February 6, 2020

Rabbit Hole

Dad wrote me an email today.

There’s nothing unusual about that, really. His correspondence has decreased over the years. He used to be an avid letter-writer—and a good one. He took to email OK, but his electronic epistles never reached the quality of his snail-mail ones. In the last few years, I don’t get much communication from him. He’ll turn 82 this month, and he’s been losing his hearing for a awhile now which makes phone calls or FaceTime difficult. Like many elderly folks, Dad seems to be withdrawing from the world gradually.

Part of his recent difficulties have involved some memory loss. I attribute 90% of this to alcohol. That said, he stopped drinking in 2014 and his cognitive abilities have much improved. However, there are some blanks in his memory which is where today’s email comes in.

Specifically, Dad asked me about two events that he any I attended together: his brother Elwood’s funeral in 1998 and his sister’s memorial in 2014. His request was simple: “When you have the time, I would really appreciate some details, starting with dates.” No problem, right?

I went looking for artifacts that could help my own memory. I knew I was in grad school when Elwood died, but I couldn’t find anything else to help. The trip to Ohio was a bit easier. Dad, as he is wont to do, started telling me stories. About half-way through the first one, I realized that my iPhone could record him, so I got about thirty minutes of goodness, dated August 15, 2014—a day (I think) before the memorial.

That’s not the rabbit hole, however.

While searching for said artifacts, I began to uncover other digital bits of nostalgia, including a PDF called “Descendants of Thomas Schley” prepared by Thomas W. Lucas, Sr.