In Memoriam
My Parents
My parents lived to old age, but both passed away within the last three years. Above, you can see them from many years ago, when they were in their mid to late 70s, after a show featuring professional imitators. They were flanked by "Elvis" and "The Blues Brothers." If you have an eye for these things, you can see that my father is the kind of light-skinned German-Irish man who reddens in the sun, but my mother is of darker southern Italian ancestry. Both had brown eyes, but each had one parent with blue eyes, one with brown eyes; I inherited the blue eyes.
As with many others of their generation, they had retired to Florida, then lived much longer than they had imagined. Sadly, medical care for the elderly has become the major industry in parts of Florida. In many cases, retirees have nothing else to talk about except their current treatments, since their children, who are already close to retirement themselves, live far away. Also, the retirees have no connection to the metropolis other than as consumers of entertainment or medical care.
My parents retired to a very nice, gated retirement community. In their generation, there was a broad blue-collar class of people who had much in common, in terms of income, education, and lifestyle. Blue-collar workers could buy a small house (without funky mortage terms), much education was not required, and cultural values were similar. Understand that the similarity was largely because the community's retirees came from only a few parts of the country.
My father's father died young. As a teenager during the Depression, lacking any other skills or a high school diploma, he joined his state's National Guard. They taught him some manual skills that were enough to get a low-level job in the late 1930s, which led to a better job. When WWII broke out, my father did not have to serve, because he had already served. Yet he talked to an Army recruiter, and was able to get a non-combat job in a combat zone.
My father apparently liked being a soldier. When the war ended, he went back to doing what he had been doing before he enlisted, but this time they paid him more. A couple of years later, he got the same job in a better company, and kept that job until retirement. Actually, it was considered a white collar job, being paid as salary rather than by the hour.
My mother's mother died young. She came from a large family in the Italian ghetto. I never quite understood how she met my father, since they came from different parts of town. As best as I could gather from asking them, my father's first low-level job often took him to the other end of town, where he met my mother. I noted that my mother's handwriting and spelling were much better than one would expect from her background. She told me that when she was young, a rich uncle had paid to send some of his relatives to summer school, to learn English better. Sadly, the man died young (gunfire at an Italian restuarant). I could never convince my mother that he must have been Mafia.
Speaking of Italian restaurants, there is one in Carmel, California (Little Napoli) that offers what, for me, is mom's home cooking (but not free, for sure). It seems that the original owner, as well as my mother and Frank Sinatra, all went to the same school at the same time, but in different grades. Both my mother and the original restaurant owner knew Frank; they may have known each other.
As I type this, I am sitting in my parents' retirement home, which will soon meet another fate. For days, I have been hauling their treasures (my trash) to the landfill, except for some items that were donated to charity. So it is for most of the retirees here; their children cannot use the numerous objects hoarded over the years, and there is already a glut of such objects at the second-hand stores.
By the time I finish what I have to do here, the community clubhouse will have another one of its get-togethers for the residents. When my parents first arrived, the theme was often from the WWII era. Nowadays, the theme is 50s sock hops. By the time the theme is Woodstock, I'll be elsewhere. Mind you, the community is beautiful. But I have nothing in common with the neighbors and am not yet ready to live in someone else's past. Although I have been there often, am recognized, and know my way around, nothing about the community speaks to my own life.
My parents had places in the area where they liked to go. One of them was the Central Florida Zoological Garden, in Sanford, Florida. This is a nice little zoo that is well-suited for school children. I like it myself, particularly for its collection of medium cats (leopard, cougar, and so forth), tropical birds, and reptiles. For appropriate donations, the zoo will place commemorative planks in the boardwalks. Here are the ones for my parents, located near the children's water garden:
After my mother died and her ashes were scattered, my father told me to scatter his elsewhere. They had been married over 60 years, and he wanted to be alone. I did that, but the planks are together. You can't have everything.
