We spent a lot of time this month helping my Uncle Mickey move out of his apartment. His health has deteriorated considerably since I took him to the hospital back in July. He’s been in and out a couple of times since then and is currently there, undergoing physical therapy. He’s in no shape to take care of himself so he’s moving into a nursing home.
Mickey is my Mom’s younger brother. He lived every day exactly as he wanted to and that never included taking care of himself. He ate well, drank like the Irishman he is and ignored his health, even as it began to decline. He gave up drinking a few months back but at this point, I’m not sure it makes a difference. In fact, once we get him settled in the nursing home, I hope he takes it up again. What’s the downside?
Since he won’t be going back to his apartment, my Mom, sisters and I spent several days sorting out his stuff. He’s not going to need most of it but we wanted to make sure he had whatever he wanted.
It was ghoulish enough, going through Uncle Bruce’s home after he died. Mickey’s not even dead! We all felt pretty creepy, going through the place, trying to figure out what he needed, what he didn’t, what was useful to someone else and what was junk.
It got me thinking, though. My Mom had three brothers and they’re all legends in this town.
Pat was her oldest brother and my godfather. He was on the Minneapolis Police department for 30 years, finishing up as a homicide detective. Growing up, we knew he was a cop, of course but to us, he was just Uncle Pat: master story teller and amateur magician. He turned rocks and pennies into bubble gum. He never had any kids of his own but he spoiled his nieces and nephews with bubble gum. Turns out, any kid in the neighborhood who rang his bell and presented him with a rock could get it turned into bubble gum or a piece of penny candy. He was known throughout the neighborhood as the Candy Man. When other kids found out he was our uncle, it made us minor celebrities.
In 1974, he was Police Officer of the Year. He never made a big deal about that, so we didn’t either but a year or so ago (thirty years after Pat retired), an officer told Zack that Pat Hartigan is a legend on the MPD.
Bruce was my Mom’s second oldest brother. He was a lawyer; a defense attorney who became a judge.
My favorite story about Bruce is the one where he was having an argument with a judge in chambers during a trial. The argument wasn’t going Bruce’s way so he picked up the judge’s phone and called another judge. When he got him on the line, Bruce said “I always thought you were the biggest horse’s ass to ever sit on the bench but I STAND CORRECTED!”
Everyone in the state of Minnesota who has anything to do with the legal profession has heard or told Moose Hartigan stories.
They’re all true.
Mickey wasn’t a big, silent hero/kids favorite, like Pat or a flamboyant, theatrical litigator like Bruce but he too, left his mark on this burg. He never got a driver’s license but took the bus or walked everywhere and I mean everywhere in town, all hours of the day and night. He was known Uptown, Downtown and his own neighborhood. He was a night owl who loved to walk around Lake Harriet, smoking a cigar, in the dead of night. If you ever got busted by a leprechaun while trying to make out in a parked car by one of the lakes, you’ve met Uncle Mickey. He’s the only one in the family who appeared in a documentary about Prince.
And yet, all of their legends pale in comparison to that of their sister, Punkin Hubbell.
But that’s a post for another day.
It seems that much of this younger generation has no use or sympathy for people and events of the past. This is a tragedy which struck me like a fist while going through Mickey’s apartment. Just for my family alone, there were photos, knick knacks and furniture with stories behind them. Stories of our ancestors, which form who we are and therefore who our children are, whether they acknowledge them or not.
Pictures of my grandmother as a little girl, with seven of her eight sisters in ancient bathing suits and caps, on an expedition to the beach. Her father, tired of waiting for a son, named his girls Edwina, Wilhelmina, Germaine and Theodora. My mom’s Aunts Eddie, Teddy and Jimmy. My grandma was Billie.
I now have a thick book of the Manual of the Legislature of Minnesota, 1919.
1919. World War I had ended but the influenza epidemic would kill millions. How many of those foolish youngsters pulling down statues of ‘dead, white men’ know any of that?
I took the book and will keep it so that I can show my grand children the picture on page 784 of their Great, Great, Great Grandfather, William Ignatius Nolan, who was a member of that legislature and in fact, Speaker of the House that session.
Chances are pretty good he was a racist who would have opposed same sex marriage, had anyone thought to ask back in those days. All I know for sure is that he was my Great Grandfather and without him, there would be no Boopity Boop.
If we can’t learn from our mistakes, then we can not learn at all. History teaches us to learn from our mistakes. If we destroy our history, we destroy our ability to learn; we destroy ourselves.
That would be a mistake from which our descendants may not be able to recover.
A bunch of us visited Mickey at the care facility the other day. Katie smuggled in some dark chocolate, which he’d been craving. His physical therapist came in to tell him he had to get to work. She asked if we were all relatives. Mickey said “yes, these are all my nieces.” She asked if he had any nephews and everyone in the room burst out laughing.
“There are a lot of us.” Molly said (understatement of the day). I’ve never counted Mickey’s nieces and nephews but let’s just say that if we all showed up, he’d need a much bigger room.
Once we get him settled in his new digs, I’m going to offer to bring him some good whiskey.
It would be the least I could do.