Off-the-Shelf

Born in Boston

Those who have followed this blog over the past few years (all three of you) have been subjected to my curious interest in a rather obscure New England writer-poet-essayist-short order cook named Thomas John McSheey, who lived from 1899 until his untidily death in 1935 when he choked on a piece of dark chocolate in his very messy apartment.

Presently, I am at work on a biography about this strange, secular, scribbler of sentences, who throughout his short life found himself questioning the meaning of life, the meaning of death, and the meaning of all that which lies in between.

In my research at Stoneycliff University, which holds the papers of T.J. McSheey, mainly because no other college or university wanted them, I came across a number of the writer's journals. I provide here an excerpt from one such journal, it being the 110^th anniversary of McSheey's birth.

The following was written in 1934, the year before his death, in pencil on a pad of yellow lined paper ...

"I was born in Boston, Massachusetts -- Dorchester to be more specific -- on September 4, 1899, at 10:44 in the morning, just in time for brunch. If I recall, I had the vegetarian omelet with home fries and rye toast, and a small orange juice. The coffee, if my memory serves, was cold.

"My father was a seamstress, and my mother was a professional wrestler who went by the name "The Sultan of Southie." Or perhaps it was the other way around. Father spoke four languages, all of them being English. Mother wrote poetry, but did not believe in the "th" sound, which caused havoc with such words as "the," "think," "thank," and "thiophosphate."

"I was an only child until I reached the age of twelve. During that year, upon one morning, as I went down the hall to use the bathroom to brush my teeth before school, I discovered the bathroom door shut and locked. It was then that I realized I had a sixteen-year-old sister. I never saw the inside of the bathroom again.

"Meanwhile, my father, concerned about the complete lack of crime in the city, decided to move our family to the suburbs. There I had a paper route for a number of years, but by some mistake I always delivered the previous day's newspaper.

"My first interest in writing manifested itself during my 15^th year. My uncle, a farmer by trade who lived in the neighboring town, was killed in horrible fashion when he was trampled to death by his prize turkey. Investigators discovered his body outside the barn, with the telltale word "Tommy" etched into the dirt. A manhunt, or rather, a turkey hunt commenced, and Tommy was eventually apprehended along Washington Street hitching for a ride. At his trial, Tommy claimed temporary insanity brought on by the nearness of Thanksgiving. A jury of his peers -- three turkeys, two roosters, five hens, a warbler, and a grouse -- found him guilty of first-degree murder. Whether or not he was guilty in the first-degree remains uncertain, but he certainly was delicious!

"So, after my uncle's death, I wrote this little poem, which first displayed on paper my questioning of life, death, God, and my fascination with the written word (and the letters which form such words):

Saw a hearse along the byway,

It was travelling due west,

Into the setting sun,

Wearing his Sunday best.

For we are just a short trek,

Down the road to the village plot,

In the Creator's mind,

We're just an afterthought.

For we are nothing more than,

Mortal flesh upon mortal bone,

Adrift and all alone,

Upon the cosmic sea.

We're just an alphabet of life,

An alphabet from A to Z,

And sometimes the letter Y,

And, of course, I before E,

Except after C."

Jack Sheedy 

Next time: McSheey abandons his Catholic upbringing to become a pagan after he falls for an oak tree.