This is my journal entry for today, my 40th birthday:
(Explanations reserved for darker corners of my notes to self.)
Today I followed through on something planned in childhood. I read Donald Justice’s poem “Men at Forty” to see how it resonates today compared to when I first found it over 25 years ago.
MEN AT FORTY Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to. At rest on a stair landing, They feel it moving Beneath them now like the deck of a ship, Though the swell is gentle. And deep in mirrors They rediscover The face of the boy as he practices tying His father's tie there in secret And the face of the father, Still warm with the mystery of lather. They are more fathers than sons themselves now. Something is filling them, something That is like the twilight sound Of the crickets, immense, Filling the woods at the foot of the slope Behind their mortgaged houses.
I do not find this poem grand and lofty like when I read it so many times at 13 or 14 years of age, but I still like it. The language falls a little flat for me, and the “mortgaged houses” come through like an unwelcome return from reverie to reality.
Funny, I felt the same about those words at 14 as I do today, though I may have lacked the words to articulate that criticism.
I forgot the lines about rediscovering the face of the boy in the mirror. I do that. I see the boy not just in my mirror but in the faces of men I know who would seem to have moved far along from childhood. Few things change about a person as the years gather, and the man at 40 differs little from the boy at 12.
The line “They are more fathers than sons themselves now” seemed ominous to me as a young person, suggesting that fatherhood transformed a person in ways beyond their control. Indeed, that sense of dread seems to have sustained and even fulfilled itself. I think I would make a good father, but I have managed to avoid any situation in which fatherhood was even a remote likelihood.
The opening lines have, in numerous circumstances, proven to be words to live by. I don’t think of it as verse, but as advice: “Close softly doors to rooms you will no longer use” is a metaphor that reaches into all manner of circumstances, whether I am leaving a place or a place is leaving me.
“Something is filling them” are the words from this poem that have sustained their strength over time. This line has surfaced in my mind thousands of times since childhood. Something is filling me, and maybe this “something” will finally cull the echoes of youth that linger in my mind like wind chimes.
I feel that that “something” complements the “Western Wind” of the great 16th century anonymous poem (which I prefer in ye Olde Englysh):
WESTRON WYND Westron wynd, when wilt thou blow The smalle rain down can rain Christ yf my love were in my arms And I yn my bed again
In the anonymous poem the western wind symbolizes death itself, or its inevitability. To me the “something” of Donald Justice’s poem represents the distractions (euphemistically re-named “achievements”) that occur before death, or the fulfillment of a life’s earthly promise.
My love for the Westron Wynd poem comes partly from how I found it: Randomly. In 1992 or 1993 I discovered the “finger” command. If you typed “finger sorabji@panix.com” and hit enter you could read my .plan file. For years my .plan file contained a long poem by Ed Dorn, at other times it contained pithy quotes and dada-esque nonsense.
I will not get off on the tangent of what a .plan is or what “finger” does except to say that I believe the .plan represents the Internet’s first blogging platform.
Having spotted their e-mail address on Usenet I “fingered” someone in a far-off country (I think it was Korea). My screen went dark except for those four lines of poetry and the “anonymous” signature. It was dramatic how the screen completely cleared, save for the poem, and it was astonishing how this poem (itself reaching me across so many centuries) had traveled completely around the world from Seoul to my screen in New York.
After all these years of virtually living online I find that I still do not take for granted the miracle of electronic communication.
∞
thunderstruck
adj 1: as if struck dumb with astonishment and surprise; “a
circle of policement stood dumbfounded by her denial of
having seen the accident”; “the flabbergasted aldermen
were speechless”; “was thunderstruck by the news of his
promotion” [syn: dumbfounded, dumfounded,
flabbergasted, stupefied, thunderstruck,
dumbstruck, dumbstricken]
My first memory of “thunderstruck” is from high school. Competing in a piano competition, my repertoire included Chopin’s “Polonaise-Fantaisie,” Op. 61.
Working on slightly mis-guided principles that were typical of my youth I chose this late Chopin piece for its relative obscurity and for what I thought of as its inaccessibility. As a high schooler growing up in Tampa I felt safe in my belief that no one else my age was playing this thing. This being true as far as my immediate circles extended I let myself believe that I and only I owned this large scale, oh-so-serious Chopin piece.
In school it was common to feel that only one among us could play such-and-so a composition, this being especially true for the larger scale concerti and sonatas. Everyone played the same études and shorter pieces, but when someone announced their plan to learn the Brahms First Concerto there was an unspoken rule that no one else would learn that piece at that time.
It seemed a matter of pride and ownership, though it was also a matter of balance for the piano teachers. If 3 of a teacher’s students were learning the same Brahms concerto it would get tedious for the teacher and for the teacher’s studio: Master classes would become repetitive, and the value of learning from your peers would diminish.
My teacher at the time questioned why I wanted to learn the Polonaise-Fantaisie, asking what I saw in it, what I thought about while playing it, and other diplomatic ways of suggesting that I could better myself as a pianist by tackling a more recognizable composition.
In later years I would accuse myself of choosing that work as a way of making myself look intellectual. I imagined the work obscure enough that I could fool competition judges and audiences alike. If I could maintain the appearance that I knew the music better than they then who were they to judge my playing?
Sitting in the audience at that piano competition, listening to other contestants, a Korean woman sat down and dug into Chopin’s “Polonaise-Fantaisie.” My jaw dropped, and my head sat straight up on my neck. I remember my hair coming out of its gel. I simply could not fathom another pianist learning my Chopin “Polonaise-Fantaisie.” In my world it was I who brought that piece to others, and it was I who carried the torch of greater exposure for this relatively arcane piece.
My mother, later that day, described me as “thunderstruck.” The definitions available here seem fitting, if a bit over the top. “Floored” could be the closest word to match, though “thunderstruck” is only the headline. The significance of my reaction travels through other words: Haughty alone is too strong a word, but “Haughty insecurity” balances the bad side of my attitude with the näive. “Callow” seems like a direct hit.
(WordNet 2.0 includes the sentence “a callow youth of seventeen” in its definition, coincidentally invoking my exact age at the time of the “Polonaise-Fantaisie” thunder-stroked incident).
I could be embarrassed to recount this incident, as it would seem to reveal my selfishness. But I think it reveals little more than generic high school vanity, callowness and all. That mentality of ownership did not travel into my adulthood, and today it seems inappropriate to feel possessive about music written by composers other than yourself.
∞
I was seven years old in the summer of 1975. At a hotel in Bangkok, I was with my family among a herd of Americans ordered to evacuate Laos. Hundreds of Americans, mostly military, filled the lobbies and halls of the hotel (wish I could remember which one).
Activities were organized to keep us young people occupied. A conference room became a movie theater where we watched American television (something I had little memory of ever seeing until then). I sat with the other youngsters on the floor toward the front of the room. My mother sat with the grown-ups toward the back of the room.
The room was dark.
At some point this is what I thought happened: I thought my mother stood up, walked to the front of the room, stood in front of me and looked into her purse asking “Where did I put them?”
Sitting cross-legged on the floor she looked unbelievably tall to me, her face barely visible in the darkness of the room. Standing in front of the bright movie screen her face was further obscured by shadows.
I said something to acknowledge her question, and she stepped from the room into the corridor where brighter lights let her see inside her purse.
Her leaving like this did not make sense to me. Minutes passed and she did not return. I repeatedly turned away from the movie screen and toward the door, expecting to see my mother return, losing track of whatever was playing on the screen.
I don’t know how much time elapsed, but after some time I stood up and went into the corridor to find her.
The problem was that that was not my mother. My mother, sitting at the back of the room, was looking right at me the moment I stood up and left the room. Puzzled as to why I just up and left without saying anything, and concerned about a 7 year old wandering around a vast hotel at a chaotic time, she came after me.
She found me looking over a railing at the crowds of people milling around in the lobby below.
She asked what I was doing. I explained “I thought you left!”
I explained what I thought had just happened, describing the woman with the purse.
My mother thought this incident extremely odd. For her part she had no memory of seeing anybody but me leave that room, and maybe she was a bit miffed that I would mistake someone else for her. How could I not recognize my own mother? I probably lacked words to articulate that this other woman’s face was in the dark and that was why I didn’t recognize her. “She sounded like you!” I remember saying.
I remembered this incident today (speaking of faces) after a correspondence with the author of Faces of Laos, an unusual picture book I found in my father’s desk drawer after he died.
I have known of this book for as long as I can remember. I saw it on the coffee table in the living room in Vientiane, and it appeared on bookshelves and in drawers throughout my childhood. It was always kept in a safe or prominent place.
Seeing the pictures again after at least 2 decades I was amazed at their quality. As a child I did not recognize their artistic merits, nor did I understand their significance. Numerous searches through library card catalogues and publishers’ catalogues returned no information about this book. Internet searches on the author’s name and other identifying information from this slim volume also returned nothing.
I scanned the pages of the book and posted the series to my web site. I did this mostly because I felt these amazing pictures should be seen, but I also did it with the vague hope of making random contact with Americans stationed in Laos in the early and mid 1970s.
Months later I got a letter at my Post Office Box from none other than the photographer himself. His son had stumbled across the pictures and sent him the web address. George Archer was happy to see these pictures on the web and declared no commercial interest in the book or the pictures, quelling my concerns about copyright and such.
Last week another correspondence came, this time from the author’s former wife. It was she who organized the photos and coördinated a gallery showing of the photos at the American-Lao Binational Center in 1973, and she was equally if not more excited than her former husband to see the pictures online.
She was also, I find myself thrilled to know, the dedicatee of the book. The identity of “mela” was a mystery that nagged at me any time I saw that page. Though not a source of deep dismay I thought this tiny mystery would get lost in time — if it had not been lost already.
I found this book in the desk drawer in which my father stored significant objects and mementos. This drawer contained pictures of my sister and me, military medals and honors, and other such things. The presence of “The Faces of Laos” in this place of honor surprised me at first, as my father was not much for the arts or photography. But he was proud of his two tours of duty in Laos, and I know he recognized the uniqueness of this volume.
∞
Trying to erase from my memory the sounds of yesterday.
Filling the stairwell of my apartment building, a woman cried “DON’T DIE ON ME I NEED YOU OH NO!”
Catherine’s father died.
Fire trucks and ambulances appeared outside my window. Noticing this I was alarmed to see a stream of firefighters and medics file in to this building. I opened the front door of my apartment to see a grim parade of uniformed young men headed upstairs. Their lack of urgency seemed to betray the fact that none thought they were on a rescue mission.
Catherine yelled “YOU CAN’T BE DEAD IS HE DEAD?”
One of the medics perfunctorily assured her “We’re working on him.”
Her screams were gut-wrenching to hear. They filled this building and wafted into the street outside. She was not dying but it felt like she was, as if her screams were his. I remembered my own reactions when, standing on this very spot, I took word that my father had shot himself through the head. Catherine, though we hardly know each other, had been so kind to me in talking about that.
Ten minutes later I looked out the window again and saw Catherine standing in front of the building, her face raped by tears, turning around aimlessly, joking about her (and her dad’s) illegally parked car. “Look at that! Our car is there! Haha!”
The body lies in state until a detective arrives to investigate and rule out foul play. Natural deaths receive lowest priority over murders and suspicious circumstances. Sometimes the family, with nowhere else to go, stares at the corpse for hours until blood and pus burst from their father’s eyes. A police officer acquaintance of mine (who explained all this to me) described cleaning blood from a body’s face and eyes so a daughter could give her father a good-bye kiss before the detectives arrived and took the body away.
I looked out the window and saw the stream of firefighters and medics who had recently entered the building proceed to get back into their vehicles. I expected to see the body taken out, but the ambulances drove away empty. I remembered then that these first responders likely left the body in place for others to evaluate. To be honest this made me a little uncomfortable, and I left this building for a while.
It seemed like something should have stopped, but nothing did. Looking out the window I saw the man across the street getting ready to go to work as a limo driver. A man I’ve spoken with but whose name I do not know walked past hurriedly, as is usual for him. The hum of yellow cabs and other traffic resumed after the firemen re-opened the street. It was nice to think that at the very least a city street would be shut in recognition of one’s passage. Catherine left from the building to stay with family somewhere else. As soon as quiet returned to this building I heard people coming home, talking and laughing in the hallways, unaware of the earlier events.
Looking out the window today I think I saw a detective come through this building, taking pictures and seeming to gather facts from the owner of this property. Or maybe not. Maybe the old man’s body lies there now, exploding.
∞
I got a job organizing confessions that were either non-coerced or
not given under oath. I am unclear of the status of these confessions
or of their value, but the job interested me enough to make an elaborate
2-trains-and-a-bus commute to the office.
The subway train conductor announces the World Trade Center stop. I take
the escalator to the WTC Concourse, which I find either fully restored or
never destroyed. The buildings are gone but I find myself looking up for
them.
I realized I left my bag on the train. The bag, and a scrap of paper
in particular, had the information about my new job. It was the only way I
could know where to go, who to call, or the name of the company. I
remembered none of these things.
An emptiness filled me, and in the mental weakness of the moment I
imagined that this paradox presented a philosophical abyss that none
could rationalize.
I went back down to the subway to see if I could find the bag, realizing
then that there never was a bag, that the job I wanted was in the Twin
Towers, and that the scrap of paper I sought disappeared 15 years from
now.
Filled with emptiness. Awake it sounds like a feeble philosophical
dilemma, even a cliché. In the dream it caused dry heaves of the
soul, which come to think of it sounds like another cliché.
∞
For as often as I have wandered the grounds of Calvary and other New York City cemeteries I have, with the exception of groundskeepers and cemetery workers, never approached any live person. I go to these places (Calvary in particular) for the distractions of personal histories, not to meet and mingle.
With some trepidation I walked up to a gentleman at Calvary on Saturday. He did not appear to be mourning an ancestor. He was taking pictures — lots and lots of pictures — of the mighty Johnston Mausoleum, a structure that has interested me for many years.
The Johnston Mausoleum is bigger than many houses. It is so large that it would appear to have functioned not just as a crypt but as a full chapel. Conspicuously visible to drivers on the nearby Kosckiuszko Bridge, this great tomb even makes an appearance in “The Godfather” (See my then-and-now analysis of the funeral scene of that movie here).
I approached the man at Calvary because of his apparent interest in the mausoleum, and to ask if he knew anything about it. I thought he might be a researcher or historian. He knew as much as I, meaning nothing. I offered up my theory, based on a burst of misguided research I did about a year ago, and that ended our conversation.
Having never met anyone with a mutual interest in this palatial crypt I found that the encounter, however pointless, re-energized my interest in the question of who built the majestic Johnston Mausoleum.
I found my answer, and the story is indeed interesting, as the tomb is occupied by prince and pauper alike.
|
John Johnston, the head of the dry goods firm of J. & C. Johnston, Broadway and Twenty-second-street, and one of the best known merchants of this city, died of heart disease Sunday evening at his residence, 7 West Fifty-third-street. He was born on the banks of Lake Erne, County Fermanagh, Ireland, in 1834, and came to America in 1847. Settling in New-York, he obtained a situation with Ubsdell & Pierson, engaged in the dry goods trade on Canal-street, remained with them for 17 years, during which time his sterling qualities secured him rapid promotion, and in 1864 left their employ and, with capital saved during his term of service, started the present house of J. & C. Johnston, on the corner of Ninth-street and Broadway. The depreciation of values following the close of the war caused widespread mercantile disaster during the earlier years of the firm’s existence, but Mr. Johnston’s able management and rare financial ability carried it safely through this very critical period, which saw the downfall of many old-established houses.
|
John Johnston died May 17, 1887, seven years after brother Charles and seventeen years before his other brother Robert A. Johnston. John Johnston’s full obituary from the New York Times (which I transcribed) appears to the right, and summarizes the life and fortunes of a man much loved and respected by his peers.
John Johnston led the J. & C. Johnston company, and the J. & C. Johnston department store at Broadway and Twenty-Second Street was a popular source for dress silks and other fabrics. The store was among the most successful of its time, prospering during an era when similar companies frequently went bankrupt.
The fortunes of J. & C. Johnston took a drastic turn for the worse after John Johnston’s passing. Responsibility for the company passed to Robert A. Johnston, at whose helm the business failed. The bleak account of Robert A. Johnston’s demise, also transcribed from a New York Times obituary, recounts a spectacular fall from grace:
“Mr. Johnston possessed millions when the business came to him through the death of his brothers, but he lost all in a few years, and in 1888 the house went out of existence. He retired to his palatial home at Mount St. Vincent, on the Hudson. Later the place was sold at foreclosure and the house burned, the owner having a narrow escape. Since then he had lived alone in a barn on the property, refusing charity. He was found sick with pneumonia and insane ten days ago.”
This obituary makes tantalizing reference to the mighty structure that has fascinated me for years: “[Robert Johnston's] body … will be immured in the magnificent family mausoleum built many years ago at a cost of $300,000 in Calvary Cemetery.”
The dismal circumstances of Robert Johnston’s death did not cost him a space in the family mausoleum. The mausoleum’s presence today echoes the success and personal fortunes of the Johnston name while housing the man who wasted it.
No mention of survivors is made in any of the Times obits for the Johnston brothers. The obit for John Johnston says he died of “heart disease” while the write-up of the funeral service says that he “died suddenly.” The latter words, I know from experience, are often code for saying that a death was a suicide.
That is just some gawky speculation, though. I am good at gawky speculation. I expect to fill in more and better facts for this story.
This story may interest me far more than anyone else, but it is nice to share for anyone else interested in the story behind the great Johnston Mausoleum at Calvary. I have several photos of the structure at the Mausoleums and Stained Glass section of my Cemeteries and Graveyards photo series.
∞
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