TO EVERY SEASON

Late winter, 2016

(c) copyright 2016, Silver Rose Parnell

When I was about 15, I had a step father who wasn't quite as bad as the other  2 step fathers I'd had before him. He was a hardworking construction man from Texas and he came complete with a grandfather, which I had never had.

My father's father, a hard drinking, wiry, Irish lathe and plaster man, was completely absent from my father's life, having been in prison for a burglary that went wrong during the depression when everyone was desperate. Even my father never met him, and, by the time I figured out the genealogy, he was deceased.

My father's father, Edward Joseph Shea II,

His mother, Mary Alice Merkel Shea,

Grandpa's 3rd wife, Ruth

My mother's father, a Scottish/English miner from an illustrious California pioneer family, died of tuberculosis in the tiny little hospital in Johannesberg or Red Mountain, in the Mojave Desert, when my mother was a baby and her sister a toddler.  He had the lease of the Yellow Aster Mine in Randsberg, a mine that originally gave silver, then copper. It is a prominent fixture on the main street of that tiny town that used to be the home of 2,000 miners in a bustling tent city where my grandmother worked as a teenager in the Rand Hotel, serving hearty dinners to hungry men, and where she met my grandpa Jack.  Mrs. Wilson, who I interviewed in about 1978, had known him and my grandmother.  She said he was a handsome, tall man, and a really good dancer, down at the Grange Hall.

My mother's father, grandpa Jack

My step-grandfather was probably your typical Texas cattle man, but he had a small ranch in Sacramento where he would host us royally in his down-home, gruff, but loving way. One day he took us all out crawdad fishin' in the American River, or perhaps it was the Sacramento. It was so long ago now, I can't remember.

We came home with a big haul of crawdads and Grandpappy showed us how to clean them, bread them and fry them. It was an exotic experience for me, having been raised by an extremely glamorous mother with flaming red hair and sky-high heels who, although having grown up in a tiny Northern California town, had big city appetites. By the time she married grandpappy's son, she had adjusted her sights somewhat. She was ill with multiple sclerosis which had grown worse over the years, but during her marriage to my stepfather Rodney, her illness abated for a time. She must have been happy.  Later, she was not, and he became her 4th ex-husband.

One day we went pheasant huntin' with Grandpappy.  I think there were just the three of us: me, Rodney and Grandpappy.  My sister and my mother had no interest in hunting whatsoever. I loved the earthiness of it and enjoyed learning how to shoot, which I did fairly well.  We fanned out onto a field of tall yellow grasses on the ranch and began to flush out the birds. A gorgeous, fat, heavily plumed pheasant propelled itself into the clear sky directly in front of Grandpappy. Just at the apex of its takeoff, when the timing was perfect for the perfect shot, Grandpappy pushed the shotgun into his shoulder and pulled the trigger.  CLICK.

He had forgotten to load the gun.

We had a good laugh over that one, and he was embarrassed, of course, but it's a good family story, one of the very few that I possess.

During the summer, Rodney also took me with him on some of his construction jobs and taught me how to install "Best Tile" fully assembled shower and tub enclosures. At the height of the feminist "revolution," this was like a badge of honor. I was doing something that the boys typically did, but I wasn't very good at it and, if truth be told, my tastes ran to far more genteel pursuits. I appreciated the attention, though, of a father figure, as my own father was not interested in family. He wanted to chase women and hobbies, fame and money.

I also learned how to tie my own fishing "flies" using various threads, furs and feathers. Rodney taught me how to tie a really great "Truckee bug" and it worked well in the cool Northern California waters, even though it was a dowdy little gray fly. He paid for fly fishing lessons for me also, which I just loved. Cleaning the fish was never something I wanted to learn how to do, though, and I always managed to get someone else to take that duty, but finding and catching fish was so much fun, it was more fun than I had ever had in my whole life.

Trout

Water color by Silver Rose Parnell

(c) 2005, All rights reserved.

I live near the Rio Grande River now, close to numerous fishing spots, and it has made me nostalgic for the days when I learned to fish with my step father and later fished all over California with my husband. I have toyed with the idea of getting some fishing gear and a license. Now that I am disabled, I have tried to imagine what type of routine and gear I would need to address my numerous ailments so that the fishing would be fun and not a trial. A friend of mine from church is also interested. I have tried to calculate how this might also be helpful to the food budget.  I figured that, as long as I don't get complicated with my gear, it could be worth my while.

We have trout and bass, as well as catfish, and I like all three types of fish. Some of the nearby areas are stocked and some are wild. I began to get a little excited about the prospect.

Today I drove myself to a local dollar store, one of the many in this part of town, and one of the few that really only charges $1 for anything you buy. I didn't linger in the store, as the valves in the major vein in my left leg don't work, putting my entire leg to sleep if I'm on my feet longer than 10 or 15 minutes. That, combined with the arthritis, makes driving and shopping a painful exercise. I inherited these things from my mother, along with varicose veins and PTSD.

On the way home, I made a brief stop at a small health food store and bought some sourdough bread, a guilty pleasure of mine and something I have loved ever since my Grandmother Emzaella introduced it to us when she first moved to San Francisco and started bringing us big loaves of it whenever she came to visit.

By the time I arrived home, I was too exhausted to unpack the car.  I sat down in my big old recliner "for a couple of minutes" and, 4 hours later, woke up feeling as if I had come back from the dead. My entire body was wracked with pain, reminding me that, without pain medicine, I am in much worse shape than I like to remember.

It suddenly hit me. Just like Grandpappy 47 years ago, my gun isn't loaded. I have used up all my ammunition over the course of almost 62 years and, while the imagination is fresh and keen, I don't have what it takes to get that pheasant, or the fish, or whatever.

At times like this, when I encounter my limitations and lack of options, I am tremendously grateful to God for leading me into the Catholic Church where everything in my life takes on a glorious meaning. My gun may not be loaded, but I can offer this difficulty to the Lord, and thereby participate in his suffering with my suffering. I join my sacrifice to His for the sake of the salvation of my soul and the souls of others who cry and groan under the weight of their own crosses.

I also know that, although I am going blind and losing abilities rapidly, it is not the end of the story. It is not the end of me. While a more worldly minded person may feel as if they had been a failure in life, if they were in my shoes, I rather think the opposite. I have come to a glorious end if, indeed, the end is near (one never knows.) I have hope in the promises of Christ. I trust Him and look forward to spending eternity with Him in that brilliant place we call heaven, where the righteous who have repented and lived in a holy manner, according to his commandments, can count on the beatific vision.

My future may not hold more adventures in the fields catching pheasant, or in the streams catching fish, but it does hold the promises of Christ, thanks be to God.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) Copyright 2016
All rights reserved.