Category: Family

0 Live ’Til I Die: Student Interview

November 6, 2016
by Nan McCarthy
· biography/memoir · Blog · Books · Family · Featured · Live ’Til I Die · Writing

Occasionally I receive inquiries from students who’ve been assigned the unfortunate task of keeping a dialectical journal or writing a paper on one of my books. I love chatting with students and I always make an attempt to answer student emails when time allows. Here’s an interview with a high school student in Chicago who read Live ’Til I Die for her AP English class.

Nan McCarthy

Student: I wanted to know a little more about the last section of every chapter. From what I can tell it looks like a switch from the actual memoir to an update of the present day. Was the intention of adding these parts in the book more for the reader or for yourself? I personally liked reading the process that you went through trying to bring this book together.

Nan: Yes—the first-person interludes at the end of each chapter are updates from the present day (“present day” being the two-year period in which I wrote the book, 2000-2001). Although my main purpose in writing Live ’Til I Die was to tell my father’s story, the secondary story (intertwined with my father’s story) was my attempt to put the pieces of his life together and therefore gain a better of understanding of who he was. With this perspective in mind you can’t really have one without the other. If it was just a straight-up account of my father’s life it would have been a biography. That’s why the book is subtitled “a memoir of my father’s life”—because by using the term “memoir,” it’s understood that the telling of his story comes from a very personal place, colored by my relationship with him as his daughter as well as by his relationships with his friends.

Student: Reading your book was nothing like anything I have ever read. I enjoyed the format in which the stories were told and how you had each chapter in chronological order. Not that I had a problem with it, but were there any times in which you felt as though the stories overlapped too much and it seemed repetitive? Was this on purpose to emphasize that certain events actually happened?

Nan: The way the various voices were arranged and edited was extremely purposeful. I had hours upon hours of tape recordings of interviews with each person who knew my father. I transcribed these recordings verbatim, then printed out the transcriptions and made comparisons between and among the various viewpoints, finding patterns and common themes as well as discrepancies. As the story of my father’s life began to take shape through the cumulative telling of each person’s story, my goal was to accurately convey the key events and emotions presented by each person.

I never doubted the veracity of the events as they were described to me so no, the repetition was not meant as a means of corroboration—although by their very nature those shared recollections did ultimately serve as a sort of corroboration. And while many of the interviewees talked about the same events, the fact that each person’s recounting of that event came out slightly different was fascinating to me. People have different memories of shared events because we each recall and interpret a particular event based on our various life experiences, personalities, and world views. With that in mind I find it remarkable that the stories my dad’s friends told me were as similar as they were. I believe those similar perspectives are a result of my dad’s friends’ shared upbringing and cultural backgrounds in a very specific place (Chicago’s South Side) at a unique moment in time (1940s, ’50s, and ’60s).

Student: You clearly state that your goal “from the start was to explore a world beyond [your] own memories of [your] father, to get to know him through the eyes of his peers” (231), which is what you did. I cannot even imagine how much work that might have been! I bet it was such a rewarding experience for you to see all of it come to together in the end.

I know you must be super busy so I’ll try to keep this short. I would love to know more about your use of rhetorical devices. Specifically speaking, when Maggie Quinn said, “Of course, it was tempting to want to ask such patients, ‘How could you do this to yourself?’ and to ask the family, ‘Why did you let it get to this point?’’ (11), was this an appeal to pathos? If you could direct me to a few more examples that would be great.

Nan: I appreciate the citations! Yes, writing Live ’Til I Die was an incredibly rewarding and satisfying experience. It was also surprisingly uplifting. A lot of people might think writing a book about my father dying so tragically at such a young age would be depressing but it really wasn’t like that for me. Of course I am always sad at the loss of him, but the experience provided me with a sense of compassion for my dad that I didn’t have before I wrote the book—and coming from a place of compassion is always uplifting.

Re: rhetorical devices and pathos. I don’t think much about literary devices when I’m writing (and I’d venture to say it’s the same for most writers). Although it helps to have knowledge and understanding of such devices, when it gets down to the actual writing of a novel (or memoir, in this case) I’m going by instinct, trying to find the words and sentences that will most accurately and efficiently convey a particular scenario, emotion, or thought. When I’m writing I’m not thinking “Oh, a rhetorical device or an appeal to pathos would work well here.” That’s not to say that an after-action study of a particular work is pointless. As a student of literature it’s necessary for your understanding of the writing process and of the work itself to break it down and understand the various devices being used. But as a writer I’m not consciously thinking of anything but putting words and sentences together in a way that best expresses what’s happening in my head.

What I do consciously think about is the rhythm of the words I’m writing, which is why I often read my work aloud as I’m working. If I verbally stumble over a word or phrase, it’s a sure sign it needs to be written more efficiently. The other thing I’m conscious of when writing is using my words in the sparest way possible. I’m always searching for the simplest, most direct way to evoke whatever is going on in my brain. This is more a matter of style and the way I like to write; other writers take different approaches and that’s what makes it fun to read books by a variety of authors.

With that in mind I don’t think I could provide you with specific examples of particular literary devices in my own work because I haven’t studied my work from that perspective. Everything that’s there was written instinctively and whatever literary devices I may have used were entirely subconscious. Having said that, if you’d like to ask me about particular passages I am happy to explain my thought process at the time of writing each scene.

Regarding the specific example you mentioned where nurse Maggie Quinn says it’s tempting to ask how an alcoholic can do this to himself or how a family can let it [alcoholism] get to that point, these are common themes and questions that often come up among people who haven’t personally experienced addiction (either within themselves or with a loved one). I felt these questions in particular were important to reference because it’s natural to wonder how a person like my dad, who appeared to have everything—intelligence, good looks, successful career, loyal friends and a loving family—could throw it all away because of an addiction. This is really one of the key questions in the book and by having the nurse frame these issues right up front it’s setting the tone for everything that follows.

One of the main reasons I used the nurse’s perspective to bookend my father’s story is that I wanted to showcase the physical effects of alcohol addiction. Most addiction memoirs focus on the social and emotional fallout of addiction (losing a job, losing friends, divorce, legal trouble, etc.) but I don’t know of any other (non-medical) book that goes into such detail about what alcohol addiction does to a person’s body physiologically. This is why I took the time to interview a real-life ICU nurse who had experience treating alcoholic patients. Understanding the absolute horror of how a person’s organs deteriorate due to prolonged alcohol abuse really speaks to the power addiction has over a person and helps answer the questions mentioned above.

So to answer your question, no, it wasn’t an appeal to pathos so much as acknowledging a very basic, universal, philosophical question behind our desire to understand how a person becomes an addict, why it’s so difficult to overcome addiction, and why some people are able to recover while others aren’t. The second question (how can family members let it get to this point) acknowledges the genuine helplessness family members experience as they witness a loved one being destroyed by an addiction. The interviews with my dad’s family and friends that follow the prologue illustrate perfectly how one can witness someone crossing over to addiction and not even realize it, then being absolutely powerless to change the course of events once the addiction has taken hold of a person.

Student: And lastly this is more of a ‘thank you’ than anything. I appreciate that you added pictures of your family and of your father’s friends. I used it as reference when I was reading and it was nice to have a face with most names.

Nan: Thank you—I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. They are a treasure to me.

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

copyright © 2016 Nan McCarthy

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5 Vegetable Soup

January 18, 2016
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Featured · Recipes

In honor of my mom, who died 14 years ago yesterday.

Nan McCarthy

(This piece is from the collection Recipes for My Sons: Instructions on Cooking & Life by Nan McCarthy — a work-in-progress of letters to my sons about family, life, and food.)

My mom (or Nana, as she was known to you guys) loved to cook. Like many housewives in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, she cooked dinner from scratch almost every night of the week. We rarely—if ever—ate frozen meals or fast food for dinner, even during the years Nana worked as a real estate agent to support Aunt Gerarda and me after our dad (your Papa) got sick and died. Occasionally we were allowed to order a square-cut, tavern-style pizza from Geneo’s on Halsted (and later from Aurelio’s or Barton’s) but that only happened once every couple months in those days. Mostly it was homemade meatloaf, chicken paprika, pork chops, chicken kiev, beef stroganoff, fried chicken, roast beef on Sundays, fried lake perch on Fridays, and—when she was feeling casual—tostadas, pizza burgers, chop suey, or francheezies (hotdogs split down the middle & stuffed with American cheese, wrapped in bacon, held together with toothpicks and broiled).

These were sit-down meals that almost always (exceptions being the “casual” meals mentioned above) included a meat, a starch, plus a vegetable and salad. The only time we were not expected to partake of the meal being served was when Nana cooked liver and onions, which she loved but which Aunt Gerarda and I disliked so intensely we’d start to retch as soon as the liver hit the frying pan and the putrid smell began to permeate the kitchen. On those nights Nana would let us eat something different, like an Appian Way pizza from the freezer (those being normally reserved for late-night snacking) or a grilled cheese sandwich. Aside from the smell, I came to love the nights my mom made liver and onions, knowing it was the one night we’d get a free pass at the dinner table.

Nana loved trying new recipes too, and one of my favorite memories is of her sitting at our kitchen table in South Holland, both feet perched on the edge of another chair she had pulled beside her, knees bent, a Bon Appétit magazine propped open in her lap, a plate of thick-sliced homegrown tomatoes (heavily salted of course) on the table in front of her, a kitchen towel tucked into her collar to protect her blouse from the tomato drippings. Each new issue of Bon Appétit resulted in at least four or five new creations a month from Nana’s kitchen. Unfortunately I was a picky eater as a child so I didn’t appreciate my mom’s adventurous culinary spirit—which is a shame, because as I mentioned she was an excellent cook.

One dish of Nana’s that I didn’t especially like as a child but which I’ve grown to love over time is Nana’s vegetable soup, which was one of her specialties. She made it often during the cold Chicago winters, but she also made it during other seasons if someone was sick or if a neighbor had a death in the family (it was her version of chicken soup I guess). Even when no one had died or was sick, Nana loved sharing her food creations with the neighbors, especially her vegetable soup. As a child I remember being asked to carefully transport large Tupperware containers filled with Nana’s vegetable soup across the yard or street from our house to the Finlons, Scruggs, Caputos, Petrungaros, Stotts, and others. (This is obviously where I picked up my habit of sharing food with neighbors, one that grew to epic proportions when we lived across the street from my good friend Mary Taylor, who also loved sharing her delicious cooking. It got to the point that anytime I cooked something special when we lived in Grayslake, I’d make extra to send over to the Taylors, knowing Mary was doing the same for us.)

Getting back to Nana, she became known for her vegetable soup among the neighbors, and I remember being frequently asked by my playmates’ parents if my mom would be sending any more of that vegetable soup over any time soon. Of course Nana loved the positive feedback on her cooking and it wouldn’t be long before I found myself transporting another Tupperware container of soup across the yard to said neighbor.

Over the years, but especially since Nana died (and especially during these cold winter months), I find myself craving her homemade vegetable soup. At one point when she was still alive I asked her for her recipe. Like a lot of good cooks with signature recipes, it was not one that she’d written down anywhere; it was just something she made from scratch off the top of her head. But I must have asked her to explain to me how she made it during a phone call, because I found a scrap of paper that I think was from the early 1990s in which I’d jotted down some notes.

Nana’s Homemade Vegetable Soup

Brown 10-20 oxtails in butter in the bottom of a large soup pot. (I actually loved the oxtails in my mom’s soup when I was a kid; now that I’m older I find them repulsive. So in place of the oxtails, these days I sauté the vegetables in 2 Tbsp. butter and 2 Tbsp. olive oil. If I’m really craving a more full-bodied meaty flavor in the soup and I don’t need to keep it strictly vegetarian or without red meat, I’ll replace the 2 Tbsp. olive oil with 2 Tbsp. bacon grease.)

To the melted butter and olive oil (or bacon grease) add sliced carrots, celery, onions, green beans, peas, corn, and asparagus (optional). My notes from Nana say to slice the veggies “on the diagonal.” Once the veggies are softened (about 7-8 minutes), add 2 quarts chicken broth. (Nana’s recipe calls for beef broth. I prefer chicken broth. You can also use vegetable broth.)

Once simmering, add one 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes. (I use Ro-Tel diced tomatoes w/ green chiles plus an extra small can of chopped green chiles, which gives the soup a nice kick that your dad likes.) Add 1 cup medium (not quick-cook) barley, a handful of shredded cabbage, parsley (I use thyme instead), peppercorns, garlic salt, salt & pepper. (I skip the garlic salt, salt & pepper since there’s enough salt in the chicken broth and Ro-Tel already. Plus you can always add more salt at the table if you want.) Nana’s notes say don’t use potatoes in the soup because they don’t freeze well and I agree, mostly because I don’t think the soup needs another starch after the barley. Add 2 Tbsp lemon juice (my addition), cover and simmer on stove three hours. Serve with warm bread and butter.

I always double this recipe—for sharing, of course.

copyright © 2016 Nan McCarthy

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1 Gooey Butter Cake

June 15, 2015
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Featured · Recipes

In honor of my sister Gerarda on her birthday.

Nan McCarthy

(This piece is from the collection Recipes for My Sons: Instructions on Cooking & Life by Nan McCarthy — a work-in-progress of letters to my sons about family, life, and food.)

My sister Gerarda (Aunt Gerarda to you guys, G-Thing to her kids) is one of those people who lights up a room with her stories. She’s the perfect party guest because she’s not afraid to hold the floor for a few minutes entertaining everyone with an amusing anecdote (or two or three). You can always tell when Aunt Gerarda is about to go into storytelling mode. Her lips begin to form an almost imperceptible smile, and her big blue eyes gleam with a hint of mischief. Once she has your attention and begins speaking, she becomes fully animated, acting out the various parts of the story with a full range of facial expressions, voices, body movements, and hand gestures.

Aunt Gerarda is a natural-born storyteller. I know because I’ve witnessed her gift for telling stories as far back as I can remember, when she was eight years old and I was her four-year old little sister following her around our Chicago neighborhood. Sometimes I couldn’t actually see Aunt Gerarda entertaining family and friends when they came to the house, because I was known to run and hide under the bed every time the doorbell rang. And there I would stay, until whomever it was who had come to visit (friends, neighbors, and even some relatives I wasn’t completely familiar with) would leave. (Those who know me now would find it hard to believe I was terminally shy as a child — but more on that in a minute.)

Whether I was hiding under the bed or watching from the sidelines, I always marveled at Gerarda’s ability to be at ease in front of people. As a child she had reddish-brown hair (like our dad’s before he turned gray), a freckled nose, the aforementioned big blue eyes, and a 1,000-megawatt smile that could charm even the stodgiest adults. When our parents had parties, Gerarda often warmed up the crowd with a skit or a goofy costume or a joke before we kids were banished to the basement to play amongst ourselves, where Gerarda would continue providing entertainment.

As the years progressed, Gerarda became known as “the friendly” Johnson girl while I was viewed by some (mostly those who didn’t know me well enough to understand the extent of my introversion) as the “standoffish” one. As a youngster I was more than happy to hang in the background where I felt the most comfortable. I had an active inner life and, when I wasn’t tagging along with Gerarda and her friends, I spent a lot of time by myself, living in imaginary worlds talking to my imaginary friends. (Okay yeah, I was kind of a weird kid.)

What Gerarda may not have realized though is how much I idolized her back then (and still do today, even in our fifties). As I reached adolescence, watching my sister navigate high school, I couldn’t help but envy Gerarda’s ability to connect with people. She always had a multitude of girlfriends (still does) and could strike up a conversation with pretty much anybody — anytime, anywhere. I eventually grew tired of people’s misperceptions of me and decided I wanted to try being more open and friendly like my big sister. She was a role model for me as I cultivated my sense of who I was and how I wanted to relate to the world. With Gerarda as my guide, over the years I learned to smile more, strike up conversations with strangers, let my silly side show, and not be afraid to share a funny story on occasion. (Though I still prefer telling my stories on paper rather than in person, where writing in solitude is not unlike hiding under the bed.)

Getting back to Gerarda, her knack for storytelling has transformed itself in my mind over the years. As kids, her storytelling skills were simply a natural-born gift we all enjoyed and appreciated, but as adults, her continued ability to entertain and connect with people through her stories is a testament to her strength, courage, and determination. In 1993, when she was just 36 years old and a mom to three young kids, Aunt Gerarda was knocked flat by an intense headache and severe nausea. She, Uncle Dave, Grandma Helen, and cousins Faith, Luke, and Joy were driving back to Illinois from our house in Denver where we had been celebrating Coleman’s recent birth. After they reached home it was discovered Gerarda had a brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma. Long story short, Gerarda had brain surgery to remove the tumor followed by a long rehabilitation and recovery period. Among other things, she lost the hearing in her left ear and suffered some nerve damage which affected the facial muscles on the left side of her face.

Given such circumstances, some people might react by limiting their encounters with new people and new situations. But not my sister. After her recovery from the brain tumor, Gerarda didn’t just go back to living life the way she was — she became more of who she was. More outgoing, more friendly, more funny than ever. I like to think of who she is now as Full Metal Gerarda. She had always been one to stay busy, but after her brain tumor she embraced life with a vengeance, not only being a great mom to three young kids, a devoted wife to her supportive husband, but also working at various outside jobs, serving as president of the school board for many years, and, on top of all that, keeping the fullest social engagement calendar of anyone I know. If I happened to ask Gerarda about her plans for the weekend, it was (and still is) an extensive list of social gatherings, community events, road trips, parties, and service to others.

Speaking of service to others, Gerarda is a fabulous cook and one of the things she’s known for among friends and family is her Gooey Butter Cake, a confection that originated in St. Louis and is well-known throughout the Midwest.

Aunt Gerarda’s Gooey Butter Cake

Combine 1 box yellow cake mix with 1 stick butter. Add 1 egg, mix, and press into a buttered 9 x 13 pan. While pressing the bottom layer into the pan tell some funny stories to any number of people sure to be visiting and gathered around the kitchen. Beat 1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese with 2 eggs, 1 lb. powdered sugar, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Pour over bottom layer. Bake 40 minutes at 325°. While cake is in the oven tell a few more funny stories, including some that allow humorous impersonations of husband Dave. (Embellishment and exaggeration always welcome. Indulging in a few cocktails tends to make the stories even funnier.) Sprinkle with more powdered sugar while hot. Serve Gooey Butter Cake at birthday parties, church functions, and all major and minor holidays. Bring Gooey Butter Cake on road trips to visit Faith, Luke, and Joy and nieces and nephews away at college.

***

Aunt Gerarda is also one of the bravest people I know, and not just because of how she overcame her brain tumor. A few years ago she stood up in front of a huge crowd in a bar in Chicago at a Moth event (“The Moth: True Stories Told Live”) to tell a story about Uncle Dave falling off the roof of their house (the theme was “falling,” and luckily Dave is fine). She’s given cooking classes at various venues in her town (the fact that she can cook, talk, teach, and be entertaining all at the same time is a feat unto itself). She’s given library presentations, radio interviews, and written stories for publication. (Gerarda’s storytelling skills span both oral and written entertainment.) I’m sure I’m forgetting many of the things Gerarda has accomplished with her stories, but you get the idea.

As sisters, our relationship hasn’t always been easy. Growing up under the circumstances that we did, each of us had to work hard over the years to shed some of the unhealthy dynamics we learned as children of alcoholics. There were times we needed to take a break from each other, to find our way in the world, to figure out who we were apart from our family history. And I’m happy to say we’ve come back from those difficult times stronger than ever. Both individually and as sisters.

And this is where I’d like to speak directly to you, Ben and Coleman. You may have times in your lives when you feel you don’t have a lot in common with each other, and staying close is more of a challenge than a pleasure. You might even have to take a breather from one another now and then. But always keep each other close in your hearts. Do your best to stay connected. No one knows you like a sibling. No one knows your history, no one watched you struggle to become the person you are today like the person who knew you growing up. And having witnessed your struggles, no one will love you and appreciate you and admire you in quite the same way a sibling does.

Gerarda was my role mode growing up, and she still inspires me today. Her Gooey Butter Cake is made with love, like everything she does. And, as people who know and love Gerarda have come to expect that she’ll bring her Gooey Butter Cake wherever she goes, it’s also expected she’ll have a funny story to share. It’s who she is.

copyright © 2015 Nan McCarthy

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7 A Very Dry Martini

May 5, 2015
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Featured · Parenting · Recipes

In honor of my mom, Dorothy (aka Nana), on Mother’s Day.

Nan McCarthy

(This piece is from the collection Recipes for My Sons: Instructions on Cooking & Life by Nan McCarthy—a work-in-progress of letters to my sons about family, life, and food.)

“Shit.” “Goddammit.” “Fuck it.” These generally aren’t the types of expressions one hears coming from the mouths of mothers and grandmothers — unless your mom happens to be named Dorothy (or Nana, as she was known to you grandkids). But this is exactly what we heard coming out of Nana’s mouth that wintry December day in 1999 when I got the harebrained idea to make homemade Christmas ornaments using glitter-covered Styrofoam balls, straight pins, beads, and sequins. I had found the instructions in one of those home decorating magazines and thought it would make a fun family activity while Nana was visiting us from Florida for the holidays.

You guys were nine and six years old at the time, home from school on Christmas vacation. I remember the five of us sitting around the dining room table in Grayslake (Dad, me, Nana, and you two), the craft supplies spread before us. The concept was simple: Thread a bead and a sequin onto the straight pin, insert the pin into the Styrofoam ball, and repeat until the ball was covered in beads and sequins. You could choose to wing it, making a random design using multi-colored beads and sequins, or you could plan ahead, making a pattern or image using specific uniform colors in a pre-imagined shape. Easy-peasy, right?

Of course, we all had our own ideas with specific designs in mind, and we happily set to work threading our pins with beads and sequins and pushing them into our glitter balls. As I recall, I was spelling out the year “2000” with my pins using black beads and sequins on a silver ball (because Millennium), Dad was making an artsy-fartsy vintage design with green and gold sequins on a red ball, Coleman was making an extremely neat and precise spiral pattern in reds, greens, and blues on a silver ball, Ben was creating an abstract Santa smiley face using silver and black sequins on a green ball, and Nana was attempting something flashy using multi-colored beads and sequins on a gold ball.

It didn’t take long, however, for Nana to be the first to accidentally stab herself with the pin. “Shit,” she’d mutter under breath. I’d glance sideways at Dad, then at you two, and the four of us would share a secret smile. It’s not as if you guys had never heard Nana swear before. Hell’s Bells — it’s not like you’d never heard me swear before either. I’ve had a penchant for salty language since my teen years, and although I tried (unsuccessfully) to rein in my swearing when you kids were little, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out where I’d picked up the habit.

“Goddammit,” Nana would say, a little more loudly this time. Now she was getting frustrated because her design wasn’t turning out quite the way she’d had in mind. “What’s wrong, Mom?” I’d ask. “These stupid pins aren’t going in the way I want them to,” she’d say, pursing her lips in concentration. And then, as if for punctuation, she’d let fly another “Shit” or “Goddammit.” A large part of the humor of the situation was that it wasn’t the nine-year old or the six-year old throwing the hissy fit over the craft project — it was the 66-year old. And the wonderful thing about Nana? She fully recognized and embraced her childish lack of patience.

“This project is dumb,” she’d finally declare to the four of us sitting at the table. She was trying to look pissed off but she was clearly enjoying herself. “Whose idea was this anyway?” she’d say, looking conspiratorially at her two grandsons, then, once she had your attention, glancing pointedly in my direction, her green eyes glimmering with mischief.

“Yeah Mom,” you two would gleefully chime in. “Nana’s right — this project is dumb!”

“Thanks Mom,” I’d say to Nana, more amused than exasperated by her hijinx. “You really know how to liven up a family craft project.” Somehow, I convinced everyone to keep working on their ornaments a while longer. In spite of (or because of?) Nana’s mock anger, we remained in good spirits, persevering with our individual ornaments as we listened to Nana’s continued recitation of swear words until finally, having stuck herself with a straight pin one too many times, she’d push her chair away from the table and announce, “Fuck it. Is it time for a martini yet?”

Nana’s Very Dry Martini on the Rocks, with Two Olives

Open the cupboard and pull out the largest tumbler you can find. (No need to bother with an actual martini glass — size of the vessel is more important than style when it’s quantity you’re after.) A tall, oversized, plastic mug usually reserved for making root beer floats works perfectly fine. Fill the mug with ice, but not too much ice because you want to save room for a large quantity of alcohol. In olden days, gin, plus a small amount of vermouth, would be necessary for a proper dry martini (along with a proper martini glass) but when the situation is dire, simply pour a large amount of vodka over the ice until the mug is close to overflowing. (If you add two large pimiento-stuffed olives for garnish you can legitimately call it a martini.) Once the drink has been prepared, take the Big Gulp Martini/Vodka Slurpee out onto the back porch (the porch being the only location at Nan & Pat’s house where smoking isn’t prohibited). Plop down into the wicker chair, place feet (wearing pink slippers) on stool, fire up a Marlboro Light, and commence drinking Martini Slurpee. If the grandkids come out to the porch to sit on your lap, make an effort not to blow smoke in their faces while teaching them some new swear words.

***

In case it hasn’t already occurred to you, Nana certainly wasn’t the traditional type of grandma to you kids. She didn’t knit or sew or bake very well (her chocolate chip cookies were notoriously rock-like). She wasn’t much for physical activity but she did love playing hide and seek with you guys and taking you to Disneyworld and Sun Splash. I would say she wasn’t exactly a traditional type of mom to me either, although she was a meticulous housekeeper (Mondays were for doing the wash and ironing, Wednesdays for grocery shopping, Fridays for cleaning), and she was an excellent cook (in spite of her lack of baking skills). She smoked cigarettes and drank martinis when she was pregnant with both Aunt Gerarda and me, and her two favorite food groups were salt and butter.

She never went to college but in the ’70s she earned her broker’s license and worked in a real estate office after Papa died, a 37-year old single mom supporting two girls ages 13 and 9. Her frosted blonde hair was invariably perfectly coiffed (even while washing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees). She was tall and thin and her fashionable clothes always looked good on her. She had a temper, she swore like a sailor (see above), she had a lot of friends who loved her, she was funny, and she could find the humor in even the darkest moments of her life — and there were plenty of those. Nana was tough and blunt and not very diplomatic (to put it mildly). But she loved us with a passion and was fiercely protective in a way that could be embarrassing at times. (Just ask Aunt Gerarda about the time Nana called Ray Kroc to complain that her 16-year old daughter wasn’t being treated fairly as an employee of McDonald’s Corp.)

As Mother’s Day approaches and we think about Nana, it’s tempting to focus on our feelings of sadness and how much we miss her. As for me, Nana was my number-one cheerleader, my best friend, and the first person to hold my feet to the fire when I screwed up. Though she’s been gone since 2002, not a day goes by I don’t wish I could pick up the phone and have a nice long chat with her. But instead of feeling depressed on Mother’s Day, I feel happy and grateful, because both of my sons had a chance to know her. Although you were young when she died, you were able to witness her strength, feel her love, experience her humor, and hear her say “Fuck it” when she’d had enough and it was time for a martini.

Clockwise from top: Nan's Millennium Ornament, Ben's Abstract Santa, Pat's Vintage Christmas, Coleman's Perfect Spirals, Nana's Flashy Fuck-It. — Clockwise from top: Nan’s Millennium Ornament, Ben’s Abstract Santa, Pat’s Vintage Christmas, Coleman’s Perfect Spirals, Dorothy’s Flashy Fuck-It.

copyright © 2015 Nan McCarthy

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2 Bacon & Eggs

January 15, 2015
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Featured · Parenting · Recipes

In honor of my mom, Dorothy Johnson Moore, who died on January 17, 2002.

Nan McCarthy

(This piece, which I wrote in 2011, is from the collection Recipes for My Sons: Instructions on Cooking & Life by Nan McCarthy—a work-in-progress of letters to my sons about family, life, and food.)

I saw a movie today where the mom was in a coma and the kids and husband had to say goodbye to her before taking her off life support. I got really choked up seeing the grief on the kids’ faces, especially the ten-year old’s. Since I lost my own dad so young stuff like that always rips my heart out. But then I started thinking about the mom and how sad it was that she couldn’t say what she might have wanted to say because she was in a coma. And I started feeling really bad for her even though she was married to George Clooney. Well, she wasn’t married to George Clooney in real life but in the movie she was married to George Clooney. And although I wouldn’t mind being married to George Clooney (that is, if I wasn’t already married to your dad), I would mind being in a coma and I would especially mind not being able to talk to you guys if I was about to die. Even being married to George Clooney wouldn’t make up for having to lie in a hospital bed listening to your family say goodbye to you with your lips all dry and cracked and chalky-looking and not being able to say anything. And I asked myself, what would the mom say if she could talk? What would I want to say to my children if I knew I was about to die?

I guess it would depend on how much time I had. Five minutes, five hours, five days, five weeks, or five months? If it was just five minutes I would cut to the really important stuff, like how much I love you guys and could you please make sure the funeral home fixes my hair the right way. If it was five weeks or five months I’d probably have a really long list of items to go over, like where all the computer passwords are and not to let your father keep wearing all his clothes from the ’80s—they make him look like a dork and he’ll never get a new wife wearing the Magnum P.I. Hawaiian shirt tucked into the high-waisted Lee jeans with the skinny belt, no socks and those huarache sandals we bought in Puerto Vallarta when Coleman was still in a stroller.

Speaking of last words, not long before Nana died, she wanted us to call her neighbors in Florida and tell them not to throw out the bacon grease she’d been saving in the refrigerator. I suppose if you were the daughter of a Polish immigrant who cooked pretty much everything in bacon grease, you’d be concerned about what would become of your stash of bacon grease after you died too. Speaking of bacon grease the last meal Nana requested before she died was bacon and eggs.

Nana’s Bacon & Eggs

Fry up an entire package of bacon in a skillet over medium heat. Remove the bacon from the skillet to drain on paper towels. Pour half the bacon grease in a glass container with an airtight lid. (If you already have a hoard of bacon grease stored in your refrigerator just add the new bacon grease to the old.) With the remaining bacon grease in the pan, break two eggs into the skillet and cook over medium-low heat. While the eggs are cooking baste them with the bacon grease and add a lot of salt and pepper since you’re probably going to have a heart attack anyway. Meanwhile cook two pieces of toast and slather the toast with real butter (not the fake stuff; see previous comment regarding heart attacks.) When eggs are cooked through but still a little runny put them on a plate with the toast and bacon and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. Dip the toast in the egg yolk until the toast and the yellow stuff are gone, leaving the egg whites for the dog. Finish eating the bacon while watching the dog eat the egg whites. (At least the dog won’t have a heart attack.)

***

Getting back to the movie, one of the reasons I liked it so well was that it wasn’t sappy—none of the characters was a saint, not even the mom who was dying, and there was a lot going on besides the family crowded around the hospital bed alternately crying and throwing objects against the wall. There was a whole subplot involving a Kauai land deal the dad was trying to figure out, in addition to his discovery that his wife was cheating on him before she fell off the jet ski or whatever it was she was riding when she hit her head, nearly drowned and went into a coma. (Not to be mean or anything but it kind of serves her right seeing as she cheated on George Clooney.) My point is that the movie was a lot like real life in that we are all a mixture of annoying and endearing, selfish and generous, troubled and together, and that even when someone close to you is about to die, life continues to happen all around you and you still have to make decisions on whether or not to sell the land to the haoles or hunt down and confront the creep who was screwing your wife or if you should have chocolate or vanilla ice cream for dessert.

And I got to thinking if that were to happen to me—if I suddenly fell into a coma and couldn’t talk to my children, wouldn’t it be nice if I had already written my last words to you, so that after I died you could read everything I ever wanted you to know? Not that I plan on dying anytime soon (although it’s true I recently turned 50). But I do think it’s one of the reasons I became a writer—after my body is dead and gone, my clothes given to Goodwill (or to dad’s new wife—assuming she’s not a size smaller than me), the only things left of a person are the memories and the words. If you’re a writer, you generally leave behind more words than the average person (unless you’re Grandma Caryl, who tended to talk a lot). With any luck, after I’m gone there’ll be more good memories than bad, and my words will still have the power to make you smile.

copyright © 2011 Nan McCarthy

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7 The Last Time I Saw My Dad Alive

December 12, 2014
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Live ’Til I Die · Parenting

Christmas Day 1970, Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, Dyer, Indiana.

Nan McCarthy

I was nine when our mom took my sister and me to the hospital on Christmas Day to visit our dad. It was the last time we’d see him alive. He died three weeks later of alcoholic cirrhosis. He was 39 years old.

We knew at the time he was very sick. In fact, I remember curling up with my mom in my dad’s favorite oversized green chair one night before Christmas, my head in her lap, Christmas lights twinkling. He’d been hospitalized several times before. “I don’t think he’s going to make it this time,” she told me.

The Intensive Care Unit was decorated for Christmas, and one of the nurses had put a Santa hat on my dad’s head. He was awake, sitting up in his hospital bed. He tried to smile at us, but even at that young age I could see the sadness in his eyes. I don’t think I touched him. I was afraid of all the tubes and how sick he looked.

For many years afterward, Christmas never felt real to me. The happiness seemed forced, superficial. Sure, getting presents was fun. But there was no joy in it. During Midnight Mass, my mom cried.

Then I fell in love and got married. A family of my own. New memories to make. At first it was just my husband and me, a few gifts around a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But our love was plentiful and genuine. Then our sons were born. More memories to be made. My mom in her pink terrycloth bathrobe, watching us open gifts on Christmas morning, a cup of coffee in her hand and a smile on her face. New traditions, like the Santa footprints in front of the fireplace and a birthday cake for baby Jesus. Our boys jumping up and down in their pajamas, giddy with excitement. Pure joy on their faces. Pure joy in my heart.

Christmas is real to me now. But I’ve learned it’s not just about the happy times. Like any family, we’ve had our share of sad times during the holidays. Living far away from loved ones, missing out on annual family get-togethers. Christmases when one or both of us were without a job and money was tight or nonexistent. My mom’s last Christmas when she was in hospice at our house, knowing it wouldn’t be long before she, too, was gone. The year Christmas was just the boys and me, when Pat was serving in Iraq for thirteen months, his only physical contact a hug from the USO lady on Christmas Day.

I’ve come to realize that even though Christmas didn’t feel real to me when I was young, it was every bit as real then as it is now. It’s just that life and death, sickness and loneliness and tragedy don’t take time off for the holidays.

It’s no wonder Christmas lights, Midnight Mass, and Santa hats held a particular sadness for me as a child. But now I understand how much those seemingly superficial efforts at holiday cheer during the end of my dad’s tragic life mattered. “We’re not giving up on Christmas,” they said. The Santa hat mattered because it held hope. Hope that next year would be better (and if not next year, the year after that). Hope that a frightened little girl would one day make a better life for herself than the hand her mom had been dealt. That she wouldn’t fall prey to addiction the way her father had, even though her DNA was stacked against her. That she would one day find someone who loved and respected her, and together they would bring new life into the world. That they would raise their children to be better human beings than they were, leaving the world a little kinder than they found it.

copyright © 2014 Nan McCarthy

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2 For Those Who Make Art

May 22, 2014
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Parenting

(In this season of graduations, here’s a piece I wrote two years ago reflecting on our older son’s graduation from art school. It originally appeared in May 2012 in the Kansas City Star.)

Nan McCarthy

Sitting in a darkened auditorium at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago that blazing August morning back in 2008, I listened, enchanted by the speaker at the podium, whose words etched themselves in my memory. The occasion was new-student orientation, and my son, about to begin his freshman year at SAIC, sat next to me, doodling in his program. The speaker, Tony Jones, chancellor and former president of the School, said a lot of funny things in his introductory remarks, including the obligatory jokes about Chicago winters. He may not have had my son’s full attention at the start, but when he got down to talking about artists and art, Jones really captured his audience of nascent artists and anxious parents.

Jones talked about the type of student who goes to art school. He said if you choose to study art because you like art better than any other subject, or if you choose to study art because you’re good at it, then you shouldn’t be at art school. He went on to say that if you choose to attend art school for any reason, you shouldn’t be there. As Jones put it, the only reason to pursue art in college is when you can’t imagine yourself doing anything but art.

The other thing Jones pointed out is that, in today’s world, it takes a lot of courage to be an artist. We live in a society that places a lot of importance on college majors like science and business. Not that we shouldn’t place a high value on these areas of study (our younger son is a biomedical engineering student who will no doubt make his own great contributions to the universe). But the emphasis on math and science comes at a cost. A young person who wishes to pursue art is often discouraged from doing so by parents and other well-meaning adults. As parents of an art major, our conversations with other parents often go something like this:

Your son goes to art school? What’s he going to do—teach?

No, he wants to be a studio artist.

Yes, but what does he want to do?

He wants to make art.

OK. But what’s his real job going to be?

You get the idea. If we as parents find it challenging (or amusing, depending on your mood that day) to explain our students’ vocation, imagine how they must feel. That’s why Jones said it takes a lot of courage to be an artist. Art is hard. Not just a hard way to make a living, but hard in the way of finding one’s place, both in the art world and in the world at large. And no one puts himself out there quite like an artist does. Imagine taking a piece of yourself and putting it on display for others to see and comment on, day after day. Artists find strength in vulnerability. Artists are makers. They make something from nothing. How many of us can claim the ability to do that?

I won’t bore you with why I think art and the makers of art are vital to human existence, other than to say, what a humdrum world it would be without art! Suffice to say, four years and countless sleepless nights since that August morning in 2008, our son is now preparing to graduate. Not all of the students have made it this far. Of those who have, many have fought hard to get to this point—our son included. I can’t wait to see him walk across the stage. When he does, I’ll not only be filled with pride for his accomplishments, but with admiration for his courage.

copyright © 2012 Nan McCarthy

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1 To My Sons: What I Would Like for Mother’s Day

May 7, 2014
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Parenting

This piece was originally published in May 2013 as a Facebook Note. I’m wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to all my friends and family. I know Mother’s Day can be a sad day for many of us—a time when we miss our mothers who are no longer here, when we grieve children who left us too soon, when fractured relationships make it hard to feel celebratory. So grab whatever happiness you can find and treat yourself with kindness this Mother’s Day. We’re all just doing the best we can, right? —Nan

To My Sons: What I Would Like for Mother’s Day

Nan McCarthy

I want you to have good hearts and be kind to others.

I want you to be independent, self-motivated, and self-sufficient.

I want you to love yourself, but never stop trying to be a better person.

I want you to love each other, and be there for each other when I’m gone.

I want you to be honest with yourself and others.

I want you to be true to yourself even if some people would rather you not.

I want you to feel love and be loved and love freely, even though that means you’ll probably be hurt sometimes.

I want you to be lifelong learners.

I want you to read a lot.

I want you to do what you say you’re going to do.

If you screw up, I want you to own it, apologize, and try to do better next time.

I want you to treat others with respect, and demand to be treated with respect in return.

I want you to put others before yourself sometimes.

I want you to know life is not fair, but keep being optimistic.

I want you to be able to keep your sense of humor even in the dark times—especially during the dark times.

I want you to work hard, work before you play, and when you do play, enjoy yourself (as long as your work is done first).

I want you to be curious about others—genuinely curious.

I want you to know you don’t know everything.

I want you to choose happiness, and understand that you have to keep choosing happiness over and over again, every morning you wake up.

I want you to do what you love. Sometimes that’s not what you imagined it would be, so you have to stay open to new possibilities.

I want you to be grateful for simple things, like a good night’s sleep, a walk outdoors, food in your tummy, warmth when it’s cold outside, and a soft clean pillow on which to lay your head at night.

I want you to keep your word.

I want you to be able to forgive others and never leave room in your heart for hate.

I want you to know I would give anything for your happiness, including my life.

I want you to remember I was once young just like you, that I had hopes and dreams just like you, and that you’re never too old to dream—because if I can keep dreaming, so can you.

I want you to know the value of hope. Hope is everything.

I want you to remember things always seem worse in the middle of the night. It will be better in the morning, I promise.

I want you to think of me as a whole human being who has feelings just like you, but also know that I’ll never stop being your mom, and there’s no one on this earth who believes in you more than me.

p.s. A homemade card with a handwritten note would also be nice.

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8 A Hero’s Welcome: Parades & Promises

February 2, 2014
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Featured · Military life · Politics

A homecoming parade is a beautiful thing, but what veterans and their families really need is for America to keep its promises.

Nan McCarthy

I love the new Budweiser commercial that’s airing in today’s Super Bowl. Since Anheuser-Busch released the one-minute ad featuring Army Lt. Chuck Nadd, who served as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, and his surprise welcome-home parade put on by his hometown of Winter Park, Florida in conjunction with Anheuser-Busch, my eyes well with tears every time I watch it. As the wife of a retired Marine, I’m grateful to Anheuser-Busch—and all Americans—for these demonstrations of appreciation toward our veterans.

My own husband’s homecoming from Iraq on a cold Valentine’s night in 2009 wasn’t nearly as exciting and romantic as the one shown in the Budweiser commercial. He arrived at Kansas City International airport near midnight, virtually anonymous save for his high-and-tight, disembarking from a commercial jet wearing civilian clothes because he’d already gone through post-deployment debriefing with the 1^st Marine Expeditionary Force in Twentynine Palms, CA, and Marines don’t wear their uniforms (for security reasons) when flying on commercial aircraft. So when he finally emerged from the deserted gate area it was just him and me and a long hug and silence. We were both too choked up for words, but the hug said everything we needed it to say.

My husband retired from the Marine Corps in 2011 after 29 years of service. Our two sons are young adults now, 20 and 23. They didn’t ask to be born into a military family, but they managed that burden with grace, surviving multiple moves throughout their childhoods, adapting to new schools and finding new friends and always knowing what it’s like to be the new kid. It wasn’t an easy life for them, but even they will tell you they’re better human beings because of the challenges they faced as “military kids.”

I’m happy so many people will see Budweiser’s “A Hero’s Welcome” commercial during the Super Bowl today. I think it will bring tears to a lot of people’s eyes, not just veterans and their families. I know the gratitude people feel toward our veterans is genuine.

But if you’re not in the military, or related to someone who’s in the military, you probably don’t know that this past December, Congress passed legislation as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that, starting in 2015, will reduce the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) of retired service members’ pensions by 1% per year until the age of 62. This may not seem like a lot, but according to the Military Officer Association of America (MOAA), this amounts to a potential lifetime loss of nearly $83,000 for an enlisted service member with 20 years of service and approximately $124,000 for an officer with 20 years of service.

Maybe you’re one of those people who think that military pensions are too generous. After all, a person can serve 20 years in the military, retire at a relatively young age, start a new career and earn a paycheck from that job while also collecting a monthly military pension. Just looking at the numbers, it does seem pretty generous, especially when compared to most other jobs with limited or non-existent pension plans. But I’m pretty sure the folks who think that military pensions are too generous—that cutting service members’ retirement compensation is no big deal—have never served in the military, or had a family member who served.

And if you’re one of those people, I don’t blame you for not being aware of the hidden costs of military service. If you’ve never worn the combat boots or stood at the tarmac waving goodbye to the person you love, how could you possibly know the sacrifices involved in serving in the military?

Most everybody knows about the scariest and most dramatic aspects of military service: the possibility of losing one’s life, of suffering permanent physical injuries and/or lifelong psychological trauma—these are the more obvious risks associated with putting one’s self in harm’s way. Then there’s the extended absences, the heartbreak of missing important life events like the birth of a child or your teen’s high school graduation, and the emotional toll these absences take on marriages and children.

While these are the most well-known types of sacrifices made by service members and their families, if you’re not from a military family, you’re probably not aware of the more mundane, long-term costs associated with military life. Like the fact that most military families never have a chance to build equity in a home because of moving every three years and, even if they’re lucky enough to purchase a home (vs. renting) at each duty station, they usually take a loss or break even every time they have to sell. And have you ever considered how nearly impossible it is for most military spouses to sustain a career when they not only have to switch jobs due to moving to a new location every three years but are also left in charge of finding the new house, selling or renting the old house, enrolling the kids in new schools, finding the new dentist, etc. because their service member is either deployed or required to devote his time to getting “snapped in” to the new job? This inability to maintain a career over the 20+ years of a spouse’s military service costs military families hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages, not to mention the chance to earn an additional pension. Because—assuming a spouse is able to find someone willing to hire him or her at each new duty station, most military spouses never have the chance to keep a job long enough to earn retirement at any one location.

So, you say, military people knew all this stuff when they signed up. Yes, that’s true. Military people were also told when they signed up that they would earn a specific amount in retirement earnings based on their rank and time in service. Not just told, but promised. And a lot of service members—and their families—made the decision to stick it out long enough to reach the 20-year mark for precisely that reason—so they could earn the retirement benefits they were promised. And now Congress is reducing those benefits—taking them away from our service members. By passing this legislation, Congress is saying, yeah, we did promise you a certain compensation package when you signed up, and yeah, you did risk your life and health and family stability thinking you would receive that certain compensation package if you stuck it out long enough. But we really gotta balance that budget, so we’re yanking the rug out from under you and just changing the terms of our agreement with you a teeny tiny bit, and though we know you military folks are going to hoot and holler about it, we’re betting on the fact that the average American either won’t notice or won’t care.

As the wife of a veteran I admit to taking this a bit personally. And yeah, I’m angry about the potential loss of income from my husband’s retirement pay. But what really concerns me—beyond the lack of integrity shown by our Congress in breaking a promise made to our service members—is how this bait and switch will affect the future strength of our all-volunteer force, playing out in recruiting stations across the U.S. I’m picturing a recruiter sitting down with a young recruit and his or her parents or spouse, talking about the great benefits package he or she can look forward to upon retirement, when the potential recruit replies, yeah that all sounds great… but what if Congress decides to take those benefits away from me after I’ve put in my 20 years, like it did to service members in 2013?

So when you’re watching the Super Bowl today, and you shed a tear at the heartfelt “A Hero’s Welcome” Budweiser commercial, please do our veterans a favor. Show your thanks by going to the MOAA Legislative Action Center and completing the online form that will send a message to your House and Senate representatives asking them to repeal the provision (Section 403) in the Bipartisan Budget Act that cuts retirement benefits for current and future military retirees: http://capwiz.com/moaa/issues/alert/?alertid=63042726. (And if you’re the social media type and want to do even more, use the #KeepYourPromise hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to let Congress know know how much you honor our veterans’ service.)

A homecoming parade is a beautiful thing, but what veterans and their families really need is for America to keep its promises.

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8 Summer Shandies

December 23, 2013
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Family · Featured · Parenting · Recipes

In honor of my mother in-law Caryl McCarthy (1930-1992), who was born on Christmas Eve.

Nan McCarthy

(This piece is from the collection Recipes for My Sons: Instructions on Cooking & Life by Nan McCarthy—a work-in-progress of letters to my sons about family, life, and food.)

Other than having a tendency to talk too much on occasion, Grandma Caryl was a wonderful mother in-law to me. Apart from her dedication to family, she was also a Renaissance Woman, and I admired her for that. She was not only a fantastic cook, she was ahead of her time when it came to popular trends and culture. The first time I ever tasted Cajun/Creole food was at Grandma and Grandpa’s house when your dad and I were dating in the early 1980s, and Grandma served blackened fish, red beans and rice, and jambalaya. This was well before all the trendy restaurants (back then at least) began serving blackened fish (or “blackened” anything for that matter).

Grandma was also the one who introduced me to Zydeco music in the mid-1980s. After we were married and back home from dad’s Marine Corps tours of duty in Okinawa and Virginia, your dad and I enjoyed going to dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in South Holland. We’d arrive at the house on a late afternoon in the summer to find Grandma floating on a lounge chair in the above-ground swimming pool out back while drinking a lemon shandy, or standing at the kitchen sink preparing dinner (still wearing her wet swimsuit of course)—but always with music cranked up to eleven on the stereo in the living room, usually Claude Bolling, Johnny Cash, Prokofiev, or Zydeco. After she got sick she’d lie on the living room couch with her eyes closed, the sounds of Enya drifting throughout the house. (You might also remember Nana listening to Enya before she died. It took a long while after both of their deaths before I could listen to any of my Enya CDs.)

How to Make Grandma Caryl’s Lemon Shandy

Grab a cold can of Stroh’s or a bottle of St. Pauli Girl. Pour half the beer into a chilled Welch’s jelly jar glass (preferably Flintstones or Archies special edition), then fill the rest of the glass with lemonade. Add a slice of lemon and some ice. Don swimsuit, turn up the stereo loud enough to be heard in Holy Ghost parking lot, commence relaxing in pool. When lemon shandy is finished, return dripping wet to kitchen, check jambalaya cooking on stove, pour another shandy using remaining beer/lemonade. Get back in pool and repeat process until Pat & Nancy arrive for dinner or Bob comes home from work asking for a boilermaker (more on that in another letter).

***

Of course, nowadays you can take the easier route and just buy the seasonal Summer Shandy beer made by Leinenkugel. (Which reminds me of our vacation to Sleeping Bear Dunes the summer of 2010, searching for Petoskey Stones, watching the sun set over Lake Michigan, a cooler of Summer Shandies always within reach. That was fun, wasn’t it?) But the point is Grandma Caryl, being of German descent and always on the cutting edge of popular culture, was drinking her homemade lemon shandies decades before they became a thing here in the U.S.

Grandma Caryl was also a fabulous knitter, crocheter, and all-around seamstress. Well, some of the handmade sweater vests dad wore in college were a little goofy, but I liked her knitted slippers, baby blankets, and Christmas stockings. (Coleman I’m sorry you never got your own Christmas stocking made by Grandma Caryl—she died the year before you were born, which explains why Dad, Ben, and me all have better stockings than you.)

Grandma Caryl was also an avid reader. She liked all the old Agatha Christie mysteries as well as the newer Sue Grafton “alphabet series.” Unfortunately, she only got as far as “’H’ Is for Homicide” before she died in 1992 (Grandma Caryl that is, not Sue Grafton). She also read biographies and all kinds of other non-fiction including the dictionary and encyclopedias. Yes, it’s true. Grandma read the dictionary and an entire set of World Book encyclopedias from first page to last. (She inspired me to try reading the dictionary once myself, but I only got as far as “apathetic.”)

My own enchantment with classic movies was originally fueled by Grandma Caryl, who would sometimes get up at four in the morning to finish one of her knitting projects while watching an old movie on AMC or TNT (this was before the days of TCM). Grandma got me hooked on all the Alfred Hitchcock movies besides “Psycho” and “The Birds” (which I had previously watched on network TV with Nana), including “Rope,” “Rear Window,” “North by Northwest,” “Notorious,” and “Dial M for Murder.” She and Grandpa also introduced me to a lot of holiday classics. The first time I ever saw “It’s A Wonderful Life” (one of your dad’s favorite movies—he still cries every time he watches it) was at the McCarthy house in South Holland when your dad and I were dating. Grandpa built a fire in the fireplace and we all settled in under one of Grandma’s homemade zigzag afghans to drink hot toddies and watch the movie, Christmas lights twinkling and Paine’s Balsam Fir incense swirling from the miniature log cabin chimney on the fireplace mantel. I had already fallen in love with your father; it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with his family too.

Grandma’s penmanship was illegible (which is why she typed all her recipes) and she wasn’t the greatest housekeeper. But she had other fish to fry—like being a dedicated hockey mom (never missing a chance to ring her cow bell at her sons’ hockey games), Holy Ghost Church choir member and volunteer (cleaning the rectory, among other things), election day poll worker and Democratic Party activist (serving as an Illinois delegate when George McGovern ran for president in 1972), and even working part-time at Dominick’s handing out promotional samples of cheese and crackers and cordials like Midori melon liqueur. All this while raising seven children, in addition to her many other pursuits. I forgot to mention she was also a pretty good oil paint artist, although most of her paintings were done before the kids came along. (Ben you must have inherited Grandma’s artistic leanings in addition to her manner of housekeeping.) It’s hard to imagine she had time left over to lounge in the swimming pool, but if nothing else, Grandma had her shit straight when it came to priority setting.

When I was offered a better-paying job in Denver in 1991, no one was more supportive of dad and me making the move from Chicago to Colorado than Grandma and Grandpa. Which is pretty remarkable, since by then Grandma had been diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of melanoma. Ben, you were only about a year old at the time, so a move to Colorado meant Grandma and Grandpa would get to see their grandson even less. But when I told Grandma the news of my job offer, she didn’t skip a beat in encouraging me to go for it. I appreciated her unselfishness at the time, but my respect for her has deepened over the years as I’ve watched the two of you fly the coop, pursue your passions, and strive for independence.

Before she died I wrote a letter to Grandma thanking her for raising a son like Dad. I told her he was the light of my life, and that I believed he was the man he had become in large part because of her. There’s a certain confidence and stability in people who grow up knowing they are loved unconditionally by their parents, and Dad is one of those people. He was well-loved by both his parents of course, but most especially by Grandma. Here’s to you, Grandma Caryl. Long live summer shandies, goofy sweater vests, and well-loved sons.

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