HOME AGAIN, really Home AGAIN, PART 2

As I mentioned last week, since returning home to live after 45 years away, I am finding some additions and corrections to the family stories I've been telling all my life. This one is about DOGS.

Me and Lassie

My parents had a Scottish Terrier named Lassie before I was born, and my story has always included
Crowd at 1941 Inauguration
that my father's dog died when he was away in World War II. (More on that in a moment.) Aaaaaand, I told everyone, Grandma Kendig was a big FDR fan. As far as that goes all four of my grandparents were huge Roosevelt fans. Grandma Young took Mom (her youngest) when she was in high school to D.C. for the President's third swearing in, and Mom always remembered what a bitter cold day it was. The crowd was estimated to be 75,000 freezing people.

Soooo, Grandma Kendig knew all about FDR's Scottish Terrier, Fala. The whole world knew about Fala, who traveled everywhere with the President. Aaaand, I tell everyone, my grandmother thought any dog good enough for the President of the United States was the best for her son. Lassie lived till age 13 when I was 10 years old, and I returned From Camp Wanake to learn that the neighbor's German Shepherd had bounded into our our yard and killed her. I wrote an essay about her in seventh grade for Mr. Birks, who predicted I would one day be a writer-- the only teacher who ever told me I would be a writer, but he was pretty convincing.

Okay, so that's the story, and I stuck to it, as I went on to have Scottish Terriers of my own. Interestingly enough, our family never had another. We had a Toy Terrier named Wink and after I had left home, my mom and dad got Petunia, a Border Collie mix.

But when I was out on my own, I got my first Scottie, Bonnie Emma-- infamous for killing the first skunk killed by a Kendig Scottie (not the last) and for attacking a Pit Bull. Oh, and trying to make friends with a porcupine:

Brenna with quills

And then came a much sweeter, easier but still very stubborn black Scottie named Brenna, who loved our neighbor man in Rochester so much she peed on his foot. She charmed the meanest Rottweiler in the town and lived to a be a ripe old 13. When I went to Toledo to buy her replacement, a wheaten I named Fiona, her little brother and she were so tight the breeder hated to separate them and threw him in for half price. Fiona, who was quite a pistol, died young, leaving her brother Robert Burns Beaudig (Robbie) to grieve the rest of his long life, waiting for her at every doorway for years. When Robbie died at 14, I did not intend to get a wheaten-colored Scottie, nor a male, but a black female named Rennie got me and a year and a half later, her half-brother Rebus.

The twins, Fiona and Robbie

And there you have it: I have ended up with seven Scotties because my grandma liked Roosevelt. And I am sure that was at least part of the reason. Since coming home, I may have discovered another part, and it is rife with history too, and it is the history of the B-17 airplane and World War II.

Brenna

Rebus (l) and Rennie (r)

My father's service in the war that reverberated throughout his life involved his being assigned to be a tailgunner in the 100th Bomb Group, stationed in Thorpe-Abbots, England and known as the Bloody Hundredth, a group so fascinating that Stephen Spielberg has made his latest movie about them Masters of the Air. It is well acted, well-made and accurate, especially the dialogue, much of which was captured by Harry Crosby in his memoir A Wing and a Prayer. The movie, in six parts, is on Apple.

Another B-17 crew in the 91st Bomb Group earlier and elsewhere in England than my dad's was the crew of the Memphis Belle. Its co-pilot was James Verinis, who bought a darling little black Scottie in a London pet shop, named it Stuka, and kept it on the base, often photographed it in his arms, hanging out the window. Then after his tour in Europe, he and Stuka and the Memphis Belle toured the U.S. raising money for the war by convincing people to buy war bonds.

Okay, and here is what I have learned since coming home: just his year, I have found some footage of Verinis on one leg of his tour IN CANTON, OHIO!! This is my hometown and my dad's hometown, where Grandma Kendig waited for him and her other three sons (of eight sons and her 13 children in total) who had gone off to fight.

Stuka with James Verinis

Did Grandma go to Verinis' presentation? Did she read about it in the Canton Repository. I may never know the answer. Dad never mentioned it, and he may never have known, or he may have been too shell-shocked coming home to hear or remember much that Grandma told him. No one is left that would know. But I am going this month to dig around in Repository files to see what I can find about Verinis' stop in Canton and to view some film I have found about it. I will keep you posted.

HOME AGAIN, No I really mean Home AGAIN

My musings today, for this week, concern coming home again. Really. I have learned

several corrections to my previous misconceptions about home now that I have come home to live in my childhood home after not living here for about fifty years. They are such little things, yet they seem large to me because all of them concern events that I have told stories about all my life.

It’s sort of like the family roast story (not mine) that you may have heard. A woman always cut one end off the roast she prepared every year for the holidays. When her daughter asked her why, she said, “I don’t know, really. That’s what your grandma did, so I do too. I really think because it’s juicier that way, probably.” Sure. Juicier. But she thought she’d call and ask her grandma anyway, so she did. Her grandmother said, “Well, it was the pan I had. I could never fit the whole roast in that we needed to feed the family, so I cut one side off and roasted it separately.”

So many stories I never asked why, just passed them on. A little off in many cases.

Since I moved back into the neighborhood, I have been telling everyone the story of how my dad built the second house in this whole allotment and that the first house was built by Orion and Susie Evans, and how, their first winter, they had no water but my dad had dug a well and he ran a hose between our house and theirs, about a football field away, so it must have been some hose. This month, the city is putting in new water mains on Oneida, Saratoga, Tioga, and Mohawk Streets behind us, here in what was originally named "Indianola Estates," so I have been telling all the workmen that story as I walk by with my dogs.

Then because Orion and Susie had a daughter name Barbara, who became my baby sitter and drum teacher and because I am living at home once more and she was having an 82^nd birthday, I took her out to lunch and reminisced about our parents and houses and water. She looked at me a long minute. “Diane, my dad didn’t build the first house. Your dad built the first house. My dad was waiting for the public water to go in and started building when he got the go-ahead on water. But then they hit something like quicksand and told Dad we wouldn’t get water till spring. And so your dad ran the hose.” She was seven at that time, and I was not yet born, and all our parents are dead, so she is the authority on this one.

I suppose it doesn’t matter who was here first or second. I’m just sort of gob-smacked that for the past few years since moving back, I have made a point of introducing myself to the neighbors as the daughter of the man who built the second house here and that house up on the hill was the first.

My mother would be shaking her head and saying the point is that this has always been the kind of neighborhood where people didn’t really socialize and no one was into anyone’s business, but if you needed help, they showed up.

In our case, we showed up with a hose.

"Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry" Coming Up Soon

April is National Poetry Month, when The Cuyahoga County Public Library's weblog "Read + Write" features a poem a day by a Northeast Ohio poet, along with a writing prompt, the poet's bio and a comments section for readers. You can see the 2024 edition here .

I'm letting you know early in case you want to sign up to receive an email with a link to the poem of the day each day in April. Here's how:

Go to the library home page, Cuyahoga County Public Library
Scroll down to the big, blue, horizontal stripe near bottom of the page that says "Get the latest CCPL news & updates delivered to your inbox"
Click yellow "Sign up" button
Fill in name, email address, and then scroll down to "Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry Receive poems and writing prompts in your inbox every day during National Poetry Month (April)"
Click "Yes"
Click yellow "Subscribe" button.

The 2025 edition is our twelfth year featuring another all-new exciting lineup of poets who have never appeared on the blog before. Among them this year are two new NEA recipients, a poet whose poetry has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, a few who have moved away but still call Northeast Ohio their home, retirees and poets working-- teachers, parents, librarians, artists, arts administrators, social workers.

Allison P. Davis, Brandon Johnson, Caitie Young,
Cati Porter, David McCoy, Elijah Elliott (Atlas),
Elliot Nicely, Haylee Schwenk, Hugh Martin,
Joey Polisena, Kasandra Christner, Katie Berta,
Kent Taylor, Kristin Gustafson, Laurie Kincer,
Lindsay Barba, Margaret Young, Marlowe Jones,
Matthew Thompson, Megan Lubey, Michael Gill,
Nathan Oliver, Risha Nicholle, RJ Ingram,
Robert King, Rose Zinnia, Steve Thomas,
Sujata Lakhe, Tiara Dinevska, and Tovi Simiryan

LISTING: NOT THE SAME AS A LIST

A FREE POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP
By Hervé Cozanet
Saturday, March 15th, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Artspace: 140 E Market St, Akron, OH

Lists get us started, keep us on track, and send us off to get our work done. In poetry, there is the pure list poem, like Christopher Smart's 18th century long list of his cat’s tributes, Jubilate agno and Robert Francis' modern "Silent Poem" or Nancy Willard's "Questions My Son Asked Me."

I want to examine contemporary poems that embed the lists into a larger poem and examine one or two such poems that can provide a model for drafting a new poem.

Then we can look at more meanings for the word "list" and "listing"-- in law, in sailing, in real estate and stocks and bonds-- for other future poems.

We are going to start by brainstorming some lists. Then we will look at different types of list-inspiring poems and turn our storm into poems asea, listing perhaps as they sail. I hope for everyone to get at least one draft out of our session. Bring paper or tablet or laptop.

You will receive a bibliography and several additional writing assignments to take with you.

BACK UP IN THE BLOG SADDLE AGAIN

I've been outside the blog for a year, am climbing back on as we head toward April's National Poetry Month. I rarely publish poems here on the blog, but this one was just published in a print journal that wrecked the title, so here it is as I want it. The idea of who gets to have children and who doesn't, who chooses and who doesn't is coming up in my poetry as it has in my life for decades, and I am indebted to Ada Limón for leading the way.

DES

What if instead of carrying
A child, I am supposed to carry grief.

--Ada Limón

You can carry grief or carry on, like luggage.

My friend Deb did, after the O.S.U. clinic doctor

left her up in stirrups, inserted with a cold speculum,

returned with his colleague, said, “I have never

seen one—you?” “Nope.” Hopeless, they said.

She went on to have one son. I have none,

and today, at age 70, I finally look up photos

of my cervix, or, the kind the doctors saw

in me, one gasping till I explained DES,

which 1950s women took rather than carry grief.

I’ve carried some abandoned 18-year-olds, some

incarcerated kids. No photos of the babies

I did not have wearing Christmas dresses.

I go to their weddings, their funerals, Zoom

with them: my 50-year-old trans kid, clobbered

by Behçets, my CIA agent, one academic,

three horse breeders, all kidless, carrying

other stuff: U.S. secrets, HBCU grant applications,

sperm loaded into green sacks, nieces,

a wife with cancer. “To move by supporting,”

as the dictionary says, with your hands or arms,

on your back, from one place to another,

one term or phase or lifetime, not mother.