These jottings could be titled, “Our Journey North” since it will be reporting mostly on that event. We traveled from May 27th to June 24th. It was a journey with highs and lows like any journey in life. It had the yearnings we all have to go home. The cliches, “There’s no place like home”, “Home is where the heart is”, and hearing ET moan he “wants to go home” all became a reality to us. The longing for things ‘normal’ and the comfort of knowing where everything is, or should be anyway, is missed when you live in another’s home. But the highs made the lows seem minor now looking back, though unfortunately they were of more concern when we faced them “up there”. We attended two great graduations, Tommy McSorley’s and Sean and David Hopkin’s. We enjoyed three graduation parties. One for Ted Allen, Frank son gave us an opportunity to meet members of our extended family most of whom we would not have gotten to see.
Our car travel took us to Marlton, NJ, Warrington, PA, Ardsley, PA, Philadelphia, PA, Cherry Hill, NJ, and Merion, PA. We passed through and had short stops in Georgia, Virginia, and South Carolina. My reading carried me to Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Panama, Archery and Plains, Georgia, Tinker Creek, Virginia and Walden Pond, Massachusetts. These latter stops were made without the aid of gasoline but with the oil of imagination to bring them to life.
The graduations were held two weeks apart and appropriately we had a party the Saturday in between. Both graduations had about the same number of graduates who individually went forth to receive their diploma. Sean and David’s graduation was to be outside. They were graduating from Germantown Academy in Fort Washington but rain moved it into the gymnasium. The Academy Orchestra and the Singing Patriots provided the music. The choral group is so good that they performed about a year ago at Epcot in Disney World. The talks by two of the students, a boy and a girl, were very good. We were then bored to near exhaustion by the headmaster, apparently using his position as such to be the main speaker. He lost the crowd with his subject matter and delivery. But then a headmaster needn’t be an oratorical specialist since his job is administering and disciplining the students. The Academy has a unique custom that when the seniors leave their seats to head out into the world, the audience is asked to wait while the junior class occupies the empty seats. The rain had ceased enough for all of us to gather outside and greet the grads and their friends. Another curious custom at the graduation was the lighting up of cigars by some of the grads. It smelled good to me being an old cigar smoker but for most it was not very pleasant. We noted too that the cigars soon disappeared for most of them once they reached outside. We were then off to supper at an Italian restaurant in Jenkintown called the “Boco di Sieppo”. It is a family style place. In it there is one room with a round table that seats 17 where in the center of it is a head in plaster or stone of the Pope! He continually turns as you are eating looking over the platters into your eyes. We did not have enough attendees to use that room but we had another by ourselves. We all naturally ate too much. We had a few days prior to the graduation taken Sean and David out for dinner. We had a chance then to chat and get a glimpse at their future hopes and ambitions. They both have full plates but we feel confident they can handle the menus. Sean is off to Brown University, in Providence RI while Dave heads south to John Hopkins, in Baltimore, MD. Sean talks of staying at the University through next summer. Now with Tommy at Harvard in Boston, June can see an itinerary of interesting cities and sights, so maybe one of these days we just might make the college circuit.
Tommy’s graduation was outside in a tent. My daughter Mary sat near me as the program progressed. Tommy went up to receive the Latin award, then the English award and finally the award for Scholarship, Leadership and Achievement entitled the “The Sedes Sapientiae Award”, all of which caused Mary to comment: “It reminds me of Suzanne and her graduation with all the awards”. Tommy was the Valedictorian. His talk was in good humor and had a good message. He said he believed now that “old ” is not out of style, and could even be cool. He said, “What we must realize though, is that the ties that really keep us together, that give us a sense of who we are and why our lives have meaning, are old. They are our traditions” His humorous comment were greeted with laughter by the students and faculty. They were the ones who were the victims and the recipients of his wit. The talk so struck the guest speaker, the Governor of Pennsylvania, that he commented on it in his remarks, “What is it with this McSorley, Harvard or Comedy Central?” The talk is now on the web page for any one who wishes to read it. (http://www.mcsorley.org)
Following the graduation there was an all day party at Tom’s home. By happy coincidence the day of his graduation, June 1,2002 was also his eighteenth birthday. He had friends, relatives, and even faculty members in attendance. It gave June and I an opportunity to visit with them likewise. One of those among the missing was Suzanne whom Mary had remembered as Tommy went up for his awards. She was unable to attend since she was celebrating her 25th Anniversary as a graduate of Princeton University. I had the opportunity after congratulating Tommy to ask him as the recipient of the “Latin” award, what the words, sedes sapientiae meant? He said he didn’t know! So I told him to return his Latin award. They mean, “seat of wisdom” but they probably never appeared in any of the writings of Ceasar, Virgil, Ovid or Cicero with which he had to read and translate in his Latin classes.
“The best laid plans….” is another cliche we had to handle as our time up North continued. We had planned to leave the day or maybe two days after Sean and David graduation on the 14th and head to the Elk River Retreat in Northeast Maryland. It is actually the home of Rich and Shirley McSorley on the Elk River, but because of our restful stays there in the past I named it the “Elk River Retreat”. But we had to delay that option to help June’s daughter in law, Cindy, in her recovery from a Hysterectomy. Cindy and Mike live in Warrington Pennsylvania in Bucks County just a short distance from Doylestown. Cindy operation was on June 4,2002. We visited her on Wednesday the 5th and that night was when we took Sean and Dave out to dinner. Mike and Cindy have two children, Matthew and Kelly. June wanted to help so we agreed to go a live there to help while Cindy got back on her feet. So on Sunday June 9th we moved into their home. By the time of Sean and David’s graduation on the 14th she still was having difficulty. Her husband, June’s son Mike was flying here and there in his job, so we stayed on until June 20th. We then moved to my son’s Paul’s home in Philadelphia to have a few quick visits with Mary Lou before heading south. The extra time spent away turned the itch to get home into a rush to have it done with as soon as possible. So Sunday the 23rd we headed off and kept right on going to Florence South Carolina. We called Rich and Shirley and apologized for our inability to make the visit. On Monday we drove right through South Carolina, Georgia, and across Florida, to 1644 Connecticut Ave. NE, St.Petersburg, better know as “home”. We were back where the “heart” was and agreed once again “there is no place” like it.
The delay and living in Warrington provided some bonuses. We got to have dinner with our friends Paul and Marie Keeley, and I had a dinner with Tommy, since his home in Warminster is just around the corner, at least in a Bucks county style corner. Another treat was a few hours with Tommy’s sister granddaughter, Linda. She coming up to 12 years of age and entertained me from 4 till 7 PM when Mom and Dad got home for dinner. She loves to read. We had a swim in the pool in their back yard, and then shared a bag of popcorn while we got into our reading. A storm came up and rain came down but we were dry being under the cover of a second floor porch. But for Linda, now studying dance, it was too much of an opportunity to pirouette and dance in the rain on the grass. She had no fear of lightning or getting wet. She was enjoying the “raindrops falling on her head”. However, I noted for here that the book she was carrying and waving around as she danced probably didn’t appreciate it as much. I got to have lunch with my sister Marge and her husband who live in Doylestown when they are not travelling which is often. I got to feel like a Dad again having to drive Kelly to school and Matthew to school and Basketball practice.
My other travels via the books were dispatched with pleasure. The longest trip was one following the flight of Moses through the first five books of the Old Testament. The book was called “Walking the Bible”. The walk was made over two or three-year period by a Jewish author who began the project as a kind of Baedeker for the Bible Lovers. He had the help of Avmer Goren, the chief archaeologist and preserver of antiquity for the region from 1967 till 1982. He tutored prospective Israeli and Palestinian guides. After walking over a period of three years, reading the Bible in each place and writing four hundred pages his cynicism faded. He writes:
“The Bible is not an abstraction in the Middle East, nor even just a book; it’s a living, breathing entity undiminished by the passage of time. This ability of the Bible to continually reinvent itself is matched only by its ability to make itself relevant to anyone who encounters it. This scientific interrogation from every conceivable corner-archeology, history, physics, metaphysics, linguistics, anthropology-was designed in many cases to undermine the Bible, to destroy it credibility…the Bible came out stronger with its credibility intact. This doesn’t mean the stories are true, but it does mean they’re true to their era.” I learned a great deal of the history of the world in these readings. I learned the even a determined cynic can when reading these stories in the places where they happened may make a discovery in himself. The author, Jewish, called it a “recovery” of what he feels is even in his genes. I’ll have more on my Book-Travels next time. Pax vobiscum!