December 5, 2013 – Notes from time past: Melania and the kids {Emma and Rudy} rushed off today for the US as Melania’s Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he is sinking fast. He has been slumped on the carpet for the past two months unable to eat, but he fears doctors and not until he turned yellow did anyone notice. So the kids will see their grandfather [also called Rudy – you can’t believe I’d call my kid Rudy without some kind of family pressure!!??]. We were thinking of Gustave [after the Eifel Tower] or another ‘D’Arcy’, but who want a 'VI'? Then a lot of family lobbying and some wine, I’m sure, got me to agree to Rodolphe D’Arcy Quinn for my 'Rudy'. We frenchified the Rudolf part. Now at the very moment, thinking of Melania’s Dad, sitting here at 6pm under the cold Alps, alone, family off again, I’m glad we did it-Rudy. Rudy Snr [Melania’s Dad] was the American born son of Croatia [Yugoslavia] immigrants [ but his mother was Czech, they married in the US, in a coal town]. His Yugoslavian family saved up to send Rudy Snr’s dad to sail over to ‘America’ [name on Ellis Island] from a rough situation in Yugoslavia. Would imagine some time in the 1920s. Rudy Snr’s Dad [Melania’s Granddad] was a coal miner in Lancaster County . Down the pits, and up again at the end of the day, day in, day out. Rudy Snr [Melania’s Dad] benefitting from good looks of his James Dean era [and married the essence of pretty called Millie] with the real real sense of the American dream, and dreamed of leaving the mining town, the mines of his dad that damaged his lungs, and all that went with the deep pits. But Rudy's dad was a soldier for America, deep under the black coal hills, day in and day out, on his knees in mud and knocking his head, in the dark, breathing dust - a long way from today. His son Rudy [now deceased for just a few hours now, hard to believe] leapt away from the mines as a Fuller Brush salesman, door to door, drove a cab, and other jobs, that he held all together, while raising a family of four kids [yes, four!], including Melania [my wife] Mark, Eddy, and Catherine ; Catholic schools, clean shoes, polite, reverent, and occasionally caned by the nuns to ensure the above. All survived very well with the occasional story of Sister XYZ chasing them for their own good, and well, for the thrill of the chase and being chased. Rudy held down night jobs, day jobs, and studied to be an engineer, all while raising four kids. 'St Millie' [aka 'Mom' and Mrs Dabran] perhaps in the making? Nothing came easy for work but he received his engineering jobs and fought his way, bare fisted at times, to the middle. [Two guys tried to mug him around 15 years ago, and he left them splayed over the hood of a car parked in inner city Washington DC, and he did it bare handed. he went light on them due to his religious and humanist training. Police let him go.] Amazingly enough, and something I could never ever do, he built all the family homes with his bare hands. Plank by plank, wire by wire. Just thought of this, we should call him ‘Bare Hands Dabran’. A rough guy but classy in a Hemingway sense. He moved his family at one point to Saudi Arabia, and then back, and lost his cool with a line cutter, well no details…. As my English mother from England would say, ‘Rudy is a diamond in the rough’. In a fight, you’d want him on your side. And he was a laugh, taking me out to shooting ranges to test his latest Glock, rifle etc, castigating me loudly for looking down the gun to see if a bullet was left. I can barely work a Velcro shoe lace, and he is building houses, shooting guns, and building nuclear power plants. The west was not won with folks like me; our job was just to tell them when and how’d they won. And enthuse them all, to do it again! Rudy Snr is always with a cigarette and a tooth pick in his mouth, sucking one, chewing the other. At the same time. He is the opposite of reserved, and for the life of Melania their mother has been larger than life. I first met Rudy Snr. and Milly [Melania’s Mom] during a vacation in Arizona where Rudy Snr would order up shots of tequila with his two sons, two daughter and a ‘sniffer’ [me in those days], by yelling ‘gimme twenty dollars worth of tequila’. I recall the end of this particular night while the kids [us] drove by Rudy Snr and Milly being pulled over by the cops and we just kept driving by and Milly, talked the cops out of any charges. Anyhow, Rudy Snr got fired just after turning 50 and spend a year as a night security watchman, with a pistol, smoking his Chesterfields in the basement room of a warehouse, and we’d visit him. He read books on franchising, Scientology [with the occasional lecture from him, don’t upset the dude, he had a gun and most important, had lost his job] and decided to sell ‘snow cones’ however also known as magically ‘Rita’s Water Ice’, at $1 each. One store, then two, then three, and soon Milly and Rudy came back from America’s skids at a dollar a scoop and things went well for a long time. both of them worked the stores, hiring kids in the neighborhood [almost like aunt and uncle to them], cleaning the machines, dealing with melted ice, and rough neighborhoods at times. An amazing American story, but I’m still shocked that a guy who was such a talented engineer got whacked as he was too old. They even asked him to train his young replacement, and Rudy went in his wild way, focused, and said no. But he blossomed in building the best ice Rita could offer! Anyhow, just sitting here alone in under Mount Blanc in France, at 6 30 pm on a Thursday night, knowing in the next hour Melania and the kids will be arriving at Rudy and Milly’s in Maryland. This whole circle of life thing, no matter how you gloss it up, is either for the absolute delusion set, or is really an odd way of saying we are on a conveyer belt and the closer to the edge the more we wake up. Thanks God for music, and MrGrory’s of N Ireland, McGregor’s of HdG, and for you Rudy! Get out there tonight for cheer and song. Please toast Rudy Snr, when you can, and let me know. It will melt his heart. As of today, he has certainly melted ours. God Bless Rudy on your viewing of this afternoon. And Rudy, get up there and meet Izelda our old shaggy Golden Retriever, she’ll be overwhelmed to see you again. Love to the family and friends. D’Arcy