Daily Dose | Growing Up Then and Now | A father's stories for his sons

Grandma & Grandpa Rinkema

Posted on June 24, 2024 by AndyDawkins

The Dawkins grew up knowing serious mental illness. Our Grandmother across the street tried suicide a number of times and had raging, maniacal, episodes a sad number of times, but she had brilliance and plenty of the right kind of passion too. She was a political organizer and friends with Anna Spies (a Wobbly whose husband was hanged as a Haymarket Riot co-conspirator) and Ralph Chaplin (the Movement Balladeer, author of the organizing anthem “Solidarity Forever”). And she was the one who got me and my friends to drive McCarthy delegates downtown on the back streets to the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 when Mayor Daley blocked all the major arteries from O’Hare Airport, the cabbies and bus drivers were on strike, and the foul-mouthed Mayor (as seen on national TV) got Humphrey delegates rides in police vehicles. She was also the brains behind my Grandfather’s making a fortune.

Grandpa Rinkema was a Dutchman who immigrated to the US with his wife and daughters after serving time in jail for refusing to fight in World War I. He met Grandma Rinkema at a kissing booth where she was selling kisses to raise money for the stop-the-war effort. (He got in line for a second kiss.) Grampa Rinkema was a very large man (size 16 feet) whose first job in the USA was wheel-barrowing wet cement up the planks to the top floors of the then-being-constructed Stevens (and by 1968 Conrad Hilton) Hotel in Chicago. As a side job he was a carpenter who helped neighbors put additions onto their small homes. Gramma Rinkema anticipated the mass exodus of Whites for the suburbs (and the better schools for their baby-boomer kids) and used the money they saved to buy the tracts of land where Grampa later built the first million dollar suburban homes. In fact, Grampa Rinkema built the house I grew up in as a wedding present for my Mom & Dad; and in fact, I was lucky enough to attend some of the best schools in the nation.* Unfortunately, most the fortune was later spent on expensive mental hospitals.

Now that’s something you all can do! Here’s The Moral to this Book of Stories: For you teenagers reading this – if you want to imagine something any one of you could do with your life to have it well-spent, consider doing something to help the less fortunate, the mentally-ill or others living in the shadows of life, like being a mental health aide, a nurse, a doctor, a scientist or even President. I just passed a billboard on US 20 telling us “One in Six Americans Suffers from Hunger.” There’s Work to be Done!!

_____

*These were the best schools and best teachers that money could buy. For those interested in Government 101, read my “Open Letter to Jack & Nick, Up & Comers and Fed-Uppers” which talks about “communitarianism” – an economic system to maximize the efficiencies of community values. There was a time when the government gave-away land to pioneering homesteaders willing to encounter Indian Uprisings. It was an early government program to make our country prosperous, unfortunately at the expense of Native Americans. What could Government do today that could totally re-make America great?? And maybe include everybody this time!

Yet another sign of the times – this time my mom’s mom in 1970

My Sister Murph [second daily dose of Clean for Gene]

Posted on June 21, 2024 by AndyDawkins

Being the class goof-off / wise guy got me an “F” junior year in Spanish. I saw it coming and told Grace & Jack that Mr. Kottler was going to flunk me despite my getting passing grades on the tests. You see, when I was a freshman in high school, it was the first year ever that freshmen could take Spanish I. Up until 1964 educators thought taking a foreign language was too difficult to learn until you were at least 15. By my junior year I was in Mr. Kottler’s Spanish III class and in my senior year it was going to be the first time ever Mr. Kottler could teach a Spanish IV class – and he had been making great plans for Spanish IV for four years – and he didn’t want me in it to ruin it no matter how well I did in Spanish III.

Well, when I informed my parents I was flunking they insisted I go to a tutor; so I did, but the first tutoring session resulted in the tutor sending a note home:

“Andy really knows his Spanish – he won’t flunk – no need for more tutoring.”

But guess what I did with that Note (besides giving it to Grace & Jack), I used it to justify becoming an even bigger goof-off – and, of course, I flunked and had to take summer school (but no Spanish IV senior year).

But that’s not the end of this story:

Murph, Andy, Fred & Cobe at 1995 wedding (Maggie died in ’71)

Two years later my younger sister is in Kottler’s Spanish class and she is his best student ever (i.e., he didn’t hold a grudge just ‘cos her name). She was so good he sponsored her becoming an AFS student in Bogota, Columbia, her junior year – which led to her bringing back a Columbian boyfriend, dropping out of high school, negotiating to get her HS diploma, attending Goddard College in VT., taking the Ken Kesey course touring the SW, meeting the mailman in Prescott, AZ, dropping out of Goddard, enrolling at the Prescott School of Music, dropping out of Prescott, moving in with me doing Streetwork in Phila., getting Antioch College Without Walls to give her a college degree just based on her life’s experiences, enrolling at M.I.T. and designing her own course work, writing a book with Noam Chomsky, and probably being the most-degreed person in the Country who never attended a regular class after sophomore year in high school.

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Me and Maggie Clean for Gene [1971]

Posted on June 20, 2024 by AndyDawkins

She Died Young

My sister Maggie died in 1971, only sixteen years old. If any of us Dawkins kids was to die young, she was the one who could say she had already accomplished lots in terms of making the world a better place. At age sixteen I was still playing cliques and greasers, cutting school and barely staying out of trouble. At age thirteen Maggie was volunteering for McCarthy and saying she was going to be the first woman president of the United States.

Maggie was born with a hole in her heart. As a brand-new-born she got a patch in one of the first open-heart surgeries. The artificial valve she got as a five year-old was one of the first ever. There were many hospital stays in her short life. Yet she always remained happy. No chip on her shoulder. The doctors and nurses said she made everyone on her floor lives better because she was so optimistic, outgoing and cheerful. In 1971 they said her heart had grown full enough to have a full-sized valve and there would be no need for any more operations. It was deemed a success and she was told she could now (finally) fully participate in strenuous activities, like swimming, that previously only her friends could do. She had lots of friends. Everybody liked being with her. The next day though, the valve gave out, and she died swimming.

Maggie, Andy, Mom, Coby, Freddie & Murph

When I heard the news I was twenty-one and still mostly just into having fun. After crying for hours I decided to re-dedicate my life to live her life too, to work twice as hard making the world a better place, to be the president she wanted to be. In those moments I finally grew up, became honest with myself, faced down my demons to do things just to be popular, and added a serious side to my life. Overnite I’d come a long way from being the seventeen year-old who wanted to rip off the McCarthy bumper sticker that Maggie had put on the family car because the high school friends I wanted to be popular with were making fun of long-hairs and peaceniks. Most of high school I was not my true self yet. I owe Maggie a ton for having found her true self at a much younger age role modeling how to be concerned about other things besides yourself.

It was Maggie and Grandma Rinkema who recruited me to be part of a “Taxi Cab Brigade” that drove stranded McCarthy delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. The taxi cab drivers and bus drivers were on strike. Mayor Daley had put the expressway between O’Hare Airport and downtown Chicago under construction, and then arranged to have city vehicles pick up Humphrey delegates, leaving McCarthy delegates stranded. But I was so not into politics I didn’t even think about joining the anti-war protesters in Grant Park. All that changed with Maggie’s dying. By 1972 I was one of the protesters.

As a teenager I went to any length trying to be part of the “in crowd,” succumbing to peer pressure, rarely stopping to consider the consequences of my actions: cut school, smoked cigarets, used fake IDs to rent hotel rooms and leave without paying, even stole a car once. There are plenty of stories here, but mostly too awful to tell. I was just lucky I never got caught. But that’s why we don’t impose the death penalty on people under age 18. The person you are at age 13 or 17 is not always the person you are at age 30 or 40.

In 1968 as a 13 year-old Maggie already knew who she was. There’s a point at which you become a grown-up. Thank God if you find it before you die. Amen, Maggie.

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TRIBUTE TO DAD

Posted on June 19, 2024 by AndyDawkins

August 30, 2014

Dear Papa Jack,

It’s been one month now without you, but when last we were together a year ago, we did great – going to the King’s Inn in Bristol, later that week river-banking with Grace having martinis in the afternoon. I love you Dad. We never say that enough in the Dawkins family, but it’s mostly because we know it’s true. This last year was tough, but like the Hal Newhouser story I told you in one of our last phone calls, he made the Hall of Fame based on his first many years, not his last one. And you do too.

It really is about baseball – hitting fungos. That’s maybe the most lasting – quickly conjured up – memory I have of you: You taking the time to hit me fungos up against the tennis court fence at Laidlaw Playground. It’s vivid right this moment and symbolic for all the time you spent with me being a dad. And those books you brought home for me to read. And playing the clarinet sitting on the floor with your legs outstretched along side the Hi-Fi speaker – truly Hall material.

I always think too about the time your Dad died when I was 14 and I came home to find you quietly crying in the living room chair – which is what I did when I heard the message Cobe left: “Dad just passed” – and your grandsons Lil’ Jack & Nick were nearby. (Lil’ Jack is pretty big now.) They cried too, and gave me big hugs. I’m crying again.

So that’s the circle of life. We carry on – and I’m so lucky to have known you so well for so long. You got me going on lots of good stuff Jack, playing ball, and politics too; right up to the moment with me running for AG raising the right issues but not getting much coverage standing for ideals as a third party candidate. Maybe we won’t win, but we’re doing our best. Thanks for shaping me. You deserve a lot of credit. There’s more than just me and you who think I’d be a great Attorney General.

Most of all, what a blessing to have you die with me knowing you were proud of me, you resting in peace with confirmation you raised me right – because I know that being thought of as a good dad by your kids is the greatest, most important, feeling in the world. Thanks Jack. Love you forever.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

P.S. Since I’m writing stories (like you did), I’m going to tell about the last thing you did. And you should know that when Grace & I talk, she wishes there was a telephone to heaven.

This love story starts with Grace, my mom, not allowing a TV in the house, ever. The Dawkins kids never watched TV except at a friend’s. We were outside playing and being creative. The no TV rule continued even after we all left the roost. Also, when the fridge conked out and there were no more kids at home, there was no replacing it. For the last 30 years mom and dad survived with no fridge, on top of no TV.

Grace & Jack lived at home into their 90s, but Jack was starting to gripe about too many stairs, not enough prepared meals, the house was too cold, and maybe it was time to move into an independent living place for seniors. But Grace would have none of it. She loved her garden and had no plans to move. I thought maybe buying Jack a space heater, a small fridge and a TV would be a good compromise. So for his 90^th birthday, over my mother’s protestations, he and I went and bought the space heater and fridge, and although he was skeptical it would work, he agreed to not back down when I announced to Grace that we were now off to buy a small TV. To which Grace said, “You get a TV – you know what else you get? You get a divorce!” So there was no TV.

A year later I was back out east helping my dad move into Friends Village, a senior living place. His health was starting to go. This would be the summer of 2013. Grace was going to remain living at home, but Jack’s new place was only 5 minutes away and he was still driving so they would see each other every day. He picked a large enough place so Grace might someday join him, one with a back deck and a beautiful garden. But his health kept deteriorating and he was no longer driving to Grace’s every day and died July 30, 2014. My brother Cobe met me at the airport and we drove to dad’s place to move his stuff out before the first of the month. When we walked in, the first thing we saw, lying on a chair facing toward the door, was a letter he had written Grace a few days earlier for her birthday. It was a beautiful love letter. The last thing he did. A love letter.

For So Long As You Shall Live

Grace!

Posted on June 18, 2024 by AndyDawkins

I’ve mentioned Grace, my mom, in quite a few stories because she’s central to the life I’ve been so fortunate to lead – and how deeply appreciative I am – but she deserves her own story. What a force she has been working her child-rearing magic (really just common sense) as a stay-at-home mom. “Kids are born fine, just don’t wreck them,” she says. Yes, she kept the Dr. Benjamin Spock book on child rearing right next to the telephone, but she claims whenever she consulted the book it only provided verification that using common sense was all it took. She was much more than just a common-sense mom to five kids – she had her own life too. Re-telling a few Grace stories shows she would have done fine balancing in a career as well, but like most moms in the 50s she didn’t have to work outside the home.

I doubt she’d have been a truck driver. When I was 6, Murph 4, Maggie 1 and Freddie on the way, she took us to the doctor’s office. It was 1956 and the earliest segments of the interstate highway system were under construction, including I-294, the beltway around Chicago. As we were making our way through the construction zone, one of those big Caterpillar road graders with 10 foot high tires was bearing down on us and Grace thought the worker waving the red flag was telling her “Speed it up lady!” Whew . . . that was a close call. When we got back home she parked the car and never drove again, although she kept renewing her license just in case. Years later she got a plaque from the Illinois Secretary of State for being such a great driver – 30 years no tickets, no accidents.

Grace in her 40s with Coby & Maggie

Maybe she would have been a brick mason. About this last time she drove a car, a load of flagstones was delivered to the front of our house as Grace was terracing the back yard to make a rose garden. The new house being built next door was just about finished. The roofer saw Grace, big-time pregnant, lugging a flagstone to the backyard and insisted she put it down so he could come carry it. Grace protested and protested because then he’d see there were 100 more he’d feel obliged to lug. When he came off the roof and saw the whole picture, he said, “Oh boy, and they say our Black women are strong!” Grace, in fact, could beat all my friends in arm wrestling all the way through high school.

Besides raising us, her passion was gardening. Still is to this day. She’s 93, living independently on 3 acres, with a brook, a pond, a woods and a garden. She raised us with a healthy life-style, home grown vegetables, no fast-food meals, no soft drinks, liver once a week, and so on. Most important, she raised us to be independent and not feel like we had to fit-in (keep up with the Jones). So, for example, although it seemed peculiar to all the neighbors, and even to us kids, every January we dutifully dragged home all the neighbors discarded Xmas trees so we could have a fragrant pine-needle gravel driveway rather than an asphalt one. And we were the only kids in town who had to pick dandelion leaves for our salad. Didn’t have friends wearing hand-me-downs. Plus, of course, as you have read, we had no TV and we weren’t allowed to go to the movies.