This was written to someone special at 1:49 a.m., March 28, 2000.
Beginnings of Ends
By Henry David Rosso
You sent your last e-mail,
Saying you had to pull yourself together.
I stayed for a while longer, waiting to see if there was more from you.
There wasn't and the room closed in on me
The computer looked so meaningless.
Without you to banter with,
To talk serious with,
To joke with,
To exchange moments of the day with,
To just talk with,
This tube takes on a whole new meaning,
Not nearly what it was cranked up to be.
When you leave, it loses its life.
The light stays the same, the icons are still there,
But you are not there
And it just doesn't have any meaning,
Any purpose.
Yet, I don't want to turn it off,
Even knowing that, yes, you really have gone to sleep,
When it is on, I still feel connected to you.
Christ, I hope I don't start stroking it!
But when the computer is turned off,
Our connection is lost.
Except.
Except that connection that remains in our hearts.
There's no plug for that.
There's no wall switch.
That connection goes downstairs with me
And back upstairs
And to the store with me
And to bed with me
And wakes up with me.
That connection is always there.
It doesn't need an outside source of power.
It doesn't need a cord or an extension or sunlight or batteries.
It generates itself.
And it receives an extra burst of energy
When the woman I love is back on line
Or on the phone
Or with me in person.
Or when I am not connected to any of those things,
She is in my heart and in my memories
And she generates me
And warms me
And thrills me.
Love is so powerful.
It can build us up and tear us down.
It can make us powerful and it can make us wimps.
It can give us goose bumps and bring tears.
Smiles. Frowns. Concern.
It is so good when we are together.
And when we are apart we must make ways to be together.
If it is good, we must make it work.
If it is good, we must bring us together.
If it is good, we must keep it alive,
Nourish it,
Guide it,
Direct it,
Point it toward ourselves
And wrap it around us to protect us,
Warm us,
Comfort us.
And we must always think positive.
Think each day that we are going to "be with" each other,
One way or another.
When we get up and see the sun in the morning,
We don't get upset because we know it is going to set
And put us back into darkness.
When we have a great meal,
We don't get sad, because we know there will be a last bite.
When we sit by a big campfire and enjoy the flames,
We don't get upset because we know it is going to go out.
When we go to a great concert of our favorite music,
We don't get upset because we know it will end.
We enjoy the music and the dinner and the fire and the sunshine.
And that is what we are going to do with each other.
We are going to live and love and enjoy and be happy
And smile and laugh and feel and bring joy to each other
And make each other happy and share our life
And our words and our smiles and tingling feelings
And our moments of quiet togetherness.
Stay with me, Sweetheart.
Love me.
Feel me.
Share with me.
Live our lives in whatever togetherness we have at the moment.
You know, we all die. That's no reason not to live in the meantime.
I love you.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
hell explained
A colleague just sent this to me and it has to be shared.
HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.
The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, is why we now have the pleasure
of enjoying it as well:
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle 's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle 's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over! The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+
HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.
The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, is why we now have the pleasure
of enjoying it as well:
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle 's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle 's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over! The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+
lighting farts
I spent three years at the Manlius Military Academy outside Syracuse, New York, between the ages of 13 and 15. I have kept a journal of those days and thought I'd share this chapter.
Lighting Farts
I don’t know how or when it started. I don’t remember who brought up the idea or why. But sometime, somebody said, "Hey, it’s gas, isn’t it?" We had never thought about it quite in those terms. But, yes, it was gas. And gas burns, doesn’t it? Well, then the discussion was who was going to be first to try it. And how? Zippo lighters were very popular in those days, so lighting would be easy. But how? We decided that it only made sense to bend over, put the lighter up against our asses light the lighter and fart. Just let ‘er rip.
That sounded simple enough. Until someone asked, would we blow up? We gave that some serious thought. I mean it was gas, we agreed. And gas is combustible. Gas blows up. Gas lights the grill. Gas cooks dinner. Will it cook our asses? Or worse yet, would it cook anything attached close to our asses? We thought about this some more. Internal combustion was taking on a whole new meaning. We tossed around these theories, speculations and fears some more until Jim decided enough talk. It was time for action.
"Ok, brave guy, blast off."
"Hell, I’m not afraid. It’s not like I’m a walking gas pump."
"So, light up, man. Take off."
"Ok, I will."
And with that, Jim took Zippo in hand, bent his knees and bent in half until his head was between his legs and his Zippo hand reached up between his legs to his ass. He scrunched up his face and tightened for a fart. Maybe it was the position, but nothing happened. He grunted again.
"Hey, Jim’s gonna shit in his pants."
Everybody laughed, including Jim and that was all it took. A little fart, and a small blue jet escaped from Jim’s ass into the flickering flame of his Zippo.
Everybody laughed and cheered. Jim straightened up, showing no signs of harm from his experiment and announced, "Who’s next?"
It wasn’t a question as much as it was a challenge. A challenge that had to be met by every boy in the room.
Mike said, "OK, my turn." He grabbed the Zippo proffered by Jim, assumed the position and let out a long, loud fart that produced a fine blue jet of flame. Another cheer and the Zippo was passed to the next boy. This time there was no challenge. It was now an unspoken pact. Everybody was going to light a fart. Around the room the Zippo went until it came to Mark. Mark said, "I bet you will get a better blast without the filters." Everybody looked at him not quite understanding what he was suggesting. He didn’t give anybody time to think about it. He dropped his pants, sat on the bed and brought his legs up, reached down and positioned the Zippo at his underpants and let loose with a fart that produced a fine blue flame.
The undressing went no further. Nobody in the room was willing to risk singeing vital parts.
But that day a select group was formed. The others lighted whenever an uninitiated farted in the presence of the Blue Flame Gang a Zippo with knowing grins that spoke louder than the guffaws.
Lighting Farts
I don’t know how or when it started. I don’t remember who brought up the idea or why. But sometime, somebody said, "Hey, it’s gas, isn’t it?" We had never thought about it quite in those terms. But, yes, it was gas. And gas burns, doesn’t it? Well, then the discussion was who was going to be first to try it. And how? Zippo lighters were very popular in those days, so lighting would be easy. But how? We decided that it only made sense to bend over, put the lighter up against our asses light the lighter and fart. Just let ‘er rip.
That sounded simple enough. Until someone asked, would we blow up? We gave that some serious thought. I mean it was gas, we agreed. And gas is combustible. Gas blows up. Gas lights the grill. Gas cooks dinner. Will it cook our asses? Or worse yet, would it cook anything attached close to our asses? We thought about this some more. Internal combustion was taking on a whole new meaning. We tossed around these theories, speculations and fears some more until Jim decided enough talk. It was time for action.
"Ok, brave guy, blast off."
"Hell, I’m not afraid. It’s not like I’m a walking gas pump."
"So, light up, man. Take off."
"Ok, I will."
And with that, Jim took Zippo in hand, bent his knees and bent in half until his head was between his legs and his Zippo hand reached up between his legs to his ass. He scrunched up his face and tightened for a fart. Maybe it was the position, but nothing happened. He grunted again.
"Hey, Jim’s gonna shit in his pants."
Everybody laughed, including Jim and that was all it took. A little fart, and a small blue jet escaped from Jim’s ass into the flickering flame of his Zippo.
Everybody laughed and cheered. Jim straightened up, showing no signs of harm from his experiment and announced, "Who’s next?"
It wasn’t a question as much as it was a challenge. A challenge that had to be met by every boy in the room.
Mike said, "OK, my turn." He grabbed the Zippo proffered by Jim, assumed the position and let out a long, loud fart that produced a fine blue jet of flame. Another cheer and the Zippo was passed to the next boy. This time there was no challenge. It was now an unspoken pact. Everybody was going to light a fart. Around the room the Zippo went until it came to Mark. Mark said, "I bet you will get a better blast without the filters." Everybody looked at him not quite understanding what he was suggesting. He didn’t give anybody time to think about it. He dropped his pants, sat on the bed and brought his legs up, reached down and positioned the Zippo at his underpants and let loose with a fart that produced a fine blue flame.
The undressing went no further. Nobody in the room was willing to risk singeing vital parts.
But that day a select group was formed. The others lighted whenever an uninitiated farted in the presence of the Blue Flame Gang a Zippo with knowing grins that spoke louder than the guffaws.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Dad on his 80th
I wrote this to commemorate my father's 80th birthday.
DAD ON HIS 80th
By Henry David Rosso
You were born in 1917,
And Buffalo Bill Cody died,
But you had nothing to do with that.
And the United States entered WWI,
Again, not your fault,
You were being saved for the next one.
1917 was a time of turmoil
But by the time you were 16
Amelia Earhardt had flown the Atlantic
And when you were 21 Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan
Flew from New York to Dublin,
But he didn't mean to.
When you were born, Wilson was president
You would see Harding, Coolidge, Hoover,
Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Roosevelt and Roosevelt,
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon,
Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton.
Two died in office, one was killed and one resigned.
You were born into the first World War,
The war to end all wars. But it didn't.
You fought in the second and brought some of it home.
And you lived through Korea and Vietnam
And that little skirmish in Grenada,
And America's own Blitzkrieg in the Persian Gulf.
But you lived to see The Wall go up,
And come down,
And Reagan's Evil Empire dissolve.
Map makers have been kept busy these past 80 years,
And your high school and college geography books
Would be unrecognizable now.
But, I digress and must backtrack,
Because this isn't about the world around us,
But the world of Henry August Rosso,
Who in his quiet, determined way created his own world
In such a way that others wanted to be part of it,
And all who knew it benefitted because of it.
The 1930s were years of growth.
In that decade the Empire State Building was erected.
But you interviewed survivors of the Hindenburg fire,
And surprised Albert Einstein with an interview
The year you graduated from Princeton High School.
And you put out the "Local Express," expressly for locals.
You ended the 30s at 22 and in the National Guard.
The Forties put you in uniform,
And you started to see the world.
Along the way, you married, got yourself wounded,
Became a father three times, all boys,
And graduated from Syracuse University with honors.
The Fifties added a daughter to the mix,
And life in Syracuse that I remember as always
Being filled with people who always appeared
To be having a good time in your company.
It was a growing time for all of us,
And you filled the years with rich memories.
As you grew, we grew and shared part of your growth.
I remember the stops at the newspaper as you --
And once I -- dropped off releases;
The Red Feather campaign and the Christmas tree sales.
I even lent my voice on those cold Syracuse nights,
Like a carnival hustler urging folks to buy a tree.
The Fifties were good years,
And they were good because you let them be,
And you helped them be.
They are memories of the New York State Fair,
Of you going on trips and coming home with gifts,
Almost always a book for me, such as "Death Be Not Proud."
There were the family trips,
To the Adirondacks and the Catskills,
To the New York countryside to gather limestone rocks
For the Lancaster Avenue front yard,
The cookouts in Syracuse parks with neighbors.
We were always packing into the car to go somewhere.
You were musical and you passed it on.
None of us was forced to fit the stereotype,
But all of us grew up loving music.
My first taste of opera was listening to
The live Met broadcasts in a barber chair in Syracuse.
I was five.
Susan tried the violin and organ,
Michael the trumpet, French horn and voice,
Jim the classical guitar.
I took up drum and played everything in sight but drums.
I felt equally comfortable with Elvis and Puccini.
And it all came about because it was there.
At the end of the Fifties, you packed us all up
And opened our lives to California.
One of my fondest memories is breakfast at dawn
In the grandeur of the Redwoods.
No cookbook can ever duplicate the taste
Of bacon on an open fire and Redwoods and sun streaks.
The Sixties were years of turmoil for the country,
And they were years of turmoil and separation for us.
We were all coming of age and straining at the binds,
But not quite ready to cut them.
Love entered the picture for us, as well as
Our own wheels, our freedom and lust for more.
One by one we spread our wings
And made our mistakes.
I remember when I thought I could beat you in a fight,
While knowing that I would never raise a hand against you.
The country was changing
And we were changing with it or wondering why not.
You were changing too,
From employee to being your own boss,
Your own company, your own future,
Your own destiny.
You spread your own wings,
And you affected people wherever you went.
You are genuinely liked and admired.
Your smile is infectious,
Your ability to listen is honest,
The wonderful thing
About what you have done with your life,
Is that you were and are the catalyst.
You are quite a man.
I have benefitted by you.
I have learned from you.
I love you.
I admire you.
I respect you.
DAD ON HIS 80th
By Henry David Rosso
You were born in 1917,
And Buffalo Bill Cody died,
But you had nothing to do with that.
And the United States entered WWI,
Again, not your fault,
You were being saved for the next one.
1917 was a time of turmoil
But by the time you were 16
Amelia Earhardt had flown the Atlantic
And when you were 21 Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan
Flew from New York to Dublin,
But he didn't mean to.
When you were born, Wilson was president
You would see Harding, Coolidge, Hoover,
Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Roosevelt and Roosevelt,
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon,
Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton.
Two died in office, one was killed and one resigned.
You were born into the first World War,
The war to end all wars. But it didn't.
You fought in the second and brought some of it home.
And you lived through Korea and Vietnam
And that little skirmish in Grenada,
And America's own Blitzkrieg in the Persian Gulf.
But you lived to see The Wall go up,
And come down,
And Reagan's Evil Empire dissolve.
Map makers have been kept busy these past 80 years,
And your high school and college geography books
Would be unrecognizable now.
But, I digress and must backtrack,
Because this isn't about the world around us,
But the world of Henry August Rosso,
Who in his quiet, determined way created his own world
In such a way that others wanted to be part of it,
And all who knew it benefitted because of it.
The 1930s were years of growth.
In that decade the Empire State Building was erected.
But you interviewed survivors of the Hindenburg fire,
And surprised Albert Einstein with an interview
The year you graduated from Princeton High School.
And you put out the "Local Express," expressly for locals.
You ended the 30s at 22 and in the National Guard.
The Forties put you in uniform,
And you started to see the world.
Along the way, you married, got yourself wounded,
Became a father three times, all boys,
And graduated from Syracuse University with honors.
The Fifties added a daughter to the mix,
And life in Syracuse that I remember as always
Being filled with people who always appeared
To be having a good time in your company.
It was a growing time for all of us,
And you filled the years with rich memories.
As you grew, we grew and shared part of your growth.
I remember the stops at the newspaper as you --
And once I -- dropped off releases;
The Red Feather campaign and the Christmas tree sales.
I even lent my voice on those cold Syracuse nights,
Like a carnival hustler urging folks to buy a tree.
The Fifties were good years,
And they were good because you let them be,
And you helped them be.
They are memories of the New York State Fair,
Of you going on trips and coming home with gifts,
Almost always a book for me, such as "Death Be Not Proud."
There were the family trips,
To the Adirondacks and the Catskills,
To the New York countryside to gather limestone rocks
For the Lancaster Avenue front yard,
The cookouts in Syracuse parks with neighbors.
We were always packing into the car to go somewhere.
You were musical and you passed it on.
None of us was forced to fit the stereotype,
But all of us grew up loving music.
My first taste of opera was listening to
The live Met broadcasts in a barber chair in Syracuse.
I was five.
Susan tried the violin and organ,
Michael the trumpet, French horn and voice,
Jim the classical guitar.
I took up drum and played everything in sight but drums.
I felt equally comfortable with Elvis and Puccini.
And it all came about because it was there.
At the end of the Fifties, you packed us all up
And opened our lives to California.
One of my fondest memories is breakfast at dawn
In the grandeur of the Redwoods.
No cookbook can ever duplicate the taste
Of bacon on an open fire and Redwoods and sun streaks.
The Sixties were years of turmoil for the country,
And they were years of turmoil and separation for us.
We were all coming of age and straining at the binds,
But not quite ready to cut them.
Love entered the picture for us, as well as
Our own wheels, our freedom and lust for more.
One by one we spread our wings
And made our mistakes.
I remember when I thought I could beat you in a fight,
While knowing that I would never raise a hand against you.
The country was changing
And we were changing with it or wondering why not.
You were changing too,
From employee to being your own boss,
Your own company, your own future,
Your own destiny.
You spread your own wings,
And you affected people wherever you went.
You are genuinely liked and admired.
Your smile is infectious,
Your ability to listen is honest,
The wonderful thing
About what you have done with your life,
Is that you were and are the catalyst.
You are quite a man.
I have benefitted by you.
I have learned from you.
I love you.
I admire you.
I respect you.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Good Ol' Days
OK, back to poetry. I tried to have fun with this one.
The Good Ol' Days
By Henry David Rosso
Why do people always remember the "good old days?"
What is it about todays that makes yesterdays better?
And if the good old days were so good
That the todays don't measure up,
What about the tomorrows?
Are we missing something?
Did we miss something?
Are we about to miss something?
Does our desire for the yesterdays
Mean we have no desires left?
Are we faking it?
And if we are faking it, whom are we faking for?
Are today's thrills only recapturing yesterday's moments?
Can you thrill for tomorrow?
Or must you always be condemned
To thrill only for the moment,
Captured, released and gone?
You only make a good first impression once.
Once it's made, it is yesterday.
Tomorrow's impressions don't count.
They are borrowed.
You are condemned to remember the good old days
Do something good today
So tomorrow it will be a good old day.
Did we know yesterday that all those todays
Would tomorrow be the good old days?
If we knew, would we have tried harder?
And if we had tried harder,
Would we have tried for today or tomorrow?
What if we think today
What we would like to remember tomorrow,
What would happen to yesterday?
Do good old days pile up behind us
While we ignore todays
And tomorrows don't count?
Tomorrows are for calendars.
Todays are for adding to yesterdays
And yesterdays become good old days
So we can forget todays.
Have a good day.
The Good Ol' Days
By Henry David Rosso
Why do people always remember the "good old days?"
What is it about todays that makes yesterdays better?
And if the good old days were so good
That the todays don't measure up,
What about the tomorrows?
Are we missing something?
Did we miss something?
Are we about to miss something?
Does our desire for the yesterdays
Mean we have no desires left?
Are we faking it?
And if we are faking it, whom are we faking for?
Are today's thrills only recapturing yesterday's moments?
Can you thrill for tomorrow?
Or must you always be condemned
To thrill only for the moment,
Captured, released and gone?
You only make a good first impression once.
Once it's made, it is yesterday.
Tomorrow's impressions don't count.
They are borrowed.
You are condemned to remember the good old days
Do something good today
So tomorrow it will be a good old day.
Did we know yesterday that all those todays
Would tomorrow be the good old days?
If we knew, would we have tried harder?
And if we had tried harder,
Would we have tried for today or tomorrow?
What if we think today
What we would like to remember tomorrow,
What would happen to yesterday?
Do good old days pile up behind us
While we ignore todays
And tomorrows don't count?
Tomorrows are for calendars.
Todays are for adding to yesterdays
And yesterdays become good old days
So we can forget todays.
Have a good day.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
this is my story
Today, I leave the world of poetry and get personal. Very personal. I have been writing this for a few years, rewording it, putting it away and bringing it out again. Why do I tell it? Because it happened and to get it off my chest.
This is my story.
By Henry David Rosso
This June I reach the 66 milestone – Medicare and truly a senior with almost six decades of memories behind and still much to look forward to. While some memories fade into oblivion, others stick around to either warm us and make us smile or haunt us.
My parents did something to me almost 60 years ago that continues to haunt me. And while I savor most of the memories of my childhood, the years between ages 7 and 9 still have a chilling effect on me.
I started my life surrounded by my Italian relatives in Princeton, New Jersey, and wonderful memories – the garden beside the house that gave us fresh peas, lima beans, corn, tomatoes and a small orchard of cherries, peaches and apples.
The garden had spin-offs: Aunt Mary shelling the peas, the fresh fruit from the trees that went into the home-made ice cream that we produced by cranking an oaken bucket with the ingredients, ice and rock salt.
The house had a two-car garage and a dirt floor and a root cellar with a dirt floor that stored Aunt Mary’s labors — canned vegetables, potatoes from the garden and lots of secrets.
I grew up with seasons, and summer and winter were my favorites: summer with the green life that surrounded us, and the winters for the snowy wonderlands.
When I was growing up in Princeton, The House had neighbors on one side. But on the garden side there was nothing between the house and the lake down Princeton-Kingston Road but trees. In the summer, we could watch regattas on the lake from our roof. On other summer days, my cousins and I would grab baskets and buckets and go into the fields to pick blackberries, raspberries and blueberries and then try to sell them door-to-door – our profits reflected the fact the neighbors had the same access to the fields we did, a basic business lesson learned too late.
Wintertime was just as wonderful in other ways, mostly white and peaceful. I loved waking up, looking out the window and seeing fields of unmolested snow. The birdbath in the backyard would have a six-inch cap of snow, under which was a miniature ice rink. Ice sickles hung menacingly from the roof, some reaching to the ground, long, thick, hard and sharp. I loved to snap them off and lick them, getting my tongue stuck to the frozen pop sickle.
My family moved to Syracuse, New York, when I was barely out of diapers, but we made almost annual visits to Princeton where I also spent many summers.
The most vivid memories during this time are of the cousins all gathered on the large stairway to the second floor. We were seated on the steps, while aunts and uncles would put up a screen or a sheet on the front door and set up the projector and show black and white silent movies of “T’was The Night Before Christmas,” and Felix the Cat and others. Then we would go to bed. When we went upstairs, our Christmas tree was a plain green tree standing in a stand. When we woke up in the morning, it was brilliantly decorated and loaded with presents.
Then things changed. My special life was disrupted.
Even now, 57 years later, the memory is so vivid I can still feel the apprehension I felt as I walked down the strange dark hallway lighted by bare light bulbs. I was 7 years old when my father drove me there in the night. When we arrived, my father held my hand. It was the last time I was ever to hold his hand except for a cursory handshake decades later.
We came to a room and were greeted by a woman dressed in white. My father and the woman talked. I don't know what they said, but I knew something was not right. I knew I didn't want to be where I was. I don't remember if my father hugged me. Maybe now -- or then -- it doesn't matter. I remember I cried. I felt a loss and then my father was gone and I was alone with the woman in white.
I was taken to a large room and directed to a metal-frame bed. It was along a wall and in a row of other beds, all occupied by other boys. I got in the strange bed, pulled the covers up over my head and wondered over and over: Where am I? Why am I here? Who are these people? There were no answers then.
When I left that place, I was nine. Those were years when a boy wants someone to look up to, to be hugged and loved, to be tucked in at night, to have someone to answer all those questions young minds have.
I had concrete floors and bars and confusion and anxiety and a curiosity that was answered with the most unimaginable measures. I was not an individual. I suddenly became part of a pack, a group. I did not know and never got to know any of the other boys in that dormitory.
Men dressed in white woke us up in the morning and directed us to showers and then to a dining hall for meals and then to classes. I saw these same men in white pick up children and throw them against radiators.
There was an outside world, which we usually saw through barred windows or from an inside play area from which we could look through the bars. I felt like an animal in a zoo. I saw people in straitjackets, adults spitting at us and yelling unintelligible sounds and pissing on the walls.
Alone, without parents and in strange surroundings, there was not much awareness. Learning was a daily experience and such experience was a fresh imprint on a ready brain. There was so much discovery.
And that was the setting one day as I sat in a classroom next to a girl. Until that day, a girl was just another person, another body whose hair was longer.
But this day there was to be a discovery and, as with most great discoveries, it was to be announced with pure innocence.
I looked down at this body next to me who had longer hair and was wearing a dress and to my amazement I could see her underpants. They were quite loose, loose enough, in fact, to allow this 7-year-old boy to make my great discovery.
"Look, she's not the same!" I shouted to no one in particular, but heard by everyone in the classroom, including the habit-frocked nuns who descended upon me immediately, their large crosses dangling from chains around their midriffs flailing the air and striking me in the head.
My exclamation created quite a stir among the students, who chattered excitedly and giggled at my misstep.
But the nuns, those bastions of Christian love and understanding and forgiveness, were not amused, were not forgiving, were not tolerant. They picked me up out of my seat and half dragged, half carried me out of the room to the delight of many of the students and shock of others.
Two nuns led me down the long, bureaucratically green hall to another room, where they stripped me down to my underpants. Then they grabbed a handful of clothes and I felt myself being dressed again. All this time, I had no idea what was happening to me until all the commotion had ceased, all the dust had settled. There was only one more bustle of activity before I was to be subjected to the cruellest lessons in my limited education.
The nuns grabbed my by my tiny shoulders. They had to bend at their black-draped waists to reach me. They turned me so I was facing a full-length mirror.
In the dim light from a bare overhead light bulb, I looked into the mirror. There, before my eyes, I stood flanked by the floor-length, ever-present black habits. The blackness of the clothing only emphasized my dilemma. What I saw shocked, scared, confused and dreadfully embarrassed me.
I saw myself. I was bareheaded. My neck and part of my chest was bare. My arms were bare from fingertips to shoulders. My legs poked out, white and skinny from just above the knees to my bare feet. The rest of me was covered in a girl's dress. And, yes, if I sat just right, other people would be able to look up my dress and at my underpants and if those underpants were loose, others would be able to see that I was different from girls. But now I was also different from boys. I was wearing a dress.
My immediate embarrassment was just a teaser. Those good Christian nuns, their crosses hanging from all those well-fingered beads at their waists, had only begun. My turmoil was to reach its climax not within the confines of that room in front of the other nuns.
I was now to endure the ultimate humiliation for having the audacity of making a youthful, innocent discovery. The nuns marched me out of the room, back to my classroom.
Every head turned as I entered the room. I kept my eyes on the floor. I felt the heat rise through my body and almost melt my face. My eyes met nobody. I was guided to my seat in the front of the class, across from the girl who had unintentionally showed me that boys and girls were different. I took my seat. I brought my hands up to my face and tried to hide. That is how I remained until the class was over.
There was no hiding. I was forced to endure an entire day of face-flaming humiliation. I moved from class to class up and down the sickly green hallway that kept making me sicker to look at. I had to stand in lines that moved inexorably slowly through the dining hall and then I had to sit at the long table to eat my meal with the other boys. But the boys were wearing what boys usually wear. I wore a dress.
My day of shame finally and mercifully ended at night when I was allowed to take the dress off and go to bed. With the dress off, safely surrounded by the sheets and the blankets, I was a boy again. I had what girls didn't have and I was no longer wearing what girls wear. At the age of seven, by myself, surrounded by people I didn't know, my parents nowhere in sight, abandoned, I had learned what many learn easily. It was to be a traumatic experience that was to remain with me for the rest of my life.
I remember times that I was allowed to go outside into a courtyard.
One day I walked from the confines of the courtyard to an adjacent field. I enjoyed the freedom without knowing it was freedom. It all seemed so natural to walk from the concrete through the grass to the knee-high weeds into the sunshine and a blue sky above. I and another boy spent what seemed like hours walking in the high grass, examining the flowers and the bugs and breathing the air in the sunshine.
And then, late in the day, the nuns came to take me away from my new, fantastic outdoor world. They let me know I had to be punished. I wasn’t sure what for.
They took me back inside, down the long green hallway past the dormitory where the boys slept and into a small room with a bed and a window that looked out on the fields I had just enjoyed.
I was told to take off all my clothes and get on the bed and they left me alone.
A short time passed and two men dressed in white returned carrying a large bucket, which they put on the floor next to the bed. One of them reached in and pulled out a sheet dripping water. He rung it out and laid it out on the bed next to where I lay, along the length of my body. He then began to wrap the cold, wet sheet tightly around my body. My arms were placed along my side and the sheet held them in place. Another sheet was used until I was wrapped tightly with cold wet sheets from my neck to my feet. The attendants then left the room, shutting the door behind them.
This was punishment. I fought off a slowly progressing panic. Fingers, toes and head were all that I could move. I did not know how long I had been there, but the light level in the room had diminished significantly by the time I was unwrapped and allowed to return to the dormitory. The memory of that incident has stayed with me all my life and I have retained the panic I felt being confined and helpless.
My parents never visited me during those two years. I had a couple of visits from aunts and uncles who picked me up and took me someplace to eat. I don’t remember where or what I ate. I know that I talked non-stop from the moment they picked me up and all during our visit. And I remember that I said nothing during the trip back; I just looked out the car window. I was afraid and confused and didn’t know why I had to go back.
About two years after the trauma of the nuns' version of sex education, I was once again united with my family. My father picked me up and returned me to my waiting family. It was a strange reunion. There was an awkward embrace between me and my mother and a distance between my brothers, now 5 and 3, and me. Now there was also a baby sister of 1 year. It is doubtful she experienced anything one way or the other over this reunion.
It was very much like the entry of the new boy on the block rather than the return of a brother after a long absence.
I, who had spent a traumatic two years not knowing where I was or who I was or why I was where I was or even who my family was, was suddenly back with my family, those who had delivered me to the jaws of the nuns. Should I now just feel safe with these people? How could I?
I was now 9, but there was no knowing if, under the circumstances, I had actually grown to nine. It was almost as if I had stood still in time. After all, what was there to mark the time? What is there besides the calendar? The physical age advanced, as it must. But the emotional age can die while alive, like a record playing with the sound off. When it is over the record is finished, the arm retracts but nothing was gained with the sound off. The needle picked up dust. The record grooves were carved a bit deeper. But everything that went into the record was lost. It was the tree falling in the forest without anybody to hear the sound. It was death in life.
This is my story.
By Henry David Rosso
This June I reach the 66 milestone – Medicare and truly a senior with almost six decades of memories behind and still much to look forward to. While some memories fade into oblivion, others stick around to either warm us and make us smile or haunt us.
My parents did something to me almost 60 years ago that continues to haunt me. And while I savor most of the memories of my childhood, the years between ages 7 and 9 still have a chilling effect on me.
I started my life surrounded by my Italian relatives in Princeton, New Jersey, and wonderful memories – the garden beside the house that gave us fresh peas, lima beans, corn, tomatoes and a small orchard of cherries, peaches and apples.
The garden had spin-offs: Aunt Mary shelling the peas, the fresh fruit from the trees that went into the home-made ice cream that we produced by cranking an oaken bucket with the ingredients, ice and rock salt.
The house had a two-car garage and a dirt floor and a root cellar with a dirt floor that stored Aunt Mary’s labors — canned vegetables, potatoes from the garden and lots of secrets.
I grew up with seasons, and summer and winter were my favorites: summer with the green life that surrounded us, and the winters for the snowy wonderlands.
When I was growing up in Princeton, The House had neighbors on one side. But on the garden side there was nothing between the house and the lake down Princeton-Kingston Road but trees. In the summer, we could watch regattas on the lake from our roof. On other summer days, my cousins and I would grab baskets and buckets and go into the fields to pick blackberries, raspberries and blueberries and then try to sell them door-to-door – our profits reflected the fact the neighbors had the same access to the fields we did, a basic business lesson learned too late.
Wintertime was just as wonderful in other ways, mostly white and peaceful. I loved waking up, looking out the window and seeing fields of unmolested snow. The birdbath in the backyard would have a six-inch cap of snow, under which was a miniature ice rink. Ice sickles hung menacingly from the roof, some reaching to the ground, long, thick, hard and sharp. I loved to snap them off and lick them, getting my tongue stuck to the frozen pop sickle.
My family moved to Syracuse, New York, when I was barely out of diapers, but we made almost annual visits to Princeton where I also spent many summers.
The most vivid memories during this time are of the cousins all gathered on the large stairway to the second floor. We were seated on the steps, while aunts and uncles would put up a screen or a sheet on the front door and set up the projector and show black and white silent movies of “T’was The Night Before Christmas,” and Felix the Cat and others. Then we would go to bed. When we went upstairs, our Christmas tree was a plain green tree standing in a stand. When we woke up in the morning, it was brilliantly decorated and loaded with presents.
Then things changed. My special life was disrupted.
Even now, 57 years later, the memory is so vivid I can still feel the apprehension I felt as I walked down the strange dark hallway lighted by bare light bulbs. I was 7 years old when my father drove me there in the night. When we arrived, my father held my hand. It was the last time I was ever to hold his hand except for a cursory handshake decades later.
We came to a room and were greeted by a woman dressed in white. My father and the woman talked. I don't know what they said, but I knew something was not right. I knew I didn't want to be where I was. I don't remember if my father hugged me. Maybe now -- or then -- it doesn't matter. I remember I cried. I felt a loss and then my father was gone and I was alone with the woman in white.
I was taken to a large room and directed to a metal-frame bed. It was along a wall and in a row of other beds, all occupied by other boys. I got in the strange bed, pulled the covers up over my head and wondered over and over: Where am I? Why am I here? Who are these people? There were no answers then.
When I left that place, I was nine. Those were years when a boy wants someone to look up to, to be hugged and loved, to be tucked in at night, to have someone to answer all those questions young minds have.
I had concrete floors and bars and confusion and anxiety and a curiosity that was answered with the most unimaginable measures. I was not an individual. I suddenly became part of a pack, a group. I did not know and never got to know any of the other boys in that dormitory.
Men dressed in white woke us up in the morning and directed us to showers and then to a dining hall for meals and then to classes. I saw these same men in white pick up children and throw them against radiators.
There was an outside world, which we usually saw through barred windows or from an inside play area from which we could look through the bars. I felt like an animal in a zoo. I saw people in straitjackets, adults spitting at us and yelling unintelligible sounds and pissing on the walls.
Alone, without parents and in strange surroundings, there was not much awareness. Learning was a daily experience and such experience was a fresh imprint on a ready brain. There was so much discovery.
And that was the setting one day as I sat in a classroom next to a girl. Until that day, a girl was just another person, another body whose hair was longer.
But this day there was to be a discovery and, as with most great discoveries, it was to be announced with pure innocence.
I looked down at this body next to me who had longer hair and was wearing a dress and to my amazement I could see her underpants. They were quite loose, loose enough, in fact, to allow this 7-year-old boy to make my great discovery.
"Look, she's not the same!" I shouted to no one in particular, but heard by everyone in the classroom, including the habit-frocked nuns who descended upon me immediately, their large crosses dangling from chains around their midriffs flailing the air and striking me in the head.
My exclamation created quite a stir among the students, who chattered excitedly and giggled at my misstep.
But the nuns, those bastions of Christian love and understanding and forgiveness, were not amused, were not forgiving, were not tolerant. They picked me up out of my seat and half dragged, half carried me out of the room to the delight of many of the students and shock of others.
Two nuns led me down the long, bureaucratically green hall to another room, where they stripped me down to my underpants. Then they grabbed a handful of clothes and I felt myself being dressed again. All this time, I had no idea what was happening to me until all the commotion had ceased, all the dust had settled. There was only one more bustle of activity before I was to be subjected to the cruellest lessons in my limited education.
The nuns grabbed my by my tiny shoulders. They had to bend at their black-draped waists to reach me. They turned me so I was facing a full-length mirror.
In the dim light from a bare overhead light bulb, I looked into the mirror. There, before my eyes, I stood flanked by the floor-length, ever-present black habits. The blackness of the clothing only emphasized my dilemma. What I saw shocked, scared, confused and dreadfully embarrassed me.
I saw myself. I was bareheaded. My neck and part of my chest was bare. My arms were bare from fingertips to shoulders. My legs poked out, white and skinny from just above the knees to my bare feet. The rest of me was covered in a girl's dress. And, yes, if I sat just right, other people would be able to look up my dress and at my underpants and if those underpants were loose, others would be able to see that I was different from girls. But now I was also different from boys. I was wearing a dress.
My immediate embarrassment was just a teaser. Those good Christian nuns, their crosses hanging from all those well-fingered beads at their waists, had only begun. My turmoil was to reach its climax not within the confines of that room in front of the other nuns.
I was now to endure the ultimate humiliation for having the audacity of making a youthful, innocent discovery. The nuns marched me out of the room, back to my classroom.
Every head turned as I entered the room. I kept my eyes on the floor. I felt the heat rise through my body and almost melt my face. My eyes met nobody. I was guided to my seat in the front of the class, across from the girl who had unintentionally showed me that boys and girls were different. I took my seat. I brought my hands up to my face and tried to hide. That is how I remained until the class was over.
There was no hiding. I was forced to endure an entire day of face-flaming humiliation. I moved from class to class up and down the sickly green hallway that kept making me sicker to look at. I had to stand in lines that moved inexorably slowly through the dining hall and then I had to sit at the long table to eat my meal with the other boys. But the boys were wearing what boys usually wear. I wore a dress.
My day of shame finally and mercifully ended at night when I was allowed to take the dress off and go to bed. With the dress off, safely surrounded by the sheets and the blankets, I was a boy again. I had what girls didn't have and I was no longer wearing what girls wear. At the age of seven, by myself, surrounded by people I didn't know, my parents nowhere in sight, abandoned, I had learned what many learn easily. It was to be a traumatic experience that was to remain with me for the rest of my life.
I remember times that I was allowed to go outside into a courtyard.
One day I walked from the confines of the courtyard to an adjacent field. I enjoyed the freedom without knowing it was freedom. It all seemed so natural to walk from the concrete through the grass to the knee-high weeds into the sunshine and a blue sky above. I and another boy spent what seemed like hours walking in the high grass, examining the flowers and the bugs and breathing the air in the sunshine.
And then, late in the day, the nuns came to take me away from my new, fantastic outdoor world. They let me know I had to be punished. I wasn’t sure what for.
They took me back inside, down the long green hallway past the dormitory where the boys slept and into a small room with a bed and a window that looked out on the fields I had just enjoyed.
I was told to take off all my clothes and get on the bed and they left me alone.
A short time passed and two men dressed in white returned carrying a large bucket, which they put on the floor next to the bed. One of them reached in and pulled out a sheet dripping water. He rung it out and laid it out on the bed next to where I lay, along the length of my body. He then began to wrap the cold, wet sheet tightly around my body. My arms were placed along my side and the sheet held them in place. Another sheet was used until I was wrapped tightly with cold wet sheets from my neck to my feet. The attendants then left the room, shutting the door behind them.
This was punishment. I fought off a slowly progressing panic. Fingers, toes and head were all that I could move. I did not know how long I had been there, but the light level in the room had diminished significantly by the time I was unwrapped and allowed to return to the dormitory. The memory of that incident has stayed with me all my life and I have retained the panic I felt being confined and helpless.
My parents never visited me during those two years. I had a couple of visits from aunts and uncles who picked me up and took me someplace to eat. I don’t remember where or what I ate. I know that I talked non-stop from the moment they picked me up and all during our visit. And I remember that I said nothing during the trip back; I just looked out the car window. I was afraid and confused and didn’t know why I had to go back.
About two years after the trauma of the nuns' version of sex education, I was once again united with my family. My father picked me up and returned me to my waiting family. It was a strange reunion. There was an awkward embrace between me and my mother and a distance between my brothers, now 5 and 3, and me. Now there was also a baby sister of 1 year. It is doubtful she experienced anything one way or the other over this reunion.
It was very much like the entry of the new boy on the block rather than the return of a brother after a long absence.
I, who had spent a traumatic two years not knowing where I was or who I was or why I was where I was or even who my family was, was suddenly back with my family, those who had delivered me to the jaws of the nuns. Should I now just feel safe with these people? How could I?
I was now 9, but there was no knowing if, under the circumstances, I had actually grown to nine. It was almost as if I had stood still in time. After all, what was there to mark the time? What is there besides the calendar? The physical age advanced, as it must. But the emotional age can die while alive, like a record playing with the sound off. When it is over the record is finished, the arm retracts but nothing was gained with the sound off. The needle picked up dust. The record grooves were carved a bit deeper. But everything that went into the record was lost. It was the tree falling in the forest without anybody to hear the sound. It was death in life.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The March of Time
This one really needs to be heard, but since I have not figured out how to put audio on this blog, you will have to read it. C'mon, you have to read to the end.
The March of Time
By Henry David Rosso
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
The clock begins
With the first gasp of air
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We breach, we breath
We cry, we sleep
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We grow, we learn
We search, we yearn
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We run, we play
We win, we lose
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We meet, we greet
We love, we hate
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We feel, we probe
We kiss, we love
Tick tock, tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We wed, we leave
We hide, we regret
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We cry, we mourn
We forget, we flail
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
Time passes, parts fail
Lines blur, friends drift
Tick tock Tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
The mind wants more
The heart says no
Tick tock tick tock
Tic
The March of Time
By Henry David Rosso
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
The clock begins
With the first gasp of air
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We breach, we breath
We cry, we sleep
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We grow, we learn
We search, we yearn
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We run, we play
We win, we lose
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We meet, we greet
We love, we hate
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We feel, we probe
We kiss, we love
Tick tock, tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We wed, we leave
We hide, we regret
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
We cry, we mourn
We forget, we flail
Tick tock tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
Time passes, parts fail
Lines blur, friends drift
Tick tock Tick tock
Tick tock tick tock
The mind wants more
The heart says no
Tick tock tick tock
Tic
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