When I Stop Dreaming

In My Day: A Day For Fathers

Ξ June 20th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ In My Day |

I have nothing else to do on Father’s Day but reminisce. I am not only fortunate to have had good fathers in my life, but have still have photos and their accompanying stories to remind me of the tremendous role that a father plays. I flip through the photos I have in iPhoto, and am amazed at the power of photos taken decades ago can still have, even when viewed through such a cool medium well into the 21st century.

I can look at photos of my Dad (1924-2008), who loved to share jokes and listen to music. A guy who loved the old ways of doing things, who berated me for “running out and buying a solution” when your hands could do the job. A grown man who would drop to the floor to play among his grandkids. A man who rarely showed anger, who without complaint took care of my ailing mother so that she could live out the rest of her life in her home, and die in her own bed. A hard-working, determined man who was born at dinnertime, he said, and was thus always hungry.

I can look at photos of his dad, Frederick (1886-1974), whose mother called him Ted. He ran a team of horses in a logging camp before opening a store along the highway in Lemington, Wisconsin. Tall and thin, I can still picture him sitting in his chair by the window, reading the paper. As I sat quietly in their house while the adults talked (back when kids were required to do that), he’d fold up the paper and take me into the store and let me choose candy from the glass-partitioned case — chunks of bulk candy that were impossible to choose between. He was famous for his soft side too, known to walk the floor for hours coaxing a crying baby to sleep.

I get my looks from his father, Frederick (1858-1938), whom I never met but my Dad admiringly remembered as a “big, fat German.” Dad remembered helping lace up his boots while my great-grandfather sang “Ach du Lieber Augustin.” Frederick worked for years for the Knapp-Stout Lumber Company, which cleared much of the northern Wisconsin forest, where he could look at a stand of timber and estimate the board feet of lumber it would produce. My dad recalled an old-timer telling him, “there’s no one I’d rather have in the woods with me than Fred Scharlau.”

My paternal grandmother told us about her father, James (1865-1928), who was born in New York but moved with his family to Wisconsin and established my branch of the family there. He was working at the Rice Lake gravel pit when he died, at age 62. I have a tintype of him, poised and handsome in a studio, that is one of my favorite photos.

His father, Luther (1834-1876), was as far back as my grandmother could remember, but she could remember his red hair. Luther fought for the Union at Fredericksburg and elsewhere. My Dad and I were happy and surprised upon finding his grave a few years ago in a little cemetery off the road in Royalton, Wisconsin. Even though this veteran died more than 125 years ago, someone had thought to decorate his grave with a flag.

On my mother’s side, I never got to meet my Grandpa Charles Carlson (1890-1949), but feel close to him, possibly because I can visit his grave in nearby Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Charles was the first of his brothers to emigrate to the United States from Sweden in 1901, and though a citizen for only three years, enlisted to fight in the Great War. His company fought at Meuse-Argonne in 1918, and he was the victim of a mustard-gas attack, which weakened him for the rest of his life and led to an early death. My Dad knew him, and said he loved to talk and enjoyed going to Masonic lodge meetings, where he would allow himself a beer.

I need to learn more about my mother’s grandfather, Andrew Elias Steel (1846-1922), who emigrated from Sweden to Lake City, Minnesota, where he worked as a blacksmith, until moving the family to St. Paul in the 1880s. I have a photo of him, standing proudly with several of his seven daughters.

I wish I could spend today with any of these men, to learn more about their lives, and to thank them for mine. I know their struggles were greater than mine, and I am grateful for their work and their sacrifices. The best I could do was acknowledge them and remember them a bit on Father’s Day.

Movie Review: The Messenger

Ξ June 4th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |

2009. Starring Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson. Directed by Oren Moverman.

My Dad was fond of an old country song, “The Letter Edged in Black.” He recalled that, back in the day when all communication, however urgent, relied on mail service, letters bearing bad news were enclosed in envelopes marked with black around the edges. The intent was to warn that the message inside was not routine correspondence, and that the recipient should be prepared to hear the worst. The shock of learning some things without warning would only amplify the message.

The next of kin (”NOK” in military parlance) of service members are prepared more than most to hear such news, but the shock is handled differently. When combat hero Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is assigned to the Casualty Notification Unit to complete his final months of service, he views it as a bit of an insult. Delivering bad news, adhering to a stiff and cold script and watching the impact on loved ones resulting from his visit seems like a lousy chore to someone who has seen as much as he has. His partner, Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), trains him to exercise detachment, stick to the script and avoid touching anyone. Speak only to the primary next of kin, don’t park out front, and don’t wait around, drawing attention. His professionalism masks a detachment from his emotions, necessary not only to the successful notification of death in the line of service, but to his own well-being.

The Casualty Notification officers encounter anger, resentment, nausea and deadened shock, reactions that the seasoned Captain Stone warns his protege to expect. But, as The Messenger takes its time to show us, they are not prepared for the reactions they experience themselves, particularly when they make an official visit to a new widow (a surprising Samantha Morton) and the heartbreak and grief manage to get around everyone’s defenses.

The Messenger shows a new viewpoint on war that is devastating but not divisive. The cold violence that the officers deliver to the loved ones waiting back home must be an awful burden to bear, but they always speak on behalf of the Secretary of the Army and repress both pain and empathy in the name of military professionalism. Alcohol occasionally seeps inside the Captain’s self-defense, while the distance of an ex-girlfriend wears away at the young Staff Sergeant, putting him in a dangerous situation with the new widow whose life he’s just destroyed.

“I think they ought to show every damn funeral on TV, live,” Harrelson’s character growls at one point, and that’s the argument I’ve tried to make. Pretending that the deaths don’t represent real lives cut short, that the mission doesn’t result in orphans and grieving parents, makes war too easy. And makes all of us too willing to ignore the network of pain behind every fallen soldier. There are letters edged in black being delivered today, somewhere in America, and we should be witness when that bad news is delivered.