July 4, 1976; Edgartown

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins

Immigrants' Faint Footnote

three of my 4 grandparents were immigrants.

(the 4th, was son of fathers to the American Revolution)

one of the 3 came as a baby.

(When she contracted fever aboard ship, her immigrant mother stopped others from throwing her into the sea.)

one came as 1 of 3 girls to be bride to 1 of 3 brothers 

(not knowing which with which).

that one-of-three brothers had come earlier to an Illinois steel mill.

(The mill is gone, but a safety manual for this unsafe workplace survives to be read in his Hungarian, as well as in Slovenian, Romanian and tongues of other workmates.)

two of 2 of my sons-in-law were born far from North America.

two of 5 of my grandchildren were born far from North America. 

three grandchildren,

two sons-in-law,

both of my children, 

two of my immigrant grandparents, and their

one son (my father) mastered tongues other than English in childhood.

            More important: 

My story-by-numbers is  faint footnote to your own. 

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2019 :: Immigrants' Faint Footnote :: 1902 

.Shouting Distance

We all shouted a lot when I was a kid. A shout loud enough to cover a city block was my sisters' way of summoning me home: “Bobby, supper!”. My repeated shouts would summon a friend from his house to play, or they brought somebody to the door to tell me he was not home or could not come out.


We had telephones, of course. I believe I memorized our telephone number as early as I knew the world has numbers: Nestor 3679. Perhaps the fact that the first phone connection I remember was a party line (2 families, same phone number) made us conservative about its use, but I was pretty young when we got our own line. I certainly could telephone a friend who did not live within shouting range if I did not wish to walk far enough to put him in range. Usually I walked.


A sister or my mother might call a friend's home if I did not show up in response to a few shouts from the back door. Shouting was first choice, however; they could summon me without knowing my whereabouts.


The shout system worked well for both kids and parents. Yet, it is hard today to believe that we really did all that shouting. Often, I would stand less than 20 feet from a friend's front or back door and shout his name, “Oh, Genie!”--repeatedly. I can't explain why I did not simply walk up to the door and knock. I know I seldom did so. I preferred to shout.


I don't remember that anybody complained about the shouting nor that anybody ever talked about it. Parents did often instruct us to "Stay in shouting distance!” to limit how far we kids could roam when an important event was pending, such as supper or a family departure.


For me, though I hold a few equally correct definitions of "neighborhood" from my youth, it is “Shouting Distance” that defines the most intimate neighborhood beyond the walls of my home. Yet, I still surprise myself each time I remember that, indeed, we shouted a lot when I was a kid. 


----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------
footnote from my sister:

Bob, do you recall the Stickney family who lived directly across the street from us? One day Mary Kay Stickney, and some other neighborhood kids were all playing on our porch. We were playing hospital. So when Mrs Stickney yelled out the front door for Mary Kay to come home, I yelled back, " She can't - she has a broken leg. " Poor Mrs Stickney took a moment to figure out that all was well with her daughter!!! But you are right, we all yelled. No one knocked on the door, no one used the phone that I can remember. And I must admit that my mom liked to listen in on the party line so I had to tiptoe around when she did that. Alas. Lessons of youth!


(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins

Snow Tunnels and Kitchen Chairs: Fantasy of Youth, Practicality of Adulthood

Outside,
for hours
and days
I would tunnel in snow,
carve out a frozen world
of passage way,
shelter,
castle,
fort,
and igloo.
I would shovel snow into a large pile in the back yard, or make use of a pile my father had made as he shoveled out the alley behind our garage. I had friends, but this was my time to play alone. Seldom would those I did invite show necessary enthusiasm and endurance.
Inside,
for lunch,
stiff wool mittens or jersey gloves
to the radiator
where melting balls of snow
turn today's mittens
to limp and wet
and yesterday's
to warm and dry
to wear back out
after bowl of soup
for afternoon tunneling.
A coal shovel was the tool no bigger than I, but big enough to make my work productive. I would do finer work with bare hand or coffee can, but my work was never fine enough.
I never made the perfect tunnel,
nor perfect igloo,
nor finished castle.
Yet,
for so long
as cold and snow and mittens held,
I went out most days to try.
Some days I overworked my quota of dry clothes and mittens. Some days there was too little snow, or the Minnesota cold was too bitter. I did not object when my mother bade me stay in.
Perfection came imagined
during inside days
on bed or living-room rug.
I could play with toy figures
across snowfields visible only to me.
I could make believe my way
to architectural perfection:
snow walls carved thin
to let sun in
to glimmer
like cathedral window.
Outside imagination is different from inside imagination. Snow and cold are quite real. They were my immediate environment for a few months each year. My clumsy skills at tunneling were real but improving. I only need imagine that the world outside my snow tunnel was free of back doors leading to warm kitchens, hot bowls of soup and motherly protection.
During outside daydream time,
alone in a snow tunnel,
I would imagine my life
if real life included the tunnel.
How fun it would be
to be an expert
among people who live in snow.
When I grew big enough to be in fourth grade I found out about children who actually lived in the snow. They were Netsook and Klaya of Baffin Island, north of Canada and west of Greenland. I read about them in Visits In Other Lands, my 4th grade geography book at Saint Columba School. Yes, I had always remembered them, but, yes, I had forgotten the name of their book until my sister found a copy in an antique store during a visit to our home in Colorado. It had been her introduction to the world also, but she gave the book to me, sensing that I would treasure it and even read it again. This time around, I read the Foreword To The Teacher and discovered that these were imaginary children. The brother and sister in each chapter were created by the authors to give us an idea of different environments that challenge peoples of the earth and shape their cultures. In fourth grade I did not know these lofty goals, I only wished I could learn and use what these children knew to do.
However,
I lived among people who look out
to snow, rain, fog, and darkness
from warm, bright kitchens.
In the world of my people, I often became bored with my figures and their perfect snow structures, or found myself satisfied with plans for tomorrow's tunnel. During such days I would spend hours under kitchen furniture.
Inside our kitchen
I became an expert in chairs.
Four wooden, high-back chairs
became cockpit, wings and fuselage.
I would build airplanes
and fly the sky.
My mother seemed content to work around my obstruction. Now, I realize that as long as I was under foot in my airplane she need not worry about what trouble I was making. Back then, I just knew she was patient and kind. Mostly, I did not notice her.
Kitchens require concentrated imagination.
Chairs look nothing like airplanes.
Linoleum floor is neither cloud nor sky.
Nor should there be radio,
hissing pots,
telephone rings,
nor sky-walking,
loud talking
visitor giants.
I am sure I spent more time in my kitchen airplane than in my backyard snow tunnels. The airplane was as good for a rainy day in summer as for a winter day that was too mild or too bitter.
I know I loved my kitchen-chair airplane.
I know I gave piloting more time than tunneling,
yet, I remember snow tunneling better
and miss it more.
When my daughters were four and six years old we lived in a house with a picnic table out back. This was an unusually snowy winter for the island of Martha's Vineyard. As the table became a mound of snow I saw an opportunity. My daughters could experience some of what I had experienced. I wanted to play again.
For my children,
I shoveled snow
on top of snow
on top of table,
a marvelous mound
for a marvelous igloo.
I tunneled part way in
before putting them and friends to tunneling.
I was out of scale
and a damper to fun.
From inside the house,
at a window,
I could watch,
catch a glimpse now and then
of their tunneling and their play.
It was my day for joy and envy.
That day came before our move west, and before rediscovery of Netsook and Klaya. In Colorado I discovered the joy of summer in the back country. For a long while I thought I would also enjoy snow camping. It would be fulfillment of my childhood fantasy. Away from back doors and warm kitchens, I could live for a few days each winter in and around a snow cave a snow tunnel I would make out of necessity in a real world of snow. I held to that fantasy of winter perfection until a friend reminded me that the winter night is fifteen hours of darkness. For Netsook and Klaya a winter day would be all night. Would they if they had a choice choose to spend even fifteen hours, night after night, in their igloo? That is not for me to know, but question alone was enough to make up my mind. I would learn how to make a snow cave for a real emergency, not fulfillment of fantasy.
Today,
a winter day,
inside
among fantasy of youth
and practicality of adulthood,
I look out into cold and snow
wishing dining room chairs to be large enough
to be
for me
a good airplane.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins 

Prospects of Returning Home

Gardens of Pleasant Regret: 

on prospects of returning home, written on the airplane to home 

after believing I might have had a stroke 

during a solo visiting Kristin and family in Brussels 

I wish to see the garden,
the gardens—the tenth of an acre around my house—
hard surfaces I laid down,
soft earth I dug up,
the green,
the hues-floral,
successes after decades of error and trial,
the done, undone and yet to do,
a patch of lawn that will need cutting,
weeds that will have erupted,
and gifts from good seeds that dropped in.


I wish to smell the smell,
listen to squirrels, birds, and gate,
and I wish to walk with pleasure and companion
as I hear—with pleasant regret—
of what I missed in the days and evenings of my absence.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins 

Spring Break, Procrastination and Japanese Civilization

I 
.

Downtown,
dead last night.
I walked through and back for exercise-
to get out after day inside,
with no desire to drop in
to usual spots
but did look in
to see them empty,
did listen around
to hear no music
along silent streets
shared with the few
who looked to want to be revelers-
ducking in
slipping out
of near-empty spaces,
as if chance might find them
in one spot
at same time
to bring spot and them alive.
Not I.
Not this evening that felt like Sunday morning
at the city's resting core,
resting from nights and months of vibrancy.
This is the week we call Spring Break.
Students go away.
Old ones go together.
Young ones tow parents
or parents tow them
to ski slope or canyon across the mountains
or to a beach in Mexico or Hawaii.
We do not partake.
We seldom partook.
Each year I looked up
to notice my children at home,
my friends on the road. 

.
I I
.

Perhaps good things do come to him who waits
as it came to me in my Japanese Civilization class,
one class I will always remember from college.
I arrived to class as the only student
who did not know it was exam day.
Too embarrassed to speak out,
I spoke to myself:
I must tell the professor
I am not prepared.
Tell him before the exam.
Then, after the exam.
Well, next class.
Upon entering (but he is too busy).
Upon leaving (but he is occupied).
Next time.
For sure.
I will find the nerve.

But now it would be too embarrassing
I have waited too long to tell him.
There were questions from a chapter I did not read.
I should not have taken the test.
I want to apologize
(in advance)
for my grade.
I must tell him.
To hell with embarrassment!
I will tell him,
--next class.

Cowardice deserves its own punishment.
Ah, but what reward cowardice.
The test came back, marked "A"
My second "A" in 4 years.
Perhaps preparation is over sold.

. 
I I I
.
 
 I used to fear I was a bad father,
lousy husband,
for not thinking ahead
to whisk my family off someplace.
Until
I noticed I loved it.
By luck and lack of preparation
I had done the right thing
to stay home
to give and take attention
with family and neighborhood.
We ventured out onto nearby paths
over neighborhood walks
under gorgeous spring sun-
sometimes over beautiful spring snow.
Spring after spring
oddly,
pleasantly
surprised.
Destination by procrastination
--via Japanese Civilization--
indeed, I love Spring Break.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins 

Yes, Yes I Was

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2017 :: 1708