Magic Moments as Paths Cross

A quest for adventure consumed me as a kid as I asked my parents, "What is beyond the mountain, and what is beyond that?" A quest for knowledge about other people, cultures, and countries was also a search to know myself, to understand love and hate, why people both love and hurt each other, often all at once. This lifelong search resulted in a collection of unforgettable stories that forms this book.

In this quest to understand others, I discovered that as paths cross, magic moments can be sparked, mixing energy and ideas, often igniting new insights or even new life. At that instant our trip through life may change. Many things can kindle these moments.

I was born in a sequestered community in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania in l933, at the bottom of the Great Depression. Many in this community waited for life to happen to them, or clung to a dead past. Some imposed preconceived ideas on others without listening to their thoughts or sensing feelings. Many missed the magic moment.

I was upset by an example of insensitivity to others when I was eight years old that taught me a lesson about respect for others. Dad had hired an Italian gardener. When he worked in the garden, I loved to play there, asking questions about the flowers and how they grew. I remember pungent smells of freshly mowed grass and observed the gardener's enthusiasm for struggling roses that flourished under his care. He couldn't answer all my questions in English, but he tried. I felt his friendly presence even though he didn't say much. He had broad shoulders with powerful arms and callused, grass-stained hands. His ready smile stretched his graying mustache from dimple to dimple.

One day the gardener and I saw dad shooting pigeons off our roof. Scattering many of them, he kept at it until there were eight dead birds and any number of holes near the gables of the roof. Wrapping each pigeon in a sheet of newspaper, he laid them on the back porch.

At the end of the afternoon, the gardener, speaking accented English, approached dad to be paid. Dad handed him the eight scrawny birds. He looked at the birds, then at dad with a blank face. Dad turned to me in an aside, as if the gardener couldn't understand, and said that Italians like to eat pigeons, calling them squab. The gardener's face fell. The hurt in his eyes was entirely missed by dad. The gardener picked up the birds, and, with hunched shoulders, dragged himself down the street, across the train tracks that literally separated the haves from the have-nots, and turned for his home. With great sadness I watched his slow, tired gait until he disappeared. I ached, wishing I could fix his feelings and tell dad what I saw, but I couldn't.

Affection can spark a magic moment. As I entered adolescence at twelve, my father suddenly stopped hugging and kissing me before going to bed, saying I was now too old for that. I suppose that was the norm for the area, but I went to bed feeling strange. Why couldn't people be affectionate with each other at any age? Years later when I had traveled to Europe, I saw affection between adult sons and fathers being expressed as kisses and hugs. Remembering that moment in my life, I vowed I would never fail to show my daughter and two sons physical affection and love. I have.

I was also twelve when I saw the devotion and affection of my great Uncle Herbert for his wife when she died. Though expressed in an unusual manner, the intensity of his love for her remains in my memory. Both were tall and very, very heavy. At the funeral, held in a tiny church in Tipton, Pennsylvania, lay great Aunt Sadie, so huge that her breasts overflowed the casket. Overwhelming odors from flowers, thready music from a pump organ, and flickering candlelight filled the air. To the side pranced the nervous undertaker, folding and unfolding his hands in anticipation of something.

When the service ended, Uncle Herbert bounded up to the casket, looked fondly at his wife, and then lifted her halfway out of the casket to give her a huge hug and kiss on the mouth. Her glasses, ear rings, and various pieces of jewelry clattered to the bare floor with a sharp echo. Everyone gasped. The undertaker appeared ready to faint. Gently tucking her "to bed," Uncle Herbert covered her massive body to her chin with the satin robe. Gathering all the items from the floor, he thrust them on the middle of her vast stomach, shut the lid, gave the casket a firm, final pat, and strode from the church with tears streaming down his cheeks. We all cried.

My heroes in life have taught me how they found their magic moments. My Grandfather McConahy, Grand-Mac to me, gave me an interest in ideals, principles, ethics, and especially creativity. He invented all sorts of things in a basement full of machines that cut, stamped, twisted, and molded. I heard later in life that he had invented the oil gauge for the car, but had missed the patent by one month. Grand-Mac taught me about the stars and planets and about his concept of God. He read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, sharing amazing facts with me from world history. He learned some Spanish, saying it would be the coming language of this hemisphere, and was more literate in English grammar than most teachers. Testing me one day, he asked me how to spell "woolly." Fortunately, I got it right.

Grand-Mac learned how to fly and gave me my first experience in a bi-plane with two open cockpits. He played the piano enthusiastically and encouraged me to do the same. I did. Rebuilding his house in a clean, simple style, he demonstrated good architecture and design. He planted the first tree in the treeless downtown in front of his insurance shop, informing me that trees breathe, cleaning the air and replacing carbon dioxide with oxygen. He was the only person in town who subscribed to The New York Times, saying it was the only publication that read well.

Grand-Mac taught me a lesson one day about privacy. I knew he was home one afternoon and continued to knock on the door until he answered. He said, "Yes, Bobby, I'm here, but, then, I'm not. It's my time to be alone."

Most importantly, he taught me that one must have respect for all the people of the world, whether rich, poor, or different. He spent his life discussing philosophy with old friends from every background. Looking back at my stories, I realized only recently that Grand-Mac, with all his coaching to love and respect people, life, and the earth, is here in many of these stories. Grand-Mac knew how to create magic moments, especially through relationships.

My great grandmother, born in 1854, was another hero. She wore a black straw hat clipped to her white hair with huge hat pins she thrust with three startling zaps. Her black ankle length dresses smelled of cedar. She told me stories about seeing Lincoln, described scenes from the past, and gave me a sense of human values. Grandma enjoyed life, endured it's problems, changed what she could, and lived with a sense of humor mixed with wisdom.

As a maverick, and a bit of an outsider, I filled childhood voids by reading adventure stories, people stories, travel stories, mystery stories such as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Arabian Nights, and Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I scoured the local library weekly searching for some overlooked adventure story. My mind