, heralding the dreaded news that my Grandma Murray had died Bob Bloomer, “Racist asshole” (He once told me and Leonard Long that we had to keep our hair nets on real tight so people wouldn’t find pubic hair in our food, and then laughed.)  Came out of the office and said, “I had a phone call” paused and said to me, “Your Grandmother died.”

My Grandma had one last thing to tell me. It was in letter done in her own hand writing, barely legible. It said how much she loved me, gave a list of items that I was to have from the will, and a name, the name of my blood father a man who I would meet many years later.

Thor