Three Oak Trees

words with roots

I never played catch with my old man, but I did play catch with an old man— my grandfather, Ray Maragni. He was an accordion player. In fact, when World War 2 ended, he was 10 years old living in St. Louis. Celebrations spilled over into the streets where you could’ve found him among the crowd playing God Bless America on his accordion. A real postcard moment in time. He was a classic Italian, and a family man through and through.

But back to playing catch with him…

I was 5 years old when he suffered a massive stroke. It left him with deficits to his left-side. That means he lost feeling to the entire left side of his body. He had to re-learn how to walk and would sometimes look everywhere for his car keys only to find them clinched in his numb left hand.

Thankfully he was right-handed, but when it comes to baseball that means you wear a glove on your non-throwing hand. In junior high, I showed some promise as a pitcher and since he was the only one in my immediate family who liked sports, he was my catcher… kind of. It was his idea, not mine.

Only Theo Von and I know how this plays out:

“We played catch… or don’t.” 😂

I love this joke because a weird part of my childhood feels represented by it. It’s so ridiculously obscure I can’t believe anyone would have the imagination to write a joke about it, let alone possibly share the experience too. So I love that joke, and my grandpa would have too.

Even though he had a bum left-side, he somehow still managed to build a pitching mound in his backyard for me (chain-linked back stop and all). I never asked him to. He just did it. It was endearing but also gut-wrenching every time I zing’d a 2-seam fastball off his shin. He’d limp back behind the wooden home-plate he painted white and say ‘I’m alright don’t hold back.’

In addition to chronic contusions from the baseballs I heaved, he had all kinds of other health issues: heart attacks, stents, bypass surgeries, a skull-fracture, brain-bleed, a steel plate put in his head, diabetes, nerve damage, clogged carotid arteries, leukemia.

You name it, he rolled out of bed with it.

It seemed like every other holiday he would fall to the floor unresponsive for a couple minutes just to gain consciousness and refuse going to the hospital. We never put a mirror under his nose to see if he was still breathing, but just like Theo’s joke also implied, it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

Despite all that, if he wasn’t on an operating table, he was at my practices and games. He drove me to haircuts and usually picked me up from school in his ‘87 custom deluxe square body Chevy with a camper shell with an Indian blanket protecting the bench seats. He would always have a homemade salami sandwich wrapped in foil waiting for me in the passenger seat, too. And I mean always!

What more can you ask for?

The half of him that was left over from his stroke was more than most full-bodied able men ever become. In boxing, Italians are notorious for being able to take a beating and continue fighting. Ray Maragni was like that. He had an iron chin. Old Faithful, just kept springing back up.

Before his stroke, he pastored a small church while still working his job at C.I.P.S. Anymore it’s rare to find a full-time pastor with a 9-to-5, but his famous saying was,

“I’m tired of being good at things that don’t matter.”

That was his summary to why he became a preacher and shepherd of a church.

He mattered to a lot of people. Perhaps none more than his neighbor who lived across the street.

One time she ran over to his house screaming. She was carrying her 2-year old daughter who stopped breathing. The little girl’s face was blue. He was in his front yard where he performed CPR. Decades later, that once breathless blue-faced 2-year old girl shared the story of that fateful day.

Years before he passed away everyone got to say what is usually reserved for one’s funeral. But since he kept surviving everything that was supposed to kill him, we lost patience and decided to give his eulogy while he was still kicking.

That’s how you get your flowers early and on this side of eternity. Get doctors to say you have months left on several occasions and then last another 25 years spitting chiclets in the sink and showing up for your family.

He was my hero. The best man I ever knew.

---

The man in this photo is not Sam Elliot. This is my uncle Jim, a Vietnam veteran and iron worker who used to belong to a motorcycle club. He won’t even sit on a motorcycle now. He’ll say, “I don’t live that life anymore,” and keep it moving. He’s an avid outdoorsman and champion duck caller.

When I worked at K-Mart right out of high school, an old co-worker named Dee said she knew him. She told me years ago (in the 1970’s) a guy would bring a caged bear that people could pay tickets to wrestle as one of the attractions at our annual Old King Coal Festival.

Dee said, “Your uncle and 2 others beat the living tar out of that bear. I swear to God I think they killed it. We never saw it again after that.”

Jim refused to confirm or deny this story. So for the record, it’s only hearsay from crazy old Dee. But if it’s true, no one would be totally shocked. However, it would fail to reflect Jim’s deep love for nature that he carries with him. He once evicted a renter for altering a tree in the yard. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was the straw that broke the camels back.

Don’t mess with uncle Jim’s trees.

Every once in a while you’ll catch him saying stuff like, “That used to be a beautiful area until white man came and tore it down.” His son busted his balls for saying that as a white man, himself. Jim just shook his head and stared at his son like he was a complete imbecile.

Truth be told, it’s as if Jim inherited all of his Cherokee grandmother’s DNA, leaving nothing leftover for his sister and my dad.

The proof being the time he was standing in his kitchen when he spotted a fox in his backyard. The fox was sneaking up on his chicken coop. Word to the wise: don’t mess with uncle Jim’s trees, and definitely don’t mess with his chickens!

He grabbed his bow in the next room, slid open the window behind the kitchen sink, and fired an arrow 35 yards across his back lawn and dropped the fox.

If you walk in his house, that fox’s pelt hangs by the door in his living room next to the light switch. There’s others beside it.

Don’t mess with Jim’s chickens.

He was struck by lightning once. Given our last name and the slim chances of anyone being struck by lightning, I jokingly asked him if he believed in Murphy’s Law. He stared at me like I was an imbecile for a few seconds and then said,

“I don’t worry about that kind of stuff. Work hard and always buy the best.”

Then he continued eating his food.

I don’t know how he got from point-A about the lightning to the general philosophy of point-B, but I took a mental note anyway. If it helps you survive lightning, jungle warfare, and keeps the chickens laying eggs, I’m all ears.

If it’s good enough for him, it’s plenty good for me.

---

Dave Maragni is where my face came from. I look just like he did at my age. He’s a son of a preacher man, army veteran, and he specializes in street evangelism. He’s been all over, but his favorite turf is New Orleans. Every year he goes down during Mardi Gras and shares the Gospel. My uncle Jim started joining him, too.

After Katrina hit, he took my brother and I to the French Quarter during summer. We helped fix up a church, and Dave showed us around. We grabbed beignets and a cup of whatever chicory is at Café du Monde. Standing outside the cafe was a trumpet player playing for tips. If you’ve been there, you’ve probably seen him. When he saw my uncle he lit up.

“Dave!”

Dave smiled and said, “How you doing, Hack?”

Hack put his arm around him and told my brother and me, “This is my friend! I love this man right here!”

My uncle asked Hack if his wife was doing any better. The question made my eyebrows jump. It wasn’t small talk. Their chat was specific and informed.

When we were walking away I asked him how he knew so much about Hack? He said, “Oh, we write each other. He’ll call me sometimes if he’s having problems. We talk.”

Something changed in the way I saw the world after that. There really are no walls between strangers. Everyone is knowable. Everyone needs attention. Everyone has a mailbox. Kindness can enchant anything.

(This is Hack in action)

In 1980, St. Louis Cardinals catcher, Darrell Porter, made headlines when he checked himself into rehab for his drug and alcohol addiction. After some time, my uncle felt the Lord tell him to reach out, so one day he cold-called Busch Stadium and asked for Darrell Porter. He told me, “It was just one of those things. Before long Darrell’s voice was on the other end of the phone.

…hello?”

He and Darrell forged a friendship and he helped lead Darrell to Christ. In 1982, the Cardinals won the World Series, and Darrell Porter was named the 1982 World Series MVP.

He hooked Dave up with a free pass to any Cardinals home game. Because of that he’s met other Cardinal legends; even got to sit next to Lou Brock in a luxury suite and watch a game on time.

Darrell Porter hugging Bruce Sutter in front of Keith Hernandez after final out of the ‘82 World Series

You’d think being a lifelong Cardinals fan that he would be at every home game possible, eating with other Cardinals in red jackets any chance he could. But he rarely cashed in on it.

I asked him once why he doesn’t go to very many games. He told me, “It’s cool to see the locker room, the dugout, and all the players, but the Lord told me this one time:

‘Don’t forget why I put you here.’

He said, “If I’m not here for the right reason, He can take it away just as easy as he gave it to me.”

The lines of Kipling’s poem If come to mind:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings— nor lose the common touch,

Dave is the walking embodiment of that. True poetry in motion. From Hack, to Cardinals royalty, and back to the down-trotted no-name faces of Southern Illinoisans, Dave Maragni is Dave Maragni everywhere he goes to whoever is there.

In recent years, a Bible study he started in a rough motel courtyard has grown into a full-time food and clothing ministry for the poor and homeless.

It’s no cash cow. In fact, in his late 50’s he had to work a 9-to-5 at the Aisin factory just to get by. So like his dad (my grandpa Ray), Dave worked full-time while running a full-time ministry with the help of his wife. It was only a couple years ago he was able to retire on Social Security, and whatever was in his 401k.

All through out his life, he has written letters or sent postcards to people all over the world. When he first became an associate pastor at a church he wrote Mother Teresa a letter that said, “Hi, my name is Dave. I’m a new pastor and have no idea what I’m doing. Do you have any advice for me?”

Believe it or not, she wrote him back.

Now this wasn’t her reply to his letter, but it seems fitting to close out with a quote of hers that sounds like advice my uncle lives his life by:

“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love”

- Mother Teresa

Thanks for reading. These are stories about the 3 men whose words and lives have planted trees of philosophies and experiences in my life. One taught me about family. Another about taking care of what you have. And the other about how to treat other people. Hope you enjoyed.

Til next time!

---