Tag: dad

Dad talk

I was recently asked what my Dad was like when I was younger.

I love talking about my Dad. In fact, I visited him yesterday. I talked a lot, in fact, I did all the talking. Primarily, because he can’t hear me through 6 feet of dirt and a Veteran’s Grave marker. He may have died 10 1/2 years ago but not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. 

One of the things I remember most about my Dad was a conversation we had towards the end of his life. As Parkinson’s ravaged his body, transforming him into a shadow of the mighty Oak he once was, he became briefly interested in his legacy. He didn’t have much regard for how people felt about him and he wasn’t a man with many regrets, but he was concerned about how he was as a Dad. I was shocked when he brought it up.

“Do you resent me for being out of the house so much”?

I had never really thought of it. He worked all the time. Side jobs, overtime, helping my Grandfather. “Out” wasn’t out with the boys or time spent on himself. It was work. Other than that he was home being a great Dad. And, it wasn’t as if I had a reference point to compare his time home to others. All of my friends’ Dads worked, most of them a lot. I always thought that’s how it was supposed to be, the parents provide so the kids can thrive.

“Not at all, Dad”, I replied. “I didn’t resent you ever, about anything. I admired your work ethic and I always looked to you with pride for your accomplishments.”

A tear formed in the corner of his eye. He caught my reference. I was reminding him of something he thought about every day of his life, his upbringing. My Dad came from very humble beginnings. He lived in the poorest section of town, one of 4 kids. Of he and his multiple cousins, Dad was the one with the work ethic, the good eyesight and the desire to do better. I mention eyesight because it has been theorized that my Dad was the product of an affair. His entire family wore thick glasses, Dad could spot a feather out of place on a Hawk’s tail at 2000 feet. Dad was also the only one to make something of himself. He joined the military, learned a skill, joined a Union, bought a house. Instead of being happy for him, he was chided by his family as the “Rich one”. To them, Middle Class was rich. Me, I was the “Rich Kid”. I hated them for that. I developed a “fuck’em” attitude early on.

So, knowing all of this, I never had a problem with his hard work. It was all for us.

But the real matter at hand here is what was my Dad like when he WAS home. The answer is simultaneously simple and complex. He tried too hard, because someone in his life didn’t try hard enough. He had very high expectations for me, but he forced a lot of them on me because he never had the opportunities I had. He wanted to be an amazing father and husband, but he put on metaphorical “hats” (Hubby hat, Dad hat, Neighbor hat, etc) and in the process denied himself some of the more genuine moments of family life because he couldn’t just relax and be himself. Those moments were rare but so very special.

I am not a revisionist historian. I don’t paint the past pretty colors in an attempt to make it more palatable. I didn’t always get along with my Dad. He pushed me very hard at a time when I was too mixed up to handle my own problems. He didn’t recognize those times when I needed him to take off the damn hat and just be there for me. I don’t blame him, I just feel that at times he was more worried about outrunning his childhood than being present in mine.

I am glad to say that, later in life we became close. We closed the gap, evened the playing field as it were. He went on to be a loving and doting Grandfather to my children and I think he made peace with most of his demons.

He died young from a terrible disease. He is missed by a lot of people. Most of all by me.

A walk down “the Ave”

I’ve been thinking about my Dad quite a bit lately. Much more than usual. It occurred to me recently that I am finally becoming, after many years of disappointing him, the person he wanted me to be. He never actually said it in words, but through various conversations that come to me in the middle of the night, I pieced together the causes behind his relentless criticisms (it can be argued that they were warranted) of my overall character. He had a clear vision of what he wanted me to be, not do, in life that he would be proud of. He wasn’t interested in wealth or status. He had a different vision for my continuation of the family legacy, and that is to do better than those that preceded us. That is what he did, and all of the times that he verbally chastised me for goofing off, being foolish with money, acting badly, and not showing ambition or looking to the future was out of fear that I would take the family name backward. He single-handedly rewrote the family story. And in the process, he created a wonderful legacy for himself. He will forever be known as a kind, humble, hard-working, honest man to all that knew him. I am sad to admit that for some time, I wasn’t all of those things. I always worked hard and I always tried to be kind and honest and humble but I could have done better. At this point in my life, I make it a priority to commit to all of those things as if my very life depended on them. I believe my father is with me and he needs to see that. It was important to him that his only son didn’t squander or discredit his good name.

My father did not have it easy as a boy. His parents would have had to get two raises to just be poor. They lived on Railroad Ave, a small, dead-end dirt road that contained the most decrepit houses in town, oddly not in the worst part of town. My grandfather had a steady job but it didn’t seem to go far. He was knocked out of the workforce early due to Emphysema and that certainly made matters worse. I never saw the house my father grew up in, it was torn down before I could, but two houses down was the house my Aunt and Uncle raised my 6 cousins. I spent a good portion of my childhood in that house and it was a mess. Sadly, it wasn’t even warm with love. The Husband made sure of that.

Life on Railroad Ave was a tough existence. For everyone but my father, it didn’t change much financially. My Aunt never caught a break financially, saddled with an abusive and underachieving husband and not much money. Fortunately, he died young and she was able to marry a nice man. He was wonderful to her but didn’t add much to the finances. My father’s other sister had a mild disability that she nursed for everything it was worth and never worked a day in her life. Her only accomplishment was caring for my very ill Grandfather in their squalid apartment until he passed. My Father affectionately referred to her as “useless”. His brother died in prison. I never met him and I’m glad. From what I understand he was a tremendous bully and very cruel to my father. My father hated him, so badly that he refused to go to his funeral. My father was committed to getting off of Railroad Ave as fast as he could and he worked his ass off to do so. He worked many jobs and took any opportunity to move up. He joined the Army and gained the necessary skills to further himself.
Fast forward to my birth in 1965. While in the National Guard he was married, owned a house, and had a Union job.

My dad loved his family and my childhood is full of memories of time spent on Railroad Ave. He was fine to visit there, but he was proud to have moved out. I’m sure that the Ave, with its dirt road riddled with potholes and crumbling houses, was a bittersweet reminder that he had done a little better than those before him. One thing I can say with all the confidence in the world is that his days on the Ave would forever influence him in every way. Those influences are also a huge part of who I am today.


Like Father like Son

I know people that openly talk about how their childhood sucked. Did it, really? Maybe in hindsight, that’s possible for some but not for me. That wonderful era before I morphed into a sullen, zit-faced chronic masturbator was a wonderful time.
My mother loves to talk about what a happy, easy child I was. I love the whimsical look on her face when she does. I suppose I was.
Looking back, one thing I remember is that I was able to amuse myself, which of course made my mother’s life easier. Between what seemed like miles of Orange Hotwheels track set up in my room and the dirt track that I created under the big pine tree at the top of the yard I could occupy myself all day with my cars alone. It’s interesting, I know I had a lot of interests and favorite toys as a little guy, but the Matchbox cars really stand out. It was a manifestation of my overall love for cars in general. I shared that with my dad, it was our thing.

Some of the Matchbox cars in the late’60s and early ’70s were silly, with huge tires and engine blocks sticking through the hoods. They were likenesses of the Funny Car craze. I liked them enough but I had a real taste for the classics from an early age. I liked the ‘Vettes, the Mustangs, the El Camino’s. I recognized them from the road, where I sat in the backseat of the family Truckster and just looked at cars. By the time I was 8, I could identify most cars by brand and model simply in seconds, even at night by their headlights alone. But as a little guy, maybe 4, my understanding of the American Muscle car was nothing less than precocious.
Just as grown men put their ‘Vettes and Mustangs in their garages and wipe them down with a cloth diaper, I also put my nice ones away when playing outside. They were to be looked at and shown off to my friends. Most of my time was spent playing with trucks. Pickup trucks. Tow-trucks. Cement trucks. Car-haulers. These toys looked like the real ones, I always picked them that way. It wasn’t a lack of imagination, it was an homage to my favorite truck driver, my father.

Is it a surprise that I spent a large portion of my career in some form of the car business?

The parents

I was a happy kid. All kids are happy I suppose. Until the world sinks its teeth into our asses and fuck us all up. I was a product of the late 60’s and early 70’s when all of society was in turmoil. The highly unpopular Vietnam conflict raged both overseas and at home. The youth of America had stood up and defied convention, rejected the status quo and had asked hard and polarizing questions. We were divided as a nation and it wasn’t only on the Capitol Mall, it had metastasized into every community and neighborhood. Mine was no exception. We had neighborhood boys go off to fight, some at the urge of their fathers and some in defiance of. I watched the news, I didn’t get much of it but I saw more explosions and violence than in any of my Saturday morning cartoons. I can’t say that it affected me either way, but I knew it was there.

Vietnam was a formative event in my life and is essential to my story. In fact, my birth kept my father out of it. Don’t get me wrong, he had his shit packed and was ready to fight but my premature birth kept him home. As the story goes, my pregnant mom was living with her parents while Dad was stationed in Texas. My Grandmother was very careful about the evening news. The non-stop stream of violence was unsavory to her and she tried to protect my Mother from it. Despite my Grandmother’s effort to censure, my mother saw a newscast about our escalation in Vietnam and that our “Advisory” troops would soon double. It was said what bases would be sending troops. Fort Sam Houston was among them… Boom…Labor. I arrived.
My Dad never properly thanked me.
The cultural turmoil that occurred on the Living Room Idiot Box had permeated our lives also. Dad was a good “If you don’t like America then get the fuck out” American. Mom had peace signs on her Bell-Bottoms. Archie Bunker held tremendous sway with my Dad, Mom left the room when he was on, always muttering “idiot” under her breath. “Conversations” about the state of the country happened all around me. With them, when friends were over, even with family. I learned early on that people argue, shit can get loud, and how to block my ears.

When he wasn’t yelling, I worshipped my Dad. The dead mystique is a funny thing. Because he’s gone I tend to forget about the yelling. It wasn’t ok. I hated it. Mom hated it. But we forgave it because underneath it all he was a very good man. I was at his side like a loyal lapdog. He emitted strength and toughness. He was manly and I obviously had a penchant for that. I loved how hard he worked. Before I had ever heard the words “work ethic” I had dubbed him the king of it. It was so much more than how many hours he was out of the house; it was the times that he worked on our house, the times that he helped a neighbor or a friend with yard work or building something for someone. I learned at a young age that a man helps people, often as the right thing to do and not just for money.
Towards the end of his life my father, weakened and nearly destroyed by Parkinson’s, grasped my hand and asked me if it bothered me that he was out of the house so much. I told him the truth, I never had anything but respect for him for it. It saddens me that he had to ask me that. But I’m glad he did. It was just another moment that I found myself looking at him with unmitigated respect and admiration.

Especially when I learned about his childhood.

the proud dad

I could go on forever about how amazing my children are. I suppose all parents could. But I do not gush, rave or swoon or bloviate. Instead, I do what my father did. I compare my upbringing with theirs and gauge their “success” based on the metrics that applied to me.
Character? Check.
Integrity? Check.
Compassion, empathy, emotional intelligence? Check check check.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Yes, based on the listed criteria I care more about the quality of the person(s) that they have become over traditional metrics of College degrees, professional status, what rank they placed in their graduation class. I suppose those things are important but I’m a bit simpler on that front. In short, I evaluate people on the Asshole Scale. I am proud to say that I raised ZERO assholes. In that light, they accomplished everything I had hoped for them already.

Once it became clear to me that my marriage and family life was a fucked-up mess and not “normal” at all, it occurred to me that the example that I needed to set was to be reactionary to my worst fears as a parent. I feared, correctly, that I would not have the ability to send them to Ivy League schools. I knew that we were setting a terrible example of what a relationship is and should be. I knew that if I didn’t work at it my children would may hit the road at 18 and I would never see them except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. I never cheated, despite how bad and sexless my marriage was, because I wanted to have the respect of my children. The spectre of my ex telling my children that their father was a dishonest man terrified me and she was certainly capable of playing that card.

Well, jumping forward to the present, I couldn’t be more proud of the results. 4 smart, motivated and happy adults who are in monogamous and long-term relationships, solid careers and are just wonderful people all around.

I struggled an awful lot as a parent. My personal demons, lack of maturity at times, financial and marital issues haunted me and I always worried that these would negatively influence my children. Yet I now realize that I have wonderful relationships with them and, while part of me sort of wonders why, I have to just roll with it. Maybe it’s something I did, maybe it isn’t.

But it doesn’t change the outcome, my offspring are great people and I am beaming with pride and purpose because of them.

membership has its priveleges

When I was in college I had a good friend who graduated a year ahead of me. Mark was a commuter student like myself and we both worked at the local supermarket to pay for our meager existences. While I wasn’t the best with money, Mark was extremely frugal and extracted a good amount of living from a meager income. It wasn’t lost on him that we joked about his “frugality”. Behind the jeers, I admired his discipline.

Imagine my surprise when one night in 1990, Mark rolls up in a mint 1984 Corvette (yes, the first year of the new body style). We all got to talking and before any of us could extract from him what he paid for it, Mark offered that he paid too much at too high a rate of interest and he didn’t care. Because this was in such stark contrast to his frugal persona we were all very surprised and vocalized it. His answer?
“I’ve always wanted one and I told myself that when I graduated I was buying one, regardless of the cost.”

It’s funny the things you remember. Especially when you imitate it yourself 30 years later.

I have always wanted a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle. My love of motorcycles is well-documented. Any bike is a beautiful thing, wind therapy is the same no matter what you are on. But there’s something special about the American Icon Harley Davidson. The trademark rumble, the magnificent yet classic style and the memories of my Dad and his series of bigger and more beautiful models have always been at the forefront of my mind.
But I could never justify the cost.
2 years ago I celebrated my divorce by buying a motorcycle. The idea was Verboten in my marriage for financial and safety reasons ( my wife knew about the accident in ’87 that almost killed me) so once divorced I had to. It was a small Honda that served me well for a year as I got my skills back. I soon upgraded to a larger bike, a Yamaha 950. Before purchasing, I perused the row of Harley’s but they were too expensive. As I signed the Purchase and Sale it felt good but not great, I really wanted the Harley.
The Yamaha lasted a year. Last week, while in a funk over a girl and life in general I needed to do something for me. I needed something to love. To fixate on. To distract me from the factors in my life that were chapping my ass. I desperately wanted something to make me happy. Want became need and before I knew it I was at the dealer discussing trade in values.

I had gone there looking at a 2015 Heritage Softail but once I saw it in person I wasn’t impressed with the condition. I quickly moved down the line and BOOOM there it was, a 2014 Fat Boy Lo Softail with 4000 miles. This bike was immaculate.
I fell in love and drove off with it that day.

Despite my love of all that is Harley, I had never ridden one. All I can say is that there is a difference. Everything feels different, better. The feel of the road, the rumble of the pipes, the ogling of young children and jealous soccer dads, it’s all as advertised.

As a rider I joined an exclusive club. Bikers are a tight bunch. Hailing from all walks of life we all share our love of the open road and the comraderie it entails. We have each other’s back. Having a Harley is not a pre requisite for membership. All types and models are welcome. But again, there’s something about the Harley.

I’ve been riding almost non stop for a week. I have no plans to stop until the snow flies. Behind the bars of this bike is where I am meant to be. It was always my goal. I wanted it so bad it became a need. A manageable one, my payment only went up a bit. So worth it.

An added bonus, I feel as if my father is riding beside me with a proud smile from ear to ear. I have to rely on imagination because it is one thing I never got to do with him.

Old Wounds

I sat with head bowed, choking back tears in the front row of the funeral home. My children were to my left, my wife on my right. She clutched my hand. As if the day wasn’t surreal enough, it was the first time she had even touched me in years. We listened intently as the minister patiently read the obituary to my father. I’m not sure why I was so moved by the words as he spoke…I wrote it. To everyone else in the room, including them, the words were fresh. I’d like to think the eulogy was good, the amount of tears falling gave me a good indication. One word I purposely and aggressively peppered into my dedication to my beloved father was honest. It had double significance on that day. It served as a theme and also as a great big message to them. It was my intention while writing it that my overuse of the word “honest” made them squirm in their goddamn seats.

Later, as I stood graveside in the cold rain of the early December day, people approached me one by one and wished me well in their own way. All had an account of Dad and told me brief anecdotes of the times he had made an impression on them. The crowd thinned as everyone went back to their lives, many of the cousins held back. One by one they approached me and said something encouraging about Dad. I barely spoke to them. I stared straight ahead and nodded solemnly.

The only thought echoing through my brain was still waiting for that apology.
I was being harsh, I knew it. I didn’t hate them. I didn’t even dislike them. They were family. And it was a long time ago. I was simply feeling the full and mighty wrath of decades of resentment bubbling to the surface over an incredibly formative moment in my childhood.  

How do I just let go of something that almost ruined my childhood and scarred my father, the most honest man I ever met, for life?



the reminders are everywhere

Last night I came home exhausted. Sometimes dialysis leaves me a crampy, washed out mess. Yesterday was one of those days. My sofa was calling my name. But it was not to be. Mom needed help.

We have contractors coming Saturday morning to rip the roof off of our garage and they needed us to get all of the junk in the upstairs of the garage moved to the back. It’s a project I’ve been planning but I was putting it off until the fall because in August the attic of the garage is blistering hot. I wasn’t about to make mom do it alone so I sucked it up and headed up.

It was hot. Africa hot. After a few minutes I was dripping. Ten sweaty, swamp-ass minutes later I was down to two unmarked cardboard boxes. I went over to them, dragged them from the overhang and opened them. They contained Dad’s miniature truck collection.

Dad drove a truck for 35 years. Retail home oil delivery. Over the road Gasoline hauling. He could legally drive anything with wheels. He loved trucks. By extension I did also. By the time I was 12 I could name any truck by name, model and approximate year by the headlights alone (still can). It wasn’t enough that he spent 60-65 hours a week driving, he also had to have his den covered with replicas of 18 wheelers with Wal-Mart, Harley Davidson, etc. markings. Dump trucks, concrete mixers, you name it he had it. Until he passed and my mom put them in storage. I had forgotten about them.

Many years ago Dad gave me some model trucks as presents. I brought them to work with me but they never had a proper place so they sat in the corner of my office in their boxes. When he passed in 2013 I broke down and bought a large bookcase for my office. I dedicated 2 large shelves to mementos of him. The trucks, a collectible baseball that he bought for me, a portrait of him and a license plate from 1929 that I found in my Grandfather’s garage. It was on his first car.

When people came in my office they were naturally drawn to my homemade shrine. It afforded me the opportunity to talk about my dad. Of course, its primary purpose was to inspire me when I was down. He taught me to work hard. To act with integrity. To always do what I say and do it well. To be a man that takes pride in what he does.

They look like just trucks. But they represent so much more to me. Hard work, dedication and pride. He may have been only a truck driver but he was the only one in his family to pull himself out of abject poverty and make something out of himself. And he did it by learning a skill, dedicating his life to it and raising his family through his efforts.

I will spend the day Sunday finding a place to display them again. I miss him more than words can ever express, but there is never a moment when I see a truck, real or model, that I don’t think of him.

Lessons unlearned

I came home today to be greeted by the sounds of Circular Saws and Hammers. The Contractors are finally finishing work on our Farmer’s Porch that they started in October. On the way into the house I paused to watch in fascination as they measured, cut and nailed with such precision and skill. And, as often happens, I triggered myself. Again.

I can’t hear a saw, a hammer or a drill without thinking about how much I didn’t learn from my father despite the many offers and opportunities. My dad was beyond handy, he could do almost anything with his hands. My earliest memories were of my dad rebuilding our house as we lived in it. He would work from 5 AM to 6 PM or later, slam down a quick dinner and then go to work until at least 10. The saw and hammer were sounds I knew at a very early age.

As I got older Dad tried to enlist my assistance, not because he necessarily needed help but instead to teach me. I was eager to help him but not very interested in learning anything new. This was odd for me because I was an eager student in every other aspect of life. I would pull nails from a pile he created, I could swing a hammer fairly well but offers of learning to measure, use woodworking tools and such were dropped due to lack of interest. Even offers of car maintenance were met with tepid enthusiasm despite our shared love of everything to do with cars.

One incident really stands out in my mind. One evening when I was in my late teens Dad offered to show me how to change the oil on my car. He had it already in the garage, the drive up lifts set up and all. The house phone rang (cell phones weren’t invented yet) and it was my girlfriend (she was goddamn gorgeous if that is relevant at all here) and she was imploring me to come over her house. I told her I was doing something with my Dad that was important and she insisted that it was very important. I had to make a decision and I can honestly say that I made the wrong one. I blew off my Dad.

The look of disappointment on his face was tangible. In my feeble defense, I really thought my girlfriend needed me. That almost helped me pull out of the garage feeling good about myself. Almost.

I arrived at my girlfriend’s house 20 minutes later and knocked on her door. She yelled for me to come up. I went upstairs, asking as I climbed the steps if she was ok, still very curious as to what the emergency was. As I entered her room and saw her lying there buck naked with a rose between her teeth I knew that I had been suckered. It was merely a sexual emergency. I somehow managed to get through it but soon after I began to feel bad.

I apologized profusely to my Dad the next day. He was curt and brief with me. He wasn’t mad, he was disappointed and that was always so much worse. He told me that he had offered to show me something for the last time. It was a pivotal moment in my relationship with my father and one of many regrets that I have from my childhood with regards to my dad. If I could talk to him for only five minutes it would be a priority in the conversation. He was such a hard-working and self-taught man. I admired him so. I take some comfort in many other things that I did learn from him that have made me the person I am but there is still a lot of regret.

Sorry Dad, how’s it go…If I knew now what I didn’t know then?

Right place, right time

I can’t help but notice that lately, I have found myself in exactly the right place at the right time.

Last weekend, at Wal-Mart, I was walking in the right place when a young boy broke free from his mother’s clutch in the parking lot.  I took two steps and grabbed him by the arm before he made it into the path of traffic. The mother gave me a breathless Thank you and I tipped my beloved Red Sox Scalli Cap at her and went on my way.

Yesterday I was at the Supermarket and I noticed a sweet old lady staring helplessly at an item on the top shelf. I knew she wanted it, I knew she wouldn’t ask for help and I also knew no one was going to even if she did. I approached her, asked if she would like some help and retrieved the item for her. She was so grateful, it’s sad that the world has come to this. Then, one aisle over, a very short mother with two toddlers caused an accidental avalanche of cereal boxes by reaching and I caught several boxes before they hit her on the head.

None of these things were too out of the ordinary, but they were bunched pretty tightly together. As I tend to do, I was reminded of a memory, a time when being in the right place at the right time became a day that I will never forget. One that also, for the first time, convinced me that my Dad may have been right when he told me that everything happens for a reason.

After my Kidney Transplant in 2011, I chose to join the Fraternity of Freemasonry. It was something that I had always thought about as a younger man. It started as far back as my Great Uncle Cyrus’s funeral. He was a wonderful man that just lived too far away so I barely knew him as a child. We exchanged letters and my Grandmother said that he was quite fond of me despite our few meetings.

In 1981 Cyrus passed away. My Mom, Dad, Grandparents and I made the trek to clean out his stately house on the coast of Cape Cod. It took the whole weekend to dig through his belongings and it would conclude with the reading of his last will and testament. I don’t remember everything about it but I do remember when the attorney announced that I was to receive his late wife’s car, a 65 Ford Falcon ( a real gem that I had for years). The other standout from that day was my the dismayed look on my Grandmother’s face as a seemingly endless list of $5000.00 donations to various institutions and charities was read. It was money that she thought she would get as the Executrix of his will. I would later find out that those donations were made in the name of Freemasonry, the oldest and most honorable fraternity in the world. I was intrigued, to say the least.

In 2012 I was consumed with the desire to “pay it forward” after a wonderful person stepped out of the shadows and gave me a life-saving organ transplant. I decided that it was the perfect time to look into Freemasonry, to honor my Great Uncle and better myself. You may have heard that Freemasonry, or Masonry, is highly secretive. To a degree that is true. We have some. But it is no secret that men join to become better men; better husbands, fathers, brothers, friends etc.,. they are known to do this through those things which are larger than oneself. Charity chief among them.

I applied, petitioned for membership and in February, a date that I hoped my father would live to see (he died the previous December), I became a Master Mason. It was the beginning of my journey to being a better person and I had a fire in my belly.

That very February I learned about a Masonic program called the “HELP” program. It is created by, managed and operated exclusively by Masons, all of which are unpaid volunteers. It is an incredible program, we collect donated medical equipment and supplies from families who have either lost a relative or recuperated from a serious illness. It is a program spread by word-of-mouth only and is free to the public for as long as they need it. I knew that I had to check it out so I signed up to volunteer the following Saturday morning.

The local chapter of the Help program was in the parking lot of a local Masonic lodge where they worked out of locked storage containers. We were fortunate to have an unseasonably warm day for February. It wasn’t hard to imagine how unpleasant it must have been on cold, wintry days. Being my first day, I knew nothing about what to do other than signing in. So I took the opportunity to survey the equipment they had to offer. I was actually amazed at the number of motorized beds, mattresses. walkers, commodes, adult diapers and therapeutic equipment available to the public. I was also quite impressed with the amount of fellow Masons, or Brothers as we call each other, toiling away repairing and cleaning equipment and preparing for the rush. As the Newbie, I just sat back and watched.

It wasn’t long before “the rush” began. Cars filled the parking lot and people were milling about looking at the equipment. I was standing awkwardly at the back when a woman walked up to me and abruptly asked me if I “worked here”. I quickly replied that I was a volunteer but I would be glad to help her. To be honest, at first impression I didn’t like her. She was abrupt, seemed impatient and she violated my cardinal rule, she didn’t say hello to me. Fortunately, I quickly reminded myself where I was and why people came here. They had a very ill person to care for. I gave her my full attention.

She truly had no idea what she needed and after aimlessly dragging me around she admitted it. I inquired of her who was sick and the condition. To my amazement, she answered that it was her father, 74, who was in the advanced phase of Parkinson’s disease. I was floored. Just 2 months before I had lost my father, at 74, to Parkinson’s. I became emotional but I adhered to the task at hand. I began to show her all of the equipment that we had available that would make caring for her father easier. I got her a walker, a commode. a lift that helps get a person out of bed and many more items. We spent over an hour picking the items out and talking about our dads.

After we “checked out” all of the equipment I walked to her van to help her load everything into her car. As I was lifting one of the heavier items she asked me why I (we) do this. I explained to her that Masons are a charitable group and we, by definition help people. She asked me if I was here every Saturday. I explained that it was entirely up to me how often I volunteered. She looked me in the eye and asked me,

“What are the odds that you and I would pick this Saturday and that I would end up asking you, perhaps the best person ever to help me out, for help?”

“I think this is a moment that was meant to happen. I sincerely hope that it will be of assistance to your father.”

She smiled, reached in and hugged me (catching me completely by surprise) and walked around her car to get in. As she ducked out of sight into her seat she smiled again. It was a sad smile, almost forced through a face heavy with sadness, but it was one I will never forget.

There were many lessons learned that day but the predominant theme was that it was an incredible case of “right place, right time.”

And it is a tough act to follow.