Month: June 1993

“Flattery will get you everywhere” someone once noted. I recently suffered the pleasure of hearing some of it directed at me. Brother Dick praised my latest jottings and I was amazed how astute I believed his judgment and observations were. I was “Home on the Range…where the deer and the antelope play and nothing is heard, but an encouraging word!” How easily I am flattered! It just shows how human I can be.

I did think of some of my father’s remarks on writing. I asked him once why he didn’t write more, or maybe he just volunteered the idea. He said, “I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said and in a better way.” Nevertheless, he continued to write even when he didn’t have the assistance of a secretary – in a scrawl that needed an interpreter. Win tells a story of the early years of the Family Letter handwritten – where Pat would call to find out what the letter said!

June is gone (the month that is!). It ended with a visit by Sue and Tom and Bill and their children at Avalon. Got to swim with Meg, Kate and Karen. It ended with another run with Mary, the “Nun’s Run” in Avalon on June 25th. Bill also ran. It was a 5K. Mary ran with her father and broke 9 minutes a mile. Bill broke the sound barrier, or so it seemed, in comparison.

The story of the run itself is only part of it. The twins, Tommy and Kelly Golden asked on the evening before the run if they could attend, much to their grandparents’ suprise. I advised them that the run was at 8 a.m. (as I did Bill and Mary). It required an early rise for them and we arrived at 7:30 a.m. The activity, as we reached 8 a.m., was minimal and Mary and Bill were suprised at the low numbers being issued and the small number of participants, when lo! and behold! we were advised that Pop-Pop had the wrong starting time! It was registration at 8 a.m.! The run started at “9 a.m.”! There was much moaning over loss of sleep, etc. It required a trip to the bookstore later in the day to make amends -two Calvin & Hobbes picture books, one science wonder book, a Jurassic Park and young reader’s book. The money was a small price to pay to relieve an embarrassed grandpop (nothing could be paid to relieve the suffering as embarrassed husband. It entered wife’s book of “I should have known and checked it myself.”)

We had a brief visit on Saturday, July 3rd by Mary, a/k/a Sr. Rita Joseph, and Eleanore (White) McSorley. We heard of the continuing bad weather in Louisiana and continuing growth of the Joe McSorley clan.

The weekend of the Fourth brought a houseful at F-6 in Avalon. The number was around 14, but none stayed still long enough for an accurate count. Grandpop got to take a few walks with his grandson, Paul, who is growing in leaps and bounds. His favorite word now is “Okay!” Everything, good or bad is “Okay”. He calls both his brothers, Sean and David, “David”. It makes sense to me, since I still have a problem being certain which one I am speaking to when one is without the other. Paul will be the “terrible two” on August 31, 1993.

“And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days” (Lowell) 

Well, today is not what you might describe as “perfect”. It is overcast and rain showers predicted. But the other thoughts in Lowe1l’s poem are ringing true. “Now is the high tide of the year, and whatever of life hath ebbed away comes flooding back with ripply cheer ••• ” or, as Ogden Nash was want to say, “Spring is sprung, and grass is riz, and this is where the classes is” or something remotely similar.

Yesterday I spent al1 morning at Holy Redeemer Hospital having a stress test. At one point I lay on a table shaped like a large sewer pipe cut in half, in the dark, while a computerized, large camera that looked like a big metal homburg crept over me inch by inch for fifteen minutes. It was making a video of my heart in action. It was filming the muscle as it worked some fluid injected an hour earlier through its chambers. While lying there, there was placed on my stomach and on the right side of my chest heavy metal slabs. I thought, in jest, this is how it might feel in the grave with the stone over me. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want a stone – especially since I intend to make an ash of myself (to save space).

All of which made Lowell’s song all the more re1evant, especially last weekend, Memorial Day weekend. The weather was gorgeous and I managed two days of playing golf and enjoy¬ing those “rare days” in May.

The “tempus” continues to “fugit” so it has been since Easter that I have had an opportunity to report the “moving” events in the lives of Paul and June (ha!). Easter was spent in painting the walls of the rooms of the condo. But the event of the month had to be Paul Jr.’s open house party. The strangest thought and feeling I .had was how did he get all these friends and people’s friends that I don’t even know. The father in me keeps feeling he’s still just this great young man who now lives away from home, but I still know everything about him. Well, what a surprising and pleasant shock to see this nice young man in his own world, now an adult and a long way from the Father’s house at 734 Chandler Street. Well, not too far physically since he is now at 821 Chandler Street, but light years away from the memory place where Dad has kept him.

I managed to spend most of the party chasing the girls, as usual. The damsels were Linda, Kate and Meg, who had Pop-Pop in tow for nearly an hour keeping him in and out of the house, up and down the cellar steps, into bubble blowing, and on and on and on. With women like these it is important you stay in good shape or you’ll never keep up!

April also saw the merger of two business tycoons, Paul, Jr. and Tom into McCloy, Inc. The major problem at the Board Meeting was whether Paul should be Vice President or Secretary or just Secretary. It ended with the Board declaring him Secretary only, mainly because Paul found out that it meant that he gets to sign the stock certificates! McCloy’s is really now McSorley’s, but for the time being they will live off the old goodwill of McCloy’s, since McSorley’s is only known in the area as a tavern in Haverford (Paul Jr.’s former hangout!}.

I ended April in my annual Penn Relay run. Once again churning into Franklin Field with an announcement of my arrival and one year older. I thought I did well so I hung around to see if I drew a prize in the over 60 category. I had run close to 8:30 minutes a mile. Well, so much for “great expectations”. The category was won by a 71 year old, Hubert Morgan, in a time close to 7 minutes a mile. I was 6th out of 12 in the age category, i.e., 60 and over. Shows you how many “old guys” are out there beating the sidewalks and the odds.

The run of the month, however, was the Washington Parkway lSK on April 25th. But I just realized I’m repeating myself. I told “you all” about this in my last report. A sign of old age is loss of memory leading to repetition, but it was a great run with great company so it deserves a second applause.
My birthday was spent in Hershey. A gift from my June. I played golf both mornings right on the hills beside the hotel on a nine hole course. I went out at 7 a.m., played 9 holes, had an enormous breakfast, then went back out at 11:30 for 9 more. A great way to celebrate. As usual, we ate too much but had some great walks, up and down Hershey Hill.

So now it is June and the green is spreading faster, except in our backyard. The new fence makes our backyard a world unto its own. We do have two lively twin girls next door who visit and romp .in the yard making our private world in June as it should be, filled with children, innocence and life on the “high tide”.

As so, as Lowell says:

“And Hark! how clear bold chanticleer (jottaleer!)
Warmed by the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!”

June is here, and I am crowing.