NEXT YEAR IN ROUND NUMBERS

This year, I will turn 60 years old. It’s a ways off, not until September. But there is something authentic about seeing the number 2010 on calendars, letter head and other places where dates are regularly indicated.

I remember thinking how far back 1900 was when I was 10 in 1960. It was before both wars, when movies ran fast, cars mixed with horses and people wore their best clothes to baseball games – including hats. My, didn’t we all look like a bunch of immigrants back then. In truth, we were.

Some time later, I saw the picture taken of Charles and Irene McNulty on their wedding day. Grandpa was in the one suite he likely owned or borrowed. Grandma looking so much older than the groovy chicks I knew in the late 60’s that were getting married. How tired and worked they looked and at such a young age. They took the photo in the back yard of a house in Chicago. Nothing fancy. And Grandpa’s brother Jim looked like my uncle Jim. For a time I thought it was the Jim I knew, my dad's brother - until I figured out the impossibility of that.

Delia Dupuis was well into Ben Gay by the time I was a “tween” staying at grandma’s house during the summer. My mother was having another baby or one of her back surgeries to ease her lifetime ailment. Goodness surrounded Grandma Dupuis. Large numbers of aunt and uncles sat around her. Her children all gave me small clues about what living was like, mostly in the 30’s and some in the 40’s. I was young when Grandpa George was living though I have a very fuzzy memory of sitting on his lap.

We all felt so modern in 1965. So removed from all those old days “on the farm” and “in Chicago” that were part of every conversation that occurred as we sat around and listened to aunts and uncles talk about their time at home. Both Grandma’s sat listening nearby. Grandma Mac participated. Grandma “Dupe” just listened and made sure us young kids had water and a banana to snack on while we listened.

The McNulty’s conversations around the kitchen table demanded everyone’s attention. What with Betty’s bellicose laugh, Babe’s clamorous giggle and all three (adding Grandma) roaring at the expense of some poor Wop, Mic or Pollock. Dad laughed too but not in soaring tones. More like Grandpa Mac. Equally at the women as the brunt of the joke.

The Dupuis’s conversations were more subtle. More between small groups - within the large Dupuis clan but intense never the less. They were more versatile. Each one could demand the stage and did a mighty job of it including Billy who was probably best at it - because he stood with one foot in each generation of the Dupuis Clan. Rita could tell a great story and Joanne was convincing. Mom’s stories were less on content and more on delivery which magnetized as much as the others. Theresa’s ending line would soar into that high pitch swoop to the upper registered followed by a hearty exhaled plosive laugh. Chink punched though as the only male sound in the group – particularly since Lee had launched much of it and was reveling with a grin while the others laughed. Frank observed, being the oldest, and Irma and Margarette where not here enough for me to remember but Irma was surely a good time when I stayed at her house.

All these people formed a bedrock that took over 40 years to grasp. Their words take a lifetime to “hear.” It is all just happening around you for so many years until those voices go away and you “hear” them for the first time when they’re absent.

Never was there a time when a conversation or point made by my dad didn’t demand one’s full attention. It’s hard to recall a “throw away” statement even in later years when his questions were more frequent than answers. His conversations with us and within his family pulled us down “eye to eye” level with someone that was “paying attention” and gave you the sense that there was a lot of wisdom, little need of forethought and plenty of conviction behind anything that he said.

We all rushed out, rushed away. We turned in on our world, our kids, our spouse, our home, our time. None of us are quite old enough yet to fully feel as though we are like Delia, Chuck, George or Irene – but we are. We are in that age that matches theirs but there are differences. Our times were not theirs and they did not have themselves to influence their thoughts as we had them. It’s really quite simple and redundant. It's a web of overlapping tendons that connect and, due to purpose, disconnect from generation to generation.

We are not them – they were not us. There is a “we” part that connects to all those inside the same kitchens, the same picnic tables, the same weddings, the same funerals or horseshoe pits - when we all arrive and take inventory of the ties that bind. When we check to see that the tied strings still connected? What are those that have become undone? What still connects to everyone?

Is there more sameness than difference? Or is their more difference than sameness.

Is each one of us a variation on the collective we?

Or are we a composite of each one of us?

This is my 60^th year

.

When I reach that age in late September,

I will mark a life longer than my father - who died at 59.

At that point, I’ll truly be on my own.

I’ll have fewer things to reference if I see 2011.

Happy New Year.

HAPPY OLDER GENTS

How happy are such older gents and ladies of the midlife bent

That we might live so long to see such things that in our youth ‘oft flee

That old and wise inspired thought that we’d know more than we’d know not

And chase away our early years of knowing all that we had thought

Was all that life was going to be and surely all that would be seen

But long enough to sense the fact that no one knows one’s life exact

It takes some time to live new things and know the changing times with kin

Not knowing how some days begin to show that new arrives again

For we who try to find what means to live a life and know what seems

To be the state of static time on earth is what appears in worth

And value once it first appears but changes as one’s life’s end nears

Then mirrors ourselves as young escort their children to their future years

I noticed all the different folks who found their way to family’s fold

And sure can call themselves as we as me though I am older told

But new unknown among us be the "those" with new proximity

Would see the same connected line between the “us” that lived through time

That now one present speaks of knowing some sustained and thus ongoing

But not the same old ones that breathe nor touched the hem or shirt coat sleeve

But thus I’m just a witness to the way known lineage forms anew

Sure those who in these days arrive have none of what we know behind

Who were just there as much as us but now are gone and watch us thus

And maybe laugh to see how quite we are like those gone in one night’s light

And rousts the joy of seeing new a line of loved one’s family few

Together in such normal ways without such thought for those past days.

I think about those old and gone when we would trip to grandmas home

And we were lacking lineage sense of all the whole entire meant

That likely made our aunts and men of days gone past imagine same

Of our new place in their same minds of those before in earlier times

And wondered if we’d get the sense of what the group would represent

Then came to sense what we now do that only older of us knew

So fresh and loved today’s young light once seeing all youth’s shear delight

To understand groups time expanse beyond the present clear light glance

The next young decade’s family line connects to us though we in decline

And thus a place in brief times past when groups like us depart at last

And look to new young family trees the former older ones will still there be

And then our age will thus reveal what we just found and elders feel

GRANDFATHER'S CHOICE

There is a time past age of fifty

That’s not awaited throughout life

That aging men find unsuspecting

When shifts occur in who and what is right

For years we spend our time deciding

On actions, starts, considerations weighed

Established as the one decider

On what should be or paths to take

So common is to lead not follow

Assumed the stead of other’s choice

Assigned the family’s noted chooser

Creating weight in a father’s voice

But decades pass neglected watching

Young kids find stride and act dread not

They start assuming other's needings

And siphoning off one father’s lot

As sudden as a decade passes

Like single years rushed by time spent

From father's name grandfather passes

To other ways not father’s meant

And now new fathers, mothers start

Their time to guide, their time to choose

To shape their children’s future lot

And start the same clock’s ticking mark

Like blooming flowers a first rejoicing

They seek some other than his choice

The aging man sees what bequeath him

When small grandchildren seek just his voice

Auspicious to have such a chance

Live long enough to hold their hands

And let their parents make their choices

As playgrounds call and children dance

GRANDKIDS

Today is my oldest grand daughters 4th birthday. Hannah was born at Evanston Hospital 4 years ago today. My wife and I had been out with neighbors and we all finished up a good bottle of wine. We weren't home too long when the call came. Though we were sure ready to turn in before the call we were wide awake after the call.

Grand kids are a great gift to people that have kids - give up a lot to do so - and survive. The ironic thing about it is that we know what our kids are going through having their kids - but they don't know what we're going through having grand kids. It's two different experiences. I used to think I'd have a huge genealogy experience - see my grand kids through my kids - view them with pride as extensions of me etc. Well, it really isn't like that. The gift is that you don't have to "view" your grand kids through ANY prism or legacy. That's the gift they give you - total transparency. And it seems that for dad's anyway - we can't quite view our own kids as transparent when they are little because we have a responsibility to "raise them." And that's certainly true -but busy dad's like I was tend to miss a lot when the kids are little.

Life is less complicated now then when your rushing through the untested waters of child rearing. God makes life less complicated now so that we can enjoy the less complicated lives of our grand kids.

We really miss seeing Hannah and her sister Lucy everyday like we used to. We know we're missing a lot of fun stuff. SKYPE just isn't the same. So every chance we get we try to go see the kids. They allow us to relive our youth and remember what the important things in life are after spending a life time forgetting. As Lennon said, "Life's what happens while your busy making other plans." I know longer make plans. I try to figure out how to see my grand kids as often as I can.