When my father was a child Chuck drove a blue 1950 Ford. Around 1990 Kevin bought the exact same make and model. He picked up Chuck from the airport, and the whole way back Chuck said nothing about the car. Eventually, Kevin said something to the effect of “Dad! Did you notice the car?”, with Chuch replying along the lines of “huh, I guess it’s new”. Kevin reminded him he’d had the same car 40 years earlier – Chuck wasn’t losing his memory or anything – he was younger than Kevin is now. He just never cared much for cars. They got him where he was trying to go and that was good enough for him.
Chuck grew up in Fairmount – Kevin owns some rentals in that area.
I’ve never asked, but I’d bet on him having bought Chuck’s childhood home.
So many secrets in my family, and just questions I never asked.
I did not know 3 of Nora’s brothers followed her to Philadelphia.
And I’d thought all 4 of my great grandparents immigrated.
3 did.
1 did not. The Colgan male line – traced back through Chuck then Edward – has been in Philadelphia since the Great Famine.
Or so it seems. No one mentioned it – and Chuck dived deep into geneology research.
Did I not ask? Or was it not told?
I don’t know.
There’s many secrets in plain sight in this family.
How dare you tarnish the family name.
I don’t think Patrick died from lead poisoning working in a factory. I think he died of alcoholism.
I think that’s why Nora didn’t drink much.
And I never saw Mary or Chuck drink.
And Kevin has always thought alcohol to be the devil.
Close as he was with his mother Mary.
I think it was the drink that stole Patrick McDonnell from this world so young.
I think it is why the family never talks of him.
Almost as if the man never existed.
The man died 3 years before AA was founded.
Whether I am right or not…I am sorry for the life lost, and the others harmed.
The world is a cruel place.
Laughs and Lobotomies 