Where the sun sets on Grant Avenue

This is a view across the street behind the homes and up the hill where the sun sets on Grant Avenue, and has set in just this way for as many lifetimes as have begun and ended on our side of the street.



The homes go back a couple generations. The tree line goes back a hundred years or more. The sun and clouds and stars go back millions.

I took these pictures the evening before Dad died, which turned out to be a matter of hours before he died. This is what he saw from his bed in the evenings during the few times he was able to open his eyes.

This was a typical sunset, one of thousands just like it that I watched for years. I heard as a kid that Erie was voted by someone at some time as having some of the best sunsets in the world. I don't know how you judge such things, but if it is possible, I can believe it is true.

(Erie has been an industrial town for many years; it is difficult, knowing what we know about pollution and the affects of certain minerals in the atmosphere, not to make the connection with refraction and pretty colors. To this day, if I smell roofing tar, I smell the Public Dock - not road pavement, but roofing tar, they are different; I always presumed Erie had manufactured roofing tar because the smell was so similar, but it could have been something else; there were always barges lined up with gravel and heaps of rocky substances when I was a kid; that may have been iron ore, as there was iron processed in Erie.

I don't think that is true anymore; the bay front has become developed with a convention center, the dock has been renamed and a tower built at the end of the pier, an attractive roadway has been built that gives a nice ride along the bay where yachts are docked, and there are other things, and they are all nice, but I miss the old days: the barges, old guys fishing off the dock, the popcorn and peanuts and toys, the waves slopping against the Flagship Niagara moored alongside the dock opposite the Li'l Toot, which was a dark and tubby tugboat.

Having grown up around the lake and ships and seen and heard and smelled the water and things that happen on and around it, I developed youthful fantasies of joining the merchant marine or stowing away on a tramp steamer. The charm remains with me still.)

Old Erie Public Dock


Some more pictures of Old Erie:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~paerie/oldphotos/OldtimeEriePics.htm ➚

Coming of a Certain Age

Everyone talks about the firsts; we recall (most of) them fondly: kisses, true loves, jobs, children.
We don't talk about the lasts: the last day you worked, the last day you drove your car, mowed the lawn, prepared something to eat, went to the bathroom by yourself.

An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre, 'Their Own Executioners,' aired recently on WXMI HD (Comcast 295); it did an interesting take on what I'll call "Coming Of a Certain Age" stories, and balanced it well with youthful angst on the other side of the maturation teeter-totter. It isn't the flipside of Catcher in the Rye➚, but it was a pleasant, nostalgic echo of generation beginning to acknowledge it.

It was written by Luther Davis (who has a terrific history of TV to his credit, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0205065/#Writer ➚) and featured a young Dean Stockwell accused of murder; at one point Stockwell shouts "your driving me crazy," a line from Rebel without a Cause ➚ that audiences at the time would have recognized immediately.

The characters and writing are outstanding, and Hesrschel Bernarndi's delivery incredible (he also acted in one of my favorite pictures, Irma le Douce➚[1]).

Coming of age stories tend to get our attention, probably due to most of us having an immediate wistful connection to them, and nearly a lifetime to reflect.

Life changes at the other end are different; it is a difficult thing to watch a person age, retire, lose the ability to drive, become sick, dwindle and eventually die. They have only months or a few years to consider their obsolescence; little is written about them, and what is, is written by those on the outside looking in. (Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman➚ comes to mind, or Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger ➚, though Lemmon may be more middle-age/midlife crisis.)

Kraft Suspense Theatre 'Their Own Executioners' is a type of this story; not explicitly so, and probably not intentionally so, but there is enough of it to digest it on that level.

Download and put together Kraft Suspense Theatre 'Their Own Executioners' here:[2]

http://www.mediafire.com/?be4so3pow31n2➚

Combine with MasterSplitter here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?bmm5f1te8e3jf➚
OR
Free HJ-Split here:
http://download.cnet.com/HJ-Split/3000-2248_4-10550268.html?tag=mncol;1 ➚
(Both will run as portable apps.)

I'd never heard of Kraft Suspense Theatre before. What I've watched so far has been very good. It doesn't have the surprise endings or ethereal qualities of Twilight Zone or Hitchcock or others in the genre; it's driven by the acting, which is quite good. I'm surprised, given as much retro TV and radio I've consumed, that I'd never heard of it before.

[1]
The first time I saw Irma le Douce was on the late late late show. I was alone, in my teens, in Holly, MI at my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Ken's house on Pollock road. I watched in their den, a thickly carpeted and draperied room with rich browns and tans of wooden furniture, statuettes, and reliefs brought back from their missionary days in Africa. I watched with the lights off, enjoying the moon through the bare trees of the woods behind their house. (Their backyard was marvelously wooded; I could easily imagine deer and American Indians there a couple hundred years before.) The whole house was asleep but me. If I recall correctly, it was the same night as a massive brownout across the eastern US and I was watching coverage of the looting.

I happened to turn the channel to the beginning of this charming story about a French policeman rounding up a bunch of prostitutes and my pubescing mind was instantly engaged. There is a marvelous innocence of mature themes in older films, especially when painted in broad Technicolor strokes by familiar and friendly faces.

It's a wonderful if naive film from a wonderful director on a very old theme - the damsel in distress. Having survived the 70's, I read and watched far more stories that presented jaded, gritty views of prostitution and those that participate in it. (George C Scott in Hardcore,➚ eg, written by fellow alum Paul Schrader). There is a piece of me that wants to see the Cinderella side of any story (a la Pretty Woman ➚), but I don't let that show too much, as it's often perceived as hopelessly Pollyanna, or worse, uninteresting.

Still, it's a wonderful story, with wonderful actors, with a delicate innocence that touched me in a time and place that would stick with me for the rest of my life. Thank you, Billy Wilder.

[2]
.ts files can be played easily by Media Player Classic (http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/ ➚) or VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/ ➚)

How many ways can you combine eggs and oil and vinegar?

Apparently quite a few, and quite a few of them not so well when you compare them with one I discovered this summer: Duke's Mayonnaise.

It's only available in the South. If you happen to travel down that way (or are lucky enough to live down that way), you owe it to yourself to try a side-by-side comparison with Hellmann's or Kraft or the store brand of your choice.

My Brother Tom, who brings a few jars north with him when he visits, says a grocery stocker at the store he shops at had to reach back deep behind a bigger brand that was on sale to get him a few jars (still 32 oz). The stocker said it doesn't matter if one of the bigger brands is on sale, he can't keep Duke's on the shelf.[1]

 

I say, I say, son, two half nothin's is a whole nothin'! And I know what I'm talkin' about...

 

 

[1]
I used to stock groceries at a Meijer store on 3rd shift. When asked what we did for a living, we replied: I handle stock for a large corporation.

Thomas G Cairns January 10, 1993 Prayer Card

 

We are not Catholic, but Grandma liked the looks of these cards and ordered them for Grandpa Cairns. I think they are very nice, and as long as I was posting Dad’s information, I thought I’d post Grandpa’s. They’re so pretty, almost makes you want to be Catholic, doesn’t it?

Here is a picture of Grandpa and Grandma Cairns (Thomas Cairns and Geneva Cairns) and grandchildren circa 1972.

Grandchildren are: Dan Young (held by Grandpa), then L-R, Tom Tom, Carolee, Dee Dee, Linda, me, and Tom.

R.I.P. Charles W Cairns May 24, 1938 - November 27, 2011

My eulogy for Dad, delivered at Bethel Baptist Church on West 38th Street on Thursday Dec. 1, 2011.

[begin]

Many of you probably don't know me, or don't remember me. I'm Dad's first child. My name is Chuck.

There's something I must say first before I talk about Dad: many people saw Dad through his declining months, and everyone at that house on Grant Avenue played a role, but two played a greater role than others. Mom and my sister Linda demonstrated incredible strength, and not the sort that most of us are able to muster on short notice for a short time, but a persistent, determined strength that kept them at Dad's side at times they may have otherwise needed to eat, or sleep, or relax. And I know Dad knew that.

...

One of the last things Dad said to me, only a few weeks ago, was:

"I know where I'm going, it's just no fun getting there."

Some of you know Dad's spiritual side better than I do, because you were in Sunday School with him, or you served with him as a deacon, or had him as your deacon.

I saw Dad read his bible / in a corner of our family room / every morning for as long as I remember. He always had a cup of coffee next to him. When he saw you getting your morning coffee, he would mark his place, close his bible, and pick up his own cup.

That was an invitation to talk.

You weren't interrupting his faith, you were at that moment entering it, because he lived it, and if you were around him, you lived it with him.

[the church]

The first time I said goodbye to a member of this church family, I was a child. It was my first exposure to death that I can remember.

She was Bethel's church secretary. I don't remember her name, but she worked in the church parsonage over at Bethel Baptist Church on East 26th Street. Some of you remember that building as Bethel East. I knew it before there was a Bethel West, this building we're in today.

I still think of this building as the "new church." That was when Pastor Andrus preached two morning services each week until Bethel East was sold and this location became the final home of the church and school.

Names from those days sound stern, almost biblical.

Names like Amendola, Brewer, Longstreet, Hutnyak, Henninger, Gribbin, Giles, Zwald, and so many others.

Some of you know those names. Some of those names are represented here today.

And if you were up here, / instead of me, / you'd probably add another name: Cairns

[memories]

I started writing this in November of last year, over a year ago, not because Dad was battling cancer, but because it was inevitable that I would one day be standing here, / and thoughts were coming to me that I didn't want to lose.

Clumps of thoughts, / uneven, / out of order, / like life. / And I began recording them, but if I recount them here, they'd be little more than verbal snapshots. Let me instead recall Dad in broader strokes:

* Dad was quiet and thoughtful. He could sit among others chatting and be content just to listen. He was always thinking, forming opinions, and enjoyed hearing yours; only on subjects where he strenuously disagreed with you / would you get any inclination that was the case.

* But of course it's one thing to be able to talk and choose not to, / and quite another not to be able to talk, which was where he found himself at the end, and I know that bothered him. He worried aloud frequently that he wasn't very good company.

* He was a man of few words, / never preached. If you didn't know how he felt by how he acted, you just weren't paying attention.

* Dad never complained. Not about anything.

* I used to smoke. / I used to drink. / And Dad never judged me once, not once. I think Mom and Dad wore out the knees in a few pair of pants praying for me, but they never judged me.

* Dad had an unshakable work ethic, and his example has allowed me to keep my job when many around me were losing theirs, / a number of times. Anyone that knows Dad knows he couldn't abide laziness. All he asked is that you try and he'd treat you like you were the best worker on the team.

* Dad loved sports, but never pushed us into them / or judged us by our ability to play them, or be good at them, or want to be good at them.

* Dad questioned the ways of the world, but loved the innocent little bits that make life so magical. We welcomed Santa Claus every Christmas, and the Easter Bunny on Easter, and looked under our pillow for a quarter after losing a tooth. These things never detracted from from our faith; the distinction was always clear, even in our little minds.

* Dad said a few times, "If they knew what I thought about some things, I might not be a deacon." He never told me what those things where, and I never asked.

* You may find it hard to believe, but I didn't know there was such a thing as anti-Semitism until college. Disliking someone based on their color or religion was utterly foreign to me. I never heard it in our home, or, just as importantly, in any home my family entered, and I think that's because others respected Dad's stand on a lot of things, and watched what they said around him and those close to him.

* He was a gentle man, and much loved. He never had an unkind word to say about anyone.

* At the end of a long discussion on evolution, politics, or salvation, Dad would say something like, "If we can't know, does it really matter?"

* By which I think he also meant, "I don't need to know / to know it matters."

* Dad and I disagreed on a lot. I suspect Dad knows now how wrong one of us was, and I will know that someday too.

[Truth be told, we more often agreed than disagreed.]

[end]

There's a scene from the movie It's a Wonderful Life where the angel Clarence tells George Baily, played by Jimmy Stewart, "Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Dad would not have been the same without having known you all. And each of you are irrevocably changed for having met him.

We touch each other in a million ways. Most of them forgotten, but each of them indelible.

Considering how long I've been thinking about this moment, this seems all too short.

But how can you adequately memorialize a lifetime in a few minutes?

You can't. It's already been memorialized in me, and you.

I never heard Dad quote a bible verse, but there's one that came to me over a year ago when I began contemplating this day, / and my own mortality: Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." Well, some fall a little closer to Glory than others, and Dad was one of those.