blessed memorial chapter 4

Lee Pridemore, a skilled carpenter, turned to drinking and drugs in his early twenties, causing havoc in his family's construction business. He stole money and disappeared for three years, living a transient lifestyle in New Orleans. He would work odd jobs, get paid under the table, and then move on. During this time, he met Dashauna, who eventually became pregnant with Alex, the author of the letter. Lee's parents worried about him constantly, but he remained lost until now. CHAPTER FOUR LEE PRIDEMORE THE PRODIGAL SON After returning from Chicago, I went back to the stack for another envelope. I've described the cards and photos as having to do with teenagers from Jamestown, New York. However, one of the cards didn't fit either detail, which intrigued me. The card for Lee Pridemore had him as 24 years old at the time of his arrest. His photo showed sunken eyes and a vacant stare. The stringy hair that hung down to the collar of his T-shirt and his dirty beard didn't look like a fashion choice. The second detail that didn't fit interested me even more. His card came from New Orleans, Louisiana. When I checked for Lee Pridemore's current address, I saw Phil Truxell had written DECEASED next to his name. At first I thought I'd have to pick another envelope and move on, but then I had an idea. Next to Lee's name, Phil had written Ron Pridemore, older brother, with a Jamestown address. That told me Lee might have something to do with Jamestown after all. I wrote to Ron Pridemore and asked to meet with him about his younger brother. While trying to word the letter appropriately, I almost forgot to ask about McCreevy. I did, though, and sure enough, he figured into this story also. I dropped the letter in the mail, but a response took a long time. I didn't hear back for close to eight months. After a few weeks, I assumed there wouldn't be a response, so I went on and had three other successful interviews. However, none of those permitted me to record our conversations, nor would they allow me to retell their stories. I've given my word, and I will not. Checking the mailbox one day, I found a letter with a return address from Pridemore Homes, Jamestown, New York. I couldn't wait to open it. The envelope contained an 18-page typed letter. I looked at it quickly and realized it had to do with Lee Pridemore, but I didn't read it immediately. I refolded it and put it back in the envelope. I wanted to give it my full attention that night after supper. My wife made pork chops and green beans that evening, and I had a large cup of coffee for dessert. After we finished, I took the letter out of its envelope again and began to read. Alex Pridemore, Jamestown, New York. Dear Mr. Strongtree, my name is Alex Pridemore. I'm responding to the letter you sent my uncle, Ron, concerning his brother, Lee. Unfortunately, Ron is not able to respond. Members are unaware that Fenton Manor, where you sent your letter to Ron, is a nursing home here in Jamestown. Ron is a patient in the dementia unit, and the disease has progressed to the stage where he's unresponsive. Fenton Manor, pass your letter on to me. As the last family member living locally, I make it a point to see him at least once a week. I don't know why, but I visit anyway. My grandfather would have wanted it that way. Initially, I planned to send a brief note telling what I knew of Lee's contact with the law, but the more I wrote, the more I remembered. I wrote and rewrote my recollection several times to get the sequences right. This letter is the result. No doubt it's more than you're interested in, but remembering the events of our lives and coming to terms with them in writing has been a healing and redemptive experience for me. After World War II, my grandfather, Jason Bridemore, started a construction company, Bridemore Homes. You can think Pride in a Bridemore home. My grandfather may have been the happiest man I ever met. He went through life with the joy of a man who couldn't believe his good luck. During those years, everyone in America wanted to settle down and buy a home, so his building business took off. He might have been in the right spot at the right time, but he worked for his success, which didn't give him much time to socialize. He married late, but he got a good one. I owe so much of my life to my grandfather and grandmother. At the end of the baby boom, the couple had two sons, and I can't tell you how much he wanted to be with those boys. Even if he'd been at a job site all day, he tried to be home for dinner most nights. And he got to their baseball games, too, even if he had to return to the office to do paperwork until midnight. His sons, Ron and Lee, grew up with hammers and saws in their hands. While my grandfather and his crew built the houses, the boys always had jobs to do, even when they were small. They became excellent craftsmen in their own right, which pleased my grandfather to no end. Ron, the older brother, could frame a house dead-plum using a circular saw, a hammer, and a four-foot level. He measured everything, and when he'd finished, the house wouldn't be off by more than a sixteenth of an inch from one side to the other. Lee, the younger brother, specialized in trim. For him, good carpentry meant more than solid construction. He believed pride-bore homes had to look beautiful, too. Lee could make kitchen cabinets feel light, clean, and comfortable. His hardwood floors never squeaked, and somehow he could match grain so well that his built-in bookcases looked like they grew from a tree. He knew almost everything about moldings, tray ceilings, picture windows, staircases, and fireplace mantles. The brothers had high expectations, but they differed in how they achieved their tremendous level of quality. Ron demanded it. Lee coaxed it. The father and the two sons made a formidable team. They each took different parts of the business. My grandfather sold the ideas, Ron supervised the construction, and Lee finished the projects. I've restored and renovated some of their work from over fifty years ago. They built fine homes, and I smile every time I uncover one of the creative solutions they found to solve a construction problem they encountered. Things changed after Lee turned twenty-one. This is where it starts to get fuzzy. I've pieced the story together over the years, but the reports don't differ radically. So I feel sure enough in my understanding to draw an outline. Lee started drinking. Couldn't say when, but everyone thought it was after he turned eighteen. He'd have a few beers with the guys on the construction cruise at the end of the day. I don't know this for a fact, but my guess is one night one of the guys offered him something else. I don't know what drug. He never told me, but that night, or whenever it was, he took his first step down a long, hard road. The story sounds like it might have come from a magazine article. Lee deteriorated over two or three years. He couldn't stay up with the work. The family tried to keep it a secret, but they lost jobs because of him. They tried everything to help him, but none of it worked. Lee turned into a destructive tornado in the center of the family and the business. A harrowing night came when a problem showed up at a repair site. One of the first places my grandfather built right after the war needed new gutters and downspouts. Because of their copper content, the old ones had scrap value. For money they brought as scrap would go into new aluminum replacements. The homeowner called my grandfather and complained about guys working late and making so much noise taking the old gutters off the house. My grandfather knew no one should be at the place that late, so he drove over to have a look. He found someone had stripped the copper from the home. The next day he called the roofers, the exterior trim carpenters, the painters, and the other trades who may have taken the old copper. No one knew anything about it. When my grandfather called the scrap yard, they said they had taken the gutters in that morning. When my grandfather told the yard the gutters were stolen property, the yard said they made a Polaroid of every significant transaction and called the police. My grandfather met the police at the scrap yard to look at the picture. His heart broke into dozens of pieces as he looked at that picture. Lee had turned his back on his family and burned the business for $200. When my grandfather and Ron checked the office, they found the petty cash was missing, and the company safe cleared out also. Brightmore homes often use cash to get the best prices on materials, and when they checked with the bank, they found Lee had taken $1,000 earlier that morning. A detective from Jamestown tracked Lee as far as Colorado, and the police in Denver said they'd pick him up if they could find him. A few days later, they called and said they found his truck abandoned, but no sign of Lee. At last, they heard of him for three years. No one knew what happened to Lee, and the world didn't see him as a lost son or a lost brother. The detective described it as an unfortunate but all-too-regular event. He put the whole incident into a single sentence. He said, another guy gets into drugs and steals a pocketful of dollars. The detective also said that the theft might help in Lee's case. Typically, searching for a missing person over 21 is low priority, especially if drugs are involved, but he figured Lee would likely get in trouble again. That would trip an outstanding warrant. My grandfather and grandmother worried about their son every minute of those years. Lee had gone to New Orleans and used his carpentry skills to stay out of sight. He worked day labor and slept at drug houses. He'd stay drunk and stoned for as long as his money held. When it ran out, he'd hang around job sites and talk about building houses until someone listened to him. They'd reckon he knew something about construction, hire him, and pay him under the table. He'd show up long enough to get paid, and then he'd be gone again. During those years, he met Dashauna, my mother. Because I've never been diagnosed with any significant mental defect, I believe my mother stayed away from drugs as long as she carried me. After I came along, though, she dropped me off with her mother, my grandma, Lola. After that, my mother picked up the drugs again, and I never got to know her. She'd come around looking for money now and then, but she and grandma Lola had terrible fights. I remember once grandma Lola yelled at her, why don't you send him up to your big deal white man in New York City? By four or five, I figured out him meant me. Sometimes grandma Lola had boyfriends, but she never had a job. I stayed on a cot in a room off the kitchen and couldn't come out when a boyfriend came to the house. Grandma Lola and I shared cans of food. Sometimes she bought pizza and loaves of old bread from a place down the street. I think she may have received assistance or food stamps because now and then she'd come home with cereal and a quart of milk. I also remember blocks of cheese. She died a month after my seventh birthday. I'm sure there's more, but that's all I remember of those days. I never went to school, and I can't account for the time. I recall a day in February when a man came to the house looking for me. I remember February because one of the other kids laughed at how I pronounced it. I recognized the man because he'd been to the house before. He told me my grandma Lola died at her friend's house, and my mother had died a year before that. He said I had to live with my father and told me to pack my things. I had two sweatshirts. Had one on to put the other in a plastic bag. When he asked me if that's all I had, I said, yes. I remember he looked down at me and shook his head. I asked him if I had to go to New York City to live with my father. He explained that whenever anyone said New York to Grandma Lola, she thought they meant New York City. The man said before my mother died, she told him my father had not come from New York City. He came from the other side of the state. The man seemed sure of himself, so I went along, but it confused me. I didn't know anything about states and cities at the time. The man drove me to his house and told me to wait in the car. Sitting there alone, I felt as frightened as I ever have. I cried. The man came out of his house carrying a jacket. He tossed it into the car and it landed on my lap. He told me I should take it and I still have it. He said it's cold in New York and I need it. The jacket's extra large. I could wrap it around me like a blanket, which is what I did in the coming days. It's a souvenir team jacket from the New Orleans Saints. Years later, I had it pressed and preserved. I want to be buried in that jacket. I want to wrap the Saints around me on my final journey, too. The man must have seen me crying, but he didn't let on. He said things would be better with my father. The man took me to the bus station. He told the lady through a window at the ticket counter that he wanted a one-way ticket to Jamestown, New York. The lady explained that the trip would involve taking several different buses. He typed up the tickets and put them together with a staple. The man paid the lady with a roll of bills he took out of his pocket. Then he took two 20s and gave them to me. He sat with me on the plastic chairs of the depot while we waited for the bus. We sat long enough for the man to buy me a hamburger and give me some instructions. He told me I had to keep the money and the tickets in my pocket, even checked for a hole where they might fall through. He said whenever the bus came into a station, I had to ask the driver to take me to the right bus. If the bus stop had a coffee shop, I should ask for a hamburger or a sandwich and pay with one of the bills. When they gave me the change back, I should keep that for a hamburger at the next stop. He told me to stay on the bus. I should never let the bus leave without me. And I shouldn't go with anybody who said they could get me to Jamestown sooner. He also gave me a piece of paper with a note on it to put in my pocket with the money. He told me when I got to Jamestown, I should ask someone at the bus station how to get to the police department. When I got to the police, I should give them the note. I couldn't read it then, but I still have it. I held on to it the way I kept a sinks jacket. When the bus came, the man showed me how to find a seat and left. I had the ticket, the money, and the note. I put them deep into my pocket. I knew I couldn't lose them. The sun went down and the bus rolled. After a few hours, the loneliness and the vibrations of the bus put me to sleep. I don't know how many days and nights it took. Sometimes the driver would say I had to change buses. Sometimes he'd tell me to stay in my seat and I'd sleep again. One time a lady sat with me on the bus. She told me everyone called her Blondie because of her white hair and that she liked that better than her real name, Angela. She said we'd have time for hamburgers when we stopped. I paid with one of the 20s and told her I'd buy her a hamburger too. She said hamburgers were good, but she didn't need to eat. She said she only wanted to make sure I had one. I'd been riding the bus for a few days when the snow started. I knew about snowflakes, but the snow outside the bus made the world look like nothing I'd ever seen. When I got off the bus, it stuck to my shoes and the legs of my pants. It melted when I got back on, and my feet felt cold and wet. I pulled the jacket around me as tight as I could. Finally the bus pulled into a station and the driver said, this is your stop, kid. I dug past the coins left over from the 20s and found the paper with the note. It must have been first thing in the morning because I can remember cold sunlight along with the snow. And I asked the woman at the station how I could find the police. She looked at me like she didn't understand me. She probably couldn't make out my Creole. She said something, and I didn't understand her. Some words she used sounded familiar, but I couldn't get them. I showed her the paper the man had given me. It said, my name is Alex Prydmore. My mother is Deshauna DeCroy from New Orleans. She died a year ago. Lee Prydmore is my father. The woman drew in her breath as she read it. She called another woman at the station, and the two of them read the note together several times. All these years later, I'm smiling at what these Jamestown women must have thought about this little black kid showing up at their bus station early on a February morning in the middle of a snowstorm with a note claiming to be Lee Prydmore's son. The women looked at each other, and they looked at me. They both started talking at the same time, and I kept repeating the word, police. The first woman ran to get her coat and must have told the other woman she was taking me to the police station. I say, must have, because that's what she did. The woman took me by the hand and led me out into the snow. I got scared all over again. I remember ice and cold cutting into my face. I now know the woman led me down Prendergast Avenue and over a block on the second street. She brought me into the warmth and the bright fluorescent lights of the Jamestown Police Department. She gave my note to a policeman sitting at a desk, and everyone had another long look at me. A policeman gave me a donut, and I ate it in three bites. He gave me another one and got busy on the phone. He spoke to someone, and I heard him say my name. He looked over at me and listened for a while longer. Then I heard him say, okay, and he hung up. That's when I first met Foraker McCreevy. He walked in through the doors of the police station and took off his coat. He walked directly toward me, shook my hand, and said, glad to meet you, Alex. I'm Officer McCreevy. I sat down at another desk and started making calls. He must have talked to a few different people because I remember him talking and hanging up and talking and hanging up again several times. I heard him say my name on each one of the calls. When he finished on the phone, he got up from his chair, came over to me, and this time he said, okay, let's go. I remember he smiled at me, and I felt I could trust him. He walked through the snow to his police car. When we got in the car, he said, I got in touch with your people, Alex. We're going to meet your dad and your grandfather and your grandmother. He spoke slowly, and I got most of it. The snow hadn't let up, and we drove over streets that looked like pictures in magazines I'd seen at the drugstore. We stopped in front of a house where an older white man stood out front. He'd been shoveling the snow to make a path and came running towards the car. Officer McCreevey came around and opened the car door for me, and the man called out, Welcome, Alex. Ian McCreevey took my hand. They led me along the walk and up the porch steps. We stood on the porch while the man reached for the door, but a white woman pulled it open from inside before he got it. She wore jeans and an oversized sweater. She had a kind expression with bright eyes and kept looking at me like she wanted to see all of me at once. A younger white man came around from behind her. The woman smiled and moved aside. She said, Alex, this man is your father. The man fell to his knees and pulled me to him. He held me for a long time until the older man and woman reached for me. We all walked to the kitchen while McCreevey stood in the doorway. The two men and the woman sat in chairs and I stood between them. They kept looking at me and holding me one after the other. Officer McCreevey spoke up. So, what are you going to do, he asked. The older man answered without hesitation. He said, we're going to thank God. The younger man, my father, said he'd go to the store and buy me some clothes. The older man said he wanted to bring some steaks up from the freezer. The woman said she'd start cleaning me up and motioned for me to follow her to the bathroom. Everything looked neat, clean. I saw reflections on the floors. I'd never seen the inside of a house look this shiny, which frightened me. The woman filled the bathtub and told me to take my clothes off. She pointed to the toilet and raised an eyebrow. Somehow I understood this as her asking me if I needed to go. She put her hand in the bath water, feeling the temperature. She shut off the water, pointed to a towel and a robe hanging on the wall, and left the bathroom. It may have been the first time I'd ever had a hot bath in a clean bathroom with a whole bar of white soap. I sat in the tub and I felt warm again. I even tried to rub the soap on my skin. The woman spoke to me through the door. She told me to dry myself with the towel and put on the robe she'd left. The robe must have been hers or the older man's because it hung past my feet. The woman sat me on a chair in the kitchen. Now and then she'd smile and hug me. I realized this could have been the first time I felt cared for. I had to learn to accept it. It took a while, but the pride mourners would have it no other way. The younger man came back with two bags of clothing. He'd gone to the big and discount store and filled a cart with clothing for me. He brought back two shirts, two pairs of pants, a pack of underwear, socks, and what turned out to be my first pair of work boots. He also brought me a coat, a knit hat, and a pair of winter gloves. They overwhelmed me. I'd never experienced anything like this and I didn't know what to think. The older man cooked the steaks and the woman boiled potatoes and green beans and they ate with knives and forks. They tried to show me how, but it took weeks to learn. I ate some of what they put on my plate and then the woman gave me a glass of milk and a piece of chocolate cake. The snow stopped and golden light covered the houses by late afternoon. I couldn't keep my eyes open. The woman took me to a room and showed me a bed. She said, my father slept in the same bed as a boy. That's how I came to Jamestown, but I hadn't yet met Uncle Ron. It took me years to piece the New Orleans story together and here's how I understand it. One night while he lived there, my father went back to one of the jobs where he pumped his way into working as a carpenter. He sold a power miter saw, a compressor, and three nail guns. He met a guy with a car and they thought they had a sure thing, but when they tried to sell the tools at a local pawn shop, it didn't go as well as they thought it would. Unlike my grandfather, the contractor in New Orleans had lost tools before and knew where they'd end up. He called the pawnbrokers around town and my father and the guy with the car walked right into an arrest. The New Orleans Police Department checked for outstanding warrants and reported the arrest to Jamestown. At this time, Officer McCreavy had just started working with the Jamestown Department. He knew the Pridemore family from growing up in town and he offered to drive his car to New Orleans and return the prisoner. My grandfather rode with him. I'd been conceived shortly before my father's three years on the run ended with his arrest and Deshauna Decroy never told him about me. Before knowing McCreavy had left to pick him up, my father, Lee, called his father, my grandfather, from the police station. My father told me about it years later. He said he wanted to admit to his father that he knew he'd put the family and the business into a horrible situation. He wanted to tell my grandfather he'd work as a carpenter, repay the family and sweat out the drugs and the alcohol on the job site. McCreavy and my grandfather brought my father back to Jamestown, but they didn't bring him home. McCreavy knew better. This is where his professional understanding helped. He checked my father into the Jamestown General Hospital's Alcohol and Drug Rehab Unit. My father lived there for the next ten months, slowly returned to his senses and returned to working full time. I don't know the particulars of the legal situation, but it must have been straightened out. The contractor in New Orleans got his tools back and I suspect McCreavy gave him some money to drop the charges. The responsibility for the original theft went to my grandfather's business. The business covered the losses and my grandfather didn't press charges, so in that way he gave his son a second chance. After my dramatic entrance at the bus station, I began life in Jamestown. To start with, I stayed with my grandparents, but for the first few months I had trouble accepting their attention. I acted out, but they made sure I didn't get away with anything. They expected the best from me, and I came to understand I disappointed them when I brought on their disapproval. They corrected me if I hid food or stole coins from the change jar. After a while, I realized I didn't have to worry about food or money, but I did have to keep my room clean. I had to respect everyone and learn how to read and write. My grandmother took care of that. For years she taught special needs kids, and I benefited from her lifetime of experience. She didn't send me to school right away. I had to catch up first. She taught me to read, basic arithmetic, and how to tell time. For a brief moment in the 1960s, Robert Kennedy represented New York State in the United States Senate. He had Jamestown declared part of Appalachia, which brought money to the town. Jamestown used the money to build a first-class library. After she taught me the basics at the kitchen table, my grandmother took me to the library every day. She told me that intelligent people learn at the library, so I could be wise someday if I never let myself stop learning. After a few months, my father made room for me at his house. We woke up every day at 6 o'clock and had breakfast together. After my father went to work at one of the construction sites, my grandmother would arrive to take me to the library. We spent hours there every morning, reading, writing, and working numbers. At noon, we'd meet my grandfather downtown and go to lunch, where I learned about business. My grandparents had an excellent way of explaining things. My grandfather said, there are dollar bills and bills who spend the dollars. His way of remembering customers are people with names. Another time, my grandmother said, the most important part of living is the people you are living with. After my father and grandparents taught me how to get along, my Uncle Ron taught me what I needed to know about resentment. After I landed in Jamestown, my father's older brother, Ron, kept his distance. As an adult, I understand how I embarrassed him, and he harbored a grudge against me. Ron knew how much his younger brother had cost their father, which bothered him. Uncle Ron couldn't find a way past the rules. He lived by blueprints, and as I said earlier, he measured everything. Ron believed people are forever in danger of making a mistake. This is not entirely negative and untrue. Ron felt by sticking to rules, we'd come closer to achieving our full potential. I believe this. There is value here. I want to reach my potential, and I try to follow the rules. I'm watchful, but I know I get confused and make mistakes. I also know my existence came from when my father didn't follow the rules. Uncle Ron believed in retribution. He thought if you don't have to pay for your mistakes, you'll make the same mistakes again. This may be true, but I'm not sure what Uncle Ron wanted my grandfather to do about my father's mistakes after the fact. He never said it, but he made it clear nonetheless. Spending money at a rehab clinic wasn't it, although I found out much later that McCreavey helped defray some of the costs. When Ron saw this little mixed-race kid show up, I reminded him of everything Lee had done wrong, and Ron couldn't stomach how my grandfather gave me a place at the table. He didn't acknowledge me at Sunday dinners. He ignored me through years of family gatherings and never asked me to work at one of his job sites. At Christmas, he'd give me a $5 bill in an envelope. None of it concerned me at the time, though. My father paid enough attention to me for himself and his brother, and I had enough to deal with without worrying about Uncle Ron. In my first year in Jamestown, my grandmother took charge. After our morning lessons at the library and lunch downtown with my grandfather, she and McCreavey got in touch with the hospitals in New Orleans. They had my mother's name, my father's name, and the approximate year of my birth. They found me in the records and got a copy of my birth certificate. They brought me up to date with the vaccinations and set me up for full participation in town life. My grandmother brought intensity to my lessons, and that made them difficult. My mind rebelled at reading and writing, but my grandmother expected me to learn. She wouldn't let up. She made it like breathing, no option. It turned into a battle of wills, and I'll be forever grateful she won. During the summer of that first year, my grandmother declared I would be ready for the second grade by fall. The other kids my age had third grade in their size, and I probably should have started in the first, but she thought I would be uncomfortable with kids so much younger. I had to reach to make it in the second grade, but the Pride Moors expected me to get it, and I did. School went well, and I owe it to my grandmother, who started me right. Aside from my grandmother's lessons, my father sensed I saw myself as different. Even as blood relatives, he thought all the white people around me might make me uncomfortable. He mentioned this to Officer McCreevey once, and that's when old McCreevey took me for a haircut. He knew the black barber shop would be an excellent place to introduce me to the black people in town. On the first day of school, some of the black kids came over to me. They wanted to meet the new kid they'd heard about and made room for me at the lunch table. I got along with the white kids and the black kids in Jamestown, and I'm still in touch with some of those guys today. Growing up in the Pride Moor family meant constant contact through dinners, business meetings, and get-togethers, not to mention day after day at the job sites. I started working for Pride Moor Homes the following summer. I went to job sites with my father, and he started me off picking up loose nails. I had to make sure not a single one found its way into anyone's foot. I began with that and kept learning. After a few years back in town, my father met a woman named Mary Ellen, who had a free spirit that matched his own. The three of us lived as a family, and it worked. A Koran met Rachel, a dark-haired beauty from Texas who agreed to relocate to Jamestown, and she came complete with beauty, pageant boys, and a Texas doll that knocked us over. She took over the social scene in Jamestown, and the couple stayed in constant rotation at weddings, shows, graduations, and holiday festivals. It's a wonder they had time to have their three children, two boys and a girl. We had great years, fringed in sunshine. My grandparents sat at the head of a blessed and beautiful family. The brothers kept the business going despite their underlying differences, and I got along well with my cousins. Like almost all small-town kids everywhere, we started every conversation with, I can't wait to move away from this place. In time, though, clouds blew across the sun. My father and Mary Ellen thanked God for every day they had together, maybe because they understood their days wouldn't last. The chronic medical conditions they picked up during their younger years of wandering and addiction took them out early. Mary Ellen made it 45, and my father lasted 47. It is a great joy in my life that my father and Mary Ellen lived long enough for me to introduce them to my partner, Jeffrey, and to know they gave us their blessing. One of my fondest memories is of a warm Labor Day afternoon. Along with my father and Mary Ellen, Jeffrey and I sat barbecuing ribs with McCreavy and his girlfriend out at McCreavy's place on the lake. The summer had ended, and a new season had us full of hope. My cousins took off for college, one by one. Of course, they went to top-shelf, name-brand institutions you've heard of, and they did well. Yes, we all said we couldn't wait to leave town, but it surprised me to some extent that none of them even thought about coming back. They wanted no part of Jane's Town or Pridemore Homes. Then, after their last college graduation, Rachel asked Ron for a divorce. She said she'd raised the kids and put up with Ron long enough. She'd met a divorced man during an event at the Chautauqua Institution. He'd retired as a manager for an industrial pump manufacturer in Cleveland. The divorce devastated Uncle Ron. As a teenager, I'd been working for my father for several years when McCreavy asked him to restore a beautiful old cherry staircase at his place. My father sent me, along with the older guys, and asked them to introduce me to the art of restoration. The work had to be done by the 4th of July because McCreavy's city had a friend coming to visit and wanted it finished by then. My father said we should spare no expense, and those old guys did fantastic work. They worked through several weekends and showed me what they were doing. They got me excited about old houses, and I eventually went to school for restoration architecture and design. My grandfather died a peaceful death, and my grandmother held on for a year after him, but she missed him every moment of it. Around that time, Jeffrey and I had been looking for a place of our own. Before my grandfather died, he suggested we move into care for my grandmother and get to work restoring the old home, which needed some overdue attention by that time. So that's what we did. I mentioned my father died young, a few years before my grandfather, but things began to slip for Uncle Ron as he got older. I had to spend more and more time at the office and act like an owner. I'm sure you've heard stories like this before. At first, I noticed small things, missed deadlines, lost inspection requests. Then Ron forgot the names of customers. One day, couldn't remember the name of a contractor who had been laying tile at Pride Moor Homes for 30 years. With each misstep, I jumped in and smoothed things over. The worst came when we showed up to a closing one day without a certificate of occupancy. After that, I paid more attention to the new construction end of the company. I kept things afloat, but barely, and we squeaked by until we ran into a real downturn. We hit six months when we didn't sell a single new home. Sometimes people who can't afford a new home decide they can live with the old one if they add a room or fix up the basement. Pride Moor Homes switched to remodeling full time. I met Jeffrey at school. He has an innate understanding of balance and design and a fabulous sense of color. He'd help me solve restoration problems daily, and I relied on him more and more. When Uncle Ron couldn't make it to the office, I tried to do it all myself. Jeffrey saw me getting swamped, and he came in to help cover while I got out to manage the work sites. Gradually, Jeffrey spent more time in the office than I did, talking to clients, selling projects. We got good at teamwork, and then we got better. That's how two gay black guys became the premier design-build renovators of historic homes in western New York. Pride Moor Homes. Take pride. Unfortunately, things continued to slide for Uncle Ron. Others call it early-onset Alzheimer's. His children, my cousins, had careers and lived far away from James Town. Two of them had their own kids and would rather not think about their father. Uncle Ron couldn't live on his own any longer, and I hired a caretaker to come in. When dementia took hold and got worse, he fell into violent fits of anger, and we had to do something. I called his oldest son, Lawrence. He said problems with Uncle Ron couldn't come at a worse time, and he proposed a deal. He would arrange for me to have legal power of attorney for the business and power of attorney for Uncle Ron's health care. I would have access to Uncle Ron's insurance information, and I could set up any nursing home arrangement that would benefit him and be convenient for me. He would divide any extra expenses with his brother and sister, and he as much as said, would not bother us about our father. Lawrence told me Uncle Ron had nothing to leave in his will. He'd spent it all, and I knew he'd been dipping into the business for years. In exchange for my attention to his father's needs, Lawrence offered Uncle Ron's home and the company. Lawrence told me if it weren't for Jeffrey and me, Pridemore Homes would be long gone. He said, keep it, take it, and do it right the way I know you will. None of us need the money or the headaches. He said Jeffrey and I could sell Ron's home and keep whatever we got for it. We could continue to live at my grandparents' place, and he'd help me attain the full title. But one question still puzzled me. Even though I'd been keeping the business going for years, I never understood the ownership. The final piece concerned how my grandfather left the company when he died. Official correspondence about taxes, insurance, and that kind of thing came addressed to Ron. I just wrote checks and took care of it, but I had to know it all if I were to run it for good. Lawrence said my grandfather wanted to divide everything equally between his two sons, but since my father had died, my grandfather wanted to leave part of the business to me. That angered Ron. He thought the company should be left entirely to him. He never forgot the pain and anxiety my father caused with his disappearance. Lawrence also admitted that Uncle Ron felt embarrassed by me. He told me how his father would stomp around their house yelling about that stupid lease and how he would never accept the little black bastard. Ron demanded my grandfather leave the whole business to him, and my grandfather didn't have the energy to fight him. Lawrence put it to me bluntly. He said he couldn't care less about his father or pride more homes and didn't want any part of either one. He told me his brother and sister were all so glad to be out from under their old man. They never felt good enough around their father. They spoke with their mother in Cleveland all the time, but they'd lost heart with their father. So that's the arrangement. My cousins opened a long-term care policy for their father because they knew the day would come for good old Uncle Ron. That takes care of the dementia unit at Fenton Manor, and I send Lawrence and his brother and sister any bills that aren't covered. Jeffrey and I sold Uncle Ron's house, and we'll keep pride more homes. Lawrence promised to make sure it goes to me when Uncle Ron died. Lawrence said his brother and sister came up with this plan when they first noticed their father's problems. Since he'd been failing for a few years by that point, it occurred to me that some of their generosity might have something to do with guilt, and maybe not. Nonetheless, I saw the whole thing as tremendous good fortune. I called the other two cousins to ensure they agreed with the deal. They said yes, offered congratulations, and told me they'd put it in writing. Lawrence signed over full power of attorney, and everything is going according to plan. Jeffrey and I rolled arrangements for Uncle Ron into our daily lives and moved him to a room in the dementia unit at Fenton Manor. I stop in to see him once a week. I feel no animosity. I learned about forgiveness a long time ago from my grandparents. I'm glad you got in touch, Mr. Strongtree. Writing this letter has helped me process feelings I've struggled with for years. Thank you for your attention. My father started a snowball rolling down a long hill when he tore those gutters off that house, and I'm not sorry he did. My best to you, those you have forgiven, and those who have forgiven you. Thanks and respect, Alex Pridemore. I wrote to Alex and expressed my heartfelt gratitude to him for answering my inquiry. He said it helped him review the events of Lee's life and his own. I'm glad about that, and I wanted him to know his story taught me something about forgiveness, too. Something I needed to know. For me, the parable of the prodigal son is another one looking for an ending. Did the brothers learn to get along after the prodigal came home? And how did the father divide the farm when he died? I found Lee Pridemore's envelope with the card and photo. I put it into an oversized envelope with my letter back to Alex. I signed it, thanks and respect, the way he had. I took it to the post office and sent a certified mail to Mr. Alex Pridemore, care of Pridemore Homes, Jamestown, New York. I marked it, personal correspondence.