Charles
“Chick” O'Brien lived in the same house in Flushing
New York from birth to altar boy to adulthood. Some of his
earliest memories are going down the street to the Worlds
Fair Grounds to see Charlie McCarthy and to try to get a taste
of his Chase and Sanborn coffee.
Chick
began his education in PS 120 then transferred to St. Michael's
with the good Sisters of St. Joseph. "My first day the
Nun teaching third grade asked,'Who is going downstairs to
the Free Lunch?' Of course I raised my hand. That one free
meal led to a long string of being thrown out of one thing
or another."
Chick
won a scholarship to Bishop Loughlin High School, in Brooklyn
NY. After three years the Christian Brothers decided he was
not a scholar.
They asked him to leave and he graduated from Flushing High
School.
"On
the 8th Avenue Subway in Brooklyn, I learned how to go from
a sound sleep to full awake, just as the GG train was pulling
into my station."
After
a four year stint in the Navy, he spent time building planes
for Grumman Aircraft. In pursuit of more money he hawked vacuum
cleaners all over Long Island and sold real estate in the
city, while he attended Queens College at night.
"On
Fridays and Saturdays, I'd have my tuxedo in the car and after
work at the Grumman plant, I'd go to a nightclub on Sunrise
Highway. Down in the cellar I'd have a wash, get dressed and
go upstairs to be the first bus-boy on duty. I got the best
station and made the most tips."
Adulthood
really began with his marriage to Grace. The way she tells
it, Chick asked her to marry him and go to Alaska, all in
one breath. She didn't quite know how to say yes to one and
no to the other. For a honeymoon they pulled a 30-foot house-trailer
across the country and up the Alcan Highway to the (then)
new state of Alaska. The trailer brakes failed coming down
a mountain and the weight pushed them faster and faster around
hair-pin turns. It was a tough scary ride to the bottom.
"After
lunch, I was on my belly under the trailer fixing the brakes,
sweating, fighting off huge mosquitoes, when Grace pulled
the plug on the sink and dumped greasy spaghetti water all
over me. I jumped, hit my head on the trailer bottom and wiggled
out from under, hollering 'GRACE'. 'What' she asked. 'WHAT
HELL...GOD DAMMIT'. There I sat, all wet, red and greasy with
long strands of spaghetti hanging off my eyeglasses. She looked
at me through the door and started laughing. I got madder
and she locked the door and sat down on the floor and really
laughed at me. Finally, I saw the humor in it and laughed
too. Grace unlocked the door and we went to the stream and
she helped me clean up. Of course we were still on our honeymoon."
After
a visit to the governor in Juneau they continued their honeymoon
journey, ran out of money and settled in Anchorage. They both
worked for the Air Force at Elmendorff Airbase.
"It
was the only Air Force in the world to have a Dawn Patrol
at 11AM, and often we had to chase moose off the runways."
They
came back to New York to have the first of their four children;
moved upstate and opened a real estate business in the Catskill
Mountains. Often, Chick would be out in the country getting
a listing on a farm, or acreage or a bungalow colony and Grace,
between feedings and changing diapers would "sit on"
a likely customer until he got back to the office.
Ten
years later, it was time for a change. Chick's lifelong interest
in politics and history, especially Irish history, stories,
songs and myths led them to Ireland. They settled in Cork
County for a year, which became the scene for much of the
action in his novel, Deirdre, a Woman from Clare.
A
winter in the south of Spain, a month touring Europe in a
red and white VW mini-bus and another month in Ireland before
Chick, Grace and the four kids took a ship out of Cobh (pronounced
cove) and headed home to New York. The scene in the book where
Deirdre and Jay have a party in their stateroom and then wave
good-bye from the rail above to their friends below on the
lighter, who are singing "Come Back to Erin", was
from their own leave-taking, right down to the gal who gave
her dress to (Deirdre) Grace, as a parting gift.
After
a year and a half in Europe, it was a shock to come back and
see the huge size of the cars, all the overweight people and
the waste that seemed so much a part of everyday life in the
good old USA.
"We
went out on Great South Bay on my brother's boat for a day-long
picnic and near dusk as we pulled into the dock, Peggy, our
youngest girl hollered, 'where are we now? Ireland? Italy?
Or Spain?'
They
moved to Anna Maria Key on the west coast of Florida; rented
a house near the beach; bought a boat; got active with The
Island Players and The Manatee Playhouse both on stage and
back with props, dialogue and sets. A search for a business
proved fruitless. Nothing seemed satisfactory.
LISHEEN.
Following an interest in the Edgar Cayce work and a reading
by a working psychic, they set out for Virginia Beach and
found an old, ten bedroom hunting lodge with 20 acres on Back
Bay. They sold the boat, some land and used all their resources
to buy the place. There wasn't much left to operate with and
there was a great deal of belt tightening. They decided to
run it as a Retreat and Seminar Center dedicated to God and
the betterment of man. It became a test of faith and a leap
into the unknown.
In Irish a LIS is a faery (old Celtic for fairy) ring or place
of enchantment. They named their Retreat Center LISHEEN, a
small enchanted place, or a place of the "Little People."
They
hosted diverse groups including priests, ministers, rabbis,
yoga groups, Swamis, Sufi masters, Tai Chi, and even a group
of poor nuns who had no money but paid with prayers for their
stay at LISHEEN.
"We
were broke and there was no relief in sight. We all had unmet
needs: teeth, glasses, medicine etc. One of our kids ran away.
We had an unsold house in N.Y. dragging us down and a large
mortgage on LISHEEN. Fed up, I went out to the edge of our
land on Back Bay and railed against God. I yelled. I raised
my voice. Why God? Why? I raised my fist and I declared Him
no help, no real friend. Why us? Why all this adversity?
'If
You want us to stay, we'll stay, but You have to help. If
You want us to go, we'll go. Just give me a sign.' I was angry
and arrogant. 'Make a circle grow on the front lawn. Show
me.'
Next
morning early, Grace woke me. 'Go out front and look at the
lawn, but you better get a cup of coffee first.' I went and
there on the lawn was a large half circle of mushrooms growing.
It was about twenty feet across.
We sat and surveyed our land and the new semi-circle of 'shrooms.
It was a perfect half-assed answer. Go. Or stay. Our choice,
not His. We do it, not Him. We reasoned it out thus: God has
the Arabs and Jews fighting in Palestine; He has the Catholics
and Protestants at each other in Northern Ireland. Most of
Central America and parts of South America are in flames.
Our problems are too small. Or He has no time for us. Or we
need to take charge of ourselves. A half-circle?"
They
sold LISHEEN on April 1st, having been there seven years to
the day.
Gainesville didn't look like Florida. It was hilly and in
the North Central piney woods of Florida. It was a university
town, an education village, and as someone said an island
of progressive enlightenment in a sea of rednecks. They had
children to educate and it suited just fine. Grace took a
job at the Hippodrome State Theatre and Chick started writing
again, taking courses, acting and helping in several political
campaigns.
"I
was working on a play and sending out short stories. They
say that rejection is a part of writing. Well, my rejections
got so routine that if the mailman didn't leave me a 'NO'
in the mail, I felt left out.
The
phone rang. It was an agent. He was calling from New York.
He liked my play, had hired actors; they read and recorded
it and he was sending me a copy with suggested changes and
maybe he'd represent my play, my work. Wow!
I
listened and wrote and rewrote. I slaved over it. The room
went dark and everything stopped working. I heard a noise
and saw a utility guy outside. I banged on the window and
he drew a hand across his throat. 'You can't shut me off.
I'm a playwright,' I yelled. 'I have an agent in New York.'
He grinned and kept walking."
It
got worse. Chick went out and grabbed a coil of wire off the
truck and took it inside. He offered to give it back if the
utility guy would turn the power back on. He even offered
a check plus the next three months of electricity but nothing
would restore his power and his writing tools until he went
downtown and applied for restoration. Words flew and tempers
flared. The cops arrived and more utility workers pulled into
the street. One cop began reading the playwright his rights
when a police sergeant arrived and cooled things down. The
wire coil went back to the utility truck and Chick drove downtown
with a check plus late fee. The kids didn't know whether to
laugh or cry.
See
Below: Theatre Three in Port Jeff on Long Island is a great
old place, a former vaudeville house built back in the 1920's.
It has brass rails all around, lots of seating, a good rise
and a bar downstairs.
Chick
found a small, artificial foliage and flower shop for Grace
to buy and soon they had a double store. He sold real estate
on one side and she did flowers and foliage on the other.
A contact led to a sub-contract to build much of the forest
in the "E.T." ride at the new Universal Studios
in Orlando.
SILK ORCHID DISPLAYS was created; they moved to Orlando and
built "KING KONG", "TWISTER", "MEN
IN BLACK", and "E.T" all over again out in
Hollywood, California. They built entertainment venues for
Disney World, Sea World, Dollywood, museums, science centers
an Indian Gaming Casino and other Dark Rides.
Grace
ran Silk Orchid Displays while Chick went back to writing.
Short stories at first and then he spent two years writing,
researching and rewriting his now published novel. "Deirdre,
A Woman from Clare."
"When the publisher called and gave me my ISBN number
for Deirdre, I felt like a 17 year old just got a drivers
license."
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Accomplishments
•
A GRAND THING ALTOGETHER
A short
story published by The Chariton Review, a small Literary Press.
It is a thinly veiled fiction account of an American family
settling into rural Irish life.
•
IRISH LEGACY
A two act play produced by Theatre Three in Port Jefferson,
N.Y. (Off Broadway---about 50 miles off) The play ran for
13 performances and was reviewed by the N.Y. Sunday Times.
They spelled the author's name right.
"The director came to me in a panic. 'The Times is here.'
Great I said. 'NO...Remember the line where Sean talks about
... an assertive American woman and describes her as a Vast
Agricultural Looking Woman? Well they sent L... to review
us and she is a Vast Agricultural Looking Woman. She'll tear
us apart.' She was. She did. She spelled my name right."
•
THE SEANACHIE
A play in two acts, was selected as one of three winners in
a new play contest by The Asolo State Theatre in Sarasota
Florida. They gave him a director, a cast and three weeks
of intensive work writing, rehearsing and rewriting. The play
was given a staged reading before an invited audience and
was reviewed in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
"I
learned more about the craft of playwrighting in those weeks
than I had in several years of working alone. It was fantastic."
•
THE SEANACHIE AND THE FAERIES
A script for a TV show for The Corp. for Public Broadcasting.
University of Florida requested and sponsored a script for
a new PBS show to be produced in Florida.
Sean,
The Shanachie is invited to the LAND OF FAERIE on Halloween.
He assumes he is to be honored by the King for his storytelling.
In truth, they wish to use him to solve their faerie problems.
The hidden caves and hollow trees where they live are being
destroyed by man's greed and careless ways. There are whispers
of sickness and even death among the "immortals".
Sean must help them.
The
TV play received nice interest, some great reviews but no
production.
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Spiritual
Stuff
Chick
served as Warden and helped found the first Council of the
Knights of Columbus in the new state of Alaska. Later he was
the Grand Knight of a Knights of Columbus Council in Ellenville,
N.Y.
During
the seven years they lived in Virginia Beach, Chick and his
wife Grace both became interested in different aspects of
spirituality, especially those expressed in the writings of
"The Sleeping Prophet", as Edgar Cayce was called.
The headquarters of The A.R.E. are located here and the area
has become a mecca for Swamis, Fakirs, Indian healers, both
Eastern and American and many working psychics; several of
them became good friends. Chick lectured at the Association
for Research and Enlightenment and both he and Grace studied
with and were initiated by Swami Saraswati Nityananda, aka
Swami Nitty Gritty. "The Eastern religions offer a lot
to chew on.
A
dear friend, when asked if he believed in reincarnation, would
always say, 'I'm not sure, but I know for a fact that I did
not believe in it in my last lifetime'." Be well, be
open to new things as you follow your dream and I wish you
joy.
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