In elementary school, there is this great assignment where teachers have kids name their favorite family meal, and then guesstimate/imagine/attempt to write the recipe. It's always funny to see the actual recipe sitting next to the kid-one. I am going to try to write a history of Grandpa's life, in full knowledge that it will turn out like one of these 6-year-old recipes: wrong, endearing, and hopefully telling in the omissions and fabrications.
1916
My Grandpa was born in a section of Brooklyn called Flatbush. I am certain this is true, because the Irish Easter Rebellion happened in 1916, in which a bunch of Catholics tried to take back their country and got shot or hanged outside the Dublin post office for it. In college I was doing some amateur genealogical research and learned that an Orr was one of those rebels executed after the uprising. Grandpa has always been my talisman for Irish things, even though I am fairly certain that only 1/2 or maybe even only 1/4 of his parentage was Irish. After I learned this little bit of history, he always reminded me of the fact that we don't take any garbage from those jokers (those jokers, being anyone who wants to take something for us).
Teenage years
Grandpa grew up pretty modestly. I never heard one word in my life about his father. My grandpa had a sister. My grandpa's mother was called Nana by my mom and her siblings when they went to visit her. She was always described as a stern lady. She made some meal really well; my mom will remember it. My grandpa did some boxing (I am stepping out on some thin memories) growing up, and also swimming. Oh yes. Swimming. Did you know he was almost in the Olympics for like twelve straight years? Seriously, he won an enormous swimming award from his community, or maybe it was for all of New York City. That sounds better.
"Love and Marriage"
My grandpa and grandma went to the same high school in Brooklyn for a short time, and then, for some reason, they didn't. Maybe he graduated. Maybe he was moved to a different school Either way, he remembered her, returned to her, and courted her. They were married in 1940. He had become a policeman. Soon enough, they had a son, whom I call Uncle Skip and who carries grandpa's name.The War
Grandpa went into WWII older than most of the guys going; he was already in his late 20s. I don't know if he was drafted or signed himself up, but he was in the Army. He was trained as a cryptographer because of his high scores on aptitude tests and worked either in sending coded messages for the Allies or in decoding enemy messages. Maybe both. None of grandchildren learned anything about him before they learned this: he was in the D-Day invasion. This is mammoth. Maybe he was a couple of days behind the D-Day invasion. It doesn't matter. He trudged through France with all of his compatriots, liberating people, smiling, cracking codes, and compiling a list of stories in his head. He was on-site in Rheims, France, for the signing of the unconditional surrender by Hitler's generals.When I was in college, on some strange impulse, I flew down to spend a weekend with my grandparents to interview them about their past. I am going to be looking for the journal where I caught all of those notes for the first part of today, I know it.
Post-War
Grandpa returned from the war and returned to his post as a beat cop in Brooklyn. He worked at Dodgers' stadium. I always associate this part of grandpa's life with my study of Malcolm X, because it was around this time that Malcolm went to jail and came into his own as an autodidact. Malcolm listened to Brooklyn Dodgers games on the radio in prison for news of Jackie Robinson. So, it's kind of like Malcolm and my grandpa knew each other.The Perfect Machine
My mom was born Jan. 23, 1947. At some point right before or after this, the Orr family moved out to Long Island. My mom won the Ms. Junior Levittown beauty pageant when she was 4. This has nothing to do with grandpa except that he gave her some of those good looks, and because it's a clear story that I remember. My mom's sister was born in 1949. She was everyone's sweet baby, and they dressed her up in the most adorable hats (why do I remember this?).
At this point, the entire engine of sibling love and rivalry for the Orr children was complete. Never before or since was there a more perfect machine for generating temporal feelings of jealousy, bitterness, and competition bound by a strong love that just forces you to get over it. The pattern probably looked like this in its genesis:
we are all brothers and sisters and we love each other . . . oww, you stepped on my toes; did you do that because daddy loves you more? . . . no, it was just an accident . . . no it wasn't, you were trying to stand in a better position to receive attention from our patriarchal system . . . no I wasn't, I was just shifting my weight . . . it's more like your shadow, look at how enormous it is . . . hey, what are you guys arguing about over there? . . . butt out . . . hey, you can't exclude me, it hurt me too when your toe got stepped on . . . let's all hug . . . ok . . . [hug] . . . no one is as close as we are . . . no they are not . . . oww, did someone just slam my hand into a glass door? . . . etc.
Grandpa saw all of this pathos. And it was good. Through the 50s and 60s, he was a police officer and father.
The Rest
I always see the rest of grandpa's life, until I bumped into him, as a post-retirement blur. At some point all of the kids moved out and got married. At some point grandpa and grandma moved to Florida. For most of the rest of their time, life is quiet and peaceful, golfing all the time and looking out the screen porch of their condo, watching the Intercoastal Waterway, and waiting for grandchildren. I am sure that's not the case; they may not have installed themselves in that condo until the day before I met them, but in my memory, they were always there until they moved up to Virginia to be closer to Skip. Grandma became ill and passed away in 2003. It hit grandpa pretty hard, though he did his best to have happy years after she was gone. In some ways, he was always living through the sadness of missing her in his last six years.
This catches us up to where I enter the picture, at which point the memories become much more concrete. That post, I will put up later today, in addition to a letter to grandpa, rounding out my triptych blog obituary. I will tell you something -- it feels eerie and sad knowing that he is not going to be on the other end of the phone for me again.
*Special thanks to Cousin CMS for the nicely planned pics.
The word "legend" was uttered frequently in the past weeks. His is too good a story to not collaborate and put it down on paper for future generations. Or, perhaps so we can get some of the details straight for our own understanding. As with most legends, some of these stories are true, some embellished, some looked at with a raised eyebrow of skepticism based solely on how unbelievable they are.
ReplyDeleteWhen Grandpa moved out of the apartment in Reston where he had lived for some 4+ years, a man stood in his doorway watching. He told my dad and me that Ed was the greatest man he had ever met.
The stories that I know and remember are the ones coming next. The one about the guy at Thoreau is classic. How many people can we say have ever said that about us?
ReplyDelete