Ambling on an Ash Wednesday

Waukegan 7 March 1962

‘What are you giving up for Lent, Marc?’

‘Elephant hunting, Mother.’

They ambled arm-in-arm down Poplar Street after morning Mass on the Holy Day of Obligation. The day was grey and gloomy, as Ash Wednesdays always were. Mrs. Gillette wore a heavy grey coat and black woollen headscarf; her son a grey serge suit and white starched shirt ‘enlivened’ with a black tie, waistcoat and fedora. Besides the simulated sackcloth, both wore the black ashes symbolising mortality, mourning and penance on their foreheads.

‘Lent is serious!’

‘Sombre’s the word.’

Indeed, it was.

Ash Wednesday was the first day of Lententide. The night before, Shrove Tuesday, in the miserable winter of the Midwestern United States, had no festive Flesh and Fantasy Mardi Gras costumed procession, carnival (‘carne vale’, a farewell to the flesh; putting aside the body) and masked romances with midnight unmasking to the sound of bells…In Waukegan, as in school, the fun was taken out of everything. ‘Waukegan’ and ‘extravaganza’ were polar opposites…Ici mals-vivant…The only ‘treat’ was Mother making pancakes.

‘Would you like some suggestions?’

It was She-who-must-be-obeyed’s favourite phrase…

Lententide, the 40 days before Easter, was ‘celebrated’ by giving up something you liked as a sign of sacrifice and testing self-discipline. It was based on Jesus Christ's time in the wilderness where he went to pray, fast and be tempted by Satan for 40 days before later dying on the cross.

Marc’s time in the wilderness was Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe. He parachuted into Occupied France prior to the Invasion and gave the Germans the devil with the French Forces of the Interior. He didn’t die for the Cause, as so many others did; he’d been tempted, had involuntarily fasted and amidst the dangers and horrors, prayed more, yet had the most fun in his entire life. He did the most fascinating things and met the most incredible people there. It was rough on his parents because he was unable to correspond with them.

‘Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said, “Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are a good reminder that the purpose of life is not pleasure.”’

Wartime France taught him everything about austerity and sacrifice.

He kept it to himself that missing his regular weekdaily Breakfast with Bugs Bunny seemed sacrifice enough. His morning ritual was laughing at cartoons as he ate Trix cereal and drank coffee from a TV tray and watching the neighbourhood gang of children trudge to school from the window. His own neighbourhood gang were Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Sniffles and the others, hosted by an eccentric who wore reminder notes of things he was supposed to do pinned on his old Army Air Forces flight suit.

Marc also forewent his hour of brisk walking or bicycling in fair weather through his quiet neighbourhood after Bugs Bunny as well as his Trix, soup-and-sandwich lunch and in the one meal allowed for the day’s fasting, he couldn’t eat meat.

‘Will you give up going to daily Mass, Mother?’

‘That’s very disrespectful.’

‘Do many men go to daily Mass?’

She knew that he knew that was her social club. She had coffee and chats with the other women after the service as Marc watched his morning movie.

‘You could give up television.’

‘What would I do for all those hours? I always do household chores and the like.’

‘You do.’

‘Do you want me to get a job somewhere?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I’d never suggest you give up the telephone.’

Had she known he’d enter various shops to enjoy recalling memories and commercials, pondering, eventually choosing, then eating a chocolate bar, she would have demanded he give them up.

Small pleasures were their great treasures…

‘I feel good having you back home, even if you’re watching television.’

‘Like the old DuMont show, television is my “Window on the World”…the past and the future as well…’, he warmly smiled, ‘and I can see them all from “back home”’.

He returned home after President Kennedy made his superfluous Federal Government unit lucratively redundant to be replaced by who the Democrat-run media called ‘The New Frontiersmen’ but who his cohorts called ‘Ivy League Punks’. His peers were glad, as they wanted to spend the rest of their lives fishing. He hadn’t expected to retire for at least another decade, but the redundancy made it worthwhile. Initially fearing retirement, he was enjoying his second childhood in his old neighbourhood with fine health, enough money, and all the spare time in the world.

‘I’m grateful to be with you, Mother. Gratitude is penance in advance.’

‘C.S. Lewis said, “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” It wasn’t too long after your father died that you came back home.’

They held each other’s hands and squeezed.

As they walked down Massena Avenue to Chestnut Street, they saw two brown rabbits scamper across a lawn; the rabbits stopped to look at them.

‘They know a secret, Marc…Spring is on its way!’

Marc squeezed his mother’s hand again.

‘It’s wonderful to be together’, Mrs. Gillette remarked.

‘I believe the bunnies feel the same…’

FIN

Author Notes: Happy Easter!

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