B.J. Thomas’ (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song was a perfect introduction to life without our parents. B.J.’s chorus of the repeated “While I miss my baby” ached of the loss of my mom. It would be years until I learned about the 5 stages of grieving and nine years before I took ‘Death and Dying’ at Carthage College. And while B.J. Thomas’ ‘Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song’ went #1 on Billboards Pop and Country charts (but only #2 on the WLS charts I would begin collecting in couple of years), it was my first steps in my grieving process.
We spent a week at Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack’s after my parents died (or after ‘the accident’ as some of my brothers and sisters would refer to their murder/suicide). The process of carrying on was hard but had to be started. The plan was that Aunt Bernice, Mom’s oldest sister (my mom was one of 13 children), and Uncle Ray would stay at our house during the week so we continue to go to school. On the weekends, we would stay with different aunt and uncles families; understandably.
One of my first fears was how to tell people my parents had died without crying. I soon realized I didn’t have to, most of the people I knew were already aware of my situation. I remember my first morning back at school, we were waiting at the door of West Elementary to get in on a cold Monday morning in February 1975.
The sixth graders would wait at the main north door that sat atop a dozen or so concrete steps surrounded with iron hand rails and another set of rails up the center of the stairs. If you were early, you got to be in the coveted alcove right by the door, while the other poor saps would have to wait on the unprotected stone stairs below in the cold. If you had buddy up top, you could probably get invited into the alcove.
A friend of mine saw me and gave me the ‘nod’ – the invite – to the alcove. There a good chance I would have gotten to the nod because my friend, but more likely it was because it was my first day back at school since my parents had died. In kids terms, I had celebrity status – at least for today. Making my way through the lower grade saps and Fifth graders I realized – again – how easy it was to forget my parents had died and I how I could play like any other sixth graders without dead parents.
After my Mom’s funeral, the family went to Aunt Bernice and Uncle Ray’s house for lunch. Us kids were playing tag in the driveway – just like regular kids. And I remember thinking, “what am I doing? I can’t be playing. My parents are dead.” But we did play. And I would go in and out of these ‘reality checks’ and sometimes I would complete stop what I’m doing with this realization. Thankfully over time these ‘reality checks’ happened less and less.
So when I got up to the alcove I found there was a patch of ice that the guys were playing with. ‘Playing with’ consisted of pushing each other on a three foot patch of ice. We all took turns trying to stand on it while everyone else tried to pushed you off – a makeshift version of ‘King of the Mountain’, or ‘Ice’, in this case. Unfortunately it wasn’t long before I successfully removed Bill Erickson from the patch of ice. Unfortunate because when I ‘removed’ him, he ended up falling and hitting his head on the iron hand rail. We all gasped as his head literally rung the railing – it obviously hurt. I reached out to see if he was OK but Bill held his head and he was fighting hard not to cry. He looked at me and said:
“Too bad what happened to your old lady.”
And that phrase has haunted me for thirty nine years. He had disarmed me completely. I didn’t have a response. Bill wasn’t a good friend, I had never been over to his house but we would play at recess and hang out at school together. It must have really hurt, I told myself. Nobody said anything. I realized everyone knew. Everyone knew my parents had died. Everyone left the patch of ice alone after that. It was now tainted – like me. And we all stood in silence together at what Bill said until the class bell called us in.
When I got to class Mr. Krenek started the morning that he had an announcement. I paled with fear thinking his announcement was about me. That he was going to announced I had returned after burying my parents. He would express how sorry he, and the entire class, was for my loss – but – welcome back.
But the announcement wasn’t about me. Another classmate’s family, I don’t remember her name, had been involved with a private plane crash. One of her family members had died and our classmate had broken her arm and lost an eye. She would be coming back to class in a few days. I looked at her empty desk two seats ahead of me and one row to my right.
The morning when she returned to class, I stared like all the other kids in class. It was clear she had been in a accident. Her eye was patched with scratches peeking out from the gauze that wrapped her head. Her left arm was in a full cast up to her armpit. She made her way to her sit and opened her desk with her free hand to put her sack lunch in.
I tried to imagine going through a plane crash. The terrifying moments before the crash, the chaos, the rescue. The discovery of finding out your brother, sister or mom or dad was dead. I had just lost my parents but physically I was OK. It was so different from what I had gone through last week. My tragedy was basically hidden. She would have to literately wear hers the rest of her life.
Eventually I learned the old proverb – “I cried because I had no shoes, Until I saw a man who had no feet.” And while it may have been obvious I was the ‘man with no feet’, it was just as obvious she was a ‘woman with no feet’. I found our situations fantastic – not in a good way but in a unbelievable way. I would ‘run the numbers’ and re-examine the odds of our tragedies occurring within a week of each others for the rest of my life.
One important realization as I began this new life without my parents, I was not alone in this, others had their own tragedies. She had no way of knowing how intertwined our situations would be in my mind because I never talked to her. She would never know how much I thought of her situation and how much that helped me with mine. I sometimes wondered if she thought about me and my situation. Would she want to have traded places with me – like I wanted to trade places with her? At the time I would have gladly traded places with her; but would that really have been any better? Sometimes I would think about this at recess. I always got the sense our classmates paired us together. We now were both ‘tainted’. But I still never talked to her. Over time I would realize the fantasy of trading places was not worth the time it took to render them. But render them I would – over the next several years but I never forgot the girl from the plane crash.
Mr. Kreneck, was always my favorite teacher. He would be the teacher I measure all my other teachers to. Of course, it helped to have a personal tragedy to make that connection. I would never say I was a teacher’s pet – but if I were, I would have already on my way before my parents died. I first met Mr. Krenek when I was in 5th grade in Ms. Hoag’s class. It turned out Ms. Hoag and Mr. Kreneck were friends and they had their classes work on a project together once a year. I don’t know if the other two 5th and 6th grade classes did this but I was happy to be in Ms. Hoag’s 5th grade class and now Mr. Krenek’s class for 6th grade.
A month or so after my parents died I remember Mr. Kreneck pulled me into the storage room just down the hall from our classroom to talk to me. I had always been a ‘A’ student, school was easy for me. But after my parents’ deaths I had apparently checked out. Mr. Kreneck told me I couldn’t give up. My grades had disappeared, I was in a academic freefall.
And then Mr. Kreneck played a ‘card’ only a few people would ever played on me. He said, “Your mother would not want to you give up like this.” And he was right. I remember leaning against the steel shelving units crying. I remember looking out the second story window through the shelving unit to the asphalted playground and feeling how I still didn’t want to disappoint Mom, even though she wasn’t here anymore. I can’t say I turned my grades around but Mr. Kreneck didn’t talk to me about my grades again. My grades were fine until I got to high school but then I could no longer blame bad grades on my parents.
Another thing I remember about Mr. Kreneck was he collected stamps. He collected foreign stamps, specifically but not exclusively, Czech stamps. Which made sense since he was Czechoslovakian. Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack had introduced me to stamp collecting. My cousins John and Jim already collected stamps; more John then Jim. Soon I had my own book and quickly graduated from used stamps to mint stamps. John also collected ‘First Day Covers‘ which were only issued in the post office the stamp was assigned to, then they were released to the rest of the post offices. I couldn’t afford the First Day Covers John got with the fancy envelopes but I could get the new commemorative stamp the day they got released to everyone else.
In April of 1975 the US release the Mariner 10 stamp. This was the first time I was going to be able to buy a stamp the day if came out. It was also a chance to officially accept my teacher’s pet title. So that bright Friday morning, I rode my bike to the post office, purchased 2 Mariner 10 stamps and proudly delivered one of them to Mr. Kreneck – all without being late to his class. It turned out stamp collecting was a great distraction for me.
These days, when we returned to school, Aunt Bernice would be home cooking our meals, doing our dishes and washing our clothes. Uncle Ray would come from work to our house. They would stay with us for the week and then go back to their house on the weekends. It was weird at first – but everything was weird now. Aunt Bernice and Uncle Ray played the role of mom and dad. Aunt Bernice would cook dinner and make lunches – if we didn’t get them at school, which we mostly did. Uncle Ray would watch TV with us and tease us.
I remember Uncle Ray caught Dave or I picking our noses and Uncle Ray would go on and on about how we looked just like a gorilla he saw at the zoo the other day. Uncle Ray would go on and on about how the gorilla had his finger “waaaayyy up there!” and then grunt like a gorilla, “Ooo ooo ooo.” Dave and I would get embarrassed or laugh at the other depending on who was Uncle Ray’s ‘gorilla’ that evening. It was a different parenting style and it was fun.
I remember when he would come ‘home’ from work he would threaten us with whisker burns – the act of rubbing his four o’clock shadow against our young smooth cheeks. Dave and I would rub his cheeks and feel his rough bristles and feign shock at the torture his whisker burn would give. Eventually our new ritual would distill into us rubbing his cheek and suggesting he needs a shave. And we would all laugh and giggle.
And for years afterwards when I would see Uncle Ray, I would rub his cheek with tops of my fingers and he would smile, point and me and laugh in his own version of Barney Rubble. Even after not seeing him for 15 years when Desi and I brought our kids to visit them in Nevis, MN on the way back from our South Dakota with Lee. At one point in our visit I came up besides Uncle Ray. I rubbed his cheek and his eyes got wide, he pointed at me and smile, “awwwww, heeya, ya ya ya”
Looking back at those months, outside of my talking to Mr. Kreneck, I never talked to an adult about my parents – not that I remember. I find it interesting that nowadays, if kids bully, or get bullied, or surf porn, or watch horror movies – they are sent to talk to a ‘professional’ but not back then. ‘Back then’, I guess, they waited for something to go wrong. Apparently nothing went wrong with any of us.
During the weekends we would be shipped out to different aunts and uncles. We rarely went altogether to one aunt and uncles, five kids was alot to absorb for one family, even for just a weekend. It was these car rides that I would occasionally catch B.J. Thomas’ “Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song”. Once I caught Aunt Judy changing the radio station when it started but most of the aunts and uncles were not paying attention to the songs on the radio. Or maybe they thought BJ’s melancholiness was just what we needed, or at least what I needed. It was nice to hear there were others that were as sad as I was.
And sometimes on these trips back and forth to our home, if I was lucky enough to have the window seat, I would lean my head against the cold window and listen to B.J. Thomas sing how right it was to feel so sad. And if it was dark, I would even let a tear roll down my round cheek. Because that’s what I wanted – “A real hurtin’ song about a love that’s gone wrong, ‘Cause I don’t wanna cry all alone.”
Years later when Uncle Jack and I were alone in the car he told me about those weekends from his perspective. Jack and I didn’t have many trips just to ourselves. Now I wish we had more of them, or at least more them that I remember. This particular trip was to Downers Grove and we were on Route 53. It was when he briefly worked for the Village of Downers Grove.
He told me about how all the aunt and uncles would gather at Aunt Nancy and Uncle Wayne’s basement to figure out what to do with my brothers and sisters and I. Over the course of 2 or 3 months they made their plans. Hope was to go with Aunt Bev and Uncle Dick. Their daughter Tami was around Hope’s age. Lee was to go with Aunt Sandy and Uncle Claude.
Jack said, “We tried to get all three of you boys but everyone thought that would be too much for us.” So Dave and I went to Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack’s. Dawn ended up going to Aunt Betty and Uncle Richards but it was close between them and Aunt Nancy and Uncle Wayne. Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s daughter Judy was a year older then Dawn, while Aunt Nancy and Uncle Wayne’s daughter Sue was a little younger then Dawn. As Jack put it, “While we were trying to decide who Dawn should go with, until Betty announced, ‘that’s it – Dawn’s coming with us.’ And no one was going to tell Betty ‘no’. Suffice to say, there are other ‘songs’ that go with Dawn’s life with Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard.
Dawn told me the families we went to on those weekends trips, as we finished the school year, were the families we were eventually ended up. Since it was unclear where she was going she was still switching between Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s and Aunt Nancy and Uncle Wayne’s well into May. Since it had been decided that Dave and I would be with Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack, I don’t remember the weekends we visited them – except a trip to Randhurst Mall to visit a their favorite stamp store.
I do remember a few of these transitional weekends. I do remember we spent a weekend at Aunt Delores and Uncle Larry’s. I think it was Lee, Dave and I. Like us, Aunt Delores and Uncle Larry’s family also had five kids – Debbie, Ken, Jeff, Roger and Rick. I remember Uncle Larry showing us how he stripped wooden furniture and Jeff showing us their Homing Pigeons. I think that was the first time I remember having been to a Catholic church.
We must have spent a couple of weekends at Aunt Judy and Uncle Fred’s because there were two specific incidents I remember there. First was Aunt Judy taking us to see Animal House. Because it was rated ‘R’ the kid behind the glass selling tickets asked if Aunt Judy was our mom. It was the first time we had to explain to a stranger that we didn’t have parents anymore. In hindsight, Aunt Judy should have just said ‘yes’ or ‘I’m their legal guardian’ but we all heard the question and we all looked at Aunt Judy for the answer – which was ‘no’. So only those over 17 could have gone in – which was none of us. If it hadn’t been such an awkward moment for all of us, maybe we could figured out a way to get tickets. After all, it would have been my first rated ‘R’ movie.
The other incident was when Dave fell down and hurt his hip. We had been sledding down the snowy slopes that surrounded a pond behind Aunt Judy and Uncle Fred’s house. I had already gone inside when Dave slipped on the ice and fell on his hip. Typical Dave – if anyone would hurt himself it would be him. He was the one who jumped out the second story window onto the driveway to get away from Hope. And he was the one that took ‘the-bike-that-was-too-big-for-him’ and wiped out leaving him unconscious and carried home by some neighbor kids. But this was the first time he hurt himself without Mom and Dad around.
I don’t think Aunt Judy was in the house when Dave got hurt. What I do remember was Lee and I in Aunt Judy and Uncle Fred’s basement as Dave laid in one of the bedrooms upstairs screaming in pain. But not just screaming, it was almost a shriek. And it went on for what seemed like hours. But it wasn’t just a scream of physical pain but one of emotion. “I – Want – My – Mother!” he screamed. I think Dave’s physical pain allowed him to release the emotional pain of his loss. And while Lee and I acutely understood this loss, helping him was beyond us. Dave’s emotional cries echoed our own loss but we were helpless on his physical pain – so we just looked at each other and the basement ceiling. Neither of us did anything to help Dave or comfort him. Dave had taken over our own pains of a anguish vocally. But as he continued his hour (and more) of screaming I wanted him to stop. He had spent my pain and even though my heart still throbbed, I had to learn this new reality. Neither Lee or I reached out to Dave. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to cry myself; and besides, what could I do? Dave was crying about a real hurtin’ song and that we had been done wrong. But Lee and I let him cry all alone.
At some point our cousin Fred came down and said something like “Man, he’s must really be hurt.” I think Fred came down partially to see how Lee and I were, and partially to see if we could help Dave. But we did nothing; nothing but relate to his loss.
And that was the problem, no one knew what do – except the practical things. Our aunts and uncles were finding us homes. And as we would find out, they went beyond opening their homes. They opened their hearts and their own families to us – some with more success then others.
It is when I look back I can see how high we’ve climbed, or rather how far we’ve dug out, and yes – realized how how high we all had climbed. We had no perspective for where our now individual paths would take us. Those months after the ‘accident’ were filled with uncertainty. We didn’t know what our aunts and uncles were planning for our futures. We were getting through day by day, week by week. And by the time we starting hitting month by month, our lives together as a family were coming to an end. The plans on where we where going to live were being finalized. The plans of an Estate Sale were made and the house and furniture was sold. Our family would no longer live in the Gray House in Des Plains. And in other houses, room was being made in four different homes with four different families for our eventual arrivals.
I remember Dave getting angry at Aunt Bernice one afternoon after school for not letting him go over to a friends house because she didn’t know who he was. Aunt Bernice really didn’t know any of our friends. On the other side, Dave’s ‘friend’ was not one of Mom’s favorite for him. I always wondered how Aunt Bernice knew Dave’s friend well enough to say ‘no’. With Mom no longer in our lives Mom would need to work though our new families. And they follow her wishes as best as they could – again, some with more success then others.
So after the Estate Sale and after the school year, our new families came, one by one, to move us to our new homes. I do not remember Hope, Lee or Dawn leaving. I only remember Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack, and John and Jim, arriving with a borrowed pickup truck to move our beds and the last of our possessions. I remember standing with them on our drive way as we said goodbye to the Wests, the family that lived in our basement apartment. The tailgate of the truck laid open for Dave, Jim, John and I to climb in for the ride home – our new home.
Little Debbie West jump on the gate and announced, “I want to be a Zilligen!” Little Debbie wanted to join in the adventure our move, or more likely, just the ride in the back of the pickup truck. Mr. West picked her up so we could climb into the back of the pickup. With our elbows hung out the back of the pickup truck, we waved goodbye to the Wests with our other hands. Dave and I waved goodbye to our house, our neighborhood and goodbye to our old life. All I could think of, as Uncle Jack steered the truck over turned over the curbs of our driveway and pulled down Rose Avenue, were little Debbie West’s words – “I want to be a Zilligen!”
And the the irony, because at that moment, the last thing I wanted to be – was a Zilligen. And from the cab of the pickup truck I swear I heard BJ Thomas start singing ‘Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.’