The Spell of Ai.
chapter 1: in the beginning*
Milo Ai Pierce, born somewhere in Michigan, a housewright married to Arabella with two children, Ruthe and Gordon Ai. (1920 census Warren Township, Mohawk Herkimer, New York, USA). Eighty-eight dwelling relatives.
Gordon Ai Pierce, born about 1908 in the Mohawk region of New York, married to Mary Poda with six children, Gordon Ai junior, Albert, Marian, George, Virginia (Arabelle) and Lewis James. Lewis is stillborn 8:00am January 5th,1943. Gordon Ai senior is about 35 years old at the time, Mary about 27. A young couple who lost a child with world war looming.
Gordon Ai Pierce lived with his family in a Levittown named Pineford Acres in Middletown, Pennsylvania. These were bungalows built for the survivors of WWII - lots of GI bills.
Little Marian Pierce was a wild-child who hopped railcars, rounded up overgrown snapping turtles and rode the rumble seats of post-war-teenage AMERICA! Marian also grew up in real ways, a stone throw from a place that for a time every breathing soul on earth knew of - a place called Three Mile Island. And while the steel mills of Steelton pounded, and the dairy farms plodded daily on, Marian bore seven children.
This one’s earliest memory ought to be of peering through my pregnant mother’s eyes into the inky depths of Northwest America’s coastal waters as she hurled her cookies over the rail of a storm-tossed ship bound for home from Alaska with my brother at her hip barely a year old and me in her belly. Don’t ask me to get into a boat, this one doesn’t do water.
As from darkness then to light As from nothingness continuity From non-existing lasting night Divine awareness… anon
*let's just say Genesis
Let’s also just say that among the earliest forms of written language might be two intersecting lines, though the meaning might vary. Pictographs might enhance written language, though the meaning might be lost. Of course, people have been telling stories around their fires even longer, and those stories form our words today. Let the historians write the histories; they are made by those who live them.
The word is a name for something, and to name a thing is to make it so. Our words might change and our spelling be arbitrary-but the thing we cast our spell upon is what it is. This story is about a name and the search for its’ meaning.
Gordon Ai Pierce took his name from his father Milo; whether he was Milo Ai is unknown, as is his date of birth. But Gordon Ai was Milo’s first and only born son and the first-born son of Gordon Ai was given Gordon Ai Pierce jr. It seems safe to assume that Milo was first born and given the name Ai.
Nowhere in my native language can be found the name Ai; it is not an acronym. There were no acronyms in Milo’s world; there were, however, enumerators who struggled with names of unknown origin. It is likely that even if Milo could at all spell his name, there would be no correct spelling for Ai other than Ai. It is just as likely that his name was recorded as given, verbally. It is easy to imagine why an exasperated enumerator would amend, abridge or invent spellings for names.
The most compelling evidence occurs on Lewis James’s death certificate where the father would most assuredly be present to give his name: it appears, “Gordon Ai Pierce “. That was no trifling moment.
To be bold: America is a place of among other things, historical context; the place where America dwells pre-dates historical context. People are by nature reflections of their place.
pierce, v. 1. make hole or way into or through.
People are named according to their activities, proclivities and characteristics. Milo Ai was a Pierce, as is his progeny and we are American born. Among my family the name Ai is pronounced, more or less, as it is spelled; the effects of time and the whims of culture alter the transfer of knowledge and language. Ai was rarely uttered. My grandfather answered simply to “Gordy”.
Take a breath…
My next earliest memory is of crying over spilled milk - a pattern that is with me still. My next memory is of my mother kissing me as she turned to leave me wailing in a dark and unfamiliar place - the dramatic conclusion of every love affair since.
Marian Pierce released me after a brief labor, and without the aid of anesthesia, a rarity at the time. Born in the absence of a drug induced stupor imposed whatever clarity might be present in me.
If there is any advice to give, it is to explore the manner of your birth - it will tell you much.
My brother was born in Alaska. The earth was pierced by the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 destroying public records and leaving my brother for a time stateless. My father was a Fetterhoff, Germanic, people of the horse; he was in Alaska guarding against invasion from the Russian Red Army. He left us at an early age; his laughter remained, giving me no particular reason to despise him. This one did not wail then.
My mother remarried a Drayer, Dutch, people of the low cart; battered at sea during war with Korea, pieced back together by American surgeons who did their best, and unleashed upon us to torture my family. Evil was within and without that man; his lesson to me was, “no matter the odds, nothing is lost by fighting back”, an ancient Norse edict.
My first kiss was with a girl up the road, daughter of a GI and his Japanese war bride. We kissed away afternoons among the hedgerows until she left me wailing in a cherry tree at the news of their departure. She turned and walked away. That’s the way it goes.
Little Mary B. lived down our dirt lane and was the most beautiful creature of all time. She took to carrying my books to and from our school bus stop until a snow-covered day when this one decided to lob a snowball in her direction; it landed squarely on her forehead sending her off her mooring and revealing for the first time, to my eyes, panties more brilliant and purer than the new fallen snow she was mired in. She never spoke to me again. That’s the way it goes.
These might be the symptoms of a fatherless child, or some unknown unfulfillment in need of wisdom.
Lobbing projectiles is sort of a social endeavor, probably an old one. We boys took it as a rite of passage and a means of communicating intent. Most of it was merely painful, but some of it could be downright lethal. Rocks were always readily available and were liberally used. Corn cobs, walnuts, any kind of prickly thing; of course, snow and ice balls when in season and eventually bb’s, pellets and the occasional live round. Not to seem the connoisseur, but there was one arena where differences were settled among only the closest of friends: unless you have been hit, full on, by a steaming mass of freshly extruded dog shit - we can never truly be of the same clan.
None of this is to lay claim to anything other than being of ordinary origin and that the Pierce of my origin is anything but ordinary, save for the fact that every Pierce of my memory exhibited an uncommon degree of pride. Words are only intersecting lines laid on a point of space and time, the only power they have is given by you, the reader - casting your spell.
My Wingman. Big Thanks.
Bravo David, very good. You got talent, remember talent is like a sundial. It’s bound by time and doesn’t work in the shade.