英语书籍：Bowling Across America（2）ZT
=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================
BOWLING ACROSS AMERICA
50 States in Rented Shoes
by Mike Walsh (nonfiction)
Published by St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780312366193
Text Copyright (c) 2008 by Mike Walsh
BOWLING (Part 2 of 5)
======================================
(continued from Monday)
"Do you have this in ecru?"
"Is the rust-proofing package optional?"
At the cemetery, the woman helping us select a resting place for
Dad (and de facto for Mom, since she would one day be buried along
side him) bore the real brunt of a sarcastic family's grief.
"Now, this plot is nice because it faces south, so it gets a little
more sunlight," she said of one site, a selling point that hadn't
occurred to us for a 5-by-10 patch of land we might see once a year.
"It's nice," someone replied, "but could you move the Calvano grave
away from it? I don't want my parents to be buried next to any
Italians."
"Yeah, where are all the Irish graves?"
"Okay, there's another site over here that is available and has some
nice shrubbery at the head of the plot," she said, trying to move
on.
"Where might we find some existing graves where the wife's dead, but
the hu*****and's still alive? We're looking for a rich widower for our
mother."
At some point our saleswoman began showing us sites of five graves
together, suggesting that some of us might want to make a down
payment on our own graves so that we might be buried with our
parents. That or she was wishing more of us dead.
"I think we're okay with just buying two holes in the ground today,
but thanks."
"Can we get Astroturf?"
Morbid, yes, but this is how some people cope. By the time Regan and
I were finished lying down as stand-ins for our parents' corpses so
Mom could visualize where the plot and headstone would be ("I think
you guys looked more peaceful in that last plot"), our saleswoman
lost her will and went to wait in the car until we'd made our
decision.
Dad's wake was epic. I felt pity for the other families with
deceased relatives at the funeral home that night, because Dad's
friends and family were so numerous that we were crowding everyone
else out. The receiving line to pay respects to my mother was over
an hour long. Imagine waiting an hour not to get on a roller coaster
but to have a brief, awkward, emotional encounter with a woman so
distraught she probably won't even remember your being there. (This
is why funeral homes have guest books.)
An ex-girlfriend's father whom I'd always assumed (probably with
merit) hated me came with a kind word.
Pat Blume, who'd taught several of us first and second grade said
what a great man Dad was.
Emil Colissimo, the friend and barber who'd cut his hair the morning
he died, disapproved of the job the mortician had done on Dad's hair
and pulled out a comb and corrected it right there in the viewing
room.
Several of my father's business associates talked about how he'd
trusted them and given them credit to buy inventory when they were
starting their businesses.
A boy he'd mentored in a Big Brother program decades ago and since
lost touch with came to pay respects.
Family and friends from a dozen states and Puerto Rico came to
remember Leo Walsh and lift his family with their presence.
The mass was beautiful. Pat gave a touching eulogy, as did Mike
Petrie, a close friend of Dad's, and my godfather. For the
recessional hymn, instead of some slow, depressing dirge we insisted
the organist fire up "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "The Glory!
Glory! Hallelujahs!" spilled out into the parking lot around the
casket like it was in a parade, not a recession.
It was the perfect day for a burial, in the sense that one would
like to think the deceased is going to a better place. The
temperature was 12 degrees, the sky gray, and the wind whipped
light, prickly flurries about the air as we left the church.
The line of cars en route to the cemetery stretched for more than a
mile of headlights behind us, and the lone sheriff's deputy who
pulled motorcycle escort duty for the procession executed Knievel-
esque traffic management feats along the way. At one point, he was
riding 50 miles per hour, holding back freeway traffic with one hand
and motioning the hearse to accelerate with the other, all while
riding on a gravelly berm and steering by balance. "Dad would have
thought this was really cool," someone said. As we neared the
cemetery, the deputy sped ahead of the procession fast enough to
park, dismount his bike, stand at attention, and salute the hearse
with Dad's flag-draped coffin inside it as it passed through the
gates.
Thanks to a heavy investment Pat made in alcohol the day before, we
all got soaking drunk after the burial, our family home filled with
friends I never knew my father had.
We told stories and laughed with deep affection and unabashed
escapism.
We cried, mostly the kind of tears that come with an appreciative
smile.
We set off fireworks in the backyard, a tribute to so many summer
evening displays Dad had put on when we were growing up.
We held the silence that followed the final boom. As the last
rocket's glare dimmed from our faces we stood briefly in tableau,
the last moment before our lives would resume again.
No matter how someone dies--long battle with cancer, kidney failure
in a nursing home, shot in bed by mistress's jealous hu*****and--we
have a tendency to rationalize it as appropriate, if only for the
sake of giving comfort. "He would have wanted to go that way" and
"at least he's not suffering anymore" are silver linings of sorts,
and more comforting than they are true in most cases. As I returned
to Chicago and tried to reinsert myself into my life as though
nothing had changed, I convinced myself that my father had all but
planned it this way. With hindsight's help, this was easy enough to
do.
He had planned to retire at the end of February and made the legal
and financial arrangements for Peter to assume control of the family
business beginning March 1. Dad's passing on January 20 just
accelerated that time line by a few weeks.
He'd just finished a term as president and then chairman of the
board for an industry organization he'd been deeply involved in for
more than two decades, steering it in a new direction at the
beginning of a new century.
(continued on Wednesday)
====ABOUT THE AUTHOR==================
Mike Walsh is one of the world's leading authorities on the
geographic nuances of rented footwear. A graduate of Miami
University, he grew up in a family of six children in Upper
Arlington, Ohio. He and his wife Amy reside in Chicago within
walking distance of two bowling alleys.
=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================
BOWLING ACROSS AMERICA
50 States in Rented Shoes
by Mike Walsh (nonfiction)
Published by St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780312366193
Text Copyright (c) 2008 by Mike Walsh
BOWLING (Part 2 of 5)
======================================
(continued from Monday)
"Do you have this in ecru?"
"Is the rust-proofing package optional?"
At the cemetery, the woman helping us select a resting place for
Dad (and de facto for Mom, since she would one day be buried along
side him) bore the real brunt of a sarcastic family's grief.
"Now, this plot is nice because it faces south, so it gets a little
more sunlight," she said of one site, a selling point that hadn't
occurred to us for a 5-by-10 patch of land we might see once a year.
"It's nice," someone replied, "but could you move the Calvano grave
away from it? I don't want my parents to be buried next to any
Italians."
"Yeah, where are all the Irish graves?"
"Okay, there's another site over here that is available and has some
nice shrubbery at the head of the plot," she said, trying to move
on.
"Where might we find some existing graves where the wife's dead, but
the hu*****and's still alive? We're looking for a rich widower for our
mother."
At some point our saleswoman began showing us sites of five graves
together, suggesting that some of us might want to make a down
payment on our own graves so that we might be buried with our
parents. That or she was wishing more of us dead.
"I think we're okay with just buying two holes in the ground today,
but thanks."
"Can we get Astroturf?"
Morbid, yes, but this is how some people cope. By the time Regan and
I were finished lying down as stand-ins for our parents' corpses so
Mom could visualize where the plot and headstone would be ("I think
you guys looked more peaceful in that last plot"), our saleswoman
lost her will and went to wait in the car until we'd made our
decision.
Dad's wake was epic. I felt pity for the other families with
deceased relatives at the funeral home that night, because Dad's
friends and family were so numerous that we were crowding everyone
else out. The receiving line to pay respects to my mother was over
an hour long. Imagine waiting an hour not to get on a roller coaster
but to have a brief, awkward, emotional encounter with a woman so
distraught she probably won't even remember your being there. (This
is why funeral homes have guest books.)
An ex-girlfriend's father whom I'd always assumed (probably with
merit) hated me came with a kind word.
Pat Blume, who'd taught several of us first and second grade said
what a great man Dad was.
Emil Colissimo, the friend and barber who'd cut his hair the morning
he died, disapproved of the job the mortician had done on Dad's hair
and pulled out a comb and corrected it right there in the viewing
room.
Several of my father's business associates talked about how he'd
trusted them and given them credit to buy inventory when they were
starting their businesses.
A boy he'd mentored in a Big Brother program decades ago and since
lost touch with came to pay respects.
Family and friends from a dozen states and Puerto Rico came to
remember Leo Walsh and lift his family with their presence.
The mass was beautiful. Pat gave a touching eulogy, as did Mike
Petrie, a close friend of Dad's, and my godfather. For the
recessional hymn, instead of some slow, depressing dirge we insisted
the organist fire up "Battle Hymn of the Republic." "The Glory!
Glory! Hallelujahs!" spilled out into the parking lot around the
casket like it was in a parade, not a recession.
It was the perfect day for a burial, in the sense that one would
like to think the deceased is going to a better place. The
temperature was 12 degrees, the sky gray, and the wind whipped
light, prickly flurries about the air as we left the church.
The line of cars en route to the cemetery stretched for more than a
mile of headlights behind us, and the lone sheriff's deputy who
pulled motorcycle escort duty for the procession executed Knievel-
esque traffic management feats along the way. At one point, he was
riding 50 miles per hour, holding back freeway traffic with one hand
and motioning the hearse to accelerate with the other, all while
riding on a gravelly berm and steering by balance. "Dad would have
thought this was really cool," someone said. As we neared the
cemetery, the deputy sped ahead of the procession fast enough to
park, dismount his bike, stand at attention, and salute the hearse
with Dad's flag-draped coffin inside it as it passed through the
gates.
Thanks to a heavy investment Pat made in alcohol the day before, we
all got soaking drunk after the burial, our family home filled with
friends I never knew my father had.
We told stories and laughed with deep affection and unabashed
escapism.
We cried, mostly the kind of tears that come with an appreciative
smile.
We set off fireworks in the backyard, a tribute to so many summer
evening displays Dad had put on when we were growing up.
We held the silence that followed the final boom. As the last
rocket's glare dimmed from our faces we stood briefly in tableau,
the last moment before our lives would resume again.
No matter how someone dies--long battle with cancer, kidney failure
in a nursing home, shot in bed by mistress's jealous hu*****and--we
have a tendency to rationalize it as appropriate, if only for the
sake of giving comfort. "He would have wanted to go that way" and
"at least he's not suffering anymore" are silver linings of sorts,
and more comforting than they are true in most cases. As I returned
to Chicago and tried to reinsert myself into my life as though
nothing had changed, I convinced myself that my father had all but
planned it this way. With hindsight's help, this was easy enough to
do.
He had planned to retire at the end of February and made the legal
and financial arrangements for Peter to assume control of the family
business beginning March 1. Dad's passing on January 20 just
accelerated that time line by a few weeks.
He'd just finished a term as president and then chairman of the
board for an industry organization he'd been deeply involved in for
more than two decades, steering it in a new direction at the
beginning of a new century.
(continued on Wednesday)
====ABOUT THE AUTHOR==================
Mike Walsh is one of the world's leading authorities on the
geographic nuances of rented footwear. A graduate of Miami
University, he grew up in a family of six children in Upper
Arlington, Ohio. He and his wife Amy reside in Chicago within
walking distance of two bowling alleys.
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选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
