"E" for Early

Early, East Village, NYC, 2009

The White-Haired

Harbinger of Gratitude

Tim Hare

Copyright HARE 2009

All Rights Reserved

"Shining the Rainbow Light of Gratitude

from the historic West Ward neighborhood

of Easton, Pennsylvania"

"E" for Early

“If I can’t have fun living, loving, and thriving

in the West Ward, I’m doing it wrong!”

This week's post will be quite "Early," not only because my man Early and I are going to a bunch of fun Halloween parties here, in New Hope, and New York City, but also because this week's post is about my man Early!

Our Halloween costume is an exhumed Andy Warhol (me) with Andy's painting (updated) of Liz Taylor - today's Liz bursts through the canvas in 3D (Early).

We love Halloween, though I prefer the next morning's Day of the Dead, or All Saints Day. That's when the Souls of our beloved ancestors (I have many) visit closest to the veil that separates us, bringing their gifts and Miracles, if we're awake to receive them.

For this week's Gratitude Alphabet, I had considered many E words. "Easton,"obviously came to mind. "Easton Inkscapes" (see my previous post for my shameless plugging my third book being republished in two weeks by Easton's own Mercantile Home, in a gorgeous new signed Limited Edition!). "Edgy," which I consider the West Ward to be. "Enlightened," which I consider anyone wise enough to choose to live in, and enjoy, the West Ward!

However, of all the possible people, places, and things to be grateful for here in the West Ward (oh, and Planet Earth too), allow me to say that it is Early for whom I am most grateful! Early is the nickname of my dear hubby Earl, with whom I've shared the last thirty-three years of life, together in Love,

At first thought, my marriage to Early may seem too personal a topic to be of much wider interest. Yet it is our marriage that has enabled me to weather our early decades of urban pioneering in the West Ward. I'm not sure I could have found the tenacity to transform our little corner of the West Ward, without Earl'sunwavering, risky, and often brave, commitment to our home and our neighborhood.

Early, also known as Rev. Earl David Ball, M.Div., S.T.M., is a United Church of Christ minister. For the past seventeen years, he has directed a pastoral care program at a Bucks County hospital. As a Chaplain he works daily with healing. But he also works with end of life issues, ethics, dying and death, and the grief and loss that accompany all that.

Perhaps his daily perspective allows him, in his spare time, to be simply glad to be able to fix that which can be fixed. Early has a keen understanding about stuff that's broken, such as blocks of ruined buildings. It's just stuff - not so very important when compared with what he sees every Today.

Earl is so good at his ministry - it's his best gift. He was hired to create and direct a department that is, under his leadership, groundbreaking nationally. He successfully competed against scores of applicants from twenty-six states for the opportunity to bring his gifts to that hospital. Short list after short list, month after month, he competed - then he got the call.

Early turned sixty-two last week, so we're the same age. We're now one-hundred-and-twenty-four people-years old between us! We often joke that we're also quite the hipsters (we might have one good hip between us?)!

We began our life together in Easton, in 1976. We've called the West Ward home since 1984.

When I first saw our literally condemned home (see previous post) I just laughed! When I toured the interior, I wanted to vomit! On the spot, I dismissed buying it. So if it hadn't been for Early's vision, what would have happened to this place, and the entire West Ward? Although I'm an architect, this place was too horrific to imagine being worth fixing.

At that time, we had already been renovating some other trashed and vacant buildings in Easton, but none so daunting or vile. Like a cobbler whose children go barefoot, my vision was barefoot - all I could see in this rotting pile was impossibility. But Early insisted, "We can do this!" I wondered "But why would we even want to try?" He persuaded, "We really need a creative distraction right now."

Early was right. We had recently surrendered our Chelsea NYC apartment. Then our Manhattan careers quit us. Then we moved, lock, stock, and barrels we were wearing, to our 'weekend' home in downtown Easton.

My twin-sister Patricia had recently and rapidly died, unexpectedly, at age thirty-six, leaving behind two children. I was worn out from many months of trying to persuade her health insurance company to pay for the only surgery that could save her life. They eventually did pay for the surgery - but by then, Pat couldn't survive.

Meanwhile, most of our young friends in NYC were dying, mysteriously and suddenly, before our eyes. They were literally dropping dead to the street, while America and it's government ignored their plight. President Reagan couldn't even say the word, so I won't now! Wherever we looked, life seemed over, for everyone around us.

Compared to these horrific endings, a new beginning in the worst neighborhood in Easton, by far, didn't seem that big of a deal. Turned out Earl knew that we needed to throw ourselves into new, productive, and overwhelming projects.

Looking back, I'm now grateful for the major distractions from those hard years when we were digging out of a deep recession, an incurable plague, and rebuilding a destroyed neighborhood.

We were immersed in dealing with blight. We were coping with resentful neighbors who blamed us for increasing their taxes by improving our home, arguing with belligerent drug dealers and their motorcade of clients who assaulted us for daring to live where they plied their illicit trade in broad daylight.

We were dealing with other resentful neighbors who blamed us for successfully pushing the drug dealers into their blocks. We were challenging the uneven enforcement of city codes that (still) seems to target us and fellow owner-occupiers instead of slumlords. With all this going on, we didn't get back to Manhattan for ten years.

I'm grateful that by staying away, we were spared seeing our former Manhattan community of friends be completely decimated those years. By comparison, our taking on "Skid Row" seemed an absolute breeze.

Throughout these decades, Early and I kept our eyes on the prize - an improved home and West Ward neighborhood. Occasionally we needed to temporarily and partially relocate elsewhere for career retraining, graduate school, and career opportunities.

We never abandoned our dreams for a revitalized West Ward. Sometimes life seemed to have other plans for us, but we've managed to achieve longevity here. I'm grateful we haven't reached irreversible burnout, as we've seen happen to some former neighbors who had to leave the West Ward, voluntarily or involuntarily.

I'm grateful that I am part of a loving couple known as Earl and Tim. Had I been single instead, I'm sure that on this beautiful autumnal Today I would not be writing this column from a magnificent loft in the vibrant West Ward. It took two of us to tangle with all that needed fixing here at home and in our immediate surroundings.

Our early years in the West Ward began as an isolating experience for us - it seemed that it was us against a hostile, vacant and crumbling neighborhood. With gratitude, these days my man Early and I now collaborate with a thriving community that is abundant with creative and motivated friends and neighbors who work together for the bright future of the West Ward.