Ode to Joseph 1946-2006

His birthday is March 19th., so it is a perfect time to remember him.

He was there when I was born that shadow just off to one side. My earliest memories are of the Church, the center of our lives. I still remember the smell of incense and melted wax, the strange order of bodies huddled close together and the sounds of organ music and many voices raised in unison in prayer and song.

We took the experience of church into our play and Joseph was always the priest, Charles and Robert, the altar boys. Charlene and I covered our heads with silk scarves or laced mantillas. We knelt in contrite celebration and liked to compete with each other with the pounding of our chests when we said, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

We mixed the sounds of Latin with the Spanish and English, never really understanding the meaning of words in any language. Yet we memorized all our prayers before we entered school. Joseph was ready for his first communion in second grade and Mother, persuaded the priest that I was ready to make my communion beside him because I knew all my prayers “Hail Mary Full of Grapes,” and I could answer the questions from my little blue Baltimore Catechism: “Who is God?” “God is the Supreme Bean who made all things. “

Mother believed that a family that prayed together, stayed together so we prayed the rosary every night, went to the Stations of the Cross once a week during Lent, attended Saturday catechism, and Sunday mass. If there were any other services we went to them too. Joseph had to serve mass every Sunday and picked up some of the extra services as well. He was a preferred server because he knew what to do. He remembered the Latin, knew when to ring the bells and could light and snuff the candles with ease.

He was the favorite one, loved by priests, uncles, aunts and occasional pets... all our dogs named Whitey, taken from the yearly litter of the Dalmatian down the street. We never understood why the pups never got spots maybe it was because they never lived long without vaccinations and were susceptible to the various puppy diseases.

The kids too were threatened with dreaded diseases like polio, Charles got that at five months. There was also scarlet fever and whooping cough and frequent afflictions with lice, worms and dirty fingernails, but what can be expect when we took baths only once a week.

The oldest kids got the clean water and boys and girls took baths together. We were always modest and kept ourselves covered except for the weekly ritual when we took off our clothes and ran around slapping each other in the game of “Skytie,” before we hopped in the tub for our baths.

I think Joseph was the one who made up these games for us. He gathered us together on occasion to make decisions about our reality like the time he suggested we renamed different parts our bodies. Our armpits were called “flax”, our tear ducts, “lilies of the valley”, and our butts, “behonkas.”

All of these early adventures occurred at 511 Est***** Drive, a little dirt path two blocks from Lavaland School on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Joseph, Charles and Charlene, Robert, and I walked the distance to and from school four times a day. We came home for lunch everyday occasionally hit by sand storms. The boys kept moving but Charlene and I had to squat to bury our faces in our laps and cover our legs with our dresses crouched in complete supplication to the elements.

We walked in large groups heading out in the same direction. There were the Lageness boys, Jimmy with his two older brothers, Sergio and Ceasar. (We called them Surges and Scissors. It is only recently I figured out what their names really were). Then there was David and his older brother Donald, from one of the few Anglo families in our area. One day a group of kids were huddled together digging in the ground. They found a strange looking bug. Donald said it was a “Child of the Earth.” Joseph was the only one brave enough to pick it up with a stick to get a closer look. We later found out that it was actually called a potato bug and told them so.

At the end of summer just before school started the next year, Jimmy and Donald drowned in the river. They wandered away from home to explore the Rio Grande but stepped too close to the edge and were swept away in that red muddy water. Jimmy was buried in his altar boy vestment but we never went to Donald’s funeral because he was not Catholic so I don’t know how he was buried. Joseph was sad to lose two of his best friends so young.

Mother was an educated woman, with a high school education, Dad only completed fifth grade but the two of them felt education was important. They went through the expense of buying a set of encyclopedias, the Books of Knowledge, and a dictionary for the family. We were thrilled with these imitation leather bound books, with gold embossed letters, and glossy pages. This is where we looked to find out the real name of that bug.

We spent hours poring over the pages but one day when Joseph was not with us we decided that some of those people were ugly and we didn’t want to look at them so we spat on their faces and scratched them off. When Mother walked in we all got in trouble, but the hardest part was when she cried for our stupidity. We kept those books for over twenty years but never had to look at the faces again but later we had to go to the library to find pictures of those scratched faces when we did reports.

The events of childhood were routine from school hours to hours of summer vacation. Mother would send us outside where we stayed until dinnertime. She would bring a tray of food out at lunch but Joseph and I were responsible for keeping the kids entertained and out of her way. Joseph told us we could dig to China so each of us got a shovel and dug a hole and kept digging for several days. We never got to China but we had a nice shelter to keep out of the summer heat. We threw some old tarps and blankets over the hole and climbed in and out as needed.

Dad worked hard but we rarely saw him except in the evenings and on weekends. We were always so excited to have him home. One day he brought a swing set. We loved it and played on it until late in the afternoon. Joseph and I discovered I could sit on the seat and he could straddle me in the opposite direction and we could swing with greater ease. I remember my mom watching us from the kitchen window and said we were going to "get it," when we got inside. We were so afraid we stayed out until almost dark and then snuck in the house. I guess she forget because she never said any more about it.

We didn’t have regular trash pick-up so once a week Dad burned the trash outdoors. It was a wonderful event where we gathered around the trash can, sometimes Dad put a grill over the opening and roasted the green chilies and the kids played tag or hide-n-seek and chased each other until long after sunset.

The most memorable adventures came from our visits to Peralta. Every Sunday we went to visit Grandpa. The trip was not more than 20 minutes but we looked for certain landmarks along the way. First we would see the small wooden bridge where we would reach out the window to grab leaves off the branches of the overhanging tree, then we looked for the man with the very brown wrinkled face we called him the CÔffee man. He frequently sat by the side of the road just before the Navajo bread ovens.

When we saw the church we knew we were close to Grandpa’s house. We looked forward to running with our cousins. We were set free to explore the irrigation ditches, visit the haunted houses or climb the local hillsides. In our explorations we could find egg splattered walls and dead animal carcasses. Stevie and Joseph usually took the lead and if they ventured out the rest of us followed.

Joseph was twelve when we moved to California. Dad was tired of competing with the winter for steady work so we headed to the sunshine and 12 months of mostly reliable weather. When we arrived in Westminster our parents registered with Blessed Sacrament Church. Joseph was the first one accepted to the Catholic school, the rest of us had to go to Finley School until Christmas and then we were accepted as well.

Our days of Catechism were over as we immersed even deeper into the ways of the Church. We studied Bible History and prepared for Confirmation even though we were already confirmed. In New Mexico people were confirmed every five years when the Bishop was in town instead of in seventh grade like in California.

Here things got a little hurried up and it seemed we were busy walking a mile to and from school and studying, and ironing uniforms, and babysitting, and Joseph started working with Joe the Shoemaker so he wasn't home much anymore. The girls had the housework and the younger boys were responsible for the yard work but the girls always ended up having to help the boys.

After his eighth grade graduation Joseph was swept away to the Seminary in Silver Creek, New York. The church community raised the money for his trip and our mother let her oldest son go far, far away. She had another baby while he was gone so my attention was on Sally. She needed most of my attention rather than an older brother or even my own emerging adolescence, I became a teenage foster mother.

Months went to years, and years to his graduation from high school to his three years of college and then his decision to leave the seminary. He wrote to me asking what he should do. He said he was tired staying one step ahead of the priest who were constantly pursuing him. I told him to speak up for himself and tell Mother that he wanted out. To me it seemed simple, for him it seemed impossible, but he did it and she proceeded to go crazy… or was it just menopause? When those situational and physiological events collide things get confused.

Social structures were breaking down, the Church did not have the same stranglehold and priests and nuns were questioning their own commitments, sexual norms were out the window, and the Baby Boomers were entering adulthood. Can you imagine what it was like to have five teenagers in the house at one time? It is difficult to separate cause from effect and just as much the “times they were a changing.”

I was now in college and dating a sailor, my friends were getting drafted or losing loved ones in Vietnam, getting married or moving in together. Joseph told Mother he wanted out, but in just a few weeks it seemed, Kathleen, a girl he recently met, was pregnant. He told me he was going to do what he needed to do as a man and marry her. Mother wept knowing her son might have fathered a child but didn’t want him locked in a relationship that was so soon after leaving the seminary.

He ended up paying eighteen years of child support. When I asked him later if he ever saw his daughter, he answered, “Every chance I get.” He said she looked a lot like Sally.

I don’t remember when he went off to Vietnam, I think I was married at the time. I don’t recall seeing him at my wedding, but then I don’t remember seeing anyone but my husband Bill. I have pictures of the wedding party but the others if they were there I don't recall. They were upset I was getting married at all... "Too traditional," they said.

I took off for Hawaii to a new life and a different whirl, busy setting up household, living on my own with a baby after only ten months of marriage and then a move to South Carolina before the year was through.

When did Joseph come back into my field of vision? Only when I heard news of him becoming a D.J. in Arizona, getting his Masters Degree from Loyola, and trying to get into comedy and acting in Hollywood. He was on the Dating Game and the Gong Show. What I know I heard through others. He would scream nonsensical things to me at family gatherings and so I kept my distance. I felt I needed to protect my kids from his vulgarity, his addictions and his influence. I never understood his sense of humor.

Did I wish him well? Absolutely, if he had made it in show biz, comedy, or in sales I would have celebrated his success. If he had married Kathleen, or Deborah, or Nancy I would have been happy for him. I missed not knowing his daughter.

We had a conversation after Vietnam, he was heavy into Scientology, and we talked about what he was learning. He said it helped him beat the addictions but somewhere along his path he stopped going or it stopped working. He died at age 60, from the affects of Agent Orange... in other words... cancer.

At his memorial I was impressed by his influence on my brother and sisters and the relationship they had built with him in his earlier days. He was out of touch with family for over ten years. Some seem to think he was in Witness Protection and others thought he got married and lived a different life. She died before him so his burial was left for us. When I saw his ashes fly out into the wind from the Sandia Peak I realize that it is not about death but about life. We give what we can, forgive as we must and we all return to dust.