That’s my granddad and grandma.  They came over from Italy.  They are the first family I remember except for my mother.  Family is important and fleeting and becoming more distant.  

 

I am a father and a husband. Beyond that it is much less clear. I had polio in 1952. Walked with braces and crutches most of my life. I grew up in my young years in Glen Burnie, Md. when such a place still grew tobacco. I went to school mostly with regular kids. The system kept wanting to put me in with the “Special Kids” but fortunately for me my test grades were just a little too high and I had Godzilla Mom - my forever secrete weapon. She was and still is my best advocate.

I still remember my first day in what was then called Jr. High [seventh grade to those of you born to late for the really good stuff.] I was devastated to discover that I had been placed in the lowest grouping [7-4 the bone head kids.] Now I was never what you would call a stellar student. Matter of fact there was probably more than enough educational evidence to justify my placement but they didn’t know about Godzilla Mom. Now Mom was a first generation immigrant from Northern Italy. Granddad or Papa as we knew him had come over from the old country to help out with the family boot legging business when Fascism was invading Italy. Mom knew how to handle problems of all kinds. She was no small woman even back then. She worked in a shirt factory ten hours a day and talked rough and looked even rougher. The principal of Sabraton Jr. High back then was a puny little man named Mr. Twigg. He was totally feared by every one. He walked around the school with a paddle strapped to his belt. Everyone took notice of the holes drilled in the paddle—”The better to offset wind resistance” we all speculated. I’ll never forget my second day at Jr. High. Now my mother never missed worked—never, ever missed work—no work, no pay. But this day my mother called in busy. Off to school we went. Late bell had already rung when we got there. Uncle John had to drive us because no body in our family drove back then. All the tardy kids were lined up at the principal’s office hoping and praying that their trumped up excuse would be good enough to save them from the dreaded aerodynamic paddle. My mother (from whom I inherited my serious lack of standing in line skills), pushed her way to the front with me in tow.

“Mr. Twigg, my name is Josephine Holmes (Mother was prone to remarriage—her maiden name was Bauraflo—no really. That's another story I’ll tell you in a moment.) and you have made a big mistake.”

Little did he know! Now my name was Fuller (being the son of my mother’s first husband) so Twigg had no idea what was happening.

 “I beg your pardon. I am right in the middle . . . “ Twigg tried to protest.

"I don’ta give a little shit what you are in the middle of.” my mother explained, “Right now you are right in the middle of me.”

And with that she grabbed me by the shoulder and drug me to the front. I was dying of embarrassment. I was so embarrassed that the other kids were embarrassed for me. Looking back I was a fool - an idiot - not deserving in the least of such a magnificent counselor. Needless to say I sprang from 7-4s to 7-1s that day and became an immediate celebrity in the seventh grade. Twigg dismissed all the other kids and told them to get back to class. To this day that must remain one of the most remarkable educational advancements in Monogalia County history.

The whole point my mother was making was that I had to go to college and I damn sure wasn’t getting there from 7-4s. My mother told me I was going to go college from as early as I could remember. I can still vividly see her standing over the kitchen sink doing the supper dishes as I did my homework at the table.

“You can’t go to the mines,” she’d say, “You will just have to go to college.”

 It was almost a lament. I had grown up most of my life in a small coal town just about 7 miles south of Morgantown, WV called Richard. Most of my relatives mined coal, my uncles, my cousins and later even some of my nieces. They all mined coal or got welfare. I would be the first in my family to go to college. Hell I was just the second or third to finish high school. It took a while but I finally figured out it was all about the polio. If I hadn’t of had polio I’d be starving to death because there is no way I would ever mine coal.

I enrolled at WVU in the Fall of 1970. I was going to be a biologist. Geez, who knows where that came from? I had a wild crush on my 12th grade biology teacher. The things that shape our lives can be very humorous in retrospect. But I was a child of the sixties [no less than the trees and the stars.]  I alone ,if necessary, would change the world. Fortunately I had a wonderful student advisor who in the latter part of my sophomore year called me to her office.

“Look you really don’t seem to being having any fun at this. You sure its biology for you?”

About a week later I was a happy little sophomore majoring in Social Work. At that time WVU was one of the few programs in the nation to offer an undergraduate degree in Social Work. Remember now, these were the days of the Appalachian Regional Commission and the War on Poverty. We studied Mother Jones and the coal field strikes. We were going to defeat poverty and work for welfare rights. I even became the first non-senior to head the prestigious Students for Appalachian Progress, a group of college age hippies who went into the coal camps to tutor grade school kids in reading and math. We were all appropriately outraged at the conditions and worked summers repairing the tar paper shacks that had no running water and no indoor plumbing.

Wasn’t it Churchill who said, “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart and not a conservative by 40 you have no head.” Maybe it was Mark Twain. I got married for the first time in college. I had a lot of firsts in college. Actually it was the first time I ever understood the value of life long learning or realized that I was very, very different for being disabled. Somewhere about half way through my Junior year in a creative writing course I realized that my family could never share my life. I would always be able to go home and share theirs but they would never again understand who I had become.

So now some fifty years or so further down the line I find my self speeding up the East Coast on an Acela Train destined for Providence to spend the holidays with our children trying desperately to fore stall that inevitable gap that seems to grow between parents and their children.  My wife Annie is better at this than I am.  She is much more steadfast, which I have discovered over the years is a trait every child seems to desire from a parent.  I on the other hand tend to be a bit more of a moving target.  Never meant for it to be that way.  It just seemed to happen - part coincidence and part impatience. 

Now I most enjoy watching people.  Most interesting creatures and not two alike anywhere it seems.  It appears there are many similarities and predictable consequences among people but in fact everyone seems to react differently.  As I was growing up one of my boyhood friends was a fellow about my age named Rusty Hagedorn.  He was called Rusty because of his dull red hair.  I'm not sure I actually ever knew his real name but it may have been George.  In some ways Rusty is as responsible for my success as I am.  He taught me many valuable lessons growing up - among them was hitch hiking, (a skill that would come in most handy when my first wife and I struck off across Pennsylvania headed for Rutgers to visit her brother one Spring Break in 74) drinking beer and staying out late enough to make your Mom really angry.  We met in the fifth grade as far as I can remember.  The family moved back to the little coal village known as Richard about seven or eight miles south of Morgantown around 1960 or 61.  I went into the forth grade for a very short while but that school year must have quickly come to an end because there aren't many memories.  I remember Richard Elementary School for its three room - six grades two groups to a teacher - organization.  Mr. and Mrs. Dunn taught third and forth and fifth and sixth grades respectively.  Her third and forth. Him fifth and sixth.  I met Rusty in the fifth grade.  He was the bastard son of a drunken father and a deaf mother.  The family lived deep in the woods on a hill above the village.  Stories said it was the old house of the mine foreman.  I don't know about that but the place was a broken down dump when Rusty and his parents lived there.  They were so poor we even knew they were poor and that is saying something since everyone was about a payday from the poorhouse in rural West Virginia back then. 

Rusty and I used to wait for dark so we could go cruise the ally behind the houses and look for mischief.  Now honestly there wasn't much and by today's standards anything we ever did was more than mild, but we loved it.  We would smoke cigarettes and steal empty soda bottles from Mrs. Tarantinni's store to take them to my Aunt Virgie's little hotdog stand. At a nickel a pop we were making every bit of a quarter a night.  Of course back then  hot dogs were a dime and Pepsi a nickel for a 12 oz bottle.  Oh lord I'm becoming my mother.  Anyhow our passion back then was pinball.  Aunt Virgie had a nickel payoff machine so we could only play that after she closed and she never paid off to kids.  Now the Rainbow Garden about a mile up the road toward Dellslow had a flipper machine that we got so good on that we could play all night on a nickel and leave 20 games when old man Latanzi would run us off.  Sometimes he'd give us our nickel back but mostly he kept the nickels and ran off the games. 

Rusty got into sports in a big way.  He played basketball in Junior High and football in High School.  He was one of those guys who really put his heart and sole into the whole experience.  Likely it was the first acceptance he ever experienced and the coaches were no doubt the first people who ever cared about him.  He may also have hoped it was a way out. But Rusty never understood that the only real way out was an education.   He went onto college as far as he could on his athletic ability, which was never particularly outstanding.  He did manage to finish a few years at a small private college in West Virginia.  When his football ability or eligibility gave out he moved to Rugby.  Finally, he was so injured that he simply faded out of sight.  He came by our house a few years later when Annie and I lived in East Dailey. He had started using drugs.  Later I  heard he was in prison. 

The reason I tell you about Rusty is because as I was growing up he was the leader.  In Junior High nearly everybody looked up to him.  I can't say exactly why, he just had this commanding quality about him that people admired.  Once on a bus trip to a basketball game he was accused by the chaperone of drinking from a bottle of whiskey.  The entire student body rose up in his defense.  We all knew he did it but that was beside the fact.  He got his hand slapped and grew enormously in reputation.  But the end of the story is that he got eaten by the system.  I never would have guessed it.  How can it be.  How can someone with so much promise end so unceremoniously?  On the other hand how many times have I seen the nerd turn out to be Bill Gates.  People are funny and very amusing to watch.  But education was and for that matter still is the only way out of deep poverty.

My Grandfather, Guiseppi Barufalo, would preach the gospel of education to all of his grandchildren.  God I love that man.  I still remember so much of my Grandfather even though he's dead now some 35 years.  He was a happy man who drank wine because life was better that way.  I don't ever remember him not in a suit and vest.  Family meant everything to my Grandfather.  There's a story he would tell about his name.  He would say:

"You name is Barufalo.  My name is Guiseppi Barufalo.  I had nine children and you are the children of my children."

When Grandfather came to this country he came through Ellis Island like so many others.  They asked his name and he gave it.  Guiseppe Barufalo.  Well, when written down it seems it came out Joe Buffalo.  My Grandfather would become livid at the telling of such a story. 

"I am not Joe Buffalo.  You are not Buffaloes. Your name is Barufalo."

Grandfather never acknowledged that when our mother got married they changed their last names.  To him we were all family.  The kids, of course like all first generation, wanted to American so they used the name Buffalo.  Pitty really.  But I guess we all wanted to be American.  It's understandable.

Grandfather Guiseppi and Grandmother Amelia Barufalo had nine children.  There was Guiseppi Junior, Rose who died at birth, Edith, Lena, Reno, Andy, Gladys and the twins Josey and my mother Josephine. It was good growing up.  Every holiday the entire family would come together at Grandfather's house.  The place smelled like creamery butter and was warm and loud and filled with every kind of Italian food.  There were dozens of cousins and hoards of relative I can barely remember.  Aunt Edith and Uncle John had two Daughters, Dianna and Patricia. Lena and Dick who lived in Baltimore had Richard Junior. Lena also had a daughter by a first marriage who we saw occasionally. Andy and Mary had JoJo and Conrad. Gladys had Junior by her first marriage and Regina with Uncle Mike. Uncle Reno and Aunt Virgie had Sandy, Little Reno,  and Helen.  Josey and Ida had Margarete Ann.  Mom had me by her first marriage and twins Ralph and Carry Ann by her second husband.  It was a big family and except for a handful, everybody lived within site of the home place.

Having just spent a wonderful five days on holiday in Providence with our daughters I appreciate all anew the enormous value of family.  We laughed at moments that were so personal no one else could possibly have understood.  We could share feelings with just a glance or the raise of an eyebrow.  These are deep emotions cultivated by years of intimacy and a life time of sharing the closest of spaces.  Amie returned to Vermont and Megan left for Coco Beach to spend the rest of her holiday with friends.   And I assure you without getting too maudlin that we all share deeply in one another.

I'm working on the first draft of my dissertation and sorely needed a break from such technical writing.  I know why they call the first draft rough.  I am reminded again that what I don't know can fill a library.  My dissertation is on the quality of life for people with disabilities in segregated 811 projects as compared to the quality of life of people with disabilities living in integrated settings, specifically low income housing tax credit developments.  I find it very strange that more people have not recognized the similarities between segregated housing for other minorities and for people with disabilities.  Somehow the rational of "pwds need more services" excuses the isolation that permeates segregated housing.  I also have only recently become acutely aware of the predatory  practices that surround congregate facilities.  I remember once when I was younger, I was doing some shopping in a grocery store in an urban neighborhood.  I can't remember now if it was Washington, D. C. or Atlanta.  I can remember the pain of being taunted by some young adolescents just because I was disabled.  I had never encountered that kind of behavior before and except for a few instances not nearly as blatant I have never encountered it since.  Unfortunately others in our community, especially those who look different or talk differently have not enjoy the same peace.  I would be interested in hearing of any such encounters you might have had.  Write me.

A year has passed and I finished my doctoral work last April.  I'll put the dissertation on the literature page because I know you're itching to give it a long read.  Mother died in May.  Maybe she was waiting for me to finish.  Probably not.  It was just her time.  I have missed her so badly these last few months that it is difficult to write about.  Now really we weren't all that close in the her later years.  Oh sure, I called on Sunday nights and she complained about how awful her children treated her and gave me all the latest ailments and reports from the doctor de jure.  I visited when I could.  It was hard because her trailer wasn't accessible so we say and talked in the yard.  I missed her, I now realize because I enjoyed so much trying to make her happy.  I rarely succeeded because she really didn't know my  world. But that was OK because the joy was in the trip not the destination.  I think that could sound very strange without trying too hard but its true.  For me it was the attempt.  If she didn't understand, well I wasn't all that disappointed.

Annie and moved to Richmond Virginia.  God she loves me.  The  largest town she had ever lived in was Winchester and now she lives in the third largest geographic area in Virginia.  And I might add has adjusted very well.  Amie came back from Vermont when she was laid off from Husky.  She decided to be a firefighter.  She set her mind to and achieved her goal in less than half the time she had planned.  I wasn't surprised.  She's a tenacious fighter.  Mom and I very proud of her.  Megan left Providence and Brown at the end of her Masters degree.  She wanted to find her own way.  She worked this last year scanning past issues of philosophy journals into digital format for posting on the web.  She worked her way up to 8 bucks an hour.  She's just been accepted to the University of Virginia where she plans to begin work on her Doctorate in environmental engineering.  She a unique young woman with a substantial contribution to make.  And she will.

My life's work now is that of advocate general for disabled homeowner want to bes and for groups looking for funding to build places for people with disabilities to live.  I took a job with the Virginia Housing Development Authority.  Now this is a huge state finance agency that historically had financed homes for moderate income families and provided financing for multifamily projects renting to low and moderate income people.  People with disabilities had never been on their radar screen until a very special woman named Susan Dewey was hired as executive director.  It was a guys company until she came.  She's been their about four years and has managed to change the entire culture.  What was a comfortable company inclined to take the easy ones suddenly became an agent of social change.  I marvel at the effort and can only imagine how difficult it must of been.  I can only imagine that it was lonely and scary and at time very threatening.  But she prevailed and people of color, and disabilities and many other traits not always found in the mainstream have benefited form her fine work.  Most amazing is that VHDA accomplished such change while not missing a beat on the low and moderate programs it always championed.  Really, it's a case study worthy of the Harvard Business school.  I'm proud to work there and be a small part of the good work that's being done.

Well we'll leave it there for now.  Hopefully it won't take another year to get back but by god they seem to be going faster.  When I was seven or eight, we lived on a tobacco farm in Glen Burnie, MD.  we lived in an old farm house miles from nowhere.  I would play on the screened porch mostly by my self.  I remember one day (a day I was waiting for 7 pm because I had a Cub Scout meeting I was pretty excited about) I would ask mother every ten minutes what time it was.  How could time pass so slowly I thought.  It was excruciating.  Painful.   I never forgot that feeling.  And now I understand how the sand passes slowly through the hour glass at first and gains speed as it reaches empty. 

July 16, 2004

Annie and Megan went to Oakland for the weekend to visit her family.  Megan is living in Charlottesville now attending UVA working on her Ph. D. Did I mention that?  Amie is living in the old home place in Winchester working as a professional firefighter and paramedic.  We have much to be thankful for - not the least of which is a quiet weekend alone with a good book and many slow paced hours ahead.  Now don't misunderstand me.  I love my family and miss them greatly when we are separated but the island of silence is like a small refuse for me.  I love being bored for a while and given all the time necessary to update those little project the daily routine never seems to leave enough space for - like updating the web page.

I like being with myself for a while.  Being introspective and slowing long enough to reflect on a complex world that more often than not doesn't make sense.  Going when I want to go. Staying when I want to stay.  I wonder if that sense of contemplation is not what separates a simpler society from a more complex one.  People don't seem to contemplate much anymore.  To much action and not enough thought.  Maybe if we were forced to take more time the outcomes would be different. 

I know I do better work when I have time to mull things over.  While I admire people who can think fast and act instinctively I always wonder what might have been if they had taken the time to be deliberate.  I bought a card recently because I so enjoyed its thought.  I'll leave you with it and hope you enjoy it too.

What can I say but that I am working on it. 

All of it - everything in its entirely.

I've left nothing out.

I can't say when it will be complete.

Only that I'll not cease until it is longer,

rounder

tighter

and with a little more red.

 

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I’m Working on It

Sunday, June 24, 2007

 

 

 

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