Circus Train

The greatest show on earth...

One of my early memories is one night my father working a late shift at the depot, and calling Mom to hurry and come over there. Very unusual for him to do. Mom didn't tell me why, wanting to surprise me.

When we got there, he took us out back, onto the platform by the tracks. It was pitch black, but a clear night with stars twinkling overhead as I looked up. As my eyes adjusted, I looked straight ahead and noticed a stopped train. I could hear the engine down the line idling, and once and awhile I could hear a car shift and bang against the next one. I soon could make out smells like a farm, and colorful pictures on the sides of the cars.

"It's the circus train," my Dad said, a smile in his voice.

"Really?" I exclaimed, all wide-eyed.

"Yep...it's the Barnum and Bailey, Ringling Brothers, too - the Greatest Show on Earth - see it on the train?"

There it was, in large bold letters, along with pictures of elephants and clowns and horses.

"Can we go closer, Dad?" I asked.

"Sorry, but it's just made a quick stop before going into Canada. You can't board, and it's too dangerous to go closer."

I was disappointed, but that passed quickly. Just to get a chance to see the train was magical. I knew it even then...

I grew up in 'the church'.

Someone from the area I grew up recently asked me,

"...One of the things I have been dying to ask you is how you were able to transcend the narrow world view of the Evangelical Free Church. My sisters are members and it seems to be a narrow, constricted and very boring way to live. I cannot imagine myself going to a Bible College or even spending one hour with this group. I really resent the way that the Republicans use the evangelicals. I cannot imagine how JC would be giving tax breaks to the wealthy, plundering the environment, or really any of the policies. How have you been able to find the balance and have an interest in books, art, etc. other than the Holy Book? My sister [censored] in particular sees everything through that lens, but [censored] at least does not press it on me. I would like to understand more about how one can be an evangelical and see other dimensions of life."

I answered him after some thought...

"I admit I'm not your average joe in the EFC church, but I know there are others like me in the church. I am not 'in' the church anymore, but still consider myself a Christian of sorts. Mostly out of habit, I admit. I mostly tell people that nobody knows anything and to say otherwise is pure arrogance. I think atheists are just as bad as fundamentalist anything else. 'Believers' can be very narrow-minded no matter what their agenda. One thing I liked about some of the stuff I grew up with was that there was truth in some of it that made sense to me then and now - 'all have sinned' - ain't it the truth!"

As we grow older, even as we face our parents' mortalities, we face our own.

I was reading about the home funerals movement tonight, and it made me think about how ever since my Dad passed away, and I was involved in helping with his 'arrangements' for the funeral, it has made me rethink everything I ever assumed about the end of life and how it is handled. I've spent a good deal of time researching what the laws are on how bodies can be handled, what are the legal methods of disposal of a body, and what rights I have as an individual to have a say in how my body is disposed of when I die.

I've taken steps to have my body used, then disposed of, in what I feel is the best way possible. I want to share anything useful of my former 'house' before it rots and is no more, by donating anything that can be reused for others whether that is an organ or tissue or whatever. I want to spare unnecessary and wasteful expense by having my body either donated for a medical student to dissect, or if nothing else, cremated. After reading the article on home funerals, I can imagine how nice it would be if people had a chance to really meet and say goodbye to me, to have a chance to heal, to be 'up close and personal' with my old body, macabre as you might think that sounds.

Personally, I find it comforting to have the chance to be near someone I love after they leave their body. I watched as my own father died, the life going out of his body even before the last breath was drawn, and I could easily see he was long gone, to where, no one knows, because once you are 'there', you don't come back to tell anyone. Anyone that says otherwise is just guessing, don't let them fool you. Some hope for the best, prepare for the worst, while others ignore it. Whatever you believe, it's just that - a belief, and not a fact. Time will definitely tell...

My Grandpa Fitzpatrick curled. I never had a chance to see him on the ice - at least I don't remember him on the ice - but I do remember at least once being taken to the St. Vincent curling rink on a very cold winter day, and sitting on some low bleachers, with glass separating me from the lanes of curlers. I was very small, and thought it would be heated, but it wasn't. I was so busy trying to keep my little hands warm in my mittens (knitted by my Grandma Fitzpatrick), that I didn't watch much of the action. At least that's the way I remember it.

The rink was only a block away from my grandparents' home, down the same road that if you took if a few block more, led to my own home. My home used to be their home; they built it, in 1906. Later, they sold it to my parents, and moved 'uptown' to a house on the main street of St. Vincent, Minnesota, our little village. The town pump was right outside the curling hall, and there were times, when I was small, that Grandma had me fetch a pail or two of water from the pump. Sometimes, it would take many pumps to get the water going. Other times, it was stubborn; that was when Grandma taught me about 'primeing the pump'. Like magic, water would come forth again...

Later, after Grandpa died, I would spend more time with her. Grandpa's old bed in the porch, that he took naps on, was now passed by on my way into the main house to hang out with her while she baked, or outside while she hung clothes, or gardened. Grandma loved to putter around her yard, especially her sheds, and create useful things out of leftover lumber and other parts.

A memory I'll never forget is how she included me a wee bit in creating a homemade wooden wheelbarrow, and then made a larger one for herself to use around the yard to haul trash, tree cuttings, weeds, etc. to be burned or whatever. She used old tricycle and baby buggy wheels for the wheelbarrow wheels, making her own frame, handles, wheel assemblies/axels all by hand, out of wood scraps. You could tell she was a daughter of an Irish carpenter. I still have his carpenter's saw box, and use it to hold books I'm reading. It's dark with age, but still strong. His old saw is with me now, part of what I inherited from my parents after they broke up housekeeping in 2001. The wood on the handle has a soft glowing patina from many years of use. Great Grandpa Fitzgerald married a Prince Edward Island wealthy farmer's daughter, took her half-way across a continent to America, where they did whatever they had to, to make a living. All I know of him besides his carpentry is that he died drunk, run over by a train, ground to pieces and decapitated, 5 years after his wife died shortly after giving birth to their 14th child. R.I.P....

Just a short comment in defense of gramatical diversity...I for one would rue the day that everyone wrote alike. While there are 'rules' we are taught in school about our languages, our languages are also living, evolving, and vital things that are not static. I welcome all types of communicators, and relish many considered 'wrong' or 'bad'. Not all, but many.

I was born in 1959. I read this about my year of birth...

Things can change a lot in 45 years. Here are a few things that Americans were saying in 1959:

I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it is going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $20.

Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long when $5000 will only buy a used one.

If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous.

Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?

If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.

When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 30 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage.

Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls.

Also, their music drives me wild. This 'Rock Around The Clock' thing is nothing but racket.

Pretty soon you won't be able to buy a good 10-cent cigar.

I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they called astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.

Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President.

Do you suppose television will ever reach our part of the country?

I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now.

It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women have to work to make ends meet.

It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.

I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.

Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to Congress.

The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.

There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel.

No one can afford to be sick any more, $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood.

If a few idiots want to risk their necks flying across the country that's fine, but nothing will ever replace trains.

I don't know about you, but if they raise the price of coffee to 15 cents, I'll just have to drink mine at home.

If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it. I'll have my wife learn to cut hair.

We won't be going out much any more. Our baby sitter informed us she wants 50 cents an hour. Kids think money grows on trees.

Dad

My Dad was in World War II. He passed away in August 2001, and before and after, I pondered that defining time in his life. I pondered it after 9/11, when people suddenly became super patriots, flags everywhere, spouting off about subjects they knew next to nothing about, emotions overtaking what sense they may or may not have had in the first place.

I read an excerpt from a book that sounds like it asks some good questions, and has some interesting things to say, called Homeland. In it, it questions why people react the way they do to defining events.

I love and appreciate America, but I also feel many actions we do can and has been wrong. We that live here should always question what's going on. If that makes me a troublemaker, then so be it.

My Dad loved America too, laying his life on the line many times during WWII. He came back quietly as most men did, no parades, no fanfare. He didn't fly a flag either, but neither did he get angry over it. He just went on with life. But one thing he always taught me not by empty words but by his example, is that you do what you can, you work hard, and you DO ask questions.