Harry Levin: Talking to me about the value of education. He passed on to me some nuggets of personal experience, with which I was still grappling. I was then at LTI (now called U-Mass-Lowell) making a heroic efforts to grasp the discoveries of present day science. I say “heroic” because I had been an “A” student in my elementary and high school classes, but then suddenly at LTI, I was facing some grades in the less glamorous “B” and “C” categories. Studying can be tough although my previous education with the sisters and the teaching brothers had nicely permitted me to delve deeper into a broader vision of our world.
Fortunately for me, I hat already realized that learning – books, theater, science, mathematics, history, etc. – might eventually permit me to leave this bizarre mindset that was firmly nestled in the thoughts and attitudes of the local population, which had yet failed to read and understand Jean-Jacques Rousseau‘s thesis called the “Social Contract”(1762).
“Remember, Paul. They can never take your education away from you.”
Note: At the time (~ 1957), I did not realize the depth of this observation coming from a young, Jewish-American, variety-store merchant, who provided meats and pantry goods with good cheer to the Franco-American community that he served. It had been only twenty years before, that Jewish merchants like himself and his young wife had completely lost their livelihood and, even, family members to the politics of Teutonic fascism in the German Heimat (homeland). Maybe, he was referring to that piece of recent history, but we never went into any more depth on the issue. A lost opportunity, perhaps?
Herbert Henes in 1945 in Bad Neuheim: “Mutti, warum schlafen die Leute in der Mitte der Strasse?” – “Die schlafen nicht, Herbert, die sind tot.”
Herbert: “Wer Geld hat kann ins Restaurant gehen. Wer keins hat muss draußen stehen.”
Pepere Charbonneau told my mother in 1946: “The only thing that Hitler did wrong was not to kill more Jews.” I believe that I heard this comment in our Ludlam Street kitchen. It confused me as a seven-year-old, but I let it pass as local wisdom from my elders. Later, I wondered how adult comments made within earshot of listening children can become the basis for generational stagnation. Note: It was commonly believed by Lowell’s Franco-American mill-rats (my Canuck relatives and friends) that the eight (or was it, six?) remaining textile mills, those grubby, pitiless sweatshops from hell, were all owned and managed by a handful of grubby, pitiless, Jewish masters, all lacking any sense of human kindness and fattening their pockets through the blood, sweat and tears of the lowly workers. Only the Russian novelist, Tolstoy, could have, possibly, described a more hellish way of life, but in the Russian case, the enslaved people were the poor peasants of the Tsar.
Mom in the summer of 1957, at the kitchen table and speaking to her brother, Gerald: “Paul was accepted at Lowell Tech. He starts in September.” Uncle Gerry, speaking to my mother at that same table: “He’ll never make it.”
My Comment: I suspect that many, if not most, of the different ethnic groups falling under the general category of immigrants in the city shared a vague sense of inferiority and shame for not being more adept individuals. I, certainly, felt this deep dissatisfaction for not being a better and more capable person. There exists several levels of needed salvaging in the psych of each person trying to transition from immigrant status to an integrated person in the society.
Uncle Gerry: “Ted Williams? He’s a bum.” Let’s keep in mind that in 1948, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio were considered by writers at Sports magazine as the two best ball players in the majors, but, clearly, these guys had a long way to go to convince my favorite uncle of Ted’s professional accomplishments. Some of my relatives required perfection, it seemed, before handing out any verbal kudos, especially, to the Boston team members, managers and players, alike. The Bosox were always disappointing us. Maybe, this is one reason why Ted hurled his baseball bat (he later claimed that it slipped from his rosin-covered hands) into some yelling fans sitting near the Red Sox dugout along first base, an event that mightily impressed the sports writers from the Herald- American – a tabloid of local distinction – as highly irregular and proof positive that Williams was just a spoiled brat and a sorehead. Fortunately, the yelling fans were not seriously injured, but this incident became the
galvanizing event that Boston sports writers were to use again and again in lampooning the one player that some fans and aficionados of the game called, “The Splendid Splitter”.
Apparently in sports and also in real life, it is never enough to be outstanding many times over and over. Only consistently outstanding is recognized. It sure is not easy being a local hero.
Aunt Lida: “It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.”
Aunt Florence to my mother: “You’re lucky, Claire. You never had to work in the mills. Sometimes, when we were going home after a shift, managers on the upper floors would spit on us as we slowly wound our way down the spiral staircase to the exit.”
Uncle Gerry (our milkman) to Michelle waiting by the curb on Dana Street in the hopes of a surprise beverage: “No chocolate milk, today, all the brown cows are on vacation.”
Norman Bergeron (from up the street on Dana) to a few boys at our kitchen table after returning from the Korean conflict: “The American soldiers mistreated the North Korean captives.” I could hardly believe my ears. This was not possible, but I had no way to check out what Norman had said.
Me to Monsieur Poulain in his front yard: “Do you know how my dog, Pal, pisses?” Standing near one of his beautiful lilac bushes with my right leg raised high, I successfully demonstrated the technique to his hollering delight. Later, he told my mother about the incident to her equal delight.
Aunt Vicky to me in her bathroom: “You must not brush your teeth across the front, but only up and down in your mouth.” This advice has kept me out of many a dentist’s office over the years.
Priest at Mass: “Dominus vos biscum.” Congregation: “Et cum spiritu tuo.” “The Lord be with you.” and the congregation responds with: “And with your spirit also.”
Michelle to Mom, months after Dad died: “I really miss Dad.” At the time, my mother was upset, maybe, even hurt
to hear that, maybe, because her life had been so difficult during the years she had be married to my father. Her response, according to Michelle, was cold and seemingly uncaring. Maybe, it was simply: “Just go sleep.” But,
decades later, I heard the story for the first time. The remaining hurt was still there in my sister’s voice. Why is life so difficult, sometimes?
Mom to Michelle about Dad: “My happy life came to an end when I met your father.” How do you fix poverty?
Brother Arthur at St-Joseph High when waking up a sleepy student, a Mr. Cormier, in the back of the classroom with a flying blackboard eraser to the chest said: “Stand up, Cormier. You’re sitting on your brains.” This brought on a sense of class levity, which the good brother’s tedious algebra lesson had apparently deadened. It seems that there is much truth even in the flight of an academic eraser!
Dad to me while walking down Ludlam Street to Cumberland Road to visit Gerry and Florence and watch the
Wednesday night fights sponsored by Gillette blades: “You’re just a crepe-hanger like your mother.” Maybe, I needed to read more upbeat comics like Donald Duck and the funnies in the Lowell Sun? But, he seemed to like my school grades. Otherwise, I may have been a disappointment to him and a major drain on his limited dollars and patience.
There always was a clear distance between us. Maybe, I had been an unexpected child, a life-changing, bedroom surprise, appearing when he was 29 and already in charge of caring for his mother and aunt? Of course at 11 or 12, I didn’t have the clarity of mind to weigh out these wild assumptions. Being a highly responsible child was outside my capabilities. I barely knew the essentials about sex at that point.
Aunt Alice, la jeune, at our kitchen table as I was passing by: “After you reach 50, Claire, they don’t want you anymore.” She was talking about herself and working in retail stores downtown on Merrimack Street.
Mom: “Down by the gas-box, two bits.”
Mom: “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”
Note: A crêpe hanger is the ultimate pessimist: ”You Irish are in love with your sorrows. You are too damned depressing. I am not in love with my sorrows!” “You’re a fucking crepe hanger.” “What is a crepe hanger?” “You see the world draped in black. Nobody’s sorrows are worse than yours. You hang black crepe on everything.”
It’s forgivable that moderns, who encounter it today, are puzzled. Undertakers’ assistants have long ago ceased to be literal crêpe hangers, engaged to drape black crêpe across the windows and mirrors of a house in which a person has died. Neighbors these days no longer follow the old custom of similarly hanging crêpe in their windows as a mark of sympathy and respect. Nor is the customary clothing of a grieving female relative now characterized by crêpe. As for periods of mourning, we are told that a widow’s mourning should last eighteen months, although in England it is somewhat lightened in twelve. For the first six months the dress should be of crape cloth, or Henrietta cloth covered entirely with crape, collar and cuffs of white crape, a crape bonnet with a long crape veil, and a widow’s cap of white crape if preferred. – See: Harper’s Bazar: 17 Apr. 1886.
Definition of crepe-hanger: one who takes a pessimistic view of things : killjoy