Oasis - Part II

When Uncle Milt, Dad’s oldest living brother, and his wife, Ethyl arrived at Thompsonville, they were, to quote one of Mom’s favorite phrases, “straight out of the Grapes of Wrath.” And she should know. They were confirmed “Alkies,” another common phrase in our extended family gatherings. Alcohol, the snake, was always there, along with tobacco, “another nail in my coffin,” Roy would toss off the phrase like an epic boast out of Beowulf.

Sometimes Truth is not enough.

Dad put Milt and Ethyl and their two suitcases in a vacant apartment. Milt arose, facing a new day:  Cold turkey. As I shoveled the sand into the cement mixer, Milt formed up the dirt floor of the garage for the new “modern” floor. A huge man at more than 6’5”, thin, worn, and strung out from years of drinking, Milt went at the wild bamboo and the floor project with alacrity, an energy spewing like a geyser from the very depths of his Oaky heart.

This “Period Without Alcohol” had epic dimensions for a man who had drifted and drunk and drifted and now 55, without roots, with a suitcase of old shirts, a pair of khakis, and a pair of worn “Sunday” shoes, he faced his demons without a 12-Step Program, without God—without much of an inner life. Ethyl joined him in this valiant war against the snakes in their apartment and in their heads that, truly, were not there. But they were real.

Profound Courage, wrapped in brown paper and string.

I was watching a human drama, which with full perspective I see as truly a wonder. Two family members I long to meet again—and embrace.

One way to fight your demons, whatever they are, is work. Victor Frankl, in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, says we find meaning [logos] in work, in love and in suffering. These two people, right out of Steinbeck’s epic, put all three sources of meaning into play immediately.

Ethyl and Milt took a shift in the store/service station. Ethyl, an impeccable housekeeper, scrubbed the apartment to the real, original layer. They cleaned the station, arranged the “stock,” scoured the walls and, as Pop said, “made us proud.” A year later, when Mom came into an inheritance from relatives in Spain, Dad expanded his hopes:  Four new vacation trailers; and the now used trailers also lined-up, facing busy Highway 78. Capitalism on the go … dreams starting to come true.

Ethyl and Milt, now “clean,” turned attentions to their newly married daughter.

Love works. The suffering lay behind. “A bright new day was dawning,” says the poet.

The early morning Escondido fog settled gently all around us, only to burn off by 10 a.m. The halcyon days in Paradise. For all of us, Escondido, specifically Thompsonville, were an oasis with endless rows of date palms and melons. “Pardes” is a Persian word for Paradise, the place where suicide-obsessed Arabs who blow up themselves and others, long to go.  Paradise, “park or oasis”; a place of repose, a wine glass in one hand, at least 70 virgins undulating to the throb of Arab pipes and drums. Our Town.

Ritual organizes, informs, and shapes our ordinary lives. Dad played golf, but The Gillette Shaving Company added a new dimension to Homo Ludens. Playing Man, along with 14-year-old son and a tall, gentle giant named Sam Powers, gathered each Friday evening at Milt and Ethyl’s for Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. We discovered the choreographed violence of ancient Greece:  Boxing.

There we sat, in a circle of course [it was a ritual, you see, and circles are important in rituals]. Uncle Milt and Aunt Ethyl remained “clean” but never free of a new “habit” for me to observe:  Snuff. 

We read of snuff in the 17th and 18th century among the aristocracy. Like Cocaine, it entered the nose, immediately hitting the mouth blood vessels. An instant “hit.” Better than alcohol, if you have to choose between two different species of snakes. Another of Dad’s brother’s chawed; yes, chew and spit. Unless you’ve seen it in life action, you fail to fully understand Emma Smith’s frustration. "Yes, my house is also a house of order," she said. Amen.

Over the next three years, we must have absorbed 300 boxing matches. Always Americans, we rooted for the underdogs, the guys who probably should have graduated from high school and worked at Rexall Drug or Chewy’s Machine Shoppe.

Rooting often drifted towards racism. Dad remained quiet, hiding nascent and contradictory Oklahoma-bred feelings. I loved certain fighters because I was judging these “books” by their covers. Who could not root for Bobo Olson or Johnny Saxon [died in a mental institution], Vince Martinez, Kid Gavalin [the Cuban ‘bolo’ punching phenom from a "free" Cuba] and the Wild Italian Band:  Joey Giardello and Rocky Marciano.

For some reason, though, we collectively decided to root for a lad who was studying drama at Michigan State:  Chuck Davey. A southpaw, I don’t think he could actually “punch” his way out of the proverbial wet, paper bag.  He danced, however, and “jabbed,” danced and danced and danced. We hoped against hope that the left hand, held menacingly, was our "Great White Hope’s" Wunderwaffen. When he fought Kid Gavalin, we made it clear. This was a victory for “us,” for the USA. Gavalin’s Bolo punch was a wind-up toy, backed by the thrust-power of, say, the Energizer Bunny. Yet he knocked Chuck out with that punch. Chuck’s glass jaw shattered. For years I gave movie magazines a cursory glance, on the lookout for an Aspiring Young Actor.

Like the line in Raisin in the Sun, “Chuck never showed.” Gone, gone, as the German folksong goes, “gone to graves, everyone. Where are the young men [fighters] gone?”  To broken lives with broken brains and bodies.

This fading [hopefully] chapter of violence in my life is now “Clean.” For years I carried around purely biodegradable information. I thought—until the famous adolescent novel writer Peck visited Ricks College. Stuck with a primo horse’s rear, I invited Scott Samuelson over for help.  After cutting off his tobacco in my house and allowing him to nurse a flask of Jack Daniels while we tried to talk, Peck drifted into something else he “knew everything about.” Wrong. I don’t know where Scott got his knowledge of the boxers, but I knew he had some football lore under his eyelids. Like two street fighters, we mercilessly pummeled Peck until he finally folded against the ropes. Broken, he went outside for a long time and smoked his coffin nail. Scott and I hugged: Schadenfreude. Chuck Davey’s left hand hit home … finally.

Boxing? Never again. It ain’t a sport. Oh yes, confession. I agreed to watch a pay-for-view with friend, Jimmy Barrett. And what did we get? Big Mike Tyson [little voice, though] BITES the other guy’s EAR OFF. See what I mean about boxing as a sport?

The Milt and Ethyl Thompsons moved on and up.  Together with their son-in-law, they bought a trailer sales operation in San Bernardino, living another 10 years “clean” and comfortable.

Mom and Dad had reached out, and a tired five-acres of scattered tin trailers and apartments and an old Rio Grande Service station had saved two lost souls.

Oasis.