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Saturday, January 29, 2000 Page: 3A
Heroes excel at the everyday.
Immortals prod with silent persistence.
Glitz and glamour may elude the coal region, but we shine at producing
common people living extraordinary lives without recognition. We are champions
at demonstrating the big effects of small things.
Think of someone who scolded you at a formative moment, or a store clerk
who greets you with an earnest query about your day, or a teacher who sparked
an interest that became a hobby. Then think of that impact repeated thousands
of times.
Think of your parents.
I do that a lot these days. My dad went to the hospital on Nov. 19 and
didn’t get out until Jan. 17. He spent Thanksgiving, his birthday, Christmas
and New Years there.
Dad has gradually shifted from unassailable protector, provider and
disciplinarian to an 83-year-old in need of constant help.
In rare moments Dad laments about how little he can bequeath his nine kids,
how a life of hard work as a plumber – muscling furnaces in and out of dank
basements, crawling under sinks, prying up floorboards – produced no financial
legacy.
It’s a common complaint in an area where immigrants sweltered and coughed
in dark mines for endless hours just to feed and shelter their kids. Those
kids then toiled in blue-collar jobs hoping the next generation could get
through college.
Here in the rust belt, the climb up the economic ladder can seem harsh and
arbitrary, the rewards invisible. The impact of individuals gets lost in the
grime of hardscrabble living.
And that’s a shame. People change other people’s lives every day. They just
don’t become the movie of the week.
Cherished memories
My Uncle Buddy – who wasn’t a real uncle – used to jingle keys and loose
change in his pocket, then give each of us a coin. To this day I believe good
uncles, metaphorically at least, jingle their pockets. I try to apply that
lesson to my nieces and nephews as well as children of friends, providing
occasional gifts or other surprises.
Dad’s friend Jay, fresh from the military, once hoisted himself on a metal
clothesline pole in our back yard until his body was parallel to the ground.
My older brother and I still talk about it as a measure of physical fitness
(last summer I could do it, he couldn’t. So there.)
Yet it is our parents who affect us most.
Like most people, I have vivid memories of family trips to impressive
places such as the Philadelphia Zoo. I remember Dad coming home with Rock ’em
Sock ’em Robots to remedy my chickenpox blues.
Hunkered over a car engine, or lying flat under the transmission, he yelled
at my failures even as he converted me from mechanical idiot into a savvy
technician. He taught me family comes first and other people second, and
everything else can be repaired or replaced.
My friends and I joke regularly about how, when one of us works on a
project such as a car, others gather to watch, chide the worker and chew the
fat.
We comment on how much we are becoming like our fathers.
I can only hope.
Editor’s note: This column was written by Mark Guydish hours before his
father, Jake, died at home at age 83.
Call Guydish at 459-2005 or email markg@leader.net