The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Last of a Generation

It was one of those freaky things that can only be explained by a higher being.  The ultimate boss of us all.  You-know-who working in mysterious ways.

Last weekend, a rainy Los Angeles Sunday found me with a nifty television diversion.  The National Geographic Channel was running a whole bunch of JFK assassination stuff.  Those that know me well will acknowledge that I will sop that history up like a new sponge.  In the past, you've seen the photos of me wandering around Dealey Plaza like a crazy loon.  When it comes to three shots being fired in Dallas, I am ironically in a comfort zone.

During one of the shows, they once again presented the "live" footage of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby. 

Hmmmm.  This youngster remembers this cartoon playing out before him for the very first time.  Except it was all violently real.

My mind, like this blog at times, meandered back to that moment.  I was being dressed to go out to a dinner in a restaurant with my parents.  A boring day, to be sure, that would likely find me trying to sit quietly in a corner.  Sipping a Coke and listening to adults talk about stuff I didn't understand.  In retrospect, I know the dining establishment was in Larchmont, New York.  At the time, the husband of my dad's cousin was looking to purchase a "bar and grill."  This was the latest possibility.  My folks were going with them to see it.  I was thrown in the back seat for the ride.

Sitting on my living room couch in front of the National Geographic Channel. I had a thorough mental flashback of the whole afternoon as if it were yesterday. 

The phone rang.  It was the son of my father's cousin, telling me that she had just passed away at the age of 93.

And so the dike in my mind sprang a leak.  And memories cascaded out like Niagara Falls.

Aunt Ollie was likely the last of my parents' generation to pass on.  Indeed, she stayed with us much longer than the rest of them.  Virtually all of them were wiped out in one decade-long period and most never made it past the age of 75...if they were lucky.  Somehow, Aunt Ollie persisted.  The last few years were spent in a nursing facility and I know that her mind had moved on long before her body.  But, still, she hung in there and now, the last connection to my parents' contemporaries, is gone.

Back then, I had two ways of addressing the adult friends of my folks.  If they were outside the family, they were "Mr." and "Mrs."  If they were even remotely related, everybody was "Aunt" and "Uncle," despite the fact that they didn't fit the bloodline completely.  So, my dad's cousin and hubby were Aunt Ollie and Uncle Augie to me.  And, as I look back today, they were perhaps the ones that my parents seemed to be closest with.

Oh, sure, there were others in the mix, but, from my pre-teen vantage point, my parents always seemed to gravitate toward Aunt Ollie and Uncle Augie for "important stuff."  Talking about major decisions and problems.  Getting their take on that new car Dad wanted to purchase.  How to prepare for college finances, since their sons were years ahead of me in age. 

So, it was no wonder to me that Aunt Ollie and Uncle Augie seemed to be the most grounded of my parents' circle. 

Sure, there was a lot of fun times.  I can remember New Year's Eve was always at their house in the Bronx.  The teenagers were upstairs, doing whatever.  The adults were downstairs, singing along to a Mitch Miller record.  And I'd be stuck in a bizarre "no kids" purgatory, simply trying to keep myself awake and away from the creamed herring on the buffet table.

There were summer barbecues in their backyard which seemed to be about ten flights of stairs below their house.  There was Uncle Augie making obscene things out of balloons (at least, the photos now tell me they were obscene).  There was always some uncle twice removed who got a snootful and would try to kiss me.  And, as day turned into night, my grandmother and her sister-in-law, Tante Emma, would don their winter coats to shield themselves against the chill of the evening when temperatures dipped below 85 degrees.

Just when you think you had forgotten everything in your life, a single phone call brings it all back again.

I recall one Sunday when Aunt Ollie and Uncle Augie came over to chat.  The four sat as did most of their generation...in the kitchen with a high ball.  I was already in high school and I remember unintentionally...or perhaps intentionally...eavesdropping on their conversation.  My mom was worrying about me as I was going through whatever teenage angst was in fashion at the moment.  How was I to going to get through it all, Mom fretted. 

Aunt Ollie's response was short and unbelievably wise.

"Don't worry about him.  He'll grow into himself."

Saying nothing.  Saying a lot. 

Indeed, it was during these very years that Aunt Ollie and I developed a very special bond shared by nobody else in the family.  As I have written before...

So, after I got confirmed, it was really more than just my hormones (and my feelings for a fellow Sunday School classmate) that propelled me to start going to Sunday church services. Once you had received and swallowed begrudgingly the wine and wafer, you were technically allowed to worship like an adult. You could even skip Sunday School and show up at 10AM for the regular service. This gave me one more hour to sleep.

And, in those days, there was nothing wrong with a fourteen-year-old making the bus trip from Mount Vernon to East 219th Street all by himself. This all got my dad off the hook. He no longer had to sit in the car outside of church for an hour. He could actually now stay home and read "Dondi" and "Dick Tracy" over coffee and a jelly donut.

So, around 9AM every Sunday, I walked myself down four blocks to get the BX41 bus. Back in those days, it was imperative that you "dress up" for church. I had my own personal wardrobe mistress, AKA my mother, who required nothing less. I was groomed to the nines. Standing at the 241st Street bus stop in a navy blue double breasted sport jacket and matching tie, I looked like that week's co-host on "The Mike Douglas Show." Or maybe I was opening for Joey Bishop at the Sands Hotel. I certainly didn't look 14.

Of course, once at church, I spent my first moments trying to maneuver myself into proximity to the love of my life. But, as I related last week, her presence in an adjacent pew was destined to be short lived as her family moved to New Jersey. I looked around the chapel and asked a question for the ages.

"Now what?"

To think that I might have to go to church service and actually pay attention?

Luckily, I had, for lack of a better term, a savior. A guardian angel. My father's cousin, who we all called Aunt Ollie.

While my parents and all my aunts and uncles had long since eschewed Sunday church services and chose instead to sleep in, Aunt Ollie was the only one in their generation who kept at her worship. She was there at St. Peter's every single week. Something still drew her in. And, when Cupid cast me adrift, Aunt Ollie pulled me in.

"Come sit with me."

Wow, I was an adult.

Even better, I began to listen to the service. The readings. The sermon in broken English by our German Pastor Hoeniger. And it started to all make sense.

To enhance the experience even more, Aunt Ollie treated me like an adult. A young one, but an adult nevertheless. She always drove me home afterwards and, frequently, our in-car chat had something to do with what we had heard in church minutes before. Aunt Ollie truly enjoyed her religion and her beliefs. And, thanks to her, I began to finally form my own faith.

For all of the above reasons, those two hours every Sunday became the highlight of my week. An odd thing for a teenager to admit. Oh, sure, I was doing all the nonsense stuff. But, at least for a little while every weekend, I was grounded. In a very good way.

So, as I still frequent a church every Sunday, I'd like to think just a little bit of that credit goes to those years in the pew with Aunt Ollie.

I don't have this as a documented fact but I think that, other than his brother Fritz, Aunt Ollie was my dad's favorite blood relative.  Throughout the years and even after her family moved upstate and then after Uncle Augie passed away, my father stayed in touch with her.  During his final illness, he relished any phone call from a special family member.  And Aunt Ollie certainly was that for Dad.  He called her the official "family historian."

"Stay in touch with Aunt Ollie.  She knows where all the bodies are buried."

I was older and snarkier.   I would reply that I knew where they were buried, too.  In Ferncliff and Woodlawn Cemetaries.  Heh, heh.

"Yeah, smart guy."

I tried to carry on the tradition after my father died.  I'd call Aunt Ollie from time to time.  I would make sure to never miss her birthday.  And, one warm Sunday afternoon, I even drove with my mother up to visit her.  Even years later, she still had the aura.  Grounded.  Sensible.  Classy.

When I first moved to California and got involved in my Lutheran church, the pastor brought in a photographer to do our head shots for a congregation member directory.  Naturally, the camera guy was also looking to make some money by selling you nice little packages of pictures for your own use.  Every one of us was given an 8 x 10 glossy for posterity's sake.  I asked him what the hell I should do with this.

"Give it to your grandparents."

Er, gone.

"Give it to your parents."

Um, gone.

"A girlfriend."

None should be so lucky.  Next?

Stuck with this portrait of me, I could think of only one living relative that might even be remotely interested.  Our family historian.  I asked Aunt Ollie if she had room in her collection of photos.  By now, she had tons of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"I would be honored to have it."

And, so, that's where it went.  With pride.

I suppose her sons will find it as they weed through the threads of their mother's life.  It will likely be just one more photo in a pile of thousands.  But, for me, it is a souvenir of a generation now gone.  A symbol of a friend that my parents valued dearly.  And a reminder to me that there are reasons why I still sit in a church pew every Sunday morning.

Thank you, Aunt Ollie.

Dinner last night:  BLT Burger at Go Burger.