Nan McCarthy

author of Since You Went Away, Chat, Connect, Crash, & Live ’Til I Die

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Archive For

1 excerpt: Live ‘Til I Die: a memoir of my father’s life

  • August 31, 2013
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Excerpts

excerpts from
Live ’Til I Die: a memoir of my father’s life
Nan McCarthy

Roger Laven, Bill Caho, Ben Johnson, Dick Crimmins, Al Young
Roger Laven, Bill Caho, Ben Johnson, Dick Crimmins, Al Young

Roger Laven:
Your dad, as I recall, was the tallest and the loudest. Of all the kids. You always knew he was there because he was taller than anybody else and he was mouthy. Your dad was an attractive kid because he was interesting to be around. He was always the center of activity. My life with your father could be described as always interesting, sometimes exciting, and once in a while a little dangerous. Even as a lad. Your father had a certain something—a capability for mischief.

Stan Abbott:
He was a big clumsy kid. It’s funny now but he used to walk off a curb and fall down and break a leg or something. He wasn’t too coordinated. You want honest answers? He was a pain in the backside. We’d go out in crowds—we didn’t call them gangs then, we just had a crowd of guys goin’ out. We’d be walkin’ down the street, maybe two or three of us alongside of one another on the sidewalk. Ben always seemed to kind of veer to one side or the other, keep walkin’ into people. He was an aggravator of sorts.

Roger Laven:
The parents didn’t get involved with the kids. With the exception of the Cahos, there was not a lot of contact between us, the kids in the group, and the various parents. They went their way and we were pretty much on our own. That’s why I think we stayed together as a group for such a long time.

Rita Caho McElroy:
I don’t know why the boys were available to spend so much time at our house, but they were. It’s true they could walk into our house without even ringing the doorbell. And we thought nothing of it. They were around so much they were like our brothers. A couple of times I had a date and all eight of them were there waiting for my date. When my date rang the doorbell they all rushed out like cattle, practically knocking one fella down. They thought that was the funniest thing ever.

Al Young:
When we were in high school Ben was a soda jerk at Walgreen’s on 67th and Stony Island, right on the corner there. I worked in a drugstore at 64th and Cottage Grove Avenue. But Ben was a typical soda jerk. He had the hat on… kind of like a Norman Rockwell painting—right!

Donn Glynn:
Another place we used to gather was the Island. That was a soda fountain on Stony Island, about 65th and Stony. That’s where the Carmel boys would meet the girls from Loretto and Aquinas.

Dorothy Johnson Moore:
The nuns at Loretto didn’t want us going to the Island because the Carmel boys were there and they didn’t want us loitering around with them. Your dad used to come in the Island with Bill Caho and a bunch of guys. He was two years older than me. I thought he was handsome. He was really It. Tall, handsome, good company. Funny. Everybody liked him.

Al Young:
Your dad, he was cool. He was sort of a leader. It would be his idea where we were going. It was always his idea, and the trouble was, we’d get in trouble because of him. He couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag but he would start every fight. He was always fast and loose and ready to go.

Roger Laven:
There were various adventures we’d have with your dad because we would go to the Southwest Side to Father Perez Hall, a dance hall where they’d serve anybody who could walk. There was a neighborhood tavern not far from there called OBJ’s. It was a little like “West Side Story”—there were a lot of groups that came there, some of them a little rough. Your father would always want to dance with one of their girls. That’s when things would get exciting. Only when he got a little older did it occasionally get dangerous.

Donn Glynn:
O Be Joyful was a popular place for meeting girls. That was quite a little trip from our neighborhood, from Woodlawn. All of us drank young. All of us were being served in taverns in high school. We were all confirmed drinkers by the time we graduated high school. I mean, we were heavy drinkers, most of us. But we didn’t know it. Believe me, we didn’t know it.

Al Young:
We were pretty wild. In those days we started drinking—going into taverns even—when we were 15. During the war we’d pretend we were 4F. They’d say, “What are you doing in here? You should be in the Army.” And we’d say, “Well, Dempsey here has a heart murmur,” and somebody else would walk in with a limp. Just so we could get into some goofy bar and get a beer. We did a lot of that.

Roger Laven:
When we were drinking, we never thought about the consequences. Nobody told us, you’re going to be an alcoholic. Nobody said that. We grew up drinking. We were drinking from the time we were freshman in high school, as soon as we could. It was like smoking. It was the thing to do. We’d see bums on Madison. Well, we thought, but that’s different. We’d drink wine or beer, we can handle it. I’d like to have a nickel for every time we said we can handle it.


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7 Gray Hair

  • August 26, 2013
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog · Family

Gray hair might be fashionable now but it sure wasn’t hip when I first went au naturel in the ’90s.

Nan McCarthy

I started turning gray when I was 18, and I’ve had a full head of gray hair since my early 30s. (I’ll be 52 this October.) My dad, who died when he was 39 and I was 9, also had a full head of gray hair by the time he was 30. My natural hair color as a child was what they called “dishwater blonde”; I added blonde highlights from the time I was a teenager until I was about 32. It was then I noticed my roots looked white so I decided to stop coloring my hair and see what was underneath. I was surprised to find my hair had turned completely gray! That was 20 years ago and I haven’t colored my hair since.

When our boys were little (they’re young adults now) it was sometimes hard on them having a mom with gray hair—like when I picked them up at preschool and their new friends called out to let them know their “grandma” was here. It’s also a little weird running into people I knew in high school or college who haven’t seen me since then. I sometimes wonder if, when they’re trying to pull their gaze away from my white hair (as one does with a car wreck), they’re thinking, “Wow, she sure has AGED.” I’m looking forward to my 60s and 70s though, when people could conceivably say I haven’t aged a bit in 30 years—since I first went all-gray. I did say “conceivably.”

In spite of all that I like my full head of gray hair. There’s the obvious benefit of saving time & money not having to color my hair every 6 weeks. I also like the idea of embracing the aging process instead of trying to fight it. (Although I wouldn’t mind a few less crows’ feet and if my knees stopped making those squishy noises going up stairs.) But one of the reasons I love my gray hair most is that it’s something I inherited from my dad—a piece of him I’ll carry with me the rest of my life.

copyright © 2010 Nan McCarthy

nancy with the laughing face.crop 

photo by KMA Photography

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5 A Journey to the Center of Time

  • August 8, 2013
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog · Family · Parenting

Sending a child off to college prompts meditations on parenting and the passage of time.

Nan McCarthy

(This column originally appeared in August 2011 in the Kansas City Star.)

In his book Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman describes a place where time stands still—where raindrops “hang motionless in air,” pendulums “float mid-swing,” and “pedestrians are frozen on the dusty streets.” He calls it the center of time. Lightman then asks, “Who would make pilgrimage to the center of time?” His answer: “Parents with children, and lovers.”

At this time of year when parents of college freshmen are packing up the car with mini-fridges, extra-long twin sheets sets, study pillows, and shower caddies, the wish to stop the pendulum, if even for just a few moments, is tempting. Amidst the trips to Target and Staples, the cleaning out of closets and keepsakes, the going-away parties and the final good-byes, it’s understandable to feel wistful for the years gone by and apprehensive about the months to come. We find ourselves remembering moments of innocence and joy when our children were young, and reflecting on our parenting in times of challenge. In these moments of reflection and reminiscence the wish to turn back the clock in order to relive the good times and perhaps get a “do-over” in the bad times is hard to resist.

Add to that the uncertainty and trepidation associated with sending our children off on their own to fend for themselves in an unknown universe where they’ll inevitably come face to face with life’s hardships and everyday challenges. It’s no wonder we find ourselves doling out last-minute advice and warnings to our children as we show them how to use their new ATM card, teach them to do a load of laundry, or gather around the kitchen table for one last family dinner. If only we could send our children out into the world with an amulet that would protect them from harm and tragedy and people with hate in their hearts.

In the place described by Lightman, where time stands still and parents can be seen “clutching their children in a frozen embrace that will never let go,” Lightman imagines a world where our children would “never grow wrinkled or tired,” “never get injured,” and “never know evil.” Yet Lightman also alludes to the trade-offs involved in wishing for this “eternity of contentment,” in which we are “fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.” To be suspended in time requires the absence of movement. A heart that stops beating feels neither pain nor joy. So the choice becomes to keep moving forward, and take the bitter with the sweet. “Life is a vessel of sadness,” Lightman writes, “but it is noble to live life, and without time there is no life.”

Barring amulets and the ability to stop the pendulum, as parents we must choose to bear these rites of passage with dignity and unselfishness. We remind ourselves that it’s not about us really—it’s about them after all—and that this is the way things are supposed to be. And so we seek a place of serenity in our hearts as we pull up to the dorm room, unload plastic storage bins, place fresh linens on the lofted dorm bed, hook up the new laptop, and wrap our arms around our child in one last embrace—offering an encouraging smile—before getting in the car to let the tears roll down our cheeks.

excited to be a hawkeye 
copyright © 2011 Nan McCarthy

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0 Coming Soon: work in progress

  • August 6, 2013
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog

Nan is currently working on a new novel. Watch this space for details in the coming months. Thanks for your support!

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Sunset in the Flint Hills

  • August 6, 2013
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog · Photos

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