The OCD Diaries

November 9, 2017November 9, 2017

Robert C. Corthell, 1948-2017: Trucker, Teacher, Family Man

Robert C. Corthell of Haverhill, Mass., died peacefully at Lahey Burlington Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, surrounded by loved ones, after suffering a pulmonary embolism. He was 69. He fought his brief illness with the same stubbornness and grit by which he lived.

His family and friends knew him as Bob, Bobby, Dad and Grandpa.

He was born and raised in Haverhill and, after serving in the U.S. Army, spent the rest of his life there, though in more recent years he and Sharon spent their winters in Winterhaven, Florida.

He made his living as a truck driver, hauling tractor trailers, commuter and school buses and just about anything else with four wheels and a motor. He was proud of his profession, keeping model cars and trucks around his desk at home. He retired from Conway Freight in 2014.

His nephew, Chris, remembers coming back from Germany in 1981 and riding with him while he drove a commuter bus to Boston.

He was a family man first, always there to help bail someone out if they were stuck on the side of the road or facing other crises. He and Sharon took in family and others in times of need. He was a devoted member of All Saints Parish in Haverhill and sent his daughters to St. Joseph School, then part of the parish. There, he served as a Sunday school teacher and Eucharistic minister.

Above all, he was a teacher.

On the side, Bob and Sharon ran Chandler’s Auto School and, as his niece, Faith, remembers, taught virtually half of Haverhill to drive.

After his brother-in-law, Leon Basiliere, suffered a stroke, Bob taught him how to drive again and helped him get his license back.

He taught just about all of his kids, nieces and nephews to drive and had started teaching his grandson, Sean. At Conway, he taught fellow employees about truck-driving safety. After retirement, he continued to teach driving and safety at the New England Tractor Trailer Training School (NETTTS) in North Andover, Mass.

He taught his son-in-law, Bill, how to drive with a stick shift in a beaten-up Ford Escort up one of the steepest hills in town. Bill was nervous as hell, and thinks his father-in-law enjoyed that.

He was passionate about RV camping and the safe and proper use of firearms. He and Sharon took their camper out regularly, and they lived in one during their Florida winters. Those passions rubbed off on his children and grandchildren, and each summer they would all camp together.

He taught his daughter, Erin, and son-in-law, Bill, how to haul a camper, set it up, close it down and maintain it. He also taught most of his children, his oldest grandson and various friends how to shoot with a firearm.

He and Sharon were avid square dancers and were members of the Firesiders, Montachusett Twirlers and Wolf Rockers square dancing clubs.

He had opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them, especially when it came to politics.

He taught countless people how to live and love. For that, we’re forever grateful.

He is survived by Sharon, his cherished wife of 48 years, his children, Erin Brenner and her husband, Bill; Robin Coughlin and her husband, Tim; Sara Croft; and Amanda Daniels and her husband, Matt, all of Haverhill. He also leaves behind his grandchildren, Sean, Duncan, Madison and Owen, many nieces and nephews, and his siblings: Cindi Basiliere, Janet Gillis, Natalie Pineau and her husband, Steve; Steve Corthell and his wife, Pat; and Fred Corthell and his wife, Terry. Bob was preceded in death by his sister, Nancy.

CALLING HOURS will be Sunday from 2-5 p.m. at Driscoll Funeral Home, 309 S Main St, Haverhill, MA 01835. A funeral Mass will be held Monday, 10 a.m. at All Saints Parish, 120 Bellevue Ave, Haverhill, MA 01832, followed by burial at St. Joseph Cemetery, 892 Hilldale Ave, Haverhill, MA 01832.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in memory of (name of tributee) to support the greatest needs in patient care. Please send your gift to: Philanthropy Office, Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, 41 Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01805. You also may donate at Giving.LaheyHealth.org/Donate.

March 15, 2016

When Listening Is Better Than Giving Advice

Sometimes when I’m going through a rough patch or just having a ridiculously annoying day, I need to vent. To do so productively and thus feel better, I need a good listener around.

Unfortunately, people these days don’t want to listen. They have a big megaphone that is the Internet, and they can’t bear not to use it. So they take to social media and give advice.

Mood music:

In saying that, I realize two things:

To expect people to be good listeners for you, it’s important that you be a good listener in return. I often fall short there.
Once in a while, whether I like it or not, I need advice to work through problems, especially when I’m being an asshole.

Even to give good advice, though, you still have to be a good listener.

Some of my friends are going through a rough time and detail their pain on Facebook and Twitter. They’ve noted that they just want someone to listen to them and that they have no interest in advice. Sometimes they need the advice and should suck it up. But more often than not, the advice-giving friends are not being helpful. In some cases they make things worse.

I get a lot of advice that is painfully obvious. I’d relax more if I meditated and prayed (I already do both). I’d have more energy if I exercised more (duh). I’d fight less with family if I simply realized that family is all that matters. (When people shell out that gem, I can’t help but wonder what planet they’re from, since all families argue.)

There are usually reasons people don’t do the obviously beneficial stuff friends and family advocate when giving advice. Sometimes a person’s stress level is so bad that there’s no strength left for a workout or meditation. And if we’re talking about addicts, there’s the fact that addicts have a compulsion to do what’s bad for them even though they’re well aware of the potential consequences. But being listened to allows the sufferer to get things off their chest, helping them to fight another day.

It’s worth remembering that next time someone wants to cry on your shoulder.

November 20, 2015November 19, 2015

Don’t Be Embarrassed When People Rescue You

I was recently talking to a friend who has had a shitty couple of years, with illness and death in the family. He noted that he’s gotten a lot of support from friends, family and colleagues along the way and that he’s embarrassed about it.

I get where he’s coming from.

Mood music:

Whenever I’ve experienced the things he is going through, I’ve felt a little embarrassed when people come to me with sympathy and offers of support. Some of it is because of pride, and some of it is a fear that people don’t see you as being able to deal with the tough stuff.

As I’ve grown older, though, two things have gotten clearer:

If people are supporting you, it’s usually because you’ve supported them at difficult times in their lives, and they are repaying it. It means you’ve touched some lives and made a positive difference. So when you hit hard times, the people you’ve touched feel personally invested in your well being.
We all go through tough times and remember that support from others helped us along. And when we can return the favor, it feels good.

This dude has certainly touched a lot of lives. Everyone in our circle has deep affection for him, and he’s earned our support.

Whether I’ve earned the support people have given me along the way is for others to determine. But I’d like to think I have.

To my friend: Hang in there. When people reach out, know that it’s because you’re respected and loved.

Candlelight Yoga

June 29, 2015

Dad Was a Survivor

Note: This is not Dad’s official obituary — just my tribute to him.

Thursday we gathered by Dad’s bedside to say goodbye. He lived for three more days. That was Dad. He was a survivor, tougher than leather and stubborn to the last. Around 3 this afternoon, his journey finally ended.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/bT7bbgsyzKc

The last two months with him were a gift. By the end, nothing was left unsaid. He knew how I felt about him and I knew how he felt about me. We got to spend a lot of time trading wits and laughing about all the trouble I got into as a kid. He seemed satisfied with how I turned out.

His mind was sharp to the end, rattling off how he wanted his various business interests wrapped up, how he wanted money invested, how he wanted me to do things that were cheaper than other things.

Dad never had it easy. He faced crushing difficulties. He ran the family business from the time he was a teenager, when his own father fell ill. After the business burned in the Great Chelsea Fire of 1973, he rebuilt in Saugus, Mass. He and my stepmom expanded the business into a global enterprise and thrived.

He endured a tough divorce, lost his oldest child to an asthma attack, and helped my sister through long periods of crippling depression.

He had a lot on his plate with me, for sure. I was sick and hospitalized a lot with Crohn’s Disease as a kid. I was an outcast who rebelled constantly. I saw his efforts to make me work and earn my money as tyranny and gave him a lot of grief. But as I grew older, my work ethic kicked in and I think he thought that his efforts with me had paid off.

He was a man without a filter. He’d tell people exactly what he thought. If he thought you were getting fat, he’d say so. If you came to our house to find him walking around in his underwear, he didn’t care. He was a human honey badger.

Under the tough exterior was a heart of gold. He took care of his family no matter what. He took care of his employees, too. One time, when an employee needed some extra financial assistance with a newborn baby, Dad quipped, “I’m paying for this kid and I didn’t even get to have any fun.”

He loved the little kids. He loved to push their buttons and be a tease. He lived life on his terms right to the end. It was a sight to behold.

I inherited the habit of loving and teasing the kids. I’d like to think I inherited his toughness, too, but I’ll let others be the judge.

Thanks, Dad.

Brenner Paper Co. after the 1973 Chelsea Fire
Dad and an employee stand over the rubble of Brenner Paper Company after the 1973 Chelsea fire. Within a year, he had the business back up and running from a new building in Saugus.

March 18, 2014

Happy Birthday to a Joyful Little Soul

Three years ago today, my nephew Owen was born. We just celebrated his third birthday, but I wanted to say a little something here. Think of it as my personalized birthday card to him.

First, a video for Owen’s amusement, which also has some good advice:

http://youtu.be/8rxMYX0MoYs

Let me tell you a few things about Owen:

He is one of the most joyful souls I’ve ever met. He’s always laughing, excited by every new wonder. He used to cry a lot, especially when I gave him shoulder rides. But he seems to have gotten beyond that.
He loves American flags, plants, and Thomas and Friends.
He got off to a slow start with talking, but in recent months he has taken quantum leaps in the land of verbalization. Chalk that up as the first challenge of his life, which he passed with flying colors.
He can do a fair amount of sign language. I’m 43 years old, and the only sign language I know involves a finger.
He loves to pretend his cousins and their dad are trees and buildings. He especially loves knocking those objects to the ground and jumping on them. I suspect this activity is not limited to cousins and uncles, but we were the primary targets at his birthday party. We loved every second of it.
We adults of the family can be in the most rotten mood imaginable, but once he toddles into the room and lets out that giggle of his, all other moods brighten.

Happy birthday, you joyful little soul. Uncle Bill loves you very much.
Owen Rocks Yah

May 20, 2013

Punch-Drunk Love

In one of those bizarre flashbacks triggered by someone’s bad singing, I remembered something amusing about my maternal grandparents yesterday.

During a Cub Scout overnight on the U.S.S. Salem, someone in our group started singing the jingle for The Clapper. You might remember the commercial with old people clapping their hands to turn lights on and off with the song, “Clap on! Clap off! The Clapper!”

Mood video:

I remember Nana and Papa having a Clapper. Whenever Papa got Nana wound up and she started yelling at him, it would set off The Clapper and the lights would flick on and off repeatedly.

Those two always seemed to be fighting, and it was amusing to watch. Papa would say something he knew would wind her up, and she’d let him have it, f-bombs flying. “Fuck you, Louie!” was a popular refrain.

When that response came, he’d usually look at me, twinkle in his eye, and chuckle.

They were madly in love with each other, though I didn’t always see it that way. As a kid I didn’t understand that their arguments were actually a playful banter. He enjoyed setting her off and I think she enjoyed being set off. I enjoyed the spectacles all the same. All of us kids did.

It’s not how Erin and I carry on. It’s not how most couples I know carry on, for that matter. But for them, it worked.

They had been through a lot in their marriage. Papa was on active duty in the military a lot. Children died. Children married and divorced. Children got sick. Later, a grandchild died and others were always sick, myself included.

And my granparents had a lot of health problems. In their final years, they were in and out of the hospital all the time.

You could say they were punch-drunk from all that adversity, and the shouting matches were a way to blow off the steam.

It worked. They loved each other until the very end, and when Papa died in 1996, Nana was devastated. She lived on until 2003, but I don’t think she ever got over it.

There’s something to admire and learn from in that kind of bond.

Nana and Papa

May 15, 2013

What Arline Corthell Left Behind

Erin’s paternal grandmother passed away yesterday. Although she’s gone, she leaves behind memories to treasure and influences to carry on.

Memories

Grammie had a gift for focusing on one person at a time and engaging them in deep conversation. She did most of the talking, of course. She could, as my sister-in-law Amanda put it, talk the ears off of a brick wall.

She had beautiful, penetrating eyes that focused on you and grabbed you like a tractor beam. She had a way of bringing a huge family together at reunions and holiday affairs.

Grammie wore a lot of hats, so many that some of the grandchildren called her Grammie with the Hat. She made me feel like part of the family from the first day I met her 20 years ago. There are a lot of other memories I wasn’t there for. Fortunately, there’s another writer in the family who was. To really understand Grammie’s essence, read this stunning tribute by my cousin Faith.

Influences

You can learn a lot about a person through their children, and Grammie had seven of them, along with way too many grandchildren and great-grandchildren for me to count. The closest example is Erin. She doesn’t let me waste anything, and she’s a stickler for detail. That’s a Grammie influence.

The Corthells are a stubborn lot during conversation. If they feel strongly about something, they won’t back down. That’s a Grammie influence.

Corthells are natural storytellers. Family memories large and small are told in a range of colors that make them impossible to forget. That’s a Grammie influence.

Corthells are fiercely loyal. They argue like every family does, but if you hurt one of their own, God help you. That’s a Grammie influence.

Corthells are rugged, hard workers. My father-in-law ran a driving school — a full-time job in itself — while working brutally long hours for trucking companies. My mother-in-law ran the school with him, teaching half of Haverhill how to drive while raising four girls. Grammie worked for the school, too. I remember her coming to the house after a night teaching driver’s ed or giving lessons, recounting the evening’s events in vivid detail.

The Corthells have been through a lot. Family members have died young. Jobs have come and gone, sometimes unexpectedly. But they have endured, soldiering through the darkness and living to fight another day with heads held high. That’s a Grammie influence.

Being part of the family has been essential to my own personal evolution. It’s been a lesson in being strong, standing up and being tough.

It all goes back to Grammie, a product of the Great Depression and WWII. She built a family that grows in number and spirit to this day, a family built to last no matter what life throws at it.

Thanks for making me part of it.

Grammie

May 14, 2013

Together We Fill Gaps

I did some more thinking after writing yesterday’s “Burden of Being Upright” post, and I think I have a better perspective. I was frustrated all day knowing that I need frequent wake-up calls. I want to be so good all the time that I’ll never need them.

Truth is, I’m always going to need it. But what’s important is what a person does when the alarm sounds.

Several years ago, before I was released from the fear that always went with my anxiety, I would have almost weekly discussions with Erin about all the things I was doing wrong. I’d cobble together an action list of all the things I’d do to be better and then I’d do nothing to act on it.

These days, life works differently. I make my action lists and act on them. Sometimes a month passes, sometimes several months. I’m so sure I have my list memorized that I stop looking at it. Eventually, I still slide off track and have no idea I’m doing it. It usually takes the form of little things that add up, like plunging into a bunch of household activities without touching base with Erin first. That means I’ll almost always snarl up a course of action we had agreed to but that I forgot about in my angst to keep the house standing.

When the realization that I’ve slipped slaps me upside the head, I get defensive. There are times when Erin and the kids can be just as difficult to put up with. I sometimes feel like the punching bag for all the angst someone else in the house is feeling, so when my faults are pointed out, I think things like, “I put up with a lot, too. I do more than my fair share of walking on egg shells. Why can’t everyone roll over when I’m the jerk?”

None of this is unique. Every family has this challenge. Most of the time, I think we do as well as we do because we keep talking and we keep loving each other. We close ranks and cheer each other on when it counts most.

As a family, we run fast, sometimes too fast and then we trip and fall. But we always get back up. That’s the part I was forgetting yesterday.

I’ve said before that Erin’s goodness makes me want to be a better man. She’s definitely gotten me a long way on the path. I think I’ve done the same for her, and we’ve both done the same for our kids. Imperfect, but always better than before.

We fill in each other’s gaps. Or at least we try to. It always reminds me of a scene in Rocky. I leave you to watch that scene and ponder what it means in your own family.

March 27, 2013

Why This Catholic Supports Marriage Equality

Yesterday many friends changed their Facebook profile pics to a red box with two horizontal lines in the center in support of marriage equality. I did as well, though I was more punk rock about it, selecting a red box with four vertical lines (the logo for the band Black Flag).

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4kFfFe38CRVnTsakUTL4E4]

I doubt all this online activism will influence the US Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage. The justices march to their own drummer. They get to serve for life, free of the political pressure that comes with standing for election. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we all follow our conscience. Mine tells me that the government has absolutely no business defining what marriage — and, more to the point, love — should be about.

That’s at odds with the beliefs of the Catholic Church and I am a devout Catholic. So why go against my church?

For starters, going against the church does not mean going against your faith. I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I owe it to Him to earn that salvation. I haven’t yet. Not even close. But it’s what I strive for. As for Christ’s teachings, the thing that always sticks with me is that we’re all sinners and have no business judging others when our own hands are dirty.

I’ve long believed that the old men who set the rules in the Holy See are wrong about how they approach homosexuality. There’s this notion that a person wakes up one day and decides being gay is a great lifestyle choice. All the people I’ve known over the years who fought against and hid their sexuality have shown me that’s bullshit. They didn’t get a choice. Then they were slaves to shame, escaping through false personas, drugs, and suicide.

Those I’ve known could only live and be a blessing to those around them once they came clean. I’ve seen a lot of friends and family come clean and lead beautiful lives, and I love them dearly for it.

For more on my take on homosexuality, see:

“Gay Haters Or Just Idiots?“

“Racists AND Idiots“

“Depression and Being Gay“

“One More Thing About Being Depressed and Gay…“

My religious beliefs are beside the point, though.

This country is supposed to have a separation between church and state, and that’s for good reason. We’re a nation of many faiths, and we all deserve the freedom to worship God — or to not — as we see fit. If two people love each other and are law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes, the government has absolutely no business making judgments on how such love should be defined. Love is love. If two people of the same sex choose to keep house together, they should be entitled to the same rights straight couples enjoy.

Feel free to disagree.

Marriage equality, punk rock style

March 4, 2013

Love in the Grammar Trenches

Since Erin and I are both writers-editors, there’s almost a Valentine’s-Day quality to this National Grammar Day. It can be a dangerous thing putting two wordsmiths together in holy matrimony, and yet we’ve managed to keep it going.

How, you ask? I’ve been thinking about that.

A basic truth about people who work with grammar for a living: Put more than one in the same room for long periods and someone gets roughed up. People like us are brutally opinionated when it comes to words, sentence structure and punctuation. Our honesty over said opinions makes us abrasive, harsh, volatile, picky, critical and just about every other unpleasant word you can think of.

The danger is especially palpable when one person is doing the writing and the other is doing the editing.

In talking with newspaper reporters and editors, we all tend to agree that newsrooms are like viper pits. We all slither around looking for someone to bite while trying not to get bitten back. When you get bitten, the venom stings like no other pain known to human beings.

I’m a product of newsrooms. I’m especially difficult, because I also grew up in Revere, a city notorious for mispronouncing the English language. Erin comes from office environments that are more reserved and quiet, but no less volatile. We’re English majors who met at Salem State College (now University), but she edited the literary magazine on campus and I wrote for the newspaper. Though both were on the same small campus, they inhabited two different worlds.

The college paper is in the basement of the student union. Today there’s a nice TV and carpeting in there. But in my day it was dirty and smelly, thanks to a leaking grease pipe in the ceiling (a cafeteria was above us). We swore a lot in that room, and we yelled at each other quite a bit. Across campus, the literary magazine met in the library, a quieter environment, for sure. The newspaper worked in prose. The literary magazine worked in poetry.

In those environments, so different and yet so similar, Erin and I met and started dating.

Twenty years later, we still have our differences in the grammar department. I have no qualms about dropping cuss words into my copy. You won’t find Erin doing that anytime soon. She’s meticulous in her planning, using outlines and heavily polishing. I just dive in with my two typing fingers and go to town, without a filter. That’s gotten me into some trouble.

Also see: “Marital Differences in Style,” Part 1 and Part 2.

Now we’re partners on The OCD Diaries. I write the posts and she edits them. We both plan strategy and design, and she manages a lot of the marketing and back-end tasks my brain can’t always comprehend. We have our share of arguments on the direction of this thing. But taken whole, it works. The resources section and cleaner, more elegant design? Her ideas. The use of sidebars and more sophisticated use of photos? I give her credit for that, too. She also keeps me honest in the writing, calling bullshit when she thinks I’ve written something that doesn’t ring true.

Meanwhile, I push her to try things that are often less focused and rougher around the edges than she’d prefer. I also ensure that she’s listening to more of my heavy metal music. She checks the mood music to make sure the Spotify player is working properly, and I’m amused when Facebook announces that Erin Brenner is listening to Dead Kennedys, King Diamond or Iron Maiden on Spotify.

I think what works is that she’s always accepted my crudeness and I’ve always accepted her critical sensibilities.

In the world of grammar, writing and editing, as in the rest of our marriage, we fill in each others’ gaps.

copyedits