Notes on Dad – 8-23-13

tired

emaciated

Brille – wire rim type

newspaper – read late at night

Gerry and Florence visiting Sunday night

Long, popping out veins = landscape of his thin arms

Felt hat worn on Sundays for church when he went to church

Machjnaw red-black checkered type

3:15 P.M. ton pere arrive en dix minutes

sleeping for one hour on the long sofa with wooden arm rests

“Tu travailles au taxi ce soir, Ben?” “Oui, je vais travailler de sept heures jusqu’a onze heures”

Zane Grey novels on our shelves sitting next to an electric lamp and xx

He plays classical music on our upright piano. Mom plays also, but Dad is better, maybe smoother at the keyboard than Ma.

“Hora Stacatto” is a favorite. To me, it evokes feelings of intrigue, danger and secrecy.

Dad and I may go see a baseball game at Fenway Park this summer. Walt Dropo, the first baseman, has replaced xx Goodman, who was excellent at first, but the Sox need Goodman at second now that have lost xx there.

At Fenway Park, Dad, Bob and I find seats along the first base line, but many rows up and away from the field. A Red Sox supporter suddenly needs to express some hidden frustration with the team’s lowly performance in the American League. This supporter is our own father, who appears to feel no shame in expressing his disdain. He shouts, “Drop dead, Dropo. Drop dead.”

Perhaps, I am not too surprised since Uncle Gerry and dad had often expounded on the gangly field work of this human monster, who also could send a baseball over the fence in far center field, and even beyond the “bull pen”. There was a visceral anger in those harsh words. My father, Ben, trudged quietly throughout his life in this world of cotton mills, arching gray tenement buildings and sevaral canal waterways curiously dotted with trash and garbage tossed onto their surface by those textile inmates who called these wooden, rat traps home.

I sense some resentment in the angry shouts of this unhappy fan, and, strangely, I sense an element of embarrassment