200 Duquette Lane

October 29th, 2011 at 200 Duquette Lane was an interesting date.

My father was sitting in the kitchen dressed in what can be described as his everyday wear – a favorite pair of very old khakis half cinched by a favorite old, slightly fraying black belt, topped off with a mostly intact Fruit-of-the-Loom white t-shirt. It wasn’t exactly company wear, nor was it pajamas. It was everyday wear. The kind where he knew company was coming, but there was no need for his clothes to make a big deal about it.

He was perched in his kitchen chair, pen in hand where he had both finished the Jumble correctly, found all the words in the Word-search, and written my mother’s name a thousand times a thousand times down the margin of the previous day’s newspaper. His half filled cup of coffee and his no-frills AM clock radio were the only other items on the table.

He was waiting. He was in it for the long haul, for the duration. If he was tired, it was unknown to the rest of the world. Looking back on it, I think his goal was to make it look like all normal eighty year old dads would be doing the exact same thing, sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, finishing word puzzles and writing his wife’s name, waiting patiently. Going to bed wasn’t even on his radar.

Nearing Duquette Lane, I reminded my daughter that no matter how excited we might be, it was late and Pop may be asleep. We needed to temper our over the top behavior quickly and appropriately. Our lifetime experience could wait until the morning to share. It was time for us to be polite, think of others and pull out our best manners. After all, there was no need to wake him up. Everything could wait.

Turning onto the street, everything looked as it should with houses buttoned up dark and tight for the evening. The only light shining at the beginning of the lane came from our car’s two headlight beams. Everything else was pitch black. Every house up and down the entire street blended calmly and wisely into the dark evening sky. That is every house except for 200 Duquette Lane which was, of course, our destination.

200 Duquette Lane was glowing. Porch lights on. Living room lights on. Dining room, bed room, garage lights on. And for those who know me and my family, the ever present indoor Christmas lights around the ceiling of the living room, dining room, family room and kitchen all on. My daughter looked at me and I looked at her, and at that moment we knew that the adventure that we had assumed had ended had actually not yet begun.

Forgetting decorum, we stormed into that house and it was easy to do because neither the screen door nor the front door had been locked, another sign that crazy fun was going to ensue.

And there in the kitchen at 200 Duquette Lane at 2:00am on October 29th, 2011 sat my dad in his everyday wear, with his newspaper and pen and coffee and clock radio.

His first words at that moment were few but they still make me smile, “Well, whatdidya think?”

My daughter and I both began babbling. Blah blah blah blah Pujols. Blah Blah Blah David Freese. Blah Blah Blah Yadi. Blah Blah Blah Allen Craig. Clydesdales, Confetti, Fireworks. People. Cardinals, Cardinals, Cardinals! We could not stop talking and he could not stop listening. I can’t remember if he asked any questions at all. I can only remember that we rehashed each and every play for each and every inning without stop. At one point, he asked us if we wanted a beer and though it would have been odd for him to ask me that question on any other day, on this day, it seemed appropriate, and we obliged. By that time, he had turned that radio on and we were now rehashing the game with the experts at KMOX, comparing their version to our version.

We did arrive at 200 Duquette bearing a gift. We had purchased several of the World Series Daily, an immediate newspaper publication available the moment the game ends from makeshift newspaper stands in front of the stadium exits. He read it. We read it. And by 4:00am, the three of us had officially decided that we all agreed with the Daily’s version of the events. And as we finished our beer and my dad clicked off the clock radio, we knew the adventure was soon coming to a close.

In the morning, my dad, my daughter and I went to his breakfast hangout and continued our conversation. When we returned to 200 Duquette Lane, I noticed that though all other lights had been switched off, the indoor ceiling Christmas lights were shining bright.

Looking back, I can see that my daughter and I did have a great adventure by going to Game 7 of the 2011 World Series won by the St. Louis Cardinals. But the greatest adventure of all was created by an 80 year old man who had the sense to click on the indoor Christmas lights, sit at his kitchen table and patiently wait for hours and hours just to have a conversation with his daughter and granddaughter. I’ve said it before – my dad and my mom were masters not at the extraordinary, but at doing the ordinary extraordinarily well.

If someone asks me today the play by play at that ball game, I can’t remember. I don’t know who pitched, who homered, who played or didn’t play. I know the Cardinals won, but the rest is one big blur. But, if they ask me what my father was wearing, where he was sitting, what he was doing, and what lights were on, I can describe that in minute detail.

Somethings are worth remembering.

Don’t Hurry Life

August by birth, Gus in life, my grandfather was an interesting man.  He was only alive and in my life for what seems to me now as a brief pause, a short stay;  but that time period was definitely a most impactful one.

He often described his childhood/boyhood as a time of hardship, a time of great challenge, where he had to use both his brain and his braun to make it through each and every day.  With jobs before and after school, and school not the focused priority that is seen in students and parents of today, I listened to his stories and imagined the life of a youth with more responsibilities than I could ever imagine.

Conversely, he described his manhood as nothing shy of glorious, as a time of great adventure, still using his brain and braun to make it through each and every day, but in a different more creative, fun-filled, devil-may-care way.  I listened intently as he regaled stories of danger, pride, cleverness, handwork, risk, and exciting uncertainty in a world of change. He was fetching in looks and ingenious in nature. And he was unusual . . . in ways difficult to pinpoint, best described by me as a grandfather of many mysteries.  He seemed to often times walk the fence and teeter between that which was pure and good and that which was in a more gray area.

His unwritten biography of today contains a plethora of stories detailing escapades with individuals from shady backgrounds, from moments of both average and dangerous shenanigans, from times of walking on the ethical border and times of not. There were moments told when he escaped death, found fortunes, relied on lopsided handshake agreements, bet against the house and lost, and settled a variety of scores.  With decades having passed since his death, and even more decades having passed since the origin of the most exciting of adventures, I find it difficult to decipher between the actual truth and the fond folklore nature of the memories we share about Grandpa Gus.

Throughout all these cloudy, misty, and foggy memories that now make up the ever-so-exciting version of his life story, however, there is one that is crystal clear for me. It was a quick moment that he and I shared with little fanfare at the time. There was no particular detailed or dramatic buildup before it and very little following. It was a granddad/granddaughter moment that happened on a sunny autumn day following a quiet, uneventful visit between the two of us. I never expected to create a memory at that time, but . . . we did.

From his hospital bed near the end of his time with me, he leaned towards me and told me firmly, “Don’t hurry life, Debbie.”

At that time, I was starting my own adventures and was clearly in a rush to be whoever I was going to be and do whatever I was going to do.  I must have been on a visible mission to get to wherever I was going as quickly as possible, as it was so very obvious to him.  I wanted to work, to play, to find love, raise a family, create my own fortune, and figure out how to walk my own ethical line. I wanted shenanigans and escapades, and excitement and crazy-funny moments  that would eventually create folklore for me.

I had stopped by to see him as I was coming and going from one activity to another.  He, on the other hand, was unable to come and go any longer.  His movements were limited to those of a man reaching the end of his time  – a man who knew he had reached that moment – a man who was no longer rushing, but rather waiting.

And he told me firmly, “Don’t hurry life, Debbie.”

I often think of that moment, the time he uttered such a short and simple phrase – that left me with oh-so-very-much to consider.

Am I always in a hurry?  Do I stop and appreciate the ‘now’ as much as I should?  What life pace is the best?  Who determines the speed and how is it determined? Is there something intrinsically better about the slow over the quick?  And for goodness sakes, how in the heck do I slow life down?

It wasn’t until recently that I think – and I am still not sure, just sayin’ – that I understand a little about what he was trying to tell me.  It is not that I haven’t pondered those words over and over and over for a very long time.  I have.  It is more that I have finally reached a point in my life that they make much more sense to me.

From his hospital bed near the end of his time with me, I held his hand and he mine. His was dark and wrinkled, mine not so.  His grasp was faint and slight, mine not so. I looked at face and he gazed at me with tears wallowing in his eyes. His life was near its end . . . in the home stretch, and I knew he wanted so much to tell me that I needed to enjoy every moment I possibly could throughout my life, that I needed to work to be all that I could be while appreciating everything that would occur in my story, and that I needed to stop and smell the flowers along the way for each step of life is more fabulous than the last.  Finally, he needed to know that I understood him perfectly and permanently.

And in a whispery voice that signaled both age and wisdom, in a barely audible tone, he told me firmly, “Don’t hurry life, Debbie.”

And I understand.

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The Flowers Along The Way