Letter From Dad II

Getting ready to move and sorting for a garage sale has its benefits...as I have found yet another letter from my father. Granted, these letters were rare but they are so meaningful to me now. I'm sure they are more meaningful than they ever have been.

April 22, 1987

Dear Tom:

When I was a little boy I dreamed of being many things and as I grew a little older my focus centered on airplanes. Someday I told myself as I watched every airplane that ever flew over our house, that someday I will be up there looking down on this majestic planet. How, when or where was only a dream and far from reality for at that time it was an occupation of a small minority. I was the oldest of five children and as you know my father died when I was eight years old. My mother raised us and was able to keep us together but times were tough and we were living on a widows pension. It was a far cry from what welfare receives today. A great treat in those days was ten cents from my grandmother to go to a Saturday matinee movie, usually a cowboy and indian thriller with a number of short subjects such as a Flash Gordon Serial. That made you come back next week to see how they got out of an impossible situation. I grew up just as you did with eight years in a Catholic grade school and under the circumstances I was able to finish High School. In order to do this I had to work in a garage everyday after school and later on every Saturday and Sunday. The other kids were able to go out for sports but couldnot take time off after school for practice. I was an alterboy and hated it many times when I had to get up and serve mass at six every morning in a church that never seemed to be heated. Yet, as I look back it was a good part of growing up. We lived over a mile from the High School and I had to walk to school every day and come home for lunch at noon and return. When I was a sophmore, I was able to save enough money to buy the bike of my dreams. It had a gear shift and cost $21.00. That was a lot of money but I took good care of it because it was mine.

I guess I was a normal boy. High School subjects were not my best shot so I was an average grade student. Flunked some subjects got hell. Made some of them up. Took the eaziest ones. Discovered girls. Even took dancing lessons but still stood in the stag lines with all the other matcho types. Working in the garage I was able to get my drivers license when I was sixteen and once in awhile had access to a car. Never had much money but made do with what you had. In my Junior year I did get interested in a few of the tougher subjects such as chemistry and algebra and got by with the skin of my teeth.

Then something happened that was to turn my life around. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was working at the Service Station and we had a car in the show window. I turned the car radio on and was listening to some music when the program was interrupted to announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor and we were at war. It was December 7, 1941.

Later on in the school year, they announced that the next year they would introduce a pre-flight program to those who could qualify and were interested in going into the Air Corp. This was my chance. My chance to begin to make a dream come true. I applied and was called to the superintendents office and told that because I had not taken the proper courses such as Plain Geometry that I would not be eligible. I ask if it would be possible to take a half a year of Plain and then step into Trigonometry. They must have felt that my desire to try was enough to make me qualify. So my senior year was cut out for me. It ment taking Physics and other subjects that in order to graduate I would have to pass them all. I never studied so hard in all my life but the dream could become a reality. Needless to say I did not graduate with honors but I did graduate. How I regretted I had not spent more of my time grasping for knowledge that was at my beg and call for three years previous.

My eighteenth birthday was March 26, 1943. I signed up for the draft. On April 15th, I received my greetings from the President of the United States requesting my presence for induction into the Armed Forces. At that time if you were eighteen after January 1st, you could ask for a differment to finish High School. This I did. I graduated on May 30th and on June 15th I received my second greetings but in the mean time, I had applied for Air Cadets. This required a written exam that was pretty tough but my decision to take the Pre-Flight course payed off. I passed and took my physical and left for the Air Corp on June 21st.

Air Cadets was the West Point of the Air Corp. It was a grueling year and a half but the dream was being fulfilled an in December of 1944 I received my wings and a commission as an officer at the ripe old age of nineteen. I ate flying, slept flying for two and onehalf years. During this time I was sending all my money home because I felt it was my duty to do the best I could to help out. This ment that I couldn't do what the other guys were able to do so my social life was not very exciting. The main thing was I was happy doing what I had always dreamed of doing.

The war came and went during this period and I was fortunate that I didn't have to see any combat. In December of 1945 I was transferred to Westover Field in Mass...Here we were given a choice of remaining in the Air Corp or going home. Being a hot shot pilot of twenty and really not knowing what civilian life was like and it being December and a Christmas at home, my choice was discharge. This is were the dream ends and a whole other chapter begins. Had I stayed, I would still be in the flying game or maybe dead. Then maybe I would not be setting here writting you this letter for you may not have been. Who knows what fate has in store for use when we are young. They say if our fore sight was as good as our hind sight we would all be better off. I have no regrets at what has taken place over the years. I met your mother we fell in love and have a loving caring family that I am very proud of. Who could ask for anything more.

This letter is not ment to make me out any kind of martyr or show myself off as egotistical person. You ask for some advise and I guess what I felt I could do is to let you know what some of the things that happened to me may help you in making what you will out of your life. I think what I am trying to point out is that you kids had it much better than what your mother and I had when we were your age. You are molding your own philosophy on life and as you grow older your ideas may change but if you have a dream go after it. The going may be tough and the time and effort may seem unsurmountable and the chance of failure is always there but as the song says, "Dream The Impossible Dream" and if you reach it everything you have done will be worth it.

Love,
Dad

I wanted to copy this word for word, so I didn't make any corrections to the grammar. But really, did it even need any? So much for my crying today. Time to move on.

Letter From Dad

The other day, I was going through a box of old letters and cards and came across this letter from my father. He was able to write profound words when he wanted to. It's postmark is March 28, 1986, and first class postage was a 22 cent stamp! However, the letter inside the envelope was dated March 27, 1986. This is why I love my father so very much:

March 27, 1986

Dear Tom:

I am setting here staring at the screen of this computer and wondering what words to put up on the screen that will make a sensible letter. You know a computer is quite a machine. It will do wonderful things but in order for it to work a human mind must make it do what it is told to do. This world would be a hell of a place if the human mind was to work like a computer and told what and when to do something. So God designed us so that each and everyone is different. This, I guess, is what makes the world go round. It causes war and peace, love and hate, ugly and beautiful from one extreme to the other but as humans we have to live with one side and the other and anything in between. Sometimes it is very hard for a person to accept this but life must go on and whether we like it or not the world will not stop to let us off. Until the time comes when we have cried our last tear and drew our last breath, then and only then will the worries of this life be over.

Yesterday I was sixty-one years old. I sit here and ask myself what have I learned in three score and one and would I have changed anything if it were possible to live it over. Yes, there are a lot of things that I would change but most are material things. I believe that the thing that stands out most in my mind is to understand love. Some people can express and transmit love and some can not. It is not that it is not there but the means of expressing it is lacking. As you get older these things seem to come into focus more and I guess you begin to see the end of your life and hope that it was all not in vain.

Well Tom, you have just read some of my thoughts on life in general. I hope some of it makes sense.

This brings me to the reason for writing this letter. You mentioned...

[the rest of this is too personal for me to share, but I will save this letter and it maybe someone will want to read it after I'm gone.]

As you can see, I have left all grammatical errors intact, and the content has been unedited. This was pretty powerful stuff. I realize my dad can't write a letter like this now, but I was so amazingly lucky that he was able to--and did--at one time.

Return

I have spent three weeks in Pennsylvania with my ailing father (Parkinson's Disease and dementia) and caregiver mother. I didn't have a chance to write this time--not even in my journal. The situation is very grim. I'm going to put my thoughts together and crank something out over the next few days. My hope is that it will be worthwhile reading for any who take the time to do so...

Why Am I Here?

I've been thinking a lot about death recently. I don't think it's something that just popped into my mind. It's been there, on and off, for several years now. Perhaps it's just amped up a few notches lately as I see my parents getting older and have witnessed many of their friends dying recently.

Whatever the reason, I'm finding it necessary to reevaluate my long-held beliefs about why I'm here. For years, there was a smug assurance that I had answers--if not all of them, many. It's a great comfort to feel that pressing questions about existence have been answered. It takes some of the pressure off our daily routine--especially when that routine becomes depressing or is accompanied by dreaded thoughts of futility.

I was reading a copy of a lecture by Jean-Paul Sartre the other day. It was delivered to an audience in Paris on October 29, 1949. Sartre had already gained international notoriety as a playwright, novelist and philosopher and he'd become quite influential throughout the Western world.

In the lecture, he laid out a list that he'd developed about the principles of atheistic existentialism:

1. We are totally free. That is, we are not determined by heredity or environment.
2. Since there is no God to define our being, we must define our essence.
3. We are completely responsible for our actions, and we are responsible for prescribing a moral philosophy for everyone else too. We create our morality.
4. Because of the death of God and the human predicament, which leaves us totally free to create our values, we must exist in anguish, forlornness, and despair.
5. Yet we should celebrate the fact that we are creators of our essence and our values.

There are things about these principles that are surprisingly comforting to me. But there are numerous principles that are disturbing.

It's nice to be reminded that we're totally free. Sure, it produces some anxiety but it also gives me a great excuse to sit around and do nothing on a given day, free of guilt. I can't remember the last day I actually did that, but I know that I have done it and remember the feeling of liberation it gave me.

When I read or hear something like "since there is no God...," I find myself alternating between extreme sadness and overwhelming joy. I mean, I've studied existentialism for years, particularly as it relates to art. But as much as I try to embrace the concept of no God, I find myself searching for alternatives almost immediately; no judgemental God, for instance. Or perhaps the comforting thought of God as mother. In the end, I can't seem to escape the foundations of my earliest childhood indoctrinations: God=puppetmaster=benevolent or mean, depending on his mood.

Perhaps I can give myself credit for some maturity here. In previous stages of my life, many of these thoughts would have produced paralyzing fear. Today, they just leave me with a question that I can't answer: Why am I here?

It's Writing Time Again...

I have been on a writing sabbatical it seems. But I've been getting the urge again lately, and I've lots of new things to write about. Please re-visit in a few days to find out what's been on my mind.

Working On The Railroad

A few years back, I made a decision to pursue my education and finally obtain my college degree. For me, this meant forgoing the usual adult work schedule, living very frugally, and doing the occasional contract job just to get by. You see, this guy has never been one to handle the school/work combo, but I've got the utmost respect for those who can pull it off.

Even before I decided to return to school, I worked a series of jobs that never lasted more than a few years...and those jobs ran the gamut from retail management to secretary to waiting tables. Nothing glamorous. The best I could do without a degree was a stint as a customer relations representative with a security company. That gig lasted five years. It paid the most--and that wasn't much.

My father worked for the same outfit for thirty-eight years! When dad got out of the Air Force, he wanted to be a commercial pilot. But after the war, there were lots of guys who wanted to be commercial pilots, and the air wasn't as full of planes as it is today. So, being the resourceful guy that my father was, he found employment elsewhere. He worked odd jobs until a relative suggested he apply to the Pennsylvania Railroad. His first job there was transporting U.S. mail from the small town of Kane to Renovo. He did this for awhile, then started to work as a clerk. It all started in 1947, and lasted until 1985.

It's pretty amazing when we compare ourselves to the so-called greatest generation. Even those of us in the happiest work environments always seem to be looking for something better. Maybe that's one of the reasons we don't have as many choices when it comes to work--good or bad economy. No one wants to stay put for very long. Even the people I graduated high school with--who actually didn't drop out of college like me--couldn't seem to stay on jobs as long as their parents did. Of course, I am not writing any of this to say it's crazy how times have changed or to make any astounding observation. But you've got to give credit to countless people like my father who stuck with jobs that weren't necessarily their ideal or perfect job--but a job to make life as good as they were able to make it.

As I continue to write dad's biography, I find that a big chunk of what his life was all about was his work. Today, he recieved a large package in the mail from Conrail (formerly The Pennsylvania RR, Penn Central) that details his employment history. I'm not sure who's more excited to go over all the details--me or him.

News, Dad And Me

I just finished putting my father to bed after we watched the memorial service for Senator Ted Kennedy. It's amazing, even now, how much watching television news with my father has shaped my life.


I can remember sitting on our living room floor late in the summer of 1974, playing with my plastic dinosaurs. My father told me to stop what I was doing and watch the television with him. I did as he said and watched a live broadcast from the White House. President Nixon was about to speak from the podium. My dad, no fan of Nixon to be sure, watched with a delighted grin on his face and occassionally glanced down at the floor to make certain I was paying attention. "You need to watch this and remember...this is history being made." Some thirty minutes later, Richard Nixon announced his resignation as the 37th president of the United States. It was, indeed, history being made.


Many years later, December of 1989 to be precise, I was spending a month in Pennsylvania with my parents between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I was sitting in front of the TV with dad again, watching groups of people, young and old, dismantling the Berlin Wall. Once again, dad tells me that we're watching history in the making. It was amazing to glance at my father during that time, and see a look on his face that, without a doubt, told me that this was the most important thing that we could be doing at that moment--watching the news.


Today, I proudly call myself a news junkie, no small thanks to my father. Even though our news is a sorry shadow of what it used to be, I fondly remember the evenings of my youth, hearing "...and that's the way it is," as Walter Cronkite signed off feeding my father fuel for the political discussions that often took place at our dinner table. My father's opinions were clearly his own, but even when I disagreed with him based on my little understanding of politics as a child--and disagreed often, though not vocally--I respected the amazing conviction that echoed through dad's animated voice.


I saw a faint shadow of that animation tonight as dad attentively watched Ted Kennedy's memorial service. I asked him what he thought of it after the last speaker had finished. He paused. "He wasn't as great as his brothers, but he did some good things." He said it with conviction, as though that were the final word on the story.

(listen to this story by clicking the link below)

Thomas Boylan · Newsdadandme.WAV