Grandma's Last Ride (Final Respects On a Beautiful Day)

Whatever I expected vanished quickly, but the funeral Grandma received fit her far better than anyone would have guessed.

Even at 5 a.m. in the Westchester County Airport last Friday, I kept hearing her voice, her quick shifts through time (holding my mother as an infant, or cooking with Uncle Frank) and her gentle admonishments.

Waiting on the wake was the hardest part. You can’t steel yourself for a wake, because once inside, emotions spread. Tears are shed in a domino effect. When we stood in the lot Wednesday and Uncle Frank, our defacto leader out of closeness to Grandma, simply said “Let’s go see Grandma,” my cast-iron stomach rusted straight away.

If we have the luxury of knowing our grandparents as adults, they begin the take on an air of immortality, especially when separated by distance. Grandma had intermittent health issues in recent years, but never did it seem like her time had arrived. That made it hard to view her nestled in coffin, little and gentle in her blue dress.

What I remember most is the photo montage my cousins assembled. It could be easy to forget Grandma’s humor and what laugher could erupt from her. Anyone glancing at the photos saw a woman who could claim a rich and fruitful 85 years. My cousins knew enough to include a shot of Grandma hosting the massive bowls of pasta she was famous for.

With the exception of the Jacksons and the Cocchias, I barely recognized some of Mom’s cousins. Since we’d last been together, they grayed and I grew (and grayed, but only a little). Last of her generation, Aunt Evelyn stood out. Soon to be 90, she amazed with her sharp mind and that she continued to drive. Visiting her today was no different than 5 or 7 years ago. The crowds of my grandfather’s funeral had dispersed to their own quiet resting places.

As the pallbearers gathered after our final good-byes, I feared I might see something I didn’t want to see – the funeral parlor staff lowering the casket lid. But they skillfully handed all of us flower arrangements and wheel the casket out before I could glimpse that action.

From the funeral parlor in Fairfield, we toured Southport and some of the oldest areas of Westport. The Cocchia brothers swapped stories about their father and “private beach,” a sliver of sand bar inaccessible legally or otherwise by hopping a fence. The coordinators could have opted for the highway, but let Grandma cruise through the least-changed part of her world.

Then the funeral train stopped at the Church of the Assumption, site of every marriage and funeral mass conducted in my mother’s extended family.

In reading Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, I had to refrain from all urges to burst out into song (Pete Seeger adapted the level-headed verse into Turn! Turn! Turn!).

As one of six pallbearers, I’m glad I got to help carry Grandma along her last voyage. No matter who they carry, caskets never grow lighter. Grandma was much diminished from age and her final health problems, but I checked my hands for moisture and stuck to the brief but important duty.

Beneath a beautiful New England afternoon, we rested her casket at the end of a row of family graves - Delallo, Izzo, Saponare and other ghosts emerged as we got closer to her plot. Twenty-three years later, she finally rejoined Grandpa, chief among the many deaths she never moved beyond.

They had not lowered her into the ground yet, but I want to come back to southwest Connecticut, to visit the little towns that nowhere Midwestern or southern can replace. Affording a place to live there is a different story, but one I won’t face until the next uprooting occurs.

When I come back or land anywhere close to Westport, her voice will remain inescapable. I can’t separate her from the geography anymore than I can peel memories of those summer visits away from my brain.

Gone Grandma Gone

Sometimes with deaths, there’s not a lake of tears to be shed. We can only hope that crossing the bar brings them comfort. In the case of Christine Palmer, my grandmother, the last two months of pain ended Saturday afternoon.

After a few decades of episodic health problems, this last bout was too much for that strong heart to overcome.

Two months ago, she kept complaining of an inability to eat, and the doctors barely saved her through two rounds of dialysis. She would never see home again, bouncing briefly to nursing home before more kidney problems brought her back to the hospital, and her organ functions steadily weakened.

“Ah, Billy” … that’s how she’d start. How she finished … well, others will tell me the tale. The energy just drained from her near the end. Mom said her eyes were vacant; she recognized some people, but those two tumultuous months shook something loose. It was almost as if she’d begun to drift from this world while still conscious.

This was the first time I’ve ever gone to Westport and she has not been part of the fabric. She held court in that house which loomed so large when I was a boy and diminished when I returned as an adult. Grandpa’s live gave out in 1986, and Uncle Frank had lived with her ever since. He’s been a caretaker in recent years.

Back in the day, I didn’t enjoy spending my birthday far away from home, without a person my own age nearby to celebrate. Still, it wasn’t all bad. Grandma rewarded our visit with a heap of spaghetti and clams – she saved the marinara for the end of our visits. I've rarely eaten spaghetti and clams since, because none could hold a candle to her seafood sauce.

After dinner and dessert on the side porch, twilight always collapsed into the television glow, the dame ancient television cabinet that still anchors the room. I watched Yankee games on the tiny porch television, sometimes falling asleep until the cold thrust me awake again before dawn. I think my love of solitude emerged in those summers, and that’s not something I ever wish to celebrate.

I could be criticized for not going earlier, for leaning on my two jobs as a reason not to go when death drew close. For my rationale, though, I go back to our last conversation in person, when we talked about rustic Italian cooking, simple salads with escarole and how to spruce up a meatloaf. Christine Palmer could cook like nobody’s business and talking about it gave her immense joy. I’ve tried a few of those recipes over the years, albeit in my hands, they were passable.

But her meals are done now.

In her hands, the recipes were her Bible, the kitchen her church, and a family her audience.

Those Mythic August Mornings

Picking up dry cleaning and takeout breakfast shouldn't involve detailed planning. On the first day back for students in Metro Nashville Schools, it's a necessity, because school zones rule the roads of Nashville during rush hour. And schools are everywhere in this burg.

We all remember the disappointment of losing summer, a feeling that set in for me the day after my birthday. That artificial countdown came with scheduling, new clothes that assured crude comments from the cool crowd, and anxieties about the new year. I stared at the ceiling much of the night before 10 grade started; space constraints in Mentor kept ninth-graders at the junior high school. The first days in Georgia are just vague traces of drop-offs from my dad on his way to work. But he dropped me off every day, leading grades 2-5 blur together.

I still remember that last first day, navigating the quiet streets of Mentor not long after sunrise as the thought dawned on me that it was the final time. It's doubtful I would remember any detail of that day otherwise, but suddenly the day's events open vividly. For first period, I chatted with Marje after Mr. Lorek ran through his syllabus. We were not yet the friends we would become during the school year. I would catch her again late in the day for AP Biology and a reunion with Mr. Woodman (not the Welcome Back, Kotter principal).

Before classes started, I stopped in on Mr. Young, my 11th grade English teacher and probably the biggest single reason I ended up in writing. I heard he's fighting lung cancer now, which would be sadder if I could forget how much he smoked. But his influence on my makes it sad enough. I can't say I would fondly recall Ms. Geissler in the same way - despite being one of the few students who actually read our assignments it was basically she and I conversing about Crime and Punishment), she spent the entire year referring to me as "George." Nice.

Most shocking of all is these memories spilling out of my brain's recesses. I never recount those days, but in one swoop, it all rushed back. Now, I'm like any other commuter, rearranging my daily calendar to avoid the buses and school zones.

Life in the Margins, August 2009

A few weeks ago, I waited on an egg sandwich at the coffeehouse adjacent to the wine & spirits store. Despite their Saturday morning rush, my ear was drawn to a single noise among the lazy conversations and frantic text message races.

Among the wide-armed chairs in the corner, a young mother tickled her daughter at intervals which drove the little girl to bursts of giddy laughter. Perhaps they sensed if she continued without pause, it would ruin the moment.

Perhaps it was purely spontaneous. I only know the little girl’s laugh was easily the best sound I heard all summer, a truly innocent display of glee so rarely unleashed in public.

I heard one of our time’s greatest voices, Neko Case, at the Ryman later that night, and despite her haunting tones, she can’t compare with the giggles emerging from that tiny moment.

White Out

Well, Jack White, I think we've called it quits for now. Maybe it's just a hiatus, maybe it's permanent, if you've got more side projects in the pipeline.

White isn't the A bad show once killed any future interest in Badly Drawn Boy –the descent from beloved songwriter to wanker happens so rapidly. The Raconteurs stroke a similar blow last September, wiping out all goodwill from their epic Bonnaroo show thanks to an hour of mailed-in rock numbers at the Ryman, a venue which usually draws the best of any musician to grace its stage.

All eyes are on Dead Weather, the latest side project. I heard Allison Mossheart warble horribly as one-half of noise rock act The Kills. They opened for the Raconteurs at that ill-fate.

Secondly, there is such thing as stretching yourself too thin. Recording a comeback for Loretta Lynn was fine, but the moment White jumped into the Raconteurs, he was headed in a direction I couldn’t follow. While I enjoyed both Raconteurs records, they had a shelf life. I don’t wear to revisit Old Enough or Store Bought Bones in the way I need to regularly listen to Ball & Biscuit or the merciless blues of Death Letter. A second side project signals his day job ( aka original band) no longer cuts it for him.

By all accounts, White and Mossheart have great chemistry onstage. I can only admit to caring less. They turned me off the moment I saw that first black & white promotional photograph with 3/4ths of the band snarling at the camera (I give bassist Jack Lawrence a pass, since he’s the only popular musician ever to bump into me then apologize).

The way they shuttled out-of-town press to their invite-only Nashville debut at the opening of White’s Third Man Records only deepened the grudge. Don’t tell me your disappointed that your band can’t play out and build a fanbase normally then throw a bash for the national music press. These pack journalists jump at any attempt to fellate musicians deemed acceptable to then, so don’t act surprised when they laud the new group. You can put vultures on a new diet, but they always return to the same fatted calf.

Perhaps its my concrete belief that the final Late Night With Conan O’Brien was a goodbye to the duo, a limp, barely rehearsed take on We’re Going To Be Friends. Once he broke the chain of White Stripes records every other year, I have no faith that they will play again. White’s “maybe next year” comments about a new Stripes record don’t breed much hope. Meg’s marriage in Jack’s Nashville backyard exudes a little more. But until I hear they’ve spent another two weeks in the studio banging out a long player, no spirits will be lifted.

White sounded mildly irked that this new band would immediately get press attention and not have a chance to grow organically. I agree. As a result, I’m not buying the new record, nor would I support the $30 ticket price for Dead Weather’s inaugural tour. If White really wants to rough it, play some bar shows, and don’t ensconce your new group in big venues. His every musical move is calculated, from the White Stripes color schemes to the "surprise" debut performance of Dead Weather. Playing a run of bars or small clubs wouldn't fit that delicately crafted mold.

I wonder if my Jack White backlash owes something to the overabundance of side projects lukring out there.

But it just isn’t true. The Monsters of Folk excite my curiosity, as does the Dave Grohl/Josh Homme/John Paul Jones album coming up. That doesn’t carry over to Jack White’s solo blues single from the Just Play Loud documentary. But we can blame that one on charging six bucks for a one-sided 45 LP.

I’m just burned with Jack White for the moment, and done lionizing everything the man records. I suppose that’s the price the prolific sometimes pay.

In the Highway's Shadow

Despite a lack of visitors to my apartment these days - it's hot and I'm mildly ashamed of it - I never lack for traffic. Across Delaware Avenue and a steep nameless creek runs the nonstop flow of Interstate 40-W, tens of thousands of passersby clogging the lanes at all hours.

Back in Columbus, highways were strictly background noise. I-71 and state Route 315 were both more than a mile away, so all the engine and tire noise coalesced into a strangely ambient noise occasionally punctuated by trains or police helicopters (not they have an iota of ambiance, even when the searchlight twirls past the windows).

In the last few weeks construction vehicles have churned up pavement to the west, closing lanes at night and junking an ancient pedestrian bridge deep in two bordering neighborhoods (seriously, the thing was difficult to access). Nights have brought endless caravans of crawling hulks, their running lights drifting past until the wee hours when the construction crews pack up for morning rush hour.

Sure, the highway is loud, and has essentially rendered my front porch useless for gatherings of more than a few people.

But I can't take my eyes away from the traffic. All those lives hurtling toward Memphis and other points west, or stopping two exits up in Bellevue. I don't know where they're going anymore than I know where I'm going. Some don't make it that far - some lives might have ended between glass, metal and pavement, with the sirens bearing down on the fresh wrecks. Police patrols collect their share, since the speed limit clings to 55 for another mile past the house.

I too wonder how many commuters/vacationers stare out at the houses. I'm not convinced, since I have no memory of staring at the Nashville scenery when my family drove through when bound for Memphis in 1998. A family spat had consumed most of my attention, and the little corner house from 1910 probably garnered a glance or less.

How long will visions of the highway fill the bedroom window? With 2010 poised as a make or break year for Job #1, I don't want the weight of a mortgage. If I have to downsize, that would be trouble. I can't say I'll miss that 9-lane interchange when I go, but I'm glad I know longer have to scrounge for positives. So for now, I just enjoy the highway, and keep counting lives that can't pass by fast enough.