Paul McSorley's Jottings

“TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION…”
(Hamlet: Act 3.1)

This is the most quoted phrase in the English Language!  So says Norrie Epstein, in “The Friendly Shakespeare”. But I have since learned that the quote or Shakespeare’s plays might never have ‘been’ if not for two actor friends. Shakespeare never had any of his plays published. Except of course he probably had scripts, which were used in the performances. He died with his plays unpublished and so his plays died with him. The two actors and friends of Shakespeare were John Heminge and Henry Condel. But for them the plays might never have been known today! There are some 38 plays and none of them are ‘one’ act! It took them seven years after Shakespeare’s death to put together the “First Folio”. They had the help of the play writer Ben Johnson  “To be or not to be? Much of Shakespeare wouldn’t be, if not for two devoted fans” noted author Epstein. So when those high school students and others who dislike reading Shakespeare’s plays, now know not be angry at him, but his two actor friends!

Speaking of plays reminds me of our attending them. We subscribe to a certain number of plays each year performed at the American Stage Theater. It is a small theater sitting maybe 100 to 200 viewers. It is also an arena like stage, i.e., viewers look down not up on the performance. I sit on the same level, eye to eye, with the performers because of my walking disability. So the performance is literally for me like it was in my living room! (But of course a great deal larger than our living room!) The last show we saw was on the last Sunday of June. It was titled “November” and it was hilarious.

The main character is the President who is about to lose the office since his reelection seems out of his reach. The play involves civil marriages, gambling casinos, lesbians, American Indians, presidential libraries, questionable pardons and campaign contributions The F-word flies fast and furiously in the play. The main character, the now reigning President finds he is on a sinking ship and he brings out something like a jackhammer spewing political incorrectness in all directions. He keeps trying to make a deal with the sellers of Turkeys since he did so one time before. But now he wants the payment higher or he’ll just propagate that we have discovered that the Pilgrims ‘ate pork’ on Thanksgiving Day. His speechwriter is a woman and she writes him great speeches. But when he finds out she is a Lesbian and wants to marry her partner he is really thrown. He refuses to consider marrying her since it is illegal Especially since she wants to do it on national TV right after the President performs his Turkey ad!  All of course from the Presidential Library!

I recall reading about whether Turkeys being eaten at the “Thanksgiving Day” of the Pilgrims. I read that the Pilgrims took a turkey with them when they went to meet with the Indians and talk of peace, but the Indians didn’t want the turkey. So the Pilgrims took it back with them and then allegedly ate it in Thanksgiving for the success of the meeting. Some how in creating a ‘Thanksgiving Day’ turkey ended up as the meal to be served?

In the play the President calls on a chief of the Indians and rather than getting his support the President ends up in arguments and threats. In the last act the Indian Chief shows up and attempts to kill the President with a blowgun emitting a poisonous dart. However what happens the President’s speechwriter, now in her wedding dress, happens to step in front of the President. The dart strikes her. She falls apparently killed. I say ‘apparently’ since few minutes later she gets up. It happens that the dart struck a medallion she was wearing that was on a chain around her neck and hung in front of her chest area. The play ends with all of them walking out to the library for the wedding, the Turkey ad, and the President and the Indian Chief talking about a casino. The President is wondering how much money he could make with a casino! If you get the chance to see do so and you’ll laugh for at least three hours!

Last month I wrote about Charles Lindbergh. One of things I made note of was that there was no evidence, despite the media’s claim, that he was a ‘Nazi’, or even a Nazi sympathizer. Unfortunately today that is all some people, out side of this flight from N.Y. to Paris, can recall.  Added to that I came across a novel written in 2004 by Philip Roth entitled “The Plot Against America” It’s about a family and they’re living in an American city after the election of Charles Lindbergh as President in 1940 instead of Roosevelt. In the book Lindbergh establishes diplomatic relations with the Nazi regime. The family in the book suffer from sever anti-Semitism. When I first wrote about the novel in my Jottings of October of 2004, I thought it was just a good fictional twist of history. But having learned that it is not only fictional but that despite that many people still thinks of Lindbergh as a Nazi. It is even true today, 2010.  All his other achievements are forgotten and ignored. It demonstrates once again the power of the media to propagandize even something that is false.

In the year 2000 my very good friend, Bill King, now in heaven, sent me an article from the Atlantic Monthly Magazine on ‘placebo’ and its meaning and effect. The word ‘placebo’ is defined as: a pill, medicine, etc. prescribed more for psychological reasons that any physiological effect or a placebo used as a control in testing new drugs, etc. The word comes from Latin where it means “I shall be acceptable” Sounds simple enough but it isn’t. There are scores of tests and articles written about what it does and doesn’t do. On the web there is an article of six or seven pages and at the end of the article a listing of books and other articles of at least a dozen. So it apparently is a matter of much conjectures and thinking.

For example there is no scientific evidence that vitamins prevent colds or cold sores. Nevertheless many people including myself have taken vitamins believing they prevent colds even if there is not evidence scientifically of such results. Some people believe that the placebo effect is mainly due to physical changes that promote healing and feeling better. Some think it is the process of administering it when given by a doctor.  Apparently the belief in itself becomes a process and provides hope and triggers if necessary any physical changes required. In any event for me if taking vitamins is a ‘placebo’ so be it. If it works and it has worked then I shall continue to take them.

The article Bill sent ends with these thoughts: “The next time I got a cold, I took vitamins. And I didn’t get a cold sore. I started taking vitamins whenever I felt the slightest symptoms of a cold, and I haven’t developed colds or cold sores since. Did the vitamins work? Did my belief in vitamins work? Or have I just been lucky this year?  I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

I can’t think about the month of July and not think of the Jersey shore. I spent all my summers till college graduation there. Dad sold the property in Sea Isle around that time. During law school I worked in the city, most of the time as an ‘elevator operator’. Those were the days when elevators were not run automatically and needed an operator!  In the early eighties June and I brought a condo in Avalon and the regular visits began again. We even enjoyed spending time in the months not listed as summer. So July is a month of memories at the “shore’.

Until next time Pax Tecum!

“And what is so rare, as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
[James Russell Lowell]

This verse brings back memories of high school English. This was one of the poems we read by Lowell. I am sure it is still read in such classes since it is a classic. I can’t help but think of the month and not think of Lowell’s words. It is also the month of my good and loving wife, June’s birthday! The month will bring our second grandchild graduated from college, Karen. Along with her we will celebrate the graduation of two other grandchildren from high school, Paul Berger and Meg Baker.

My sons, Bill and Dan, and I exchange books. When I got a list from Dan I saw the title “Lindbergh”. It brought back thoughts of his historic flight in 1927 from New York to Paris. So I asked Dan to lend me the book.  Was I surprised to see a biography of 500 plus pages, with another 120 pages of notes and index! It also had pictures. A. Scott Berg wrote it and won the Pulitzer Prize for it. The one I had was a paperback edition, but booksize, that was published in 1999. It is very detailed. He used diaries, letters and notes from the files of the Lindbergh’s. I remembered besides the flight the horror of their first child being kidnapped and eventually found dead. I had read in another fiction book some one referring to that kidnapping and so I was reminded of it. But on reading this detailed biography I learned that Charles Lindbergh and his wife Ann’s lives were much more than these two events.

They both wrote books and some became best sellers. They loved to travel and literally went around the world. Charles taught Anne how to fly and she often did. They suffered much with the kidnapping of their first child. There were two and half years before a warrant was issued for an arrest! Then finding the child dead was even worse and the trial was about a year later in which the person charged, Hauptmann, was found guilty. But he never confessed to it and went to death without doing so even though he was offered a life sentences if he would do so. The press and the photographers after and during this period were so bad that the Lindbergh’s decided to move to England for a while. Before they returned to America the American Ambassador in Germany invited Charles to visit. He, the ambassador hoped Lindbergh might learn what the Germans were doing with regard to fighter planes. He came and was then invited by Goering to attend a dinner. He and Anne both went. At the same the Germans gave him a medal for his flying the first flight across the Atlantic. When they returned to U.S. Lindbergh began campaigning for America to stay out of any expected European Conflict. He joined “ America First” and spoke all over the country. He was derided, called a ‘Nazi’, had to resign his commission in  the Army Air Force as a Colonel,and even President Roosevelt by inferences agreed with the criticisms.

Today people seem to remember this period in his life more than any other. In reading his objections it was clear he had America’s interest in mind because of his knowledge of their arms and air weapons that he felt it would be a mistake. He also felt American need not get involved in the European culture and antagonisms.

All of objections should have ended with Pearl Harbor. Despite the barrage of attacks on him Lindbergh helped in upgrading the fighter planes and then went to the South Pacific where he helped the Marine pilots. He flew 50 or more combat flights and killed at least one Japanese who attempted to attack him. His diary noted several times after he did so, that he prayed for the deceased Japanese pilot. General MacArthur invited him to meet with him to discuss ways to improve their air attacks. He was given a uniform without any insignia or rank.

Most people remember him not as the pilot of that first flight and never heard of his invention of a human organ pump but that he was a ‘Nazi”. This of course was never true but shows how much the press influences our thinking. He worked with the famous Dr. Alexis Carrell, a Nobel Prize winner and a doctor at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research when Lindbergh met and worked with him. So besides getting commercial airlines up in the air and the business growing he was responsible for a new medical tool.  Here is a comment made in Copenhagen when Lindbergh went there with Dr. Carrel who was to address the International Congress of Experimental Cytology. Lindbergh demonstrated his invention the ‘organ pump” He did so by using a cat’s thyroid gland. “After viewing the mechanism, many of the two hundred and fifty scientists declared that ‘Lindbergh works as a scientist would probably be remembered long after his flight to Paris…” This occurred in 1936. In the ‘60’s, “When Dr. Theodore I Malinin and Lieutenant Vernon Perry, who were expanding the study of organ profusion, informed Lindbergh that his 1935 pump was still practical. But they noted it was limited in the new field cryobiological perfusion research. Lindbergh developed a new machine of glass and plastic that could accommodate larger organs and with stand colder temperatures.” (p.528)

Lindbergh was organized right down to his death. He purchased a burial lot in Maui, Hawaii, where he and Ann often stayed. It was a lot next to a chapel. He ordered a special casket to be delivered on his death. He prepared how a quiet ceremoney without Press or Photographers would be held. As he lay dying  in the summer of 1974 he met with his children privately and reconciled any prior differences. He corrected his 14-page will, which had eliminated his son Scott by putting him back in the document. About dying he said he never realized that “death is so close all the time – its right there next to you” and he felt totally relaxed about it. He died quietly on August 26,1974.

I am now reading a book by Steven Pinker entitled “The Language of Thought: Language As A Window Into Human Nature” One paragraph really had me laughing and I would like to share it with you.

“A good way to appreciate the role of verb construction in language is to ponder jokes that hinge on an ambiguity between them: same words, different constructions. According to a frequently e-mailed list of badly translated hotel signs, a Norwegian cocktail lounge sported the notice “Ladies are requested not to have children at the bar.” In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lector (a.k.a. Hannibal the Cannibal) taunts his pursuer by saying, “I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner”. And in his autobiography the comedian Dick Gregory recounts an episode from the 1960s: “Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this waitress came up to me and said, We don’t serve colored people here. I said, That’s all right, I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken”

As the month draws to its end we will celebrate the birth of June. I will celebrate how fortunate I am to have her in my life and taking such good care of me. The numbers don’t count. But I still recall with a laugh  how when her oldest son reached fifty years of age she of course sent him a birthday card, but it was addressed to her ‘brother’!

We are having summer weather and not enough rain. We had records set in the early months of the year for cold and now we have an early summer. Well, as some wise man noted “The only thing we can do with the weather is ‘talk’ about it”

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

May is the month of birthdays and graduations. It brings back thoughts of the great celebration June had for me a year ago on my 80th. She had a tough time keep secret the great news that all my children would make it!  May is also my sister Marge’s birthday. And as I recall it was also Catherine’s. Catherine was my Mom’s assistant. She was cook, bottle washer and nanny as long as I can remember. She had apparently some mental deficiency, which never bothered her caring help to mom, and all of us. She lived with us as long as I could remember.

We congratulate the graduates, Paul Berger from High School, Meg Baker from High School, and Karen McSorley from College. We wish all of you success in your new endeavors what ever they may be!

May reminds me of the term “May Day”. I remember in the sixties that we had a parade on May 1st or the Saturday nearest to that day, which was called “May Day Parade”. As I recall it was in protest to the Marxist parade being held as a promotion and honoring of Communism. It seemingly disappeared when Communism collapsed. But I came across the term some where and decided to investigate where it arose. It was a term to describe the protest and the parade by workers in the 1880’s to end the 12-hour workday. They moved to have it reduced to eight hours. It was probably the beginning of unions. It also led to the Haymarket massacre in 1884. The U.S. Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions had passed a law declaring that as of May 1886 an eight-hour day would be the full and legal workday for all U.S. workers. They had given the two-year period before it going into effect in hopes that management would start to work towards that goal. However it never gave it a nod.

On May 1,1886, workers took to the streets in a general strike to force the industry leaders to recognize the eight hour working day.  Over 350,000 workers across the country participated. During the strike action on May third in Chicago the police opened fire on the unarmed strikers killing six workers and wounding untold numbers. There was uproar
across the nation because of the Police brutality. On May 4, the International Working People’s Assn.  organized a rally at Haymarket Square in protest. As the rally was ending 180 police marched forward and demanded they disperse. Then deep within the police ranks a bomb exploded killing seven cops.  The police then opened fire on the unarmed workers. The number killed or wounded is unknown.  Eight were arrested on charges of “inciting a riot” and murder. The eight workers were convicted of as anarchists, murder and inciting a riot.  Only one of the men accused was present at the protest. He was the speaker. In a great show trial where no evidence was produced to uphold the accusations all eight were found guilty.  Four were executed, one committed suicide, three remaining were pardoned in a labour upheaval in 1893. The whole episode is probably the worst example of police brutality in the history of the U.S. labor movement. It is certainly not a May Day we would like to remember.

Then there is the expression  ‘mayday, mayday, mayday’ or a call for help. I learned that the correct way to signal mayday consists of three repetitions, then the name of the boat and its radio call sign.  This expression of course has nothing to do with May Day. The word is an anglicized version of French m’aidez  (help me) or m’aider (to render help to me) There is something all those fishermen out there should know! Apparently radio communication was not as clear as it is today and thus the use of repeated words.

“Religion, as I came to understand it, was a primitive relic that could not stand up to the advances made in our understanding of human psychological developments or the inquiry of higher mathematics and modern sciences. Yet I knew religious people who were psychologists, mathematicians and scientists”. This is a quote from a book written by Kathleen Norris, author of the best seller “Cloister Walk”. The book is entitled  “Amazing Grace: Vocabulary of Faith” and is a series of essays on the words used in talking about faith. This quote appeared in a chapter entitled, “Belief, Doubt and Sacred Ambiguity” It reminded me of another book I have read entitled “Rocks of Ages” by Stephen Jay Gould. He was The Professor of Zoology and Geology at Harvard, curator for invertebrate paleontology at the university’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, professor of Biology at New York University.

The “Rocks of Ages” are Science and Religion. Gould makes a solid argument that each should stay within their own field of knowledge. He created the term “NOMA” which he had mean “Non overlapping magisteria”. “Magisteria” is the Latin word for “teachings”. In simple words each should stay in their own field. He points to the historic example of Galileo and the Church’s condemnation as a classical example of one acting in a field of which they have no real knowledge. He also refers to the people today who believe the theory of evolution denies the existence of God and violates somehow the Bible. Both ideas are false. Darwin never denied the existence of the Almighty. Gould writes, “Darwin did not use evolution to promote atheism, or to maintain that the concept of God could ever be squared with the structure of nature. Rather he argued that nature’s factuality, as read within the magisterium of science, could not resolve, or even specify the existence or character of God, the ultimate meaning of life, the proper foundations of morality, or any other question with the magisterium of religion.”(p.192)

Gould’s book was written in 1999. Later in an essay for “Natural History” he wrote: “Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains not moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner”

Norris’s comment is in a book written about the same time. It sounds so simple. Yet most still think the way Kathleen Norris sentence reads about religion as being obsolete in view of science, mathematics, etc. Her next thought is that she knows many scientist, mathematicians, etc. who ardently practice religion. So she resolves the apparent conflict by visiting a Benedictine Abbey and joins in their liturgy. It becomes the subject of her book, a best seller, “The Cloister Walk” She then practices what Gould advocates, keeping the subjects in their proper field.  Yet it still is happening today ten years later in that there are political parties and others advocating no teaching of evolutions in their school because they believe it contradicts the Bible.

I have had no problem keeping Religion and Science apart. My practice of belief has been hindered by first becoming automatic under my parents and then somewhat the same when  passing it on to my children. At one time I believed I was to be like four of my brothers, only at the time it was six, and become a priest. Two, Joe and John left their studying for the priesthood as I prepared to enter the Junior College in preparation for the seminary. Then there was a period after my divorce that in anger I did little concerning my faith. It wasn’t until June suggested we go back to church that I once again begin to feel and sense the growing of my faith. Studying the Bible helped me a great deal as well as June’s support and the weekly attendance at church helped even more. With her help and my prayers I feel sure my faith will continue to grow.

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

Recently I read an article about the Continental Army in 1783 being bivouacked in Newburgh, New York. It had by that time almost defeated the British and was waiting there for back pay, promised pensions, etc.

The location struck me since I spent two years outside Newburgh, attending the Oblate Junior College. The years were from after my graduation from high school in 1947 till June of 1949. The college was a preparatory school for aspiring priests. I had at that time thought of following my brothers in becoming a priest. But after two years I decided it was not for me and went back to finish college in Philadelphia.

Newburgh is located on the Hudson River. Our school was above the city and below us on the Hudson the Franklin Delano Roosevelt family, I believe, owned some land. Below that was the West Point Military Academy. Across the river was another place we had visited, years before, Poughkeepsie. The visit was made when my brother Dick was studying there as a Jesuit seminarian.

The army bivouacked there was enraged. A letter circulated suggesting that they attack the Congress in Philadelphia for its failure to take care of back pay and pensions due. It was apparently written or fostered by General Gates. Washington learned of it and suggested a meeting about it with Gates being the one to run the meeting. However as the meeting began Washington surprised them and came. He asked them for permission to speak. He understood their grievance and would press them. He said many congressmen supported their claims, but that Congress moved slowly. And he warned that to follow the letter writer would serve the British cause. He then opened a letter he said was from a Congressman and tried to read it. Then he pulled out a pair of glasses! No one had ever seen him do that before. He said, “Gentlemen, you must pardon me, for I have grown not only gray but blind in the service of my country.” The officers were stunned. Many openly wept. Their mutinous mood gave way immediately to affection for their commander.

A committee was formed to carry out Washington’s wishes. True to his word Washington pursued the Army’s grievances before Congress and he won lump sum pension payments for them and disbanded the force.

The historian who wrote the article, John R. Miller, then goes on to expand the effect of this incident on the Congress and the forthcoming Constitution. He says, “Civilian control of the military soon became a central priority in the formation of the young Republic. The author notes “..six years later the new country adopted a Constitution that implicitly recognized civilian control. In the United States, it was the story of Newburgh and Washington’s iconic status in our early years that so firmly established a tradition of civilian control in the minds of both our military and civilians. That tradition continues as a testament to our first, finest, and most political general.”

That Civilian control is found in Art.II-Sec.2 in which the President is named the Commander in Chief of the Armed forces and in Art.1-Sec.8 which reads: “Congress shall have the power to…provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States..to declare war…make rules concerning captures in  land and water…to raise and support armies…to provide and maintain a Navy..to provide rules for calling for the  military..”

What this has resulted is the essential ability of the President to order forces into hostilities to repel an invasion or counter an attack, without formal declaration of war. The conduct of war is the domain of the President. These two distinct roles that of the Congress and the President, bring up the interesting and important question: Can the United States be at war without a formal declaration of war? If we can then what is the point of a declaration? If not then what do we call hostilities without a formal declaration?

Since the Constitution was approved in 1787 we have seen many military actions. Unfortunately the civilian control has been spent more in the President as Commander in Chief or Commandant. It started with Thomas Jefferson sending the Navy to attack Pirate ships in the Mediterranean that had been attacking American merchant ships. It has continued recently with President Bush sending troops to Iraq to destroy terrorist and secure weapons of mass destruction that allegedly were being created in Iraq. In his State of the Union message in 2003 President Bush said to Congress, an “axis of evil consisting of Iran, North Korea and Iraq”. Moreover, Bush announced that he would possibly take action to topple the Iraq government, because of the alleged threat of its “weapons of mass destruction.” Bush claimed, “The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade… Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.” Saddam Hussein claimed that he falsely led the world to believe Iraq possessed nuclear weapons in order to appear strong against Iran.  As I recall General Colin Powell, who was then I believe Secretary of State, learned from the United Nations security council that the charges of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was not true. His communication of the same to President had no effect and probably caused his removal as Secretary of State.

In March of 2003 Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq and the troops have been there since. None of the alleged reasons for the invasion proved to be true.

An interesting story of use of the title “Commander in Chief” is that while Roosevelt was commander in chief of the Armed Forces during WWII he attempted to get a discount on his real estate taxes since such was offered to Active Duty service men in those days. He was a refused! So for some the title Commander in Chief or Chief of the Armed Forces carried the weight of a “title” only!

April being “Tax Month” reminded me of an adage that I saw sometime ago, it is: “Most of us don’t realize how much we have to be thankful for until we have to pay taxes on it!’

My good friend, Sheldon Peterson, and leader of the Bible class I’ve attended over the last 10 plus years refers to me on occasion as a “Philadelphia Lawyer”. Today most lawyers don’t consider that as compliment but the title  arose in 1735 with the acts of Andrew Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer. He voluntarily and without fee went to New York to represent Peter Zenger a publisher who had published remarks about how the Governor ignored the rights of many. The Governor’s name by the way was Cosby, but no relation to the comedian we know. He had judges arbitrarily displaced; new courts were erected, without consent of the Legislature, by which trials by jury were taken away when the governor was so disposed. Zenger publicized these acts of the Governor and he was charged with Libel. Hamilton created a new law in that he argued that the truths of the matters alleged as libel are not so when the person charged holds a Public Office. Truth is a defense. He was not permitted to prove that the alleged statements were true but the jury nevertheless acquitted Zenger and it established a new principle in the Law of Libel. As a result of his victory the idea of getting a “Philadelphia Lawyer” when you needed a good defender spread throughout the Colonies. His argument also became a principle in the Common Law i.e. that truth is a defense to a charge of libel when the person charged holds a Public Office.

Happily the weather continues to be Floridan and Spring-like. We hope it continues. Until next time, Pax Tecum!

Fiction writing has always seemed to elude me.  I often thought I ought to try it but failed. I have over just the last eighteen years, each month written four pages of writing and none of it as I recall could be classified as fiction. (Except some of my readers might think so!)

I recall in the year 2000 June and I were staying with two of my nieces in Townsends Inlet, New Jersey. It is located at the south end of the island that has Sea Isle City as its main settlement. North of Sea Isle City is Strathmere and then Corson’s Inlet. Sea Isle City was where I spent the summers growing up. I think Dad sold the house there in 1952 after Mom died. Sea Isle was also the place where I ran a footrace. It covered the whole island and started at the same street, 45th, where our summerhouse stood. The run was mostly on the beach and some on the boardwalk. So being back in Townsends Inlet brought back a lot of memories and while we were there a sad one was created in that my sister Anne died.

On one morning while in the Inlet June and I went for a walk. We went over the bridge from Townsends Inlet on to the next island that was Avalon. We had owned and lived many summers in a condo in Avalon. It was one of the first buildings you could see as you came off the bridge on to the Avalon Island. Bridges seemed to be one of better places for fishing. You always found cars and men down below and under the bridge fishing. So as we came down the Avalon side of the bridge it was no surprise to see a number of cars parked along the road and men fishing. But one car caught my attention since it had a man in the driver’s seat munching on a large hoagie. He didn’t seem to have any equipment about that indicated he was there to go fishing. So I started to muse…fictionalize… that he was on one of those diets that I have often been made to use that prohibited this kind of sandwich. He was parked there to be inconspicuous as he ate the forbidden sandwich. I went on to think of how he was fooling his wife, whom I named Jenny, about his eating. But I then, in my fictionalizing, had him head home and get ready for work. There I got lost…what did my character do other than cheat about eating? My fictional thinking kept me looking for facts. A habit of a lifetime of looking for the facts in order to make an argument reasonable. But as I offer this excuse I recalled many cross-examinations in which I made up facts to contest what the witness had said. Many of which could be classified as ‘fiction’. But again the conditions and the surroundings of the creation took it really out of the realm of ‘fiction’. So I am now resolved and note that I am not a fiction writer.

Speaking of fiction, I am reading a biography of one of America’s great fiction writers, Ernest Hemingway. In it he is quoted as saying: “Fiction is inventing out of what knowledge you have. If you invent successfully, it is more true than if you try to remember it. A big lie is more plausible than truth. People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars”(p.199). Standard dictionaries usually have this definition for the word. Fiction (Latin: fictum, “created”) is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events (events that are not true at the time of writing). In contrast to this is non-fiction, which deals exclusively in factual events (e.g. biographies, histories).

The book “Papa Hemingway, personal memoir” is not an official biography. It is a memoir by A.E.Hotchner, a journalist, dramatist, and writer who tells of his friendship over many years with Ernest. He met him on an assignment for a magazine to interview him for his thoughts on the “future of literature”. Hotchner thought the subject absurd and was tempted to skip his visit with Hemingway. However he went. It was in 1948 and he became a friend, advisor, and encourager to Hemmingway for the rest of his life. One very interesting part of the memoir is his recording of Hemingway talking to a group of students. He answered their many questions; one of the answers was his definition of fiction, which we quote above. He also told them he had written thirteen books. I learned some things I never knew about Hemmingway. He had children…I think two boys and a girl over four marriages. One of the sons became a headhunter in Africa, a country that Hemmingway loved and visited many times for hunting. He tells the class in answering questions: ‘‘Some countries you love some you can’t stand, I love that one. There are some places in Idaho that are like a Africa and Spain. That’s why so many Basques come here.”

The last few months before July 1961 when Hemingway commits suicide Hotchner is with him and suffers as he sees is good friend deteriorate. Writing was his life. Dr. Vernon, Hemmingway’s personal physician states, “Hutch (the author), he won’t ever write again. He can’t. He’s given up. That his motivation for doing away with himself” Hemmingway himself says to Hotchner, “Hotch, if I can’t exist on my own terms, than existence is impossible. Do you understand? That’s is how I lived and this is how I must live – or not live” During this period of his life he is constantly telling Hotch how his house is wired by the FBI, he is being tailed by them, strangers he sees at the bar are agents, etc. etc.
Hemmingway makes one attempt to take his life but that is thwarted by his wife. He then is sent for many months to the Mayo Clinic, but the disease persist and he takes his life. His diagnosis was ‘depressive persecutory’. His father had committed suicide; he had a daughter who also did so. Some psychiatrists suggested it be in the genes. It was a sad ending to a very productive life.

Another fiction writer I am reading is Henry James. He was big on short stories. He wrote more than a hundred of them!  It is written in the English of over 100 years ago.  He lived from 1843 till 1916.Here is a sentence from “The Story of a Year” published in Atlantic Monthly in 1865.

“In early May, two years ago, a young couple I wot of strolled homeward from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which inclosed their rustic home.” Now the word ‘wot’ is one you won’t see today. It has a meaning of “know”. It is somehow derived from ‘wit’ but even that makes no sense in our English of today. Another word is “inclosed” which today would be ‘enclosed’. He wrote novels too one which I remember of the entitled “The Turning of the Screw” but can’t remember anything about its contents. His brother William James was a well-known Philosopher and Psychologist and his sister Alice, a diarist.

The “St. Petersburg Times” in a Sunday section entitled “Perspective” reported on a book recently published entitled “Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving America” by Ellen Fitzpatrick. It printed one example of such letters. It was written by a first grade teacher in the State of Washington. It told of the reaction of those students to the sad news. Condolences to Jackie reminded me of my brother Dick, a Jesuit priest then teaching at Georgetown University going to Bob Kennedy’s home to help Jackie with her grief. The way he could do that without the media learning of it was that along with being listed as a teacher at Georgetown he was also listed as their tennis coach. He had played tennis all his life. He had I believe gone to Bob Kennedy’s home previously to actually do that. So his going at this time would not rouse media interest.  I later remember him appearing in a picture in the ‘NYTimes’ with John-John (as he was then called) sitting on his lap at the “World’s Fair” in that city.

Speaking of ‘fiction’ who would have thought that a priest/tennis coach would be called upon to help the widow of the President of United States with her grief upon his being killed. It is a good illustration to me of the axiom; “Truth is stranger than fiction”!

Until next time Pax Tecum!

For some reason I was thinking about my Dad. About the same time I came across a quote from Jimmy Carter’s book about his life entitled “An Hour Before Daylight”. He wrote: “I thought about my father often after I left home. It was not easy for me to put into words, even to my wife Rosalynn how my early years with Dad had affected my life. I had strongly mixed feelings about him: of love, admiration, and pride, but also at least retrospective concern about his aloofness from me. I never remembered him saying ‘Good Job, Hut’ or thanking me when I had done the best to fulfill one of his quiet suggestions that had the impact of orders. I used to hunger for one of his all rare demonstrations of affection”(p.258)

My first reaction to the comments was agreement. It fitted my thinking on my relationship with my dad, “Richard, the Martinet”.  My Dad was in his fifties when I was just becoming a teenager. He was working hard to keep up the house and his children’s higher education. I remember specifically his aid to me, as I was about to enter law school. I had been granted a ‘proctorship’ to Georgetown Law School. This entailed my living in the college dorm and controlling a floor of college students. In return for which I received a scholarship to Georgetown Law School. But my father said ‘No’. He rightly thought it better that I attend Penn Law School, since I would be practicing law in Philadelphia. So he paid my tuition, as he had paid for the last two years of my college education at Saint Joseph’s College. So in that department, finances and education – he was superb – but being a ‘buddy-buddy’ dad never happened. Incidentally it turns out that now I have a grandson, Tom McSorley, attending Georgetown Law School. So Georgetown Law finally got a ‘McSorley’ student!

My Dad was a disciplinarian, a martinet. We had to rise each morning around 6 A.M. and attend Mass with him.  I was reminded of this routine when reading a novel by Umberto Eco entitled “The Name of the Rose”. The story takes place in monastery. It went like this: “..so that night we were waked by those who would go through the dormitory and pilgrim’s house ringing bells, as one monk went from cell to cell shouting “Benedicamus Domino” to which we answered  “Deo Gratias”. The quote brought back memories of my Dad saying “Benedicamus Domino” to awaken us.  We were expected to answer, “Deo Gratias”. The phrases in English mean “Let us bless the Lord” and “Thanks be to God” In another reading, Thomas Jefferson’s letters, there was one written to his daughter Pat saying, “Determine never to be idle. No person will ever have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any”. This too was an admonition Dad administered often to me. “Don’t waste time!”

All of these reminders of my Dad naturally led me to consider how well did I do as a Dad? It is always easier to judge someone else conduct than your own. But I will try to be objective.

I must admit Mother handled most of any disciplinary problems. We had seven children: Two girls, the first and the seventh, and five boys. I do recall watching my sons play at sports and also having games of touch football on our side street (Chandler Street). I was the quarterback for each team. Every time I think of those games I am reminded of Bill Cosby’s routine using the same idea, i.e., he was the quarterback. My son Tom could repeat, I am sure even today, everything Cosby said. What I remember is he would instruct the pass receiver to go “down by that blue Ford and cut in”..or words to that effect. But I really have been blessed with these children, now most of them parents themselves, who haven’t given me any reason to feel their Dad didn’t do a fair job. One of the things my Dad taught me was the need for higher education. It was one of the principles I tried to carry out with my children. Most of them did so and are receiving the benefits with better positions, etc. Even those who chose minimums of higher education have managed to make a good living for which I am grateful. Of course admittedly I was supported by a present culture, which has seen the need for such education, but I still feel that my Dad’s influence in this area played an important part in my supporting it.

One of the incidents regarding education that my Dad revealed was how he ended up in Law School. In those days a college degree was not required to enter a Law School. Dad had graduated from a still famous high school in Philadelphia, namely Central High. I think in 1904. He went into Penn Law School in September but he failed his first year. (Something he never told me when I was about to do the same thing but got a break) As a result he went to work. He worked in Wanamaker’s, a retail store located on Market Street just across by City Hall. One day he was told to go out and help empty a truck parked across the street from City Hall at a Wanamaker entrance. He refused. Apparently because he might be seen by some of his neighbors doing this “menial” task. Some how he believed that they would think less of him for doing so. So he was fired. He told his dad he quit. His father wisely noted that his son had difficulty working for someone, so he suggested he go back to law school so he could be his own boss. So he did and graduated. The rest as they say “is history”.

Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution reads: “The Congress shall have the power…to declare war..” Congress hasn’t declared war since World War II , yet we have gone to war in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and now Iraq. A good friend of mine, Dick Nummi, and I have discussed this apparent ignoring of the Constitution on several occasions with no answer. Now two books have been published on the same subject. One is “Crisis of Command” by John Yoo and the other “Bomb Power” by Garry Wills. Both agree that National Security crises and the Atomic bomb have led to this concentration of power in the President.

Yoo praises this result as a necessary but Wills finds it appalling and Constitutional travesty.

As the reviewer Walter Isaacson notes each comes to their conclusions ‘naturally’. Yoo was in the Office of Legal Counsel during George W. Bush’s first term and asserted the President had the power to “…authorize the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding, instigate a program of warrantless wiretapping and detain certain enemy combatants without applying the Geneva Convention.” While Wills, the author of some 40 books argues that Congress was meant to be the dominant branch of government and that presidents have used the pretext of national security to usurp that power. I have read several of Wills books including one on St. Augustine and another on the Popes extravagant use of power in “Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit”. Wills is a Catholic and as a result of that book wrote, after many critics could not believe he continued to be so, “Why I Am A Catholic”. Yoo is now a law professor at Berkeley’s law school.

“Some may read this book (“Crisis and Command”) as a brief for the Bush administration’s exercise of executive authority in the war on terrorism”, Yoo writes. “It is not!” But the reviewer says “But it most certainly is precisely that…” Wills near the end of  his book recounts the arguments made by Yoo and his Bush administration colleagues, “..like the one memo calling the Geneva Convention ‘quaint’ and obsolete”. Perhaps in the nuclear era, the Constitution has become ‘quaint’ and ‘obsolete’ Wills notes. The bottom line it seems to me is Congress. They have not made any attempt that I know of to assert their authority under the Constitution to declare war. I think there was recently an attempt by Congressman Ron Paul of Texas to get some people acting on it but it all went by without any one taking any action.

Until next time Pax Tecum!

January brings us a New Year and a new decade. It also brought the coldest weather we have had since we have been living in Florida. The temperatures were so bad I had to stay in the house since the cold air aggravates the lungs. It even brought ‘sleet’ to some highways another first in Florida for us. It reached 27 degrees in Tampa and many record lows were set. One morning June saw ice on our windshield and that certainly a first. It was suggested in the daily newspaper here that you could use a credit card since you probably don’t have an ice scraper! It was gone in a few hours so we didn’t need to use our credit card. But looking north we are still a lot warmer and there is no snow accumulation! The lowest temperatures were still high compared to the below zeros found in a number of the northern cities. Some wise man was right when he said, “The only thing you can do about the weather, is talk about it!”

I read a review about a book entitled “Born to Run”. It brought back many memories of my days of running. I began in early 1968. It came about from a visit to a headache specialist. I had been having a continuous headache for weeks and finally went to my personal physician who sent me to the specialist. He said he could give me forty reasons for a headache but in my case he noticed that there was fat around the back of my neck. As a matter of fact since I had left the service in 1958 at 155 lbs. I had worked my way up to around 215. The specialist suggested that the fat was reducing the amount of blood getting into my head. He asked what exercise I did and I had to say none.   He suggested I start. I decided on running since having run in high school and college and of course in the Marines. I ran track and cross-country in high school and in our last year in high school (1947) we were so good as a team we won both City Titles. So with his advice I decided to start again. I began by walking and eventually running a mile. It was 1968 since I found records I kept in those days of my mileage and races. I went to a  “Jog In” sponsored by the city in 1969 and it was there that I met Bill King. How I know it was 1969 is that he was picked out for being the first over 40 to finish. It was between March and May that this occurred. I know that because Bill King mentioned he had just turned 40 in March and I would do so in May. I remember he also had a cardboard sign hanging on his back that read something about giving the Postman an honest wage. So in speaking to him I found he was a postman and was very interested in running and we became friends. That friendship led to years of running all over the East Coast and lots of laughs and joys together. Sometime in 1969 we met Browning Ross. He had run steeplechase in the 1968 Olympics. He was track coach at a school in New Jersey. He published mimeographed sheets, which listed future races and results of those already run. He always noted when someone did not finish with a “DNF” next to his name. On one occasion we had the unfortunate event of someone collapsing and dying. He never the less made Browning’s results list and it noted he DNF but he added RIP!

I am grateful for a reminder of some of that information from an essay my son Andy wrote entitled “Boston Legacy” in 2001.It was a report of a trip he took to Boston to watch his brother Dan run the Boston marathon. His brother Paul and I also were there to watch and support Dan who is the youngest.

Browning’s mimeographed sheets also carried ideas by other runners including one by Tom Osler suggesting we wear Hush puppies or soft slippers to run long distance. Osler published a book in 1978 called the “The Serious Runner’s Handbook”.  We had no ‘running shoes’ in those early days. In the book, I mentioned early, “Born to Run” written in 2009 the author, a runner, argues, and alludes to scientific evidence, that wearing running shoes for long distance runs creates injuries. The flat sandal or ‘hush puppies recommended by Osler he shows reduces the chance of injuries. In the book he writes about ultra races of 50 miles and up! So Tom Osler’s idea turns out now from years of running with ‘running’ shoes to have been more apt than even he probably even thought.

The book had a subtitle: “A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race The World Has Never Seen” It concerns the tribe of Tarrahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyon. They have “run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it.” (Quote from the cover leaf of the book). The author, Christopher McDougall, a journalist and runner tells the story of the tribe’s running and participating in 100-mile jaunts in soft sandal like shoes. He goes on to offer scientific evidence that for long distance running the foot is better without artificial supports since it, as the title says, was  “Born (or evolved) to Run”

I did wear so-called running shoes when they became available. I was able over the years of running and preparing for Marathons not suffer any severe injury to my feet or legs. I ran marathons from 1971 till 1981. In 1972 I ran five marathons and before I had finished with running them in 1981 I had a total of 22 all with no injuries except what are called ‘shin splints’ or pain in the leg. They never lasted too long. In the book the author reports of several doctors who are specialist recommending no ‘running’ shoes for long distance. In fact one a research paper in the “British Journal of Sports Medicine” stated there is..“no evidence-based studies not one –that demonstrate that running shoes make you less prone to injury” He then issued three challenges to the running shoe companies as follows:  “Is any running shoe company prepared to claim that wearing their distance running shoes will decrease your risk of suffering musculoskeletal running injuries? Is any shoe manufacturer prepared to claim that wearing their running shoes will improve your distance running performance? If you are prepared to make these claims, where is your peer-reviewed data to back it up?  Dr. Richards waited, and even tried contacting the major shoe companies for the data. In response, he got silence” In an article a few weeks later in the local paper there was a report of a woman’s 25 years of running. They listed the number of shoes in her closet and right now (Jan.2010) there are nine pairs!

When I began to run we were lucky in some of the races if we had 50 runners. It is reported that “last year (2008) in the United States 425,000 marathoners crossed the finish line, an increase of 20 percent from the beginning of the decade” I recall how impressing it was in 1972 running at Boston that there was nearly 2000 runners! Frank Shorter had won the Olympic Marathon in 1971 and caused an increase in people seeking to run marathons. I think that when my son Dan ran Boston in 2001 there had to be near 40,000 runners! Ultra marathons were hardly thought of in the 70’s. I did run two 50K’s, which is 31miles plus. But those kinds of runs were rare and now with people running 50 and 100-mile races the 50K has become a dash.

Doing a little research in writing this issue I came across some history of the marathon that was different from what I had thought. One was the distance from Marathon to Athens was 25 miles when I thought it was only 24.The report of soldier named, Pheidippides, making the run and dying, is now considered a myth. That the marathon went to 26 miles and 385 yard did so in 1908 in London so the Queen could watch the finish. I had thought it went from 24 to26 because the Queen wanted to watch the finish and also begin at the Palace. All of which was not so. Now I know this is important information that you all will want to know!

As I finish these ramblings the weather has warmed up and I am beginning to be able to go out again. Now instead of running marathons I am hoping one of these days I can walk around the block. Because that is as far as I can hope for says my pulmonary doctor.

Until next time Pax Tecum!

December reminds us of Christmas and the birth of Christ in a manger creating a creche – the nativity scene. I am particularly reminded of that scene since I recently finished painting a Nativity scene. I learned too that the word “creche” in Britain means a day nursery for babies and young children.  That word reminds me of the objections that are made to having a crèche on your property! That is because in our culture we have taken “Christ” out of Christmas and replaced him with an “X”, the symbol for the “unknown”. In a way the ‘X’ is proper since a great number in our culture don’t know Christ and don’t even bother to try to discover him. (I was recently advised that the “X” is really the beginning of a Greek word for Christ!)

As I grew up, the Christmas Tree and gifts were in what was called a ‘sitting room’. We would stand in a line in the hallway outside that room having been to Mass or served as an altar boy at one . Sometimes we would have to wait longer since one of my brothers would be singing in the choir at the ‘high’ Mass. The sitting room was on the second floor. It was a very large room with an alcove and windows at the far end of it. Through those windows you could see the brick street, that ran from our garage to Chester Avenue a block away. It was in this alcove that the tree was placed and around it on the floor was a small train with cars running around a small village all sitting on a what looked liked snow!

As you came into the room, on your left was a wall full of pictures. They were all framed  8” by10”’s and ran across the entire wall. There were four rows of them. The first row had a picture of one of us as a baby. Next there was one of Mom holding the baby. Down on the next row was a picture of one of us in our first communion outfit and last row had a picture of Mom and Dad and the child, or children, as they moved along the wall. All fifteen children were thus shown, even Rita who died a few months after being born. In her case they just had different views of her as a baby. From Frank the eldest, to Rosemary the youngest there was the growing McSorley family. Where the pictures ended the wall bent a bit to the right and part of it from the ground up was a fireplace. Above the fireplace there were more pictures but I can only remember a couple of Rosemary. They were taken of her because as a young child she had some ailment that the doctors’ thought might cause her death shortly. But it didn’t happen and she is now 77 with over 50 years as a Holy Child Nun, including 10 or more as an attorney running a Community Legal Service’s office. We are all very happy that the doctors were wrong.

We stood there outside the ‘sitting’ room in the hallway waiting for that door to open and as soon as we could hear the train running we knew any moment now we would enter!

Writing about the possibility of Rosemary’s dying reminds me of a true event that happened in the life of my brother John.   John was a Marine in WW II and made the landing at Guadalcanal. It was a major turning point in the war in the Pacific. The Marines landed in August 1942 and it was finally secured in January 1943. A short time after landing his platoon was seemingly surrounded and his buddies were falling all around him. He found himself on the ground watching Japanese bayoneting Marines. As they neared him he closed his eyes and prayed. He then opened them upon hearing firing and found the enemy had fled. He was taken with others to a medical center. He had survived! He had minor wounds but was ordered out of the area and back to the States. He was given the choice of going to any other part of the Corps and he chose the Marine Air. He went to Pensacola with the idea of flying but didn’t make it as a pilot. He was trained as a gunner-photographer on a Douglas dive-bomber (DC-7). It was in this capacity that he later found himself in the Philippine Islands engaging in the cleaning up of guerillas still fighting in lower parts of the Islands. MacArthur as he promised had “returned” in September of 1944. The city of Manila and the area around it of Luzon was soon once again in American hands. But scattered about the lower islands, especially the island of Mindanao, the Japanese survivors were still active as a guerilla force. In one of those engagement John’s plane was hit between the tail and where he sat facing it. He and the pilot survived the crash and John soon found himself in Manila where it appeared that the lower part of his leg was so badly injured that they were planning to amputate it. John’s brother Frank, the oldest in the family and a missionary there, was now free from being incarcerated by the Japanese in Santos Tomas in Manila. He learned of the proposed amputation. He came and apparently exercised enough authority that they didn’t amputate. John had a bad leg the rest of his life but at least he had a leg.

John was also one of the reason we first came to Florida. In 1990 he was in the VA hospital here. He had been retired and living in his son’s Richard’s home in Shore Acres in St. Petersburg. The VA hospital is outside the city.  We visited I think in January or February and hoped to return later in the year. In fact he said we could stay at his son’s home and we would play golf. However he died there on April 7,1990.

As November ended there was a newspaper report of the Catholic Bishop of Rhode Island attacking verbally Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of the recently deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy. Apparently it happened in 2007 when asking the Congressman not to receive communion “due to his support for abortion rights”. And now the whole matter was back in play in 2009 since Kennedy criticized the ‘nations Catholic bishops’ for threatening to oppose the overhaul of the nation’s health care system. The Bishops wanted tighter restrictions on abortion. They have since been added to the bill. But for these reasons the Bishop stated  “he is not properly prepared to receive Holy Communion”… no one has a right to receive Holy Communion”   (emphasis added). This means he/she must be “properly prepared”. He must do certain things before being qualified or has a ‘right’ to received communion! Bishop by Franz Josef van Beck, a Catholic theologian wrote this about the ‘right’. “ It is impudent for bishops to push the envelope by threatening politicians who vote pro choice with refusal of Holy Communion, since the grounds on which the threat is based arguably does not hold up under scrutiny, even if the bishop is enjoying proper authority.”

I read all the verses in the Gospels written about the Last Supper and could find no place where Christ decrees that only certain people have a ‘right’ i.e. are qualified to receive His Body and Blood. In fact one could argue that Judas was still there and took the communion along with the others. Certainly that is an example of Christ permitting sinners to partake of his Body and Blood.

Then I remembered that the Catholic Church does not act under scripture ‘alone’ but makes ‘tradition’ as part of their right to act. So I checked out the history of the Eucharist or Holy Communion and found it probably began to be considered as a ‘right’ as far back as the 12th & 13th centuries. In an article on the Catholic Theological Society of America, it noted the one of speakers Gary Macy’s “virtuoso excursion into medieval eucharistic theology..well-calculated to  destabilize conventional Catholic assumptions about ordination, real presence, and the relationship among transubstantiation, reception, eucharistic devotion,  and spiritual communion. Macy argued that the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries witnessed a ‘clericalization of the West’ in which the ordained consolidated power over the Eucharist…including access to the Eucharist redefined as spiritual communion” So it could be that this is when the ‘right’ to communion first was encountered. The Reformation led by Luther wanted to rid the Church of some of these “unwarranted” traditions but the reform failed. We thus ended up with a separate religion now called Lutheranism in, which for most part communion is available to all. There are some exceptions in certain synods but the objections to such acts are just the same.

We wish you all a Happy and Holy Christmas!!

Until next time Pax Tecum!

This is the season of giving thanks. It is easy to do when you have so much. I am happy that our country has such a holiday but the regret is that it we don’t do it once a week, or maybe once a day. I was surprised to learn that the day, which was proclaimed by President Lincoln, came about as the result of a widow’s determined politicking. Her name was Sarah Joseph Hale. Her husband was a lawyer who died young leaving her with four children at age 33. She never had a formal education but went on to be the first American woman to publish a novel, and wrote the classic verse “Mary Had a Little Lamb” which has touched the lives of virtually ever child who ever spoke English. She worked on getting Thanksgiving Day for 40 years and also managed to get a memorial built for the dead at Bunker Hill.

Most of us remember our Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and yams, etc. There is a story that supposedly tells us why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day. It was said that the Pilgrims made arrangements to go up and sit with the Indians to reach agreements about peace and territory. One of the Pilgrims took a turkey along to give to them or eat with them .The Indians didn’t like turkey so it wasn’t eaten or left with them. When the Pilgrims returned to their area they had the turkey in Thanksgiving for having made a settlement and agreement with the Indians.

Whether it is a true story or not turkey has become the dinner of Thanksgiving Day. We have participated in many such dinners and I can recall at our home on Dorcas Street that we had sometimes as many as twenty plus family members. We will never forget are first Thanksgiving here in Florida. We went to my nephew’s home here in Shore Acres where we had stayed many times before and ate outside in the back of the house where they have creek running by. We made a point of sending this information to as many family and friends as we could!  It was our way of showing them how different Florida was from Pennsylvania in November. Since then though we haven’t done it again. We usually got to June’s son Michael’s home in Land of Lakes or they have come here.

There are sad memories of November too. My mother died on November 15th, 1952. My oldest sister, Winnie, became my new mother and she died on the same day, November 15th, in 1998. My sister Therese a Holy Child nun died on November 18th. Thinking of them reminds me of how they loved and served others, for that I am grateful!

Many happy memories come when I think of the group of my running friends who got together on Thanksgiving morning to run the Wissahickon trail, about eleven miles. Among them was my longtime friend and running companion, Bill King, now gone to his eternal rest. He and I spent twenty years or so running together all over the USA. We made the Thanksgiving Day morning run in order to remove the guilt when we overate at dinner that night! These days they have a run around Fairmount Park of five miles called the ‘Turkey Trot’ on Thanksgiving morning. I am happy to report that several of my children, and grandchildren, and a nephew usually make that run!

November is also the month of elections. On my return from the service I  participated as worker with the leader of the ward, at the polls on Election Day, and ran for office in 1966. I won the primary to be the candidate but lost in the general election. It resulted though in the Mayor hiring me as a deputy commissioner, and later a commissioner during his term in office. Later I was appointed to the Jury Commission and when they added my service time to my City employment time I had 28 years of City service and thus a good pension. Another of those blessing for which we give thanks! To me being involved in politics was a natural and it continued here in Florida for a few years until the length of time at the polling place and some health problems made it too difficult. But it always upset me to hear people say they didn’t even bother to vote! Our rights carry with them a duty, it is to vote.  The gift of freedom carries this duty with it. When we look around the world we see so many places where freedom doesn’t exist  we should be grateful for the right to be free by fulfilling the duty to it, i.e., vote!

Speaking of being ‘free’ we have also a right to complain about what our elected officials are doing. One today has many complaints about two wars that seem to be nothing more than assertions of our might! We never did find all those things, which were suppose to make the Iraq war necessary and now eight years in Afghanistan we, or I at least, still can’t figure out why we are there. We were going to go get Al Qaeda but he is still at large. In a recent editorial in Commonweal I liked this paragraph re Afghanistan. What does ‘to win’ mean in Afghanistan? “The administration has yet to explain what it would mean to ‘win’, and what human cost it is willing to accept. Some intermediate strategy short of withdrawal or full scale escalation –one that would allow measurable progress towards well-defined goals – maybe the most prudent course.” We hear politicians decry about allowing abortion for its taking of a life, but nothing from the same mouths about the 4000 or so lives being given away in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Why?  To me it is a great contradiction to complain about abortion and ignore the loss of lives in unexplained wars!

Did you ever wonder where some of our expressions come from? Like the “Road to hell is paved with good intentions”? Well I don’t know where a lot of them originated but this one came from Sam Johnson,  creator of the English Dictionary. Some of his others I like are: “Friendship, ‘the wine of life’ should, like a well stocked cellar, be thus continually renewed.” “ If a man does not make acquaintances as he advances through life, he will find himself left alone. A man should keep his friendship in constant repair”; “The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under the impression of it, however they may talk, though, perhaps they may be scarcely sensible of it”. We could write an essay on each one of these thoughts since they succinctly set forth ideas that are universal.

I came across a word I hadn’t seen in some while, it was “placebo”. In Latin it can mean, “it seems good or pleasing”. Some years ago I read  an article in the Atlantic Monthly about this word. It was about Linus Pauling, an Nobel prize winner in Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962) and his book entitled “Vitamin C and the Common Cold”(1970).  In it he argued that large doses of vitamin C could prevent the onset of a cold or help minimize the symptoms.

There was however no real evidence to support the claim. Later studies have shown that Vitamin C does not prevent colds. It however raised the question, “Is it maybe a ‘placebo’ effect?” A placebo effect is a pill or medicine prescribed more for psychological than physiological effects. In a book entitled “The Powerful Placebo” it states “the phenomenon has been considered clinically to have important effects.” The placebo effect points to the importance of perception and the brain’s role in physical health. I have been a recipient over the years of that effect. When I began running back in the 70’s I always made sure to take a good bit of vitamin C along with other vitamins to keep me from getting a cold! If it is only a “placebo effect” then so be it. As one of the commentators noted, since it was a Nobel Prize winner that held that opinion, maybe there was a ‘placebo’ effect i.e. believing that it works!

Till next time, Pax Tecum!