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mapsedgeCarl lived in this neighborhood a bit longer than I have. My family moved here in 1971 when I was five. I used to go over to his house across the street when I was little and play with one of his many grandsons, Chris. We were friendly, but never friends.
The Ragusa's were Italian. I remember his house, especially the kitchen, being thick with the smell of garlic, oregano, and the homemade wine he use to make from his fruit trees, usually pear. His wife, Therese, was Old Country, and spoke clear, but accented English. She called me "Williams", in spite of my many attempts to correct her. The last time I was at his house as a child - I must have been ten years old - he still walked me to the end of his long driveway to see me safely across the street.
The house as it stands is not the house that he originally built. When he needed a larger house he simply built a new one around the old one and stripped the old one out. I have no idea how, or if it's even true. That's the story anyway.
Carl is infamous in our family as the Man Who Tried To Ravish Mom. At least, that's if you believe mom's version of the tale. To her, he was a Dago tomcat with a penchant for trying to get into every woman's bed in the neighborhood. I suspect the truth was something a bit more complicated.
About a year after mom died, I saw him in his driveway and went over to chat. By this time he was unable to walk without the aid of two canes, had no teeth of his own, and his voice was a quiet rasp. He explained how he came on to my mom so hard so that she would be turned off to him. If he hadn't, he confessed, they would have been lovers.
I listened politely, his earnest, old face imploring me to forgive him. I did. I didn't need to; he needed me to. And I don't care one way or the other.
Summers you'd see him on his property, about four acres, driving around on his tractor, a derelict old beast of gray and rust, brush hogging his land. In the Winter, he'd shovel his drive with it. He shoveled ours only once, and ended up plowing the yard at the same time while he struggled to turn the thing around.
In the Autumn, his fruit trees heavy ripe pears and apples, he'd have a small harvest, much of which would be translated into the language of cheap, homemade alcohol. When he became too old to harvest, a local church group would come and do it for him. I'm guessing the fruit found a different destination after that.
After my father died and Mom returned to Weeping Water to live, Carl bought mom's old car, a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. He drove that car until it died, abandoned in his driveway. He replaced it with another large sedan. When that one died, it joined the Cutlass. He repeated that scenario one more time, and the city ordinance forced him to start getting rid of them. The Cutlass went first. The last two are still there.
After Therese died, in 1998 or so, Carl began to truly age. His legs are what betrayed him, preventing him from climbing onto his tractor, from hauling his own trashcans down to the street. He walked, as I said, with two canes, until finally even that no longer worked. His sons installed a walk-in shower on the first floor of the house so he wouldn' t have to use the stairs anymore.
The last year or so, someone was always at the house; he was never left alone. Always, one of his four sons was there. The last month, hospice nurses. Today, every child, spouse, grandchild, and great-grandchild was there, and the nurse left early. We knew even before the van from the funeral home arrived.
Carl had finally died. We watched as they loaded his body into the van and drove away. Within a hour, everyone else was gone, too. The house is empty and dark for the first time in forty years, not even the security lamp on the corner of the house glowing.
That concludes the epitaph, I suppose. There's not a whole lot more to say. The four acres will probably be developed for housing, and our property values will again rise. The house, the long driveway and dead cars, the lean-to ramshackle barn made of old telephone poles and scrap corrugated metal, home to a colony of feral cats for a few years, will all go away, along with all the evidence of Carl's life on Osage.
As for Carl himself, I don't mourn him. I grieve on behalf of his children, but it's not a loss in my world.
What it represents to me, however, is one more step in my own walk toward that inevitability that, twenty years ago, I would never have seriously considered.
Carl represents to me a part of my past, my childhood, a piece that, if I could just hold on to it I could keep my age from stalking me. I can ignore the sore joints, creeping memory loss, chest pains, and impending bifocals if those reminders of my youth would just stay. They don't, of course, they can't, that's not the way of things. It is a reminder that I, too, am aging, that the balance between memory and anticipation is weighing heavier on the memory side these days, and isn't likely to tip back.
The Ragusa's were Italian. I remember his house, especially the kitchen, being thick with the smell of garlic, oregano, and the homemade wine he use to make from his fruit trees, usually pear. His wife, Therese, was Old Country, and spoke clear, but accented English. She called me "Williams", in spite of my many attempts to correct her. The last time I was at his house as a child - I must have been ten years old - he still walked me to the end of his long driveway to see me safely across the street.
The house as it stands is not the house that he originally built. When he needed a larger house he simply built a new one around the old one and stripped the old one out. I have no idea how, or if it's even true. That's the story anyway.
Carl is infamous in our family as the Man Who Tried To Ravish Mom. At least, that's if you believe mom's version of the tale. To her, he was a Dago tomcat with a penchant for trying to get into every woman's bed in the neighborhood. I suspect the truth was something a bit more complicated.
About a year after mom died, I saw him in his driveway and went over to chat. By this time he was unable to walk without the aid of two canes, had no teeth of his own, and his voice was a quiet rasp. He explained how he came on to my mom so hard so that she would be turned off to him. If he hadn't, he confessed, they would have been lovers.
I listened politely, his earnest, old face imploring me to forgive him. I did. I didn't need to; he needed me to. And I don't care one way or the other.
Summers you'd see him on his property, about four acres, driving around on his tractor, a derelict old beast of gray and rust, brush hogging his land. In the Winter, he'd shovel his drive with it. He shoveled ours only once, and ended up plowing the yard at the same time while he struggled to turn the thing around.
In the Autumn, his fruit trees heavy ripe pears and apples, he'd have a small harvest, much of which would be translated into the language of cheap, homemade alcohol. When he became too old to harvest, a local church group would come and do it for him. I'm guessing the fruit found a different destination after that.
After my father died and Mom returned to Weeping Water to live, Carl bought mom's old car, a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. He drove that car until it died, abandoned in his driveway. He replaced it with another large sedan. When that one died, it joined the Cutlass. He repeated that scenario one more time, and the city ordinance forced him to start getting rid of them. The Cutlass went first. The last two are still there.
After Therese died, in 1998 or so, Carl began to truly age. His legs are what betrayed him, preventing him from climbing onto his tractor, from hauling his own trashcans down to the street. He walked, as I said, with two canes, until finally even that no longer worked. His sons installed a walk-in shower on the first floor of the house so he wouldn' t have to use the stairs anymore.
The last year or so, someone was always at the house; he was never left alone. Always, one of his four sons was there. The last month, hospice nurses. Today, every child, spouse, grandchild, and great-grandchild was there, and the nurse left early. We knew even before the van from the funeral home arrived.
Carl had finally died. We watched as they loaded his body into the van and drove away. Within a hour, everyone else was gone, too. The house is empty and dark for the first time in forty years, not even the security lamp on the corner of the house glowing.
That concludes the epitaph, I suppose. There's not a whole lot more to say. The four acres will probably be developed for housing, and our property values will again rise. The house, the long driveway and dead cars, the lean-to ramshackle barn made of old telephone poles and scrap corrugated metal, home to a colony of feral cats for a few years, will all go away, along with all the evidence of Carl's life on Osage.
As for Carl himself, I don't mourn him. I grieve on behalf of his children, but it's not a loss in my world.
What it represents to me, however, is one more step in my own walk toward that inevitability that, twenty years ago, I would never have seriously considered.
Carl represents to me a part of my past, my childhood, a piece that, if I could just hold on to it I could keep my age from stalking me. I can ignore the sore joints, creeping memory loss, chest pains, and impending bifocals if those reminders of my youth would just stay. They don't, of course, they can't, that's not the way of things. It is a reminder that I, too, am aging, that the balance between memory and anticipation is weighing heavier on the memory side these days, and isn't likely to tip back.