Journalist John Evanetski returns with a new, quarterly column entitled "Reflections from the Allegheny," with an initial essay on being and becoming that blends philosophy and journalism in singular fashion. --from biography, Artistry of Life @ http://www.artistryofglife.org
I am not my father‘s son. Nor was my father his father’s son.
His father, Michael Evanetski, my Gigi (Ukrainian for grandpa) was a persona onto himself. He was called Iron Mike by his coal miner peers for his hard-working, hard-drinking, no-nonsense life as a colliery foreman. He was in charge of the sorting crews who sifted the anthracite coal dug from the underground shafts and seams that tunneled in, around and through Scranton,Pennsylvania.
Iron Mike, with his newly-wed wife, Katherine-Katrina Ulovich, my Baba (Ukrainian for grandma), emigrated from their native Ukraine at the turn of the 19th Century to start a new life and family in America. They joined the waves of other European immigrants trying to escape the economic hardships or political and social repressions of the times. They stayed married for 65 years.
Family legend says that Iron Mike spoke four different languages, proposing that he was either a well-traveled businessman or government official. As new Americans in a country dominated by English-speaking people, Iron Mike could only master a mix of broken English and Ukrainian. The strong desire to absorb, and be absorbed, into a new culture found Iron Mike putting aside the old ways.
Iron Mikes new life brought new demands. Coal mining required 12-hour shifts on a 12-day, non-stop schedule. A short two days of R & R followed most of which was spent mostly binge drinking. A coal miners wages were meager. Spending required that a balance be kept between the raw pleasures of alcohol, providing for the family necessities of food, shelter and clothing, and other financial obligations.
When the money ran out to buy whiskey or vodka, Iron Mike was known to head for the root cellar, cup in hand, and dip a mug full of fermenting juices from the cabbage crock used to make sauerkraut. When out of the standard brand of cigarette-rolling paper, Iron Mike would roll a wad of Bugler tobacco into newsprint and light up.His was a short career of 25 years in the mines. Iron Mike retired at age 52 on a slim minerspension, personal savings and Social Security. He never held a full-time job again.
He was also in charge at home, setting the rules for his six children, John, my father, Mildred, Helen, Mary, Joseph and Edward. As family patriarch, he sat at the head of the table, leading religious and cultural rituals at family holiday celebrations.
My own childhood recollections of Gigi leave me with impression of a stern, but kindly man, who seemed to love his grandchildren, although not hesitant to scold us for some infraction or misconduct. Several of my aunts and uncles, however, also pointed to Iron Mikes ongoing abusive behavior toward them and his wife.
Consequently, he was shown little respect from his sons, daughters and other family elders. He regularly became the brunt of their practical jokes although they continued to acknowledge him as the head of the family, caring for his basic needs until he died.
No one told Iron Mike what to do or where to go. Into his late 70's, he continued to harvest edible wild mushrooms from the local woods never making a mistake in picking the safe and correct species. His drinking and smoking habits also followed him into the last phases of his life, Often my Aunt Helen would find him exiting the nearby Jack Tavern in the lateafternoon, despite her urges and warning that it was too dangerous and unhealthy to be drinking at his age.
Iron Mike also had the reputation of never being too sick to work. Family folklore tells that he was never sick a day in his life. His only hospitalization came in October 1969 where at age 87he suffered a massive stroke and died three days later.
As for my father, he spent almost half his 84 years as a driver and Teamster Union steward, working a standard 40-hour work week. Although a daily drinker, and occasional smoker, himself, my father responsibilities with my mother, Francis Sawejko Evanetski. She worked a regular job in a garment factory, while tending to home and kids before her death in 1969, which ended their 25 years of marriage. My father died in 1995, a WWII U.S. Army Sergeant buriedwith standard military honors in the Veterans of Foreign Wars section of the parish cemetery.
As for me, still alive at 59, I am a college-educated professional writer, editor, graphic designer and photographer with varying demands on time and energies. Although I did my share of drinking, smoking cigarettes, and a joint or two here and there, during my time in the U.S Navy and in college, I rarely consume alcohol now for health reasons. The smoking ended about 35 years ago. A 29-year marriage ended in divorce in 2004.
No matter who we are, what we become, or how we get there, we all look for role models--those with the qualities of character, morality, ethics, and personal bearing which we want for ourselves.
Sometimes we find just what we sought. Sometimes we find only hollow, false heroes.
Ultimately, though, we become who we are because as individuals we possess a nature and presence that is uniquely ours, neither assembled, nor contrived, from the spare parts of others.
I am neither Iron Mike, nor my father. But their lives gave me life. They are the roots that anchored me.
The reward, whether it comes quick, or near death, is the realization of self; that moment of clarity when we know what our duty is in life, and to life, which brings us to peace with ourselves and others.
Consider the words of the late Fr. Slavko Barbaric, a priest who lived in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina: “Man is a being who longs for peace. That is why, one can say, without a doubt, that a persons home is where he finds 'his peace'. In order to experience this peace and to be able to remain in his "peaceful home", all segments of the person, that is his intellect, his free will, his mind and his soul, have to be satisfied. The search for peace is the main motive of every human activity, and that, for his entire life,“ Fr. Barbaric, wrote in his autobiography before he died in 2000. Inspired by the reported visions and apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he wrote and lectured extensively on the search for self, and gave talks to visiting pilgrims, and has written numerous books about the messages of Medjugorje.
At the beginning of this life-long quest the child-pilgrim is gifted with a time to wonder, to imagine, to explore, to examine and to discern. Children naturally “discover“ life’s secrets. We all know of, and may have had ourselves a moment of pure, innocent and spontaneous reflection that uncovered the truth of the events we witness. This is where we begin the journey of finding and understanding the self.
A well-developed childhood inquisitiveness can mature in adolescence into “awareness” at that everything around us has “meaning” both for its own sake and it relationship to all other living things. Paths begin to appear, choices emerge: go there for wealth and fame, that way for pleasure and happiness; this way leads to commitment, unselfishness, charity, and kindness; and, of course, there’s a road named Perdition. First, we must develop and exercise the freedom we have to make a choice, and the will to carry it out.
Carried into adulthood, the exercise of freedom and will leads to an enlightenment of self and attainment of peace. To be complete, our journey demands a recognition, as well as the practice of spirituality; that deep, inner sense of determination, fearlessness, austerity, and compassion.
At the end, satisfying the self-quest brightens the way and forwards our “knowing” as we pass to new existence. For when that bronze clapper tolls a final fugue to our requiem we will need not inquire the reasons for that who we are, for that which we lived: clarity, realization, and peace are already ours.
from the current issue: Iron Mike
Coal miner, family patriarch, ruler of the roost.
Coal miner, family patriarch, ruler of the roost.
I am not my father‘s son. Nor was my father his father’s son.
His father, Michael Evanetski, my Gigi (Ukrainian for grandpa) was a persona onto himself. He was called Iron Mike by his coal miner peers for his hard-working, hard-drinking, no-nonsense life as a colliery foreman. He was in charge of the sorting crews who sifted the anthracite coal dug from the underground shafts and seams that tunneled in, around and through Scranton,Pennsylvania.
Iron Mike, with his newly-wed wife, Katherine-Katrina Ulovich, my Baba (Ukrainian for grandma), emigrated from their native Ukraine at the turn of the 19th Century to start a new life and family in America. They joined the waves of other European immigrants trying to escape the economic hardships or political and social repressions of the times. They stayed married for 65 years.
Family legend says that Iron Mike spoke four different languages, proposing that he was either a well-traveled businessman or government official. As new Americans in a country dominated by English-speaking people, Iron Mike could only master a mix of broken English and Ukrainian. The strong desire to absorb, and be absorbed, into a new culture found Iron Mike putting aside the old ways.
Iron Mikes new life brought new demands. Coal mining required 12-hour shifts on a 12-day, non-stop schedule. A short two days of R & R followed most of which was spent mostly binge drinking. A coal miners wages were meager. Spending required that a balance be kept between the raw pleasures of alcohol, providing for the family necessities of food, shelter and clothing, and other financial obligations.
When the money ran out to buy whiskey or vodka, Iron Mike was known to head for the root cellar, cup in hand, and dip a mug full of fermenting juices from the cabbage crock used to make sauerkraut. When out of the standard brand of cigarette-rolling paper, Iron Mike would roll a wad of Bugler tobacco into newsprint and light up.His was a short career of 25 years in the mines. Iron Mike retired at age 52 on a slim minerspension, personal savings and Social Security. He never held a full-time job again.
He was also in charge at home, setting the rules for his six children, John, my father, Mildred, Helen, Mary, Joseph and Edward. As family patriarch, he sat at the head of the table, leading religious and cultural rituals at family holiday celebrations.
My own childhood recollections of Gigi leave me with impression of a stern, but kindly man, who seemed to love his grandchildren, although not hesitant to scold us for some infraction or misconduct. Several of my aunts and uncles, however, also pointed to Iron Mikes ongoing abusive behavior toward them and his wife.
Consequently, he was shown little respect from his sons, daughters and other family elders. He regularly became the brunt of their practical jokes although they continued to acknowledge him as the head of the family, caring for his basic needs until he died.
No one told Iron Mike what to do or where to go. Into his late 70's, he continued to harvest edible wild mushrooms from the local woods never making a mistake in picking the safe and correct species. His drinking and smoking habits also followed him into the last phases of his life, Often my Aunt Helen would find him exiting the nearby Jack Tavern in the lateafternoon, despite her urges and warning that it was too dangerous and unhealthy to be drinking at his age.
Iron Mike also had the reputation of never being too sick to work. Family folklore tells that he was never sick a day in his life. His only hospitalization came in October 1969 where at age 87he suffered a massive stroke and died three days later.
As for my father, he spent almost half his 84 years as a driver and Teamster Union steward, working a standard 40-hour work week. Although a daily drinker, and occasional smoker, himself, my father responsibilities with my mother, Francis Sawejko Evanetski. She worked a regular job in a garment factory, while tending to home and kids before her death in 1969, which ended their 25 years of marriage. My father died in 1995, a WWII U.S. Army Sergeant buriedwith standard military honors in the Veterans of Foreign Wars section of the parish cemetery.
As for me, still alive at 59, I am a college-educated professional writer, editor, graphic designer and photographer with varying demands on time and energies. Although I did my share of drinking, smoking cigarettes, and a joint or two here and there, during my time in the U.S Navy and in college, I rarely consume alcohol now for health reasons. The smoking ended about 35 years ago. A 29-year marriage ended in divorce in 2004.
No matter who we are, what we become, or how we get there, we all look for role models--those with the qualities of character, morality, ethics, and personal bearing which we want for ourselves.
Sometimes we find just what we sought. Sometimes we find only hollow, false heroes.
Ultimately, though, we become who we are because as individuals we possess a nature and presence that is uniquely ours, neither assembled, nor contrived, from the spare parts of others.
I am neither Iron Mike, nor my father. But their lives gave me life. They are the roots that anchored me.
from the Fall 2006 issue:
A lifetime Journey to Self-realization
Very early in life, we all begin to “feel” that there is something more to us then just an everyday existence. Searching for who we are and why we are here in this time and space is as much a pilgrimage as it is a living and learning experience.A lifetime Journey to Self-realization
The reward, whether it comes quick, or near death, is the realization of self; that moment of clarity when we know what our duty is in life, and to life, which brings us to peace with ourselves and others.
Consider the words of the late Fr. Slavko Barbaric, a priest who lived in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina: “Man is a being who longs for peace. That is why, one can say, without a doubt, that a persons home is where he finds 'his peace'. In order to experience this peace and to be able to remain in his "peaceful home", all segments of the person, that is his intellect, his free will, his mind and his soul, have to be satisfied. The search for peace is the main motive of every human activity, and that, for his entire life,“ Fr. Barbaric, wrote in his autobiography before he died in 2000. Inspired by the reported visions and apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he wrote and lectured extensively on the search for self, and gave talks to visiting pilgrims, and has written numerous books about the messages of Medjugorje.
At the beginning of this life-long quest the child-pilgrim is gifted with a time to wonder, to imagine, to explore, to examine and to discern. Children naturally “discover“ life’s secrets. We all know of, and may have had ourselves a moment of pure, innocent and spontaneous reflection that uncovered the truth of the events we witness. This is where we begin the journey of finding and understanding the self.
A well-developed childhood inquisitiveness can mature in adolescence into “awareness” at that everything around us has “meaning” both for its own sake and it relationship to all other living things. Paths begin to appear, choices emerge: go there for wealth and fame, that way for pleasure and happiness; this way leads to commitment, unselfishness, charity, and kindness; and, of course, there’s a road named Perdition. First, we must develop and exercise the freedom we have to make a choice, and the will to carry it out.
Carried into adulthood, the exercise of freedom and will leads to an enlightenment of self and attainment of peace. To be complete, our journey demands a recognition, as well as the practice of spirituality; that deep, inner sense of determination, fearlessness, austerity, and compassion.
At the end, satisfying the self-quest brightens the way and forwards our “knowing” as we pass to new existence. For when that bronze clapper tolls a final fugue to our requiem we will need not inquire the reasons for that who we are, for that which we lived: clarity, realization, and peace are already ours.
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