Author: admin

Would you believe we appear in education to be proceeding backwards? We are returning to seventy-five years ago to the “Scopes” trial mentality? Believe is probably not a proper word to use in this context, since what we are referring to is “beliefs”. The Kansas State School Board on August 11, 1999 ordered deleted from the curriculum the teaching of evolution in their schools. While it does not prevent teaching evolution, it will not be included in the assessment tests that evaluate student’s performance. So local Boards will undoubtedly, says a news release, either force teachers to raise questions about its validity or to introduce creationist ideas. If the latter were taught, wouldn’t that be teaching religion? I suppose not, if as in AA, the Supreme Power remains unnamed and can be one of your own choosing. In one way, we are not going back to 1925 and the “Monkey Trial”, since that involved a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the schools. The historic trial had as its two main players, Clarence Darrow for the Defense, and William Jennings Bryan for the Prosecution. Bryan was a two time presidential nominee, an outstanding orator and was one of my Dad’s political heroes. Dad never got to vote for him but still spoke of him in glowing terms. Bryan died a few days after that trial in which Darrow subjected him to a vigorous and scathing cross-examination. He allowed himself to be a witness for the Prosecution as an expert on the Bible. The trial was the first ever brought live to the nation by radio (remember “radio”?). John Scopes was convicted but the State Supreme Court reversed it on a technicality. The issue of a law prohibiting teaching of evolution never reached the U.S. Supreme Court until 1968. In that case the court overturned a similar law from Arkansas.

To me the purpose of education is to explore all ideas. Sure we must limit the curriculum and keep it with certain time limits but excluding, in effect, a major portion of biology is an extreme action and anti-education. I struggle to find a reason for the action, other than plain old fanaticism. The only one that made some sense was presented was by a Mark Looy of “Answers in Genesis” a creationist group. He said, “Students in public school are being taught that evolution is a fact, that they’re just products of survival of the fittest. There’s no meaning in life if we are just animals in a struggle for survival.” Well, if the statement is correct than this teaching error should be removed. But the action suggested is like throwing the baby out with the wash water, or in today’s jargon, “overkill”. It is using a nuclear bomb where a shotgun would destroy the evil. I always felt that knowledge of evolution enhanced our wonders of creation and the Creator. It made even more inspiring His power. A flower from a bud to a bloom and a child from babe to an adult may not fit the purist definition of “evolution” but fits the theory. The proposal prohibits the teaching of what is clearly a theory and demands that the Bible be accepted in toto literally as a fact. This is not educating, nor leading from darkness; it is dictating. Hopefully ‘Reason’ will soon overcome the lopsided action of the Board, and the State of Kansas will open its windows and let in the fresh air of true education.

Sister Rosemary is the subject of some news clippings. One was announcing her as a recipient of a Diocesan award as a caring person. “Selected in the category of service…Sister Rosemary McSorley, of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, a pastoral assistant at Our Lady of Good Counsel parish, in Pompton Plains, and an attorney working in private practice on behalf of the working poor…(Her) long involvement in outreach to the poor as a teacher in Harlem and on the streets of Chile, and (she) has consistently encouraged religious education teachers and students to become more involved with the poor and those in need.” How proud must Mom and Dad be looking down on their youngest being so rightly honored! In another article she is interviewed. It is entitled “Bar Nun”. It speaks of her practice with another sister, Peggy Welch, a sister of Charity. The title gave me a chance to have a play on words, its saying, “she’s the best bar none (nun)!” It was always one of my beliefs so it is pleasant to see it confirmed in print by an unbiased observer.

We seem to be into newsprint in our September ramblings and there is one more I enjoyed. It read, “MET LIFE REACHES EARLY DEAL IN LAW SUIT”. And further, “The Company would pay at least $1.7 Billion to settle allegations of deceptive sales practices.” “Good Grief!” is this what all those billboards with Charlie Brown meant when he says, ‘Get Met It Pays’? Has Charlie been practicing deceptive sales tactics? Seems there’s nothing sacred where the buck is concerned even the honest simple and childlike Charlie Brown is corrupted in the name of “reasonable profit”? I am sure Charlie was without fault and was just another victim of the deceivers!

A major (?) calamity (of sorts) occurred in Manhattan. The Yale Club has decided to have ‘casual dress Friday’. It seems that they wish to attract some of the younger graduates. Now there is evolution in practice, but to some it is retrogression. A Harvard Club member had this to say about the idea, “Even in the late 1990’s there should be a few havens for proper attire and decorum. I wouldn’t expect the rowdies from New Haven to understand”. Boys! Boys! Let us have no public display of bickering, think of your image! Did you ever notice how way a man is dressed helps his decorum after a few drinks? Oh, well if Charlie Brown can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous capitalistic fortune, why not the stuffy indecorous Yale Club members?

September marks our second full year in the home at 1644. As with most noted events it seems on one hand as if we have been here a good part of our lives and on the other hand, like ‘only yesterday’. September also brings us the favorite Florida bugaboo, the hurricane season. As I type, there is one called “Dennis” moving over the Bahamas and supposedly heading for the Carolinas. There are two more out there trying to decide where they might go. We have only to wait and watch for them to decide. We continue to hope and pray we will be once more be spared of a direct hit and yet, if it appears we may be, it is off to Gainesville, Rita and Jeff’s haven for hurricane displaced persons. It is also their home.

Looking back over the two years I find I am very happy with our decision. It is still, even with all the things we do, a peaceful fret free life. I must agree with my good friend Bill’s appraisal, I am serene. However, I found my father looking over my shoulder the other day, asking for his usual progress report. “Well, you’re not wasting your time, I hope?” No, we aren’t and it caused me to write down a random list of things done or being done. I wrote, “piano, church, paintings, lawncare, housecare, computer, civic association, Jefferson, Latin, weight, reading, writing, etc.” I won’t bore you with any of the details behind this list but I did convince my father (Da!) that I am not wasting my time. (At least he’s convinced for the time being!)

June and I celebrated our anniversary with a cruise. It was a dinner cruise leaving St. Petersburg Beach and travelling most of the intercostals waterways to the Gulf. We left about 6:30 and were out until 11. We had our friends Jerry and Connie with us and we even got to jitterbug to the music. The meal was excellent, the music great, and the views from the deck stimulating. It was bit of a surprise in that we, or I should say ‘I’ went as a bit of a skeptic and left as a fan. The meal particularly since I expected a limited menu, like something thrown together to qualify as “dinner”. It was much more than that with appetizers, good bread, tasty salad and variety of entrees. We even got a good picture of us boarding with our friends taken incidentally by the Captain! He also held court on the bridge in the steering cabin with any of those who wished to come in and chat. The best of all these complements was that the entire event for an evening out with music, a meal, dancing, and fresh air (though the air conditioning was a welcome relief) came to us within our budget. We recommended to all those who have the opportunity to visit our blessed shores.

The “hazy, lazy days of summer” says the song. It is here and it is that. The heat is in the air and in the news. It is news when over a period of days and into weeks; Florida is one of the cooler spots in the country. The heat has brought moans from some friends in Philly about their grass turning brown. The Governor of Pennsylvania on July 20^th ordered restrictions on water use due to the drought emergency. Here, on the other hand the lawn, instead of turning brown, I have to hustle to keep up with it. I’m mowing twice a week and it is up to three inches in height, the highest my mower will go. We are without rain though not as badly as drought areas, but with sprinkler system and “reclaimed” water the grass stays green. This is a case where the grass is not greener on the other side of the street or in that some other “distant” place. “Reclaimed” water is a new thing for us. It is apparently fairly new even here in St. Petersburg too, and is not universally found in the surrounding areas. It is sewer water treated sufficiently for use in watering plants and lawns, etc., but not clean enough to drink. It is highly nutritious for the lawn and plants I am told. It is sold at a fix price not according to the usage and is not subject to the restrictions droughts put on sanitized water. But it does result in keeping one busy and up early, since the only time to do such work is at that time. As Noel Coward sang, or said, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun!” Our “noonday” sun comes in about 8:30AM and sticks around until that time PM. It may be lessened by an occasional shower but usually not by much.

Some time ago my good friend, Bill King, sent me a clipping. It is the shortest book review I think I’ve ever seen. It is, “Presumed Ignorant”: by Leland H. Gregory, III. (Dell, 216 pages, $9.95). “Mr. Gregory maintains that every item in this collection of ludicrous laws and daft decisions is genuine. Individually, the absurdities are amusing. In the aggregate, they indicate that it will not be enough to kill all of the lawyers. Legislators and Judges must also go to the lam post.” “Great short review!” says Mr. King. I agree.

There was republished in 1999 a lawyer book that sold over a million copies in 1943. It is entitled “Yankee Lawyer, The Autobiography of Ephraim Tutt”. But it really is fiction since the lawyer-writer Arthur Train created the lawyer. I remembered Tutt, since his stories that had appeared in the Saturday Evening Post recounting his exploits, were sometimes discussed by Dad at 631 Land Title Building in the sixties. In the forward, to this 1999 edition, the son of the author writes that believe it or not a lawyer sued the publisher for marketing the book as an “autobiography” when it was fiction. He claimed he only read non-fiction books and that he was misled, defrauded and his implied warranty of the book being non-fiction, was violated! As you may have guessed the lawyer doing the suing was a “Philadelphia” lawyer. It must have been the beginning of the use of that term as one equal to a shyster or worse. The publisher won the case hands down. There is no implied warranty in literature. It’s something akin to the old adage, “You can’t tell a book by its cover!”

One of the stories, I recall was that of Tutt being involuntarily made the attorney for a client by a judge right from the Bench. He was appointed with the trial of the matter about to commence. He exams the record and discusses the matter with the client. He, the client, is a “hotheaded but warmhearted Italian workman (who) attacks a man who (had) systematically dishonored his wife.” Tutt is unable to conjure up any defense but he holds the Jury with a multilayered speech that runs down the clock to adjournment. He ruminates by walking to think of a defense, and “after walking all night” ends up resting in a pew in St. Patrick’s (Tutt practiced in New York City). He returns to court, sums-up the best he can, and the jury goes out. It returns with an acquittal! Inquiring later of a lady member of the jury as to how they arrived at the verdict, she says, ‘When Oi stepped into the cathedral on my way down to court this morning and spied you prayin’ there for guidance I knew you wouldn’t be defendin’ him unless he was innocent, and so we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.” This version is the one written in the introduction to this new edition. However, the one I recall hearing, had a much more elaborate buildup and even had Tutt attending “Holy Mass this moning”. ln any case it is a good illustration the nature of the stories found in the book.

The “Philadelphia Lawyer” popped up in another place. The Philadelphia lawyer was Andrew Hamilton, no relation to Alexander. I remember that because the Philadelphia Bar Association had an annual dinner dance to commemorate him, as the “Philadelphia Lawyer”. I had always believed that it had come about because Andrew Hamilton went to Boston to defend the British Captain and his men charged with homicide in the Boston Massacre of 1771. However, while reading about Thomas Jefferson, I saw a statement that said John Adams and his cousin Samuel had successfully defended the Captain. A little research led to find that Andrew Hamilton lived and died before the revolutionary times. He earned for the world the title the “Philadelphia Lawyer” by defending Peter Zenger in New York in 1 73 S. He created the legal doctrine of “truth” as a defense to alleged seditionist or libelous material. The Court did not accept his defense but the jury believed him and Zenger was acquitted. The notorious governor of New York, by the way, whose conduct was the subject of the alleged libel, was William Cosby. I wonder if “Bill Cosby” ever knew he had such a notorious namesake.

Another lawyer, who made an historic ride of 80 miles, can now be found in most American’s pockets. Well, maybe with the ladies it’s in her pocket book. He is Caesar Rodney. He was commemorated with an engraving of him upon his horse on the Quarter, It was issued on December 7,1998. I first heard of him in 1971 when I ventured to Wilmington to run a half of marathon entitled “The Caesar Rodney Half Marathon”. I returned in 1972 and was probably in my best running shape of my life. I wanted to use the run as preparation for Boston one month or so later. It is a very hilly and thus a very tough course. On finishing an old friend and official at the run, Joe Mcilhenny, told me he thought I had won the Master’s award. The master’s award was for the first finisher over 40 years of age. My time was 1 hour and 23 minutes or so. Considering the course it was the best I had ever run and would remain so. However we, Joe and I, later learned that a younger 40 year old, Doc O’Connell from Central jersey Track club, was faster. I was 43 years old at that time, an old 40 year old.

But not until now years later did I learn any more about the honoree of the race, Caesar Rodney. I did know he rode through the night to be in Philadelphia just in time to have Delaware vote in favor of the motion to declare independence. It was on July 2, 1776. He had ridden the entire night and most of that day to make it in time to vote. It broke what would have been a tie in the Delaware delegation and not a vote for independence. The information disseminated when his image was chosen for the first of the Centennial Quarters notes that he did a great deal more. “Caesar Rodney rides through history as not only Delaware’s Hero but a Hero of America and its war of Independence. He held more public offices than any other Delawarean before or since. He was a soldier, judge, delegate to the American Continental Congress, President (Governor) of Delaware, a justice of the state’s Supreme Court, and held many other local offices.”

His ride was not as celebrated as Paul Revere’s. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made sure of that. Another ride that goes uncelebrated was one by a militiaman Jack Jouett. He rode forty miles through the Virginia wilderness all night June 2, 1781 to arrive at Monticello in time to warn Jefferson that British troops were heading his way to capture him. His uncelebrated ride at least accomplished its mission while Revere partially failed since he was captured by a British patrol. He, Revere, was sent by a Sons of Liberty officer to go and warn Samuel Adams and others, which is not the way Longfellow portrayed the episode. But then Longfellow had Poetic license.

August is a month of celebration in this clan.

*Birthdays of Mary McSorley Yake (5), Mary MacDonald (6), Dan McSorley (?), Denise Bugey (7), Bryan MacDonald (11), Paul Leo Jr.(16), Sr. Mary McSorley (19) and Paul Berger (31) and our 18th Anniversary (l5) to just name a few. We wish you all Happy Birthdays and will add a note hopefully to each.

 

 

‘It was a dull, gray, cloud-filled Monday morning as I sat on a balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. There was rain and lightening in the clouds over the water’. These words sound like an opening sentences for a Stephen King novel, but they’re not. But it was a Monday, and it was overcast, so to take the place of a beach jaunt I opened a catalogue of books entitled, “A Common Reader: Books for Readers with

Imagination”. It is issued monthly and there’s sometimes an occasional seasonal issue. This one was ‘Summer 1999’. An author’s name, ‘Wilfred Sheed’, struck my memory. I remembered a Sheed and Ward as an English publishing house. My father had, I recalled, books published by them. They issued books by G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. So I proceeded to read a review of a book written by Wilfred Sheed, entitled “In Love with Daylight: A Memoir of Recovery”. As I was reading the review, I realized that this was in part a confession by the reviewer. It struck a chord. The words could have been mine. It went as follows:

“‘For a long time I used to go to bed soused.’ In the memoir I never got around to writing I was going to borrow the famous opening line from Remembrances of Things Past, substituting for the “early” with which Proust concluded the sentence, one of the picturesque terms for intoxication which abound in English – looped, smashed, blotto, wrecked, or maybe even just plain drunk. I suppose I felt it necessary to drag teetotal Proust into my remembrances because I assumed that the problem with which I’d been dealing for virtually all of my adult life wasn’t in itself spectacular enough to warrant being written about – I’d have to fancy it up, in a sense; a literarily unvarnished account would never cut it because mine, I figured, was so, well, well-behaved a little problem that it wasn’t, by comparison with real, i.e., out of control, drinking problems, a problem at all.”

The going to bed soused didn’t fit my memories of the past but what really shouted at me were the words, “a well-behaved little problem”. The explanation was mine from the moment it was suggested I even had a problem. The reviewer then describes the joy of giving it up. His analogies are great! “Imagine a man in a heavy wool suit and voluminous overcoat and a hat and scarf and gloves and boots trudging a beach at high summer; jump-cut, and he’s barefoot in the sand in colorful trunks and a white v-neck shirt with a dab of zinc-oxide on his nose and, what the hell, on his face a great big goofy smile he’d no doubt like to but cannot restrain. That’s what the change has been like.” He continues, “If I was going to mourn any of my old life, I’d mourn those unlived early mornings. But mourning turns out to be the very last thing this recovery of mine seems to be about, the first thing seems instead to be rejoicing.” The reviewer’s reflections are my own only better stated. His observations were prompted by his reading in the memoir of Wilfred Sheed’s of his recovery from polio as a boy, sedations and addictions to booze and pills, and depression in middle age; and, then “blind sided” by cancer in his later years. He could have easily become, as the author notes, “a Spokesperson for the justified Self-pity Foundation”. His memoir covers the bad nights and the recovery in a “vibrant, good-humored and irrepressible high-hearted” manner. The review sold me on putting the book on my reading list.

I should point out there were several differences with my problem from the reviewer’s. I was what is described as a “healthy alcoholic”. If ever there was an oxymoron, that is certainly one, a healthy disease! Yet, that was what it was. The explanation was that my exercising, running long distances, marathons, etc. had forestalled the growth, but then when I ceased the running, and was less busy with the practice, etc. it blossomed. It is not a very good term to describe something that is really deterioration, but that’s what occurred. My denial was like the reviewer’s and my daily rejoicing is the same. My denial had a firm logical basis. As do most denials, I could point to my training for long runs and Lenten withdrawals from the use of alcohol; so, ergo it was just a matter of discipline. Ah! Yes so simple yet so complicated. For some reason, just didn’t get it under control. But all that is over and as he says, “mourning” is the last thing I do. I rejoice and with the title of the book reviewed, I’m “In Love with the Daylight”. I daily say “Deo Gratias!”

July 1999 brings the 223^rd celebration of the Declaration of Independence. I wonder if Thomas Jefferson now is a bit more optimistic that a ‘Republic’ can survive. He considered those prior ones of the Greek City-States, and the Roman Empire as examples of the ultimate collapse of a ‘republic’ form of governing. “This was a dominant theme of the early republic–the idea of America as an experiment, undertaken in defiance of history, fraught with risk, problematic in outcome” (The Cycles of American History by A.M.Schlesinger Jr.).

He is most revered for his writing of the declaration but like many things in history it might not have happened that he became the author. The accident was that Richard Lee’s wife became ill. Richard Lee was the chairperson of the Virginia delegation and on the day that Tom arrived in Philadelphia (June 8^th) he, Lee, introduced a motion that Congress prepares a declaration of their independence from the British Government. It was not warmly received. North Carolina went along since it was Virginia’s idea, but the Mid-Atlantic States and New Englander’s sentiments ranged from “opposed” to “maybe later”. The motion was tabled for reconsideration on July 1^st. When that time came around Mr. Lee had left and T j. was made Chair of a committee to consider the motion since it was from his state. On that committee were john Adams, of Mass., Benjamin Franklin, of Pa., Roger Sherman of Conn. (Yale’s Treasurer), and Robert Livingston, of NY. The drafting of the declaration fell to Thomas Jefferson mainly due to his having written for the Virginia Legislature “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” in the year 1 774. It had considerable circulation in the next two years and marked the young lawyer (he was 33 in 1776) as a cogent wordsmith. He tried to get his newfound friend and mentor john Adams to write it, but he refused. The story goes that “when Adams refused, in his blunt way Jefferson asked why and drew from that cannonball of a man a swift succession of sentences delivered like shots on target. ‘Reason enough’ (said Adams) ‘What can be your reasons? (says TJ); ‘Reason first: You are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.’ “They became great friends in those days in Philadelphia. They later both served as President; became political opponents in fact and philosophy; carried on a lifetime correspondence that is a national historic treasure; served overseas as ambassadors, Adams in England and Jefferson in France, and both died on the same day, July 4^th 1826, exactly 50 years to the day of their first joint (?) venture. The original motion of Lee’s was passed on July 2nd but was debated for two days before passing as amended. It was entitled, “The Unanimous Declaration of the 13 United States of America”. It was passed on July 4^th and signed by most on August 2^nd. Thus the “British Colonies of America” the expression used by Jefferson in his “Summary” of 1774, became the “United States of America”.

A bit of trivia about Thomas Jefferson: he was the first American to live on the “Left Bank” of Paris. It happened when he was ambassador to France the home he used was located on that side of the Seine. He hardly fits in some ways as the vision of a left bank occupant but then he was a versatile character, so there is no pigeonholing of him. It is put a bit more succinctly in the sentence; “Anyone who tries to fit him to the procrustean bed of the quintessential ‘man of reason’ will either quit in frustration or distort the reality of the man beyond recognition” (“T .J., Passionate Pilgrim by A. Mapp).

We celebrated the Fourth with Mary Lou and grandson Paulie at St. Petersburg Beach. The beach was a blaze with fireworks that night. In Florida apparently, unless we are having a dry spell, individuals can purchase fireworks and shoot them off. So the beach was full of celebrators doing just that. In fact, Mary Lou brought Paulie back up to the room because of the reckless manner in which many were handling them. We had good weather and were there a total of nearly five days. The pleasure of having only 20-minute drive to be in a cooler and sandy place is exhilarating.

I hopefully will add a note to each.

 

 

“I have forgotten much and recover it with more difficulty than when in the vigor of mind I originally acquired it. It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay.” So wrote Thomas Jefferson at the age of 68. He goes on to talk about one of those old men, Clinton, who keeps on telling stories of his younger days to prove his memory, “as if memory and reason were the same faculty. Nothing betrays imbecility so much as being insensible to it.” How easy it is to agree with him when I sit down to recall the times past. However, I don’t want to be thought of as a Clinton, that I keep telling stories just to prove my memory. I tell them because I like to relive some of those things I have experienced. It is done with hope that they entertain and/or amuse those who take the time to read these tales. Incidentally, the Clinton referred to by Jefferson was George of New York, not Bill of Arkansas. He was a hero and Vice President to Jefferson in his second term and to James Madison who followed. He is not to be confused with that distant relative now often in the news.

One advantage Jefferson had, aside from his faculties for reasoning and memory, were copies of a nearly all his correspondence. He copied over a lifetime some 28,000 of letters, which he had sent. It was quite a task, when you consider he had no Xerox machine much less a memory available on a personal computer. I have something that helps in that I have copies of these ramblings since 1992, plus some other papers I saved from various activities. They tell me that in June 1998 we were returning from a jaunt of driving some 3500 miles. It began in the last days of April. It ended in June and between we visited all the grandchildren from as far as Oswego, N.Y. to Harrisburg, Pa. We ended the jaunt with a lunch and visit with my sister Win. It would be the last time we would see her since the Lord called her home in November 15, 1998. The same general time in 1997 found us back in St. Pete’s until early May with a return to Philly area in time to see Alex and Aidan baptized. We returned to St. Pete’s in the middle of August to tend to work being done on our present home.

“Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.”

June ’99 saw grandson Tommy McSorley celebrate his 15^th birthday with a trip to Chicago to compete in a national Declamation contest. “Declamation” is the recitation of an address written by some one else, like reciting a part in a play, and if not properly done, becomes a “tirade” or “harangue”. He was the winner in the category in Philadelphia and after two days of elimination contests he ended in 4^th place of the final 6 contestants. One more chevron to add to his stripes of success. At the rate he is going adding chevrons he soon will leave the noncommissioned category and -be heading for “general”. He advises that he even got in a day of sight seeing so it wasn’t all hard work. His school, Holy Ghost Prep, as I understand, was the overall winners.

Beside Tommy McSorley having a birthday in June, we also have Grandson Joseph Golden Ill, Andy, Eleanore McSorley and my good wife, June. Andy will reach jack Benny’s age, Joseph ten years, while June and Eleanore McSorley are reaching a few years beyond. We will remember Win who had a birthday this month.

In 1997 I received a clipping, probably from Bill King, about “teaching a little Latin to help little ones,” describing a program in its 15^th year at Villanova University introducing Latin to children as young as 3 years of age. The class at that time had 55 students ranging from ages 4 through 14. Effie N. Coughanower, who sees Latin as solution to a perceived decline in literacy, founded it. She wrote a book published in 1990 advocating a mandatory year of Latin for all first graders. Some literacy experts scoff at the idea. I thought the program a bit unusual and innovative. But while reading about my favorite early American, Thomas Jefferson, I found he had proposed a similar program. In reforming the laws of Virginia and writing their Constitution he proposed what we would call “public education”. It even included women, girls if you will, at least in the early years for reading, writing and arithmetic. His proposal included the teaching of Latin and Greek not quite as early as three and four year olds but what would be equivalent to 3rd graders or 7 and 8 year olds. The author of the Jefferson’s Biography notes however that this was not as innovative as it might seem in that the Kingswood School, Bristol, England in 1768 had “…included in the first year not only the study of Latin and Greek grammar but also the reading of Caesar, Virgil, and the Greek Testament”.

There were critics who scoffed at the idea then and now on the basis of “its usefulness” One critic of the Villanova program, said, “…it would be hard for a four year old to understand why they are learning something they couldn’t use”. My recollection of four-year-olds in learning anything never had them including analyzing whether it would be useful or not! The greatest thing about the child at that age is his/her receptors, brains, or what have you, act like sponges, which absorb the matter, placed before it and never ask themselves why. In fact, I never remember in my own educational scheme asking if a subject would be useful until I began selecting courses in third year of high school. “Useful” is a weasel word. It usually depends on who is asking and not much more. Is Latin “useful” because it gives one a greater foundation to the understanding of English, or is that not “useful”? The ultimate “useful” for most people is to equate it to dollars. Will it help me get and/or keep a job? These askers are making a job equal to a life. Life is more than a job, a profession or a career. For those other times, we spend enjoying that life we need the usefulness of “understanding” things around us. They come from literature and art of all kinds.

I encouraged my grandsons to take Latin when they were given an opportunity. I understand one more Matthew McSorley has chosen it too. Those who have finished one year, Tommy, Sean, and David have all found it interesting (useful?). The authors of Latina Pro Populo (Latin for the People) explain the influence of Latin on our language as twofold:

“First, Latin has provided and continues to provide an incredible proportion of our minimum daily requirement of vocabulary. Even though English, like German, Danish, and Swedish, is descended from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family, its vocabulary is predominately Latinate. And second, by providing us with words, Latin has also provided us with the concepts, which those words express. What else, after all, are words for if not to mean something? As a result, the Latin language has continued to play a substantial role in shaping the way we look at the world, since we can’t help but filter the world through our language. To know something about Latin, then is to know something about how and why we perceive the cosmos as we do.”

Enough said.

We were lucky at Golf tournament in the beginning of May. The Church sponsored it. Our luck was not in the playing but in winning a raffle. The prize was a night and two days at a Beach Resort in St. Petersburg Beach. We intend to use it a few days the week after Father’s Day.

My sister Marge sent me a treasure. It a letter my mother wrote to my brother Dick on October 30, 1947! In it she speaks of a visit to me then attending the Oblate Junior College in Newburgh, N.Y. She writes, “…and Paul was a real joy. He seems completely acclimated and content. His letters home each week are a riot. He writes at length and seems interested in everything”. Upon reading it, June said, “Haven’t changed much, have you?” Well, maybe, but they are no longer a “riot”!

Ron & Mary,

I presume the visit to the Rochester area and the Yake’s clan, only further enhanced the charms of those “guys”. I forgot to mentioned that one of the pictures that came, I think with my birthday card, had their greetings written in circles extending from their mouths, it sits in front of what a call “my work bench” in the garage. I thank them each time I appear before them for the gracious comments. Hope you and they are well and growing in wisdom and grace. Did you get to run the “Nun’s Run” this year? Love to learn what the shirts were like, they always were gems.

Happy to hear from you anytime.

Love to you and the “guys”, Dad

We ended the month of April with R&R. After having a boarder for eight weeks and intermittent guests for various periods, we needed to get away. We can now take our R&R ’till we are “R2R” or “Ready to Return”. In this case we had planned to stay until Saturday but the weather on Friday morning changed our minds. We left St. Pete’s on the 24^th and drove to a small town on the Panhandle called “Madison”. June had found at one of our rest stops a discount traveler’s book. In it was a coupon for a reduced stay in the Madison Holiday Inn. On many prior occasions we found such discounts but never had any luck in using them. This time we did and it became one of many “firsts” we were to have on the trip. We managed to get a room for less than our usual AARP or Senior discount rate. We also found a family restaurant just down the street that made eating a cheap but delicious endeavor. The other firsts were 1) I visited states where I had never been before, Alabama and Mississippi. June had previously been to Birmingham, but she too was making her first appearance in Ole’ Miss; (2) we changed our clocks while enroute. Three-quarters the way over the panhandle you leave EDT and enter COT. We gained an hour only of course to lose it on returning. I had never driven where that occurred before. We both had experienced it in air flights but never in a car. The last “first” was upon arrival at Biloxi, Miss. to stay at the Grand Casino Hotel we were informed that there were “two” Grand Casino Hotels in Biloxi. One was “lslandview” the other was “Bayview”. After some shuffling we crossed the highway and settled in Bayview. A partial ‘first’ was that all the casinos were on water. You would be hard to notice it except you must step up a bit as you enter the casino area. Under the rugs there is a large metal hinge between dock (hotel) and the boat (a barge affixed to the hotel and the ground). I say a “partial” first since we have been aboard ships with casinos aboard.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon. We saw a great musical revue and show in the evening. The next day we toured the area. It has maybe seven or eight casino hotels. It is spread out over an area of four or five miles so it is not as gaudy as Vegas or Atlantic City. The sand is white, as it is in Jersey and unlike some of it you find along the West Coast of Florida. Around four P.M. we heard from Betty Hopkins that they had arrived. We met them for dinner and caught up on the news. Betty had three sisters also on the trip from Philadelphia by bus. It was a happy reunion. We then learned that they were booked for tours for the rest of their stay. We did see them at 11 A.M. on Tuesday for a bit and then said good-bye to them that evening just before they went into see the show. They were leaving early in the morning to tour New Orleans. It is just a two-hour ride to it. We too left on Wednesday to begin the drive back with a plan to see the panhandle. We left the main highway after Pensacola and traveled through one resort after another to Panama City Beach.

June spent her allotted gambling budget but it took the three days. I got to do some reading like a Parker’s detective story, featuring Spencer, and an Agatha Christie crime story with H. Poroit. l walked to the” Seafood and Maritime Museum”. It was just a few blocks from our hotel. I entered and found no one there. There was a counter to the right of the entrance door and behind it computer running. So I figured someone was there but after walking in a bit and calling out no one appeared so I began my tour. I learned that Biloxi was 300 years old! A Frenchman named Seur d’Iberville discovered it in 1699. It received its name from the Indian tribe that occupied the area. The discovery came after La Salle had come down the Mississippi in 1673 and declared the entire watershed area to be “Louisiana” for Louis XIV. However LaSalle efforts to establish a colony failed and the first one established was that by d’Iberville in Biloxi in 1699. A little side story about LaSalle is that when he came back several years later he missed the shores of Louisiana due to an error in the reading of longitude. He ended up in what is now Texas. His colony and himself were either killed by Indians or died of disease. It was another tragedy at sea due to the longitude problem being unsolved. Walking around the room I followed Biloxi’s history. lt became the Shrimp capital of U.S. and a booming seafood canning industry was established. I then heard some one enter and I coughed up my admission price ($1.50 for the “chronologically gifted”). The history ended around 1984 with pictures of Regan eating shrimp with a crowd in Biloxi. One Mary Maloney cooked and served it. Her family has had a restaurant in Biloxi going back some fifty years and there is one even today.

Twenty years ago this month I celebrated a birthday in New York’s Warwick Hotel with my gang. At the same time we were celebrating daughter Suzie’s graduation from Columbia Law School and her husband Tom’s graduating from Columbia Business School with an MBA. Five years ago we celebrated Tom’s ordination as a Deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. I also celebrated a complete recovery from by-pass surgery that month having had the operation in January. Today, five years later I am back to my fighting weight and my cholesterol is lower than I can ever recall.

Our stay in Panama City as I noted above was cut short by the weather, nevertheless we did have a good time. June got a day in the sun and we took a long walk on the beach. It was tough walking since the sand was so soft even along the water’s edge. We found some great eating spots and I even got four holes of golf in before being told to get off the course due to an oncoming thunderstorm. I did get my money back so I played for free. On the walk we noticed what looked like blue balloons with tails. They were scattered along the water’s edge in various sizes and groups. June noted that they were jellyfish. Lo! The headlines next day of the local paper, “Portuguese ‘Man-of-War’ Invade the Beaches”. Another sight we were surprised to see were ‘breakers”. The Gulf looked and sounded like the Atlantic at Myrtle Beach and Avalon with ‘real’ waves. We thought that maybe it was due to the recent storms in acting unlike it does here on the West Coast of Florida. However an inquiry of our waiter assured us it is that way all the time. It was like being back in Avalon as we went to sleep the first night in our room on the beach. The roar of the ocean filled the air.

May is the month of Mothers. It is birthday month for Marge and I. On Mother’s Day we went to the beach and ate hoagies for lunch. The mother in this house has great taste in food but limits some of those “treats” to days like “Mother’s Day”. For dinner on Mother’s day we had a “pizza”. A real one brought at Poppa-Johns with its special garlic butter sauce for the crust. June’s requests were fulfilled and you can be sure I enjoyed it. The beach was delightful so much so that we stayed till after five P.M. I even had a swim in the Gulf since the water is about 77 degrees. A little walk on the beach put a nice touch to our Mother’s day.

My birthday gift from June is a dinner at the Olive Garden with 15 friends. We are having Andy and Paul as visitors from Thursday night until Sunday. We will try two new golf courses. It sounds like a fine celebration and I look forward to it.

I have gone back to one of my favorite studies, the life of Thomas Jefferson. I have obtained a lecture course on audiotapes of his life. A former Columbia professor gives it. He is now teaching a CCNY. The course includes the reading of a written biography along with listening to the lectures. Happily I have that biography which the professor chose for required reading. I had no idea until the course arrived that it, the biography by Willard Sterne Randall would be part of the course. My nephew-lawyer Frank Allen gave me that book as a birthday gift some 4 years ago. It was the book that began my interest in the author of the Declaration of Independence. What is pleasing is that in rereading I find it just as interesting as the first time.

We bid you a farewell until next time with a hope to add a note.

 

“Spring is sprung, and grass is riz, so this is where the classes is!” So spake, I believe, an ancient philosopher named Ogden Nash. Maybe that explains why I am into sunrises. It is Saturday, 6 A.M. I am sitting on a stool on the Lido Deck of the Carnival Cruise ship ”Tropicale” watching the sunrise. The big red ball comes up slowly giving the Gulf of Mexico and me a new day. We are steaming south (20 knots at most) to 20 degrees north latitude to the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, specifically to the island of Cozumel. I’m into this Longitude and Latitude stuff after reading the book “Longitude-The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time”. We are, and have, experienced great weather, and too much food. Yesterday (March 19^th) was spent on the island of Key West. We rode around the entire town on a small motor driven train with 60 some other tourist. The narrator never stopped narrating the entire hour and half. We saw many mansions of the early rich, Americans, Spaniards, and Cubans. We passed the cafe made famous by Earnest Hemingway, many exotic palm trees, bushes, and flowers. (The narrator was really in to the flora stuff) We learned about the “Conch (as in the shell) Republic” and its short uprising against U.S. After being subdued it, like most ex-enemies of U.S., received foreign aid. It is still celebrated with flags and feasts Cuban style. We passed the prison that once housed Dr. Samuel A. Mudd. He was the physician who attended to John Wilkes Booth’s leg after he had assassinated President Lincoln. He, I was told by someone other than the narrator, did not waste away in the prison, but discovered something that cured (?) malaria. He is, according to the narrator, remembered most today for having brought the word ‘Mud’ into our language as a term of derision, as in “Your name will be ‘Mud’, if you…or you’ll be knee deep in ‘Mud’ if…”

The visit to Isla de Cozumel was short. We had Eric and Paulie in tow. The rest were off snorkeling. We took a ride on a boat that had underwater viewing. It was beautiful to behold the forests of coral. Its variety was incredible. Some looking like fans of lace swaying in the breeze, other like the rocks we usually think of them as, and still others of shapes and sizes hard to imagine as “coral”. It is a growing plant on the bottom of the warm seas. Eric had fought and cried about coming at all. He then proceeded to fall asleep on my lap and became like a sack of potatoes. We sat on benches with no back support. June became my support and then she helped me carry him back up to deck at the end of the ride.

One of the highlights of the cruise happened on the last night. We attended a show. It was a Magician. He was very good. One of his acts was to use large horse collar apparatus and blow a balloon up inside it. He managed to blow two balloons up and they both bursts while he was attempting to fit them into the collar. This was not what he meant to do (allegedly). He was to run a thin rapier through the collar and the balloon to the other side, obviously not breaking the balloon. Having no more balloons he decided to seek a young person from the audience. Then from the darkness of the theater onto the light of the stage came a young man. What a surprise! It was Paulie Berger, our grandson. He had two missing front teeth. So he tried desperately not to smile. But between the antics of the Magician and the laughter of the audience he finally burst into one, pleasing everyone, but particularly his grandparents. He grimaced twice when Magician tried to push the rapier into the back of his neck. Then Houdini turned him sideways and proceeds to push the rapier through coming out on the other side and under Paulie’s nose. His expression in watching it come out was a classic “I can’t believe it’s happening!” It was a beautiful way to end the cruise. After the Magician left the stage the Cruise Director came on and rewarded Paulie. He was given a “24 carat gold plastic trophy”! We arrived home on Monday around 8 a.m. and were driving off with our baggage by 10. The trip was good one and a success in the seasickness department, though June did take some medicine on each day to help her equilibrium.

As I turned out of the parking lot onto the highway it was about 6:30a.m. Palm Sunday morning. I then turned onto the road that would take me home. It heads dead East. I heard the radio announce that we would now hear an organ recital by Handel. It began with a roar and at the same instant I looked up the road and gasped “Oh My God”. The blaze of the sun with a million shades of rose and red filled the sky through the palm trees. The music rose seemingly as a tribute to the majestic sight in front of me. So I then with reverence said “Oh, My God!” It was a dramatic way to commence a morning in this paradise known as St. Petersburg, and even more so a Palm Sunday morn. Easter week saw Bill, Sharon, Matthew and Karen with us. We got to see two baseball games, one of the Phillies, who won, and the other of the home team Devil Rays, who also won. For two days they were visiting Sea World and the Animal Kingdom in Orlando. They left Easter morning. We learned by email that they took nearly nine hours to get back to Harrisburg due to flight delays, missed connections, etc.

My curiosity about word-meanings got me thinking about “Easter”. Is it someone or something from the “East (-er)”. The ever-faithful OED provided the answer. “EASTER: Origin, Old English, EASTRE, of Germanic origin and related to German OSTERN & EAST. According to Bede the word is derived from EASTRE, the name of a goddess associated with spring.” The term “Good” Friday seems to be a contradiction in that it commemorates the death of Jesus on the cross. But I learned that I had forgotten that “good” might also mean, among other meanings, “holy, or observed as a holy day”

I am happy to report that this morning the scale informed me I had reached my weight goal. Now it is just a question of maintaining it. I think it will be so thanks to the great help I receive from June in seeing that I eat well, even though eating less. Hope all of you had a glorious Easter weekend and I will try to add a note to each.

“CLINTON SURVIVES… ” “AND THE WINNER IS” So appeared the headlines in the middle of February. It would have been more appropriate if they had said “THE PEOPLE SURVIVED…” and “THE CONSITUTION IS THE WINNER…” The first is easily understood, but the Constitution was a winner? Why, because of the strong constitutional brakes found therein. One commentator says, “Clinton saved by his 18^th-Century defense team”. They, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Mason saw the dangers of runaway partisan fervor. The key brake was the word “high” in “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Another was to divide the impeachment duties. It made sure the Accusers were not also the judges. Between them both, the Senate could not find the case for impeachment proven. I had promised my self not to ruminate about the national scandal, but my legal curiosity got the best of me. I discovered that the present Chief justice and Presiding officer at the impeachment hearing had written a book entitled, ” Grand Inquest: The Historic Impeachments of justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson.” It was first published in 1993 and then reissued in 1999. (Not surprisingly!) After having read it, I look forward to seeing what the Chief justice has to say about these most recent proceedings. It is a well-written bit of history. I particularly liked his review of the events that lead up to both Impeachments. Some of the things I learned were: (1) the process of impeaching was borrowed from the English law but that they, some four or five years after the Founding Fathers adopted it, let their law lapse. They had used it in order to remove appointments by the King and apparently they now had the power to do so without impeachment, (2) the two-thirds vote required was to avoid a political majority removing a President because of politics only. It included the condition of “high crimes and misdemeanors or Treason” for the same reason, (3) the impeachment move against justice Chase was allegedly initiated by a suggestion from President Thomas Jefferson to a friend in the House. The midnight judges appointed by lame-duck Adams angered him. It was an example of Thomas J., the politician.

“The impeachment (Clinton’s) has been less about danger to the nation than about disgust with the President’s attitude. Failure to convict and remove him will reaffirm the limited role the Constitution gave the impeachment mechanism: to shield the nation against rogue Presidents, not punish Presidents who are rogues” (L.H. Tribe, Const. Law Prof. Harvard, written the day before the decision). So now we shall wait and see if the Chief justices pens a sequel covering the latest “Grand Inquest”.

It is now assured that Clinton will go down in History. It is something all Presidents aspire to see happen. I am sure he would like to be remembered for a million things other than as the first elected president to be impeached, but it will probably not be so.

The Lieutenant called us to the center of the dormitory that had been our home for the last twelve weeks. ‘We’ were the officer candidates in Quantico Training Center in the year 1954. He wanted to give a farewell message. The long awaited day had arrived. We would leave this building, march to the auditorium, and receive our gold bars as Second Lieutenants in the U.S.M.C. or now just the “Corps”. It had been a tough twelve weeks. The mental harassment was equal to the physical beating our bodies took. Having just prior thereto spent three years in Law School where exercise consisted of walking to and from classrooms; the physical trial alone made this a great day. But the brain washing that had me fearful of not making it topped that. My fear was always that if you failed you headed for Parris Island and boot camp as a private. All in that room had shared my fear. We may have thought the OC training was tough but we were positive the boot camp was tougher. So as we gathered before the Lieutenant, all these things were in our heads. He said he had a farewell message in the form of a story. It went like this. A Marine Colonel ran his home with three sons the same way he ran his Battalion. His boys were 12, 10, and 8 years of age. One night upon coming home his wife informed him that the kitchen window had been broken. He advised the boys that immediately after dinner he would hold

Mast. Mast is a military hearing or the first step in the Navy and Marine Corps towards a court-martial. After dinner each boy in turn enters the room where their father, the “Colonel”, sat facing them from behind a desk, they saluted and said: “Reporting as order, SIR!” They were then asked, “What do you know about the Kitchen window?” The first two (ages 12 and 10) answered the question, “Nothing SIR!” The youngest after having been asked the question said, ” I broke it SIR!” The Colonel then said, ” Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?” The boy answered, “Yes, SIR!” “And what is that?” To which the boy replied, “How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?” The room burst into a roar of laughter. It was just as many of us felt on that morning. It was a good farewell message, so good it still brings a laugh when I think about it now more than forty years later.

March is the month of St. Patrick’s Day. “Patrick’s gift to the Irish was his Christianity-the first de-Romanized Christianity in human history, a Christianity without the sociopolitical baggage of the Greco-Roman world, Christianity that completely enculturated itself into the Irish scene. Through the Edict of Milan, which had legalized the new religion in 313 and made it the new emperor’s pet, Christianity had been received into Rome, not Rome into Christianity! Roman culture was little altered by the exchange, and it is arguable that Christianity lost much of its distinctiveness. But in the Patrician exchange, Ireland, lacking the power and implacable traditions of Rome, had been received into Christianity, which transformed Ireland into Something New, something never seen before-a Christian culture, where slavery and human sacrifice became unthinkable, and warfare, though impossible for humans to eradicate, diminished markedly…As these transformed warrior children of Patrick’s heart lay down the swords of battle, flung away the knives of sacrifice, and cast aside the chains of slavery, they very much remained Irishmen and Irishwomen. Indeed the survival of an Irish psychological identity is one of the marvels of the Irish story. Unlike the continental church fathers, the Irish never troubled themselves overmuch about eradicating pagan influences, which they tended to wink at and enjoy. The festivals continued to be celebrated, which is why we today can still celebrate the

Irish feasts of May Day and Hallowe’en.” (T. Cahill “How the Irish Saved Civilization”) This paragraph in Cahill’s book sticks with me and it puts to bed the old concept of a St. Patrick just driving all the snakes out Ireland. He certainly did a great deal more.

I am happy to report June has recovered from her mouth surgery. We want to thank all of you have sent notes of inquiry and offers of prayers. It worked this time she had a lot less an ordeal than the first time. She’s just happy that hopefully there will be no “next” time.

I attended a luncheon on the last Saturday in February at a restaurant in Clearwater Beach. The alumni of West Catholic Girls sponsored it and they invited the alumni of West Catholic Boys. The present president (we called him principal) of West Catholic Boys was present since he happened to be in the area, visiting friends. There were thirty-six, about a dozen of who were men, attended it. It was a quite a surprise to find my high school having regional alumni here on the West Coast of Florida. As Imogene Coca would say “Isn’t it a small world!”

We’ll bid adieu and hope to add a note to each.

 

 

One of the dividends of having written these jottings for nearly seven years, is you can go back and read what you wrote. It’s a good refresher. Sometimes it is not too enlightening and you wonder what ever made you discuss “that” subject. But it is fun and sure helps the memory. I have sometimes even retained clippings or letters of that time. They too bring happy memories most of the time.

Looking back two years I am reminded of our visit to St. Michael’s and Baltimore Harbor at that time just prior to and including Valentine’s day. We made a great tour of the Naval Academy, tried the various restaurants in the quaint village named for its church, St. Michael’s. We learned it was the birthplace of Stephen Douglas, the slave who became a diplomat. We promised some day we would go back. In that month of

1997 the world received the twins, Aidan and Alex Yake. We lost a friend, and brother-in-law of Dan Walsh, Stanley Karminski. Just a year ago we told of our visit to Busch Gardens and the visit of John and Mary MacDonald. It was also the beginning of the Paula Jones and Lewinsky dirges. We lamented, with Maureen Dowd, a columnist, the age of tawdriness and it’s being continually considered news by the media.

It is beginning to feel more and more that this is home. Our activities in and with the church community, the familiarity with places in the area like restaurants, etc., or maybe it is our guests who now can say, “Do you remember ‘last year’ when we…?”

Mary and John MacDonald have been here since last Thursday. John and I had a round of golf together on Friday. He went with me on Saturday to a Men’s Breakfast. Sunday we all walked the Bayview Drive by the Pier with an ending at the St. Pete’s Hilton Hotel for a brunch. It is one of the perks of having guests, you get to eat and walk in favorite places. It seems that “favorite places” only makes that status any more when we do have guest. Our other activities have kept us from partaking of them at other times. It may be one more sign that we are really at “home”.

We ventured over to Orlando once again with Mary. This time we visited a new spot, Cypress Gardens. It had an ice show and it is the place where the first water skiing shows began. We ended the day by meeting John at a hotel in the city of Orlando. The next day we visited and enjoyed once again Sea World with its magic dolphins and killer whales that perform on cue. We headed home with a stop at our favorite roadhouse “The Cracker BarreI”. I learned recently, it is also John Gotti, Jr., of Mafia fame, favorite restaurant. His patronage still hasn’t changed the quality of the food and service.

They now have a machine that rates essays. It is called “e-rater”. It was developed to rate the essays written by some 200,000 business school applicants who take the Graduate Management Admissions Test. “E-rater likes subordinate and complementary clauses and words like ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ that some people think suggest a tidy mind. There was a time when essays were thought to be more than the sum of their therefores. They were distinguished by their originality, (Ed. note: not quotes from others sources!) insight, and personal voice, by their graceful style, lack of affectation and willingness to meander. Instead of stomping toward a conclusion, many never arrived.” It has made me wonder how my ramblings would be rated? The purpose of the e-rater is to have less need for human raters. It, the computer, looks for “syntactic variety”, such as different kinds of clauses. It also looks for words associated with organization of ideas, such as “first”, “second”, and “third”. It seems to be the kind of writing I had to experience as an attorney. It would certainly fall into the “boring-orderly mind class. But unfortunately as I read, and reread, some of my spoutings I continually find that the “habit” is hard lose. I get right in there with the “one, two, three” and “therefore” crowd. But I will continue to try.

The computer programmed to evaluate writing is not surprising. The computer gets to do more and more word tasks. What was, and is surprising, is to read of a transplant of a human hand! It is a first here in United States but two others have been done elsewhere. The medical miracles continue. It, the transplant, has only modest success but the thought of attempting it boggles the mind. We seem to be getting closer and closer to the “Six Million Dollar Man”. It maybe however be that with inflation the Six might be replace with Ten or Twenty.

June and I had a walk in the moonlight. It was at 6AM on the last day of January. It is the only time we get to do that anymore. It was the second moon of the month. It is phenomenon that only happens every so often, or “once in a blue moon”. The last time was 18 years ago. The blue moon has only been around a couple times and it is the result of something being added to the atmosphere such a smoke. In fact, moon-lovers (lunatics?) never refer to this incident as being “once in a blue” one. Looking up at as we walked, I recalled that it was 1999 and just 30 years since a man walked on it. My Dad was doubtful of it really being done. He even inquired if I believed it. He didn’t live long enough to see the other marvels in space, such as, the launching a rocket to bring back “stardust” seven years from now! I am sure that having an essay rated by a computer would also have tested his beliefs.

Today is the day of June’s operation. I am sitting in the Public Library passing time. It is located across the street from the Doctor’s office. Now one can just sign up and have a word processor at his fingertips. It is another of those wonders of the Age. I am praying for her quick recovery as I reminisce. I learned some good news this morning. I gave blood on Sunday. Three days later you can call and obtain your Cholesterol count. I did so this morning and found it was below 200. It is the first time I can recall it being so since I stopped running. I can only attribute it to the reduction in the amount of food eaten for the week, since all other things that might affect it have remained the same. One week before the test I began to change my eating habits. I had entered a program sponsored by the Church called “Weigh Down”. It is not a diet. It is a spiritually oriented program using scriptures and common sense to change your focus. A diet requires you focus on food. The focus here is on eating only when you’re hungry and stopping when you are full. The secret is in knowing when each occurs. The first natural step is to see how long you can go without being hungry and then cutting the quantity in half. Everyone agrees, since it is a law of physics and nature, if you eat less you’ll lose weight. So there is no great help there. What does seem to help is the idea of not thinking about food. The focus is on the spirit. The idea is as old as asceticism. It is taught by a beautiful Georgia Girl nutritionist who sings with a southern drawl of the focus on Christ as what is needed to replace the focus on food. I have been to two classes, both consisting of hour-long videos of her lecturing. In between classes (which are once a week) we have audiotapes to listen to at home. It may sound a bit idealistic in my exposition of it here, but the success so far has made me a believer. I have lost a pouch that was forming and the pounds are down, now we head for “weigh down”. I have just as much energy and am sleeping as well as ever so I plan to continue. One of the claims made by the program is that it can even reduce your Cholesterol count without concentrating on “fat content”. It has at least so far appeared to do so. But we still have 10 weeks to go, so we shall see.

The first Sunday of February during the service June was installed as a member of the Church Council. She handled it admirably, though her face displayed a bit of apprehension, especially when she was required to turn and face the congregation as they orally accepted her. I know she will do a good job even though she keeps feeling she “bit off more than she can chew”. Here present problem is of getting over the surgery and it will keep her busy for at least the rest of the week.

We’ll end here with the hope to add a note.

“It only gets worse, as we get older – the feeling that we hardly have a moment to spare. Time, our lifetime, increasingly comes to seem like a rocket sled into which we are helplessly buckled, speeding through years in seconds while the world blurs past. What we wouldn’t give to have some genie grant us, well, all the time in the world would do for a start that slower time, to the leisurely ticking of which we could take life in on foot, as it were, meet it unhurriedly, and still more unhurriedly watch it unfolding all around us…”

I couldn’t have said better my self. It’s a thought that occurs every year at this time as we are given to looking forward and backward. It is January, named for that two headed god, Janus, who looks forward and backward at the same time. It is a feat I only saw performed by the good Sisters in grade school, who though writing on the blackboard with their backs to the class could reprimand any student by name who began fooling around. I only report this as an observer, not as one subject to that amazing talent (Of course!).

Going back to the file of my January jottings of ’98 I found my sister Winnie’s 1997 Christmas letter. It was a summary of her life. It listed all her children, their children, and their children’s children. It reported on what they were doing. It listed her sisters and brothers and some of their activities. It ended with these words:

“This is not meant as a letter of statistics. It’s just tell all of you the wonders of my life and all of the gifts of my Lord and God whose birth we celebrate with songs of love, wonder and thanks to Him who left Heaven to be born a Babe to live on this Earth and then to die to give us life. Happy Christmas and blessed and healthy New Year. My love to all of you, Winnie (Allen).”

I see that last year at this time we had houseguests. I had to step around bodies as I quietly crept to the kitchen in the early hours. This year we were alone. We attended the candlelight service on Christmas Eve and treated ourselves to a super brunch at the Hilton Hotel in downtown St. Pete’s on Christmas Day. I had talked there about my first “gig” at the Shore Acre’s Christmas party. It was even better this year. I had no one trying to sing along while I played, since Santa, who actually showed up this year, was distributing gifts.

In my looking forward last year, I noted Winnie was going to be a visitor in February. She was and how happy we now are to have the memory of her here in a new home.

I spent time in a dentist chair the other day. It was for three hours. It was generally pain free and consisted mostly of preparing crowns for my front teeth. Sitting there gazing out the window at a monster tree under a gray clouds, I began thinking, among other things, about the word “day”. How did it become what we call the times of light? I had remembered that Genesis tell us. God said “Lux erat”, (Let there be light!), and there was. God then separated the light from darkness. “God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night’.” The Latin reads: “Appelavitque lucem Diem, et tenebras Noctem…” I only include it to show that it is does not seem to be the origin our word “day”.

The Revised Oxford English Dictionary (on the net) traces the word back to the (OE) Saxon word “doeg” (like “dag” in German). The word meant, “to burn”. The etymologist Funk states: “The central idea of the word ‘day’ is ‘burning heat’, for day was christened in those tropical countries where the heat was burning during the 12 hour period when the sun was shining”. Problem solved. I know none of you lose any sleep over this sort of thing.

My fascination for word origins did tempt me at one time to invest in OED, Oxford English Dictionary. It is a steal now on CD for only $395. The 20-volume set cost $995. But for now I think I’ll just stick to the Revised Version on the net. I have had enough comments about ‘men are just boys with more expensive toys’ than to encourage another one.

We are looking forward to seeing John and Mary here in January, Bill with a quick stop in February, and a longer visit hopefully in March. Also in March we are going cruising with the Berger’s from Tampa to Mexico via Key West. January also sees June named to serve on the Church council. She turned down their request to act as Financial Secretary. It had too many public confrontations to please her. She demonstrated her continuing ability to cook up a storm by have a dinner for eight for New Year’s Day It was a custom we had established a Dorcas street, and so we begin it again. We are however restricted, even more than at Dorcas Street, as to numbers. Three couples is the max. One of the couples was our pastor and his wife, Jerry and Connie Straszheim. Both have become good friends to us, these new comers to St. Petersburg.

As June and I walked in the early Monday morning darkness, it occurred to me that the Church has become a large part of our week. June counts receipts on Monday morning; I attend a men’s breakfast on Tuesday mornings; on Wednesday evening we attend a community dinner there; on Friday mornings (and at other times when called) June goes to the church office and helps stuff literature for mailing and distribution, and on Sunday morning we attend a communion service.

I just finished Tom Wolfe’s new novel “A Man in Full”. It was good reading and an interesting weaving of the characters with the plot. I did find some of his “stream of consciousness” depictions and his descriptions of surroundings, a bit over done. Some weeks ago there was a report of Norman Mailer and John Updike commenting on the book as “entertaining” but not “Literature”. The reporter expressed the opinion that their “criticism” sounded more like sour grapes. While reading the novel I came across what Tom Wolfe had a character say about “Literature”. His character is a retired literature teacher. One of the main characters in the book, Conrad, is now in the ex-professor’s home as nursing assistant to help him. They discuss Literature. The dialogue goes like this:

(Ex-Prof.) “…How old are your?” “Twenty-Three”, said Conrad… “Twenty Three”, said the old man, still not looking at him. “That’s a good age to be interested in literature. You have so much time…you have so much; it must seem to be spilling out of your pockets. You don’t need to worry about what an incalculable luxury literature is. Entire civilizations are founded without any literature at all and without anybody missing it. It’s only later on when there’s a big enough class of indolent drones to write the stuff and read the stuff that you have literature. When I saw those eager hands sticking up as I taught, I always wanted to tell them what I’ve just told you, but what right did I have to try to play the iconoclast after making a living my whole life taking it seriously, or at least with a straight face?”…(And further on) “Literature is a sort of dessert”…”Life’s about things you know even less about. Life’s about cruelty and intimidation.”

So Tom, at least somewhat, through the eyes and voice of his character, the Ex-Literature Professor is responding to those who say he is not writing Literature! Mailer and Updike referred to him as a “journalist”, I suppose to distinguish him from a “Novelist”. I’d tale a journalist any day, like Mark Twain (Sam Clemens). He is a man where the action is. The Novelist, you picture is the loner gone off to some remote spot to commune with his muse. Incidentally, Mailer and Updike’s criticism hasn’t affected the book’s sales; it is in the number one spot for the seventh straight week in the N.Y. Times Book Review.

We wish you all once again a Happy and Healthy New Year.

 

Merry Christmas!

We begin these ramblings with a note of sadness mixed with joy. We are sad at the loss of our “other mother”, Win, but happy that she is now enjoying well earned eternal rest. She was a sister but to me another mother. I mentioned this to some one at the funeral and his or her immediate response was “She was to everyone!”

I arrived home after giving blood on Sunday, November 15^th to be greeted by June. Her face could tell it all. She gave me the sad news that Win had died that morning. November 15^th is the same day my mother died some 46 years ago. It was the day Win took on the job as my other mother and continued to do so even up to Saturday, November 7^th, when she called to catch up on the news. We had been planning to leave St. Petersburg on the 18^th but now we started packing and left on Monday morning. The funeral was on Friday. The church was full and the service a celebration. The eulogies by her sons, Frank and Jim, were outstanding in their warmth and humor. The tribute Frank paid to his sisters Beth and Winnie, who had cared for and lived with both Paul and Win, was most deserving. They practiced the love they learned so well from Win and Paul in their lifetime. She will be sorely missed by all that knew her. Reliving and recalling the joyous memories she gave to all of us in her lifetime is the only way to assuage our grief.

We spent a little more than two weeks in the Philly area. The highlight was the Thanksgiving Day dinner for 22 cooked by June. Her cooking the meal was a prerequisite for our visit! We had a day with my gang. It gave us a chance to see those we often don’t get to see because of the distance. We played with the sprouting twins, Aida and Alex, who are now able to say “Pop-pop” very clearly. We rejoiced in seeing Hannah with braces on her little legs running about like they were not there. I had the opportunity of carrying Colleen (“she’s something else”) on my shoulders as we walked around Mary’s Yardley neighborhood. We were houseguests of John and Mary Macdonald, June’s sister and brother-in-law, in Mayfair most of the time. We stayed the few days around Thanksgiving at Tracy’s and I had the special privilege of being Eric’s guest at his pre-school Pilgrim Feast. He was the Indian and I was the Pilgrim. The Indians performed and the Pilgrims just watched and applauded. I was one of two Grandparents present so I felt quite proud of my status. We went to the opera. It was the “Tales of Hoffman”. It was a first for June, and could have been considered my first, since the last one was in 1 970 in Munich with Jim, Pat, and Jim’s friend from Munich. I remember it was “Don Juan”, was nearly four hours long, in German, and Pat and I fell asleep. I am happy to report that our visit to the Academy for the ‘Tales” was much more entertaining and I stayed awake. They had the English translation of the singer’s words flashed on a screen over the top of the stage, so it made it even better for us monolingual spectators. We dined with Marge, Dan and Anne after the music at Philadelphia’s famous “Bookbinders”. It would have been a great meal but my temporary front teeth kept falling out! The fall out gave me an opportunity to visit my old friend and Dentist Gene Lewis. In fact we were on a daily basis there for a while since each day another decided to leave me. We did give him a break and not bother him on Thanksgiving weekend. I had with Bill King and the Wick twins, Frank and AI. We discussed cabbages and kings and all the important things. I did the same with Dick O’Donnell and John Malone on different days but at the same old haunt, Austrian Village.

On Monday after the feast, we waited anxiously to see what would happen since Mary was to have a Kidney stone removed. If the laser or ultra sound method were not able to do so she would go on to surgery. We had decided if that were the case that we would extend our stay. However it happily decided to leave on its own. When the X-rays were reviewed that morning they revealed that the stone had vanished. Thus we took off and arriving back in St. Pete’s on December 3^rd.

While we were in Philadelphia I saw two names in the news that were part of my past, Tom Gola and Sam Dash. Tom was being honored by his Alma Mater, La Salle, by having the new Gymnasium named “The Tom Gola Gymnasium”. Sam is a lawyer-professor. I believe still attached to Georgetown Law School. He, the newspaper reported, resigned as Kenneth Starr’s “Ethic Adviser” due to Mr. Starr choosing to appear before the Judiciary Committee. He felt that an Independent Prosecutor should not appear as an advocate before a Committee that was considering the results of his investigation. Mr. Dash apparently served in the same capacity during the Nixon investigation in 1974.

Tom, as anyone reading these scratching(s) knows, was my opponent in the Legislative race in 1966. He won and went on to be City Controller. He did on one occasion pay me a public compliment. He was being interviewed on TV when he was running for mayor. He was asked a question like, “What’s a nice guy like you running for office?” He replied that he made some friends and met some good people doing so. He said two of those were Charles (Chuck) A. Peruto and Paul McSorley. I witnessed the interview while sitting in Rhulings Seafood Restaurant with the owner, who nodded skeptically before the interview when I said I had run for the Legislature against Tom. You can imagine his reaction when Tom mentioned my name. “You weren’t —-ing me, were you?” I have never had such a quick and unexpected confirmation of a statement in my entire life.

Sam, I met while I was a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps stationed at the Marine Barracks in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. I was the Legal Officer and in charge of a company managing the brig. It happened that three young jarheads (euphemism for Marine) went drinking on Locust Street in Philly. The bars closed and they still were seeking more beer. They were invited by two gentlemen to an apartment located in the area. After being given some beer, their host left to change into “something more comfortable”. They returned in bathrobes. One of the Marines suddenly realized they were being solicited and called them “Queers!” A fight ensued. It resulted in one of the gentlemen being struck severely on the head. He was down and out for a moment. The Marines exited. The host called the police and complained about an attempted robbery. They were driven around the neighborhood looking for the suspects. The police suggested to the guy hit on the head he visit a hospital. He refused. He died during the night. The next morning the surviving host called the police and told them the truth about picking up the three Marines. There was a lineup at the Barracks and the survivor picked out his three visitors. They were charged with homicide.

As the Legal Officer it was my job to get them local counsel. I had replaced a buddy and lawyer, Jean Green. In fact, thanks to my former employer, General Earnshaw, I got jean’s job and he had an early release. So I called Jean who went with the boys to the arraignment. Some time later it was learned that one of the boys came from a fairly well off Virginia family and they decided to hire more eminent counsel. So I got to meet Sam Dash. He was a former Asst. DA and was building a criminal practice with some success. Jean lost the other two also since one of the boy’s fathers was a friend of the city’s Republican Party Chairman. I remember too the admonishment Judge Vincent Carroll gave to the boys as he sentenced them on a manslaughter plea, “Never refer to a homosexual as a ‘queer’!” (I note parenthetically that now some 40 years, it is still good advice, but some later the gay communities have a magazine or a web page using that word in its title.) I learned from the article in the Inquirer on Sam Dash that he also served in same capacity as Ethic Adviser for some one during the Nixon investigation. He is, I believe, still on the faculty, maybe emeritus, of Georgetown Law School.

Once again I find I am running over my prescribed limit for these writings, so I’ll end here with a promise of a note to each of you.

 

December 21, 1998

Dear Ron and Mary,

Christmas will remind us of Alex and Aidan. Children at Christmas make it the day it is. Give them a hug from Pop-pop and you can have one each yourselves. We spent three days over at the theme Parks as a gift to ourselves with dinner reservations and tickets to shows. It went something like this:

We went around the world the other day,

Had Breakfast in St. Pete’s, lunch in Norway.

It’s easy to do when you know the right spot.

It’s the fantasyland known as “EPCOT”,

Between lunch and dinner (at Italy’s “Alfredo’s”)

We heard African drums and Celtic tremolos,

Some beats of Morocco filled up our ears,

A French mime “en-bubbled” did faces and leers!

We ended it all with carols by a choir

Composed of teens in altar attire,

Along with a symphonic orchestra,

All under the stars, in God’s great Basilica!

Love, Dad

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!