Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993 TAG: 9304230464
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH STROTHER EDITORIAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It is always this way, though they go for years without seeing each other, only talking occasionally on the phone. They pick up the rhythm without missing a beat, a routine that is comforting in its predictability, its steadiness.
This day was slightly different, though. This was Mother's 75th birthday, a milestone important enough to bring one brother from New Jersey and the rest of the siblings from various neighborhoods in St. Louis, distances just as far in some ways, apparently, though this is the same city where she lives. Only Ray is missing, the oldest brother, the bachelor. He died a couple of years ago of a heart attack.
There had always been seven of them, five boys and two girls. Mother is the oldest, and the unspoken thought has got to be that Ray is gone already, and who knows how many more years Marie will be here, how many more years some of the others will be around. Yet the mood is hardly glum or anxious. They are glad to see that she is looking healthy, a spine slightly twisted by arthritis the only evidence of any serious physical problem.
They must all be aware that the greater concern is her short-term memory loss and occasional lapses into utter confusion, when she mistakes her brothers for her sons, her children for her grandchildren. This is always momentary, at worst, though, and today she knows everyone as they arrive, is making most of the right connections in conversations.
It is a happy day, and they fall, of course, into their pattern of gentle verbal jabs - how young each claims to be compared to the others, how old the rest of them are, how much trouble each was to their parents. They make pointed references to each other's gray hair, each pretending, with straight face but twinkling eyes, that he or she does not have that problem. In truth, only Vincent, a middle brother, is even silver-haired anymore. The others have hair that is completely white. (Well, we're not sure about my mother's sister, who colors hers. But it was headed that way last time we saw it.)
This is all said and taken in good humor, shot back and forth in the flat, nasal accent of the South St. Louis where they grew up, an area where first- and second-generation German-Americans worked and raised their families in neat rows of brick houses along neat brick streets. As in other major cities, most of the children of these families moved to the suburbs - this generation driven by the post-World War II housing shortage rather than the white flight that came later. Only the houses and streets remain to define the area as a distinct section of the city. They are durable, built to last.
And it occurs to me, as I listen to their reminiscences, that this is the way these people are, my mother, my uncles, my aunt. I don't know if it is generational - the siblings span a couple of generations, really, with my mother in her mid-70s and her youngest brothers in their early to mid-50s - but they share a stoicism and strength that have helped them endure.
They are kidding each other about the grief they caused their parents, but some of them really did get into lots of trouble - and paid for it dearly at home. I remember Grandpa as a reserved, somewhat gruff but not unkind man, who could be melted by affection that he himself was unable to show. He was also, apparently, a stern disciplinarian.
Dick, the second-oldest boy, was, as he put it, the favorite target. He was the hell-raiser, the one who recalls how he and his pals had dug out a bunch of tunnels in a nearby quarry and would head there when the cops chased them. "They could never find us," he says, grinning, eyes sparkling.
Just what had he done, I ask, the night a cop chased him home and he ran down the alley along the side of the house and in the back door? "Shot out a street light with a BB gun."
Tame stuff in this day, but serious then, at least in his family.
The others didn't have Dick's lust for danger, but they share a matter-of-fact toughness that has nothing to do with meanness.
It's there in the things they talk about - the Depression, World War II. (Dick used his sharpshooting talents as a sniper behind Japanese lines in the South Pacific. Ray fought a tough campaign in the infantry in North Africa and Italy.) And it is there even more in the things they don't talk about - the crises in their personal lives that they have suffered through and survived.
This is the news shared privately and sparingly, in occasional intimate conversations. It spreads quietly through the family. But it is not spoken of in the group. There is no public soul-searching.
Instead, Vince and his wife, Jeanette, are providing their usual comedy routine.
She is bragging that her daughters can find her wherever she is; one of them once had her paged in the dining room at Famous, a local department store.
He snorts. "That's nothing. You want 'Nette, you look in a store." Turning to us, "Blindfold her and dump her at any mall and she'll find her way home."
Outside on the patio, Paul is talking about why he's considering retiring. He's in his 50s, the baby of the family, but he might have to retire early because his back "keeps going out on him." He injured it at home some years ago, and the rigors of working as a bricklayer cause him to re-injure it a couple of times a year, putting him flat on his back.
Can you sue, someone asked. "Sure," he says with a snort, "if you want to sue your own brother." Oh, yeah. Paul works for Dick, who should be retired himself but instead has bought a construction company with his sons. Paul pauses for half a beat and adds: "They gotta have some money first. They ain't got much." One corner of his mouth creeps up in a slow grin. "Gotta wait a couple of years to sue."
Everyone laughs. Paul sue. That would be the day.
When he was a young man, he had hand surgery, a minor procedure the doctor performed in his office. Somehow he cut a nerve in Paul's hand, crippling it. It's bent inward at about a 70-degree angle toward his body. He can't straighten it, much less bend it backward - a potentially debilitating injury for a bricklayer.
Some men would have filed suit, seeking compensation for a lifetime of earnings. I don't know if such a thought even crossed Paul's mind, but I know that he didn't do that. What he did was figure out how to slap mortar on a brick with an underhanded swing.
This is their toughness. Like the solid brick of South St. Louis, they've withstood a lot. They show some signs of age, but they're still sound.
by CNB