Re: literally an alliterate idiot
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 12:55 am
Changing the subject:
I met ol’ Troy when he was 80. Tall and lanky with the sun at his back, he looked like ET - the Extra Terrestrial (with a pencil thin mustache), cheerfully waving from the roof next door, a senior citizen inspecting the shingles on the ranch style house that he and his spouse had decided to purchase.
They had been living in an Earthly Shelter he personally designed and constructed himself - just outside the city limits; but Sue had a stroke, so they moved to be closer to their several supportive sons and daughters.
We probably experienced the snowiest winter in recent memory the year that the old folks moved next door. For the first few snowstorms, I courteously scooped their sidewalk and driveway after my own. But, one morning we all awoke to 3 or 4 feet of fresh fallen snow; and right when the snow stopped, Troy was starting the Briggs and Stratton 2 stroke engine on his usually reliable ancient snow blower, and sure enough, before I knew what he was doing, he blew the snow from both of our driveways and sidewalks, and several more sidewalks down the street…
I have quite a few memories of shoveling snow and sharing stories with good ol’ Troy… We didn’t really visit very much, never shared a meal or any adventures, but we often talked, over the back fence, or out in front, or congenially conversed while he watched me work at their house now and then… Troy kept constantly busy as a engineer, and caring for Sue - who was shy and embarrassed of her crippled condition after her stroke, but often smiled and squeeze my hand. Troy was also an excellent gardner, and every autumn would bring an abundance of cucumbers, lettuce, lotsa squash, and a ton of tomatoes. I always appreciated the Texan’s perspective and observations, his country boy humor and common sense, and the way he enjoyed keeping employed and staying productive around their place. He was also sort of a neighborhood guardian… such as the time he told the owner of the nearby rental that his latest tenants were bound to get busted if they kept on growing that smelly marijuana… (The renters moved within a month.)
Troy and Sue kept a cute little poodle that was constantly barking in their big backyard. Buddy liked Troy like nobody else, and it was treat to see ‘em down the street - walking and talking, and getting some exercise - with his portable oxygen by his side.
Sue eventually passed away. Troy and Buddy stayed next door for another two years before he decided he needed to stay in an assisted living senior facility. I remember the day the movers left, half-ass listening to 3 dogs a-barking - whom I’d never even noticed with Buddy next door.
I knew Troy’s lungs were failing fast, but it still surprised me when six months later his son-in-law informed me that Troy was in hospice.
Troy had invited me to his small little church, but I always told him, “I’ll think about it”, or, “Not today”; but the real reason was I don’t ’believe’, and the pressure to regurgitate’ the group’s idea of the ’Son of God’ trivialized me to true alterity…. sincerely relating a strenuous pretension in a room full of prayers… at weddings and funerals.
I ironically watched the wonderful movie Elmer Gantry before the funeral, a 1960 mind expanding expose of old time religion based on a book by Upton Sinclair published in 1927. Burt Lancaster stars, with a fine cast of characters, as a drifting grifter with a gift for the gab, quoting some scripture to becoming a preacher, in an academy award winning Oscar performance- that sorta reminded of Troy’s service - praising our ever-lasting Savior - the entire congregation resonating, “Amen”, again and again; which I also repeated, automatically standing and sitting - out of respect for the Christian tradition in which I was raised.
Troy’s many friends and family, and a pack of parishioners, patiently stood in a long, long line to tearfully offer their favorite stories at his massive memorial in a spectacular chapel overlooking the entire front range. One of his nephews (who looked a little older than me), whose long dead Dad was Troy’s baby brother, told a wonderful story that the older Texans had often related at the dining room table - about their dilemma before the ‘Depression’…
“Troy,” he began, “was blessed with an incredible memory and a wisdom born from the ‘worst hard times…”
Troy had apparently written in his diary about the days that he and his family lived near a settlement aptly described as “barely a wide spot” on a rural route road - somewhere between Dallas and Sherman…Texas, of course…
And while he was talking, I was actually drifting… across that prairie - in the 60’s or 70’s, back and forth on a four lane highway - a bored boy riding in the back of a new Cadillac; and recalling the pictures I’d seen of my Dad’s from 1920’s Oklahoma, I vividly envisioned Troy’s situation, growing up quick, planting and picking and pricking their pinkies on acres of cotton to feed their family - where forty years later our Sedan De Ville soared right through that straight stretch of Interstate Highway 75.
His nephew explained that Troy and his Dad were merely toddlers when they relocated to a bigger house on 60 acres. But, their father died suddenly at the age of forty. So, his mother was forced to feed four boys while struggling to tend to a bigger farm.
In the month of October in '27, while his diligent mother and two older bothers were picking the cotton as quick as they could, Troy was in charge of his 22 month old younger sibling, and for cooking the corn bread - on a wood fired stove - when he was not even four years old! Troy didn’t know how tell time yet, so his mother taught him to look at the clock on a kitchen counter, and to strike a match and start the fire beneath the sticks inside the stove - when the little hand moved to the number here, and the big hand had moved to the number there.
“They had no electricity or running water, and almost no money, but the family ingeniously made things work with what was available”, the nephew continued, “Troy had expressed that, “He always felt blessed that he and his family had enough, and didn’t freeze or starve to death - like some folks did;” and that “he never felt deprived, because everyone around ‘em scarcely survived.”
Troy’s pastor stood later to say, “Troy’s occupation was engineer, but the man was much more than a engineer.” Then, he described an incredible project that Troy figured out when others had failed, and then he described what Troy had told him about the time the Dean of his college unexpectedly requested that Troy come to his office to answer some questions. Troy assumed that he was in trouble, but the Dean was amused by the unusual scores on his entrance exam: Troy had received the record high score for mechanics and science, and lowest score ever for music appreciation!
One day, I brought Troy a big hot bowl of beans with ham that had been cooking all day in a 6 quart crock pot, and Troy almost disgustedly wrinkled his nose and instantly insisted, “No!”
Then winking his eye and shrugging his shoulders, Troy wistfully explained, “I’ve ate a lot of beans.”
Come to think of it, he didn’t grow corn… but did give us a bunch of green beans… once.
Most Americans my age or younger can hardly fathom no food in the fridge, slipping outside to take a sh!t, no running water to wash your hands or take a shower, no electricity… no electronic entertainment, nothing for a kid in the dark to do… but light a candle and read the Bible.
I met ol’ Troy when he was 80. Tall and lanky with the sun at his back, he looked like ET - the Extra Terrestrial (with a pencil thin mustache), cheerfully waving from the roof next door, a senior citizen inspecting the shingles on the ranch style house that he and his spouse had decided to purchase.
They had been living in an Earthly Shelter he personally designed and constructed himself - just outside the city limits; but Sue had a stroke, so they moved to be closer to their several supportive sons and daughters.
We probably experienced the snowiest winter in recent memory the year that the old folks moved next door. For the first few snowstorms, I courteously scooped their sidewalk and driveway after my own. But, one morning we all awoke to 3 or 4 feet of fresh fallen snow; and right when the snow stopped, Troy was starting the Briggs and Stratton 2 stroke engine on his usually reliable ancient snow blower, and sure enough, before I knew what he was doing, he blew the snow from both of our driveways and sidewalks, and several more sidewalks down the street…
I have quite a few memories of shoveling snow and sharing stories with good ol’ Troy… We didn’t really visit very much, never shared a meal or any adventures, but we often talked, over the back fence, or out in front, or congenially conversed while he watched me work at their house now and then… Troy kept constantly busy as a engineer, and caring for Sue - who was shy and embarrassed of her crippled condition after her stroke, but often smiled and squeeze my hand. Troy was also an excellent gardner, and every autumn would bring an abundance of cucumbers, lettuce, lotsa squash, and a ton of tomatoes. I always appreciated the Texan’s perspective and observations, his country boy humor and common sense, and the way he enjoyed keeping employed and staying productive around their place. He was also sort of a neighborhood guardian… such as the time he told the owner of the nearby rental that his latest tenants were bound to get busted if they kept on growing that smelly marijuana… (The renters moved within a month.)
Troy and Sue kept a cute little poodle that was constantly barking in their big backyard. Buddy liked Troy like nobody else, and it was treat to see ‘em down the street - walking and talking, and getting some exercise - with his portable oxygen by his side.
Sue eventually passed away. Troy and Buddy stayed next door for another two years before he decided he needed to stay in an assisted living senior facility. I remember the day the movers left, half-ass listening to 3 dogs a-barking - whom I’d never even noticed with Buddy next door.
I knew Troy’s lungs were failing fast, but it still surprised me when six months later his son-in-law informed me that Troy was in hospice.
Troy had invited me to his small little church, but I always told him, “I’ll think about it”, or, “Not today”; but the real reason was I don’t ’believe’, and the pressure to regurgitate’ the group’s idea of the ’Son of God’ trivialized me to true alterity…. sincerely relating a strenuous pretension in a room full of prayers… at weddings and funerals.
I ironically watched the wonderful movie Elmer Gantry before the funeral, a 1960 mind expanding expose of old time religion based on a book by Upton Sinclair published in 1927. Burt Lancaster stars, with a fine cast of characters, as a drifting grifter with a gift for the gab, quoting some scripture to becoming a preacher, in an academy award winning Oscar performance- that sorta reminded of Troy’s service - praising our ever-lasting Savior - the entire congregation resonating, “Amen”, again and again; which I also repeated, automatically standing and sitting - out of respect for the Christian tradition in which I was raised.
Troy’s many friends and family, and a pack of parishioners, patiently stood in a long, long line to tearfully offer their favorite stories at his massive memorial in a spectacular chapel overlooking the entire front range. One of his nephews (who looked a little older than me), whose long dead Dad was Troy’s baby brother, told a wonderful story that the older Texans had often related at the dining room table - about their dilemma before the ‘Depression’…
“Troy,” he began, “was blessed with an incredible memory and a wisdom born from the ‘worst hard times…”
Troy had apparently written in his diary about the days that he and his family lived near a settlement aptly described as “barely a wide spot” on a rural route road - somewhere between Dallas and Sherman…Texas, of course…
And while he was talking, I was actually drifting… across that prairie - in the 60’s or 70’s, back and forth on a four lane highway - a bored boy riding in the back of a new Cadillac; and recalling the pictures I’d seen of my Dad’s from 1920’s Oklahoma, I vividly envisioned Troy’s situation, growing up quick, planting and picking and pricking their pinkies on acres of cotton to feed their family - where forty years later our Sedan De Ville soared right through that straight stretch of Interstate Highway 75.
His nephew explained that Troy and his Dad were merely toddlers when they relocated to a bigger house on 60 acres. But, their father died suddenly at the age of forty. So, his mother was forced to feed four boys while struggling to tend to a bigger farm.
In the month of October in '27, while his diligent mother and two older bothers were picking the cotton as quick as they could, Troy was in charge of his 22 month old younger sibling, and for cooking the corn bread - on a wood fired stove - when he was not even four years old! Troy didn’t know how tell time yet, so his mother taught him to look at the clock on a kitchen counter, and to strike a match and start the fire beneath the sticks inside the stove - when the little hand moved to the number here, and the big hand had moved to the number there.
“They had no electricity or running water, and almost no money, but the family ingeniously made things work with what was available”, the nephew continued, “Troy had expressed that, “He always felt blessed that he and his family had enough, and didn’t freeze or starve to death - like some folks did;” and that “he never felt deprived, because everyone around ‘em scarcely survived.”
Troy’s pastor stood later to say, “Troy’s occupation was engineer, but the man was much more than a engineer.” Then, he described an incredible project that Troy figured out when others had failed, and then he described what Troy had told him about the time the Dean of his college unexpectedly requested that Troy come to his office to answer some questions. Troy assumed that he was in trouble, but the Dean was amused by the unusual scores on his entrance exam: Troy had received the record high score for mechanics and science, and lowest score ever for music appreciation!
One day, I brought Troy a big hot bowl of beans with ham that had been cooking all day in a 6 quart crock pot, and Troy almost disgustedly wrinkled his nose and instantly insisted, “No!”
Then winking his eye and shrugging his shoulders, Troy wistfully explained, “I’ve ate a lot of beans.”
Come to think of it, he didn’t grow corn… but did give us a bunch of green beans… once.
Most Americans my age or younger can hardly fathom no food in the fridge, slipping outside to take a sh!t, no running water to wash your hands or take a shower, no electricity… no electronic entertainment, nothing for a kid in the dark to do… but light a candle and read the Bible.
