Eating Words: How Little We Know

I like to complain. A lot. But I often think of my father when I get on a roll. That's usually when the complaining stops, because I start thinking of his early life and it seems to put mine in perspective.

Dad was born in 1925. He was the oldest of five children. His mom, Kathryn and father, Clarence lived in a very rural area outside of Kane, Pennsylvania. Clarence labored in the oil fields while Kathryn cranked out one child after another in rapid succession. Kathryn’s mother, Lucy, lived in Kane and was upset that my father could not attend school in such a rural setting...there were no schools for forty miles. On Lucy's insistance, Kathryn let my father go to stay with her and dad began attending school at Saint Callistus in Kane. My father seems to recall spending weekends with his mother, while his father worked overtime in the fields. He seldom saw Clarence. He remembers that Kathryn would have gentlemen callers from time to time. Of course, I am not sure what these gentlemen did with Kathryn--if anything.

Dad had only one interest and fascination as a child--airplanes, or aeroplanes as they were called in the day. He spent most of his waking hours watching the skies for these rare mechanical birds. He jokingly tells me that, "...I always had my head in the clouds." He was determined, even as a small child, to one day sit behind the controls of that winged machine.

One Autumn day in 1933, my dad was called to go back to the small rural home where he was coldly informed that his father, Clarence, was ill. Within a very short time, Clarence would be dead--a victim of infantile paralysis, otherwise known as Polio. His brief memories of his father in an iron lung were the last living memories of Clarence Boylan for my father. Dad was eight years old.

The next memory my father had of Clarence was his cold, lifeless body...laid out in his family's parlor. Dad was forced to kneel over the coffin, where the small child was told to lead the family in a Rosary. For those of you who aren't Catholic, praying a Rosary is a lengthy process. My father performed the prayers robotically as he cried tears that he didn't fully comprehend and time seemed to stand still. When it was over, he was whisked to Lucy's, where he would be raised away from his mother and siblings for the next several years.

This is how life started for a little guy who always had his head in the clouds, and I cry as I retell the story.