Author: tom

November brought more sad news. We learned of Mary McSorley Shertz’s sudden death. We had already mourned the loss of my brother Father Dick when on November 1st, we received the news of Mary’s death. She was my brother John’s oldest. Mary was 54 years of age and according to reports had no prior heart problems but died of a heart attack. She and I had corresponded over the Internet for the past year. I last saw her at her brother, Richard’s, home in July of 2001. She attended the cousin’s party and we promised to keep in touch. She had three sons.

I regretted as I did with Dick’s funeral being unable to attend in person. I was there in spirit on the day in question and his being remembered by many. I have a collection of obituaries from several papers but by far the best report was from my nephew Jim Allen. He wrote so well of the occasion that he made one feel as if he were there. June expressed this thought as I read to her the letter aloud. There were numerous summaries of Dick’s achievements in the news reports. All accented his devotion to his cause – Peace. He was an active protester in his day walking with Martin Luther King and being imprisoned for the cause on one occasion with Dr.Salk. Jim Allen had been our presence in his life these past few years. His care and interest in his doings kept us informed and I owe him endless thanks for this endeavor. In this month dedicated to giving thanks we certainly give one great big one to Jim and his wife Linda for all that they did.

The many obituaries of Dick reported his internment by the Japanese; his participation in the civil rights protests of the ’60’s; his friendship and assist to Jackie Kennedy in ’62; his participation in the funeral of Bobby Kennedy, and his teaching of the “Theology of Peace” at Georgetown University. His passing caused me to review a file I had concerning him, some letters from him and notes we exchanged on his attempt to write a book, or essay, on “The Divine Will” and a verse I wrote for him on his 80th birthday in 1994. It reminded me of two things I would always remember him doing. One was he was the instigator and manager of the campaign in 1948 to have Mom named the “Catholic Mother of the Year” He later wrote a book on the family entitled, “The More the Merrier” which in my reading of it was really a canticle of praise to her. I further had recalled for me an incident that occurred in 1970 when I was Commissioner of Records of the City of Philadelphia, under then Mayor James H.J. Tate. One day, which date I never recorded, I received a phone call from Dick at my City Hall office. I was surprised to learn he was in Philadelphia but he was calling to advise he was leaving the State immediately if not sooner. I learned also that he had been protesting with others in the front of the Naval Base at the foot of Broad Street. He was advised to move on by no other than the Commissioner of Police, and future Mayor, Frank Rizzo. Dick didn’t tell me that he mentioned to the commissioner that his brother Paul was a “right hand man to the Mayor”. It had little effect on the Bambino! So he left and called me as he was doing so without telling me about advising ‘The Commish’ that he claimed his brother had a close connection to His Honor the Mayor. I learned that shortly after he hung up and the Mayor called me. He was complaining by remarking, “What is your brother trying to do to me? “I asked if he had a brother. He said, “Yes.” I then I asked if he told his brother what to do? He agreed and let the matter die. I had a good laugh about it years later with Dick. I seldom told Dick or any brother what to do. In fact Dick and I agreed to disagree on some things but still were brothers and friends. I read a line by CS Lewis some time after we did so, that had bit of application. It was: “The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance, can be our friend. He need not agree with us about the answer.”

My physical world has shrunk. It is now most of the time 1644 Connecticut Avenue since I am not permitted to drive. June doesn’t drive but that may change in the future since she is contemplating taking lessons. It is really not as bad as it seemed when I was faced with it some weeks ago. I have really been retired. I read more and have been reading aloud to June. We have gone through “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and may try one of Henry James’ short novels as our next venture. Fortunately we have lots of friends who have offered and do drive us. I even have some one from my Bible class on Thursday morning pick me up and of course bring me home. What I miss the most is the quick errand to Home Depot or the Post office or the like. But it is beginning to be accepted, even if reluctantly. Our hope is that no more spells or whatever they are occur for sometime so June and the Doctor will agree that it is safe once more to get behind the wheel.

I know you all have been waiting to hear the Florida election news. We had an election without a foul up! The late night comics are going to have to look elsewhere for material. All the referendums, or initiatives, amending the Florida Constitution and creating new legislation passed except one. We are the first state in removing smoking from public places and protecting pregnant sows! (This is as reported in the St. Petersburg Times, but June remembers her son Joe noting when he lived in Vermont that it had smoking in public places prohibited by legislation.) The one that did not pass was about the Miami/Dade County governing charter which for some reason or other is in the State Constitution. The Republican Party here as elsewhere across the country was the winner. I may have been a bit hasty in saying the late night talks shows will lose Florida material since I am sure the caged pregnant sows will bring a few observations. I was surprised to learn that Florida has some 100 hog farms but only two of them confine pregnant pigs in crates! The failure of the legislature to regulate them is laid to the strong agri-business lobby in the State. Protecting animals and preventing cruelty to them is I leaned a popular topic these days in part due to a book entitled “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy” by Matthew Scully. He was a former speechwriter for President Bush. The book received a prime review in the November Atlantic and the Sunday New York Times magazine had a lead article challenging and rebutting its premises. Basically both writers wonder why it is necessary to talk about “rights” when making the conduct of people treating animals cruelly can be controlled by political action of legislatures. I am sure that Florida’s example of such legislation will be treated as giving the pigs rights but it would be a large jump of reason to read it in that manner. Michael Polan in the article in the NY Times magazine of November 10th has this interesting observation, “Scully calls the contemporary factory farm ‘our own worst nightmare’ and, to his credit doesn’t shrink from naming the root cause of this evil: unfettered capitalism. (Perhaps this explains why he resigned from the Bush administration just before his book’s publication.) A tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency and the moral imperatives of religion or community, which have historically served as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market.” So it looks from the amount of discussion in the air that Florida is leading in providing some of that restraint to some rampant capitalism in the agribusiness. It is good to know it is leading in doing something apparently good for a change.

A half of the ten initiatives had strong Democratic backing and money. So they won that, but failed in electing individuals to Congress and the Legislature. But all this is old news, and of greater interest now is the Iraq question. The unanimous agreement of the United Nations was a pleasing surprise. I was happy to see that as I know a lot of Americans were. It has raised among opinion writers and others the old question that Father Dick had answered with a loud ‘no’, that is, is there such a thing as a “just war”? I recall being taught years ago that there was and have seen discussions of that proposition in various media even today. I learned too in Law School that there is such a thing as a justifiable killing, i.e., in defense of one’s or a love one’s life. The application of this principle has been complicated, as with all moral principles in modern life, with the creation of nuclear power and it’s killing reach. Is it only a question of degree or is the principle completely inapplicable? One of the answers proposed is that to not act will cause even more death than if we do so. The unity of the nations is help in making any action more justified. We pray as all sane people do that no action is required on either side.

November is a time for us also to remember those who went to heaven in this month over the years, beginning with my brother Bishop Frank, my Mom, and my second Mom- sister Winifred (both on the same day forty six years apart), and my sister Therese. Having them in my life is one more thing I am thankful for and will remember on the day of Thanksgiving. We still find it a bit strange to be wearing shorts or at least no gloves on Thanksgiving Day. It isn’t as it ‘used to be’ but not much in our lives is ‘as it used to be’ these days. Nevertheless we have much to be thankful for, things such as ‘life’ itself and the people in it that make it worth living. I like the thought expressed in; “we can pick our MBA, but not our DNA”. We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

‘October’, the eighth month of the year, if you read the word as it is derived from Latin. Somehow or other the Romans allowed the name to stay after Julius and Augustus decided they needed a month named after themselves –or so it appears to me. We would all be upset if we awoke and found the month properly named i.e., ‘December’, the 10th month. I keep promising myself I am going to go and learn how this misnaming all came about but have failed so far to do so. Maybe with more time on my hands I’ll get to it, as long as the tomes I use for my research doesn’t weigh more than 10 pounds. I’m under doctor’s orders to limit my isometric exercise to lifting or pushing items of 10 pounds or less.

It reminds me of an old Hal Roach story about an Irishman who decided he really ought to read a book. So he took himself to the library. He expressed his wish to the librarian. She inquired if he had any particular preference in mind. He said, no. Then she asked, if he wanted to try something heavy? He said, “It makes no difference I have my car with me” (After some laughter here’s where Hal would add, “Write that down, it’s a good one!”)

We spent the last week of September down at the beach. We had the company of Paul and Marie Keeley. It was at the “Tradewinds Resort” in St.Pete’s Beach. The accommodations were great. We were on the sixth floor facing the Gulf. It however looked like we were back in Myrtle Beach on the Atlantic due to the surf. We had delayed a day in heading down while we waited for the hurricane ‘Isidore’ to make up its mind. It at one point appeared to be heading to the Florida West coast, but it continued north and went in at the panhandle. The effect of its passing churned the Gulf so that it appeared similar to the breakers of the Atlantic. While we were there we had rain, white caps, and people actually trying to surf where before there was nothing but ripples. Twice on one day I ventured down to the pool to join June and a shower came. It became acceptable to refer to me as a ‘rainmaker’ so I limited my visits. Marie and June were naturals since the both love the sun and the water, while Paul and I studiously avoided both. I shouldn’t put Paul in my class however since he did venture out into those conditions more than I. Most of my time was spent re-reading Thomas Cahill’s “Desire for the Everlasting Hills: the World before and after Jesus” It is one of his in the series of “hinges of history’, which included “How the Irish Saved Civilization” and “The Gift of the Jews” I listened to a tape of Carl Sagan’s “Contact” read by the star of the movie, Jodie Foster. In between beach and reading we managed each evening to find a restaurant in the resort where we could get our 20% discount and good food.

While enjoying the shore visit, June and I talked and looked forward to our week in October in North Carolina in the Smokey Mountains. Regrettably, the plans went up in smoke the Monday after we returned, and Paul and Marie had headed home. I had another dizzy episode. We were ordered to the outpatient clinic at still another hospital, St.Anthony’s. They attached a heart monitor and took some more blood. We learned a week later that it showed all in the heart department seems to be in good working order. I jokingly told friend that the monitor, a box hanging from a strap around my neck, was really a ‘snack beeper’. It went off advising June every time I attempted to snack! Incidentally my brother-in-law, Dan, assured me that dizziness is a McSorley family attribute so he was not surprised to hear it was happening. We had hoped that we would see them on the week in North Carolina, but called to advise them we thought it best to cancel the visit this time. The diagnosis remains uncertain. The thought is now it may be neurological caused so we are now on the waiting list of Neurologist for an appointment. I feel fine and still fight the bristling at having to avoid and leave along most of past chores…but my loving keeper makes it all acceptable despite the “bristles”. Shortly after the episode when I brought up on my computer screen a reading for today and there staring at me in capital letters was, “Waiting Patiently”. How appropriate! The author noted that our impatience with people is common and somewhat more controllable than patience with situations. A few days later the reading was entitled “Patience is a Virtue”. It particularly referred to men. Men have a need to control, to keep the situation under their hands. It is considered an admirable trait to be such. Thus having to give up that control and admitting the situation controls me is a task. But with the support I have received and need from June, my family, and friends I am learning to live with it. The reports from the monitor and the blood last Tuesday were all good. The doctor did lower my intake of blood thinner and the blood pressure medicine, and my ankles still swell during the day. My hope it that it is connected somehow with all the medicine but in the meantime I will practice that virtue called “patience”

I’m reading “Tom Sawyer”. Why? Well, it just happened that a Sunday or so ago the preacher had been to see Garrison Keeler, a modern day storyteller. He called him the modern Mark Twain. Then a few days later I was in bed with June watching “Everybody Loves Raymond’ and his mother was shocked to learn that he had never read “Tom Sawyer”. June asked me if I had done so, and frankly I didn’t think I ever did. I like Twain’s writing. I remembered reading his “Life on the Mississippi” and an essay type book on Christian Science and its founder. I also read an essay by him on Joan of Arc. But ‘Tom Sawyer’ I never recall reading and now that I am somewhat through it I am sure I didn’t. His story telling is superb. I even learned that Tom lived in St. Petersburg, which would have meant little if I had read it years ago. The nearest town to Tom’s home was Constantinople! I think Mr. Clemens must have written Tom’s stories shortly after his trip to Europe and Russia and his writing of “Innocents Abroad “. Yet I really should check first and see if there isn’t now or ever were a St.Pete’s and Constantinople in Missouri. I noted too that Tom, like Harry Potter, is a cousin/nephew in the household so the tendency of Aunt Polly is to be a bit more severe than to her own son Sid. But Harry’s life at home was ten times worse than Tom’s, since Aunt Polly clearly loved the little guy, while Potter’s foster parents treated him like a pariah. I am getting some good laughs at Tom’s shenanigans and agree it is a classic. I only hope June doesn’t want a book report when I’m finished, since I’m not making any notes!

It is now October 11 and I had another visit to another hospital via the Emergency Squad on Sunday October 6th. It was decided after arriving home on Monday that I should have the procedure of my heart being catheterized. It was set for Thursday, yesterday, as I write. We spent a long day June and I in yet another hospital. This one was “Children’s Hospital” an adjunct to Bayfront where this procedure is done. The good news is that what was thought to be a corroded valve was found to be line with some calcified matter that can be attributed to my age. The bypass of 8 years ago was found to be in good order.I am now carrying another beeper. This one is called an “event monitor” which will tape whatever happens when I get the dizziness. Next week we will attack the head to see if we can find a reason there. We have great help from all our friends since I am grounded as a driver and June doesn’t drive. Our hope now goes with all that will happen next week under the neurologist.

I wonder maybe we were sent to Children’s Hospital since they heard I was reading Tom Sawyer, and now I reading aloud to June “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. But I really don’t think so, since we were advised that it just happened to be the place where this procedure is done. I am resting, reading, painting, playing the piano and praying that soon we will have an answer.

I was reading an essay by CSLewis entitled “The World’s Last Night”. It refers to the biblical apocalyptic prediction of the end of the world. In the course of it I came across a rather appropriate paragraph which reads, “A man of seventy need not be always feeling (much less talking) about his approaching death: but a wise man of seventy should always take it into account. He would be foolish to embark on schemes which presuppose twenty more years of life: he would be criminally foolish not to make – indeed, not to have made long since his will” Lewis was a professor at Cambridge and I don’t recall him being particularly fond of lawyers, so it good to see he’s found a place for them. He died on the same day John Kennedy was shot, November 22,1963, at the age of sixty-five.

I regret that these jottings seem to be taken up more with my trips to the hospital than the many other events in our lives, but forgive my indulgence. The greatest dividend is that June and I are spending all this time together and it is wonderful!

September in Florida is an election month. At one time September was remembered as the beginning of the school year. But Florida as usual has to be different, school this year started in the middle of August! There was a primary election on September 10th. The major race is for a nominee as governor. The democrats have former Attorney General Janet Reno, and a wealthy lawyer ex Marine (I really should say “former” since there are no “ex” Marines) Bill McBride. The republicans have no contest for governor. The present governor, Jeb Bush, the brother of George II in Washington, is running unopposed. There are numerous other contest in both parties for lesser offices right down to judges who run without a party label and on both tickets.

One of the major issues in the November election will be referendum approving or disallowing constitutional amendments. They are now being publicized and discussed (somewhat). There are eleven of them. Florida leans more and more towards California politically with its constitution being revised at nearly every election. One proposal concerns cruelty to commercial pigs! It is entitled: “Limiting Cruel and Inhumane Confinement of Pigs During Pregnancy”. It is the manner in which the sows are treated. It proposes: “that no person shall confine a pig during pregnancy in a cage or other enclosure or tether a pregnant pig, on a farm, so that a pig is prevented from turning around freely, except for veterinary purposes and during the prebirth period” So to keep them upright during pregnancy that is considered inhumane. Once on a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, we visited an Amish farm. There was a sow of many pounds, maybe even 600 or more. She was upright only due to a yoke around her neck, which was fastened to either side of the enclosure. We learned that she was thus “inhumanely” treated so that the piglets could suck milk from her without being crushed to death! It seemed very sensible to us so that the little ones could obtain sustenance without the danger of being rolled upon my mom. But I suppose now there will be many saying here is a another reason for you to not eat pork, bacon, ham, etc. My real objection to this type of “constitutional amendment” is that the issue is something that could and should be handled with regulations from the Agriculture Department. It demeans the status of a constitution to have it altered for purely regulation type laws. Now there is one proposal of that quality, i.e., it proposes to amend the Florida Constitution’s language regarding cruel and unusual punishment to have it agree with the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It presently reads “cruel or unusual”. There is another proposed amendment that when an initiative is in the future placed up a ballot that the “economic impact” i.e. what it might cost to provide the suggested service, must accompany it. This is due to previous amendments being voted on and then the people learn that it will take millions to execute it. It occurred previously when there was an amendment, which passed ordering a monorail being installed across the state from East to West! The proposal was the dream of a multi millionaire who managed to get enough votes via publicity. Then the people learned how many millions it would take to execute the amendment. So now it is proposed that the “economic impact” be set forth along with any proposal. A problem with any proposals is that once passed the legislature is compelled by the same constitution to enact measures to bring the proposal to life.

Politics here is like politics in most places in that it is usually the last thing of interest to most citizens. I will be working at the Polls on Primary Election Day, September 10. We have new machines. There is no chance of “chads” since the voting will be done on touch screen machines. So I have lost my job as the “Ballot Assistant/ Greeter”. It has one consolation in that I won’t have to suffer the comments I received when I previously acted as such. I asked an incoming voter if he needed any assistance in understanding and using the ballot, the most common reply was, “I’m not a Democrat!” I will instead be working at the desk checking on the eligibility of the voter to vote, and if so in this precinct. It is a long day or as a supervisor friend says “It’s a lousy job and lousy pay, but you can’t believe the fun you’ll have!” Well, I can’t recall a lot of fun but I do enjoy the meeting of people who think enough of their freedom to exercise the right to vote, which that freedom freely gives. I always tell people who do vote that they now have earned the right to complain about “those politicians”. All those who don’t vote must keep quiet.

Politics in history and biography has always been a good part of my reading. The ideal and the practical conflicts are never better illustrated than in such lives. Jefferson the sage of Monticello forgot all about the constitution and the powers given to the President when it came to the Louisiana Purchase. Madison had similar problems with his office, which required action not legislation. The analysis by Gary Wills in his life of James Madison has a explanation of the mystery as to how Jefferson can be quoted by both liberal and conservatives. He wrote, “One problem with that gift (to act on only your ideals) is that Jefferson could not maneuver as pragmatically as most politicians are required to do. This did not mean he was incapable of taking opportunistic steps, as he did in the purchasing of Louisiana. But each change of course he had to invent a new set of absolute principles and elucidate it. That is why Jefferson can be so tellingly quoted on so many sides of various issues. Whatever he was doing at the moment had a radiantly eternal rationale.” Wills points out that what happen to Madison is he “shorted out”. He could not create a new rationale and thus his administration suffered by inaction.

My small world of politics had its comparison between the ideals I believed I saw in Clark and Dilworth as mayors. They brought a new life to the City of Philadelphia. But then I was able to watch the slow descent from any idealism through the administrations of James H.J. Tate down to the complete lack of it in his successor Frank Rizzo. Rizzo’s climax was a large headline in the Daily News, which read: RIZZO LIED! And he had.

September 11th will always be for all of us another Pearl Harbor Day. Number 911 will now be for me remembered because my beloved June and some good friends had to call 911 on September 1. I had some sort of TIA. (Most of the time here referring to the Tampa International Airport, but in my case to ‘Temporary Ischemic Attack’) It happened as we were finishing a great brunch-dinner celebration. We had as guests our interim Pastor Lin Houck and his wife Millie, Dick and Barbara Nummi, and Lou and Jean Rossetti. It was a ‘thank you’ to Lin and Millie who were leaving us since we now have a permanent Pastor on his way. We had just finished dessert when I was overcome with some strange feelings, vision blurred, and my speech slurred, and I had to be helped to the floor by Lin and Dick. They had called 911 and I was taken to the hospital where I remained over night. The diagnosis was never clearly ascertained but I had been going through several cardiac tests the weeks prior thereto in order to bring my data up to date for my new Cardiologist. There had been medicine changes and one of them was discontinued after the test in the hospital. We, June, the Pastor and I prayed a “thank you” to the Lord for giving me more time. I loved the comment of my daughter Suzanne on the day after I returned from the hospital, she said I wasn’t ‘old enough to die’. We laughed together when I remarked that I didn’t think you had any fixed age, like being old enough to drive, or to vote, etc. as to when you might leave this “bank and shoal of time”. On Monday September 9, the doctor’s news was not all good. I have an aneurysm in my abdominal aorta which is not large enough to risk an operation, but dangerous enough to limit my physical activities. It seems to be a family problem. I read recently where Frank had one and was operated on for it. Dick is about to have one by-passed on his leg. Anne put off any operation on hers until August of 2000. In addition an aortic valve is corroded and may need replacing if it results in a blockage. My blood pressure needs controlling too and it is being done with medication. We will abide by the good advice of the doctor and the directions of my beloved. I did get permission to work at the polls, and then due to another glitch in the Florida election system the Governor extended the time for the polls to stay open by two more hours. I had advised the boss at a my precinct about getting permission so he let me go at 7PM after only 13 hours, while the rest had to remain until 9 PM or 15 hours! We had a good turn out due to the governor’s race on the Democratic ticket between Reno and McBride. As predicted the newspapers, including the NYTimes, had a story about another Florida election foul up. Fortunately, September 11th being devoted to more important news the story of Florida’s election problems didn’t make much of ripple.

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

August was, and is, the month of water and sand. There were many of them spent in Sea Isle City, and Avalon in New Jersey. Then some were enjoyed at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. Looking back over the years we note, it is the month of Mary MacDonald, Paul and Dan McSorley and Mary McS Yake, birthdays. But before their birthdays had a life we celebrated Sister Mary’s, and brothers’ John’s and Frank’s (on the same day ten years apart). It is the month of our wedding day, which happily is in its 22nd year. All of that makes the month called ‘August’ bring back some august moments and times in my life.

We remember too with sadness and love that August 1st marks the day Annie went to heaven two years ago. I have her smiling at me in a picture on my piano. All I need do is look and I can hear her cackling laughter and the blurting of her words “Isn’t God good!” She is missed and remembered as one who loved with all her heart and all her soul.

Please note that the picture of the water above, with waves rushing to shore in the wind, is not what you see in the Gulf except when there’s a hurricane coming. My limited supply of graphics made this one my choice for its color and not the visual effects. We, June and I , often have noted the great difference between the Atlantic and the Gulf when it comes to waves. In the Gulf they are really nonexistent until a storm is brewing, except up along the Panhandle, in places like Panama City Beach, there are waves somewhat like you might see in Avalon or Myrtle Beach.

July ended with a miracle. The story of the Pennsylvania miners being saved after three days and being nearly washed away. It has all the earmarks of a miracle. The men praying together for the Lord to help them certainly will upset many Americans who will now insist on keeping prayer out of the work place. It reminded me of a popular saying during Second World War, “There are no atheist in foxholes”. It can now be updated to say there are none in mineshafts either.

As August begins it is like a New Year, a new beginning. The street is paved, the sod has been replaced, and we took the hottest day of the year (we learned later) to hose down the mud covered porch. The additional outside work now has raised my rank from a mere lawn keeper to a ‘grounds’ keeper. There is no increase in pay with the promotion. It is like one of those Bank promotions, you are now a “Vice President of”-whatever, but the pay remains the same.

Another surprise to begin the month was the publication of a story I wrote about my call committee duties. It was published in the Church’s monthly newsletter, called “Cross Currents”. I had written it some time ago and shared it with the other members of the committee. One of them suggested I submit it to the Cross Currents staff. I did so but never heard anything of it until Sunday July 28th when the Editor stopped me in church to tell me it was to be published and would I please go and see if the editing was acceptable. I did so and was flattered that it was being published. It had some humor that was diluted in the editing but over all it was the same. The story is how tough it was for us on the committee when visiting a prospect’s church to remain incognito. I have had no training in being a spy or a mole, and found myself as the title suggested “Lost in Baptist Country”. A part of it is about my wandering around a Lutheran church campus looking for a bible class and ending up almost entering a Baptist church.

It a New Year at the Church too. It appears that the Call Committee’s job is done. The prospect, David Swenson, a pastor from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin met with our congregation Wednesday evening July 31st . After a presentation in the Sanctuary where he was a big hit, there was a social. As one of the committee members noted there appeared to me no one who did not think highly of him. The vote on August 4 was over 90% for him as our Pastor and his compensation package. The call will be now relayed to him and he technically has 30 days in which to decide, but I understand he conditionally agreed if the vote for his coming was substantial, he would accept the call. It was, and come October we will have a new senior Pastor. It is another cause for celebrating this August 2002.

Last month I mentioned that I traveled via books from Mesopotamia to Egypt and then to Israel. I did that in a book entitled, “Walking the Bible”. The book was given to me to read some part of it by a friend, a retired Marine Colonel and now High School teacher, who attends with me the Faith Covenant Bible class on Thursday mornings. I put it aside and months went by. When I was assembling things to take on our venture north, I thought why not take it since I can scan it at times. I will have more reading time up there than here. I hadn’t planned on reading it precisely just maybe a ‘look-see’. The Bible, as one raised in the Catholic Church, was not one of the tools of learning. The formal religious education I had from grammar school through a Catholic seminary prep school and College was bible-less. My education occurred before Vatican II and in Philadelphia archdiocese at least, the Bible was not a part of any religious curriculum. This I understand has since changed. So even though I was enjoying round table discussion of various parts of the bible, the book about it was not one I thought would be of interest. In addition, it was concerned with the Old Testament, the first five books called the Torah. It was even more remote from my religious education since at least the New Testament and the Gospels were part of the Sunday Mass. All of which lead to the book remaining unread on my bookshelf. Well, did I get a surprise! It was very readable. It was an adventure in travel. The author grew in his beliefs as he made the journey. He progressed from a cynic to a man of beliefs. It was, I leaned later, a New York Times best seller, nevertheless it qualified for me as a good book since it was well written, easy to read, and full of illuminating observations. He may have started out using the Bible as a tool since it was a classic but he didn’t buy it as he went forward. It became history at its best for him. He traveled with an archeologist of renown from Israel. He even reported him as saying, “Yes I am a scientist but I can still believe”. It was such a best seller that I see he has now written a new book entitled “Abraham”.

My trip to Plains and Archery, Georgia was done with the help of former President Carter. It was an autobiography of his boyhood in Archery. It was called “An Hour Before Daylight”. He covers the time up to his leaving for the Navy. He decided after his father’s death to give up a career in the Navy. He returned home to become a farmer and an active politician, and the rest as they say “is history”. I particularly liked his telling about his Negro friends (they were not yet called ‘Afro-Americans’) whom he played with, went fishing with, and rode to town with but then they went to their theater and he went to his. He went to his church and they went to theirs.He became a friend to a very popular Negro minister who was highly regarded in the entire community. It never occurred to him as a boy that that was not they way it should be. He changed his view later when he learned how forced and unfair that separation was. He had a comment about his Dad that I could have made about my Dad. I suppose a number of contemporaries could say the same about their Dads too.

“I thought about my father often when I left home. It was not easy for me to put into words, even to my wife, Rosalyn how my early years with Dad had affected my life. I had strongly mixed feelings about him: of love, admiration, and pride, but also at least retrospective concern about his aloofness from me. I never remembered him saying, “Good job, Hut (his nickname)” or thanking me when I had done my best to fulfill one of his quiet suggestions that had the impact of orders. I used to hunger for one of his all too rare demonstrations of affection.”

It was just not the way to be a ‘good’ father in those days. I had the advantage of working in the law office with my Dad and yet it did not change his ability to display any affection but I was able to disagree with him. Even later when he lived with us the year before he died we had some real shouting matches. Anyone hearing them would think we would be unable to even talk to one another again for some time, but it wasn’t that way at all. We both got it out of our system and then went on living, and that included talking.

I was off to Panama thanks to David McCullough’s “A Path Between the Seas”. Last summer he had me enthralled with “John Adams” and he did his magic again. I got anxious as we traveled the roads of politics and engineering, medical research and mudslides as to how it would end, yet I knew the canal was there and in business. The needle of a good writer, even with what are seemingly mundane-statistical subjects, weaves a carpet of fancy and interest. Mr. Mc Cullough sure has it, and his best seller, John Adams, was just a confirmation of it. He covered the period from 1870 to 1914, from the French’s attempt to build it to when the canal was opened. He gives Theodore Roosevelt the credit for moving us to action after the French and Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal failed. The expected big opening in August 1914 was destroyed by the “Guns of August” the beginning of World War I.

Schools are open in Florida. The summer is over! So it is a good time and place for me to end this. So until next time, Pax Tecum!

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!

Those April showers never came. We are having summer early. The temperature and humidity stay high. It is even reaching the newspapers, radio and TV who keep asking the question, “Is this July or what?” Or as reported in the local paper, “The bellyaching about the heat isn’t suppose to start this soon. It’s just the beginning of May, and already people are muttering about sticky shirts and the furnace that was the family car. There is a reason for it. April in the Tampa Bay area was the fourth warmest on record. Normal high temperatures are about 84 degrees for this time of the year but we’ll be getting low 90’s for the next week or so.” The news has reminded me of an April shortly after we arrived and the temperatures hovered around the 40’s and low 50’s. The complaint raised then was Hey this is Florida we aren’t supposed to have winter weather in April. I suppose since you can’t do a thing about changing the weather that it helps somehow to talk about it. How I don’t know. But even when it is not ‘real Florida’ weather, it is a blessing when compared to the devastation it causes and has caused in other places in the world.

We continue to be surrounded by heavy equipment, piles of dirt, large concrete pipes and boxes. The job goes on and the end is not in sight. We were told that it may be by July or August, but they some smart guy added, yea, right after the snowstorm! We are fighting the lawn dying between their removing most of the sprinkler system and the weather. It appears to be a losing battle. The only small reward is no car traffic is racing up and down Connecticut Avenue. We do have enough noise and dust raising just from the Construction Equipment going back and forth.

Graduations are in the offing. We will be attending Tommy’s, David’s and Sean’s. I have blurs of graduations in the past. I know mine from High School was held in the convention center in Philadelphia. My family did not attend it. They had a wedding that day. My brother John and Patricia Sheehan were married on June 7, 1947. The family had their priorities. When you are the 13th child and seventh son the event of graduating from High School where all have done so is not usually ‘family shaking’. Yet, it was a happy day for me as with all graduations since the work was done and the reward was there. At that point we were looking forward to the next step, to the next school, and in my case an opportunity to avoid being drafted. I was registered but now can’t remember why it wasn’t with Philadelphia’s draft board but with the city of Newburgh, New York, where I would attend college. I know that in June 1947 I had reached my 18th year which was the registration age, but maybe I didn’t need to do it until I was in school. This proved to be a mistake since that small community had less to draw upon in meeting their quota and without a deferment I was off to the army. The deferment stayed with me right on through the four years, the last two of which I spent in St.Joseph’s in Philadelphia. I received another deferment on graduating from there in 1951 since I was accepted at Penn Law School. The deferment there came as the Korean War was being waged and was even more graciously accepted. But the end came in 1954 and I was off to serve. I managed the struggle of officer candidate school and was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. My graduation days weren’t over. I had to attend Naval Justice School and once again graduate. So it isn’t any wonder, now that I think about it, that I have no vivid memories of graduations, just that there were a few of them.

The history then passes to my children and now the grandchildren. I recall the first, Suzanne, with a lot more clarity than the next six. I can still see her leaving her place in the Orchestra, as a violinist, and ascending to the stage (I believe again at Convention Hall in Philadelphia) to receive an award, and then another, and then I believe another. It was easy to be the proud Papa on that occasion and with all the rest but the memory of them is not as clear as the number 1. Their graduations became as it did with mine as a quickly passing event. We were more concerned with the ‘next step’. I suppose that is good advice since the job is done we should looking to where the next challenge is and move on.

Education has become such necessary ingredient to a comfortable life that we sometimes seem to forget its real purpose. It was meant to improve the quality of living in more than just a higher paycheck. I note a essay in Atlantic Monthly speaking of how the University is just one more big business these days in competing for students, research grants, and football teams. The word ‘education’ comes from educo or “to lead from”. In Latin the word educator means ‘bringing up’ or a ‘tutor’. But the increase in the availability of a larger paycheck does help in the ‘leading from the’ state of servile labor, etc. The terms and extent of education have lengthened. My father’s generation thought a high school diploma was the ticket to better jobs and living. My Dad and Mom had both done so, and Mom had even moved on to Normal School. A Normal School in those days was a teaching college. My Dad was a grad of Central High a prestigious high school even in 1904. He was able then without entering college to go directly into law school which he did. He failed in his first year something similar to what his son would do later. He told a story of why he returned to the struggle. John Wanamakers Department store then located directly across of City Hall in Philadelphia employed him after is leaving law school. One day he was ordered to go out into south Penn Square, one of those surrounding City Hall, and help unload a truck. He apparently didn’t think that was within his job description and declined. He was advised that he persisted in this failure he would be dismissed. He opted for resigning on the spot. His ego was such that he did not want anyone to see him in such servile capacity as unloading a truck. After all he was a High School graduate and ex-Law student! His employment with John Wanamaker’s ended. When he reported this to his father, he was advised that his attitude indicated he would have difficulty working for someone, so he better go back to Law School and become his own boss. So he did and completed Law School in ’09. I only learned this story long after I myself had a struggle with the first year of law school. I flunked because of .2 or so deficit in the required over all 70 percent average. My mother had been ill and in a coma from the fall of 1951 until her death on November 15,1952. This coupled with a few friends of my father being connected with the school faculty resulted in my being allowed to continue into the second year. I was permitted only after agreeing that at then of that year my total average over all had to be over 70%. I did it. In fact I breeze through the third year and received an award on graduation as the most improved ball player.(It actually read “student”). I was the prime candidate for such an award since I was below the last person in the class as we entered the second year so any improvement had to be the “most”.

Graduations are not just for the young. You read often of a senior citizen, or one nearly such, achieving the goal of obtaining a degree years after most go to school. There was one reported in our local paper of a woman who quit school to work on the farm and now 66 years later at the age of 79 will receive her Bachelor’s Degree. She tells a story of having a son ask her for help in Algebra. It made her decide to go back and get her High School diploma. She graduated at 42 with her 18-year-old daughter. Her name was Ellen Fox. The paper reports, “Fox didn’t enroll in college because it was a stepping stone to $80,000 a year job. She went to enrich herself, she said, and she has realized the power of an education” The power of an education has induced many to persevere and even begin again. It is a power that fuels our natural curiosity to know, to learn to enjoy subjects even more by knowing them better. It is a power most evident in a child and it grows with us as we learn. All of which you know, but it is good to be reminded once in a while. I am not advocating or suggesting that a ‘degree’ indicates one is educated. We all know too many ‘intelligentsia’, a so called educated person, with a string of degrees after their name who are educated beyond their intelligence. In simple English they make no, or little, connection with reality. My spouse and one time learned editor would refer to them as having no ‘common sense’. I endorse the idea I that an “educated man” is one who has learned how to learn and never stops doing so. I like to think I strive for that goal daily.

Presently, I am in the midst of a new educational experience. I am working on what is named a “Call Committee” for the Lutheran Church of the Cross. It is composed of six members named by the Church council. Their first job is to prepare what is termed a “profile”. It is a form created by the Synod to assist them in deciding who might fit as the pastor, leader, of this congregation. It is a 16-page document. It includes history, statistics, opinions as voiced by the congregation, with subjects like Ministry and Structure, Mission in the Community, General Congregation Information and History, etc. It took us from October till January to prepare the document. We then submitted it to the synod. They approved it or it would have been returned. From that they attempt to match a profile of those seeking to be called to a new pastorate. All of this culminates in our interviewing and visiting proposed leaders. I have never had an experience similar to this in my past. It is a new challenge and requires me to call upon skills I am not so sure I possess but pray the Lord will provide. It is a ‘leading from’ my past knowledge, an education in how some churches select their leaders. It does in an odd way remind me of my thoughts while working on a civic association committee to recommend traffic changes in the neighborhood. Our job was to find from the people what they thought ought to be added to the streets to decrease speeding and danger to children. We worked with the Traffic Department of the city and its engineers who gave us ideas that might be applied, like more stop signs, traffic circles, traffic bumps, etc. We came up with a plan for certain streets and then the residents where allowed to vote on their being utilized. After months of work and planning a campaign from some source decided that all the suggested changes should be ignored. It so happened. The people voted them down. Ninety percent of the voters never studied the proposals but we understand a candidate for mayor had let it be known he didn’t want the program carried out. My thoughts then were that after all this work the system in Philadelphia was better. There the traffic engineers in the Traffic Department just installed what they believe will work. The democratic process is ignored and no one seems worse the wear for it. So sometimes I feel the system of pastor selection with congregation’s input should just be ignored and let the bishop name whomever he feels can do the job. No system is perfect and the recent scandal in the Roman Catholic Church shows even Bishops and Cardinals make mistakes. So we want your prayers to get us the man we need. Oro pro nobis!

We pray that April will bring some of those showers ‘that bring May flowers’. We continue to need the rain. We need it not only for the grass and plants around us but we have a dirt road running in front and along the side of the house. The rain would subdue some of the dust which wind, cars, and huge earth moving vehicles send flying into our home. The project on the sewers seems endless and more and more we live with big Cats, earthmovers, huge dirt trucks, enormous backhoes, excavators and pickup trucks continually using Connecticut Avenue and Helena Street. We had Bill and his children here for the week and most of the time we had to park in someone else’s driveway on Helena Street. Fortunately all our neighbors being subject to the same invasion have no problem letting others use them. We at least ask which is more than the contractor does who just drops huge cement boxes and pipes and other things on their lawns. The explanation is always, ‘Oh but we’ll give you sod for it when we finish’. I’ve seen the sod and it is probably the cheapest you can buy and will need lots of care to make grow. We are without half of our sprinkler system since this project began and it appears we will lose more as it progresses down and under Connecticut Avenue. Ah! Such is the price of progress!

Back in 1965 I had an experience which in a very small way is being repeated today. In those days as a young lawyer who now had seven children with the youngest a mere 2 years of age, and the oldest near 11, I was busy making a living. Part of that living was being active in the politics of the city. I was an elected committeeman in my precinct but it was more like being a volunteer. I was accepted by the party and then placed on a ballot with no opposition. People were as averse to being active in politics then as they are now. I had gotten the bug from my father who had always been active. I came out of the Marine Corp about the same time the Prince of Camelot was emerging. I even did some street corner soliciting on his behalf in 1960. My participation continued into 1963/64 by helping the former President of City Council James H.J.Tate’s run for the post he had inherited from Richardson Dilworth. Dilworth had left it to run for governor in 1962. So in 1965 you could have described me as a ‘politician’. In fact in the campaign for Mayor in 1964 I was even temporarily a candidate on the Mr.Tate’s ticket. It was not a real ticket but one, which he proposed in case the party thought, as it started to do so, that Alex Hemphill, the former Controller, was a better candidate. They didn’t and my candidacy ended but not before a humorous incident occurred. I was listed on this ticket as a candidate for ‘Register of Wills’.

How that came about is, I know now a typical political story, but at the time I thought it a bit unusual. I was a classmate in college and law school with Michael Stack. Mike’s dad had been a congressman until he opposed FDR. He lost the nomination the next time around. Mike was James H.J.Tate’s campaign manager. I was on business in Miami and received a phone call from Mike. He told me about the possible endorsement by the City Democratic Party of Alex and the thoughts that Jim Tate had about forming a ticket. He then asked me which office would I like to run for: Councilman at large, 10th District Councilman, or Register of Wills! I thought it all a bit unusual but said “Oh well, why not the Register of Will, since I knew the law of wills and estates”. So I was put on the proposed ticket at candidate for Register.

The then Register of Wills, John E. Walsh was not happy with the idea of any opposition in a primary. He was the attorney I had served under in the In Oh Ho murder trial. He was a good friend of my father. As the date neared when candidates could withdraw, he came to our office. My father called me in to discuss with him my withdrawal. I advised that my candidacy was strictly a front and when Jim Tate said it was safe to withdraw, I would. John Walsh was a bit upset, but my father cheered him by saying, “Don’t worry John, even if Paul is still on the ticket, you’ll get my vote!” Both John and Mr. Tate were elected. So in 1965 having seven mouths to feed and looking for an opportunity to expand, I requested Mayor Tate to submit my name to a panel that was creating for him a Board of Education. Prior to this time, a Superintendent who was appointed by the Mayor ran the schools. The chairman of this Board was to be the ex-Mayor, Richardson Dilworth. I had great admiration for Mr.Dilworth since he came into the limelight as a reformer just as I came out of high school. He went from District Attorney to Mayor with his running mate Joseph Clark, changing the political makeup of the city, which had existed for some 60 years prior. So I looked forward to serving with him.

On the panel of eight members two knew me from my past. One was Brother Daniel Bernian, FSC He was then President of LaSalle College (now University). He had been my homeroom brother and track moderator in high school. The other was Ted Husted who was the assistant dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School while I was there. So the odds looked better than average. However the interviews were conducted by a Rev.Henry Nicholas, a union president, minister, and what is today referred to as an “African American”. He asked the questions. I answered. One question was: “How did I feel about “integrated” education?(Or words to that effect). Integration of the races was a major political issue in those days. I answered by offering the opinion that I believed in it. I should have left it at that but I added that my belief was based on the Jesuitical principles I had encountered in college, that education should be ‘integrated’, namely, that the spiritual side and material side should be give equal weight in the curriculum. It was not the answer he sought. I was not named to the board though I got encouraging plugs from Brother Daniel and Ted. So ended my campaign to be named to a Board of Education. That remained true until this past month when I succeeded in becoming a school board member. This time on a much smaller scale as a member of the School Board of the Lutheran Church of the Cross Day School. This time there was no campaign, no interview I merely responded to a request made to me often and over time to volunteer my services. The school covers pre-kindergarten through 6th grade. It is an integrated education as I referred to it back there in ’65. I look forward to trying to be of some help.

 

It appears, despite my best intentions, that all that I have written so far in these Jottings could be called ‘memoir’. Yet, I suppose any of these monthlies could be so called. I like to recall Frank McCourt’s comment in an interview about his best selling memoir, “Angela’s Ashes”. He was asked about an apparent challenge to the facts as he set them forth. His response was, that it was his memoir, so it was his recollections that controlled. So too are these recollections of mine. Politics for me was always fun and important. My participation is and was beyond what duty required but I also had hopes of serving. It is true too those hope were tainted a bit with pride but the motives were basically sound. I have even continued my interest here in Florida by becoming a participant in the voting process. It irks me to hear people complain about it being dirty and beyond there concern when we have the privilege of participating via politics the way we are governed. It is something not found around the world. It is a gift as precious as life itself yet we demean it, castigate it, and then waste our chance to participate by not doing the minimal, i.e., voting. One particular incident occurred here, which is typical. I went to a polling place to take my job as one who welcomes and as a ballot assistant. We opened a half-hour before the voting time. It was located in the community hall of a mobile home development. As we did so a number of men came up on the porch and took seats around a table. They had coffee with them. I thought they were waiting to vote. But when the polls opened and they did not come in. I asked one of the workers who lived there who they were and what they were doing together on the porch. It was a daily coffee klatch of guys living in the development. So I went out to them and asked if they were coming into vote. It was a general election including state offices and congressional representative. They said no. One them espoused that he hadn’t voted since Wallace lost the election! I left them but with the pain of thinking what a waste democracy seem to be on such citizens. But then I am an optimist and keep hoping that maybe the next time more people will exercise this precious gift by taking part in their government.

I had another successful book bargain purchase. This time it was with an author I have not read before but knew of from a TV series. It is Larry McMurtry. His series on TV was ‘Lonesome Dove’ which I remember June and I watching while snow fell outside. It won some awards. I had a chance to get the sequence to it, “Dead Man’s Walk”, his essays on the West, entitled “Sacagawea’s Nick Name”, and “Duane Depressed” all for under 20 bucks. The essays are interesting in that they show how the good salesman ship of Buffalo Bill, Kit Carson, other travelling shows and Hollywood created the so-called ‘Wild West’. They also show as the title indicates how at one time Sacagawea got the nickname Janey. I found “Dead Man’s Walk” tough to stay with but “Duane Depressed” has made happy with the purchase. It is Walden Pond in a Texan setting. He has his character acting like Henry David Thoreau and in fact about half way through it one other minor characters observes that Duane is acting like David. The craziest thing he does in this oil town, called Thalia, is walk. He locks up his pick-up truck and hides the keys and decides to walk away from business, family, friends, and the noise of town to the solitude of his cabin in the woods six miles away. Walking in Texas is apparently unheard of so the townsfolk who once thought the world of Duane now think he’s left it. It is his coming of age with the reality that life is not all money and things. He is 62 years of age and he feels like he’s let a lot of things slip by and now with time running out he better see if he can find them. The saga is not over as I write this but McMurtry really has me wondering how he is going to end it.

As I close let me add that we have gotten some of those April Showers, now if we can just get our street back…The visitor list is now down to Mary Lou who will be gone before the day of reckoning, April 15, arrives. Pax vobiscum! Peace be with you!

March is the month of Memories. Today “memories” is out and “memoir” is in. The difference is not only in the spelling but also in the effect. No one writes his memories of this or that; it is his or her memoir. The word carries an aura of being learned though it is just the French word for memory. It reminds me of the difference between “escargot” and snail. The menu would not look as inviting if it offered “Snails” (stuffed or plain), but when it reads “Escargot”, Ah! Now there’s an item worth ordering. It is the same with ‘cul de sac’. You only hear a ‘dead end’ referred to as a ‘cul de sac’ when the properties around it are worth more than three hundred thousand dollars (give or take a thou). But memoirs regardless of what they are called are very popular these days and some have even become best sellers, like, “Angela Ashes” by Frank McCourt.

There are today courses available on how to write your memoir. They are offered here in local community centers. They are popular with “senior” citizens, another euphemism for men and women who are sufficiently chronologically gifted to receive their social security benefits. I have a friend who is over 85 who took one of those courses. On his 85th birthday he presented his family and friends with his Memoir, an autobiography of his life. It was 148 pages long and he also had it on a CD. The pages were 8 ½ by 11 inches and scattered about were pictures. It clearly demonstrated a great deal of work. He told me about attending the classes on writing it. He confirmed what he learned by doing it. As he went through his memories he supported them with historical events obtained from the library and newspapers. He recounted the historic events of the year, or period, and the part he played in them. It was an admirable and Herculean task, but I find it difficult to read. Writing I enjoy has spoiled me. I have had enough of plodded reading in my life. In honor of our friendship I tried to go back and read some. I do find it of interest and then the style wears on me so I quit. I have that same problem with my brother’s memoir of our family. I find I only enjoy plodding for a short time and then only if there is a reasoning sequence that holds me. But I come to some writing like the biography of John Adams, by David McCullough, and there’s no more plodding I sail through it with joy. All of this is by way of explaining I am not disposed to write my memoirs, as some kind and complimentary friends have suggested. I do enjoy reviewing and renewing some of my memories of the past, but not the task of putting them into a book. I suppose what I have written over the past ten years if put together would make a “book”, but I am afraid it would fall into one of those “plodding” kind I referred to above.

One of my memories of the big day in March, St.Patrick’s Day, is the reward given to the first member of the household who got to the piano and played “Wearing of the Green”. I never had a chance since I couldn’t play the piano then even in the manner I play it now. I had the offer to take piano lessons in grade school, as my sisters were doing, but I turned it down. It was because it was offered in tandem with joining the Boy Scouts. It was piano or summer camp. So it was as I recall always a reward won by one of the sisters. I do remember wearing a green tie or something green on my clothes as I was off to school. Later I remember it became the day of alcohol in as many varieties and quantity that was available. That is not one of those things I remember with joy. What I do recall now about St.Patrick is his contribution to the culture of the Western world. Thomas Cahill in his book “How the Irish Saved Civilization” credits the monasteries and abbeys established by him as creating the people responsible during the Dark Ages of preserving the literature of Greece and Rome. Through their painstaking copying of the documents in to Latin and/or their own language we have today those works of Aristotle, Plato, the early historians like Josephus, etc. The translating reminds me of the story recently circulated supposedly about the Pope looking at the original translation of some early Christian document notices a smudge near one of the words. He then hies him self down to the basement (or wherever those originals were kept) and looks it up. He returns and is filled with excitement as he exclaims, “It is celebrate, not celibate!” You can imagine the consternation that caused. But even if it were a reality rather than a story it probably wouldn’t have left the confines of the Roman Curia. I read with interest in Bishop Frank’s (my brother) letters from Vatican II that he forty years ago observed that the Curia, i.e., the Vatican spokesperson, just never admits mistakes past or present. Gary Wills published a whole book on the subject recently entitled, “Papa Sins”. But then whom of us are ready to admit mistakes even in our everyday affairs, so it comes as no surprise that the Curia doesn’t either.

I have a daily calendar on my desk with each day having an Irish verse, or saying or just observations like “This land is a region of dreams and trifles”. It reads on March 17,”The man known as St.Patrick is an historically controversial figure. According to whom you believe, he was one person, three people, or didn’t exist at all. Whatever the truth, he is the patron saint of Ireland.” (Morgan Llywelyn) I wondered if any or even some of those Irishmen who march in New York on his day really care if he is the patron saint or not?

I play the piano on Thursdays, when I am able, at an Assisted Living Place, called “Fountain Inn”. I play at mealtime, one Thursday at the noon meal, and on the other the one o’clock lunch. It is fun and since they are eating I feel they don’t hear all the mistakes, nor really miss the quality of a good piano player. I have been at this place for a couple of years. In addition, I play twice a month at a Nursing home nearby. I like to feel welcomed and love the “Thank-Yous”. On one of my visits a year or so ago at Fountain Inn I got some comments from a gentleman along the lines of “Ohh..here comes plinkedy plink!” or words to that effect. He definitely wasn’t pleased. I tried to later say hello, shake his hand, and get his name all to no avail. He would have none of it. I later learned from others and the Activity Chairperson that he was a perpetual groaner, so I played along with his groans. I would announce when he saw me and started to groan, “Here comes plinkedy plink, after all I gotta practice somewhere!” I even offered him earplugs one time that I found left over from one of my trips to the Via de Christo camp. They give them to you since you are sleeping in a dorm type place in case some of your brothers snore. Our nameless friend refused them. Then one day this month I arrived and the hallway outside the dining room was filled with people engaged in a game. It was a horse race. The hall was the track and the figures were moved with the roll of dices to numbered places. I went around the game and into the dining room. On one side of the entrance is the piano, on the other side are several chairs and a couch against the walls. My buddy groaner was sitting there groaning. This time it was about the game going on in the hallway. I set up my music sheets and started playing. Then I heard some one singing. It was my music critic and he was singing, “Have You Ever Been Lonely”. After I finished the number I was playing he asked me did I know it! I didn’t have the music with me but I promised to bring it next time. I did, and he sang it, and I had the joy of seeing the moaning groaner become a crooner, more or less. It gave me a happy feeling that I had persevered in being nice to him and going along with his groans. But I never would have believed that one-day he would request a song! Nor even more so that he would sing along with his old buddy “plinkedy plink”. It makes going back for the noon lunch at Fountain Inn a lot more pleasant now that he, still of no name, is “singing along”. In this establishment I at least have people moving by me to eat their meal, with walkers, or wheel chairs, or canes, but at Shore Acres the Nursing home they are almost all wheeled in to the big front hall to suffer for a while. I have a standard bad story about the playing there, it is “I never get a standing ovation!” (Speaking of groans!).

The second Saturday in March I attended a luncheon in the nearby community of Dunedin. It was a reunion of West Catholic Alumni who live in the area. It occurs once a year. I first attended in 1999. It has grown in the attendance. It was quite a surprise when I first heard of the event and then it became more of one as I noticed the number grow. This year over 90 people attended and there are such events throughout Florida. They have them scattered about from Jacksonville, to Miami, to Naples, and up to Pensacola. It is a wonder that over 1000 miles from a high school in Philly so many alumni are gathered. This year was on the water in a restaurant called “Bon Apetite” in Dunedin, a community about 25 miles north of here. It is men and women though only one high school remains. It is now a combined boys and girls of some 800 whereas when I graduated there were nearly 3000 in the school. It is a highly diversified school. Fifty one percent are Catholics, and a majority of the balance Christian, and the rest a mixture of religions. The ethnic make up is likewise diverse. The luncheon is not a fundraiser, though the President (use to be Principal) does remind the attendees that the school depends heavily on donations. The hostess-emcee opened her remarks with what might be called a Catholic joke. “What are two things even God doesn’t know? The number of third orders of St. Francis and what’s in the mind of a Jesuit!” It got a fair response. Until next time Pax Vobiscum!

Ten years ago, sometime in 1992, I began this venture of writing something each month. It went under different names at the time. I have just reread some of those musings and they are amusing! Here is one that I like recalling and it has a present application!

“Writing a paragraph a day keeps the dust away. Somebody already said this I’m sure. Writing makes for analysis, precision, and thought. The trouble is, like my father used to say, ‘Thoughts of what, and really, who cares?’ I don’t have an answer. I suppose a lifetime of dictating letters, responses to other letters, petitions, briefs, etc. just can’t be tossed aside; it’s an addiction, like running. You feel good doing it and yet never really have to know why. You did it (the running) to lose weight, then to compete and now to stay in shape. Writing becomes a necessity: first, to make a living and then it created a habit that’s hard to put quietly to rest. Early in the practice I even wrote a weekly column called “The Foxchase Lawyer”. It was a rehash of legal ideals, ideas and problems. The deadlines did just that-kept you in line so you had to finish one and start the next.”

This was written sometime in April of 1992 but I find it just as applicable today. I still hear the “Who cares?” expressed to me by several people and I still don’t have an answer.

Those same pages talk about my walks with my father. I was a young lawyer in his office from 1958 until 1966, when he quit. During those times we would have occasion to walk a few blocks from our office to the City Hall where the court rooms were located. On the way we invariably had to greet, and in some cases stop and chat, with some passing friends of Dad’s. They were usually some one who was prominent in politics or the judiciary of the city. He did these things without any attempt to show off to his son, but he never overlooked mentioning, as we left the party, ” that was so and so he’s a judge on the blank court, or whatever was his position “. He was an active participant in the city’s affairs. One day in my early practice I was in line before a judge to make an application for Bail . After waiting sometime it was my turn to approach the bench, when there was a stir in the courtroom as someone entered with a burst and a came directly up to the bench next to me. It was, as I was to later learned, the then well-known Attorney Cecil B. Moore. He began to address the judge and I informed him that I was next. The Judge asked me to step aside since Mr.Moore had so many applications, or whatever. Since he was the “judge” I had no choice. Later Mr.Moore asked me who I was, (it was more like ‘who did I think I was?’) He mentioned the Marine Corp. He thought I should have known who he was and acted as a PFC marine does in presence of a General. I thought otherwise but said nothing. His day of reckoning came not too long after. I mentioned the affair to my Dad and he remembered that the said important attorney was appearing and had appeared before him as a Master in one of his divorce cases. Dad as usual being opposed to divorce in principle made certain, contrary to most Masters at the time, that there was “evidence” of the alleged cause. It had given Mr. Moore much trouble and repeated hearings still without success. It so happened that a few days after General Moore had snubbed this private, he walked into our office just as I was passing the front door. He was coming for another one of those hearings on this divorce matter. He stopped and gawked at me. He said,” Oh, your related to ‘that McSorley’!” I smiled and said yes, sensing he now wished he had a friend, not an unhappy camper, in the court of ‘McSorley-The Master’. Time put Mr. Moore and I together one more time. I had been appointed as an assistant counsel in the murder case of In-Ho-Oh, a Korean student beaten to death by a gang on a street in West Philadelphia. It was a highly publicized matter. The Mayor, then Dilworth, was pictured in Time magazine and elsewhere, crying at the wake for the young man. Cecil B. Moore,Esq. had the first of nine defendants, Flip Borum. His trial lasted several weeks. He was convicted and Mr. Moore filed motion for a new trial. This was a required step in procedure prior to appealing to a higher court. The case I was on was of Harold Johnson he was number 6 or 7 down the line and it was nearly a year before he was tried. I was assisting John Walsh the appointed chief trial counsel. Borum had received a death sentence. Our client was found guilty and given 10 to 30 years (as I now recall). We filed an appeal when our motion for a new trial was summarily denied. Under the law appeals in first-degree murder case go directly to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The chief appointed counsel, John Walsh, wanted nothing to do with the appeal. It was my ballgame. I hit a home run. The case was reversed and a new trial ordered. It resulted in Borum, Mr.Moore’s case being considered reversible since the evidence presented was similar. Shortly after the Supreme Court decision, which made the front pages of the then “Evening Bulletin”, I was standing on Broad Street near Girard Avenue, as I recall, and a car pulled up and offered me a ride into City Hall. The driver was Cecil B.Moore, Esq., He advised me that the District Attorney was ready to deal with a new sentence for Borum rather than a new trial. He congratulated me on my success and wanted to thank me for helping his client. In our case, we made a deal with the DA for Harold Johnson who had been by that time in jail for 7 years. He was released upon agreeing to turn state’s evidence in any future trials made necessary by the Supreme Court’s decision. Mr. Moore now made me, so it seemed, at least a ‘staff sergeant’ in the Philadelphia Corp of Lawyers. Cecil had a tough life. He became a victim of John Barleycorn, or booze as it sometimes referred to, and died fairly young. While we were driving into City Hall I saw confirmed what had been a rumor about him, namely, that he was living out of his automobile. It certainly looked it. Today there are signs on the parts of Columbia Avenue in Phildelphia that read “Cecil B. Moore Avenue” placed there in memory Cecil. I like my father had had some contact with those whom some would call “prominent” in the legal society of the city. I vividly recall some years later passing one day through the City Hall Court yard and saluting an old friend, Supreme Court Justice, James McDermott. I learned not two weeks later that on Father’s day he went before the Supreme Judge. But I hadn’t greeted him because he was a Justice but, just like my Dad, because he was a friend. I prayed for him upon hearing the news.

The best news a lawyer ever receives, after a representing a client in a criminal matter, is that the client-defendant turns his life around. It doesn’t happen often that you have such a dramatic informing as I did some ten years after the Harold Johnson matter. I was then, in 1970, the Commissioner of Records for the City. I had an office on the first floor of City Hall. Over the door of the office in the hall was sign with my name on it. One day my secretary came in and informed me that there was a gentleman outside asking if I was ‘the’ Mr. McSorley who had represented at one time a Harold Johnson. I told her yes. She then escorted Harold Johnson into my office. We had a reunion. He had turned his life around. He was a father of four and working at making a good life for himself and them. It was a pleasing moment for both of us. I can’t think of any other time when I had such great confirmation that people can, and do, change.

I had a few criminal cases after Ho. But in 1971 I was retired (?) by the then elected Mayor Frank Rizzo from position as Commissioner of Records. I was just a practicing lawyer but with seven children and I was looking for a subsidy. I did get several defense attorney appointments and found myself in one case defending a client where the ADA (Asst. District Attorney) was a young man named Ed Rendell. He later made a name for himself as “America’s Mayor”. However jury trials for me came to a crashing close when Adrian Lee a columnist for the “Evening Bulletin” wrote a story about me. He noted that I was now sitting on the Jury Commission, i.e., those who sought qualified people to serve on Juries and at the same time I was representing defendants charged in criminal matters before juries. He had some idea that I, as a commissioner, had some inside information on the jurors to be selected. It was baloney. The information was a matter of public record. It was available to the District Attorney as well as the defense counsel. Nevertheless, I had a superior who was apprehensive of any derogatory information about his commission or its members be circulated, regardless of the truth or falsity of the same. He required me to give up appearing before juries. So it came to be that I never again tried a criminal jury case.

The article by Adrian Lee was very flattering in many ways since it told the story of my successes and how much I had been paid for many many days of trial that compared to the price most criminal lawyers charged and received for similar service, it was a bargain. The only thing, aside from the factual error about my having inside dope, which really annoyed me, was the picture accompanying the article. In it I was fat. It had been taken when I ran for the Legislature in 1966.The article was published in 1971. I was running by then and had have even completed a marathon. I was down to 155 lbs. I was some 50 pounds less than I was in the picture. It was not even the same face. But I had the consolation which my father once offered about having something written in the newspaper about you, namely, as a young lawyer it can’t hurt as long as the spell your name right. They had done that.

In a theater here in the next week or so the play “Da” will be performed. June and I saw it when it was on Broadway several years ago. It is the story of young successful Irishman returning from London to Dublin to settle his father’s affairs. The dad had died and most of the scenes take place in the Father’s (Da) house. As the young man roams about the house he keeps bumping into the dead Da. They keep going over matters left unsettled in his Da’s mind but of no consequence or the like in the Son’s mind. It is a typical representation of an Irish belief and tradition. The old man never leaves you even when you both leave the house/home or he dies. He is always there looking over your shoulder to correct your actions or warn you about taking some. It happens. Let me tell you that in my life even though my father died in 1970 he still keeps reminding me of what I should be doing, or forgot to do. I have a picture of him standing with a prayer book in a church. It was taken by a professional photographer at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington as he was witnessing his oldest son, a new bishop, celebrate Mass. But I really don’t need the picture to be reminded of things he propounded, like “stop wasting your time!” etc.

It seems somewhat appropriate in this month of remembering famous political figures of the past that I looked back to some less famous political figures in my past. I hope we didn’t bore you too much and that not too many will give it one of my father’s “Who cares?” reviews.

Now it is 2002! But a question is how do you pronounce it? Is it two thousand two, or twenty oh-two, or twenty zero two? As noted in a column in the N.Y.Times we had no problem (nor with 2000 &2001) with nineteen two for 1902, and so forth, but why is it more common now to say two thousand and two not twenty two? One excuse offered is that “nineteen two” is not as ambiguous as “twenty-two” might be. It is just a quirk of English. Some put the blame on Arthur Clarke’s book, movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey” since it was referred to as Two Thousand One: Space etc. But it was never advertised that way when first promoted.  Well, regardless of how you decide to call it, 2002 is here. It is a time to be thankful for all the blessings of the last year and continue to thank the Lord for those we will be receiving in the coming one. (This information on ‘how we should pronounce the figure 2002’ is provided for those who like to say of jotting subjects “Who cares?!”)

A blessing reminds me of a story. Our friend and pastor Jerry Straszheim told it  last year. He had a very strict Father. His Dad was home alone baby sitting him and his older brother. He was about seven. They were in their bedroom and Jerry was trying to go to sleep but his brother kept making noises and talking. They heard the booming voice of their Dad, “Go to sleep up there!” But his brother kept it up. Next thing he heard was “clomp, clomp, clomp,…” his father coming up the stairs. He opens the door and turns on the light. He booms, “Didn’t I tell you to go to sleep?” He puts out the light and begins to shut the door, but just as he is closing it Jerry’s brother says” Why don’t YOU go to sleep?” Jerry hoped his father hadn’t heard him. He hears the clomp, clomp. down the stairs, and then a further clomp, clomp, clomp, down into the basement. This meant only one thing. He was going to get the switch! Sure enough up he comes and burst into the room. Both he and his brother received spankings. The point he makes is, that was spanking I didn’t deserve. So some of things we get which we don’t deserve are not pleasant or good things. But it makes us, or should make us, think of all the good things we get that we likewise don’t deserve.  Things like love of Parents, good home, food every day, care when we are sick, and on and on and on. The gift of Life given to us by the Lord we didn’t “deserve”. All of which should make us thank the Lord every day. It is a good thought with which to start a New Year.

Since February of last year I have been keeping a daily journal. It is something recommended for improving your writing skills.  Recently I came across at a book sale a “fragment of autobiography” by P.D.James. P.D. is a woman. The ‘P’ is for Phyllis. She has written some sixteen books in the detective story style. I have enjoyed many of them. The “fragment” is a memoir or journal, which she began on her 77^th birthday, in August of 1997. She titled it, “Time to Be In Earnest”. The title is taken from a line by Dr. Samuel Johnson, which in full reads, “At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.” Good advice at any age but particularly with the end of life in view. She speaks of things that occurred to me as I tried to write a paragraph on two each day on the day’s events, thoughts, etc. Her thoughts have to do with what do you include and what do you forget about.  Here is what she says, “I realize that a diary should be written up daily even if the day is without particular events and there seems little of note worth recording. No day is really without interest, being filled with thoughts, memories, plans, moments of particular hope and occasional moments of depression. Every day is lived in the present, but also vicariously in the past and one could write a novel of 100,000 words covering just one hour of a human life. But it seems too egotistical to spend the last hours of every day contemplating the minutiae of unrecoverable moments. I say my prayers and am grateful for the comfort of bed” I agree. Many of the items I found myself writing about were ‘minutiae’ but I excused myself by feeling I was at least writing. The easy excuse is to tell yourself, “Well, nothing exciting happened today so  forget the journal”.  It then loses its purpose of helping to improve those skills.

P.D. had another story that pleased me about Henry James. You know the author of “Bostonians” and others extensive novels in which he seemed bent on using forty words where four would do. He was prone to do the same when chatting. When he was invited to tea he tilted his chair back until it was balanced on the two back legs. He kept his balance by holding onto the table. “Henry James did this whenever he came to tea…and as his long sentences untwined themselves the chair would slowly tilt backwards and the children’s eyes would be fixed on it, hoping that it would finally overbalance and deposit James on the floor… indeed one day it happened. The chair went over and the novelist, undismayed, was flung on the floor. He was unhurt and, after a moment, completed his characteristically ceremonious and flowery sentence.” I am not surprised.

Looking back is always  expected  when a year closes. We all will be looking back to this year for years to come because of September 11^th. It will be the Pearl Harbor, the “Day of Infamy”, of this generation. But I look back to many joyful hours along with a few sad ones.  April brought Dan’s run in the Boston Marathon and made his Dad very proud. In May we lost Lee Saukitis to the Lord.  In June, I had fun telling every one that “June’s in Jail (Federal Prison) this weekend”. She was there of course with the Kairos movement to bring faith and hope of the Lord to the inmates. In the same month celebrated Dan and Marge’s 50^th wedding anniversary in Sarasota, Florida with their children and grandchildren. It was a glorious and festive occasion marred only by the bureaucratic bombast of the church delaying the Baptism of a grand child. Thanks to the initiative of Sister-Lawyer Rosemary and her pastor Father Pat, it too was overcome. July we spent with the gang at Ardsley and North Wildwood. It ended with a memorial Mass for Anne on August 1^st. There was  a luncheon and a chance to chat with many of the Lukens, Sr. Mary, Marge and Dan, and many more. We headed then to the “Elks River Retreat”. It is not called that but it became so for us because of the surroundings and the time we had there. It is really the home of Rich and Shirley McSorley in Northeast, Maryland on the Elk River. They had a house for us next to theirs overlooking the river some 400 yards up the side of a hill. We could sit on the porch with its humming bird feeder and look one way to the expanse of the river with the beauty of the water making like a flickering mirror.  Then we could look the opposite way, up the hill, to the tree line, and see deer duck in and out. There was an oak tree which spread itself  like a canopy over the front yard  of Rich and Shirley’s home. It reminded me of the short walk I made after I first arrived in Philadelphia. I stopped at my son Paul’s home. He lives but a half a block from where we had lived and he was raised. Thirty years ago we planted a sycamore tree in front of the house by the street. When I walked down to the house I was amazed at its growth. It was as tall as the house, which sits 15 feet up on a small raised hill from the street. It stretched seemingly from one end of the house to the other and likewise across half of the street. Seeing that tree at our Elk River Retreat and the one in Philly reminded me of some lines from  “O Pioneers” by Willa Cather. One of the characters, Marie, talks about trees, she says,”… I’m a good Catholic but I think I could get along with caring for trees, if I hadn’t anything else… I feel that way. I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything. I begin just where I left off.”  In the presence of a beautiful large oak as it spread over Rich and Shirley’s lawn on a quiet summer day, it was easy to understand Marie’s feelings.

This  was the site on August 4^th of the McSorley’s Cousins Party. We got to see Mary and Ron and their three heroes once again, Dan and Marge and two grandchildren, and Mary McSorley Shertz . We were busy after our return right up to the day we left to go back for Thanksgiving. We were both on Via de Christo teams with weekends in November. Our return trip  was so delayed that we didn’t get into our driveway until 2:45 AM. It was another oft-heard story of the delay of flights, etc. It is not something we care to remember but it will be difficult to forget. On our arrival back we learned that a good friend Burnie Lakin had died. She had been ill now for several years and was waiting for a Liver transplant but then was over taken by other ailments. I will always remember her pleasant good humor even when she was suffering. I will also remember dancing with her at the wedding of friends on the New Year’s Eve of 2000. She remarked that ‘it wouldn’t be a wedding if you didn’t dance’. The first task after unpacking was June’s handling a luncheon for Burnie’s memorial service two days after we returned. The year ended with the continuing of the street being torn up. It starting December 17^th, enormous machines surrounded us, a large pump was placed on that sacred lawn and went noisily day and night until January 5^th. Our driveway is a beach from the sand accumulated in the gutter. We now have a cul de sac and all our guests for the various dinners had to work the way around the construction to make it to the driveway. But now the noise has stopped and someday the street will be reopened, but right now it is great having all the quiet. Happy year 2002, to all of you! (No matter how you pronounce it!)