Whispering With Ghosts

This memoir is an homage to the parents who taught the author the importance of living a life of decency, and to decency itself. He was a baby boomer, born in the Midwest to parents who met after the war. They were so poor they couldn't afford to rent a place with indoor plumbing. But whenever they confronted a problem, his parents simply said they would "figger it out." Although poor, he thought his family's life idyllic.

Then, suddenly, his family moved to New York, and everything was different. Everything that had never mattered—what clothes you wear, where you live, what band you listened to, where you went on vacation—mattered a lot. His clothes were bought at the five and dime; he had never had a vacation. He struggled. He began shutting down. He became wary, guarded, apathetic about school, distrustful of authority. But he had something to fall back on: those values of decency and his willingness to "figger it out."

While he tried to "figger it out," he cut grass, worked in factories, went to Woodstock, and became the first person to be given conscientious objector status by his draft board. He became a hippie, but never dropped out. His best friend did drop out and disappeared, forever. He spent a night in a whorehouse in Texas and hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Decades later, he found he had lived a life he could never have imagined. He had a wonderful wife, wonderful children, a wonderful house in a wonderful town. And it had indoor plumbing! He had worked in jobs that were consuming, challenging, and rewarding. He had tried murder cases and had spent years in the boardroom of what had become a Fortune 100 company. He wondered whether he had just been very lucky, whether his wonderful life was accidental.

He helped his Dad write a short memoir and had so much fun he decided to write his own. In the course of writing, he realised that luck had little to do with his successes. It simply had been living the values of decency taught to him so many years ago by his parents—integrity, accountability, compassion, courage, kindness. His life was the product of those values, and his willingness to just keep "figgering it out."

Whispering With Ghosts by Michael J. Timko is a reflection on the values instilled by his family and a testament to a life lived with courage and integrity.