For Gary As Well

Well here it is. A pound of hair and $700 to St. Baldrick's Foundation. For Gary.

Darn you Brian, you beat me to it.

For Gary

Mitzi walks the walk as world's most supportive wife ever!

Then Brian joins in...

Who's next?

Billy gets in the chair...

Mohawk for a minute!

Father and son...

Then Jeff shows his support!

No fair! Dave had a head start!

Solidarity

This is for Gary...

Solidarity, bro!

Cieslakness

"To build something," eh?

Upon reading the two terrific blog posts regarding our family lineage and meaning, I thought, "Wow, I would love to post an entry further elaborating on our family and it's orgin. Besides, I did do that report on the Cieslak family in like 5th grade."

"I'll just be able to talk along the lines of what Joe and Bryan said..."

Umm - wrong!

I don't know what to tell you - I've got nothing.

What I do have, however, is an observation:

Brian insists that being a Cieslak means doing something with your life. Being in the midst of my junior year of high school, the college search is afoot. Disjointedly making my way through the tons of literature that universities send has been overwhelming enough. My parents and college counselor attempt coerce possible majors and careers out of me and, at this point, I have no idea where I want to go with my life.

"What do I want to do?" I half-seriously ask my friends - as if they would know what I need. I feel as though everything I do is burning more bridges and closing more doors.

I need to find direction. I need to find the wind.

I have an all too familiar feeling that once I find my direction, it will have been right in front of my nose the whole time. The wind was at my back all the while and I had no idea. I was too oblivious to know it was there.

I suppose all I can do is pray and hope that God would let me in on his itinerary for my life. One peek is all I need, God. Pretty please?

All I can say is I hope my Cieslakness, that is to build something, would set in fast, 'cause life is coming and I'm not quite ready yet..

To Build

Cieslak, I am told, is the Polish word for “carpenter.”

But if you were to watch some of us in action, you’d swear it was the term for “irony.” Gary and I are flat out dangerous with a hammer, and a nail gun would become a lethal weapon in our hands.

Yes, Jeff is modestly handy around the house I’m sure, and Calvin’s dad, D-Rave, has always been mechanically inclined, even doing good, basic auto repair.

But we just don’t live up to the name.

Here in my office sits a small wooden box with leather handle. It is a tool box, built by hand a long time ago by Grandpa William Cieslak. Inside are some musty old tools, including a carpenter’s plane. I’ve often turned this curious object over in my hands, imagining the many useful items he fashioned using this simple implement. Furniture, farm sheds, and even homes.

And I’ve always felt this deep sense of somehow being cut off—not just from the legacy of craftsmanship, but from a country, a language, and world I never knew.

Strange—I’ve always had this intense interest in family history, but there just isn’t very much. It’s a thin story: Grandpa sailed into Boston harbor when he was seventeen. Details about his father Michael are sketchy and few. William’s son, my dad, understood the Polish overhead in his house when he was a little boy, but never really spoke it. And now it’s almost gone.

But what if…

What if Cieslak was not simply the Polish word for carpenter, but rather synonymous with the phrase “to build something with one’s life”? Build a home, build a family, build something of value to others in this world.

In that light, my brothers and sisters have continued that legacy.

And now it’s up to their sons and daughters.

Go build something.

The Cieslaks

It's a polish name. In Polish it's pronounced like chesh-lak. But here it pronounced see-slak. Oh how many times have I have that name mispronounced? Too many times...

Alright. Now that we have the pronunciation down, what does it mean to be a Cieslak? And who's to say? Answer: A Cieslak himself.

Perhaps I can only speak for some of the men in the family in this. But Brian, Calvin, Gary, and I all seem to share some characteristics. All four of us seem to be brilliant (not just my words) in their own way. Brian is an incredible writer. Gary is a brilliant doctor. Calvin and I are both intelligent and great writers and well. On top of that, we all seem to posess some amount of musical talent. Calvin and Brian both are skilled guitarists, and Gary and I both are skilled pianoists (plus my saxophone). If we added in Uncle Dave, we'd have nearly a full band!

But I digress. There is one more truly important thing about being a Cieslak. Through everything that I've seen of my family, it suggests that every one of us are good, intelligent, fun people. I've been blessed with quite a family...

King James Prose

While all the other authors have made their first contributions to the new family blog, I was not able to think of anything worth posting. I had read the first few entries on this page and exchanged emails with Brian and Joe regarding the orientation of literary content we were planning on having here. So far, it seems all of us have come up with some pretty good...filler. Just filling up space.

While I contemplated the nature of my first post on The Cieslaks, a remark my dad had made earlier this week at dinner echoed through my vacant mind: "I wish you guys would cut it out with the King James prose - just say what you want to say!"

This, of course, is coming from the man that always has a new vocabulary word for the family at dinner time.

I must admit that, at times, it does seem a little nonessential. So I'll try and keep the King James prose and 25 cent words to a minimum - honest.