Temporary Sanity

Anywhere But Here Anywhere but Pennsylvania. I’ve had a long dislike for Pennsylvania. My mother was raised there and I used to have to visit my grandmother. I hated visiting. My mother grew up in Hazleton. I thought it was kind of a pit. It always seemed dark and gloomy. It didn’t help that my grandfather, uncle and cousin were morticians. And my other cousins lived in Chester. Not the best environment, as far as I’m concerned, I’ll get to that later. My uncle and cousins lived there and they were kind of cool but Jack walked on the inside of his shoes. It’s hard to explain but he had had five heart surgeries. He’s a couple years older than me but I tried to get him to walk straight. His shoes were always worn out on the right side of his shoe. Visiting Hazleton was always a pain. We were always told that we had chores. My grandmother lived above a morgue that her husband had owned. I never new my grandfather, he passed away a long time ago. He had made millions, I’m told, during the Great Depression. Supposedly he would get the government to give him money to build homes for the poor. He would then take that money, build a house, ask the government for more money to build a house, use the material from the old house, and keep the money. And he was a mortician. There’s a lot of compassion there. We had to sleep on cots in the morgue, between the viewing room and the embalming room and it always smelled like formaldehyde. I told my mother that I couldn’t sleep there because it freaked me out. My mother, who was brought to school in a hearse, said, “It’s the live people you have to worry about, not the dead ones.” That didn’t help. Me, Sheila and Ginny always had to sleep in the morgue. Mike and Pat were usually lucky, because they were old enough, didn’t have to come. I was too young but Ginny, my sister, had to help move bodies. I’m not sure that was legal. In the basement was the caskets, Pat got in trouble for trying them out. My Uncle Tom said no one would buy a casket if there was already hair in it. My Aunt Karen lived with my grandmother her entire life and she would give us things to do once we got there. They had a rose garden that we would have to attend to. I knew, and still don’t know, anything about flowers so I always screwed them up. It had a lot to do with not caring all that much. That’s almost became my theme. We also had to clean the other two properties that they owned. For a family to have so much property and wealth, it’s hard to realize how there was nothing left after my grandmother passed away. I was told that she squandered all the money that my grandfather had made. I don’t know if that is true but I tend to think that way. The main reason is because when my mother passed away from a diabetes induced heart attack and my grandmother didn’t attend. She didn’t attend her own daughter’s funeral. I was told that she didn’t attend because it was too far from Hazleton to Torrington, Connecticut. Yeah, the ride sucks but, it’s your daughter. So when my grandmother died I didn’t go. I told school I did so I took two days off. There are a lot of reasons for that but the major one was that she didn’t show. My father’s friends said I was the only one with the balls not to show. Everyone else did. So, yes, I was a little bitter. My other uncle lived in Chester and we would visit from time to time. I liked the house because it was cool. They had a nice set up. It was family oriented and homey. Everyone was nice and Bill was a good cousin. We even had Christmas Mass at their house at midnight on the 24th because his uncle was a bishop in Bolivia and I guess that was OK. I can’t stand going to church but that was almost fun. Ironically I ended up teaching at an Episcopalian school. My father always said that I was working for the enemy because we are Roman Catholic. Ginny and I used to kid about religion because we kind of thought it was a joke. We used to have to go to confession a couple times a year and we both agreed that if God was everywhere, why do we have to tell this guy. We also used to get yelled at in church for talking. One time the priest even came to our pew to yell at us. But religion was part of what we had to do. All my brothers and sisters went to Catholic school until I got hit by a car while we were picking them up. It was a hit and run and the school closed soon after. I don’t think it had anything to do with me. All I know and I don’t know much about the incident was that it was a black Cadillac; I was in a coma for a while, was in a body caste for three months, and had to learn how to walk again. My father told me that my brothers and sisters took turns helping me learn how to walk again around the dinning room table. He also said that my mother didn’t want me to play contact sports because I had fractured my scull. He said, “Let him do what he wants.” So I played nine years of football and eight seasons of rugby. My father told me that I would have tremors the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel like Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles when he says, “Yes, but this is my shooting hand.” One of the most embarrassing times was when I was in high school. Each of the officers of NHS had to give a speech at the end of the year. I was the treasurer so I went last. After the speech the officer had to light a candle. I felt pretty confident until Beth, the secretary sat down beside me, after her speech she said she was so nervous. That freaked me out. My parents said the speech was pretty good but when I went to light the candle my hand shook so much I couldn’t light it. By mistake I said into the microphone “Shit” and grabbed my right hand with my left hand to light it. About all of the 200 people there laughed. I laughed it off also but since then I’m a wreck when it comes to public speaking. I even tried to learn how to write left handed but that didn’t work. I used to have to rewrite tests in college and Grad School because they were unreadable. From then on I’ve been pretty much accident prone. This year alone I cracked three ribs and had to get seven stitches in the back of my head. Anyway, the religion thing stuck. Even though I really don’t like it it’s ingrained. I still say the Our Father and Hail Mary every night before bed. We used to have to do that growing up. My mother used to have all five of us kneel at the top of the stairs before we went to bed and pray. It doesn’t help that two of my aunts were nuns and each of us were offered money by my grandmother to become priests. None of us took it. It sure as hell wasn’t enough. My aunts that were nuns were very different. Aunt Jane was pretty mean and I don’t remember having too many conversations with her, I just avoided her. I don’t think she liked kids anyway. She died while I was crossing the country. I was in Utah and was trying to hit every state in the United States, so I didn’t make it to her funeral. I did hit every state though. Aunt Cathy was much nicer and still is. She doesn’t know that I resigned from my teaching job yet but she always sent me birthday cards to my school mailbox. The major thing I remember about Aunt Cathy was that I had to stay at a convent with Ginny and Sheila once. We had to be real quiet and I got yelled at for playing with my remote control car. Then we ate ice cream. Other church mishaps continued. When I was in high school me and my friends wanted to go to the beach in Hamonasett. It was a Sunday and my father required me to go to church first. I figured we’d leave at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. and I could run in and grab an itinerary of that day’s sermon. My father goes to church every day and goes early. He saw me sneak in and grab the itinerary and leave. When I got back from the beach my father made me go to church, alone for two hours, as he waited outside. Mason was there, in his hockey uniform, cleaning the church.