Goodbye Scranton

One family's exit from the Electric City.

“Can I just throw this out?”

My father returned my question with a question, “Well, what is it?”

“It’s a little Macy’s box filled with pennies,” I replied while giving the box a shake to further demonstrate it’s lack of worth. 

“Absolutely not.” He pulled packing tape over a large moving box and continued, “Don’t throw out money.”  

“Got it.” I promptly tossed the box of pennies into a large black trash bag. I was at an age when listening to my parents was, at best, optional. It was also a perfect metaphor for all my financial decisions for the next twenty years. 

My father is not a man that throws things away. He still has pens he used for exams in medical school, a rosary given to him on his first communion, and twenty-seven chambray shirts. I know the exact number because several years ago when my wife Rachel and I were first dating—during a wild invasion of my father’s privacy—we went through his closet. Going through his clothes was one of my favorite pastimes and I wanted to share it with the woman who would become my wife.

“You wanna go through my dad’s closet?” I asked her. “It’s nuts!” Rachel could barely conceal her excitement. She is a snoop by nature and this was the snoop’s equivalent of being invited to the Met Gala. 

We were visiting my parents in New Jersey. They were at morning mass so Rachel and I had the house to ourselves for a little over an hour. It should be noted that we were not teenagers and both in our thirties. We—needlessly, since we were alone —crept up the stairs, well aware that what we were doing was, somewhat, inappropriate. My parents’ three dogs came with us to supervise. 

We opened my father’s closet and it appeared to be a gigantic, singular mass of assorted fabrics. Densely packed Hawaiian shirts, neck ties, blazers, slacks, and so much more, representing styles from the eighties to present day. It was as if he hadn’t gotten rid of a stitch of clothes in over thirty years. On the right side of his closet was the chambray district. A solid block of blue, consisting of twenty-seven hanging shirts. They were in order of threadbare to brand new as if they were aging in reverse.

Why the additional twenty-seven chambray shirts? Is he a devout collector of this all-season style? Does each shirt represent a calendar year like the rings of a tree? Is he anticipating a group of twenty seven shirtless men to approach his home in need of this casual yet classy wardrobe workhorse? These were not questions Rachel or I had the psychological bandwidth to answer, but we had great fun counting each shirt. 

What makes this conglomeration even more fascinating is the fact that my father only wears Hanes white t-shirts with the same pair of jeans in the colder months and the same pair of cargo shorts in the warmer months. One could assume the rest of his clothes are for display purposes only. The sole variation to his wardrobe is a single chambray shirt that hangs on a hook from his bathroom door when he desires an additional layer. Maybe the twenty-seven in the closet are reinforcements.

It was late June of 2001 when I found the box of pennies. We were moving out of the only home we'd ever known as a family of six. We moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania when I was an infant and were moving out as I turned eighteen. There were issues with my father’s job and a better offer outside of Philadelphia. Also, my mother had made a secret and most solemn vow to move out of Scranton at the first viable opportunity. I was her youngest and going off to college, so it was the perfect time to pounce.

She had never fully taken to Scranton. When we first arrived in the area, she met another mother while shopping at a grocery store. They spoke briefly and my mother was hoping to at least make a friendly new acquaintance. The woman asked, “Who’s your people?” My mother was confused because it wasn’t the 1800’s and she wasn’t seeking the protection of a gang in the Five Points. The woman clarified by asking who our relations were in Scranton. After my mother told her we were not bonded by blood to anyone within city limits, the woman curtly excused herself and continued shopping. To her, I suppose, my mother as an outsider who could do nothing for her. Or, perhaps, she was worried we were part of federal witness protection because who would willingly relocate to Scranton?

That was all it took to sour my mother on northeastern Pennsylvania for the next seventeen years. Luckily, her children made lifelong friends and were understandably struggling with saying a final goodbye.

As emotional as all of this was, we had reached the Just throw it out, or burn it, or send it to the moon for all I care! Jesus Christ, how do we have so much stuff?! stage of moving. The tears had long dried up and we never wanted to pack another thing for the rest of our lives. 

Along with the box of pennies, I had filled my trash bag with various wedding photos, baby keepsakes, savings bonds, and it was time to take it to the end of the driveway. The trash pile created had reached critical mass and was in danger of gaining its own municipality. We were not proud of it but if you and five other people can move from a location you've lived in for many years without producing an obscene amount of waste, please inform your local congressman. I tossed the bag onto the pile and made my way back to the garage where the whole family had convened.

Breaks were frequent and enjoyed by all with the exception of my father. He didn’t mind that we needed to sit down more than grandparents at a theme park, but he kept packing. On this particular day, my two brothers, sister, and mother sat for an early afternoon break. We helped ourselves to a beer from the garage refrigerator and gulped them down like a group of union bosses. My brother Christopher and I were not quite of age to legally have a beer, but we had a lot on our minds.

From the base of the driveway we heard the unmistakable sound of change scatter across pavement. My father announced, “Goddammit!”  

My mother responded, “What, Emmett?” Which felt rhetorical.

“Who threw out the box of pennies?” he asked.  

Before I could admit to being bad with money, a chorus of groans erupted from the garage encouraging him to leave the pennies where they lay, but he started to pick them up, one penny at a time. Like twenty-seven chambray shirts, you never know when a small box of pennies will come in handy. We went back to our break and discussed pizza toppings for our pending order. 

Several minutes had passed since the pennies scattered. Some of us used the restroom, my mother ordered the pizzas, the family dog MacGyver made a much celebrated appearance, but my father was still in the exact same bent-at-the-waist position as when he first started to pick up the pennies. 

“Emmett! Forget about the damn pennies!” My mother called down the driveway.

He replied, “Almost done.” But he stayed still.

“Emmett?” She replied with a hint of concern in her voice.  

Then, there was a silence that could have contained several Our Fathers at a brisk pace. We just stared at him, a man in his fifties, bent over and alone at the end of what would soon be someone else’s driveway.

Finally, he broke the silence. “My back’s out.”

Maybe it was the stress of moving, maybe it was the garage beer, maybe it was the less than twenty cents on the pavement, but it was the hardest we had ever laughed together as a family—minus my father. It was the kind of laughter that is only gifted a handful of times in this life. Involuntarily erupting from the diaphragm and stealing the breath from our lungs, but with the fear of suffocation removed. My father let out a throaty chuckle, tempered by the inability to rise into a standing position. 

As if it were rehearsed, our dear neighbor, Molly Malloy, was jogging past our house with her much celebrated family dog Rusty. Unlike our family, there were few people in Scranton that the Malloy’s were not related to. From orthodontists to clergy, someone was a blood relative. Even if she didn’t know the context of our laughter, a smile grew on her face and she attempted to say hello to our infirmed father. 

“Hi, Dr. Sibley,” Molly put her hands on her knees to lean closer, “You alright?”

“Oh, hi Molly!” My father said through a groan, as if they simply bumped into each other at a luncheon celebrating back pain. “How’s your dad?”

The entrance of Rusty the dog caused MacGyver to run from the garage to the base of the driveway to greet the new arrival. Rusty was significantly larger than MacGyver and the two appeared to be different species, but it did not stop them from enthusiastically greeting each other. 

While Molly and my father were exchanging pleasantries, MacGyver began to crane his neck up to sniff Rusty’s privates—as is a dog’s prerogative. Rusty returned the favor by expelling a powerful stream of urine directly into MacGyver’s face. In an additional turn none of us could have anticipated, MacGyver did not move from the stream and appeared to be basking in it. My father fell to his side in a futile attempt to escape the splash-zone. His white Hanes t-shirt about to experience irrevocable damage.

All hell broke loose.

The next course of action depended on your relationship to my father, MacGyver, Rusty, and/or dog urine. Molly immediately tried to pull Rusty away, but as aforementioned, Rusty was the size of a small horse. Since he was midstream, he had no intention of moving. From a fetal position, my father called out for my mother, who was already sprinting down the driveway. To my father’s surprise, she was not coming to his aid. She was only trying to rescue MacGyver from himself. My sister Emily trailed behind my mother as back-up. My brother Christopher performed a leisurely jog with beer in hand to help my father. My brother Rob went to join Molly for a few laughs since they had been in school together since kindergarten. 

I stayed in the garage and watched the beautiful scene unfold. There were enough first responders on the scene and I was able to sneak another beer. We didn’t know it, but it was the last time we’d all be together in Scranton. The next roof we’d all be under at the same time was a rented townhouse a hundred miles away in southeastern Pennsylvania, and even that wouldn’t be until the holidays. It didn’t take much—a Macy’s box filled with pennies and an unrelenting stream of dog urine—to give us the perfect goodbye.