When I was growing up in the old mill town of Manchester, NH, three things were hugely important: French Canadian heritage, the rules and regalia of the Church, and the trappings of American patriotism.
What is left when the pillars of your childhood give way?
When it came to my heritage, the stakes were high. Many of us grew up in households that still spoke French, at least once in a while. Until I was school-age, I spoke to my mom and Memere (who lived with us) -- and my little brother! -- in French. English was for Dad, who had only a half share in our affections. Half of my school day until the 5th grade was conducted entirely in French. And no cheating: the nuns never translated for kids whose parents were laggards about transmitting the language. Sunday Mass, after we switched from Latin around 1964, was said in the vernacular, which Monseigneur Verrette, our pastor and long-time foe of assimilation, decided was French, not English. Even the old ladies in my neighborhood -- the ones that would give you nickels and Lifesavers for toting their grocery bags up the stairs -- were exclusively French speakers.
As far as religious and cultural life went, St. Georges Catholic Church was the only game in town. Or at any rate on my block. Mass, of course, was a Sunday obligation. I became an altar boy in second grade, a bit earlier than most boys. I learned quickly and eagerly when to bring the cruets of wine and water to the priest to mix into the chalice, where it would become the Blood of Christ. I could expertly hold a golden paten under a communicant's chin (to capture any stray, fallen crumbs of the communion wafer) without grazing their Adam's apple. I could scrape out the wax from the used votive candles from the racks in front of saints' statues and replace them with fresh candles. I could arrange the tall blue and white votive candles in front of the elaborate marble of the Assumption of the Virgin to make and "A" and "M" -- the letters of Ave Maria. I knew exactly the moment to ring the bells at the Consecration. I professed into the sanctuary like a serious soldier of Christ. In later years, I could expertly incense the priest and the assembly (except for that one time I dropped the censer and burnt a half-dollar-sized hole in the pastor's brand new scarlet sanctuary carpet.
And let's not forget patriotism. As a Cub Scouts, I learned to march -- forward march, about face and the rest -- so I could march with my pack in perfect file during Manchester's Memorial Day and Thanksgiving parades. This was before the day when 8 and 9 years old Cubs just walked down the street in an ragged, boyish disorder. We marched like the WWII soldiers who were our parents. I learned how to fold and American flag from my Dad, who with me and my brother would take down Old Glory at sunset during the summer. We celebrated Memorial Day with visits to the graves of our deceased relatives; the Fourth with sparklers and cookouts, and Thanksgiving with feasts of turkey, potatoes, pies and eggnog. In high school band, we learned to play the Star Spangled Banner so that our football games would not go unbaptized in patriotic fervor.
The amount of brain power that I have devoted to these activities is vast, and largely irreclaimable. Unlike with my iPhone, I don't have the option of deleting certain unused apps (say iFrench) to make room to load more useful ones, like the names of people I work with. The Quebecois French "module" in my brain is a permanent feature. I could let it rust, and mostly have, but that free any disk space. It's like a derelict house on the block that no one goes in anymore, but that no one knocks down for a new park or mini mall.
Likewise, the Church knowledge I gained sometimes seems like an archaic throwback to a lost time. The subjects that matter to me, to which I've give long thought over decades, are of little interest to all but a small group of church people. And even then! What's the use of knowing a slew of Bible stories when no one reads the Bible? Takes the fun out of it when you have to explain who Adam and Eve were, and that The Fall was not the season between summer and winter. It's not like I am some brilliant theologian, but I'd like the opportunity to banter about the virgin birth with someone who knows (or cares) about the difference between Mary and the Magi.
And as for patriotism, I have come a long way since I uncritically heard stories about cherry trees and happy autumn dinners and rail splitters. The Vietnam War was a great divider between those who gloried in America's long string of military victories and the namby-pamby losers and whiners who lost a war against peasants. For me, the American flag is still a sacred symbol, but my veneration has been tempered by its use as as weapon against foreign civilians and an excuse to torture our enemies. I don't even flinch, necessarily, when someone decides to set it on fire to protest some ill or other. It's a cloth that can be replaced, unlike the republic it stands for.
What does any of this mean? Well, the world changes. There is no guarantee that the totems of the past will have any significance to the next generation. Our store of memories, skills and values might not have value 10, 20 or 30 years after they have been painfully collected. We're hardly the first human beings who found that their youthful education meant precious little when they become adults. Consider colonial candle makers, or immigrants coming to America after fleeing Cossacks or drug dealers. Or ladies who made their own clothes. Or scholars who devoted years to studying ancient texts that command no community of believers.
I can't underestimate the sadness and frustration of seeing some of my most cherished memories go up in a puff of smoke. Today, I have stopped assuming that a coworkers with French surname has any clue that "Comment ca va?" means "how's it going?" and gives the satisfying reply, "Pas pire" (no worse). And apart from the sacrilegious custom of planting a statue of Saint Joseph in the lawn to speed the sale of a house, I no longer play the trivia game of "name that saint" when eyeing stained glass windows in a church. And let's not speak of today's cadre of semi-fascist "patriots" who make the hard-won nationalism of my parents seem tepid. My folks and their generation endured a world war and sacrificed food and durable goods for the cause. Today's patriots spend a buck on a car magnet or bumper sticker and practically count themselves among the Founding Fathers.
This must be a foretaste of the loneliness of old age, when all of ones friends and loved ones die off. When you can't communicate with the world that has changed other than to lapse into nostalgia or rail against old foes. Eye-roll territory, I know, having spend my share of time patiently listening to my elders' stories of past glories. I really don't want to end up like that, telling various and sundry of the Great Importance of the 1960s.
But it would sure help if I could clear some of these cobwebs!
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