The odometer would have an additional two thousand and eight miles on it as I pulled into our driveway on October 2,1996. It would have accumulated these miles from September 12, 1996 the day we left this driveway. We had, in adding those miles, been to Myrtle Beach, N.C. and St. Petersburg Fl. We spent the 13th through the 22nd at the resort and then lounged in Rich and Shirley’s home in St. Pete’s from then until the last day of September.
The weather was excellent the entire trip. We had planned to go to Myrtle Beach via Wilmington, N.C. Then the hurricane came ashore and we canceled our visit since even when we left some 3 or 4 days after it had struck, the city was still struggling to get power on and water out.
We enjoyed four live shows in Myrtle Beach. Kenny Rogers, the Gatlin Brothers, Carolina Osprey, and Legends. I got to play three rounds of golf and June improved her complexion with a tan. We had some great swims in the Atlantic and witnessed some beautiful sunrises from the balcony looking out over the Atlantic from the sixth floor. We also succeeded, somehow, to eat more than we should. After the somewhat vigorous schedule at the beach when we arrived at Rich and Shirley’s we managed to learn again how to lounge and lull with dignity. The plans to visit here or there vanished as we sunned, read, and walked the streets and by ways of Shore Acres. This is the section in Petersburg where Rich and Shirley’s home is located and where we now are neighbors. We visited our new home to meet the young tenants. She is expecting in April of ’97 and her name is Laura. He is a service man, U.S. Coast Guard, and is called Dan. It caused us to be reminded of Dan and Lori, who are also expecting in April ’97.
(I was just instructed by this machine to enter a title for this WP (word process) and as I began I noted I already had a file “octjot”. It was one year ago that I placed that Jottings in to the machine…tempus fugits…this one will be oct-J-96…in case you’re looking for it!!)
The date was September 14th and I watched the morning come. The darkness slowly disappeared as the light seeped into my vision of the horizon. The ocean grew from just the white waves below reflected in the shore lights, to its vastness that is always hard to comprehend. My mind thought of the slowness of nature in its normal acts, the growth of a tree or a child, and it’s of its power and vengefulness when it is abnormal, like the recent hurricane. Then my mind turned thinking or musing in the silence interrupted only by the waves breaking on the shore in a grandeur that I wish I could more fully describe. It reminded me of the morning meditation I practiced in my seminary days. The early morning rise to meditate in the chapel quiet before and during the Mass. The Almighty was here too and His presence certainly felt as looked from six stories up, peering at the sea as it began to slowly appear.
My musing brought me a vision of my brother Father Pat who loved the sea. He and the “shore” were in common day parlance, “good buddies”. He would accept any invitation, go any where just as long as there was an ocean nearby…It, my reverie, was now disturbed as I saw people running on the beach as the light became stronger. It reminded me of my many runs on the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere. Those hours of solitude in a communion with my body and nature, and to top it off, it was good for me. But then my thoughts went to Father Pat who like many others saw the ocean as a suitable symbol of “eternity”. The never-ending motion has caused many a poet to describe it in such terms. It only accented, as I watched, the feeling of the inadequacy of language to picture the scene, it needed music and canvas to bring it to life. How apt the expression “one picture is worth thousand words”.
There it comes, at last, the ball of blazing red inching over the horizon. Morning is here. The day has begun and musing is done. Reality reminds me that its time to have breakfast! Amen.
There is an adage that goes like this: You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy! I would just like to rephrase that a bit: You can take the lawyer out of practice, but you can’t take the practice out of the man. Or, as I recently learned you could take Paul out of the practice but you can’t stop him from “practicing”! It became apparent while I was vacationing. I was reading the local newspaper “The Myrtle Beach Sun Times”
The news is scattered therein between high school football (front page material), weather (every one on the beach thinks of weather first), and such monumental surveys as “Are American’s washing their hands before leaving public lavatories?” (Most, yes, some, no). However, the op-ed page has some opinions taken mostly from other papers. In fact on one day they reprinted one by Sandy Grady of the “Philadelphia Daily News”. It was on Spiro Agnew’s recent death and the tendency to forgive and forget his stealing. Sandy didn’t agree. He believed the evil that men do should live after them, and of course, the good should be interred with their bones.
But the one that caused the self-revelation that indicated that the adage above applied to me, was by an Armstrong Williams (sounds like he got his named reversed somewhere), under the by-line “National Report”. We learned in an italicized footnote at the bottom of the column that he is a Washington-based columnist, radio talk-show host and consultant. He also was a native of South Carolina (the next county over). The topic he chose was, “Same-sex marriage an attack on Civilization”.
The author lamented that we (the American Legislators generally and Congress in particular) have come “so far” that such a subject should be a matter of legislation. He never mentions “civilization” in the article so I suppose U.S. legislative acts covers “civilization”. The Act that is lamented is, an attempt by congress to include “same-sex marriage” in the definition of “marriage” for Federal law. It was aimed particularly at Federal Benefit statues such as Social Security Act, Medicare, and Veteran’s benefits. I agreed with the writer’s lamentation but then he continued noting a pending bill narrowly defeated granting homosexuals standing under ENDA. He noted that it was sure to be raised again after the election. ENDA stands for Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Being included under the act would and does make such persons legally protected under the Civil Rights Act. He, the columnist, went on to argue against granting such a class any such rights. He contended that homosexuality is not the same as race or sex since they are “manifest(ly) identifiable physiological trait(s)”, i.e. color and gender.
I finished the article and found myself in agreement until later. As I walked along the beach something about the argument bothered me. The “practice” was showing. It, the argument regarding granting civil rights to homosexuals, seemed too pat, too solid to ever cause any controversy. The lawyer in me made me re-read the column. Then I saw what was bothering me.
The writer states his case in terms of sex and race and finds homosexuality wanting since it is “defined” as a “volitional act(s), which always have been the province of the law”. It is “conduct” we are dealing with here, says Armstrong. But the consultant-TV-talk-show-host, also omits a fundamental class included in those Acts, namely, religion. He even notes in passing earlier in the article that ENDA would if passed place the class, homosexuals, as protected under the Civil Rights Act. Such act protects as a class “race, sex, and religion (emphasis added)” Voila!! Bang!! The light bulb went on over my head! Query: Where is the “physiological” basis for “religion”? Isn’t religion a “volitional” act? The gentleman’s argument is built on sand and the sea of reason has just washed it away. The tone of his opinion seem to place it on the rostrums of the fundamentalist Christians, or the Bible thumpers of South
Carolina. Armstrong is a black man (at least his picture with the column seems to show that he is). He doesn’t consider it, granting protection of civil rights to a homosexual, as an act of “tolerance”. He believes (?) his rights are protected by the accidents of birth only, i.e., his color or his gender. This sounds a bit aristocratic, or elitist, i.e., his class needs and deserves protection but others are not worthy since they are there by choice!! Some experts disagree that homosexuality is all by “choice” and that it is as much a “physiological” condition as race or gender. But even if you disregard those experts, how is it any less volitional than “religion”? He seems to have forgotten that religion (along with speech) is also protected by the First Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act.
Ah! The lawyer just won’t let go. Here in beautiful Myrtle Beach by the sea he finds you can take the lawyer out of practice, but…! (Fill in the blanks)
Lest you believe that the “lawyer” always controls the man, let me tell you another story about that same lawyer who’s alleged great analysis skills went right out the window. I was conned! Yes, this astute practicing attorney gave away $20. It happened one evening recently (before we made the trip south). The doorbell rang and I responded. There stood a woman of about 30+ years in the glow of the porch light, dressed in shorts and looking a bit frazzled. She ran through a list of apologies rather breathlessly but indicated we were neighbors, giving an address down the block in a small apartment house. Her problem was her child, whom we might have seen walking by with her, was suffering from some sort of infection in the ear. She needed a prescription filled. She had no money. Her husband was working up around Lansdale and she beeped him but he couldn’t get here immediately. The druggist wanted $20 for the prescription and she was without funds. She would return at 8PM with the money. It was then about 7PM.
I invited her in to take the information and obtain the funds. I wrote her name down and her husband’s name, their address, their phone number. The phone, she explained, was two different numbers (i.e., 742-3401 and 02) since her husband ran a business from his home. He was an insurance appraiser. It was why he was in Landsale. She promised again to have the money back by 8 PM but I insisted she call first since it might be later and we retire early. I then gave her my card and on the back wrote by home number (which is unlisted). “Oh!” she exclaimed, “You’re a lawyer!” The surprise I denoted in her remark then, now appears to have been a shout of triumph in that she put one over on one of the alleged smart guys. She left with the $20 and I promptly forgot about the entire matter.
Around 9 PM June came into my (study?) room and asked me if my girl friend had returned with her twenty! I had taken the money from her pocketbook. So I called the first number and got no answer. I assumed maybe Mommy was with the child at an emergency ward and that things had gotten worse, or whatever. I tried again at 10 and still got no answer. The next morning around 6:45AM I walked down the street to the address and found there were four doorbells on the building entrance way but not one name on any of the bells. At the office I called once again and then around 9 AM I tried the second number and I got an answer! It was a Doctor’s office, and they had never heard of my now ex-friend It was a doctor specializing in Geriatrics. The irony wasn’t lost on me since I now supposed she even had that detail planned in taking a “senior” citizen. I’d felt a bit better if the doctor had been a Pediatrician!
The reporting of the incident to others naturally brought out stories of their brush with the “scam”. June talked of her ex, Joe, giving someone $50 for four new tires. He would bring them right back. Paul Keeley told of watching fellow employees, in a warehouse job he had, fork out $50 for brand new color TV’s. I am sure there are plenty more out there (since this occurred an investigator I had talked to about the incident sent me a clipping from an Ann Landers column about some seniors being hustled). Being a victim of such shenanigans is humbling but one consolation is that my motivation was compassion not greed. It still cost me $20 no matter what motivation and no one likes to be taken. June’s explanation is simple:” I’m gullible! Amen!” So if I must have a fault let it be gullibility in trying to help a child. If it had been more than $20, I want to believe I would have been more circumspect. But I wonder when someone is clever enough and draws on the strong natural instinct to help the helpless??
The next time she gets a check!!
We interrupt this program to bring news of great joy!! RON and MARY will have TWINS! So sayeth the Ultra Sound!
A while ago in these pages we mused over the relativity of time. We noted that my Dad was born only a mere 20 years or so after Lincoln’s death, and that Abe was around when Tom Jefferson was still alive. It was a way of demonstrating how near the “past” really is and “history” is today…or at least a lot closer than we tend to imagine. This same idea was used in a book I just finished entitled “Six Men”, composed by Alistair Cooke from interviews and acquaintance with Charlie Chaplin, H. L. Menoken, Adlai Stevenson, Humphrey Bogart, and Bertrand Russell. It was in his story about Bertrand Russell that he drew attention to life spans. Russell lived to be 98 years of age. He was born in 1872 and died in 1970, and his grandparents Lady and Lord John Russell raised him. Lord John was a former Premier of Britain and died in 1878. Russell’s own life was to span…General Grant’s presidency and Nixon’s reign; the grandparents who helped bring him up had spanned the reign of Robespierre and Grant’s second term.” Alistair goes on, “Somehow his grandfather’s support of the Duke of Wellington’s ministry came up, and after that the name of Napoleon. Without a trace of self-consciousness, Russell made a wry face and said’ A thoroughly nasty man. I was told. I had an aunt who went once or twice to Versailles and danced with him. She took a dim view of him: he danced, she said, on his stummick! ‘” The story of Napoleon reminded me of one about myself and my Dad when I was being admitted to the Orphans Court of Philadelphia in 1958. “In those days…” the court had formal admission ceremonies where the court of seven judges sat en bane presided over by a President Judge. The party to be admitted had of course first submitted all the documentary evidence of his admission to the Penna. Supreme Court. On the day of the ceremony the admitted had a member of the court “move” for his admission. In my case, it was my Father, Richard T, known as “Dick”, who was my mover. Following his introduction of me to the court the President Judge, Charles
Klein said he was turning over the remarks of welcome to Judge Robert Bolger, a friend of Dick McSorley. Judge Bolger welcomed me and then regaled me about his long association with Dick, my father. He in fact had served in the same horse battalion with my Dad in the First World War. They never left the Philadelphia Armory but he assured me they were ready. He then turned the matter back to the President
Judge. Klein went on to welcome me and to further assure me of the long relationship of the court and Dick McSorley, humorously he added: “And I served with your Dad in the Civil War!!!” Much laughter followed but the point was clear, “Your Dad’s been around a while!” He, my dad, was then 72 years of age. I remember how I thought then that he had been around a long time, especially since I was the 13th in a long line of children.
With all that talk about life spans, long life, etc., etc. I think it appropriate to close with a thought I like from Adlai Stevenson: “It is not the years in your life but life in your years that counts!” See ya!