On Father's Day

He grew up in West Sheffield, just outside of Quebec, Canada. At 22 as a noncitizen he joined the US Army where he worked as a cook during World War I. He carried his honorable discharge papers with him everywhere he went. In fact they were on his body when they pulled him from the Hudson River in 1938.
 

Henry Languedoc

His family emigrated from Canada to New Bedford, Massachusetts where they found work in the many mills. The census listed him as a "laborer" then later as a "mechanic." His name was Henry, and I don't know how he met Nativa, but they married in 1924, five years before The Great Depression.

As a veteran, my grandfather was entitled to a bonus for his military participation in The Great War under the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, a federal law passed in 1924 granting veterans a "bonus" certificate that would be redeemable for cash after a maturation period of twenty years. A later act in 1936 replaced the earlier legislation allowing veterans to receive distributions sooner. According to his discharge papers he served in the army from August 1917 to April 1919 entitling him to a sizable amount. After receiving his bonus, he travelled to New York City where my father believed he was robbed and murdered. He was found in the Hudson River, known then as the North River, in New York City on 30th street. The death certificate indicates that the cause of death was "Asphyxia by submersion. Undetermined Circumstances." At the time he was a laborer for the Works Progress Administration, WPA.


Nativa Fecteau

Maybe it was because we shared the same last name or the mysterious circumstances of his demise, my grandfather always intrigued me. Leaving his family in the middle of the depression to work for the WPA must have been a tough decision, but my father always claimed that his dad was a drunk who never sent any money home. My dad recalled a few stories of his ole man, but one I heard more than any other. Once his father told him he would meet him in front of a downtown store to buy him a new bike, a balloon tire Columbia my father often admired.

"Be in front of the store Saturday morning, bright and early," Henry instructed.

My father was maybe ten years old. He mistakenly told all his friends that his dad was going to buy him the prized bicycle. After making his way downtown early one spring morn, the young boy dutifully waited in front of the storefront. He never had any money to ride the street cars so he would hang onto the outside of the trolley as it sped along. Late in the afternoon, his mother found him still waiting in front of the store.

"He's gonna come!" he insisted.

Unable to convince her son to leave, Nativa reluctantly left him there. She probably knew better, having been let down more than once in her life. She returned in the early evening to collect her oldest boy, who finally relinquished his post. He sobbed quietly in his seat on the trolley ride home. No one ever becomes accustomed to disappointment. Back in school on Monday, Raymond absorbed all the comments from his middle school friends, one of which said,

"What did you expect? Everyone knows your ole man is a bum."

My dad didn't defend him. The plight that his father left him and his brothers in was difficult in the best of times. It was exasperated by the widespread economic strain caused by The Great Depression. My father said that they moved around a lot because,

"We always stayed one step ahead of the landlord."



Raymond, Robert and
Ronnie with their Father

My dad had two brothers, Bob and Ronnie. My Uncle Bob lives with his wife, Corinne, in Exeter, New Hampshire, after raising their four boys in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. As a boy my father lived with his mother and brothers in different apartments in Providence and Cranston, Rhode Island. My dad seemed to always lead the way into whatever mischief the boys could conjure. Every Italian had a grape vine in their backyard which provided superb ammunition for slingshots. They would swipe the unripe grapes from the vines which were hard and perfectly round and shoot them into the open factory windows of the Narragansett Brewery. There was no air conditioning back then so the supervisors would open the large windows for ventilation. The hard grapes would splatter on the walls. My dad often recalled,

"Someone always came to the window and yelled, 'Hey you kids!' then catch one right in the forehead."
 

My father and Bob had Red Rider BB guns. My uncle's was confiscated by the police after a report of someone shooting out some windows. He claims to this day that my father was probably the shooter. Once my dad was in the woods with his air rifle when he came upon a kid who asked,

"Is that a Red Rider?"

The Coal Mine at the Ledges

"It sure is," my father said.

"Can I see it?"

My father let the stranger look at his rifle. The dude turned the gun on him saying,

"Stick 'em up! Now don't follow me," then off he went with my dad's BB gun.

Somewhere out there is a guy boasting to his children how he jacked a Red Rider BB gun from some hapless kid. My father and his buddies sharpened sticks and ran around the woods as a tribe they called "The Lances." They would beat on an old garbage can to get the group to convene at "The Ledges," their tribal land which was a patch of woods isolated by factories, houses and stores. One time my father showed me the remains of an old coal mine he and his friends played in which is now behind a store off Cranston Street. While researching my family tree I discovered an address for the three boys and their mother, "950 Cranston Street." An online map revealed this image.


Tongue Pond

Not far from their apartment was Tongue Pond. The brothers built a raft from scrap wood and paddled about the small lake. They told the youngest, Ronnie, not to go out on the pond alone, but he did anyway. My uncle today believes his little brother probably had ADHD because he never seemed to listen to anyone. When he turned up missing one evening in the spring of 1940, his mother summoned the police. An imposing Irish motorcycle patrol officer, Officer Lonigan, showed up and questioned my uncle who led him to Tongue Pond. As they neared the lake, Officer Lonigan saw something floating on the surface. He waded into the water as my uncle remained on the banks.

Tragic events in life have a way of etching themselves into a ten year old boy's mind. Now a man of ninety, my uncle recalls the story with striking detail as in the officer's name, the low sun filtering through trees and reflecting on the surface of the lake while insects dotted over the dark water. He describes Officer Lonigan soiling his uniform as the big man unhesitating entered the water to retrieve his brother's body. My uncle always ends the story there as the rest is most certainly unfathomable.


The Boys with Their Mother

Families of the Silent Generation often experienced unimaginable loss and hardship. My father once told me of his older brother, Adrian, who died after one year from a reflux condition that is treatable today. My grandmother took him home after the doctors in the hospital determined that nothing could be done for him. Nativa developed a distrust of the medical profession which later in life caused her to ignore symptoms of cervical cancer. While researching Adrian's life, I learned that two weeks after he died, my father was born. I often wonder how a young couple survived such a tragic loss in the middle of the depression, then welcomed a new boy, my father, into their life. When I found Adrian's grave at Saint Francis Cemetery in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, I learned that there was no marker. My grandparent's probably didn't have any money for a headstone. I had one made and installed a short time later.

My father and his brothers lived an adventurous life outdoors, unencumbered by computers and electronic worlds. One time after discovering an abandoned house in the neighborhood, curiosity overwhelmed their young minds as they pushed in a basement window to investigate. My father said that the house was completely furnished and looked as though someone had left after breakfast never to return. Dried cornflakes were in bowls set on the table along with an ashtray containing several crushed cigarette butts. A newspaper, dated five years earlier, was on the table. The beds were turned down showing the distinct outlines of the people who had slept in them. My father claimed that he spooked his brothers who bolted for the basement window leaving my father alone laughing heartily. Eventually, he panicked and ran for the exit as well.

When my grandfather was found in the Hudson River in 1938, the most destructive hurricane was bearing down on New England. Nativa's brother-in-law, Anthony, her sister, Laura, and their oldest son, Andre, along with 11 year old Raymond all travelled by car to New York City in the middle of a hurricane to attend the funeral on Long Island. There wasn't enough room for Bob and Ronnie who stayed with their maternal grandmother, who spoke only French. My father said that his mother was unhappy with him for being more excited about a trip to the city than saddened by the death of his father.

"That's your father!" she would sternly exclaim.

My dad hated his father for abandoning his family. Sixty years later, I found my grandfather's grave via an online search. I was very interested in visiting the cemetery. My father initially agreed to go, but then felt he was reliving the past by being only interested in a trip to New York. It was later that I learned he was ill. Like his mother he distrusted doctors. He ignored the chest pains, not even telling my mother. He likely declined to go with me due to his health, but at the time I imagined that the memories of his father's abandonment were still seared into his heart, the wound remaining unhealed after all these years. Fortunately my uncle took his place since he had never visited his father's grave.

My uncle is my godfather. On the ferry, he expressed a different view of his dad than the one I always heard. He said that in those days there was comparably very little government assistance. People felt that if you came onto hard times, your family would help out. My uncle told me that his parents had little support from his mother's family, and they didn't even know anyone on his father's side. As we neared the veteran's cemetery, we met up with my uncle's oldest son, Ronald, a prominent lawyer in the city. The three of us found Henry's grave.

A few months afterwards my father unexpectedly passed away. We all saw him as a strong man who ran five miles a day. It was a horrible shock made all the worse knowing my dad departed without ever forgiving his father. My uncle's perspective might have been tempered by the years he spent in a seminary before he decided he liked women too much to become a priest. My father remained with his mother working odd jobs. He turned over his paycheck to his mom who gave him 50 cents for himself. He set up bowling pins when he was thirteen and later bussed tables in the Shore Dinner Hall at Rocky Point, the local amusement park. When he was in high school, his mother got him a job in a soap factory she worked in. He told me that was the first "real money" he had earned allowing him to hit up the Coke machine at work as much as he liked. Once he drank seventeen sodas during one shift. He said he never tried that again.

My father enlisted in the Merchant Marines during his last year of high school after being rejected by the Navy for color blindness. After World War II, the government didn't recognize merchant marine service even though they took heavy losses in undefended convoys ferrying men and supplies in Liberty ships to the European theatre. He was an able body seaman who stood watches looking out for floating mines. If he saw one, he was to call in a sharpshooter. He said that at night everything looked like a mine. Once he alerted a sharpshooter who took umbrage for raising the alarm when a mine couldn't be found.

"Probably the asshole who stole my BB gun," my father once mused.

Raymond and Bob

After WW II he managed to get a good job at Gorhams as an apprentice silversmith. A few years later he was drafted in the Army for the Korean War while my uncle enlisted in the Navy right out of high school. My father never complained that his Merchant Marine service was not recognized by the government as prior service. He made the best of his second tour in the military by becoming an amphibious vehicle driver. True to form he found ways to get into trouble. One time he and his army buddies were walking in town when a marine officer pulled up to a post office while leaving his car running. Naturally my father thought it would be a great idea for he and his friends to take the car instead of walking. They drove around town until the MPs began chasing them. When they pulled over, they all took off in different directions. My dad, the driver, ran for a bar and hid in the stall of a bathroom. He said he saw the MP's feet run by him beneath the stall partition "just like in the movies." They caught all of them and tossed them in the brig. Unfazed, my father picked up a metal cup and rattled it against the bars of the jail cell as he yelled,

"You dirty rats!"

He avoided punishment by appealing to his commanding officer, who he knew was both a drunk and harbored an intense hatred for marines, by stating,

"They had it in for us."

His explanation was laced with a hefty amount of denial. Later he bribed a yeoman to intercept and destroy the CO's letter admonishing the marine officer in charge of the MPs.

My cousin, Ken, said to me at my father's funeral,

"I know in my heart your dad forgave his father before he died."

I wanted to believe that, but I know convenient movie endings just don't occur in the real world. I was bitter for many years afterwards believing that my father couldn't have put aside his own anger, not even for his own son. I became a father to two boys, who are the greatest things my wife, Christine, and I have ever done together. And on this Father's Day, I've come to realize that it is me who needs to ask for forgiveness from a man who lived a life of hardship which I can barely fathom let alone understand. I may not have had the idyllic life that my kids enjoy, but my trials and tribulations were nothing when compared to what my father and his brothers endured. Through it all, my dad never lost the ability to make people laugh, and for his whole life he remained a consummate humorist who always could be counted on for an impeccably crafted comedic story.

This Father's Day for me is about humility because in the end we are just dust and shadow cast aside with hopes of forgiveness.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on June 15, 2017.

Race to the End

My wife the other day shocked my New Balances right off my feet with a racial epithet here in our home. She asked me,

"Can you take those colored clothes out of the dryer?"

"They're clothes of color!" I scolded.

Just when you think you know someone.

I grew up in a blue collar racist New England household. Northeast racism is intimately connected to unionized factory jobs, filled by white workers who feel minorities are lazy and use the union for protection. My father worked as a silversmith for 45 years in a factory. He used to say that black people and hispanics never got along, but he used a more colorful vernacular. He often said that the hispanics were short, and when they fought, they usually pulled a knife. The rest was left for the police, the union and paramedics to sort out.

I went to college then the military which luckily purged any racist sentiments from my head. My father retired and joined a gym which he attended regularly. When I worked out with him once, I noticed that he greeted everyone, and everyone was eager to interact with him, retelling the latest joke or funny story they heard. I discovered that my father, the guy who hadn't a single friend outside of work in decades, and often harbored racist sentiments, was the gym ambassador. It didn't matter the age, the race or gender, he knew them all by name, and they often found common ground over laughter.

During the Gulf War in the early 90's, he had a running gag that he and two other older guys at the gym were going to get called up due to their past military experience. He would say that they were in "the First Infantry Canon Fodder." The others guys went right along with it. Two of his closest friends were a black man, named George and a puerto rican, named Roman. They were both retired factory workers like my father. They helped him pull off some of the best pranks the gym had ever seen. One time, on April Fool’s my father set up this kid by telling him,

"Go ask George how his sister is doing with her swim lessons. It'll be real funny."

So the kid obliged asking, "Hey George, how's your sister's swim lessons coming along?"

George, who was in on the joke, answered, "You think that's funny? My sister drowned when she was seven years old!"

George didn't have a sister that drowned. Usually, the person being set up would fumble with an apology, and forget that my father told him to do it. It was a mean joke by anybody's standards, but that's what the generation that survived the Great Depression and world wars came up with. They all got a laugh out of it, and the dude being setup was usually suitably relieved that it was just a gag.
 

There was a lot ribbing going on at the gym, some racially oriented, but they shrugged it off. When it happened near me, my laugh was the only one that was awkward. One time a middle-aged guy called my dad and George,

"Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr."

My father said, "I must be Sammy because I'm missing an eye."

George retorted, "I'm Dean because I'm taller than you."

They roared with laughter as they crossed the racial divide. George wasn't taller than my father who wasn't missing an eye. Roman would make the sign of the cross when my father and George would go at it, and say,

"Forgive them for they know not what they do."

These old guys were friends on their own terms which certainly wouldn't meet the standards of civility today, but it worked for them. They saw each other as people first, and they laughed about everything else. My father changed with the times as his experiences broadened, and he saw people as individuals, not merely as unionized, factory workers.

There was a big Italian dude at the gym who exchanged "wop" jokes with my father all the time. He got busted for drug dealing and served ten months in prison. When he got out, word had spread around the gym about his felony conviction, so no one would talk to him. When my father saw him, he walked up, shook his hand, and said that he was glad that he was back, and that he missed him. The big man broke down in tears. When I asked my father what that was all about, he explained to me that the guy served his time, and that was okay with him.

Rap today comes with a whole set of confusing rules wrought with double standards. A slew of misogynistic and racial terms are used in lyrics in a far more general and derogatory manner than the comments made by my father and his friends. One time at the gym, during a cardio session, a newscaster on an overhead television reported,

"Seventy-two percent of the country's oil comes from abroad."

My father loudly exclaimed, "Really, I thought it came from overseas."

Of course, my father's friends all split a gut. Connie, a prim and proper retired executive, said with a smile,

"Oh, Raymond, you're so bad."

I couldn't help but think the gym was a place where my father was reliving his version of middle school. He was the guy who made them all laugh, sometimes uncomfortably, but no one ever felt like they didn't belong. He had changed when he got into a world in which he realized that everyone was pretty much like him. When he died, very suddenly on a Thursday morning, 19 years ago, an endless stream of people attended his wake. They all described my father as "their closest friend." That was an astonishing achievement for someone who for most of his life wasn't friends with anyone.

Would I want my sons to banter with their friends who are minorities like my father did with his friends and acquaintances? Probably not, but I would prefer that they manage it themselves in an inclusive way that works for them rather than living a standard set forth by our elected officials or community leaders. My son, Aidan, is colorblind like most of his generation. When he was in second grade, his African American teacher once stopped me to relay a funny story about him. She told me,

"I have to tell you what Aidan said. We showed his class a picture of a group of kids, telling them that one of their teachers was in the photo, and went to this school twenty years ago. We asked who they thought it was? And you know what Aidan said?"

Not a clue, I shrugged.

"He said, 'You, Miss Crawford.'"

To which I responded, "You're too young to have gone to this school twenty years ago."

She continued, "No, Robert, that's not it. There were no black people in the photo."

I smiled as I understood her amusement. I also got the sense that the last thing on the mind of my seven year old was the color of his teacher's skin. Like my once racist father, the first thought that came to my once racist head in regards to the photo was his teacher's age. I don't agree that bigots need to die out to change society. Everyone can change.

Despite all my mistakes as a parent, my sons won't have to.

Editor's Note: Today, colorblindness in terms of race is a micro aggression. Originally posted on November 8, 2016.