Hi to all,
I’m sorry I didn’t post this on Friday as usual. To be honest, I forgot . . . Oops!
Yesterday, St. Patrick’s Day, we celebrated the wedding of my sister-in-law. It was a simple and relaxed ceremony and the reception was awesome fun. My band, WTFK, played and donated our service to the bride and groom (my band-mates are awesome). I didn’t make it to the after-party party in downtown Utica, MI which I understand was also fun. Being that the wedding was celebrated on the Irish-American holiday, the wedding had an Irish theme. Even though the groom has a Scottish name, I believe (McDonagh . . . the men wore Kilts), the bride can claim some Irish heritage . . . as can we all, including those with Scottish names . . . The Irish people must have been extremely prolific as there are so many people who claim Irish ancestry. My mother was a Daley so I can claim to be of Irish extraction. I believe her mother, my grandmother, was French, though. My father, dad, claimed to be part Irish. I’m thinkin’ that the Irish blood is very thin, though, as the name, Tschirhart is Alsatian (it hails from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France) and my great grandmother’s name (I remember meeting her) was Pineaux (probably spelled wrong) which I think is French. I am of the belief that there are very few persons in the world that can claim to be ‘pure’ anything, including the Irish. In other words . . . We are all mutts.
Alsace-Lorraine is on the Rhine river which runs north and south through Europe and has seen European trade and traffic throughout history. I highly doubt that anybody in or from Europe can claim anything but a mixed heritage, especially in Alsace-Lorraine. Britain has a huge history of Roman occupation. Nobody there can claim France, England, Ireland and Scotland didn’t mix up their genes throughout history despite any animosities between them. Something to remember, all of you who are proud to be Irish, is that the Irish were hated in America when they began moving here by the thousands because they were taking jobs away from Americans. Here, in the USA, anyone who moves here from another country (all of our ancestors, except American Indians, did) or were born here, and joins the ‘club’, taking the oath of allegiance to our country can claim to be an American and receive the same privileges as those whose ancestors moved here hundreds of years ago. Our ancestry, religion, or ideological leanings are set aside and we all are simply, Americans.
Sorry about the soapbox . . . I just wanted to voice my thoughts about people claiming to be Irish. We probably are all Irish, especially on St. Patty’s Day. Happy St. Patty’s Day to ya’ . . .
Love to all of you,
David T
Here’s the real reason we came to this web site:
A Friend Dies a Winner
By Don Tschirhart
I lost a friend the other day, a friend who tried hard to break two bad habits and succeeded in breaking only one. It was a case of a sad life ending in happiness, nay, triumph.
Let me tell you the story.
Don McKendrick died at age 66 from cancer. He died alone without friends or family sitting nearby or holding his hand as he took his last breath.
Meeting Don a few years ago I saw a short, stout, affable man in his early 60s who chained smoked cigarettes and spun yarns so glibly you wondered how much was truth and how much fiction.
Don lived at Mercy Casa Maria senior home in Imlay City for six years, and visiting his studio apartment was like going into a smoke house. An ex-smoker myself, I realized how others must have felt when I lit my pipe.
In the time I knew Don he always had a smile on his face even though we talked about his unhappy life and his three-decade alcohol addiction.
Don said he had attempted to stop drinking many times, the usual scenario for confirmed alcoholics. I asked about his smoking addiction and he said he knew he could never stop.
He told me he had been a carpet layer after serving three years in the Navy back in the early 1950s. He had been married and fathered two daughters.
His wife and girls had been alienated during his early drinking days, and they had not talked for more than 30 years. He said he had argued more recently with his brother, who lived in Metro Detroit, and no longer talked with him. His brother is in ill-health.
I asked him if he had an address for his children, thinking I might work out a reconciliation. Don said he didn’t know where his children lived.
Two years ago Don asked me to help him. He said he wanted to “find God.” He knew I taught a religion class in Dryden and said he wanted to join the class. I told him to pray, and God would find him.
Don attended three classes. When he missed the fourth one I inquired, and he admitted he had “dropped off the wagon” and had begun drinking again.
I have known many alcoholics in my lifetime. Constant confrontation by outsiders drives them deeper into addiction. The most effective way to deal with alcoholics is being there when they want to talk about their problem. They must reach bottom before they can crawl upward.
Last spring Don told me he had been sober since the previous November and wanted to rejoin the religion class in September. In August he told me he had been diagnosed with cancer in the throat area and maybe his back and liver. He seemed hopeful, but I knew it was only a matter of time. He never made it to class.
At a memorial ceremony in Casa Maria, Don’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Roger, said Don had been in and out of the AA 12-step program many times. Roger confirmed Don had been alcohol free since November, 2002, and was awarded a medal recognizing his one-year of alcohol freedom. He never knew about the medal. Roger asked that it be buried with him.
At one of our meetings I told Don he had done his best the last few years, was obviously sorry for his past drunkenness and I felt God would welcome someone who had “fought so hard to defeat his alcoholism.”
Don said he understood this and later told Sister Carol Ann Heitgen, Casa Maria’s activities director, that he was confident God was with him. Sister said Don spoke so sincerely about his belief that she remembers feeling an “aura of holiness about him.”
In this life Don finally won the fight against the insidious alcohol disease. It may have been too late but in the end Don was victorious in the most important moment in his life — his death.
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