While watching the recent movie Midway, about the Battle of Midway and the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, I heard a sad familiar sound that reminded me of my father’s funeral. It was the sharp report of seven rifles being discharged all at once. It is unforgettable.
“BLAM”!
Then a slight pause...
Then again...
“BLAM”!
Then one last time...
“BLAM”!
Must we punctuate tragic moments with such a horrid sound?
The answer is...
Yes we must.
The shad in bloom
— Photo by Kevin Weaver
Preparations for a Memorial
My mother and I carefully picked a day in early May 2000 to inter my father, William Hall, in the cemetery on his ancestral home, Block Island. It was our best guess when the shad tree bloom would be in full array.
Until his last breath, at age 74, he had asserted that he’d not missed being on the island for “The Shad” since World War II.
It’s a spectacle of nature. It’s a moment in a living dream when large parts of the island look like swirls of white butterflies. It creates a cirrus-cloud wisp of magic and myth. Throw in some Hollywood-style ecclesiastical lighting and you’ve got the picture of my father’s romance with “The Shad”.
It was no matter to him that this heavenly show for the rest of the year could be easily described as just woods.
What Everyone Knows
A normal burial on Block Island is handled as a package deal.
The grieving party whose just-deceased relative (or friend) is “from away’’ agrees to a final price covering shipping the loved one in a hearse to the island on the ferry boat. The price includes the homey funeral service at the Harbor Baptist Church, the short procession to the burial site and the post-burial “coffee-klatch” back at the church.
Then after a few hours - and in the middle of hugging relatives and meeting new spouses of forgotten cousins -- starts the panicked reality of the late hour, and the dash to make the last boat back to the mainland. Luckily, the ferry docks are within sight of the church and the captains tend to wait for every last grieving straggler.
To avoid anonymity in death those Block Islanders who have drifted off the island need to be reintroduced to it so that they can be remembered before being forgotten up in the cemetery. Even the descendants of the original English settlers, named prominently on Settlers Rock, have to go through a process of re-emergence during a well-choreographed day-of-burial. It’s like reestablishing their original footprints in the snow after they have long been obliterated by a lifetime of snowstorms. To achieve island quasi-immorality it only takes this one day, with its own special down-homeyness.
Someone Special
So went my father’s last trip back to Block Island, there to be quietly eulogized as one of those island kids who for one reason or another fell into “Off-Islander“ status somewhere along the line.
Human time can be defined in waves. In my father’s case he would be counted among the World War II veterans, Pacific Theater, brand of survivors. At the funeral he would be praised for being a successful businessman, a good husband and a good father, but none of his fishermen relatives or old island cronies would be left to nostalgically tell mourners stories about “that kid” known as a star harpooner of swordfish.
My father had started commercial fishing in 1936, at 10 years old. That’s when he got permission from his father, Allen Hall, to climb the mast and sit on the cross tree of the Edrie L. From that perch, 24 feet above the deck, he was to try his hand at spotting swordfish on his Uncle Charlie’s boat. He excelled because of his excellent eyesight and precise directions given to the helm to find the fish. Soon he was recognized for his accuracy with a harpoon.
By 14 he was the youngest “boy” harpooning swordfish in the fleet and was earning a full share of any fish he spotted or harpooned. This minor local notoriety ended when he was drafted into the Army and shipped out to the Pacific.
That war took many islanders away from Block Island, some to pay the ultimate price of liberty and some to find their way to a more expansive future than could be hoped for on the island, where few returned to live. My father’s war experience did not scar him and he lived a fruitful life, including raising a family and prospering in another part of New England far away from the coast. Although he visited his island family often over the decades his relationship with the place became increasingly remote - and more that of a tourist.
The reality was that the family was thinning out. This hit him hard during the funeral of the oldest Hall elder on the island and it gave him a feeling of a fading heritage. Now more strangers were waiting on the dock meeting the ferry boats when not so long before there had been a receiving line of loving relatives and friends, each shaking his hand, hugging him and calling him by his childhood nickname, “Billy”.\
The island’s identity was shifting. My father was a realist and his life was changing with the times, which he accepted as inevitable. He just didn’t welcome the change with a joyful heart.
This was the man in the shiny hearse rolling off the ferry to return to the island he loved so much. He’d soon be back with his family and relatives for good.
A Good Life
At the funeral service we confirmed through loving remembrances that my father’s life had been by all accounts a good one. The funny tales softened the sorrow.
Everyone at the Harbor Church service agreed that we had all been blessed by his 74 years with us. Meanwhile, as we eulogized him, it became evident that something big was happening outside. There was something at the edge of our senses that suggested that there was a chance that this simple memorial for my father might turn into “A Perfect Block Island Funeral”. It might enter a world where bad was good.]
The first sharp clap of thunder boomed even before we saw the lightning. We realized that what we had sensed had been rolling thunder for some time. The stained-glass windows, organ music, prayers, songs and laughter had masked the storm that was now creeping up on us from the southeast side of the island.
The room was getting darker but it was 11 in the morning. As the wind whipped at a tin gutter somewhere on the roof, the pastor’s wife quietly tiptoed around the room clicking on a few floor lamps and wall lights. People watching her nudged each other quietly. Looking around the room we saw that the local mourners (from the island) were dressed in rain gear. They had rain hats stuffed in their pockets and waterproof footwear ready under their seats; one even had unbuckled galoshes on over his shoes.
In contrast, the mourners “from away” (non-islanders) looked unprepared in their comfortable spring sweaters and dresses. Luckily, they at least had designer-styled trench coats on the hooks in the coatroom. But rain hats, boots and umbrellas for a muddy gravesite ceremony were not evident anywhere in this crowd.
The second thunder clap brought everyone to attention and a slight whimper was heard. Flinching erupted in attendees with over-active startle reflexes. Those who seemed prepared for bad weather were rolling their eyes with wonder as if asking, “Don’t these people from away listen to their local weather reports”?
The weather had changed from undecided to absolutely bad. The modest stained-glass windows rattled with wind gusts and pelting rain. The warm sidelights that the pastor’s wife had switched on were soon augmented with the big overhead lights. Everyone was getting the message that it was going to be stormy at the gravesite.
The Road to Valhalla
No one is more aware of the changes in the island’s social make-up than those who consider themselves “Real Block Islanders”.
“Real” was defined generations ago as “born on Block Island” and of course eventually buried on Block Island. That was the perfect life’s arch of a true islander. Very few can claim that distinction any more.
Evolving medicine and more reliable ferry service have nullified the “island-born” stipulation. In 1926 my father was born in Newport and the next day started his life on Block Island as a “Real Block Islander”. In spite of being hospital-born he met the requirements then needed to be “Real”.
He was born prematurely and had to be kept warm for his first four weeks wrapped in moist towels perched on the edge of an open oven door. My grandmother’s kitchen became Block Island’s first premie ward. My father was attended by every mid-wife and aunt on the island and he soon became everyone’s community property. Thus began his neventful life.
By when I was born, in 1948 ( sadly not on the island), things had changed. It had become a tourist spot. A popular promotional motto was being targeted at people discovering Block Island for the first time. It went like this: “Block Island, come for the day and stay a lifetime.’’ The enthusiasm of first-time visitors on seeing the island’s beauty began to create a new social structure on the island. The newcomers, some of whom became summer residents, brought new ideas, new talents and new personal objectives, but no matter how extraordinary their efforts, they could not line up in that parade of Original, True and Real Islanders. They would never be on that path to immortality and obscurity that leads eventually to Block Island’s cemetery.
In spite of the obstacles to membership in this coveted club of Real Islanders those with the strongest desire for acceptance are still drawn to try to break into the line.
Any deceased islander with an army of mourners headed for the Harbor Church can cause quite a stir, especially when the forecast is for stormy weather and high seas.
When the shiny black hearse carrying my father’s remains crossed the gangplank onto island ground, the island’s grapevine heated up, leading to calls to the church for information.=
Meanwhile, the appearance of a large group of mourners not properly attired for the coming deluge meant that the person about to be buried was probably an “Off Islander,” but scuttlebutt had it that there would also be a rather large island contingent at all or part of the proceedings.
Source Number One
Besides the church, there were other sources of solid information.
Block Island cabdrivers meet every ferry from May 1 to the end of the following November. Only well-established islanders can obtain one of those coveted cab licenses, the possession of which is a channel for a wealth of information about what’s happening on the island. The parking area for the cabs is within plain view of the ferry landing. If you know one of these cabbies you can get first-hand, inside information about what is unfolding at the dock, as well as stuff from any dark corner of the island and the usual sketchy and juicy daily gossip.
I surmise that an inquiry from an island newbie to a cab driver about my father’s hearse might have resulted in a conversation like this:
“Hi, Ed, How you doin?’’
“Good.’
“Hey, who’s that they’re rolling off the boat in the hearse?’’
“Oh Yah, that’s Billy Hall. Yep. He grew to the Sou-East. In the house where Jacobs live now. ‘’
“Lots of well-wishers, eh? I guess he must’a been well known?’’
“Oh, Yah. Billy was a good man. Good family - all fishermen. His mother was a Milliken. Yep, we’re – cousins, I think?’’
“Whad he do for a livin?’’
“Not sure – he moved way af-ta th’war. (pause), but when he was young he could really stick a swordfish. Yessiree. Few better.”
“Oh...?’’ (so on and so on )
And at the Airport
Traditionally, additional information could be obtained at the Block Island Airport lunch counter. It was where the cabbies sipped coffee all day between fares and mingled with passengers waiting for their flights.
On days of big funerals, cabbies, counter girls and mourners from the island and off it exchanged hugs, jokes and news. It was a clearinghouse for information and gossip -- and pie. Everyone seemed related and soon you suddenly felt related to them also.
If newbies liked what they had heard about the deceased in the hub-bub at the lunch counter it would not be unreasonable for them to attend the funeral and go to the gravesite to see whom they might know there. In this way even a newbie might develop a fast, if remote, link with the mourners.
One point was understood. Newbies had to stay for the entire event, no matter how bad the weather. If you invested in saying goodbye to an old Block Islander you were in it for the full course, probably including the coffee-klatch after the burial. This could be important social collateral years later if the deceased name’s came up in conversation. If you had shown up to pay your respects, you could say:
“Yes. I know I was there!”
It was like attending a Viking funeral so you’d know the way to Valhalla.
When Bad Is Good
The wind blew hard and the pouring rain came at the mourners horizontally and from three directions at the gravesite. The lightning, thunder and rain were relentless. The oldest ladies sat in folding chairs under wet tarps and plastic drop cloths with grandchildren squeezed in between them.
Things flew away never to be recovered, but no one left and the ceremony was not rushed. The general mood was sad, but with mourners’ sense of satisfaction that they were joining in a celebration of a life well lived. The hundreds of flags on the veterans’ graves all around snapped in the “Moments of Silence” requested by the pastor.
At the time of my father’s funeral many veterans were being laid to rest every day of the week all over America. Due to the large number of burials, it was nearly impossible to get an honor guard or an official bugler to attend individual funerals. I could not emotionally accept this situation but nor would I complain. My father would not have complained.
On Block Island we have one rule, “We take care of our own”.
Our cemetery is neutral ground, outside of the bounds of daily disputes. This hallowed ground is where we commune with the past and honor individuals whom we respect dearly no matter how long away -- or how recently arrived.
We made an arrangement to honor my father in a way he’d have enjoyed. In a gesture of respect to our family and to the many other veterans whose flags flapped together with his in the wind, a dear family friend and well known federal official provided us with the most memorable final note that my mother and I could have hoped for.
He was to be my father’s one-man honor guard.
Observing the usual safety measures, the honor guard loaded a blank shell into my father’s 12-gauge shotgun, left the mourners at the gravesite and walked slowly and ceremoniously to the top of a small rise.
We could see his hat fluttering and his coat whipping in the wind. His silhouette against the dark sky evoked heroism and the shad bloom around us. As he mounted the shotgun’s stock firmly to his shoulder we could see that his shooting glasses were being pelted by the rain. Time stood still for just a moment. We waited for the sound that gun would make -- one last time.
Blam!
The wind and the rain muffled the report.
White smoke hung in the air above the shooter, and then disappeared downwind into the white cloud of shad trees in the distance=
At my side my mother, inside father’s old raincoat, whispered:
“Perfect.”
William T. Hall is a painter, illustrator and writer based in New England, Florida and Michigan.
