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The day of my father's funeral...
A tale mostly told...
The day of my father's funeral, when all the services were done, respects paid and hands shaken, the family went back to Grandpa Wallick's house on "O" street, less than a mile from the cemetery.
The town of Weeping Water, Nebraska is in a bowl-shaped valley, the west side gone like Mt. Saint Helens, though what removed that side was the slowly destructive process of limestone mining, not an explosion. The cemetery is on the Northeast rim. The White House, as Vic Wallick referred to his place, was one of a nine or ten on that street across from Weeping Water School, a 1920's era brick building that saw the graduations of both my father and mother. That whole area is on the south end of the valley floor. The house looks North, toward the cemetery and, far far beyond, Omaha.
The dining room was really just a large transitional space between the kitchen and the living room, with two bedrooms, a bathroom and Vic's office at each corner. The table, a large dark wood construction that could seat ten without straining, was almost completely covered in true small town fashion with casseroles and pies. Congregationalists share a love of hotdishes with Lutherans and Methodists, it seems.
Grandpa Wallick, Vic to almost everyone, "Gaga" to us kids", had been dead a month by this time, a month to the day if I remember right. My mother was so wrapped up in closing down her husband's life that she hadn't really had time to deal with the end of her father's, thus the house was still "ours", still furnished.
Us Morris kids: me; Kathy; Chris; and Mike, took four old glasses and a bottle of Manichewitz down into the basement, to get away from the traffic and to toast the man who had been our father. We stood in an unfinished portion of the basement, with its cinder block walls, low ceiling and dirt floor, and we drank - though at 18 I wasn't of legal age yet, but no one seemed to mind - each expressing what was one our minds. I was just beginning to nurse an anger that is with me to this day, and it found its first expression in my toast: "To Dad. I wish I'd known him better."
Each in turn, we spoke, drank the inch or two of cheap wine, and broke the glass against the far wall.
That done, we drove into Lincoln and saw "Footloose" at the theatre downtown.
People I tell this story to are always surprised, and no one moreso than Chris's wife at the time, even though she came with us. They don't get that we could go to a funeral in the morning and a movie in the afternoon. But we needed to blow off steam, and it was something to do we all could do together.
Mom's funeral was the same, except this time, it was snowing...yes, yes, I know you know. We ate in the social area of the Congregational church where we'd had the funeral, with cookies and desserts prepared by the Ladies' Auxiliary. Didn't know there were such things still, but I guess there are. It was a long drive back to Kansas City, though, so the festivities would have to wait.
The next night, Saturday night, we all went to the coffeehouse. It was an open mic night, and my sister (in from Colorado with her family) had never seen me play in that kind of setting and wanted to go. I played celtic stuff as I always do, my brother - tall, thin - dancing beside his chair for a few of the faster tunes to the good-natured hoots of the other coffeehouse patrons. There were a few new musicians there that night: a young man who mistakes wailing for impassioned singing and who was almost painful to hear; a young hispanic woman who sang Portuguese drinking songs; a few of the regulars. It was a good time.
A good denouement to the whole experience.
The day of my father's funeral, when all the services were done, respects paid and hands shaken, the family went back to Grandpa Wallick's house on "O" street, less than a mile from the cemetery.
The town of Weeping Water, Nebraska is in a bowl-shaped valley, the west side gone like Mt. Saint Helens, though what removed that side was the slowly destructive process of limestone mining, not an explosion. The cemetery is on the Northeast rim. The White House, as Vic Wallick referred to his place, was one of a nine or ten on that street across from Weeping Water School, a 1920's era brick building that saw the graduations of both my father and mother. That whole area is on the south end of the valley floor. The house looks North, toward the cemetery and, far far beyond, Omaha.
The dining room was really just a large transitional space between the kitchen and the living room, with two bedrooms, a bathroom and Vic's office at each corner. The table, a large dark wood construction that could seat ten without straining, was almost completely covered in true small town fashion with casseroles and pies. Congregationalists share a love of hotdishes with Lutherans and Methodists, it seems.
Grandpa Wallick, Vic to almost everyone, "Gaga" to us kids", had been dead a month by this time, a month to the day if I remember right. My mother was so wrapped up in closing down her husband's life that she hadn't really had time to deal with the end of her father's, thus the house was still "ours", still furnished.
Us Morris kids: me; Kathy; Chris; and Mike, took four old glasses and a bottle of Manichewitz down into the basement, to get away from the traffic and to toast the man who had been our father. We stood in an unfinished portion of the basement, with its cinder block walls, low ceiling and dirt floor, and we drank - though at 18 I wasn't of legal age yet, but no one seemed to mind - each expressing what was one our minds. I was just beginning to nurse an anger that is with me to this day, and it found its first expression in my toast: "To Dad. I wish I'd known him better."
Each in turn, we spoke, drank the inch or two of cheap wine, and broke the glass against the far wall.
That done, we drove into Lincoln and saw "Footloose" at the theatre downtown.
People I tell this story to are always surprised, and no one moreso than Chris's wife at the time, even though she came with us. They don't get that we could go to a funeral in the morning and a movie in the afternoon. But we needed to blow off steam, and it was something to do we all could do together.
Mom's funeral was the same, except this time, it was snowing...yes, yes, I know you know. We ate in the social area of the Congregational church where we'd had the funeral, with cookies and desserts prepared by the Ladies' Auxiliary. Didn't know there were such things still, but I guess there are. It was a long drive back to Kansas City, though, so the festivities would have to wait.
The next night, Saturday night, we all went to the coffeehouse. It was an open mic night, and my sister (in from Colorado with her family) had never seen me play in that kind of setting and wanted to go. I played celtic stuff as I always do, my brother - tall, thin - dancing beside his chair for a few of the faster tunes to the good-natured hoots of the other coffeehouse patrons. There were a few new musicians there that night: a young man who mistakes wailing for impassioned singing and who was almost painful to hear; a young hispanic woman who sang Portuguese drinking songs; a few of the regulars. It was a good time.
A good denouement to the whole experience.