I was born in Allegheny Hospital on
April 3» 1952 at Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Six months later my
father, Carlisle, left my mother,
Priscilla
Burr, They had met while she was a student at a Typing
School and he was her instructor. Whether or nor their relationship was a
fly-by-night quickie marriage, I probably won't ever know. But he left and she
always considered him a "bastard" and referred to him thus while I
was growing up. No thought of him even entered my mind for years until she
thought she saw him walking down the street in fin San Mateo
"looking for her son" while my step-father was out at sea. She called
the police...but her reaction was probably one based on deep emotional strain
rather than really seeing him. This had to be true. Why would he want to look for
me? In fact when I contacted him after my 18th birthday through some helpful relatives, I asked him about this
situation and he just laughed.
When Priscilla found out I was in touch with her ex, she encouraged me to press charges against the
"bastard" and sue him because he didn't send child support after the
first payment. But I didn't feel any resentment towards him and still don't. He
has been quite helpful, anyway, in supporting me through college and marriage
expenses and we have kept up a good phone and letter rapport since our visit
together in 1971* I bad arranged for the visit while I was visiting
anti-war friends in the Bay area. He took me up to his San Francisco apartment
to eat lunch, visit with his new wife Muriel, and have some superficial
conversation for the afternoon before going to a vegetarian restaurant. In
another visit, he took me to his prune-plum ranch and said it would be mine if
I would like to tend it. But as my commitments
were with the Lord, there wasn't any leading
to break away and be a part of his life and possibly the Bay
Area
churches. He sold the property, which is one of his side interests,
and later purchased some cottage land in Gerber, which he
will probably
develop and sell.
So no one had any idea we would be in
contact with Carlisle again after so many years.
When he left Priscilla, the two of us
moved to Hinsdale where we lived near relatives she had wanted to escape for
some time. Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago, is her hometown. She fled from in-laws
again, this time to San Diego, California where she landed a bank teller
Job and put me in pre-school at Green Gates Nursery School, under the charge
of Miss McFadden. I loved nursery school. When Mom left me, I must have cried
for a half hour every day and then through a temper-tantrum if she didn't bring
me a treat from work. This pattern has carried on into even married life. Unless she brings a treat, I put up a fuss.
Through one of the other bank
tellers, Helen Eller, Mom met Edward Markley, the teller's brother. What
was later rationalized as a "you needed a father and his daughter needed a
mother" marriage, they were wed when I was four and Mary Ann, my new stepsister,
was six. For a time they laved in Mom and my house, Mary Ann in the top bunk
when she was
scratched by our Siamese. All this was a strange time, gaining both a
"father" and a new sister who even my cat hated.
There were
a few men who influenced my life. My father, Carlisle, of course, had a great deal to do with my start. My stepfather, Edward Markley, raised me (I think). Then
there are others but the one who made
such a change in my life was a Southern born fellow named Halvor Gerald Adcock. This section isn't devoted to him, but a portion of my life was a result of his
influence on my thinking and relating.
It was In I968 that my stepfather had several heart attacks, in a few day period, which led to his March
31 death. I had gone to the
hospital the day before he died, so my last impression of him is when he was sitting up in bed, talking
almost incoherently because of the amount of morphine that had been used for
painkiller. He was dumbly smiling, his eyes almost closed from the puffiness of
his face.
I had gone for an almost daylong ten-speed bicycle hike
with my close friend, Peter Jepsen, and coasted into the garage after a strenuous
peddling up the short Ithaca Place hill in University City, San Diego. I
parked my bike and invited Peter into the house for something to drink. I opened the door to my
bedroom and...
"Jim, Jim, Jim, Dad is dead"
Phoebe screamed through the door.
Everyone in the house was crying, near hysteria. My
mother was crying, M0h,
God, oh, God," her face streaming with tears. Mary Ann was crying...it's really all a blur.
Panicked, I yelled to peter who was only a few feet from where I stood, that my
father had died.
After the initial shock in which I can*t even remember
how I reacted, I
phoned our Lutheran Pastor, Pastor Lindquist, who asked a few questions and immediately came over to
the house.
The funeral was three days later...mmi on my
birthday. I received a tie from my uncle, who had come in with another aunt to
be with \^s mmmxfxmmx from Chicago to be with Mom. We drove to the
cemetery in a
limousine. Relatives on my step-father's side were with us. No one said anything. Aunt Helen wore a black
hat with black tell like the movies. Mamo was there, too, only a year after her husband, Dad's father, had passed away.
As my Dad was in the Navy, he received a 21 gun salute,
which only blasted
three times for the seven guns there. The flag that was draped over the coffin was carefully folded and
given to Mom.
This was the only time someone close has died. I hear of
others dying and
it takes a while to accept the fact that once they were alive and now they are gone, never to be
talked with again. Why do we cry over
someone's death?
No more
time to make memories Can't see
them walk by Prom us the time flees For them it's no more
We had
depended on them
Our
security was there
An
interaction
No more
time to make memories
^J
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