The month of March is referred to in the Sport’s World as one of “madness”. A great number of years ago it was also the month of our annual accounting to the IRS. In those days the “ides of March”, i.e. the 15th, was the deadline for filing your tax return. So the soothsayer’s warning in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, to “beware the ides of March” made more sense then. I begin these thoughts on that same day in the year 2005.
The month in the past has had its sad times but as well it’s “glad times”. Quickly I recall the joyful news of births of Colleen McS Baker, Hannah McSorley, Matt Golden, my brother Jim, and running brother Bill King. One of the sad ones is the death of my father in 1972. He was then living in our home. He had lived for many years, after my mother’s death, in the home of Winifred and then decided to start allowing others to help by living in their homes. He had only been as I recall with us a few months before the Lord took him to his eternal home. It was sad because I failed to be there when he did so. It is even sadder that I can’t recall where I was that kept me away until nearly 8 PM on that evening, March 14,1972. Unfortunately I was probably at a bar on alleged business but also apparently didn’t call home to inform them of my lateness. If I had I would have learned of Dad’s death. I found my sister Marge and her husband Dan in our living room when I did arrive. It was then I received the news. Katherine had called them when she had ascertained he was dead and couldn’t reach me. She apparently noticed him lying on pillows in his bed fully clothed with one leg on the floor and it appeared he had been reading and the material had now fallen to the floor. She noticed this in mid morning. Believing he was just sleeping she left him undisturbed but as the day wore on and he did not change position she began to fear the truth. When our eldest son, Bill, came home from school she asked him to go in and on doing so he confirmed that Dad, his Granddad, was dead. I regret not being there, but am happy to recall that that morning I drove him to church for the 6:30 Mass. I went for my morning run. I returned around 9 AM to pick him up and bring him home. It was his regular habit to attend both Masses and pray in between. I was still in my running clothes when I picked him up. I had gone for a relaxed run since I was scheduled to run in the New York Marathon on Saturday. On the way home the subject of my running came up and once again, Dad evidenced not a dislike for it but a lack of understanding of need for the extent of it. He was in favor of exercise and had often walked from our home at 4116 Baltimore Ave in West Philadelphia to his office in Center City. His office was on Broad Street (14th Street) so he walked from 41st St. to 14th, close to 30 city blocks. His understanding of the need and use of exercise never led to an organized schedule and competition. In fact, later in that same year with Frank Shorter winning the Olympic Marathon many Americans had that understanding altered and such running became an “in” thing.
I went the next day out to West Philadelphia to the funeral parlor of a friend of Dad’s. There I said my good byes and expressed my regrets. There was a wake for Dad on Thursday night at the church, which was one block from Winifred’s home. We had all attended that church and school throughout our childhood years. There on Friday morning a mass was celebrated by three of his sons in a church full of sisters, priests, and people. He lay in an open coffin before the altar wearing a green tie since it was St.Patrick’s day. The tie was a real surprise since he had worn only a black tie for nearly 20 years since Mom had died in November 1952. Winnie later told the story of trying to find among her husband Paul’s ties a green one. At last she found one and the only one which thus became Dad’s from that moment onward.
The New York Marathon in 1972 was nothing like the grand five counties run it is today. It was all in Central Park and started and ended outside the “Tavern on the Green”. My brothers Jim and Pat, both priests, came along with me to the run. They had been in Philadelphia for Dad’s funeral. I had four brothers who were priests, but we use to have a joke, which went that actually we had two brothers’ priests and two Jesuits. Pat was a Jesuit and Jim an Oblate. It brings back an old Catholic joke about what God doesn’t know. He doesn’t know “the number of third orders of St. Francis and the mind of a Jesuit”. My brothers Jim and Pat enjoyed the idea of having a tavern at the finish and starting line. As I made the circle returning after about an hour to the same spot outside the Tavern I had them to cheer me on. My brother Pat later averred it was the best way he could imagine for watching a three hours race. He, like Dad, could see a lot better ways to spend three hours rather than running in circles—even among and through a beautiful green country. He at one time espoused an idea of another learned man, whose name I can’t recall, who said when ever I am inclined to do any physical exercise, I immediately lie down until the feeling passes. Later June and I would return to the Tavern on the Green which was by then a new place. It had become a glass surrounded dining area that gave one a great sight to enjoy while having a meal.
Now March in Florida brings visitors. We have already had a week of Bill and his son Matt. The spent most of their days watching baseball games. Both are avid Phillies fans and both equally hate the Yankees. The spring training games, or Grapefruit League, brings Bill down whenever his job lets him do so. As I write we have daughter Sue, her husband Tom and two of their beautiful girls, Colleen and Meg visiting. They too enjoy the baseball games and when the eldest Kate is with them and they are able to obtain tickets, go see those terrible Yankees. I myself never was a baseball fan since I found it as exciting as watching grass grow. But as the Old Latin adage admonishes, ‘concerning taste let there be no dispute.’ The month will close with us visiting Disney World with daughter Mary, her husband Ron, and their three young men, Alex, Aidan, and Owen. We look forward to having young people on our return to visit the Magic Kingdom since it is a place for children. In fact, someone suggested that to really enjoy it you should have a child along…and if none are readily available then maybe they should have “rent-a-child” shop set up there to provide one. So as I have noted the “ides” of March brings joy as well as sadness in creating new memories each year as we enjoy living in the beautiful land called Florida.
Once a year, usually in this month, I attend a luncheon with other graduates of West Catholic High School for Boys and Girls of Philadelphia. The school, when I attended, was two schools in different locations on Chestnut Street in Philly. It is now combined and is located where the Girls high once was located. These luncheons of such graduates have been going on in Florida for at least the last ten years. There are now such luncheons on both coasts of Florida. This year there were five on each coast. We had in attendance 48 graduates who included in their number some husbands or wives of the graduates. The purpose of the luncheon is to recall those days long ago and witness via video or talks on the progress of the present West Catholic High School. It is part pitch and part celebratory. The school is maintained on endowments and gifts. Only half the students are Catholic in religious affiliation and majority is Afro-Americans. It still has as we did some Christian Brother teachers, some nuns, but mostly lay teachers. They have produced outstanding students, one who this year after being admitted to the University of Pennsylvania won a scholarship to the Wharton School. I am still amazed that a high school should even have such a gathering thousands of miles from its home in Philadelphia. I know of no other High School having such. It is not surprising to see alumni meetings and luncheons of Universities and Colleges but never of High school. It is unique.
The word March comes from the word Mars, the Roman God of War. Two years ago this March we went to war. I recall writing then how we had to trust the judgment of our President. Since that time a number of questions have been raised about the evidence claimed to be the reasons for our entry into a war with the agreement of but a few nations. Now it appears the WMD, in the form of nuclear weapons, have been ascertained to exist in at least two nations, Iran and North Korea. Now our “go it alone” policy and our loss of international agreement are seemingly hindering a solution. We once again must trust our President as apparently most Americans do, since he was reelected. But it is a lot harder this time around. Pax tecum!