Kelly's Christmas chat
Kelly
December 15, 2022
Since August I have been closer to ninety than to eighty. What have I done in all those years? I told our daughter, Kathy, no eulogy at my funeral. There wouldn’t be much to say.
My longest car trip this year – 200 miles round trip to Walnut Creek to a friend’s funeral and the next longest - 20 miles north to play the violin with twenty musicians. The Sutter Buttes Family Orchestra doesn’t have a third violin section, but the kind directress allows me to play with the second violinists. In our Christmas concert tomorrow, we will play: Greensleeves, Gesu Bambino and . . .. The next day, I head for our son Matt’s house in Morgan Hill for the Kelly Christmas party on the 17th.
Driving only 4,000 miles a year costs more per mile and per year for car insurance than for gas. A mechanic will charge $6,500 to put my 2000 Toyota Camry in shape. That’s 35 cents per mile if I drive till I’m ninety.
I thought about driving to cousin Joanne Sullivan’s granddaughter’s wedding, but it took so long summoning courage to visit crime-infested Chicago, that I had to fly. Bring a whistle, brass knuckles, a knife and a gun, avoid the downtown, the northeast and the southwest. While there, I phoned son Brian to suggest he call to congratulate the bride. He answered sleepily, “Not a good idea.” I had awakened him from a nap after his long flight to Singapore where he would meet shortly with customers. Great wedding - well worth coming home with Covid.
My sister Maureen listened better than I when young, and recently wrote, “This is a brief [four pages] outline of the ancestry of my mother, Loretto Kelly.” Mom’s parents were born in Galway, Ireland. Her father, Thomas (1856) joined a sister in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1878 and a few years later brought over his mother and girlfriend, Bridget. After they married in 1883, Thomas, Pat, Matt, Mammie and Joseph were born in St. Paul and our mother in 1897 in Anaconda, Montana where our grandfather had moved to get work.
Mom spent a summer quarter at a teacher’s college, but quit to teach in a one room schoolhouse in Fishtrap. Back at Dillon Normal School for two years, she earned a lifetime certificate which allowed her to teach in a half dozen places in Montana and then in Seattle where she moved with her father in 1928. When mom married Edward Patrick Kelly in October 1934, she had to quit teaching because you could not be married and teach.
Four in the family are named Matthew Kelly. So, Caden, Zachariah, Emma, Brogan Gabe, Matilde, Eamon, Alice, Allison and all, your great grandmother Loretto’s grandfather, uncle, brother and grandson are Matthew Kelly. Good men, it seems, but don’t expect any inheritance from them.
After spending many hours filing forms showing that I wouldn’t contaminate Spain, I made
it to Garabandal for the 19th time. Pilgrims from many parts knew that we were in trouble, and that God sent extraordinary help to this village sixty years ago. Some talked till the wee hours of the morning discussing how to spread the good news. Not I: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” I listened to my mother once or twice. It was difficult to leave. American Airlines threatened not to let me on the plane to the U.S. without proof of a negative spit test.
In my 2006 letter I talked about being inducted into O’Dea High’s athletic Wall of Honor. 2001 high school graduate Paolo Banchero is setting records in his first year in the NBA. With hard work and a little luck, they might inscribe his name on the Wall next to mine.
Brian and Nicole celebrating their anniversary reminded me of our son Matt’s roasting his brother at the wedding with: “Nicole drives a sports car. Brian likes girls who own sports cars. Nicole’s college quarterback father coached high school football all his adult life. Her cousin Jeff Garcia won accolades with the 49ers. Brian played flag football in 5th grade.
Can you think of anyone in second place behind Jesus, for the number of birthday parties? May His birth, which has been celebrated in many parts of the world more than two thousand times, fill you this Christmas with renewed happiness and hope.
Ed Kelly