Writer's Notebook - James Rafferty Blog

Ode to a Lost Cousin

When I was a child, my family would often cross the Connecticut River and visit the Douvilles in Bloomfield.  My parents, Kay and Jim, would visit with Peg and Larry Douville and my brother Bruce and I would head over to the room where our cousins Larry and Stevie Douville hung out.  Uncle Larry was very good with tools and had fashioned much of the house in stained knotty pine, including the boy's room where they had a trundle style bed arrangement - Little Larry's bunk on top and Steve's at a ninety degree angle on the bottom.

That's how I got to know my cousin Larry Douville.  He was 4 years older than I was, but loved playing with us younger guys anyway.  Larry was lean and athletic, and had thick black hair; quite different than my own much lighter red hair.  In turn, Steve is a year younger than I, so he was a natural companion for my younger brother Bruce.  

No matter.  We'd get to the cousins room, play games and talk well into the evening.  If the lights were turned off, that didn't matter -- the talk would continue.  The pattern continued for years.  Larry and Steve were our favorite cousins, and it didn't hurt that we were close in age and lived just 40 minutes away.  As we got older, we had sleepovers and sometimes would even stay for a week during vacation times.  Here's a picture of Larry and I playing in a backyard by a sandbox.  

I got to know the other kids in the neighborhood. We used to play football in the back yard of the Otis's, who lived across the street.   

Larry was always happy to see me and had a great open smile. I was the studious type back home, but here, I was just one of the gang and got to indulge my love of backyard sports.  Since Larry was a few years older, I looked up to him and learned a lot about what his age group was doing.  He and his brother Steve took piano lessons, but I remember going downstairs and listening to Larry's collection of 45s.  Rock and roll hadn't yet experienced the British invasion, so the music was from groups like the Four Seasons, doo wop musicians and maybe a bit of Elvis and Chuck Berry.  

In the summer, the Douvilles would spend several weeks at a campsite on Otis Reservoir.  They'd set up several tents, take motor boat rides on the water and the Douvilles -- excepting lighter skinned Aunt Peg -- would get very tanned.  This was quite exotic for my brother Bruce and I -- my dad was a golfer and didn't care for camping at all. Larry and Steve would invite us into the water and we'd all swim for quite a while -- though I had to be careful of sunburn on my light skin. Afterwards, we'd eat grilled burgers and hot dogs and the food never seemed to taste better.   

A few years later, times were changing and Larry and I would talk about the Vietnam war.  Larry wasn't a great student, but managed to take college courses long enough to stay out of the draft for a few years.  Around this time, he introduced me to beer and I remember parties where his parents were out and we'd have a few.  I didn't really like the beer that much as a seventeen year old, but Larry wanted to make sure I was having fun and I'd go along with it.  

After I entered college, Larry and I both faced the draft.  The government instituted a lottery system and Larry got a high number -- good news, since his college days were over. I got a lower number, but still had a college deferment as long as I stayed in school. We were both amazed when President Nixon ended the draft and the war petered out.   

Around this time, Larry and I grew apart. I got my degree and started a career.  Larry mostly liked to hang out, drink beers and wasn't too good at holding a job.  Nonetheless, he always had a smile on his face wherever I saw him.  Larry was truly a friendly guy and didn't sweat the small stuff.  

Larry got married -- I think a couple of times -- but it never seemed to last very long. In the Eighties, his parents moved to Florida.  Larry still needed guidance and he didn't get much from the long distance. His Dad, Uncle Larry, died tragically young, just a couple of years into his Florida retirement. Aunt Peg stayed down in Florida and eventually Larry and his younger brother Dennis also moved down.  Steve stayed in Connecticut and raised a family.  

I think I only saw Larry once or twice after that.  He came up for one or two of our family reunions.  He still had that great Elvis style shock of black hair and now had a matching black beard. And the smile -- yeah, very much still in place. His life hadn't turned out so well, but Larry wasn't one to complain and he was still the same very friendly cousin I'd admired so much growing up.  

Last week, his brother Steve called me up. It's been a tough couple of months in the extended family and I'd seen Steve at my Mom's funeral a couple of months back.  Steve told me that Larry had passed. He hadn't been in very good health for years and didn't take very good care of himself.  But Steve said he'd been content.  He liked to watch TV and hang out.  Sometimes the alcohol had taken over, but it was just part of the picture.  To the end, Larry liked to be happy and not sweat the small stuff.  

Larry was the oldest of my 21 cousins. He and I were the oldest, so that set us apart in some way and also helped us bond.  We were very different, but always liked each other.  Now, I look back and remember the good times, the roughhousing, the late nights whispering in that corner room and the backyard sports and other games.  Larry never had a big plan for his life, but he liked people and people liked him.  Two years ago, we had a large family reunion in Rhinebeck, New York.  It was the first one we'd had in over ten years.  Like the earlier ones Larry had attended, there was lots of food to share, no shortage of beer and soda and so many rounds of conversation. Larry didn't make this one, but he would have fit right in.  

Steve says that Larry wanted his ashes spread over water and at some point ahead, Steve will voyage up to Otis Reservoir in Massachusetts and Larry will be back home at one of his family's favorite spots.  I can just imagine looking down at the water and seeing Larry's face, still wearing that smile and inviting us all to come in. He was my older cousin and I will miss him.  

 

Farewell to a Family Voice

When we are young, we are influenced by the adults in our life.  They become our role models in certain respects and we learn from them. I was fortunate to have a richly diverse set of aunts and uncles on both sides of the family and we saw them frequently at family gatherings and on other occasions.  Last evening, my brother Bruce and I talked about our Uncle Eddie, who passed away on Saturday after a long illness.  Bruce asked if I'd write about him, as I did in a post last fall when my Aunt Carol passed.  I was non-commmital, but as I've thought about it since, I realized that I did have a few words to say. Blame it on my Irish heritage if you will or think of it as a tribute to Ed himself, who was always quick to state his opinion on any subject. 

Ed LeHane had a profound impact on our family even before it was formed. In the late nineteen-forties, Ed met my dad and at some point suggested that he might like to meet his sister Kathleen. My dad, Jim, was interested and the first date signaled the beginning of a romance that has lasted to this day.  A few years later, my parents married and I'm sure Eddie was in attendance. 

I probably had more contact with Uncle Ed in my childhood than at later times.  It seems we were always meeting the LeHanes for a family gathering, usually in Bloomfield, Connecticut, where my grandparents lived.  Ed was famous in our family for referring to my three brothers and I as the "rough Raffertys," likely referring to our enjoyment of scurrying about and treating these family occasions as good chances to play, regardless of what the adults were doing.  A few years later, Ed married Marilyn and had a family of his own with three sons -- we heard no more comments about the rough Raffertys.  My dad and Ed were both in Sales and they each worked hard to support their families. 

The title of this piece refers to a voice.  The voice was Ed's, a classic Irish tenor.  Ed was a professionally trained vocalist and was by far the best singer in the LeHane family.  I can remember Ed singing a few songs in the parlor of his Bloomfield home to the accompanyment of the family organ.  His favorite was "Ave Maria."  Over the years, we heard him sing this song many times, including at my wedding and at my parents' fiftieth anniversary celebration.  On the latter occasion, I backed him up on my guitar.  

Ed's family lived in several different places and we visited most of them. In the early days, they lived in a ranch on the Bloomfield - Windsor line, and I can remember running around in their yard along with my brothers and cousins.  Later, they moved to the Barrington, Rhode Island area.  In those days, our family vacation often consisted of staying with a relative for several days and so it was when we made the trip from South Windsor to the center of Rhode Island. If you look at a map of the state (RI), you'll see more water than land.  Ed's house was on one of these patches of land that was mostly surrounded by water.  Years later, my family moved to Massachusetts and we re-discovered the pleasures of the small towns which lined what later became the East Bay bicycle path and I suddenly remembered that childhood trip. We enjoyed our stay at the house and Ed took us out to the water several times. It was a great week.    

As time went on, we saw the family less often, but Ed and his clan were regulars when we held our family reunions, typically in Ellington, Connecticut.  His family had some challenging times, but they always showed up at the reunions and we'd all spend an afternoon together, exchanging tales and chowing down on the pot luck items of the day -- burgers, hot dogs, myriad salads (vegetable, potato and cole slaw), fresh corn on the cob and much more. 

As I look back, it's been a while since the last family reunion -- perhaps a decade.  More recently, family members have gathered at funerals. Several of my cousins are realizing this and we all see our shared past slipping away as these important people in our lives pass and join our ancestors in the family lore. My late Aunt Carol prepared a wonderful CD-Rom about ten years back, loaded with family pictures of reunions going back almost one hundred years.  It's a rich history and one we're proud to be a part of. 

Ed was the last of the LeHane brothers of his generation.  Whereas Uncle Bob was studious and often tending towards formality -- though with a wonderful engaging smile -- Eddie was a live wire.  He loved to talk and didn't mind if the talk turned into an argument.  He shared that love of lively discussion with other family members and famously had an argument with his own uncle from the previous generation, George, the night before George left us.  It all seemed quite fitting, as both Eddie and George loved to have the last word. 

So I remember Uncle Ed, a man of passions, energy, words and one who could curl his voice around a set of lyrics just so.  I'll finish with a photo and caption of Ed from 1997 as taken from the photo CD that Carol prepared.  Ed, you will be missed.

 

Stories of My Aunt - An Appreciation

My aunt Carol passed away this past Friday after a long illness.  Carol was a remarkable person in many ways.  She once said to me that she'd been 10 years ahead of her time in several different respects and this was absolutely the truth.  She was not an easy person to be around all of the time, but she stepped up several times during her life and made a difference.  

Carol was an aunt, but only ten years older than me.  She was closer in age to me than to several of her siblings, which meant that we had a lot of common experiences.  In high school in Bloomfield, Connecticut, she earned numerous trophies and plaques playing tennis and these bits of recognition decorated my grandmother's house.  She graduated in 1960, then went off to the city for college.  My impression at the time was that she was going to Boston, but within a couple of years she'd landed in the Village in New York City.  She had a variety of experiences down there and got to know many folks like Bob Dylan, SF writer Chip Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker before they became famous.  She didn't particularly like Dylan, but was close enough to Delany and Hacker to show up as a subject of one of Marilyn's poems (see Nights of 1962: The River Merchants Daughter in her Back to the River collection) and later in one of Chip's autobiographical works.  

But I didn't know about any of that until later.  I discovered Delany's books in the early Seventies and met him in 1976, but didn't know about our common connection to Carol until a couple of years later.  I'm sure I saw Carol at family reunions in the Sixties, but don't remember much about that, other than knowing that she always treated me like an equal and had great stories about my childhood from times when she'd been my baby sitter.   In the late Sixties, she became a single mother and had a baby girl, Beth.  At the time, the details of this were shrouded in mystery -- she was reputed to have been involved with a man who'd died in Vietnam -- but she had changed her last name and now began raising her child Beth in Philadephia.  

I graduated from college several years later and joined a computer company, Burroughs, which offered courses in the Philly area.  On a couple of nights off, I went into the city to visit her and she was a gracious host, taking me to a very good Chinese restaurant and then we went out to have a few drinks and chat.   This was when I got to know her a lot better.  We were both in the computer business -- she was a programmer and I did similar work for my company -- but she also loved her city and was one of my mentors in learning about city life.  Her life wasn't easy -- she was the only single Mom I knew -- but she managed to combine work and being a mom in a marginal neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania. 

So I visited her whenever business took me to Philadelphia and she always welcomed my visits and we'd take the time to have dinner together and she'd show me more of the city. 

A few years later, she relocated to Las Vegas and simultaneously created a startup business related to computer software.  It was classic Carol -- she mixed her professional and personal life in the startup -- while Beth stayed behind in Philly to finish her high school education.  Shortly after that, I had my first trip to Vegas to attend the Comdex computer show and we arranged to meet for a buffet dinner at one of the casinos. We had a nice dinner together and she told me about her experiences in the city and how the business was going.  I'm not much of a gambler, but she suggested I treat the Vegas gambling experience as an inexpensive form of entertainment.  It was good advice and helped me cope with the craziness that was and is Vegas. 

A few years later, the startup fell apart and Carol started making plans to return to the East Coast. Her mother Margaret was now 90 and had been living in an apartment by herself, but needed more help to stay independent.  Carol agreed to come back to Connecticut and rent an apartment that was large enough for the two of them. This began the period of Carol's life as caregiver for her mother.  Margaret was in good health, but she needed that extra support of live-in care and Carol put the rest of her life on hold and offered that. 

By now, I'd married and had children, and I have fond memories of taking my two sons to see their great-grandmother living in her own apartment along with Carol.  Margaret lived until the year 2000 before dying at the age of 97.  She was able to stay in the apartment for all of that time and Carol had been instrumental in making that possible. 

Carol returned to Philadephia and re-united with Beth.  Beth had gotten a college education and went on to get a job in the same computer field that several of us in the family had pursued.  By this time, Carol was retired, but she used her computer skills to gather the stories her grandmother Ellen had written during the Twenties and Thirties and distributed them to the family as part of our legacy.  Carol also got access to a large number of family photos and digitized them, then sent out a DVD to family members with the photos, Ellen's stories and the family geneology. 

A few years later, a social network called Gather.com ran a novel writing contest called First Chapters. I'd written a novel called Growing Up Single, so I joined Gather and prepared to enter the contest.  But Carol had gotten there first.  She'd joined Gather the prior year -- as an age 60+ social networker -- and she also had an SF novel, Juria, which she entered in the contest.  Once again, our paths had crossed and our common interest in fiction writing moved to the forefront.  We both put our chapters out in mid-February for comments from the Gather audience and hoped for the best. Privately, we exchanged emails and helped each other navigate this strange new contest experience.  We both got both praise and catcalls from the commenters, but Carol offered her candid and thoughtful feedback to me through private emails. It was fun sharing the experience together and the social network became another way for us to interact.  Neither of us won the contest, but we both learned a lot about writing and the world of publishing.  Better yet, we re-connected in this pursuit of our common interest.  She was gracious and always supportive during this often stressful period.       

A year later, another business trip took me to Philly, so I headed out on a weeknight and took the train to the suburb where Carol and Beth now lived.  Carol gave me a tour of the two story house and then we all went out to dinner.  We shared pasta and red wine, along with lots of stories about family, writing and the world of high tech we knew so well.  A few months later, Carol sent me an email, suggesting that I come by to visit again the next time I came to town.     

About six weeks ago, one of my brothers called me to pass on the news: Carol was dying.  She'd had a long term illness and now it had reached a critical point.  I got in touch with Beth, who confirmed her mother was gravely ill.  Beth had now put her life on hold and was the caregiver for Carol.  It was a tough time, made worse by the bureaucratic rules of a hospital that pushed Carol out during a point when she really needed that extra level of care.  We hoped for the best, but the end was near.  

So now Carol is gone, but she lives on in the memories of friends and family who knew her.  Carol was rebellious, rambunctious and even revolutionary in several ways.  She was truly sui generis (of one kind). This informed her many roles as mother, caregiver and friend, but I'll always think of her as my favorite aunt. As I've had this weekend to think about the times we spent together, it reinforces how much she meant to me and how she'd so often served as a caring and thoughtful guide as I navigated through various stages of life.  I offer these words in the spirit of celebrating her life and sharing a few stories.  I will miss her very much.