themightyten.com Blog

The one reason why I thought it was NOT a dream was because I distinctly remember being so excited at this situation that I just had to put my arm around my father. While the photo was being taken, I swirled my head in total ecstasy as to who I was with. I remember turning my head. That wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t deja vu either. It happened.

I’ve kept a watchful eye on my sugar intake. There are some very serious diabetes in our family, I want you all to know.you should really check your glucose level when you can. One of the major culprits in our sister Beverly’s death was diabetes. Our great grandfather had his left leg amputated due to diabetes. Our grandfather also had his left leg amputated and he passed away from diabetes and gangrene triggered by peripheral neuropathy.

Since we all reluctantly visit death in our imagination, we sometimes wonder how we will go. In the movie Big Fish, several children visit a haunted house where a witch with a glass eye lives. and she offers a view into her eye so that you can see how you will die. If you were offered a glance into that glass eye would you be brave enough to look?

It was on the bottom of a box. The box was underneath a pile of other boxes. Like twenty boxes. They were all filled with stuff from Whitman street. Most of it was old toys from Christmas’ long ago. A lot of papers and old letters. What I was looking and hoping for were photos. I don’t even know how I got here. It’s feeling like a dream. Maybe it is and I’ll wake up. Because Whitman street seems dead. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t even live anywhere close to this god-forsaken town. Up these crazy stairs. Doesn’t look like our old house. I don’t get it. Here is the room filled with boxes. The first bedroom on the right. By the upstairs bathroom.

Do you remember this Whitman bathroom? Once our dad spent all day assembling beautiful glass sliding doors on the bathtub so that we could take showers in a sort of luxurious way. He was pretty handy with a drill and hammer. I remember we hounded him all day as he worked on these sliding doors. Mom was excited because they were really nice looking. So when he is finally done, we all take a step back and look at this magnificent work of art. It has probably doubled the worth of our home, I’m thinking. We were the first family on our block with color TV and now we own the richest looking bathroom in Carteret. So we check it out, open and close the glass doors slowly. Yeah, everything works fine. Beautiful. Then someone, I don’t remember who, (probably Glenn did it) slammed the brand new door shut and the room exploded with a million pieces of glass.
What I remember most about that tragedy was my father who typically has a very short fuse, just shook his head, mumbled “It just wasn’t meant to be” and began cleaning the mess. Nobody got yelled at. Nobody got punished. The glass was removed but the frames that he spent hours putting into the wall remained. They were there for years. And for many years after he died. I always looked at them and felt them whenever I took a bath or shower. Touched the screws inside the track holding them to the wall and I thought of my father and his patience. His eerie silence cleaning up afterwards.

Einstein showed that mass and energy are the same thing. Based on this theory, time travel seems possible. If not now, then in the future. Parallel universes, or alternative universes or mirror universes have had a long run of popularity in science fiction and science fantasy, in both print and visual formats. One need only look at an “Alice in Wonderland” or look no further than the “Star Trek” universe (our Universe in less than obvious disguise) to view the near endless plot variations that such parallel / alternative / mirror universes provide our heroes and heroines. While there are some serious reasons to suspect that parallel universes do exist. Time travel is the name of the game!

So, in this dream, (which I thought was a dream) I went up the Whitman street stairs, opened a door to the first bedroom and found a bunch of boxes and began digging into them. In one window I could hear birds chirping and the sun was blasting through. When I opened the curtains and looked down it was the side of our house. When I looked up at the Summer sky, it was a cloud forest. There were a few of us playing whiffel ball and Toker was aimlessly walking around. I could hear Schnauzer barking in the backyard. Schnauzer was never allowed to wander around aimlessly. The window on the other side of the room was gray and I could hear the wind whistling through the cracks. I pushed the curtain aside and it was a blizzard outside. I could see Gitters house across the street and it was buried. Mr. Gitter was desperately shoveling the walk leading up to the door and Peanuts was barking like crazy behind him. So here I am in a room from the past split into two different seasons.
Downstairs I heard our whole family screaming. People were yelling Glenn’s name and I went to the door and opened it. At that exact moment Danny Braza was racing down the stairs to save Glenn’s life. A chicken bone stuck in his throat. This was the first use of our brother Glenn’s 16 lives.
I shut the door and realized I was way back in time. It seemed like I knew what I was looking for. Went back to the boxes and there on the bottom of a box filled with receipts and papers from Westfield Sewing Center was this photo. |Click HERE for a better view|

Located in Comments on the post; Pawn to King Four

“I HAVE INFO RE: OUR UNCLE WHO WAS LOST ON A SUB AND FRANK GILL WHO WAS KILLED IN THE PHILLIPINES WW11 says:
November 10, 2015 at 2:00 pm (Edit)

MY FATHER, ARTHUR ,WAS FRED GILL’S AND CAROL GILL’S BROTHER”

This was posted Tuesday Nov. 11. Oddly the information which is very Veteran associated was posted the day before Veterans day.
To the best of our knowledge we did not know. Brother, Fred Gill, Carol and Joan Gill had another brother?.

We are asking and hoping that the gentleman, our cousin, can come back and email me.
Assuming he found this blog by the strategic tags I have placed with every post. (this is how we found Jerry Jones and family.

So come back cousin please! We would love to hear from you!
My email is:
neondusk@hotmail.com

Two years ago I found our very distant cousin Caleb from Canada. Caleb has spent a lot of hard work and time constructing this on-line family tree. I am very grateful for our cousin for this tree goes back centuries in time. On first click the Family Tree seems trivial but CLICK AROUND – you will be amazed at your absolutely incredible heritage! There is a row of links across the top. They say Index | Descendancy | Register | Pedigree etc. I would suggest clicking on these.

-HARTMANN ONLINE FAMILY TREE- Click here to discover!

Some notes from Caleb: “Any mistakes in the gedcom online can be fixed and updated later. I do not post info on living people on there to protect peoples identity.
My mom was Leatrice Robarge, she was the daughter of Frank Robarge and Margaret Hartman, they are on the online gedcom too. Tillies line is the one the Vanduzers are from. The Vanduzer’s and my mom put the Hartmann Book together with info they had on the family and stories from my grandmother Margaret, back in the 1980’s. I was given my copy as a child. I have held onto it ever since. It covers a lot of Margarets siblings and what life was like back then in New Jersey and New York. In the book it describes Poppa (Charles Richard Hartmann or Dick) passing away, and Momma (Clara). It describes the other hartmans too and the siblings of Poppa helping with the printing and music business.”

In this dream I am painting a huge steel bridge by myself. There is a date etched in one of the concrete supports that says; “1960” It is very hard work with scaffolds and ladders in all kinds of weather. Sometimes I feel as if the heavy winds are gonna knock me into the raging river underneath.
It takes thirty-seven months and almost sixteen days to complete the job. By the time I am finished, the paint is beginning to peel on the other side and I have to start all over again.

In my unending quest for (to) manhood, I have tried everything.: Carrying a hammer around with me at all times. Talking deeper. Walking heavier. Checking out woman’s butts whenever possible. Measuring my penis. Driving irregular and fast. Hanging up landlines loudly. Cursing. Watching controllrd violence on TV. The final signature to being a man is to be human. It may take a long time or you may have the capacity to get it almost right away: Just BE YOURSELF. Don’t ever give a crap what anybody else says. Take your time. Have fun. And ride a roller coaster whenever you can.

In my on and off extensive search for our heritage I have found out some very cool and very important information. Only because of our sister Barbs brave dig into our great aunts sisterhood on Menham NJ, (a letter mailed about 4 years ago) was I able to obtain the complete list of our Grandpa’s 12 brothers and sisters. With this information, I may have contact with someone who has access to even more information and even more exciting some photos of our great grandparents and their 12 children.
We already knew there were 13 children and that one had died in infancy but now it has been uncovered that two had indeed very sadly passed away before their first birthday. (this was actually a pretty common thing back then and the life span of most adults back then rarely went past 50)

So here it is, In order of their births:

1. Gertrude b:1888 d:1973 (In 1913 became an nun “Sister Clarella.”)
2. Fred b:1889 m:1920 (Married Lydia Marklein) d:1941
3. Clara Mathilde b:1890 m:1914 (Married J.Van Duzer) d:1932 (Relatives
located on this side of family.)
4. Emmy b:1892 d:1892 died as infant
5. Frieda b:1894 d:1973 became a nun “Sister Richardis”
6. Charles Richard b:1895 d:1895 died as infant
7. Katherine b:1896 m:1918 (Married Henry Jager) d:1969
8. George Joseph b:1898 m:1917 (Married Florence Swaine) m: 2nd time in 1929 (Alice Anderson) d:1970
9. Margaret Helen b:1899 m:1919 (Married Frank Robarge) d:1971
10. Clara b:1901 m:1927 (Married Henry Ulrich) d:1962
11. Rose Anna b:1903 m:1925 (Married William Ross) d:1974
12. Alfred b:1906 m: 1933 d: unknown?
13. Marie Elizabeth b:1909 (never married) d: unknown ?

#8 – George Joseph is our Grandfather . Also very new information is that he was married twice and his second wife – Alice Anderson our Grandmother, was the mother of our father George Charles. It is important to note here that in the 1950’s which was shortly after World War II and the holocaust, our Grandfather knocked off a ‘N’ on our last name. I remember our mother telling me it was a business decision based on the name Hartman (one ‘N’ Jewish) and Hartmann (2 ‘N’s’ being German). Since most salesmen in America in the 1950’s were Jewish, it was said that they merely avoided any contacts with German people.

I am trying very hard to get in touch with the woman that posted this information on the web. Her Grandmother was our Grandfather’s sister; Clara Mathilde. I have emailed her twice so far with no return. Of corse I will never stop trying.
Somewhere out there are photos of this family and I think she may have them. It would be amazing to look into the faces of a one-hundred year old family of fifteen and to see, perhaps, our own likeness’. You must understand that DNA and generation to generation chemistry is carried on and passed. We are what they were and although every individual that has ever visited this planet is entirely unique, but that families are in some spiritual and chemical way… are tied together for all eternity.
-more info to come-

Some upcoming New Jersey Road Trips:
Brooke will be in NJ June-18th thru 21st.
Becca will be in NJ August -14th – 21st

My sponsor called me up
“Where the fuck have you been asshole?”
“I love you too”
“No really, this ain’t no fucking game!”
“I never said it was…I just…I’ve been busy.”
“BULLSHIT”
*click*

The war rages on and do we really notice? Unless we have somebody over there, what does it matter? Did we win or did we lose? President Obama cleared away an old Bush law saying photos of coffins from the war were banned. So welcome home Gil Mercado! Paterson is probably one of the toughest places to live in New Jersey. It is a war zone of drugs, guns, corruption slums and sleaze. Gil was probably thinking, “Hey, what do I have to lose. I’ll join the Marines to get the hell out of this God-forsaken hell hole of a New Jersey city life. 25 is too young, my God to die for any cause. NORTH JERSEY: My new existence? It’s pretty new to me anyway. I was born and raised in central NJ, married and had kids in south NJ (Da Shore) and somehow came back to central NJ then migrated to north NJ. New Jersey has always been broken up into three parts. They are all extremely different from each other. My experience in north NJ has been so far incredible. It is truly the melting pot OF THE WORLD Never have I seen so many different ethnic communities blended together so finely. Northern New Jersey was the site of some of the earliest European settlements in what would become the United States of America. The Industrial Revolution in America started by the founding of the northern New Jersey town of Paterson. PATERSON NJ is an amazing city. Driving through main street on any Saturday afternoon is an open-air market experience that rivals only Disney World on it’s best day. If you speak about Paterson NJ to most people they cringe at the homicide and car theft rate and will tell you that they wouldn’t be caught DEAD there! This past week marked the EIGHT YEAR anniversary of moms death. May 1st. Her mothers name was May. Has it really been that long already? Beverly will be gone TEN YEARS this August. Brenda two years. Is it official yet? Do you think that Becca has any memories of her mother at all? To me that is a tragedy that I can never comprehend. But at least she had some time with her and Brenda had known her for a short while anyway. It was only 100 years ago that it was a crap shot that the mother, child or both survived the birth process. Giving birth was just a risky medical procedure and it truly was a miracle if everything went smooth. Not everyone may know it but mom had a miscarriage in between Beverly and me. In New York City there is a bar with sawdust on the floor and everything is large and made of oak. They serve salami sliced on a cutting board, mustard, ham sandwiches and beer. Nothing else. It is a famous bar with tons of history and bursting at the seams with character. I never cried at moms funeral. I don’t know why. I really thought I should have been balling my eyes out but I didn’t. This isn’t hard for me to say and the past is the past. Besides trying to get me back into an even keel of fellowship and meetings, my sponsor told me to get my head out of the past. (or maybe he said to get my head out of my ass, I’m not sure).

DEATH is a very hard thing to figure out. Throughout the world, death and the rituals that surround it are steeped in taboos. Death is celebrated, embraced and feared. It is the only thing that scientist here on earth or any other planet will ever NEVER totally figure out. It is that great mystery that creates such grief and or wonder. What is our connection with the other side? The third dimension of puffy white clouds, serenity and potatoe chips on the couch. Nobody could imagine heaven or hell, although allot of people claim that we are living hell here on earth. What could possibly suck the life out of something so young, so small, so cute? All the tears and grief for this little doggy and I have filled seven suitcases with guilt that I never cried at my mothers funeral (or my dads) yet, when I experienced the loss of a friend that I had known for a short time, I cried for months……and the loss wasn’t even death!!! It was just a goodbye. So what does this say about me as a human? Do I remember Mom? Of course I do. I was just thinking the other day, how she loved to cook Lima beans as a vegetable. They were almost like eating wax. So I mixed them all up in my mashed potatoes and smooshed them and guzzled them down with my grape Hawaiian Punch and yet today I miss them. Nobody cooks lima beans anymore. No restaurants. No place. No where. No body. They shouldn’t even grow them anymore. I miss lima beans (Phaseolus lunatus) but I don’t miss mom.

Everybody is always “going”:
Where are you “going”? How is it “going?” I’m “going…” Let’s get “going”
In the news: The sole survivor of a plane crash is a 9 year old Dutch boy. 103 people died including his mother, father and older brother. Thankfully, he doesn’t remember the crash. He hasn’t been told yet that he lost his family. He only said this:
“I don’t know how I got here. I just want to get going…”

There was an episode of the Little Rascals when the gang built a “fire engine” out of wood and raced it down a very steep street. Stymie was driving the back and Spanky was driving the front. The fire engine was so long that as they were going down the steep hill, the “fire engine” bent in half. Eventually the back of the “fire engine” caught up with the front of the engine. At this point Spanky the front driver yelled over to Stymie the back driver:
“Hey Stymie, where ya going????”
and Stymie replied,
“I don’t know, but I’m on MY WAY !”
That pretty much sums up life for me.

WHERE DO DOGS GO when they die? Damn it, I wish I knew! Actually, where does everything, everybody, every animal goes when they die?? It is that they just GO, that HURTS u so much. It is so final….so “never again” that the tragedy of it sometimes takes months or even NEVER to heal.

I stood by your bed last night, I came to have a peep.
I could see that you were crying, you found it hard to sleep.
I whined to you softly as you brushed away a tear,
“It’s me, I haven’t left you, I’m well, I’m fine, I’m here.”
I was close to you at breakfast, I watched you pour the milk
You were thinking of the many times your hands reached down to me.
I was with you at my grave today, you tend it with such care.
I want to re-assure you, that I’m not lying there.
I walked with you towards the house as you fumbled for your key.
I gently put my paw on you, I smiled and said, “It’s me.”
You looked so very tired, and sank into a chair
I tried so hard to let you know that I was standing there.
“”It’s possible for me to be so near you every day
To say to you with certainty, “I never went away.””
You sat there very quietly, then smiled; I think you knew…
In the stillness of that evening, I was very close to you.
The day is over… I smile and watch you yawning
And say “good-night, God bless, I’ll see you in the morning.”
And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide,
I’ll rush across to greet you and we’ll stand, side by side.
I have so many things to show you, there is so much for you to see.
Be patient, live your journey out… then come home to be with me.
~Author Unknown~

“Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell”?

REBELING AGAINST PERFECTIONISM
If you are trying to be creative or just plain -Living Life- we need to fall away from the mindset that strives for perfection. Being creative means for me to be, well, sloppy. Coming here to this “family”BLOG has been hard because it is just that “family” part that has been keeping me away. Well, fuck that then. From now on I’m going to be sloppy, besides, It seems to be just me here most of the time. Our family is consumed in the woderful world of Facebook and rightly so. It has been an incrediable tool for keeping in touch, laughing, posting photos etc etc. It has been healthy for me here to lay it out. Some kind of psychological suicide leap and splat. I have to own it. It takes guts sometimes to say what you feel TO WRITE what you feel without the fear of being judges and it can be very empowering.

The DECADE in Review
The general consensus: It sucked. Terrorism, Michael Jackson, Global warming, Floods Fires. To me it is all how you look at it. Our measure of time is a joke. First of all it is only a measure of time and secondly who cares. The next ten years, the next “decade” will bring even more floods and stupid celebrities deaths.

Let’s make a big deal out of the king of pops death. That poor freak of nature. Look what money and being famous did to him. The real celebrity of the decade, the REAL HERO, the unsung and saddest death that I hurt me this past decade was the loss of Dana Reeve
This woman stood by her man and took care of him and their son through the deepest of tragedy. When her husband passed away, her sudden, unexplainable, very sad death hurt me like no other. She was a true super woman. God rest her soul.

2009
The year 2009 was perhaps the most interesting and fullfilling for me in my forty-nine years as a male caucasian on this planet earth. Getting laid off in New York City and losing my housing triggered a chain of events that I could not even begin to write down. At one point I had no money, no gas, nowhere to stay and almost no hope. I was “stuck” in the mountains and woods of upstate NY. I hadn’t seen my children in weeks. I was disconnected from society. The micro waves couldn’t reach my cell phone. But I just knew it was temporary . I had learned that no matter how deep I got lost, if I did the footwork, I would pull out of it. I think this thing is called FAITH !

What Do We Teach Our Kids About Family Love?
Tell them to slow down, if you can. Teach them by example. This society is spinning so fast, at least here on the east coast it seems. Grow your own food. Chop wood. Carry water. Have dinner with the whole family, as a matter of fact, cook dinner, wash and dry the dishes with the whole family.

Or Else?
Or else this society is doomed. If we lose sense of “family” we will lose everything.

The Retard Got Carols Money, Now What?
Well, there might have been a reason for it, if you ever slowed down to think about it. Have you ever really thought about what it’s like not to have a place to go to at night?

Ahhhh, Whitman street. I remember those days like it was yesterday…..almost….but I was called “Retard” “Retard” I guess because I acted like one. Truthfully, for most of my life my head has been spinning. Thoughts and creative processes go faster than I can comprehend them. A cross between ADHD and severe depression but the real diagnosis was Bi-poplar. Finally after 49 years, someone figured it out. My medication has given me a new lease on life. All I want is four walls and a roof. A place to hang my hat. A warm bed. A little space to gather with my boys. Is that asking too fucking much out of life????

Maybe the best way to slow down is to sleep a little more, and pay more attention when you are awake.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Almost missed this great shot from a recent Summer road trip with a few of the Ohio Girls. Bernadette is probably taking this photo in the depths of Times Square NY.
With the advent of Facebook there have already been several strange hometown get-togethers. Some are planned this week and next. In Florida where several old Jersey friends ended up are having a BBQ at Bonnie Szeztaye’s house. Apparently next week there is a BBQ in New Jersey at Johnson Park with a bunch of old chums (not sure of the details, but I’ll check)
BERNADETTE and LARRY are driving to Jersey next week for some beach time.

As our family continues to grow, with Bonnies pregnancy and the rediscovery of our long-lost cousins the Gills, I have fallen WAY BEHIND on the Family Ties Web Site. Especially with photos of the children. They grow like weeds, ya know. I don’t think any of you would recognize my two boys if they walked in the room right now. I’m not even sure, I would.
As I struggle with dealing with teenage hormones, demands and pure INSANITY, I have also been through quite a bit this year also. The darkened economy hit some industries harder than others. I am surfacing every once in a while to grab a gasp of air. I have plans for two totally different business’
I have been going back and forth to the Hudson Valley. In my unemployment, I have also found serene friends, artistic inspirations, gurgling brooks, hot sun and mountains. Getting a job is hard work. I have been here before.
Once I knew a man named Alex. He married at age 18. Lived in the same house, in the same town for 40 years. Stayed with his woman for 40 years. Had the same job for 40 years. Worked in the same room with the same people for 40 years. Went on the same vacation every year at the same time for 40 years.
How I used to envy Alex. This guy had security every where he turned. He had everything I thought that life should be. The American dream. Money, a wife a retirement and his home was paid off.
Alex used to love talking with me. He said I was a great “story teller”
“But, they aren’t stories Alex, they are my life. Divorce, job loss, children, hardship, moving, debt, worrying, praying, dreaming, death, happiness, drugs, drinking, sobriety and…………hope.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Alex with that big smile
“I envy you George, my life is so damn boring.”

I believe more than anything that the closeness of our mother Joan to her only Brother, Fred was the amazing gift that they had left us. It wasn’t just a weekend get-together, or a quick holiday but when the Gills came over it was for THE SUMMER. It is those long hot innocent Summers of childhood. It is the memories of ALL the senses (like I spoke about in my last post 1969) that come back. The overly chlorinated pool, Uncle Brothers overly buttered and salted popcorn. Listening to Paul McCartneys “Hands Across the Water” and all of us singing in union.
I have recollections of many people I have met, friends, coworkers, casual conversation…and they have shared with me; “Oh I don’t talk to my sister anymore.” or “I have no need to to see my family.” or “Screw my dad, he’s a jerk.” One day you will wake up and realize how short this journey of life is.
Maybe I am over emotional and way too deep (as I have been told) but when I was on the phone with my cousin Jim last week, I cannot express the feelings that came over me to hear his voice again. To hear him as a father and a husband AND a Grandfather! He wasn’t just my cousin quarterbacking our touch football team down for a score on Whitman street.
And when we finally had to hang up, I told him something I never told him before. “I love you” and it came from the depths of my heart and soul.