Chapter One "Uncle Fliv's Truck"

To Mrs. Helen Beale
of Townsend, Massachusetts and the World
the greatest influence on my childhood and so therefore on my life
this is dedicated in loving gratitude.



It was the best of times and the worst of times. Actually, it was not but I just wanted to either begin with that line or "Call me Ishmael." Since this is a memoir I will begin with my earliest memories. I was probably three or so.

"This is Uncle Fliv's truck" I told my father explaining what must have looked to him like the empty brown beer bottle I was pushing in the sand. We were on the beach, I remember just the two of us, at Craigville, Cape Cod. Yes, Craigville. My material grandparents own a little house there. A red cottage. For vacations. The humble brown beer bottle was elevated to the status of my pressive mother's brother Flavio's truck. Not to get all psycho-analytical especially in only the first paragraph but this would always be my way. Seeing the world the way I wanted and not the way it was or is. For that, mere reality, was too dull and ordinary.

 I will both quote and misinterpret at the same time the statement of St. Thomas Aquinas,  "Whatever is received is received according to the receiver." Misinterpreting because, for several reasons, St. Thomas was not a follower of Immanuel Kant. I grew up and continue to be The poster boy for Kantian epistemology. My view of the world is always distorted to put it in the negative, improved to put it in the positive or changed to put it in the objective. Unlike Professor Kant's example I am not always wearing rose colored glasses. The colors do change. But what does not change is the constant seeing, knowing and improving upon reality (the later as Christopher Buckley would put it) for the ordinary has always been unacceptable to me. There is nothing I dislike more than the ordinary. I prefer both the wonderful and the disappointing. So I both see the world as I want to while I know it is not as I see it. I am very fair. I don't expect the world to live up to the way I see it! This is not some gift or something to be proud of. It has had only a few, very few, benefits. Some fiction I have written. Maybe some other little helps now and then. But if living life is considered and well, valued, I am and always have been at a disadvantage and yet content in the world of my adjusting and raising up to the level of beautiful, extrordinary and magnificent, a word related to magnify and magnify glass!

 So that day on the beach__ my father and I not dressed for the beach so perhaps it was Autumn and as I remember only use two on the beach__ I could not let a brown beer bottle be just that, just what it was. True, all children do this. Not very many answer when asked what they want to be when they grow up answer, "marry Princess Caroline of Monaco so I can be a Prince." More importantly very few (James Barrie, the creator of "Peter Pan" is the only person I can think of right now) carry it throughout their life. No, it has not "gone away" or lessen at all, no, not even as you read this. And then few are as I was as  a teenager: someone who goes from a religious boy interested in dramatics and planning to be an actor to a dramatic boy believing he was called to be a Religious. And for me it was a perfectly smooth and understandable transistion. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I have already realized one thing about writing this memoir. With the very same memories I would have been written this differently ten years ago and would probably written this differently ten years from now. For it is very much written now. I do not know if this is a positive or negative thing. Is now a good time to write it? I do not know. I just feel the need to write it now. I feel the need to set aside writing from research and try to see what I can write from my own life. Perhaps I want to see if I have anything unique with which to provide the reader. Anything really original and maybe even helpful from my life.

I should add that I am blessed with a good long-term memory. My brillant father kindly taught me the word "Gestalt" expalining in detail how it mean the whole "picture." That is the kind of memory I have. I remember the event, who said what and where everybody stood. I have annoyed poeple when in the midst of relating a story I mentioned unnecessary details such as "he was standing near the stove." Although I have stopped to doing this I now understand it. That whole picture-ness is how I remember things. But the point I want to make considering I have already revealed at the beginning of a memoir (!!!) that my persecption distorts, improves or changes reality I assure you it does not affect the truth of the memory of what really happened. It just in living through the event colors it's meaning. True, it probably colors my interpretation of past events now to be considered and  I hope done so carefully. But it does not affect the facts. You see I did tell my Father, "this is Uncle Fliv's truck." But I knew it was not.

Mistakes both of spelling and grammar are most welcome. Please know that I do both begin sentances with And and do not follow the Oxford or serial comma meaning that in a list of things before the last one mentioned after the word and has not comma before the and. Then again I only very rarely put a comma before the word and. Thank you. Brother Craig

A Memoir, More or Less

Yes, a new title. On Suday my oldest friend, Father Sergio-Maria, of our days in Rome, told me I should write my memoirs. Not that I have achieved much. But I have been blessed to know fascinating people, such as Father and been and lived in interesting places. Now I doubt I will do this sitting down and attempting to write a book. But perhaps here as a blog. And this blog has been so neglected anyway that, perhaps in the original meaning of blog as a type of regularly written in kind of journal, perhaps I will more faithfully post. We all will see. Yes, I have considered writing a memoir mostly focusing on the title." Me: A Memoir" seems to have won out over "Lesson Learned" then "But I Digress" and "I'm Probably Wrong" (my motto) to my actual favorite, "Pretending to be Me." Okay, a little prayer and I will begin.

My earlest memory is...( please await the next post!)