Remembering Robert R. Pell

The following story was written by D. B. Atkins of Douglasville, GA, about his uncle, Robert R. Pell, retired Beacon Journal printer who died July 3, 2008. Atkins is the son of Trana Atkins who is the sister to Bob Pell.  She is the last survivor of the three siblings.  Pell began as a typesetter at the Barberton Herald, but within a few years moved to the Akron Beacon Journal, where he was a loyal employee for 37 years until his retirement in 1991.

06JUL2008

Next Time

I went to Ohio a few weeks ago to visit an uncle of mine - Uncle Bob. He is one of those fellows that was always very witty and sometimes in ways that would allow you to walk a few steps away before realizing what he really said. I have found him to be much like Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain. In many of his statements, he would say things that would roll off the tongue and into the mind two ways. Almost always, it was the way that mandated some ability to think that he intended the statement to be taken. Also like Twain, he was not much on religion as he saw it in the terms that a benevolent being was scattering his charges around in ways that made "His Way" more surefire and rich. Again, read into that how the underlings were working to gain converts to gain increase in position and finances. Uncle Bob had no use for the false oddities of manipulation by one human towards another - in any endeavor - as far as I could tell from our limited conversations.

Yet before I make him into a saint, we all have pulled stunts under these stars that would pass for anything other than itemized entries on a resume for sainthood. However, as a former student of things divine, I would be hard-pressed to find any saints that have worked - not walked - their way through the valleys of pain and deep disappointment that he has and yet still found life entertaining. He truly had his valleys and none were of his doing.

But you get him onto politics and there is where the two-meaning statements tended to stop. He did not mince any opinions about where he stood with most politicians.

The last time I was up there in Wadsworth, we split a "pizza-pie" as he called it and chatted it up for a while. One of the subjects that came up was his vacation with the family. Many today that have never had the experience of living in a nation without crisscrossed interstates, would have difficulty realizing the logistics of traveling to places where we see references of everyday now.

Going to the Grand Canyon, going to a national park, going to the Yellowstone - try getting there and back on two-lane roads. He would get off a late shift, toss the kids (4 total) into the rear of an already loaded station-wagon, ". And boy did they get the farts…!", then hit the road driving through the night. Uncle Bob enjoyed the ‘presentation of life’ unlike many of the more recent generations who travel via an X-box into virtual experiences. This man who worked in the newspaper business his whole life, a good part of it as a typesetter, stayed alive by living life. How many of us find ourselves wary of traveling until that moment when life deals a hand of cards that mandates us homebound till that eve which old friends and family are contacted and made aware of our permanent departure. Uncle Bob traveled and took his family along. I want to ask him more about his trips but that would have to wait for a few weeks until I returned.

The very house that we were sitting in provided a family history that was unknown to me. Just after moving to Ohio from West Virginia Uncle Bob and my Aunt Peg moved into a rented a room in that very dwelling when it was a boarding house. It was here that he and Aunt Peg started life together in Ohio. Later they purchased a house near by which was more to his liking but after a lengthy period of time, Aunt Peg began voicing her opinion of what sort of home she wanted to live in for the rest of her life. I asked him if she specified this particular house and he said, "No no - this was the one that she modeled her dream home after and she talked it up often. So, after time, I realized that I was loosing this one and I bought it for about $11,000 dollars." Aunt Peg got her heart’s desire.

After some renovations to the kitchen, specifically where the cabinets were built by Uncle Bob and another man (and those had to be brought in through the kitchen window), a restroom renovation and the house was pretty much complete. This is the house where I remember playing tag with his son Bob, his daughter Cathy and other youngin’s. This was the yard where Bob Jr. would call out "One potato, two potato, three potato four" to determine who was "it". Even then the grass I remembered as thick and rich in deep green hues. It never ceases to amaze me that 30 some years later, equipped with a state of the art GPS unit in my vehicle, during the first time that I came to visit him about two months ago, I drove right past his house several times. I remembered the house being much larger.

But he evidently got along well with his neighbors. There was that one winter when Uncle Bob got out his snow blower and cleaned a path from his back porch to his neighbors’ woodpile while he was away. He had a chuckle about that.

Sometime during my second visit within a month, we walked back into his bedroom, which was on the bottom floor, following a discussion on guns in general -a subject very close to my heart -, and he pulled out a shotgun that he had hidden between a chest of drawers and the wall. Now, as weak as he was, at that moment he stood straight and hoisted his arm straight out, a twinkling of a fire in this man’s otherwise tired eyes, and declared, "Just let someone come in here…" He handed it to me. I could see the strength of a man, show in this one who was dying of cancer. The disease will rob many of much but Uncle Bob was just working his way through that particular valley as well.

I took it from him but kept looking into his eyes for a few more seconds because he just became an individual who was not facing an uncertain future but carrying himself in the strength of the moment - I hope what we had there was a uninterrupted transitory time of "man-to-man" where both appreciated the other. I told him that indeed racking a round in "this puppy would back a bad-guy up!" He stated, "Oh yea - it would do that…"

There is just something magical about men and firearms and I am not ashamed to say so.

He said that it needed cleaning and that he would have to take it to a gunsmith or somewhere to clean it. I told him that I could do it and probably would do a better job since I thought so highly of myself in that arena. He agreed that when I came back up, I could take care of it. I promised him I would

It was during this night that I asked a question which several older folks have heard from me through the years. I have a fascination for history on a personal level. I asked Uncle Bob that of all the changes he had seen through life, which was the most poignant and surprising to him. He said that for him, it was the first time that he had seen TV. He was walking by a drugstore and there was a group of people standing in front of the window. He walked up to see what was going on and there he saw TV for the first time.

Eventually his father, a man who was a bit of a leader in the field of radio communications and who also operated a radio repair shop in Valley Fork, West Virginia, bought a TV for the shop. Often people would come from all over the valley to sit in the shop and watch the fights.

He said, "DB, you want some ice cream?" and proceeded to answer for me by, "Let’s have some ice cream."

From his room we went into the kitchen, he pushing his walker/seat. He parked it in front of the ‘fridgerator. Reaching into the freezer he pulled out two little cups of vanilla ice cream. I had almost forgotten that the Pell side of my heritage was very steeped in consuming ice cream. This was something of a tradition that I recall from being a child at my grandfather’s house, his father. Ice cream was never too far away.

He handed me a flat wooden spoon and then sat down, wearing his blue robe, (I think it was blue), while I took a seat at the kitchen table facing him, facing me, and we just started carefully and wistfully spooning out ice cream from these little cups. I wish I could tell you just one thing that we spoke of, but I cannot. It was just such a fine moment in life where all the broken moments in every day living were "way out there" screaming at each other but none were to be heard that moment. I wish to say that it was a revered moment between an uncle and his nephew but it wasn’t. It was a moment between a good man now at the end of life and the son of his sister who thought the world of him. It was just an unmeasured sweep of the minute hand where two men bound by blood and time, benefited in each other’s presence… and vanilla ice cream. It was just criminal that I had let so much life pass before making the time and effort to visit with him. It was a fabulous moment - one that I can never forget.

I do recall thinking that I should run get the camera and snap a shot of him sitting there so care-free, eating his ice cream - and I almost did but I could not bring myself to break that sincere moment. I decided that I would carry the camera with me into the kitchen the next time that I came up in about 4 or 5 weeks and snap that shot then.

It was time to crash for the night - he usually was in bed by 9 p.m. but here it was 10 O’clock and we were still going strong. We called it a night and I expected him to walk to his room and I to my assigned room just above the front room. He was not having that. He walked up the couple of steps to the first landing which was also just outside his computer room. Then he began walking up another stair or two and stopped. He turned to look at me and point blank said, "I am not supposed to go up these stairs - oh no they will not be happy but don’t tell anyone - especially Phyllis" (his daughter in law). I said, "She’ll git ya, huh?" "Oh yea, she won’t let me do this" and smiled. I am not sure how to describe this "little boy feeling" of getting away with something we should not be doing but I happily became a co-conspirator of this devilish act of walking up stairs with a man that was burning himself deeper into my heart

You can bet that I positioned myself to prevent a fall.

While upstairs, he gave me a tour of the rooms and then showed me my room where he told me that I would have to pull some boards out from under the uprights of the bed’s headboard. It was raised for another visitor who had reflux problems. He then leaned into a closet at the top of the stairs and turned on a light for me so that I could find my way to the restroom. I could have been 60 years old (and am only 6 years away from being just that) and he would have still flipped on that switch to act as a lighthouse to the bathroom. Me, a former Army soldier, former Government Intelligence Communications Officer, former Private Investigator and now two years from retirement in the medical electronics field - this son of his kid sister, required a nightlight and by God that act of his warmed me deep inside.

I found a reason to walk back down ahead of him just in case help was needed. As we stepped down, I noticed that we walked through two curtains hanging in the stairwell. I found this curious and asked him about them. He advised that they were used to keep the heat downstairs and not let it escape upward into the second floor where no one stayed. I was impressed. He was not going to give the energy company one more penny than they deserved.

Making my way back to the room, I slept a deep sleep that night in a bed that was so comfortable, in a room with thick quiet walls, a fan gently dancing at the foot of the bed. Morning came at just the right time and I first remember thinking that it has been a months since I slept so well.

The next morning, we joined up at the kitchen table where his housekeeper fixed cream of wheat and lying upon the table were some iced sugar cookies. Ever conscious of my weight - which I have no business doing so since every body else does that job so well for me - I politely declined the delicacy when Uncle Bob offered one. He said, "They look good, don’t they?" And he pulled one from the bag and began eating the treat. Again he said, "These are good, not hard either" and gave me that look of challenge that one eight year old would give another.

I caved…

We finished the cream-of-wheat in between savoring the cookies.

We chuckled and talked about some things that I am sure would not have changed the world one iota. We planned about when I would come back up. The first time that I suggested would have been in conflict with his daughter’s, Cathy, visit so we looked at a couple weeks past that.

I recall sitting there that morning, glancing his way and recalling our time here in the kitchen last night, him in his seat/walker, lightly scooping ice cream with all it’s goodness and pleasure, from a small plastic dispenser - I was lost in that moment of enjoyment remembering thinking to myself, "I’ll get that photo of ya next time". It will be a moment that will remain with me forever and unfortunately, it is a moment that will remain only in my memory.

Friday morning this past week, Uncle Bob died and I got the phone call while sitting in my parents' driveway. It was a long walk into that house to see Mom. She was his confidant and cheerleading section all through his ills. I have yet to even scratch the surface of the walk this man went through. Of how, when he was first battling cancer, his wife Peg was suffering from kidney failure and had to be shuttled to kidney dialysis which he did right up to the time of her passing. Or I have yet to mention how, while battling cancer, he would continue to visit his son of forty some years, in a home for the disabled. John had a difficult time coming to an understanding that his precious mother was in heaven. Now he had to digest this catastrophe.

I spoke with John on the phone two days ago and he sounded weak, I am sure from being sad as he could possibly understand sadness. He knows me as Donny.

"Donny? Where Mom?"

"In heaven, John - where is your Dad?"

"In heaven with Mom."

"Are you sad John?", I asked.

"Yea - John’s sad…"

People that I have never met are right there with John in his sorrow. I still see the man insisting that he make the walk down the long ramp from the front of his house, because he wanted to see me off. And it was there that I got two photographs of him (and he insisted on taking one of me). One photo was with the two of us and then I snapped a better photo with just him, in his "Beacon Journal" shirt. His walker was in the photo and he gave it a move so that it would not be so prominent, then leaning up against the handrail he said, "Is this good?" and smiled. I could still see the top of the walker in the view window so I yanked it on back a bit and shot the last photo I will ever take of him. The day was beautiful and he looked 10 feet tall.

Yes, as is obvious, I will miss Uncle Bob. But to be true here, there are those times that we should have had in the past, those times that we were planning on in the future, that I will so deeply miss. Yet there was no way that I would have desired him to suffer through another five moments with what he was having to deal with. He was ready for this - but he alone.

Next time….