tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59697293307528169262024-02-06T21:51:44.113-08:00Elvis and Nixon at the White HouseAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01594829164005631906noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5969729330752816926.post-8505742215646949292015-07-06T11:04:00.002-07:002015-07-06T11:04:59.445-07:00Quotes from “No time to say goodbye: memoirs of a life in foster care” by John William Tuohy.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On sale now at Amazon.Com,
Border Books and direct from LLR Books.Com <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1962, six year
old John Tuohy, his two brothers and two sisters entered Connecticut’s foster
care system and were promptly split apart. Over the next ten years, John would
live in more than ten foster homes, group homes and state schools, from his
native Waterbury to Ansonia, New Haven, West Haven, Deep River and Hartford. In
the end, a decade later, the state returned him to the same home and the same
parents they had taken him from. As tragic as is funny compelling story will
make you cry and laugh as you journey with this child to overcome the obstacles
of the foster care system and find his dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">http://amemoirofalifeinfostercare.blogspot.com/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">ABOUT THE AUTHOR<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">John William Tuohy
is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from
Lindenwood University. He is the author of numerous non-fiction on the history
of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger
Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour:
A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">His non-fiction
crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and
other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work
The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny
Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">His play,
Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in
Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York
project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First
Amendment Award for best new play. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Contact John:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">From Professor
William Anthony Connolly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This incredible memoir,
No Time to Say Goodbye, tells of entertaining angels, dancing with devils, and
of the abandoned children many viewed simply as raining manna from some lesser
god. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The young and
unfortunate lives of the Tuohy bruins—sometimes Irish, sometimes Jewish, often
Catholic, rambunctious, but all imbued with Lion’s hearts— is told here with
brutal honesty leavened with humor and laudable introspective forgiveness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The memoir will have
you falling to your knees thanking that benevolent Irish cop in the sky, your
lucky stars, or hugging the oxygen out of your own kids the fate foisted upon
Johnny and his siblings does not and did not befall your own brood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> John William Tuohy, a nationally-recognized
authority on organized crime and Irish levity, is your trusted guide through
the weeds the decades of neglect ensnared he and his brothers and sisters, all
suffering for the impersonal and often mercenary taint of the foster care
system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Theirs, and Tuohy’s,
story is not at all figures of speech as this review might suggest, but all too
real and all too sad, and maddening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get into a
time machine, go back and adopt every last one of them. I was angry. I was
captivated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The requisite
damning verities of foster care are all here, regretfully, but what sets this
story above others is its beating heart, even a bruised and broken one, still
willing to forgive and understand, and continue to aid its walking wounded. I
cannot recommend this book enough<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “I am here because I worked too hard and too
long not to be here. But although I told the university that I would walk
across the stage to take my diploma, I won’t. At age fifty-seven, I’m too
damned old, and I’d look ridiculous in this crowd. From where I’m standing in
the back of the hall, I can see that I am at least two decades older than most
of the parents of these kids in their black caps and gowns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So I’ll graduate with this
class, but I won’t walk across the stage and collect my diploma with them; I’ll
have the school send it to my house. I only want to hear my name called. I’ll
imagine what the rest would have been like. When you’ve had a life like mine,
you learn to do that, to imagine the good things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The ceremony is about to begin.
It’s a warm June day and a hallway of glass doors leading to the parking lot
are open, the dignitaries march onto the stage, a janitor slams the doors shut,
one after the other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That banging sound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It’s Christmas Day 1961 and
three Waterbury cops are throwing their bulk against our sorely overmatched
front door. They are wearing their long woolen blue coats and white gloves and
they swear at the cold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">They’ve finally come for us, in
the dead of night, to take us away, just as our mother said they would.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Otherwise, there were no long
goodbyes or emotional scenes. That isn’t part of foster care. You just leave
and you just die a little bit. Just a little bit because a little bit more of
you understands that this is the way it’s going to be. And you grow hard around
the edges, just a little bit. Not in some big way, but just a little bit
because you have to, because if you don’t it only hurts worse the next time and
a little bit more of you will die. And you don’t want that because you know
that if enough little bits of you die enough times, a part of you leaves. Do
you know what I mean? You’re still there, but a part of you leaves until you
stand on the sidelines of life, simply watching, like a ghost that everyone can
see and no one is bothered by. You become the saddest thing there is: a child
of God who has given .” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“As I said, you die a little
bit in foster care, but I spose we all die a little bit in our daily lives, no
matter what path God has chosen for us. But there is always a balance to that
sadness; there’s always a balance. You only have to look for it. And if you
look for it, you’ll see it. I saw it in a well-meaning nun who wanted to share
the joy of her life’s work with us. I saw it in an old man in a garden who
shared the beauty of the soil and the joy he took in art, and I saw it in the
simple decency and kindness of an underpaid nurse’s aide. Yeah. Great things
rain on us. The magnificence of life’s
affirmations are all around us, every day, everywhere. They usually go
unnoticed because they seldom arrive with the drama and heartbreak of those
hundreds of negative things that drain our souls. But yeah, it’s there, the
good stuff, the stuff worth living for. You only have to look for it and when
you see it, carry it around right there at the of your heart so it’s always
there when you need it. And you’ll need it a lot, because life is hard.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“As sad as I so often was, and
I was often overwhelmed with sadness, I never admitted it, and I don’t recall
ever having said aloud that I was sad. I tried not to think about it, about all
the sad things, because I had this feeling that if I started to think about it,
that was all I would ever think of again. I often had a nightmare of
falling into a deep dark well that I
could never climb out of. But then there was the other part of me that honestly
believed I wasn’t sad at all, and I had little compassion for those who dwelled
in sadness. Strange how that works. You would think that it would be the other
way around.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “In late October of 1962, it was our turn to
go. Miss Hanrahan appeared in her state Ford Rambler, which, by that point,
seemed more like a hearse than a nice lady’s car. Our belongings were packed in
a brown bags. The ladies in the kitchen, familiar with our love of food, made
us twelve fried-fish sandwiches each large enough to feed eight grown men and
wrapped them in tinfoil for the ride ahead of us. Miss Louisa, drenched with
tears, walked us to the car and before she let go of my hand she said, “When
you a big, grown man, you come back and see Miss Louisa, you hear?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“But,” I said, “you won’t know
who I am. I’ll be big.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“No, child,” she said as she
gave me her last hug, “you always know forever the peoples you love. They with
you forever. They don’t never leave you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">She was right, of course. Those
we love never leave us because we carry them with us in our hearts and a piece
of us is within them. They change with us and they grow old with us and with
time, they are a part of us, and thank God for that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “One day at the library I found a stack of
record albums. I was hoping I’d find ta Beatles album, but it was all classical
music so I reached for the first name I knew, Beethoven. I checked it out his
Sixth Symphony and walked home. I didn’t own a record player and I don’t know
why I took it out. I had Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony but nothing to play it on.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “The next day, when I came home from the
library, there was a small, used red record player in my room. I found my
mother in the kitchen and spotted a bandage taped to her arm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Ma,” I asked. “Where did you
get the money for the record player?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I had it saved,” she lied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My father lived well, had a
large house and an expensive imported car, wanted for little, and gave nothing.
My mother lived on welfare in a slum and sold her blood to the Red Cross to get
me a record player. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Education is everything,
Johnny,” she said, as she headed for the refrigerator to get me food. “You get
smart like regular people and you don’t have to live like this no more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">She and I were not hugging
types, but I put my hand on her shoulder as she washed the dishes with her back
to me and she said, in best Brooklynese, “So go and enjoy, already.” My father
always said I was my mother’s son and I was proud of that. On her good days,
she was a good and noble thing to be a part of. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That evening, I plugged in the
red record player and placed it by the window. My mother and I took the kitchen
chairs out to the porch and listened to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony from
beginning to end, as we watched the oil-stained waters of the Mad River roll
by. It was a good night, another good night, one of many that have blessed my
life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“The next day I was driven to New
York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I’d ever
seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies,
walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Some of these guys had dodged the
draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals
lined against one of the walls. After
eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a
large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an
old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very
flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Frankly,” the doctor said, “I
don’t know how the hell you’re even standing ,” and that was when the sergeant
told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me “we could take
over the world without a shot.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I had decided that I wanted to
earn my living as a writer and the only place in Waterbury where they paid you
for writing was at the local newspaper. My opportunity came when the paper had
an opening for a night janitor. Opportunities are easy to miss, because they
don’t always show in their best clothes.
Sometimes opportunities look like beggars in rags. After an eight-hour shift in
the shop tossing thirty-pound crates I hustled
to the newspaper building and cleaned toilets, with a vague plan that it
would somehow lead to a reporter’s .” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“One Friday afternoon at the
close of the working day the idiot bosses in their fucking ties and suit coats
came and handed out pink slips to every
other person on the floor. I got one. They were firing us. Then they turned
and, without a word, went back to their offices. Corporate pricks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“There is a sense of danger in
leaving what you know, even if what you know isn’t much. These mill towns with
their narrow lanes and often narrow minds were all I really knew and I feared
that if I left it behind, I would lose it and not find anything to replace it.
The other reason I didn’t want to go was because I wanted to be the kind of
person who stays, who builds a stable and predictable life. But I wasn’t one of
the people, nor would I ever be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I had a vision for my life. It
wasn’t clear, but it was beautiful and involved leaving my history and my
poverty behind me. I wasn’t happy about who I was or where I was, but I didn’t
worry about it. It didn’t define me. We’re always in the making. God always has
us on his anvil, melting, bending and shaping us for another purpose. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It was time to change, to find
a new purpose.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I was tired of fighting the
windstorm I was tossed into, and instead I would let go and ride with the winds
of change. How bad could it be, compared to the life I knew? I was living life
as if it were a rehearsal for the real thing. Another beginning might be rough
at first, but any place worth getting to is going to have some problems. I
wanted the good life, the life well lived, and you can’t buy that or marry into
it. It’s there to be found, and it can be taken by those who want it and have
the resolve to make it happen for themselves.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Imagine being beaten every day for something you didn’t do and
yet, when it’s over, you keep on smiling. That’s what every day of Donald’s
life was like. His death was a small death. No one mourned his passing; they
merely agreed it was for the best that he be forgotten as quickly as possible,
since his was a life misspent.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Then there are all of those
children, the ones who aren’t resilient. The ones who slowly, quietly die. I
think the difference is that the kids who bounce back learn to bear a little
bit more than they thought they could, and they soon understand that the secret
to surviving foster care is to accept finite disappointments while never losing
infinite hope. I think that was how Donald survived as long as he did, by never
losing his faith in the wish that tomorrow would be better. But as time went
by, day after day, the tomorrows never got better; they got worse, and he
simply gave . In the way he saw the world, pain was inevitable, but no one ever
explained to him that suffering was optional.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“In foster care it’s easier to
measure what you’ve lost over what you have gained, because it there aren’t
many gains in that life and you are a prisoner to someone else’s plans for your
life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I developed an interest in
major league baseball and the 1960s were, as far as I’m concerned (with a nod
to the Babe Ruth era of the 1920s), the Golden Age of Baseball. Like most
people in the valley, I was a diehard Yankees fan and, in a pinch, a Mets fan.
They were New York teams, and most New Englanders rooted for the Boston Red Sox,
but our end of Connecticut was geographically and culturally closer to New York
than Boston, and that’s where our loyalties went. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And what was not to love? The
Yankees ruled the earth in those days. The great Roger Maris set one Major
League record after another and even he was almost always one hit shy of Mickey
Mantle, God on High of the Green Diamond.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“For the first time in my life,
I was eating well and from plates—glass plates, no less, not out of the frying
pan because somebody lost all the plates in the last move. Now when we ate, we
sat at a fine round oak table in sturdy chairs that matched. No one rushed
through the meal or argued over who got the biggest portion, and we ate three
times a day.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “The single greatest influence in our lives
was the church. The Catholic Church in the 1960s differs from what it is today,
especially in the Naugatuck Valley, in those days an overwhelmingly
conservative Catholic place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I was part of what might have
been the last generation of American Catholic children who completely and
unquestioningly accepted the sernatural as real. Miracles happened. Virgin
birth and transubstantiation made perfect sense. Mere humans did in fact,
become saints. There was a Holy Ghost. Guardian angels walked beside us and our
patron saints really did put in a good word for us every now and then.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Henry read it and said, “A
story has to have three things. They are a beginning, a middle and an end. They
don’t have to be in that order. You can start a story at the end or end it in
the middle. There are no rules on that except where you, the author, decide to
put all three parts. Your story has a beginning and an end. But it’s good. Go
put in a middle and bring it back to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I went away encouraged, rewrote
the story and returned it to him two days later. Again he looked it over and
said, “It’s a good story but it lacks a bullet-between-the-eyes opening. Your
stories should always have a knock-’em-dead opening.” Then, looking with
exaggerated suspicion around the crime-prone denizens of the room with an
exaggerated suspicion, he said loudly, “I don’t mean that literally.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“A few days after I began my
short story, I returned to his desk and handed him my dates. He pushed his
wire-rimmed reading glasses way on his
nose and focused on the two pages. “Okay, you got a beginning; you got yourself
a middle and an end. You got a wing-dinger opening line. But you don’t have an
establishing paragraph. Do you know what that is?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">He didn’t wait for me to
answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It’s kinda like an outdated
road map for the reader,” he said. “It gives the reader a general idea of where
you’re taking him, but doesn’t tell him exactly how you intend to get there,
which is all he needs to know.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I don’t know’,” he said.
“Those three words from a willing soul are the start of a grand and magnificent
voyage.” And with that he began a discourse that lasted for several weeks,
covering scene-setting, establishing conflict, plot twists, and first- and
third-person narration. [ I learned in these rapid-fire mini-dissertations that
like most literature lovers I would come to know, Henry was a book snob. He
assumed that if a current author was popular and widely enjoyed, then he or she
had no merit. He made a few exceptions, such as Kurt Vonnegut, although that
was mostly because Vonnegut lived on Cape Cod and so he probably had some
merits as a human being, if not as a writer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I think that the way Henry saw
it was that he was not being a snob. In fact I would venture that in his view
of things, snobbery had nothing to do with it. Rather, it was a matter of
standards. It was bout quality in the author’s craftsmanship.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “The foundries were vast, dark castles built
for efficiency, not comfort. Even in the mild New England summers, when the
warm air combined with the stagnant heat from the machines or open flames in
the huge melting rooms where the iron was cast, the effects were overwhelming. The
heat came in unrelenting waves and sucked the soul from your body. In the
winter, the enormous factories were impossible to heat and frigid New England
air reigned sreme in the long halls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The work was difficult, noisy,
mind-numbing, sometimes dangerous and highly regulated. Bathroom and lunch
breaks were scheduled to the second.
There was no place to make a private phone call. Company guards, dressed in
drab uniforms straight out of a James Cagney prison film [those films were in
black and white, notoriously tough, weren’t there to guard company property.
They were there to keep an eye on us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">No one entered or the left the
building without punching in or out on a clock, because the doors were locked
and opened electronically from the main office.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “So he sings,” he continued as if Denny had
said nothing. “His solo mio, that with her in his life he is rich because she
is so beautiful that she makes the sun more beautiful, you understand?” And at
that he dropped the hoe, closed his eyes and spread out his arms wide and with
the fading sun shining on his handsome face he sang:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Che bella cosa è na jurnata 'e
sole<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">n'aria serena doppo na
tempesta!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Pe' ll'aria fresca pare già na
festa<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Che bella cosa e' na jurnata 'e
sole<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Ma n'atu sole,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">cchiù bello, oi ne'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">'O sole mio<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">sta 'nfronte a te!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">'O sole, 'o sole mio<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">sta 'nfronte a te!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">sta 'nfronte a te!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It looked like fun. We dropped
our tools and joined him, belting out something that sounded remarkably like
Napolitano. We sang as loud as we could, holding on to each note as long as we
could before we ran out of breath, and then we sang again, occasionally
dropping to one knee, holding our hands over our hearts with exaggerated looks
of deep pain. Although we made the words , we sang with the deepest passion,
with the best that we had, with all of our hearts, and that made us artists,
great artists, for in that song, we had made all that art is: the creation of
something from nothing, fashioned with all of the soul, born from joy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And as that beautiful summer
sun set over Waterbury, the Brass City, the City of Churches, our voices
floated above the wonderful aromas of the garden, across the red sky and joined
the spirits in eternity.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It didn’t last long. Not many
good things in a foster kid’s life last long. One day, Maura was gone. Her few
things were packed in paper bags and a tearful Miss Louisa carried her out to
Miss Hanrahan’s black state-owned Ford sedan with the state emblem on the door,
and she was gone. The state had found a foster home that would take a little
girl but couldn’t take the rest of us. There were no long goodbyes. She was
just gone. I remember having an enormous sense of helplessness when they took
her. Maura didn’t know where she were going or long she would be there. She was
just gone” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“After another second had
passed I added, “But you’re pretty, pretty,” and as soon as I said it I
thought, “Pretty, pretty? John, you’re an idiot.” But she squeezed my hand and
when I looked at her I saw her entire lovely face was aglow with a wonderful
smile, the kind of smile you get when you have won something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Why do you rub your fingers
together all the time?” she asked me, and I felt the breath leave my body and
gasped for air. She had seen me do my crazy finger thing, my affliction. I
clenched my teeth while I searched for a long, exaggerated lie to tell her
about why I did what I did. I didn’t want to be the crazy kid with tics, I
wanted to be James Bond 007, so slick ice avoided me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It’s okay,” she said. “I bite
my nails, see?” and she showed me the backs of her hands. Her finger nails were
painted a color I later learned was puce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“My Dad, he blinks all the
time, he doesn’t know why either,” she continued. She looked her feet and said, “I shouldn’t have asked
you that. I’m really nervous and I say stid things when I’m nervous. I’m a girl
and this is my first date, and for girls this really is a very big deal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I understood completely. I was
so nervous I couldn’t feel my toes, so I started moving them and to
make sure they were still there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It’s all right,” I said. “I
don’t know why I do that with my fingers; it’s a thing I do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Well, you’re really cute when
you do it,” she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I know,” I said, and I don’t
know why I said it, but I did.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“So began my love affair with
books. Years later, as a college student, I remember having a choice between a
few slices of pizza that would have held me over for a day or a copy of On the
Road. I bought the book. I would have forgotten what the pizza tasted like, but
I still remember Kerouac.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The world was mine for the
reading. I traveled with my books. I was there on a tramp steamer in the North
Atlantic with the Hardy Boys, piecing together an unsolvable crime. I rode into
the Valley of Death with the six hundred and I stood at the graves of Uncas and
Cora and listened to the mournful song of the Lenni Linape. Although I braved a
frozen death at Valley Forge and felt the spin of a hundred bullets at Shiloh,
I was never afraid. I was there as much as you are where you are, right this
second. I smelled the gunsmoke and tasted the frost. And it was good to be
there. No one could harm me there. No one could punch me, slap me, call me
stid, or pretend I wasn’t in the room. The other kids raced through books so
they could get the completion stamp on their library card. I didn’t care about
that stid completion stamp. I didn’t want to race through books. I wanted books
to walk slowly through me, stop, and touch my brain and my memory. If a book
couldn’t do that, it probably wasn’t a very good book. Besides, it isn’t how
much you read, it’s what you read. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What I learned from books, from
young Ben Franklin’s anger at his brother to Anne Frank’s longing for the way
her life used to be, was that I wasn’t alone in my pain. All that caused me
such anguish affected others, too, and that connected me to them and that
connected me to my books. I loved everything about books. I loved that odd
sensation of turning the final page, realizing the story had ended, and feeling
that I was saying a last goodbye to a new friend.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I had developed a very
complicated and little-understood disorder called misophonia, which means
“hatred of sound.” Certain sounds act as triggers that turn me from a Teddy
bear into an agitated grizzly bear. People with misophonia are annoyed,
sometimes to the point of rage, by ordinary sounds such as people eating,
breathing, sniffing, or coughing, certain consonants, or repetitive sounds.
Those triggers, and there are dozens of them, set off anxiety and avoidant
behaviors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What is a mild irritation for
most people -- the person who keeps sniffling, a buzzing fly in a closed
room—those are major irritants to people with misophonia because we have
virtually no ability to ignore those sounds, and life can be a near constant
bombardment of noises that bother us. I figured out that the best way to cope
was to avoid the triggers. So I turned off the television at certain sounds and
avoided loud people. All of these things gave me a reputation as a high-strung,
moody and difficult child. I knew my overreactions weren’t normal. My playmates
knew it” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Sometimes in the midst of our
darkest moments it’s easy to forget that it’s
to us to turn on the light, but that’s what I did. I switched on the
light, the light of cognizance.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “I don’t know what I would have done if they
had hugged me. I probably would have frozen in place, become stiff. It took
most of my life to overcome my distaste for physical contact and not to stiffen
when I was touched, or flinch, twitch, fidget, and eventually figure out how to
move away. I learned to accept being hugged by my children when they were
infants. Their joy at seeing me enter a room was real and filled with true love
and affection and it showed in their embraces. Like a convert, when I learned
the joy and comfort of being hugged by and hugging those I loved, I became a
regular practitioner.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Most people don’t understand
how mighty the power of touch is, how mighty a kind word can be, how important
a listening ear is, or how giving an honest compliment can move the child who
has not known those things, only watched them from afar. As insignificant as
they can be, they have the power to change a life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “They were no better than common thieves. They
stole our childhood. But even with that, I was heartbroken that I would not
know the Wozniaks anymore, the only people who came close to being parents to
me. I would be conscious of their absence for the rest of my life. I needed
them. You know, if you think about it, we all need each other. But even with
all of the evidence against the Wozniaks, I had conflicted emotions about them,
then and now. They were the closest I had to a real family and real parents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But now I was bankrt of any
feelings at all towards them at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I felt then, and feel now, a
great sense of loss. I felt as if I were burying them. when I never really had
them to lose in the first place. Disillusioned is probably a better word. In
fact the very definition of disillusionment is a sense of loss for something
you never had. When you are disillusioned and disappointed enough times, you
shoping. That’s what happens to many foster kids. We become loners, not because
we enjoy the solitude, but because we let people into our lives and they
disappoint us. So we close and travel
alone. Even in a crowd, we’re alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Because I survived, I was one
of the lucky ones. Why is it so hard to articulate love, yet so easy to express
disappointment?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“My first and lasting
impression of the Connecticut River Valley is its serene beauty, especially in
the autumn months. Deep River was a near picture-perfect New England village.
When I arrived there, the town was a typical working-class place, nothing like
the trendy per-income enclave it became. The town center had a cluster of
shops, a movie theater open only on weekends, several white-steepled churches
(none of them Catholic), the town hall, and a Victorian library. It was small,
even by Ansonia standards.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “While I may not have been a bastion of good
mental health, many of these boys were on their way to becoming crazier than
they already were. Most couldn’t relate to other people socially at all,
because they only dealt inappropriately with other people or didn’t respond to
overtures of friendship or even engage in basic conversations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Some became too familiar with
you too fast, following their new, latest friend everywhere, including the
showers, insisting on giving you items that were dear to them and sharing
everything else. They also had the awful habit of touching other people,
putting their hands on you as a sign of affection or friendship, and for people
like myself, with my affliction and disdain for being touched unless I wanted
to be touched, these guys were a nightmare. It was often difficult to get word
in edgewise with these kids, and when I did, they interrted me—not in some
obnoxious way, but because they wanted to be included in every single aspect of
everything you did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The other ones, the stone-cold
silent ones, reacted with deep suspicion toward even the slightest attempt to
befriend them or the smallest show of kindness. If you touched some of these
children, even accidentally, they would warn you to back away. They didn’t care
what others thought of them or anything else, and almost all their talk
concerned punching and hurting and maiming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I noticed that most of these
kids, the ones who were truly damaged, were eventually filtered out of St.
John’s to who knows where. Institutions have a way of protecting themselves
from future problems.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Jesus,” I prayed silently,
“please fix it so that my turn to read won’t come around.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And then the nun called my
name, but before I stood I thought, “I’ll bet you think this is funny, huh,
Jesus?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I stood and stared at the
sentence assigned to me and believed that, through some miracle, I would
suddenly be able to read it and not be humiliated. I stood there and stared at
it until the children started giggling and snickering and Sister told me to
sit.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “My affliction decided to join us, forcing me
to push my toes on the floor as though I were trying to eject myself from the
chair. I prayed she didn’t notice what the affliction was making me do. I half
expected to be eaten alive or murdered and buried out back in the school yard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I’m not afraid of you, ya
know,” I said, although I was terrified of her. The words hurt her, but that
wasn’t my intent. She turned her face and looked out the window into North
Cliff Street. She knew what her face and twisted body looked like, and she
probably knew what the kids said about her. It was probably an open wound for
her and I had just tossed salt into it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I was instantly ashamed of what
I done and tried to correct myself. I didn’t mean to be hurtful, because I knew
what it was like to be ridiculed for something that was beyond one’s control,
such as my affliction, and how it made me afraid to touch the chalk because the
feel of chalk to people like me is overwhelming. If I had to write on the
blackboard, I held the chalk with the cuff of my shirt and the class laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“You look good in a nun’s
suit,” I said. It was a stid thing to say, but I meant well by it. She
looked at the black robe as if she were
seeing it for the first time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Jews were a frequent topic of
conversation with all of the Wozniaks, which was surprising, since none of them
had any contact at all with anything even remotely Jewish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">While watching television,
Walter would point out who was and who was not Jewish and Helen’s frequent
comment when watching the television news was, “And won’t the Jews be happy
about that!” To bargain with a merchant for a lower price was to “Jew him ,”
and that sort of thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Walter’s mother and father were
far worse. They despised the Jews and blamed them for everything from the start
of World War I to the Kennedy assassination to the rising price of beef. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I didn’t pay much heed to any
of this. It wasn’t my problem, and if I were to think through all the ethnic,
racial and religious barbs the Wozniaks threw out in the course of a week, I’d
think about nothing else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">After being told about a part
of my mother’s heritage, the Wozniaks began their verbal and cultural assault
against us. As odd as it sounds, they might not always have intended to be
mean.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Explaining the Jews in a
Catholic school when you’re Irish is like having to explain your country’s
foreign policy while on a vacation in France. You don’t know what you’re
talking about and no matter what you say, they’re not going to like it anyway.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “You could read the story of his entire life
on his face in one glance.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “As interesting as that was, it didn’t inspire
me. What did was that here was a Jew who was tough with his fists, a Jew who
fought back. The only Jews I had ever heard of surrendered or were beaten by
the Romans, the Egyptians, or the Nazis. You name it, it seemed like everyone
on earth at some point had taken their turn slapping the Jews around. But not
Benny Leonard. I figured you’d have to kill Benny Leonard before he
surrendered.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“One afternoon Walter brought
Izzy to the house for lunch and, pointing to me, he said to Izzy, “He’s one of
your tribe.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Dobkins lifted his head to look
at me and after a few seconds said, “I don’t see it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“The mother’s a Jew,” Walter
answered, as if he were describing the breeding of a mongrel dog. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Then you are a Jew,” Izzy
said, and sort of blessed me with his salami sandwich.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Sometimes a man must stand for
what is right and sometimes you must simply walk away and suffer the babblings
of weak-minded fools or try to change their minds. It’s like teachin’ a pig to
sing. It is a waste of your time and it annoys the pig.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “Father, I can’t take this,” I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Why not?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Because you’re a priest, Father.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“And my money’s no good because
of it? What are you? A member of the Masonic Lodge?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Naw, Father,” I said. “I just
feel guilty taking money from you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Well, you’re Irish and Jewish.
You have to feel guilty over somethin’, don’t ya? Take the money and be happy
ye have it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">― John William Tuohy, No time
to say goodbye: memoirs of a life n foster care <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “I caddied—more accurately, I drove the golf
cart—for Father O’Leary and his friends throughout most of the summer of that
year. I was a good caddie because I saw nothing when they passed the bottle of
whiskey and turned a deaf ear to yet another colorful reinvention of the words
“motherless son of a bitch from hell” when the golf ball betrayed them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Weeks turned into months and a
year passed, but I didn’t miss my parents. I missed the memory of them. I
assumed that part of my life was over. I didn’t understand that I was required
to have an attachment to them, to these people I barely knew. Rather, it was my
understanding that I was sposed to switch my attachment to my foster parents.
So I acted on that notion and no one corrected me, so I assumed that what I was
doing was good and healthy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I felt empty a lot and I
sometimes had a sense—and I know this sounds strange—that I really had no
existence as my own person, that I could disappear and no one would notice or
remember that I had ever existed. It is a terrifying thing to live with. I kept
myself busy to avoid that feeling, because somehow being busy made me feel less
empty.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Denny thought our parents
needed a combination of material goods and temperamental changes before he
could return home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“If Dad buys Ma a car, then
she’ll love him, and they’ll get back together and she won’t be all crazy
anymore,” he said. For years he held out the possibility that those things
would happen and all would change. “If we had more things, like stoves and
cars,” he told me at night in our bedroom, “and Ma wasn’t like she is, we could
go home.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “Because we were raised in a bigoted and
hate-filled home, we simply assumed that calling someone a “cheap Jew” or
saying someone “Jewed him ” were perfectly acceptable ways to communicate. Or
at least we did until the day came when I called one of the cousins, a
Neanderthal DeRosa boy, “a little Jew,” and he told me he wasn’t the Jew, that
I was the Jew, and he even got Helen and Nana to confirm it for him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It came as a shock to me to
find out we were a part of this obviously terrible tribe of skinflint,
trouble-making, double-dealing, shrewdly smart desert people. When Denny found
out, he was crestfallen because he had assumed that being Jewish meant,
according to what his former foster family the Skodiens had taught him, a life
behind a desk crunching numbers. “And I hate math,” he said, shaking his head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So here we were, accused Jews
living in a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Not a good situation. Walter’s father was
the worst. Learning about our few drops of Jewish blood seemed to ignite a
special, long-held hatred in him. He became vile over nothing, finding any
excuse to deride the Jews in front of us until Helen made him stop. We didn’t
know what to make of it, except to write it off as another case of Wozniak-inspired
insanity, but as young as we were, we could tell that at some point in his life
he had crossed swords with a Jew someplace and came out on the losing end and
we were going to pay for it. But because we really didn’t feel ourselves to be
Jews, it didn’t sink in that he intended to hurt us with his crazy tirades. As
I said, it’s hard to insult somebody when they don’t understand the insult, and
it’s equally hard to insult them when they out and out refuse to be insulted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Word got around quickly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“I hit him for every single
thing that was wrong in my life and kicked him in a fierce fury of madness as
he sobbed and covered his face and screamed. I hit him because Walter hit me
and I hit him because I hated my life and I hit him because I just wanted to go
home and I hit him because I didn’t know where home was.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “I also told him about the dramatic, vivid
verbal picture of God that the nuns drew for us—an enormous, slightly dangerous
and very touchy guy with white hair and a long white beard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It’s all the talk of feeble
minds,” he whispered to me in confidence. “Those nuns know as much about prayer
as they do about sex. Listen to me, now. God is everywhere and alive in
everything, while them nuns figured God is as good as dead, a recluse in a
permanently bad mood. Well, I refuse to believe that to my God, my maker and
creator, my life is little more than a dice game.” He stopped and turned and
looked at me and said, “Never believe that a life full of sin puts you on a
direct route to hell. Even if you only know a little bit about God, you learn
pretty quick that he’s big on U-turns, dead stops and starting over again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As each day passes and my
memories of Father O’Leary and Sister Emmarentia fade, and I can no longer
recall their faces or the sounds of their voices as clearly as I could a decade
ago, what remains, clear and uncluttered, are the lessons I took from them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “Eventually, many years later, I came to see
him the way everyone else saw him—a nice guy who, despite all the damage he did
to us, wasn’t a bad man, not inherently bad, anyway. He just wasn’t very
bright, and was in over his head on almost every level of life. He was capable
of only so much and not a drop more, and because he seemed so harmless and
lost, people not only liked him, they protected him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My mother, despite her poverty,
left the opposite impression. She left no doubt that she was psychologically
tough and mentally sharp, and because of that the Wozniaks disliked her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And that was another difference
between my mother and father. My father was a whiner, a complainer, a
perpetually unhappy man unable to comprehend the simple fact that sometimes
life is unfair. My mother never complained, and yet her poverty-stricken life
was miserable. She never carried on about the early death of her raging
alcoholic mother, or the father who raped her, or of a diet dictated by the
restrictions of food stamps.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5969729330752816926.post-24961774208836586872015-07-03T11:46:00.001-07:002015-07-03T11:46:02.500-07:00Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, December 1970<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">By Andrew M Brown<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Monday, December 21, 1970 saw what must count as
the most bizarre meeting ever to have taken place in the Oval Office of the
President of the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">That morning, Elvis Presley – in full Captain
Marvel garb of crushed velvet, flapping lapels and aviator dark glasses –
turned up at the North West gate and presented himself to the security guard
with a letter written on the plane, on American Airlines stationery. In it, he
offered to help with the drug problem, “the hippie elements” and the Black
Panthers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">He also brought a gun to give to President Nixon
– a Second World War Colt 45 in a commemorative wooden chest. The official photographs,
showing Elvis with the suited and square-looking Richard Nixon plus his aide,
Bud Krogh, are extraordinary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">All the documents relating to this meeting – the
memoranda, the letter itself, briefing papers – are available to view on the
American National Security Agency website, including a facsimile of the letter
itself, with Elvis’s leaning-over scrawl. They make for riveting reading – so
it is no wonder there is now a Hollywood film about it: Elvis and Nixon,
starring Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">But will either actor be able to capture such
unusual, idiosyncratic figures as Nixon and Elvis? After all, what really
happened is more bizarre than any fiction. In his memo written immediately
after the event, the White House staffer Bud Krogh described how “Presley
indicated to the President in a very emotional manner that he was ‘on your
side’”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">He wanted “to restore some respect for the flag”
and had been “studying Communist brainwashing”. Most hilariously, Elvis “in a
surprising, spontaneous gesture, put his left arm around the President and
hugged him”. I think it’s fair to say that Richard Nixon was not a man who went
in for hugs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">There is of course a deep irony about this
surreal encounter. Its central purpose was to secure Elvis a proper Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs agent’s badge, and arrangements were made to
provide one. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone close to Elvis at the
time that there was a contradiction here, given the singer’s (now well-documented)
appetite for Quaaludes, Dexedrine, Tuinal, Demerol, Diluadid and the like - or
in other words uppers, downers and in-betweeners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">A suggestion for “Presley activities” that
emerged from the meeting was that Elvis should record an anti-drugs album with
the theme “Get High on Life”, because “true and lasting talent is the result of
self-motivation and discipline and not artificial chemical euphoria.” How sad
that, as the world would discover barely six years later, when he died at the
pathetically young age of 42, the one person who most needed to grasp this
message of prudence and continence was Elvis Presley himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5969729330752816926.post-58896480928729797742013-04-24T07:10:00.003-07:002013-04-24T07:10:47.023-07:00 The Bizarre Story Behind The Time Elvis Met Nixon<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On Dec. 19,
1970, Elvis' wife, Priscilla, and his father, Vernon, confronted Elvis at
Graceland about his lavish spending habits. Elvis had spent more than $100,000
on Christmas presents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Angered by the
confrontation, Elvis drove to the airport and caught the next available flight
out of Memphis, which happened to be bound for Washington, D.C.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After he
checked into his hotel, he changed his mind and decided he would rather head
out to his home in L.A.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis goes back
to Washington, tries to get a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A day after
arriving in L.A., Elvis called Jerry Schilling, a member of his "Memphis
Mafia," to have him arrange a flight for the both of them to go back to
Washington, D.C. Jerry didn’t know why he wanted to go back, but he suspected
that getting a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs* badge was a motive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis gets
advice from a senator.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On a red-eye
flight to Washington, D.C., Elvis met then-California Senator George Murphy.
Elvis expressed to George his desire to do something about the growing
anti-American drug culture and that having a BNND badge would help him make a
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis actually
liked collecting badges; thanks to his level of fame, he regularly interacted
with different police departments, for security purposes, whenever he traveled
or performed. Because of this he received many honorary police department
badges.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis developed
a habit of always traveling with his collection of police badges (as well as a
few of his guns). According to Pricilla's autobiography Elvis and Me, he
expressed to her a strong desire to acquire a badge from the Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, because he thought it would make him invincible,
allowing him to travel anywhere with guns and drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis
personally delivers a handwritten letter to the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">George
suggested that Elvis write to Nixon offering to help. Before arriving in
Washington, D.C., he handwrote a letter to Nixon, introducing himself and
asking for the two to meet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis then
hand-delivered the letter to the White House gate at 6:30 a.m. on the morning
of Dec. 21, 1970.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis’ letter
is delivered to Egil Krogh, Nixon’s liaison to the BNND.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After dropping
off the letter at the White House, Elvis headed over to the headquarters of the
BNND and was able to get a meeting with Deputy Director John Finlator.
Unfortunately for Elvis, though, Finlator denied his request for a badge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile at
the White House, Elvis’ letter was delivered to Egil "Bud" Krogh*,
who was a White House aide and liaison to the BNND.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Egil (a big
Elvis fan) thought that a meeting between Elvis and Nixon was a great idea and
persuaded his White House bosses to allow him to arrange it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis gets his
White House meeting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Egil was able
to arrange the meeting. Elvis — who came dressed in a purple velvet jumpsuit
with matching cape and a heavy gold chain, and wearing his trademark sunglasses
— arrived at the White House at noon, accompanied by Jerry and his bodyguard
Sonny West.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis shows off
his collection of badges.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After taking a
few photos, Elvis immediately began showing Nixon his badges from different
police departments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis tells
Nixon the Beatles are the real enemy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then, according
to Egil’s official White House account of that day:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Presley
indicated that he thought the Beatles had been a real force for anti-American
spirit. He said that the Beatles came to this country, made their money, and
then returned to England where they promoted an anti-American theme. The
President nodded in agreement and expressed some surprise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The President
then indicated that those who use drugs are also those in the vanguard of
anti-American protest. Violence, drug usage, dissent, protest all seem to merge
in generally the same group of young people.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis then told
Nixon, "I'm on your side."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nixon orders a
badge for Elvis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">According to
Egil, Elvis then asked for a BNND badge, to which Nixon replied, "Can we
get him a badge?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Egil said yes,
and Nixon ordered it to be done.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis then told
Nixon how much he supported him, and hugged him (to everybody's surprise).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Per Elvis'
request, the meeting was kept secret (he was planning to launch a comeback and
felt it would not be good for his image). It remained a secret for over a year
until a reporter broke the story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis brings
Nixon a gun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Before leaving,
Elvis presented Nixon with World War II–era commemorative Colt .45* he had
taken from his L.A. house and carried into the White House, much to the dismay
of the Secret Service.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The gun is on
display at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elvis gets his
badge!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The BNDD
specially designed a badge* with Elvis' name on it. He picked it up later that
afternoon and then headed back to Graceland.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">*It is now on
on display in his home in Graceland.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nixon writes a
thank-you letter to Elvis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On Dec. 31,
Nixon sent Elvis a warm thank-you note with best wishes for his family and the
new year.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Epilogue<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The National
Archives gets more requests for a copy of this photo of Richard Nixon and Elvis
Presley posing in the Oval Office than for anything else in their archives —
that includes the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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