Grandpa's Blindness

I was lucky enough to know my Grandpa Fitzpatrick. I say lucky enough for a couple of reasons. For one thing, there was a large gap between when he was born and when I was born, relatively speaking when compared with the average; he was born in 1876, and I was born in 1959, making him 83. However, fate was kind, and I was able to know my Grandpa for 6 years before he passed away.

Another reason I was lucky to know him, was because he was a very special man. Of course, I never knew him when he was younger and in better health, but the kind of man he always was, I was told, was manifest in my experience with him - kindness, intelligence, wit, a great sense of humour, and a very loving human being. A great reader, appreciator of music, hard-working, loyal. My few surviving memories of the time spent with him, are very precious to me.

One aspect of my experience that was unique was that he was blind for much of the time I knew him, so in reality that is the only way I remember him. I don't recall that being an especially limiting handicap for him, as he taught himself well how to get around his own house and yard, and appeared to enjoy life as much as ever.

He became blind through a unfortunate accident. Grandpa and Grandma Fitzpatrick (my mother's parents) were visiting Grandpa and Grandma Short's (my father's parents) home. He asked where the lavatory was, was directed to a door down a hallway, and - unfortunately - mistook the wrong door for the bathroom. He assumed that the door he opened, although dark, was simply the bathroom without the light on. It was actually the basement door, and as he stepped forward, he fell, hitting his head upon landing. In the end, that accident caused permanent blindness.

I remember admiring the cane he used, and being quite amused by his joy in the simple pleasures of life - good food, good conversation, being outdoors and feeling a breeze on his face...and even a good backrub against an old oak tree in the front yard. His example as a man, a person, and as a partner that showed much affection towards my sometimes cantankerous (but loving) Grandma, made a lasting impression on me that I have never forgotten...

KCND

KCND was the name of a television station in Pembina, North Dakota, which first signed on in 1959. KCND was purchased by Winnipeg, Manitoba businessman Izzy Asper in 1974 and relocated to Winnipeg; the station signed off as KCND for the final time on September 1, 1975 and signed back on as CKND later that day.

OK, that's the very short, official history of KCND. But MY history of the station runs a bit more like this...

- Chiller Thrillers! Mom and me, Saturday night, stay up to midnight, scared silly and loving it, chomping away at homemade buttered popcorn; we couldn't get enough of Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, or the old Hammer films with Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing, all thanks to scratchy old films KCND ran.

- Saturday & Sunday afternoon movies! All the classics from Errol Flynn's Robin Hood to Abbott & Costello Meets Frankenstein (I have never laughed harder before or since...); we didn't need cable or Turner Classic Movies - we had KCND programmers who got ahold of bad copies of great films and we the audience were all the beneficiaries.

- Christmas Concerts! All area schools would be invited to come and present mini-concerts on "Live TV", as a community service to the viewers at Christmas time.

- I met my first best friend! Thanks to KCND, I met a great friend when her Dad moved their family from Indiana to take an announcer job in Pembina where we met at a church youth group.

KCND Trivia: A modern pop band named Typewriter - once known as The Lucy Show - one of whose members lived in our area and grew up listening to KCND, eventually wrote a song directly relating to KCND, an homeage to their beloved Saturday night horror film series. It is aptly named, Channel 12 Chiller Thriller (KCND 10:30)!

The Piano

I grew up with a piano - it was always a part of my life.  Before I was even born, my family had the piano. It was first owned by my grandfather's brother, my great uncle Dick. Eventually it found its way to my parents' home, where my sisters learned how to play on it. Then one day I wandered up to the tall bench, looking up to the even taller upright, its oak wood golden, and its brass foot peddles heavy and mysterious. I crawled up and pressed the white and black keys, and was delighted by the sounds they made. My older sister showed me how to play a song with her, a silly song, but fun, and I laughed with her. She told me it was called 'Chopsticks'. I had learned my first song...

When I was in second grade, my mother found a piano teacher in Emerson, Mrs. Forrest. She was very strict, teaching from the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) style. She stressed proper body posture - how I sat, how I held my arms, wrists, and hands - and never ever let me forget to keep those hands up. An arched hand was a happy hand; a lazy hand got a ruler. "Never look at the keys," she would drill into me. I found out that for every song you played well, not only were hours practiced on that composition, but many more hours were spent dedicating yourself to the mechanics that underlay each piece of music: The Notes! Hours were spent learning each key white and black, each octave, how keys connect; scales, arpeggios, the Latin terminology, reading music, learning the history of the great composers.

While I initially lived a little in fear of Mrs. Forrest, I learned to respect her, and eventually realized she gave me an incredible grounding in the basics that I benefited from throughout the rest of my training.

Back to the piano.

The piano was a Bush & Gerts*, one of their tall uprights. I didn't notice that right away. To me, it was just a piano. But as I learned how to play, I began taking a pride in the piano I was playing on. For instance, the piano case was made out of the most beautifully-grained oak. The white keys themselves had a swirling translucence that I learned was for a very good reason - they were made from real ivory, something that is illegal nowadays (for good reason...) It became one of my chores to dust and polish the piano, and I always made sure it was done impeccably.

I took a peek under the top door one day...it was like another world. I pressed keys and watched the action - the hammers, the dampers, the frame itself with all the strings. It was also then that I noticed a fascinating label, in gold, that talked about the famous Exhibition in Chicago many years ago, and how this piano was made by a company that won awards there.

It was then, when looking even deeper inside, that I discovered handwriting near the top of the soundboard, above the strings. It was like a time capsule, dates and names of tuners over the years all the way back to shortly after my uncle bought it, all written in pencil.


* - Bush & Gerts pianos were manufactured in one of the largest and most thoroughly equipped factories in the world. The company controlling Bush & Gerts was one of the strongest in the piano industry and the aim was to sustain the distinction which the instruments have gained in the long and persistent reaching out for perfection in tone production. In the ware rooms of the foremost piano merchants of the world Bush & Gerts pianos were presented as instruments worthy of the highest and most discriminating trade. The Bush & Gerts factory was located at Rockford, Ill.

Grandma was not amused...

The Volstead Act of 1919, named for its author, Minnesota senator Andrew Volstead, made provisions for Prohibition's enforcement, but it contained loopholes that invited abuses.

Somehow, I don't think that writer meant my grandfather, but in his own little way, Grandpa Fitzpatrick was flouting the law of the time when he was making beer during this time period, using honey from his bees in the process. They lived in the north part of town, a bit off the beaten track and somewhat private. Maybe Grandpa thought it would be OK if he kept it low-key.

Grandma wasn't thrilled about the idea, since it was illegal at the time, but she put up with it...He was even known to sell a bottle now and then to someone. Grandma herself, after a hard day's work, would drink a bottle against the heat. However, one day Grandpa crossed the line...On that day, my mother, who was around 9 years old, was uptown with my grandma visiting friends. Upon their return a few hours later, they came upon this scene...

Walking up the road to the house, we came upon an unbelievable scene: Men, women, sitting around, having a good time...drinking Grandpa's beer! It was a regular outdoor honkytonk. *

Well, if you only knew my Grandma, you could imagine what happened next: She was not amused. People knew my Grandma well enough that just her arrival meant they had better clear off. As they did, she proceeded to grab the remaining bottles of beer within her reach and smash them against the side of the shed.

* - Harriet Short (my mother)

Sunsets

My recollections about sunsets in my hometown are many and varied, as are the sunrises, the northern lights, or the sky itself, whether it be going on forever on a fine summer day bright blue with white popcorn clouds, or pitch black night with stars shining so bright and many that you couldn't believe there could be that many suns who were the people who lived around those suns my Mom and I speculated as she pointed out the constellations sunsets were long and varied, some orange and pink some red orange and purple others casting a magical glow that turned the landscape and everything in it a golden color as if someone had put a filter over the sun itself in winter the cold would make rainbow sundogs in so bright it hurt days and rainbow northern lights danced across black skys so deep the sunsets lasted long, past 10:00pm, and you went to bed with the sun still peeking over the horizon saying goodbye for today see you tomorrow some nights could would join the sun and the colors would play behind them like giant shadow puppets in the sky sometimes they were so beautiful my mother would stop gardening or my father would stop mowing or I would stop playing and we would say to each other look how beautiful the sunset it and we would look in awe it never got old

Radio

My grandparents had this box I thought was so beautiful, the grain of the wood on the back where it wasn't painted. I wondered what it was - there were telltale grooves in the inside, and holes in the back; for years, all I knew was that it had been a radio once, that it had been painted over multiple times.

When first married, I talked my parents into letting me have it, and I stripped it down to the bare wood - boy, that took a lot of elbow grease! The effort was definitely worth it, though - I revealed a beautifully-grained wood underneath! I oiled and varnished it, and used it for years to store doilies and afghans in. Recently I came across a website with images of old radios and saw it. I recognized the shape immediately. It had been a Freshman Masterpiece radio. A bit more research and I found it was probably a 1926 model...

Grace

I grew up across the field from the town cemetery. My grandfather was the caretaker, and later my father. It was a part-time, voluntary town position which they gladly undertook. I think both of them enjoyed the solitude of the cemetery and felt it was a duty worth doing.

My Mom would walk with me up and down the aisles between plots, teaching me to respect the graves and not walk on them, not to mention they could sink in from settling. We'd talk about who some of the people were, some were relatives, some she had known. Some she didn't know. Both she and Dad would show me subtle depressions in the grass in the lower portion of the cemetery that indicated those that were pauper graves, unmarked and forgotten by most. My grandfather had shown them where they were, and I in turn now knew. I often wonder if anyone back home knows anymore.

I've been doing some research on poor farms or poor houses in Minnesota, and it brought to mind those graves. Listening to this documentary touched me greatly, and made me think how there are always those among us, as Jesus said, that need a helping hand. There but for the grace of God go I...