Roland Merullo's Writings, cont'd.

"Revere Beach Elegy," the third of Roland Merullo's Revere Beach stories, is actually, unlike the earlier two of the trilogy, "Revere Beach Boulevard," and "Revere, In those Days," a memoir. The former were fictional stories built roughly on the model of the historical Merullo family. I can say this authoritatively because in the memoir, he lets us know that, yes, his father was one of eight children, and yes, the extended family did visit his father's home every Sunday, without fail, all 25 or so of them, each and every Sunday, just as he said they had. That his grandmother, his father's mother, was one of the 'true north's' of his childhood, the source of much spirituality, particularly humility, in the young Roland's life, that his father, even in memory, continues to be an important model for him--Merullo pere went to Suffolk Law at night in his late 40's,(he got them to admit him with only a high school diploma), graduated from Suffolk, age 54, and took the bar exam not once, not twice, but four times before he passed it on the fifth try and settling down to the practice of law for the last 12 or so years of his life. The father had been Christian Herter's secretary but when Herter went to Washington, Merullo pere decided to stay in Revere, "with the family". Or that Roland and his family's favorite vacation spot is Italy where they try to go as often as they can, his paternal grandmother's birthplace in a small town east of Naples especially reminiscent of that very special presence (force for good he would call it) in his life.
I also learned that Roland, though now a practicing Buddist, has deep roots in the Catholic faith so his writing about both faiths is not fictional, that he was a sickly child, that he was always small for his age but had a growth spurt during a hospital stay, he claims, so that now he's close to six feet tall, that he was always good at sports, except swimming, so those references to baseball, track, golf and rowing have a basis in fact, that he worked construction after high school, that he attended Boston U for two years before transferring to Brown, a Russian lang/lit major there, that he worked in the Soviet Union for 28 months after college with the USIA, hence his novel, "A Russian Requiem," during which he fell in love, deeply, madly, spiritually, with the Russian people, and also that he served in Micronesia with the Peace Corps but gave it up after only six months of his two-year tour, one of the big failures in his life he laments, because there he literally had nothing to do, and it drove him the point where he had to leave, it was driving him crazy.
What else? That he did odd jobs, including carpentering, in western Mass, drove a taxi in Boston, is the father of two girls, Alexandra and Juliana, that his wife of now 20 years is Amanda, also a Brown grad and a photographer by profession, that he loved Phillips Exeter almost as much as Revere, his "two heavens," and that, finally, he has several chronic health "issues," as some in Amherst and surrounds like to say, that, now at age 54, have slowed him down.
What I'd like to muse briefly about here is the account of the woman, a slight acquaintance of his mother's, who told her that Roland, when still quite young, should go to school elsewhere, that the education he was getting in Revere was not up to his abilities. Roland helped out by winning a half-scholarship to St. John's Prep in Danvers where one of the subjects he was assigned was Russian language, before being admitted to Exeter where he continued the subject, and at Brown later, before going to Russia and really becoming fluent in it. He has always loved Russian novels but the language came slowly to him. No wonder. It's a hard language to learn, as most would agree.
But my thought has to do with Providence, some would call it Fate, in his, in our lives, a subject he addresses in the memoir. The woman happened to meet his mother, gave her that unsolicited suggestion, a bit hubristically on her part I'd say, completely, it seems, out of the blue, and the family, for some reason or other--they must have believed her--acted on it, Rol winning the half-scholarship, his mother reentering the work force to help pay the bills that would make it all possible and eventually, the young Roland actually writing about his Russian experience. Coincidence? I think not but perhaps a combination of two things, luck and what's been foreordained. (I have friends who say there is no such thing as happenstance though I would not go quite that far myself.)
And yet I wonder. I dated many young women in high school and college before a college classmate "fixed me up" with a young lady from his evening course in Logic--is that ironic or what?-- for an upcoming St. Joe's dance. On out second date she did something no date had ever done, she tucked her arm, a very simple act in itself, into mine as we walked up the path to the country club for the event taking place there. Did she hook me or was it vice-versa? And our third date was to an Irish Ball, as they were called at the time, The Kerry Ball, to be exact, in downtown Philadelphia where her father's orchestra, "The Four Province Irish Ramblers," were playing the Irish music, to which I became completely smitten and eventually, this led me to become an Irish citizen. What's so strange about all this? I married this young lady, Frances, and together we had five children together, before she died in 1973. My second wife, Marie and I met, again, in a seemingly fortuitous fashion, but again, was it?
And finally, the Irish citizen part, my father never, and I mean never, spoke about his Irish background so this was something, the Irish connection, I had to pursue on my own many years after he died. He often opined that he did not want to become "a professional Irishman," as some of his friends had done. He liked to say that his father was from King's County, his mother from Queen's County, but as no such counties existed on the maps we consulted, we thought--he was a great story teller--that like many of his stories, he was just making it up. He wasn't. These counties reverted to their original Irish names, Laois and Offaly, after the peace arrangements of 192 with the hated British. He wasn't just telling a story after all.
So I ask again, Providence, Lady Luck, Fate, a combination? And doesn't everyone have similar questions to ask about their own backgrounds? I'm leaning to the former explanation, Providence, with a bit of luck, fate and free will thrown in for good measure. (And of course, put that way, I need take no, or little, responsibility for results based on the original decisions and what followed. Or, if they turned out badly, I guess I could always say, "The Devil made me do it.") Thank you, Charley, for fixing me up with Fran. You're an angel.