Salve Famaliaque Amicii!
The air is full of scandal. The dust blown by politicians is blinding everyone to the beautiful things all around us. I pray the month will bring an end to their ravings and ranting. I cannot say enough about the entire matter, so I will not. Politics is like the weather it can change at any minute in any direction. It is the weather, not politics, which is grabbing our interest these last days of September. We await over the next few days the arrival of the Hurricane “Georges”. Before we finish these ramblings I will have a report. We live in an area that if a direct, or almost direct, hit comes we would need to leave the area. So you can surmise, we are watching with close interest the path of the hurricane. Even in Paradise, there is no fooling around with Mother Nature.
The last days of September mark the anniversary of our arrival in Paradise. We moved into the present house on September 24,1997. We had arrived a few days earlier and stayed at Rich and Shirley’s home (formerly known as “John’s House”). A year has passed and we’re still on vacation. We have become involved in a number of activities that are distinctive to our being here. June’s volunteer work with the Church keeps growing. She has a difficult time saying “No” but she promises to do so more often in the future. We now enter that part of the year when visitors can be expected. We will have Mike and Cindy with Matthew and Kelly for some days in October.
I stay busy. I have written another memoir. It is about my representing Harold Johnson one of the Defendants in the ln-Oh Ho murder trial. It is in the hands of my “editors”, Andrew, June and Tommy. I am playing more golf and piano (keyboard) I have volunteered for “Tax Counseling for the Elderly” a service of AARP. It requires a review of the law and a test before I can be qualified. I continue to work on Latin and will take a course in the Gospel of Mark. June has a few more Christmas’ decorative items to be painted and I have a “number-painting”, a tiger (for ages 10 and up), still unfinished. The autumn brings no let up in the Lawn keeping. I miss winterizing of the lawn mower. It is one thing that never happens here. Need I go on? I can hear a loud “NO”.
Every time I itemize a list of activities I think of my father’s admonition to “keep busy”. My mother would usually chime in with “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. It reminds me of the story of the Irish village priest who obtained a telephone for the first time. Naturally, his first call was to the Pope. He says with a bit of a brogue, “Holy Father what’ll I dew if the Lord himself comes walkin’ down thru the middle of the village?” His Holiness replied, “Look Busy!” My father came to mind the other day when I was chatting with my grandson Tommy on the net. He was telling me some of the Latin sentences he was translating for school. I remembered how at his age, and younger, I was awakened each day with Latin. My Dad would rap on the bedroom door around 6 AM and say, “Benedicamus Domino!” Let us bless the Lord! It was our reveille. Our call to meet the new day. We would then; all those who had arisen pile into the car and drive off to Mass. I told Tommy this and his response was,” WOW!” Looking back I too find it hard to believe. Marge had a friend who stayed over one night and when the rapping and the clarion call came, exclaimed, “Your father’s crazy, it’s the middle of the night!” (Or words to that effect). Ironically that visitor went on to be a Holy Child nun so I am sure she ran into a number of middle-of-the-night-rousers.
As noted above, we were expecting Georges, the Hurricane. He came so we went. This cloud’s silver lining is that we accepted an open invitation from Rita Pat Shapiro, nee Allen, to visit her new home in Gainesville. Gainesville, know as the home of Florida University, a.k.a. the “Gators”, is 150 miles north of here in the center of Florida. We had a lovely visit Friday night and returned here Saturday around 5 PM. Rita has a large home in a development called “Rock Creek”. She and Jeff, her husband, have done a great deal of interior decorating and it is now a bright home. It is in an area more reminiscent of the Pocono’s without any mountains. It does have some small hills. We noticed one of them on our walk around the development. It was enough of a hill to cause us to expend a bit of extra energy.
Before leaving Shore Acres, we practiced what we learned about Hurricane preparations. Here the biggest problem is flooding, when we have a combination of heavy rains and high tides. So most of the preparation was to raise the furniture, remove bottom drawers, clean out the bottom of closets, take up carpets on the porch and garage, bring all furniture and garden decorations outside inside, etc. We checked from Gainesville, on Saturday morning around 10 o’clock and learned the Evacuation Order had been lifted. The sun was shining in Shore Acres. We got back just in time for the high tide with the remains of Georges’ rains flooding the streets. We suffered no damage. We had no regrets over the energy expended in what appeared now to be a false alarm, since it was energy well spent. It is always better to be “safe” than “sorry”.
It is a bit of irony that the prior weekend, the 18th to 20th,we were scheduled to go to West Palm Beach to meet Frank and Carolann Allen, and it was cancelled. So this weekend we get to see another Allen in the person of Rita Pat. It is one of the advantages of having a large clan.
Sister Mary in a note commented on my ability over the past 50 years to lose elections to office. She recalls our Mother asking us all to pray for Dad to lose an election for judge. Mother had fears of his being in public office of any kind. The prayers were answered. He lost. It sounds like the little boy who prayed for a bike. He prayed for over three weeks and it never came. So he went out and lifted one. So he then prayed for forgiveness.
Not to under estimate the power of prayer, but I remember my Father telling me that until Roosevelt won in ’32 being a winning Democratic candidate for any office in Pennsylvania would’ve taken a “miracle”. He ran for some office in ’32 and he drove the family around the city hall circle several times so they could all watch the lighted sign indicating the voting returns. He just loved the idea of seeing his name and FDR’s both on the same board. I enjoyed a similar feeling upon seeing the printed race results of a 10K run. I had won the over 50 division. Bill King was back in Philly. The race was in Bermuda. The winner of the race was Craig Virgin, the American Record Holder in the 10K distance. So Paul McSorley and Craig Virgin’s names were reported together in the race results. Praying Dad out of winning the office was easy in his day. The odds of a Democrat winning in Philadelphia were astronomical. There were not many Democratic office seekers. He told me that the organized Democrats of Philadelphia would sit around just before nominating time and try to decide whom they would put on the ballot. The method used was similar to throwing a dart at a board. If your name was struck, you were the nominee and you ran.
Speaking of prayers and Bill King above reminded me, Bill is in need of all the prayers you can give. He had a serious bike accident. He broke several bones, had slight concussion, (fortunately he was wearing a helmet), punctured lung, and so on. Bunny, his wife, says he is healing very well and the hope is he will be in a rehab center this coming weekend (Oct. 3-4). He has been an avid biker since the early 80’s when the arthritis caused him to give up the running. He has been battling that since, and then recently lost the hearing in one ear due to virus infection. Bunny reported he was travelling at about 35 mph and tried to avoid hitting a squirrel. He did so because he had heard of a biker having a squirrel caught in his spokes and being thrown from the bike. C’EST Ia vie!
There is a story in the St. Petersburg’s Time worth repeating. It is a political story but one I would have to say is stranger than fiction. A candidate for the State Legislature wrote a letter to the “Committee on Fair Campaign Practices” stating her opponent was an imposter. She alleges that the candidate named, say Smith, is not Smith but Danny Devito (not the actor but the same name), and Smith died in 1995. The father of Smith, a Congressman is paying him, to run because the father wants to control the office. The media is having a blast. The woman will offer no proof of her allegation. She is then questioned about a few items, like her age, which comes up one time 50 another time 60; her employment, she is a paralegal but refuses to tell whom she works for; she apologies to the Democratic Party for making such an allegation without proof, but then tells the newspaper she really didn’t mean it; she notes that the candidate Smith never says, “l am Smith”, and so on. She never ran for office before and managed to get on the ballot by obtaining a sufficient number of signatures. It is getting a lot of laughs, but the one fact I discovered that makes it all politically understandable, the woman and her husband moved here from PHILDELPHIA in 1990.
“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being….” (Shelley) must have missed Florida. We keep hearing it’s autumn, but you never know it outside. I’ll try to add a note to each. Keep well and enjoy!
(It is Sunday Oct. 4th. I just spoke to Bill King on the phone! He is home and having any therapy there. Keep him in your prayers)
October 13, 1998
Ron and Mary,
How goes the busiest couple in all of Yardley? Keeping those guys in line? I am planning to see that we get a look at them when we come up in November. We are having Thanksgiving Dinner with Tracey and her gang, but hope to get to see all the other guys in the few days before or after. I’ll let you know our “itinerary” before we leave.
I wrote a verse about my Mom. I’ll enclose it for you. In case you don’t remember “Cass” (in the verse) is the woman who spent her life helping Mom raise us. She would be what today you call a live in nanny. Only she was closer to being a child than today’s nanny is, and it was a home for her. I think after we all grew up she did go live with a brother. Another story I remember about her was we celebrated her birthday on May 4th, but when she died we learned for the first time she was actually born on another day and year. No one needed a birth certificate to be a live in nanny.
Our weather is great – highs around 88 and lows in the 70’s with less humidity. Just spent two hours outside working on the debris gathering under our Rhododendron bushes, and hardly worked up a sweat. Any other time I would have it pouring off me and lose at least three pounds (which usually makes June jealous, and then she says it’s against the rules to get weighed after such workouts). Give the guys “Huge Hugs” and keep one for yourselves!
Love, Dad
DREAM
I saw Mom last night, sitting in her big red chair.
Dad was nowhere around.
She was dressed, so was Cass,
Like they’d been to town.
She sat beside the radio, listening to “soaps”,
That big Zenith with a dial like spokes.
The room is in shadows, the air smells of cigarettes?
Where did it come from? I didn’t dare,
After Dad laid into me, and made me beware.
Mom grabs me and gives me a Huge Hug,
As usual, like I’m a big pesky bug.
She welcomes me home from school or play,
But I don’t recall where I’d been that day.
Then I awoke thought about the smoke.
Did my Mom indulge in a forbidden habit?
Later I came to learn she did a bit.
So the Angel of my life and all it was worth,
On occasion, did enjoy coming down to earth.
(Oct. 1998)