JEH: Sitting with me today is a dear friend. For the readers, please tell us your name.
GUY: My name is Guy Morse.
JEH: Could you spell your last name?
GUY: M-O-R-S-E, like the code.
JEH: Good morning, Guy.
GUY: Good morning, Jim.
JEH: How old are you, Guy?
GUY: Seventy-five.
JEH: Where were you born?
GUY: I was born here in Woonsocket Hospital.
JEH: Landmark?
GUY: Landmark, yeah, I think it was called Woonsocket Hospital then.
JEH: Did you grow up in Woonsocket?
GUY: No, I grew up Burrillville; I’m still in Burrillville.
JEH: Okay, so tell me about your mom and dad.
GUY: Well, my mother was fifteen when she had me, she was pregnant when she was fourteen, and he was seventeen I think or a little bit older. And they got married and then got divorced, and they were going to get back together. My mom got killed in a motorcycle accident when I was four; my brother was two. And I’ll always remember, it was the 4th of July, and they were going up to Pascoag for something, and I live near the corner where my mother got killed. They were coming around the corner, and this other guy came around a little too wide, hit the motorcycle, and she died right there, head injuries. Of course you didn’t have to wear a helmet, nobody had to wear a helmet back then in 1954.
And my father was in the military, he was in the Navy, and I never saw him until I joined the Navy and requested father/son duties so that I could meet him, and I met him and he was a regular guy. And, you know, I kind of hated him for what he did; I never saw him growing up.
I mean, I was with him for like three months before he got shipped out, and then I didn’t see him until after I was out of the military. And not that we were on bad terms, but they weren’t the greatest and we just — I can’t even say that because we just didn’t get along from that point; I guess you could say that.
And he had remarried, married a Japanese woman, and I grew up with my grandparents on my mother’s side, so they brought me up. And I always said I was going to join the Navy, and I did, and I said, this is my chance to meet him, and so I did that. So, that was like two things on my bucket list that I got rid of that I didn’t even know I had a bucket list at the time. Like I said, we got along, I just didn’t harmonize with him, you can put it that way. He was just another guy; he wasn’t really my father.
JEH: I want to ask you, where did he go, I know he went to the Navy but why wasn’t he part of your life?
GUY: That is a very good question; I don’t know.
JEH: Was he in the area?
GUY: No, he was over on the west coast; he was stationed over there and overseas.
JEH: Okay. So, previously he never attempted to communicate with you?
GUY: Correct.
JEH: Or your sibling?
GUY: Yes, correct.
JEH: So, you and your younger brother were raised by your grandparents?
GUY: Yes. And he has another family or he had, he’s passed now, but he had four kids all together, one was a stepdaughter and the rest were his. I met them, they were all just like regular kids. And then he moved to Rhode Island, and I went over there once, and his wife was not very receptive to us. So, I said, that’s it.
JEH: How old was he when he moved back to Rhode Island?
GUY: He was in his fifties.
JEH: How was it being raised by grandparents?
GUY: I was four when all this happened, and the only difficulties I had, I didn’t have a father or mother, when there was a father/mother dinner or a dance or something like that I had to ask my uncle, for something like that he’d go with me, you know, my grandmother came with me to the mother functions. As far as I know my mother lived with them when she was divorced. So, here she was with two kids, 19 years old, and so I had my mother and my grandmother. My mother, I don’t remember anything of her either.
JEH: You don’t, at 2 years old?
GUY: No. And my brother of course, he doesn’t, he was two. Maybe I just blocked it all out.
JEH: Let me ask you this, how did your brother cope with not having a dad?
GUY: I don’t know, I guess we both got by. He learned like I did when we got married and had kids about being a dad from watching other people, and that was about it. Because my grandfather was there but he wasn’t there you might say. He worked his 40/45 hours a week, you know. I learned a lot from my grandfather, he was a machinist and also a jack of all trades. So, it was my grandmother, she did all the work, because like my wife now, she does all the work. It sounds strange, it is strange, but I just lived with it, go with the flow.
JEH: Carving a life out for yourself out of tragedy is commendable. So, let’s move forward, you graduate from high school, then what do you do?
GUY: I went in the military right from high school; I was in the military before I got out of high school; I did the 90-day delayed program, so like June 7th of my senior year I went down and raised my right hand, and then I graduated high school and then I worked the summer and then in October I left.
JEH: So, wanting to be in the Navy so badly, is this the obvious dad connection?
GUY: That’s the only connection I had with him. I saw him, I met the man and I said, okay, he’s just another guy and I moved on. I mean, it might sound cruel and if my wife Linda reads that she might say, “No, no, it didn’t happen that way.” Maybe it didn’t, but that’s the way I see it.
JEH: I mean, it’s your story, it’s how you remember it.
GUY: That’s how it’s coming through to me, coming out of my mouth.
JEH: So, how long did you stay in the Navy?
GUY: Four years, three years, ten months, something like that. I spent the first years of a four-year hitch on shore duty. I was at Whidbey Island, north of Seattle and I had it made there. And then I got sea duty of course, everybody has to go to sea duty, but I was only there about a year.
JEH: Was this during the time of peace?
GUY: No, this was during the Vietnam War, right off the coast, on a USS Midway CVA-41. So, I saw some of the stuff that went on because the pilots would come back with beat up planes and things like that.
This is way off the track, but there’s a movie, Flight of the Intruder, it’s not a great movie but it is because everything that happened in that movie with this guy’s airplane at the beginning of the movie, happened on my ship in a way. We were at the Gulf of Tonkin, and we went to the Philippines, we went to Japan, and we went to Hong Kong. Those were the three places I got to see; I also got a ribbon for serving in Korea.
JEH: So, now you are out of the Navy, what do you do?
GUY: I go to school; I got married before that though.
JEH: Before you went into the Navy?
GUY: I went into the Navy in 1968; I got married in 1969. And that was very weird because, I mean, she came out to where I was stationed. I was in a motel room, for a week I was commuting, and I didn’t have a car, so I had to make sure I got up for the bus to get back to the base in time. There was nothing for her to do all day, where we were was a Podunk town, it was in the middle of nowhere.
JEH: Where did you go to school?
GUY: I went to school at East Coast Aerotech up in Lexington, Mass. And became an aircraft mechanic, and it’s eighteen months long, there’s no break. And I ended up finding a job, I worked for Sikorsky Aircraft for about two months, and I realized I couldn’t afford to live down there. And we came back up here, and we lived with her parents, and I got a job at Electric Boat, I went from airplanes to submarines. I worked there a year and then they went on strike.
And then I went down to Groton Airport and there was one place there, I applied for a job, and about two weeks later they called me up and said, “We have a position if you want it,” with Pilgrim Airlines, I don’t know if anybody remembers them. So, I started working there and I stayed there for two years.
I got a job up in Providence, Warwick Airport, and I worked there for a couple of years and that kind of worked out. A friend of mine who was starting a business in Groton, Conn., and I worked down there for seven years as an aircraft mechanic.
JEH: Tell me about your first marriage.
GUY: I thought it was going good, it was going good. I was married to her for twenty-eight years. I have three children, two girls and a boy. And they grew up pretty well; I still have problems with the boy. The two girls are saved; I know they are. And my son won’t have anything to do with anything. I try to tell him, “You’ve got to stop drinking, Guy, you know you’re an alcoholic.” He goes, “I know I am and I don’t care because I like it and I’m not going to change.” Every once in a while I’ll throw something at him to try and make him think about it.
JEH: When does God come into your life?
GUY: He has popped in and out of my life a lot of times. When I married my first wife we didn’t go to church, both of us were brought up Catholic. So, when the kids started coming we tried to go with them, and that didn’t really work. And I think it was me because I didn’t want to go; I don’t know why. I didn’t even go on Christmas and Easter, when you’re supposed to go.
JEH: So, God wasn’t in your life yet.
GUY: Not really, not like he is now.
JEH: At what point in your life did your first marriage end?
GUY: I was working at the Franklin Country Club in Franklin, Mass. That’s when I got my divorce when I was working in Franklin. And we had just grown apart; we just came to an agreement.
JEH: So, how long were you at Franklin Country Club?
GUY: About twenty-three years.
JEH: Was that your last job?
GUY: Yes, I’m retired.
JEH: So, where does God come in?
GUY: God really came into my life after I met Linda. My sister-in-law made it happen. One day when we were at her house we were talking to each other and we were out on her deck, and I remember I said, “You know, we can make this work.” She said, “I think so.” I said, “This isn’t going to be like high school though.” I knew of her in high school, but I didn’t know her, she was two years younger than me. So, we got married, we got married in her brother’s back yard by a judge.
JEH: So, what made you grow the ponytail?
GUY: I had a friend of mine, I worked with him and he had a ponytail almost as long as this, and I said, “I think that’s cool.” So, it was a very long mullet for a while and then I put it in a ponytail, and I’ve always wore a ponytail ever since. I think it’s neat seeing an old man with a ponytail.
JEH: I think it’s cool.
GUY: So, Linda said, because Linda was a devout Catholic growing up. She went to church, she went to catechism, she taught Sunday school, she taught catechism. So, she said, “I think we ought to start going to church.” I said, “Okay.” I actually think about it now, there was something missing in my life, God again.
So, we went to the Catholic Church where she had gone as a kid; she knew the deacon there. And he was happy to see us, especially her because he knew her. So, he said, “If you’re thinking about coming back to the church I’ll meet you one day after church and tell you what it takes.” So, we got to the meeting and he’s saying, “You know, you have to get it annulled, it’s going to cost you $600 dollars apiece.” We said, “Okay.” We got up and left and we never went back.
And then we kind of waited for a while and then we went to this church is Pascoag. We were looking and they were very nice and very friendly, and I said, “Good, I think this is where we should be.
JEH: So, how did that go?
GUY: It didn’t. I mean, it was nice, so we started going to church there and we became members, and we also got baptized there. When I was about to get baptized I closed my eyes and began to pray, asking Jesus to forgive my sins and asking Him if I was ready for baptism. With my eyes closed, I saw His face, and I thanked him.
And then our pastor died and we had no pastor for the longest time. So, this new pastor shows up one day. He said he was going to be our interim pastor until they find one, so he was there for a few weeks. And from the beginning I didn’t care for him, he was just very forceful, opinionated, and I said, “That’s not the way it should be.”
So, we left and then we started going to different places. Karen, her girlfriend said, “Oh, you’ve got to come here, we love it.” And we went, it was some place in Connecticut. A good size church, the place was packed and they had a band, it was like a rock band, and they played like a rock band. I said, “This isn’t my type of church.”
And we went to another one, there was one in Uxbridge that we liked. They had a rock band too, but other than that I liked the church and then we went to a couple of others. And then Karen and Tom, who had been wanting to get out of the church in Pascoag. So, we kind of left at the same time. We all went to high school together, Tom was in my class, and Karen was a little older than we are, we’re all from Burrillville High School.
And they said, “You ought to come down here to Harvest and see what it’s like.” It was completely different. She said, “How did you like the music?” I said, “I liked it.” So, we came a few more times, we liked the way the sermons went, and so we’re here and we are members and plan on staying here. I go to the men’s group on Thursday; I’m going down twice a month to the men’s shelter and visit with those guys down there.
JEH: I understand. It sounds like you guys have found a home.
GUY: I think so; I think we have. We both enjoy it, I know Linda does. We both wanted something and it was church. And now she is, well, she works with you on Thursday.
JEH: She sure does; she is an absolute blessing.
GUY: She goes to the women’s bible study in the morning, and she enjoys that so much.
JEH: So, is God more of a presence in your life these days?
GUY: Yes, I have a calmness about me, like it’s the way it’s supposed to be, love, you know, love your neighbor and everything else. It overwhelms me. I don’t speak up too much because I’m new at this stuff. I read the bible, this is my second time, I’m almost finished again and I do that at Tom and Karen’s. So, I think I’m getting there, but it’s going to take a little while.
JEH: Is there anything that I haven’t asked you about that you would like to talk about that we didn’t cover?
GUY: Well, I had an aneurism in my leg, I’ll tell you a quick story about that. The doctor told me, “Look, we’re going to take it out, we’ll do a bypass, no problem.” But she said, “Sometimes a vein does not want to become an artery, and it’s going to fail. I’m not saying this is going to; I hope it doesn’t, but just kind of think about that because it can happen.”
So, I went and had the surgery, and I’m in recovery, and of course I’m lying there and I look up, and I can kind of hear some of the background noise going on and people talking and whatever. And I look up and it’s like four or five angels standing right in front of me. I can’t see their face because they have a mask on, it looked like a fencing mask, it looked like that and they were all in white and I could see their wings moving a little bit and they’d kind of move a little.
And then I heard, “Mr. Morse, wake up. Mr. Morse, come on, come on.” And I looked again and they were gone. And when I went and told my doctor that, she said, “Well, at least it wasn’t the other guy.” I said, “You’re absolutely right.”
JEH: How long ago was this?
GUY: It was probably 2013, somewhere around there.
JEH: Do you remember it like it was yesterday?
GUY: Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s imprinted there. Nothing glowed, nothing special, I just saw the green room behind me, and they were all looking at me, and that was about it. And I guess I had a lot of people praying for me then too, I didn’t realize it.
JEH: That is an amazing story.
GUY: I think I’ve always had Him in my heart, because during my life I have thought about Him a lot and now it’s becoming clearer to me. I thought I was not worthy or not good enough, but we all are not worthy or good enough. It’s He who gives His love to me because he wants to.
JEH: Guy I thank you for sharing your story with me.
GUY: Okay, thank you for having me.