Paul McSorley's Jottings

At last the rain stopped! It has been going now for three days! June noted that it seems we moved to Seattle…the rain capital of USA…Another thought was one more day and we’d start building the Ark. It made 1996 a record weather year at both ends. In January it set a mark of 36 plus inches of snow in one day and now here in December it set, with the help of the other eleven months, a record for rain. It was over 55 inches for the year! The record for the rain goes all the way back in 1873 (if you really care to know.) So 1996 will be a “Weather Record Year” if nothing else. We’d be happy not to be a party to any more such records, thank you!!

The year also closes the “record” on the firm (?) of “McSorley and McSorley”. There remains some matters to be ended still, namely two domestic relations case and two adoptions. One of the family law matter I hope to refer out and one of the adoptions Richard T. will handle the hearing…the end is near even if some things linger. As you can envision closing a law office is not quite a matter of shutting the office door and disconnecting the phone. I have some 200 original wills. I have directed letters to all indicating I wish their instructions regarding them. Some are more than 20 years old and we are getting a great number of returned envelopes advising us that the address is no longer apt…so we linger though the end is near. Today, Sunday the 15^th, I moved 8 file boxes to be disposed. There remain some 12 more that need to be examined to see if any of the records should be maintained. I keep all adoption files. In fact I have records, in the form of index cards for Dad’s adoptions going clear back to the early 40’s. Over the years we’ve gone to them for request from people who are looking for their natural parents. I had a call just this month from a woman who was adopted by the Hoffnagles. They were a name even I remembers since they adopted 13! We were unable to help. She had been adopted in 1947 or 48. In addition I have furniture, books, equipment, and the like that need to be disposed of. I would be happy to supply anyone with a list if they think they might use something or know of some who might. Just let me know!

The end of the year brings memories of what transpired since last January. The trips to Avalon, Myrtle Beach, St Petersburg, Nova Scotia, Plymouth, and of course our US tour, Connecticut and N.Y We even thought for a while we would be heading for Orlando once again for the Pop-Warner Super Bowl but the guys didn’t make it.

Some highlights and some low ones for the year come to mind. The low ones were the loss of two friends, Judge Blake and Frank Mangini. But there were more highs…and not including the three-foot of snow in January. The top of the list has to be the one smack in the middle of the year. JUNE 29^th, 1996…the day the whales came to celebrate June’s birthday. June, Dave, Sean, and I were sailing on a perfect sea in bright sunlight watching these monsters of the sea rise and peer at us…we who were bobbing about on a slight 60 foot boat…In the language of the guys (and gals) of today “It was awesome!!”

Other highlights, in no particular order: the announcement of three new grandchildren, with Mary having two at once; the Nova Scotia trip as seen through the eyes of a twelve year old, Sean and his report; the Myrtle Beach honeymoon (June and I alone) with shows almost every night and then to be followed by a beautiful sojourn in St. Petersburg; watching Grand son Tommy win his scholastic award, and a boat ride on the “beautiful ” Oswego River down to Lake Ontario! So there were a few more exciting things than the 36″ in January of snow and year of 55″ of rain!

Now onto ’97 and its good bye to business as usual and all sorts of grand plans…like a month to check out St. Petersburg and begin the organizing for moving some time around September. I note that Richard T., S.J., is already ensconced in Del Ray Beach until April. He is now a qualified “snowbird”, i.e., those who leave these parts and inhabit Florida when the snows come.

I finished reading “Angela’s Ashes”, Frank McCourt’s memoir of Limerick in the 40’s. I also thanks to Bill King’s tape of the show got to see the author on “Sunday Morning”. He and his brothers visit Limerick. He now has a best seller and they announced that the pocket book sold for a cool one million. I enjoyed it immensely despite all those honors and recommend it heartily to all who read these pages. In fact as a Christmas present to you all I am including in this edition of Jottings an excerpt from the book, which I have, entitled “My First Communion Day” which is hilarious.

As a further gift, I am cutting my ramblings short this month and will end here! We wish you a Merry Christmas!! A Happy New Year too!! See ya!

P.S. The book, “My Path to Peace and Justice, an Autobiography ” by Rev. Richard T. McSorley, S.J., is on the new stands…well, maybe not your newsstand, but is available if you know somebody…like me or Winnie, or Dick himself…get your orders in!!

The 24^th day of October 1996 marked the end of at least twenty-four years that Judy served me. We say “at least” since neither of us can specifically recall the starting date in 1972. There was a hiatus in 1981 when she gave birth to her son Brian. She was never absent for illness that I can recall. She was a secretary, a para-legal, and someone my mother would have liked very much, because she always kept me on the straight and narrow path. She had a pleasing personality that would listen to old complainers and the complimenting ones with the same cheery disposition. We had a standing joke, June and I, whenever I would call, from wherever, to see if everything was going all right…she never said “Yes, I have a problem” It was always “No, nothing important has happened” or “So & so called or did this, and I took care of it!” So June would question, “Why bother to call and bother her?? After all these years you should know who really runs “your” office!!” How right she was!

She left to begin a full time job with a firm in Bensalem. She had been the last three years only working from 8:30AM to 3:00PM, Tuesday through Thursday. She will continue to help close my files with part time work in the evenings and some Saturdays.

When she first came in 1972 Pat Rice had been with me nine years. Upon learning this, Judy exclaimed, “No way am I going to be working for nine years!” or words to that effect. You can be sure, we have mentioned this several times in the past year as we headed down to the her last day It was now nearly ”24″ years. She not only stayed nine years she almost tripled Pat’s stay! Her story and her stay reminded me of what I was told about Miriam Garvin, one of Dad’s secretaries. She came the summer of ’29 the year I was born with the idea of a summer job to help Rebecca, who had been with Dad for a time beyond the memory of man. When I left the Marine Corps in 1958 to begin practice, she, Miriam, was still there! She left shortly after I came and went to work for a Judge.

Judy will be one of the things I will miss about not practicing law. It will be one of a few. I will miss helping people, though I can still do that in other ways. I will miss some acquaintances the law allowed me to make.

I had my last adoption in Philadelphia. There is one more in Bucks County. It was before Judge Esther Sylvester. My clients were surprised as we entered to see the Judge rise from her seat at the head of the table, and give me a hug. Adoption hearings are held in Conference Rooms. She, her “Honoress” (as I called her), also was “surprised” since in May I told her that it was my last adoption! I had forgotten about this DPW one. I explained to my clients later that Judge Esther Sylvester is a “legal-daughter” in that back in the sixties by happy accident I moved for her admission to the bar of the Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia. My name therefore will forever appears on her certificate of admission as the mover, or her “legal-father”, to the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia. This is the same court in which she now sits as a Judge.

These kinds of memories and such happenings I will miss. I’ll miss the joy of being with new parents as the Judge says, “Well, she or he, is all yours now! We did the easy part the rest is up to you!” The love that flows in and from those new parents and that child lights up your life. I often remarked to them or others a thought my Dad used in talking to adoptees who later started searching for their natural parents. He would note that those adopting parents very thoughtfully and carefully decided they wanted to have a child. In a great number of cases the addition to the family is not a thoughtful and careful event. So you, he would say, are very special and remember that as you seek to find your natural parent.

I miss the thank you’s when I helped locate siblings or natural parents for adoptees. The only time I really did assist is when the adopting parents agreed and usually participated in the enterprise, or were deceased. These things I remember and will miss.

There are many such memories that I’ll continue to enjoy but there are enough unpleasant ones that make leaving easier – easier than I had originally supposed. The leaving gives me more time to “admire how much stuff (I am) made of”. This line, a bit altered, is from an essay by Roger Rosenblatt which in full reads: “One of the pleasures of growing old is to be able to admire how much stuff you are made of, how much material has been collected in one’s brain over the decades. Personal history. Images. Songs. Paintings. Odd disconnected information”

The idea recently became a humorous reality for me. I purchased a new fake book for the piano. It is called “Fake Book of the World’s Favorite Songs”. It has gems like The Grandfather’s Clock, (you remember “…tic-tack, tic-toe, ninety years without slumbering…”), On Moonlight Bay, Sweet Adeline, Cuddle Up A Little Closer, I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen, and even Happy Birthday, Chopsticks and Eensey Weensey Spider (I always thought it was Itsy-bitsy Spider). The one however that brought on the laugh was the “The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi”. As I played it I could only think of the parody of it we used to sing.

The words of the song (you’ll have to provide the tune) are: “…the girl of my dreams is the sweetest girl I know, Each sweet coed, like a rainbow trail, fades in the after glow, The blue of her eyes and the gold of her hair, are blend of the western sky; And the moonlight beams on the girl of my dreams, She’s The Sweetheart Of Sigma Chi.”

As I played the song the words “we” used to sing came to mind and I laughed. It went something like this: “…the girl of my dreams is the sweetest girl I know, Each time we meet, like a dog in heat, her eyes have a funny glow! The blue of hair and the gold of her eyes is enough to horrify! She drinks and she smokes, and she tells dirty jokes, She’s the sweetheart of six other guys!

I suppose that’s some of the “stuff (I’m) made of” collected in my brain over the decades. What I trying to do now with my leisure is to replace some of such vital “stuff”. It is questionable whether it is working, since recently I’ve laughed aloud on reading some Dorothy Parker’s caustic and sarcastic verse. One of her one-liners when asked to use the word “horticulture” in a definitive sentence said: “You can lead ahorti-culture, but you can’t make her think!”

My reading continues to be varied and interesting. I am still studying “God, a biography”, laughing and cringing as I visit Limerick, Ireland in the 40’s through the eyes and ears of a young Frank McCourt in “Angela’s Ashes” and just ambled through a short bio on Dorothy Parker, entitled “Not Much Fun”. The book on Dorothy Parker also contains some of her lost verses. She is the one we noted in the last paragraph her using of the word ”horticulture”.

For the reading of my children and friends I am enclosing a short bio and tribute to Sister Therese. It was composed and written by Sister Rosemary and is being mailed to all of the immediate family. It is a beautiful testament to Therese and it is very well written. It glows with feelings of love and grabs you right from the first few lines. I have that on my own authority and from a report June gave me after reading it. She noted it was un-authored so I did a bit of detective work and found out it was Roie by calling her. I applaud her skill with words and look for more.

The month is halfway gone. We have remembered Mom’s passing and Kate’s birthday on the 15^th. We will remember Therese (18^th), Ron & Mary became one on the 12^th and now will be four; and Frank’s (20^th), as the month moves on. We hope you all enjoy Thanksgiving and give Thanks. We can also report that Win and the girls, Allen’s that is, have returned from a “Little Bit of Heaven”. We await their full report.

Speaking of Ireland, reminds me of an observation some wag (or was it “wit”) made: “You can always tell the Irish, but you can’t tell them much!” See ya!!

The odometer would have an additional two thousand and eight miles on it as I pulled into our driveway on October 2,1996. It would have accumulated these miles from September 12, 1996 the day we left this driveway. We had, in adding those miles, been to Myrtle Beach, N.C. and St. Petersburg Fl. We spent the 13^th through the 22^nd at the resort and then lounged in Rich and Shirley’s home in St. Pete’s from then until the last day of September.

The weather was excellent the entire trip. We had planned to go to Myrtle Beach via Wilmington, N.C. Then the hurricane came ashore and we canceled our visit since even when we left some 3 or 4 days after it had struck, the city was still struggling to get power on and water out.

We enjoyed four live shows in Myrtle Beach. Kenny Rogers, the Gatlin Brothers, Carolina Osprey, and Legends. I got to play three rounds of golf and June improved her complexion with a tan. We had some great swims in the Atlantic and witnessed some beautiful sunrises from the balcony looking out over the Atlantic from the sixth floor. We also succeeded, somehow, to eat more than we should. After the somewhat vigorous schedule at the beach when we arrived at Rich and Shirley’s we managed to learn again how to lounge and lull with dignity. The plans to visit here or there vanished as we sunned, read, and walked the streets and by ways of Shore Acres. This is the section in Petersburg where Rich and Shirley’s home is located and where we now are neighbors. We visited our new home to meet the young tenants. She is expecting in April of ’97 and her name is Laura. He is a service man, U.S. Coast Guard, and is called Dan. It caused us to be reminded of Dan and Lori, who are also expecting in April ’97.

(I was just instructed by this machine to enter a title for this WP (word process) and as I began I noted I already had a file “octjot”. It was one year ago that I placed that Jottings in to the machine…tempus fugits…this one will be oct-J-96…in case you’re looking for it!!)

The date was September 14^th and I watched the morning come. The darkness slowly disappeared as the light seeped into my vision of the horizon. The ocean grew from just the white waves below reflected in the shore lights, to its vastness that is always hard to comprehend. My mind thought of the slowness of nature in its normal acts, the growth of a tree or a child, and it’s of its power and vengefulness when it is abnormal, like the recent hurricane. Then my mind turned thinking or musing in the silence interrupted only by the waves breaking on the shore in a grandeur that I wish I could more fully describe. It reminded me of the morning meditation I practiced in my seminary days. The early morning rise to meditate in the chapel quiet before and during the Mass. The Almighty was here too and His presence certainly felt as looked from six stories up, peering at the sea as it began to slowly appear.

My musing brought me a vision of my brother Father Pat who loved the sea. He and the “shore” were in common day parlance, “good buddies”. He would accept any invitation, go any where just as long as there was an ocean nearby…It, my reverie, was now disturbed as I saw people running on the beach as the light became stronger. It reminded me of my many runs on the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere. Those hours of solitude in a communion with my body and nature, and to top it off, it was good for me. But then my thoughts went to Father Pat who like many others saw the ocean as a suitable symbol of “eternity”. The never-ending motion has caused many a poet to describe it in such terms. It only accented, as I watched, the feeling of the inadequacy of language to picture the scene, it needed music and canvas to bring it to life. How apt the expression “one picture is worth thousand words”.

There it comes, at last, the ball of blazing red inching over the horizon. Morning is here. The day has begun and musing is done. Reality reminds me that its time to have breakfast! Amen.

There is an adage that goes like this: You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy! I would just like to rephrase that a bit: You can take the lawyer out of practice, but you can’t take the practice out of the man. Or, as I recently learned you could take Paul out of the practice but you can’t stop him from “practicing”! It became apparent while I was vacationing. I was reading the local newspaper “The Myrtle Beach Sun Times”

The news is scattered therein between high school football (front page material), weather (every one on the beach thinks of weather first), and such monumental surveys as “Are American’s washing their hands before leaving public lavatories?” (Most, yes, some, no). However, the op-ed page has some opinions taken mostly from other papers. In fact on one day they reprinted one by Sandy Grady of the “Philadelphia Daily News”. It was on Spiro Agnew’s recent death and the tendency to forgive and forget his stealing. Sandy didn’t agree. He believed the evil that men do should live after them, and of course, the good should be interred with their bones.

But the one that caused the self-revelation that indicated that the adage above applied to me, was by an Armstrong Williams (sounds like he got his named reversed somewhere), under the by-line “National Report”. We learned in an italicized footnote at the bottom of the column that he is a Washington-based columnist, radio talk-show host and consultant. He also was a native of South Carolina (the next county over). The topic he chose was, “Same-sex marriage an attack on Civilization”.

The author lamented that we (the American Legislators generally and Congress in particular) have come “so far” that such a subject should be a matter of legislation. He never mentions “civilization” in the article so I suppose U.S. legislative acts covers “civilization”. The Act that is lamented is, an attempt by congress to include “same-sex marriage” in the definition of “marriage” for Federal law. It was aimed particularly at Federal Benefit statues such as Social Security Act, Medicare, and Veteran’s benefits. I agreed with the writer’s lamentation but then he continued noting a pending bill narrowly defeated granting homosexuals standing under ENDA. He noted that it was sure to be raised again after the election. ENDA stands for Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Being included under the act would and does make such persons legally protected under the Civil Rights Act. He, the columnist, went on to argue against granting such a class any such rights. He contended that homosexuality is not the same as race or sex since they are “manifest(ly) identifiable physiological trait(s)”, i.e. color and gender.

I finished the article and found myself in agreement until later. As I walked along the beach something about the argument bothered me. The “practice” was showing. It, the argument regarding granting civil rights to homosexuals, seemed too pat, too solid to ever cause any controversy. The lawyer in me made me re-read the column. Then I saw what was bothering me.

The writer states his case in terms of sex and race and finds homosexuality wanting since it is “defined” as a “volitional act(s), which always have been the province of the law”. It is “conduct” we are dealing with here, says Armstrong. But the consultant-TV-talk-show-host, also omits a fundamental class included in those Acts, namely, religion. He even notes in passing earlier in the article that ENDA would if passed place the class, homosexuals, as protected under the Civil Rights Act. Such act protects as a class “race, sex, and religion (emphasis added)” Voila!! Bang!! The light bulb went on over my head! Query: Where is the “physiological” basis for “religion”? Isn’t religion a “volitional” act? The gentleman’s argument is built on sand and the sea of reason has just washed it away. The tone of his opinion seem to place it on the rostrums of the fundamentalist Christians, or the Bible thumpers of South

Carolina. Armstrong is a black man (at least his picture with the column seems to show that he is). He doesn’t consider it, granting protection of civil rights to a homosexual, as an act of “tolerance”. He believes (?) his rights are protected by the accidents of birth only, i.e., his color or his gender. This sounds a bit aristocratic, or elitist, i.e., his class needs and deserves protection but others are not worthy since they are there by choice!! Some experts disagree that homosexuality is all by “choice” and that it is as much a “physiological” condition as race or gender. But even if you disregard those experts, how is it any less volitional than “religion”? He seems to have forgotten that religion (along with speech) is also protected by the First Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act.

Ah! The lawyer just won’t let go. Here in beautiful Myrtle Beach by the sea he finds you can take the lawyer out of practice, but…! (Fill in the blanks)

Lest you believe that the “lawyer” always controls the man, let me tell you another story about that same lawyer who’s alleged great analysis skills went right out the window. I was conned! Yes, this astute practicing attorney gave away $20. It happened one evening recently (before we made the trip south). The doorbell rang and I responded. There stood a woman of about 30+ years in the glow of the porch light, dressed in shorts and looking a bit frazzled. She ran through a list of apologies rather breathlessly but indicated we were neighbors, giving an address down the block in a small apartment house. Her problem was her child, whom we might have seen walking by with her, was suffering from some sort of infection in the ear. She needed a prescription filled. She had no money. Her husband was working up around Lansdale and she beeped him but he couldn’t get here immediately. The druggist wanted $20 for the prescription and she was without funds. She would return at 8PM with the money. It was then about 7PM.

I invited her in to take the information and obtain the funds. I wrote her name down and her husband’s name, their address, their phone number. The phone, she explained, was two different numbers (i.e., 742-3401 and 02) since her husband ran a business from his home. He was an insurance appraiser. It was why he was in Landsale. She promised again to have the money back by 8 PM but I insisted she call first since it might be later and we retire early. I then gave her my card and on the back wrote by home number (which is unlisted). “Oh!” she exclaimed, “You’re a lawyer!” The surprise I denoted in her remark then, now appears to have been a shout of triumph in that she put one over on one of the alleged smart guys. She left with the $20 and I promptly forgot about the entire matter.

Around 9 PM June came into my (study?) room and asked me if my girl friend had returned with her twenty! I had taken the money from her pocketbook. So I called the first number and got no answer. I assumed maybe Mommy was with the child at an emergency ward and that things had gotten worse, or whatever. I tried again at 10 and still got no answer. The next morning around 6:45AM I walked down the street to the address and found there were four doorbells on the building entrance way but not one name on any of the bells. At the office I called once again and then around 9 AM I tried the second number and I got an answer! It was a Doctor’s office, and they had never heard of my now ex-friend It was a doctor specializing in Geriatrics. The irony wasn’t lost on me since I now supposed she even had that detail planned in taking a “senior” citizen. I’d felt a bit better if the doctor had been a Pediatrician!

The reporting of the incident to others naturally brought out stories of their brush with the “scam”. June talked of her ex, Joe, giving someone $50 for four new tires. He would bring them right back. Paul Keeley told of watching fellow employees, in a warehouse job he had, fork out $50 for brand new color TV’s. I am sure there are plenty more out there (since this occurred an investigator I had talked to about the incident sent me a clipping from an Ann Landers column about some seniors being hustled). Being a victim of such shenanigans is humbling but one consolation is that my motivation was compassion not greed. It still cost me $20 no matter what motivation and no one likes to be taken. June’s explanation is simple:” I’m gullible! Amen!” So if I must have a fault let it be gullibility in trying to help a child. If it had been more than $20, I want to believe I would have been more circumspect. But I wonder when someone is clever enough and draws on the strong natural instinct to help the helpless??

The next time she gets a check!!

We interrupt this program to bring news of great joy!! RON and MARY will have TWINS! So sayeth the Ultra Sound!

A while ago in these pages we mused over the relativity of time. We noted that my Dad was born only a mere 20 years or so after Lincoln’s death, and that Abe was around when Tom Jefferson was still alive. It was a way of demonstrating how near the “past” really is and “history” is today…or at least a lot closer than we tend to imagine. This same idea was used in a book I just finished entitled “Six Men”, composed by Alistair Cooke from interviews and acquaintance with Charlie Chaplin, H. L. Menoken, Adlai Stevenson, Humphrey Bogart, and Bertrand Russell. It was in his story about Bertrand Russell that he drew attention to life spans. Russell lived to be 98 years of age. He was born in 1872 and died in 1970, and his grandparents Lady and Lord John Russell raised him. Lord John was a former Premier of Britain and died in 1878. Russell’s own life was to span…General Grant’s presidency and Nixon’s reign; the grandparents who helped bring him up had spanned the reign of Robespierre and Grant’s second term.” Alistair goes on, “Somehow his grandfather’s support of the Duke of Wellington’s ministry came up, and after that the name of Napoleon. Without a trace of self-consciousness, Russell made a wry face and said’ A thoroughly nasty man. I was told. I had an aunt who went once or twice to Versailles and danced with him. She took a dim view of him: he danced, she said, on his stummick! ‘” The story of Napoleon reminded me of one about myself and my Dad when I was being admitted to the Orphans Court of Philadelphia in 1958. “In those days…” the court had formal admission ceremonies where the court of seven judges sat en bane presided over by a President Judge. The party to be admitted had of course first submitted all the documentary evidence of his admission to the Penna. Supreme Court. On the day of the ceremony the admitted had a member of the court “move” for his admission. In my case, it was my Father, Richard T, known as “Dick”, who was my mover. Following his introduction of me to the court the President Judge, Charles

Klein said he was turning over the remarks of welcome to Judge Robert Bolger, a friend of Dick McSorley. Judge Bolger welcomed me and then regaled me about his long association with Dick, my father. He in fact had served in the same horse battalion with my Dad in the First World War. They never left the Philadelphia Armory but he assured me they were ready. He then turned the matter back to the President

Judge. Klein went on to welcome me and to further assure me of the long relationship of the court and Dick McSorley, humorously he added: “And I served with your Dad in the Civil War!!!” Much laughter followed but the point was clear, “Your Dad’s been around a while!” He, my dad, was then 72 years of age. I remember how I thought then that he had been around a long time, especially since I was the 13^th in a long line of children.

With all that talk about life spans, long life, etc., etc. I think it appropriate to close with a thought I like from Adlai Stevenson: “It is not the years in your life but life in your years that counts!” See ya!

It is still August but with the anticipated traveling forthcoming I thought I should start these musings early. In my reading I came upon a paragraph so personably applicable that I wrote it down.

“…As one who has gone through various scenes of business, of bustle, of office, of rambling, and of quiet retirement, and who can assure her that the latter (the tranquil happiness of domestic life) is the only point upon which the mind can settle at rest. Though not clear of inquietudes, because no earthly situation is so, they are fewer in number, and mixed with more objects of contentment than in any other mode of life.”

The quotation is from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Monroe, James Monroe’s wife Elizabeth in 1786 shortly after they were married. At the time, Jefferson, was our plenipotentiary in France (we would call him Ambassador today). By 1786, Jefferson was 46 and he had become a lawyer; had a bustling practice in the Western part of Virginia; served in the House of Burgess; wrote “A Summary View of the Rights of British America”, (which was the basis for the “Declaration of Independence”); gone through the Revolution; became the Governor of Virginia; served in the Continental Congress and its subsequent bodies; sadly had buried his beloved wife; and, built most of Monticello, all of which certainly qualified him to speak of such things.

The thought expressed is so akin to my feelings that I transcribed it so as to enjoy it even more. Appropriately this past week (Aug 11-18) we passed the 15-year mark of our “domestic life”. His thoughts become even more apparent as I trim my time in the business and practice of law. Our time together grows and with it the contentment also grows. I’ve given up the pursuit of success and pleasing clients, to the pursuit of happiness in a “domestic life”. Ah! Yes the “inquietudes” (love that word), are still there but they are “fewer in number” and mixed with more contentment than ever before.

The Moshulu is back in the news. I mentioned it in my ramblings last month when talking about “Denny”. In that book I learned that Denny’s grandfather Lauritz Hansen, had been the last captain of the Moshulu. It is a now refurbished floating restaurant in the Delaware. The news of its rebirth reached all the way to Tasmania, Australia where a gentleman who had been a sailor on that ship heard of its docking. He is Donald Garnham, now 80 years young, who was a crewmember on the ship from 1936-1939. He came to Philadelphia with pictures and stories of the voyage. He was a twenty-year-old seaman in the 1936 and recorded some impressions on this his first voyage around Cape Horn.

The ship is 394 feet long, it is called a square-rigger, has 45,000 square feet of sail, and its usual voyage was to carry grain from Australia to England. It had a crew of 27 men. It was built in 1904 in Scotland and christened the “Kurt”. It was renamed the Moshulu when the Americans seized it from its German owners after World War I. The word Moshulu is supposed to mean “fearless” in some Indian dialect.

One of the high lights of Donald Garnham’s trip, aside from the rough ride around the Horn, was on May 4,1936 they spied the German dirigible, “Graf Zeppelin” passing over head. It too spied them, so came closer and down to the vessel to exchange greetings. This is the same ship that upon landing in Lakehurst, N.J. burst into flames and was destroyed.

I had a discussion the other day with grandson Tommy about politicians. It is the annual four-year explosion of politics…the presidential race. He inferred or maybe was explicit that politician equals liar to most or at least exaggerator if not out right truth destroyers. I asked him to define what made a “politician”. We finally agreed that if that person aspired for office, or served in public office, he qualified under Tommy’s definition. He then was surprised to learn that his Grandfather met his terms. He therefore was a Politician and all those things that Tommy believed made one a politician. He agreed that I might be the exception that proves the law. Shortly after this discussion I came across and copy of an article that appeared in the Evening Bulletin some 24 years ago about a Democratic politician lawyer. It was about me serving as an assistant commissioner of the Jury Selection Board and accepting appointments to defend persons charged with a capital offense. The opening lines read: “Paul Leo McSorley is a Democratic lawyer-politician with a large family (seven children), a keen wit, and a good many friends”. I sent a copy of it on to Tommy to confirm that others believed me to be a politician as well. I have yet to receive his reply. My hope is that he might see that some politicians really do have the good of the people ultimately in mind…even those who are not constituents.

Recently I finished a new biography of A. Lincoln. It was entitled “Lincoln” and written by David Herbert Donald. It (the book) won a Pulitzer Prize. In it I learned how much a politician Abe was. He employed “pork-barrel” and “you pat mine and I’ll pat yours” politics in the grandest manner. It came somewhat as a revelation to this politician but I suppose like most idols up there on the pedestal we never really believe they occasionally had clay feet. Having been a part in a very small way to the alleged shenanigans of politics I should not have been surprised at Lincoln’s behavior. The book does an excellent job of presenting the problems Lincoln faced with only the information and resources he had at that time. His stated purpose was “In tracing the life of Abraham Lincoln, I have asked at every stage of his career what he knew when he had to take critical actions, how he evaluated the evidence before him, and why he reached his decisions”. He did the task admirably and at the same time made it enjoyable reading.

It is a bright Sunday morning in August as I drive to a run. It is the 25^th of August and I am reminded that it was John and Frank’s day of birth. John would have been 73 and Frank 10 years older. The run is on my mind. It is a Sunday morning and my stomach begins to react as it heads for the competition…but wait I’m nut competing. I’m going to watch an event that would make any Dad proud, but particularly a “running” Dad. I’m also thinking of Bill King who had often done what I am doing this A.M. only most of the time with his sons. But I’m happy just to be watching. I am going to watch Bill, Paul Jr. and Danny race a 10K. Along with them is a bonus, Ron Yake, Mary’s husband, is also a participant. Bill and Dan are out to break 40 minutes for the six and two tenth mile run.

I find I am alone waiting at the finish line. Mary and Lori, Dan’s wife, are at home both for similar reasons…they are pregnant and not feeling well in the morning. I learned the news of Lori expecting only yesterday. Lori is due in April ’97 with Mary’s due in March ’97. So God willing the year with bring grandchild number 17 and 18.

As I wait, watching the clock at the finish line, I notice a spectator standing nearby with a T-shirt that has printed on it, “Avalon, N. J”. Here we are in Greece, N.Y. (suburb of Rochester, New York) some 500 miles away from that charming resort of recent memory…I remember many runs in that town. In fact, I later see that Billy is wearing a tank top from the “Nun’s Run”, one of the annual events in Avalon. I participated in the run on several occasions and one time, Mary, Paul, Bill and I all ran it.

The runners start crossing the finish line. The clock edges up to 39 minutes. I look, I look, no one’s coming…no, there is Billy at 40 plus a few seconds, then around 48 is Ron with Paul Jr. coming in around 51. Where’s Danny?? Up he walks as I watching Paul come in…I missed his finishing!! He had taken his shirt off and was tight behind another runner…He did it 39 plus a few seconds. He is now the fastest McSorley at the 10K. He said later he would have been happier if Billy and he had finished together both breaking the 40-minute barrier. A runner coming in at 40 minutes and under is running the miles around 6 minutes and 27 seconds or less per mile.

Before the visit with Danny and Lori, we had a day and a half with Andy in his new home outside the metropolis of Oswego. It is a famous little town on the great Lake Ontario. It is the end of the Canal and has some 5 power plants in and around the town. Andy took us to the one in which he is employed as an operator, the Fitzpatrick. We made the grande toure on the day of our arrival. We could see from the one we were visiting on the Lake, two others in the same area. But our first purpose in visiting him was to see his new home. It is a gem. A bright, airy, sky lighted living room with a cathedral ceiling; a second floor balcony looking down over the entrance way; a large kitchen; outside decks in the rear (facing the some 19 acres of woodland) and a partially finished basement. We got another grand tour and slept on his newest piece of furniture “futon-couch-bed” We were so impressed with it that June is thinking about buying one for our new home in St. Pete’s. On Friday June cooked some Lasagna for the host and the host, Andy and his Dad played a game of golf…under cloudy and sometime sprinkling skies. On Friday evening we took a cruise of the Harbor of Oswego River and thus learned about the canal that runs along the river. It is a branch of Erie Canal system.

We also viewed Fort Ontario, aptly named since it overlooked lake Ontario. It was built way back 1755 by the British, destroyed by the French, rebuilt by them and destroyed by the British in the war of 1812 and finally taken over by U.S. in 1830’s. It’s most recent use was to house refugees, some 1000 fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe. It was the only sight in the U.S. to accept refugees at that time.

Paul Jr. arrived early Saturday morn for the brothers to take off for a golf tournament. We took off via the Lake Ontario Drive to the town of Hilton, NY home to Danny, Lori, and Meaghan. We had a picnic-swim party on Sunday at Ron’s brother Jim’s home in a nearby town.

Prior to these stops we had one more, which I must report. It was a great but short visit with Joe and Debbie Golden and there two guys: Joseph and Andrew. Andrew is an extraordinarily “pretty” child. He’s about 2 1/2 or three years of age. He talks with precise wording and dramatic expressions…especially the hands. His striking looks won him photogenic honors in contest including one that ended in the nationals. He is the picture of innocence in a bright smiling face. He is also, as June is wont to remind you “the only grandchild discharged from day school!!” It occurred to me that he is the epitome of “angel” but then we all remember even some of the “angels” had a bit of the devil in them.

Let me bid you all a farewell for now. June and I will be “on the road again” from Sept 12 (Suzanne’s birthday) till October 2nd or 3rd.So we will be into the October edition of Jottings by Paul on our return! See ya!

Thought for musing or the like: “He deserves Paradise, who makes his companions laugh” (The Qur’an).

It seems that June and July have been consumed with perpetual motion: driving, packing, unpacking, and moving items to the car, then moving the car! The last two weeks of June we visited Portland, Me., Halifax, N.S., with stops in the rain at the “Ovens” and Peggy’s cove on the way thereto; then Baddeck, N. S. in the area designated as Cape Breton; from which we circled the entire peninsula or cape (183 miles) but the driving for that leg we let others do. The rest of N.S. was a ride down its west coast after stops at Antigonish (not to be confused with Ingonish on Cape Breton), and Wolfville, with an end at our port of entry Yarmouth. We sailed back to

Portland arriving for an overnight stay before driving down the coast to Plymouth, Mass. We closed the month of June, including June’s birthday on the 29th in the town of the “Rock”, Plymouth Rock that is.

On that birthday day (the number of which will be left unreported) we went to watch the Whales in the Stellwagen Bank. The area is located in Massachusetts Bay and is approximately 26 miles long and 6 miles wide. It is between the Capes Cod and Ann. The Stellwagen Bank functions as “whale restaurant”. Due to the contours of the ocean bottom and the action of the water currents, large quantities of plankton collect in the water on and around the bank. Plankton, single celled plants and animals, are the first step in all ocean food webs. Plankton is fed upon by small fish, which in turn becomes food for whales.

I went as the “doubting Thomas” and became a believer. We saw several Finbacks cavorting in the sea (if a 60 to 70 foot long mammal of some 50+ tons could be said to “cavort”!) We also saw Minkes, which are whales of 20 to30 feet in length and run around a mere 10 tons! It was what June wished for her birthday and she got her birthday wish plus a beautiful day on the water. We had a “whale of a time”. (Groans permitted!) The twins and I agreed that the whales knowing Grandmom was coming decided they better show up or get you know what!! So they did and we, the boat crew and some 40 passengers, stayed an extra hour to watch them do what they do best to celebrate Grandma’s day.

The day prior to this grand celebration we visited the Mayflower II and the Pilgrim Plantation outside the town. They both have added realism to the costume by the actor, or portrayer, speaking only in “eld” English, as spoken in the 1600’s. For example, I asked one of the sailors what he was eating – it looked like a thick gray hard cookie, which we might call” hardtack”. He said” a biscuit” at about the same time I asked if it was “hardtack” He looked at me quizzically and repeated the word, “hardtack, hmm…that’s when the sail is caught in the wind and we must work with it…or something like that I’d say…” I thought how apt, the only “tack” people in the 1600 would know would be one referring to sailing, not anything near our nails or the sea biscuit we now call “hardtack”.

I know I was warned about writing a travelogue but couldn’t resist a short report on our latest trekking. We did manage while doing that to catch up on some of our reading. As I noted in my last report I was reading an Abe Lincoln biography…and no, I did not know him personally. Winifred recalled a similar incident to the one reported to you last month involving her oldest, Rita Pat, and my Dad, her granddad. She apparently had been learning about the American Revolution and its participants here in Philadelphia, and wondered if Grandpop had known any of them. He being a Philadelphia lawyer, and they having played an important part in that revolution, it is not surprising she might have thought so. Age is in the eyes of the beholder and as we all know is “relative”.

While reading about Abe I also came across two smaller pocket books by Calvin Trillin that grabbed my interest. One was the “Deadline Poet” the other “Remembering Denny”. The deadline poet covered the years from Regan to Clinton using light verse or doggerel. It began with Sununu (Regan’s Chief of Staff at one time). He couldn’t get the “entertainingly arrogant and euphoniously named” politician out of his head. He composed a verse for his column in the “The Nation” and it became such a hit with his editor he had orders to produce more. The verse was entitled: IF YOU KNEW WHAT SUNUNU! Thus was born the “Deadline Poet”. The book was hilarious in its viewpoints and sarcasm. It included one on the Phillies (he deviated occasionally from politicians, world leaders, world crises, to movie stars, and sports) entitled:

THE PHILLIES VS. TORONTO.

Toronto is a snappy team – all svelte,

No over gut that covers up the belt.

The Phillies? Ah, that rinky-dink brigade:

Resembling a bed that’s left unmade,

They look as if they’d find a grate palatial.

 

Their hair’s a tangled mess – that’s head

And facial.

They chew large wads of gum and gunk.

What ‘s more?

The stuff they spit will eat away the floor.

The Phillies are the answer to my dream:

Who would have thought that slobs could have a team?

They won their league. They almost won it all,

Despite their flab, their high cholesterol.

Toronto won. How sad! For this amounts

To evidence that neatness really counts.

It says it all in rhyme. Those were certainly the thoughts many of us had about “those Phillies”. There is also no doubt that with them now losing 11 of their last 12 games the fans would love to have that “rag-tag rinky-dink” group back.

Calvin’s other book was not a light one but a tribute to a classmate (Yale ’57) who committed suicide at the age of 55. He was Roger D. Hansen when he died but for his Yale classmates, Calvin included, he was and will always be “Denny”. When Trillin knew him he was the embodiment of the All-American boy, an athlete, scholar, letter winner from a small town high school in California, with a “million dollar” smile. They, Calvin and Denny, had the small town background in common but beyond that Denny had it all. Life Magazine covered Denny’s life at Yale, as well as his graduation. He was a shooting star and he left the pad of Yale to enter Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. His classmates, half jokingly and half seriously, said he would one day be

“President”. He had the wit, the manner, the class, and that every present “million dollar” smile. The book is Calvin Trillin’s search to find an answer to his terrible ending. He finds a great number of answers but none really satisfy. It is, as the cover reports: “In so doing (his search for an answer) he (Trillin) also reflects upon the American fifties, offering a provocative look at the way we were–rather than the way we thought we were –and its consequences” I read it with much personal interest being a graduate around that time. His observations of the mores and goals espoused in those days were some of what I heard and remembered. Somewhere in the story he refers to the “knapsack of success” that was placed upon the back of great achiever in those days. He or she goes off carrying it with hope. He then disappoints in some small way and the sack gets heavier. He hasn’t risen to “his potential”. The sack can grow and crush its carrier if he can’t learn to live with a failure or a disappointment. It appears that Denny was a victim of this.

In addition apparently he was unable to accept his discovered homosexuality. It, homosexuality, would never have fit in the thinking and make up of a shooting star of the ’50s. He was a lonely man who never figured out what life was all about and a large part of the blame has to be placed on his rarefied beginning at the top. He also lacked the greatest healer of all for apparent failures…a family, loving companion or friends.

A bit of trivia we saw in this book is worth noting. It seems that Roger D. Hansen, “Denny”, had a grandfather named Lauritz Hansen. He came from Norway and was a sea captain. He was the last Captain of the Moshulu. This was one of the last commercial sailing ships. It came into my life in the 1980’s when the ship became a restaurant at the Penn’s Landing. June who worked at Second and Walnut would often meet me there and we dined on a few occasions. It later burned or had a fire and was closed. Now in 1996 it is back again refurbished and at a new location on the Delaware, closer to Washington Ave now. June and I noticed it on our last visit to the Chart House and hope to revisit the Moshulu. The same ship that Denny’s grandfather captained.

I’m working my way through “God, a Biography”. I say “working my way through” or studying as opposed to “reading”. I just read John Grisham’s latest “Runaway Jury”, “God, a biography” is written by “Jack” Miles – you don’t read Mr. Miles, you peruse him. Another thought is that “Jack” is not the kind of name you associate with sentences like:

“The relationship between the plot of the Bible

And the character of monotheism’s God, a deity who

Was, historically, a precipitate of Semitic polytheism,

Is thus intricate but coherent.” Or,

“The story of God-as-creator and mankind-as-progenitor

Unfolds like a jejune two-part musical invention

That by contrapuntal repetition and variation becomes

An elaborate and magnificent fugue.”

The name “Jack” brings to mind a strong athletic type, like Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy. These sentences might more likely be the product of some one named: Willard Sterne Randall, or David Herbert Donald, or Hans Kung, not “Jack”! Do you ever notice that despite Shakespeare’s admonition of “What’s in a name? A rose…” we still make associations when we hear a name? I notice, or so it seems, that writers of historical biographies, like those above, tend towards three names. It is then fitting that they might pontificate – but Jack just doesn’t hack it, no? It isn’t a name we associate with erudition, or ponderous sentences. But then neither is the names, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and their works certainly if not considered ‘erudite’ has had a lasting influence.

A bit of verse written over 150 years ago in praise of the nature of women: “Not she with trait’rous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied him with unholy tongue, she, while apostles shrank, could danger brave, Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave” Easton S. Barrett (1822).

Hope to see some you as we venture north in the end of August.

Meaghan’ s questions to Grandpa continue. The next in line is: “How many people lived in the house you grew up in?” The answer has to be “it depends when.” The number constantly changed. At one point while I was in grade school I recall that Joe, John, Therese, Marge, Anne, Rosemary, Catherine Dempsey, Mom, Dad, and I were living there. That would be ten, but I believe Winnie was living there when she wasn’t away at school. I also recollect an Aunt Sally who died in our home around the same time. Later there was a cousin Eddy. He was sent away to a juvenile school after he split John’s lip in a fight over who could put what on which side of the dresser they shared. So “Who lived in 4116 Baltimore Ave while I was growing up?” depends on when you happened by.

The house became empty some time in 1951. I think in the fall while I was attending first year law school. Mother had become ill and was now being attended to by Winnie at her home on Windsor Ave. I still lived at 4116 for a while, and also at a room on Woodland Avenue near the Law School. I lived at the house alone, but would eat most of the time at Winnie’s. It was then I started to learn the piano. The piano was there, and no one could get upset with the practice. Sr. Mary came and gave me some lessons.

In the summer of ’52 I came across a great deal for renting and buying a piano. I was going to live with the newlyweds, Marge and Dan Walsh in or around Maple Shade, N.J. The newly weds were in a new home, in a new neighborhood, with many other struggling newly-weds. Thus there was a bit of eye-brow-raising when a new piano from Wurlitizer was wheeled into the sparsely furnished living room. Marge and Dan, as I recall had no strong objections to having a piece of new furniture in there. It was a rental/buy agreement. It cost $21 a month for three months. Then you had to become an owner by making higher payments or financing the purchase. It was a great deal for me since it gave me a piano for the summer. In the fall I would be moving back to 4116,or the room, etc. So when September came I canceled the agreement and advised Wurlitzer to come pick up the piano. They finally did sometime in October. When it arrived, the neighbor’s eyebrows went up again, and there was probably some clucking of tongues, with comments like…”Just as we thought those Walsh’s can’t make the payments and the piano is being repossessed!” C’est La Vie! Translated: What are brothers for?

“Houses we lived in”…sounds like a line from a poem or song…something like “The house that I lived in, the people that I met”…Or was it “the street that I lived on, or she lived on!” To borrow from the poets I remember, “Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home.” Better still I always liked Edgar Guest’s verse:

“It take a heap o’ livin’ in a house to make it home…It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’be, How much yer chairs an’ table cost, how great yer luxury. It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king, Until somehow yer soul is sort o’wrapped round everything… Ye’ve got to love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome: It takes a heap o’ living in a house t’ make it home.”

There was a heap of living in that house at 4116 and it certainly was “Home”. I’ve been fortunate to have other houses become homes, thanks to the people who filled them up and eventually left them for their own home.

Meaghan’ s book of queries ask other things like: “How did we heat it; Was there a room that scared you; Did you have friends stay over night; and, What is your fondest memory of that house??

The fondest memory some 45 years later still is the wait for the door to open to the sitting room on Christmas morning. The anticipation and expectation is still there even as I sit here and type. Many times the gifts were not always what I had expected (I always had “Great Expectations” but looking back I can’t say I was ever disappointed).

The room that we avoided was the third floor rear. In that room Aunt Sally died and in those days the Funeral Director came to the house and embalmed the body right there. She was then transported to the front room or Parlor for the viewing, or wake as it was then called. It made that room the “scariest” in the house: I also remember that my father then slept in that room, maybe just to let us know it wasn’t haunted!

I can’t really remember how it was heated but I think it was a gas furnace. I know it wasn’t coal and I don’t remember any oil being delivered. But then how it was heated wasn’t my problem when I lived there so it’s not surprising can’t recall how it was done.

We once in awhile had friends stay over but the memory of who or when is vague. The one exception, which I reported earlier, was that of being roused from bed by my brother Joe then in college to give my bed to George Senesky. It was usually very late at night. George played basketball for St. Joseph’s and later became an All American and went on to play for the Warriors, a Philadelphia Pro Basketball Team. I know later I was able to brag about giving up my bed to the “star” but I am sure when it happened I did more complaining than bragging.

 

The time is now later in July. We have returned from the ride around Nova Scotia, visit to Plymouth, Mass. We saw the Rock and the Mayflower, and even celebrated Linda McSorley’s Sixth Birthday. I therefore will transmit just a few thoughts of the voyage later. I have already forwarded to GOL the report written by Sean Hopkins (our grandson who travelled with us) I will include a copy for those of you not fortune enough to be on line…G(ang) O(n) L(ine).

I was sitting in a lounge of a deck of the Scotia Prince reading. We were crossing the North Atlantic for Portland, Maine. We had just finished the six days of driving around beautiful, though cold and rainy, Nova Scotia.

A young lady noticed my reading and inquired: “What are you reading?” I responded: “A biography of Abraham Lincoln. Do you know who he was?” Said our new friend: “Yes, a President a long time ago!” “Yes,” said I, “during the Civil War?” “Oh!” she beamed, “Did you know him??”

I advised that I never had the pleasure but would have enjoyed meeting him. I was able to do it with a smile since it continues to prove the point that “time is relative”, or age is in the eyes of the beholder.

Now this was not the highlight of the trip, in fact as it developed the highlight came after our return to U.S. in Plymouth, Mass. I have yet to collect my thoughts of the almost 2000 mile journey with grandsons, Sean and David, but will do so before we next address you.

A thought before I bow out: Tommy McSorley raised some questions about “lawyers” and it lead me to tell him what one of America’s best known lawyers had to say about them some 200 years ago, namely, Thomas Jefferson, speaking of the Congress meeting in 1783 at Annapolis, MD: “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers whose trade is to question everything, yield nothing and talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.” (TJ’s Autobiography, p. 53) See ya!!

P.S. Attached is a report (“Untitled” from Sean) that I thought you might enjoy regarding the trip.

Another birthday is here, a day to mark my being. It is a time for me to be grateful for life, good health, and the love of my wife, children, and grand children. The litany could go on and on and still fail to cover all I am and should be thankful for. That part of the birthday celebration is easy; the tough part is believing it is the sixty-seventh celebration. I have reevaluated my definition of the word “old”. It is no longer “decrepit”,” worn-out”, “one foot in the grave” for me it is a time to enjoy new things, learn new ones, and improve on the old. I enjoyed a recent E-Mail from my daughter, Sue, to the new GOL (Gang on Line) member, Rev. Richard T. McS. SJ, in which she exclaims she can’t believe I am 67. She confesses that to her I am still young. I thought: “Wonder what my 80-year old-plus brother, thinks of having a “younger” brother 67?” It is, as we all know, relative. It is “time”, that dimension that only measures years or its passage and not much else.

May brought the loss of two friends One older, Judge Blake and one younger Frank Mangini. Ed was 69 and Frank 50. Ed and I graduated from Law school together. He had attended St. Joseph’s but graduated a year earlier (1950). He entered the service for a year and then came back to Penn Law. He was a very good student and member of the law review. When I returned to the area in 1958 he was serving as a law clerk to the famous Judge Vincent A Carroll. Judge Carroll was one of the movers and shakers in the Philadelphia Judiciary. He began then what is today called a unified court system. In the 60’s there were nine or ten common pleas courts, a family court, an orphans court, and a municipal court. All with separate President Judges and administrations. Judge Carroll began with the help of the Pa. Supreme Court to unify the system. His first administrator was his law clerk, Edward J. Blake, Esq. However, before that post was created and Ed was installed, he had become a partner to Paul L. McS, and John FX Purcell in the firm know as McSorley, Purcell, & McSorley. Ed’s position as a judicial law clerk prevented him from having his name appear in the partnership title. Around that time he introduced me to Avalon. We purchased two or three properties at auctions and at prices that today would seem ridiculous. We carried them in the corporate name of JEP, Inc. The “J” was John, “E” was Ed, and “P” yours truly. When Ed became court administrator we had to dissolve the corporation and take titles in our own names. I became the owner of 27^th and First Ave. Ed and I owned two duplexes built on 21^st Street. The numbers were 536 and 636. We split them when Ed went on the Bench as a Judge in early 1970-71. Suffice it to say, we were friends, classmates, partners, and parents over 40 years.

In 1970, while I was serving as Commissioner of Records for the city, the Governor named some thirty lawyers to the bench. In that capacity, as record keeper, it was my job to accept and record the Warrants of their Appointment. It was normally carried out without any formality. I however thought it would be more appropriate to deliver to those who wished their Recorded Warrants in person (just another way to meet 30 new judges). Among those I had the pleasure of presenting, was that of Edward J. Blake’s. It was an interesting crossing of career paths. Ed then moved in a different circle and moved on up to Court Administrator under Judge Bradley as President Judge, and eventually as President Judge. The law clerk finished the circle he started under the first mover of unification, Judge Carroll. He, Carroll, would have been proud of his protégé’s success in the unification of the court system. Ed was also one of the prime movers of the new Criminal Justice Center. The building now occupied by the former Quarter Sessions and present Municipal Court.

As the years rushed by we, Ed and I, traveled in different orbits and only crossed paths at St. Joseph’s Law Alumni and Penn Law reunions. I think the last St. Joseph’s Law Alumni Reunion I attended was the one honoring him for his outstanding contributions to the judicial and legal community. His whole family was in attendance, his two lawyer sons, and his daughter lawyer with her children. He also had a retarded child, Christopher who must be in his 20’s by now. He lost one of those sons to the waters of Avalon just a few years ago. His leaving us has had me reexamining my continued practice of the law even in the modest and limited way I now do. I am leaning more and more to bringing the obligations that such practice require to a close.

The other friend we lost was Frank Mangini, at the age of 50 years. He died of a very malignant cancer. We knew from a Christmas card from his wife, Terry that it was coming. He and I crossed paths as client and lawyer. I am supposed to have introduced him to Terry who was a mother of two children whom I helped out of an abusive marriage. I have no recollection of that being the case but I was a close friend of both of them for many years. I represented Frank in his purchase and operation of several bars. The last was at 12^th and Samson Sts. It was called the “Ugly Pub”. He left there maybe 10 years ago to purchase a liquor store in Voorhees, N.J. He also moved from the neighborhood to live nearby his place of business. We crossed paths now and again when he needed some help in matters here. I also represented him when he adopted Terry’s two children. The last legal contact I had was with his son, George, when he and his wife purchased a home in the city.

June and I were unable to attend the funeral but this week we had dinner with Terry and learned of her long ordeal of the nearly a year and half illness. She has weathered the loss well, as she has so many others in her life. I had the opportunity on several occasions to be of help when relatives of hers were in trouble or cause of trouble. One of them was a mentally ill brother who committed suicide. She has borne her crosses well.

Frank’s dying along with Ed’s certainly makes you acutely aware, once again, of your own mortality. Carpe Diem!

Even as we endure these sad memories present events keep reminding us how good life is. A visit to Stuart Day School to watch Kate and Meggie (McSorley-Baker) perform for Grandparent’s day is an excellent example. The wonder of a child easily replaces memories of lost friends. We even had a grand luncheon with “Large” (Kate) and “Medium” (Meggie). Colleen (“Small”) was waiting anxiously at home. The experience reminded me of my Dad’s saying as the years and the law began to pall. Just before he would leave the office he would often remark: “I’m going home to look into the face of child – the world’s best relief from ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’”. To see the countenance of innocence and love-in-action by one’s who have no idea that there is even a word for it, namely, “love”.

Speaking, or writing about time and life, brought to mind another reflection on its qualities. For example, I am reading biography of Abe Lincoln and realized that he, Lincoln, was alive (b. 1809) before Thomas Jefferson died in l826, and Lincoln died a mere 21 years before my father was born in 1886.Nothing new there except we tend to assume that historic figure must be “old”, out of our time. Yet it is all so obviously relative when viewed in this manner. Put another way, the so-called “historical” figures don’t seem to have lived “long, long ago”. Nor does 67 years now seem to be such a “long” time. As the man said, “It’s all relative!”

I would like to digress from my own memories to pass on some interesting items I learned from my reading. I am into biographies and the original papers of some famous Americans. In fact, I must have told some one since Jim gave me the book, “A Biography of God”. I haven’t read it yet but I am sure it will be one book where they can’t say, “The Movie was better!”

One of the facts I learned in the autobiography of Jefferson is that Pennsylvania, or really Philadelphians were reluctant and almost last signers of the Declaration of Independence. The royalty connections were strong here in the City of Brotherly love. One of the more active communities as we all know was Virginia, with Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Madison, and others. So it was an interesting contrast to read in Lincoln’s writings in his Special address to Congress after Fort Sumter was fired upon, of Virginia’s secession. It was done in a rather sleazy manner. They made it appear that the legislature was giving the people an opportunity to decide sometime in the near future. In the meantime the leaders ordered the take over of the Federal property, at Harpers Ferry, and other places, as if they had already had the people’s approval to secede. In that same address Lincoln refers to the famous Virginian who wrote the Declaration of Independence. He notes, sarcastically “Our adversaries have adopted some Declarations of Independence; in which, unlike the good old one, penned by Jefferson they omit the words ‘all men are created equal’. Why?”

Tempus fugits. It is now the 1^st day of June. The day Tommy was born 12 years ago. We celebrate now as we did then. I will not make the party so penned a small verse which will take my place.

Speaking of birthdays, I want to thank you all for your remembrances, phone calls, etc. etc. It makes one happy to know that others care that he is still around. I am happy! In that vein I wish to announce on this “rare day in June”, that come December 31, 1996 I will give up the formal practice of law. I will have spent 38 years as a licensed practitioner in Penna. I had four more years’ prior thereto in the USMC as a member of the DC Bar and legal officer. So Tempus has fugitted. I feel great having finally made the decision and am joined in this feeling by June. We both look forward to seeing the world, our grandchildren, and reaping the benefits of having stuck around this long.

A thought for you: “Children are natural Zen Masters, their world is brand new in each and every moment.” (J. Bradshaw)

Peter Nero announced: “The next number our Philly Pops will play is entitled ‘Donne Diane’, it is an aria from an opera composed by a little known Italian. It is not a reference to the now notorious ‘Princess Di or Lady Di’, but it may be remembered as the theme from an old TV show entitled ‘Sgt. Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounties’ or such.”

The “light bulb” of memory went on in my head. Preston, ah yes, John Preston who was named for that same TV show. Whatever happened to John? He came into my life unexpectedly as a gift from my Father. He came into our home when I believe Suzanne was not quite 8 or 9 in 1963 or 1964 He lived in our basement before he had to go to a home up on the Boulevard near Neshaminy Mall. When I left in 1977 he was working in the Common Pleas court computer room and had been married. I remember a reception of sorts we had at the Schwartzwald Inn for his marriage. We had non-alcoholic champagne. I remember Mary T. getting high on it and when we suggested a “Toast!” She responded with something like “A Toast with peanut butter and jelly!”

The best part of the story is how John got to 734. It began, as reported to me, in a barbershop in the Society Hill section of the city. The barber received a baby boy one day. It was discovered on his doorstep when he opened. He was deliberating what to do about the child when as fate would have it his first customer thought he’d like to have him. The customer was a merchant seaman with a good polish name. He was unmarried and beyond being mistaken for a “young man”. He managed to drink a little, as most sailors in port are apt to do. He did have a woman he called his friend and sometimes wife. She apparently thought it was a good idea. The barber had not notified the authorities and decided it would be easier to make it his customer’s problem. So the child went home with the merchant marine. The wife became a mother and she was a fan of Sgt. Preston of the Royal Mounties, so why not call the boy “John Preston”. Amen.

Some 10 years or so later our merchant marine found he had cancer and that it was terminal. He wanted to leave his social security money to the boy he now called his son. He had a problem. The SSA would only pay the money to his dependent “child”.

So why not adopt John? Single parent adoptions were not acceptable in the State of Pennsylvania in those days. So it was that he was directed to the office of the adoption “wizard”, Richard T. McSorley, Esq.

His problem was solved by a bit of circumstances that give credence to the expression: “Truth is stranger than fiction”. It happened that the President Judge of the family court, one Adrian Bonnelly, was a friend of Richard T’s. Adrian was divorced. Adrian was an Italian catholic. He had expressed to his friend, Dick, father of priests, nuns, and a bishop that he would like to be buried “in the Church”. One of the consequences of his divorce was that this was not permitted.

However, Adrian got to be a judge believing in politics, and he felt certain it, politics, would work in the church also. Thus his request to his friend Dick, who obviously was right up there in the politics of the church…or had to be in view of his children’s participation! Up comes Dick with a tough case – a single parent adoption. Dick, not being beyond politics for a good cause added a kicker: this boy will want to be a priest someday and as a bastard under Canon Law he wouldn’t be eligible. So here’s your chance Adrian, I’m sure Dick explained, to get your church burial and what better way than to provide the church with another priest! Adrian brought and the result was John Preston became the adopted son of our merchant mariner.

The cancer took its course and the sailor left the homeport for eternity. The seaman’s Will named yours truly as the guardian of the estate and person of the minor John Preston. Initially his adopted mother handled him well but she apparently could not keep it up. As a result he came to live at 734 Chandler St. in the basement.

Adrian died before my Dad did. I don’t know whether he ever achieved a Church burial. I can assure as of this date John Preston hasn’t entered the priesthood.

So Peter Nero’s playing of “Donne Diane” brought the story of how John Preston entered my life. It is what I recall of how things seemed to be at that time. I state this because I came across an epigram by G.K. Chesterton that reads: “Fiction is a necessity”.

It is a necessity to any one, says GK, who wants to write, since all writers deprived of fiction’s true freedom can only quite honestly try to remember how things seemed to be. I honestly have reported what I recall but in reading it over one can’t help but imagine it is a fairy tale, a fiction. Truth is stranger, and sometimes even more entertaining, than fiction.

It is April 6, 1996. I am sitting in the “Florida” room of Rich and Shirley’s home in St. Petersburg, FL. It is a dull day in the sky. I sit here in this somber weather with rain in the offing, thinking of John. Tomorrow, April 7 will mark his sixth anniversary of leaving us. We passed the Veteran’s Hospital here in St. Pete’s where he died. We pointed it out to our guest Betty and Jerry Hopkins. They never met John or at least I don’t think so. They made no mention of knowing him when we pointed out the hospital. I miss the old guy and all the help he was to me. I continue to be angry with him for not pursuing and persevering in his conduct to extend his life. I think of him every time I attend a funeral or go to a hospital for clients. He would’ve covered for me. He seemed to thrive on helping those in pain or on the threshold of death. I am reminded of him every time I visit Salome and Myrtle Dean (now 94 & 98 years young) in the Germantown House where John worked for the Housing Authority in the 80’s. They still remember his kindness’ to themselves and others there on Wayne Avenue.

I sit here in Rich’s home, John’s son, and remember how he raved about Florida – the peace and quiet of sitting on the bank of the small waterway which runs beside Rich’s property. It is here I remember him most and so it is fitting that I am here on his anniversary on Easter Sunday 1996. I still recall that look some six years ago as we retreated from his hospital bed. His look of goodbye! He would have been 67 years of age on his birthday in August 1990 (the year he died). I will be 67 years of age on my birthday in May. I hope he rests in peace. He seemed to be in so much pain as we left his room.

June and I have now decided to plant some roots in this area. We have signed an agreement to purchase a home here in “Shore Acres” a section of St. Petersburg. It is located on the Tampa Bay side of St Pete’s. It is a small home just made for two people. It is only a few blocks from Rich and Shirley’s home (where we are now staying).

Our plans are unsettled as to the precise time of a move. We are contemplating making it our home at least partially by 1999…the year I turn 70 (deo volente!) We are planning on spending more time here in the winters between now and then but still keep an anchor back a 7435 until we feel comfortable here. The distance between us and children, and grandchildren continue to make the decisions difficult, but not impossible. I can now report (4/27) that the mortgage application has been approved and we will settle on 1644 Connecticut Avenue on May 5^th.

The Philadelphia “Daily News” in bold headlines read: “HARD CELL” and in smaller print under it blared: “City’s New Video Arraignment system is called a ‘disaster'”.

The story behind the headline begins on page 5 and reports: “In a state where delays of more than six hours between arrest and arraignment is considered legally ‘unnecessary’ defendants have been waiting three to five days! Blame local court reform…(It)…is part of a much broader $30 million dollar plan to modernize the court system with the latest technology.”

But the quote that will interest you the most is as follows: “‘we would have liked to have conducted dry runs for about a month before we started’ said project manager, Richard McSorley (emphasis added), Municipal Court’s administrator.”

So another McSorley makes the news. To make it noteworthy it is another “Richard T. McSorley”. He follows in the footsteps of the other “Richard T’s” who in times past were quoted or cited or photographed in the press. I needn’t refresh your recollection regarding the Rev. Richard T. since we have seen and heard much of his press-presence in these ramblings, but I would like to report a story told of the Patriarch. It happened in the year 1932 in the election of FDR. On the same ground where grandson Richard now is employed i.e., the Criminal Justice Center, there once stood the Bulletin Building. Wrapping around the corner of the building 10 or 11 stories up was a flashing and blinking sign that reported the latest headline news. It happened, on the night of the election in that year, it was flashing the election results. The road that runs beneath the sign is the circular drive that goes around City Hall. In that election, grandfather Richard was running for one of his many unelectable offices, being a Democrat in a Republican controlled city. The sign flashed “ROOSEVELT”…(and then the latest tally of votes), “MCSORLEY”, (and his vote). It is reported that the patriarch made many trips around city hall that night just to see his name up there in the lights with FDR…a winner. It sure must have been a joy to see yourself linked with a winner.

When Richard handed me the Daily News to read the article, he added, “don’t believe everything you read!” I advised him I wouldn’t, nor have ever done so, and particularly when it concerned someone whom I represented or myself. I’ll save those comments and reports for another time.

Today is May Day and so I will close the May Jottings. There is one item, which must be reported: The “1996 Lancerian Academic Octathalon Champ for the Sixth Grade” is Thomas McSorley aka Tommy. The Octathon consists of testing in eight subjects: History, Art, Science, Music, English, Math, Geography, and Religion. Tom finished 1st in Music, History, and English. He finished 2d in Art. The contestants are two students chosen from sixth, seventh, and eighth grades by the schools that accept the invitation to compete. Eight diocesan schools chose to do so. The students were tested for eight hours on Saturday and then had further testing on

Monday night. The awards were then given. Congratulations once again to Tommy!

Thought for the moment, “You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there’s nobody at home.” (Pope-Epigram)

 

I have been reading John Mortimer’s biography, entitled “Murders and Other Friends”. John Mortimer is a Barrister, playwright, novelist, but is probably best known for the “Rumpole of Old Bailey” TV series. His stories have appeared starring Leo Kern. He also produced for TV “Brideshead Revisited”. In his biography he tells of an incident that reminded me of one I heard from my lawyer Dad and saw in writing in an alleged fictional version. So I am not sure now that it ever happened in fact. But Mortimer’s did and makes the same point…the fickleness of the juror.

Mortimer’s report is as follows: “I’m settling into the back of a London taxi when the driver calls over his shoulder, ‘You still doing those cases down the Old Bailey, are you?’ ‘I’m afraid not’ was he a potential customer? ‘I haven’t done one of them for about ten years.’

“I did wonder. I was on the jury in that case you were doing when the bomb went off.”

I remember it well. A young man had filled his care with petrol and driven off without paying. A policeman who tried to stop him got lodged on the bonnet. The officer was unhurt but the young man was charged with attempted murder. The judge was quite unusually pompous. Just as he finished his summing up I saw a note being passed to him by the usher. He unfolded it slowly and spoke with great deliberation, “Members of the jury, I have just received a note which tells me’-and then the words carne tumbling out in a panic – “there’s a bomb outside the court!!!’ “Whereat, his lordship shot out of the door like a greyhound from a trap. The bomb duly went off, breaking a good deal of glass. No one was injured except my client’s mother whose leg was cut and a very stout, eccentric barrister named James Crespi, who was taken to the hospital saying, ‘I have a great deal of affection for the Old Bailey, so when the bomb was about to go off I interposed my body between it and the building.”

Later we stood in the street and the judge consulted his books to see if you could take a jury’s verdict in Ludgate Circus. The books said no, so we eventually returned to court. The judge repeated his summing up and the young petrol-stealer was acquitted.

‘You were a very kind-hearted jury. ‘I tell the taxi driver, ‘you let my client off’.

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he assures me. ‘You see, you always said good morning to us when you came into court and the prosecuting gentleman never said good morning to us’.

Strangely enough this incident doesn’t cause me to lose faith in the jury system or the “virtues of politeness”.

I hadn’t meant to make these jottings an excerpt from John Mortimer’s book (it read a lot faster than it typed). But the point is there…Jury’s or jurors sometime make a decision on completely inconsequential and non-relevant concepts or events.

Now my Dad’s story, which as I noted above I later read as applying to a fictitious attorney, is similar. A defense attorney is finishing a case and is about to leave the courtroom when the Judge stops him. He advises him he wants him to represent the next defendant. He is to do it pro bono of course. The attorney’s protests fall on deaf ears and the case is called. It is a murder charge against and Defendant once convicted of murder or with a record as bad as that. The case begins and the attorney realizes the evidence against his client is overwhelming and his client is of no help insisting he is innocent. The prosecution ends and the attorney attempts to begin argument to the jury with the express purpose of delaying till court ends for the day. He begins with a history of man from the biblical story of Adam and Eve, and the alleged murder of Cain, etc., etc. He accomplishes his end when the Judge agrees the court should be closed for the day.

The attorney leaves, still undecided as to what he can truthfully and effectively say to defend his client. He wanders the street and then stops in a church to rest. He falls asleep and awakens to morning. He rushes to the office changes and is off to court. He has thought of nothing to improve his client’s position with the jury. He sums up the best he can, pointing to the few weakness in the Prosecution’s case. He rests. After several hours of deliberation the jury returns with an acquittal!

He is dumbfounded! Several weeks later he happens upon one of the jurors in a bus. She is happy to say hello and reminds him of the case. He then broaches the subject of the acquittal and asks if she could, without disclosing any confidences, explain how they arrived at the decision. She responds, with a bit of brogue: “Shurean when I saw you at holy Mass that morning, I knew no client of yours could be guilty of murder!”

Certainly, the story is a bit of a distortion of the whimsy of the jury, but then, after reading John Mortimer’s story it seems more plausible. My father had no doubts that it was just such a thing that could sway a jury. I bow to his wisdom.

I haven’t been before a Jury in over 25 years. In trying to recall an example of their whimsy I find I can’t. I suppose one explanation is I had all good juries, the other is I was just lucky…been so all my life starting with being number 13 in the family. The only recollection I have of those days is one I reported previously about the dissatisfaction of my client who was acquitted of felonious assault against one victim and held guilty of only conspiracy to murder against another. It was a gang slaying case in the 70’s. He expressed his “dissatisfaction” in remarking after three days of trial and the verdict, prior to any “thank you”… “You means I’s gotta go to jail!”

The dinner with Bill, Bunny, Jerry and Betty Hopkins was a smash…the cuisine was June-Extraordinaire! Her salmon special. The company was just as scintillating and even fun! Bill King brought one of those mimeographed race results I’ve been talking about. It was the 5^th Philadelphia Marathon. Dec. 1, 1974. It listed the winner as Bill Rogers later to be a four-time winner of the Boston. It also noted that the 1^st Master was Bill King in 2hrs, 47 min. and the “2nd Master” was yours truly in 2hrs 54 min…I think he wanted every one to know he beat me?! In the twenty years of racing with Bill King I beat him one time in 1974 and he keeps those results in his scrapbook with a heavy black frame around it…to remind him of his off day!

Reading further in Mortimer’s bio I came across a surprise: He is relating about another of his books entitled “Summer Lease” based on his experiences renting houses on the continent (usually in south France or Italian Riviera sections) He goes on, “the book contains a lecherous old journalist, author an appalling column called JOTTINGS which he fills with random and frequently pretentious thoughts.” Boy did I jump! I certainly hope that my readers do not apply these labels to this old author (lecherous or not.) Nor do I want to believe that what I have recorded are “pretentious thoughts” – maybe boastful, self-important, and boring perhaps, but NOT pretentious.

It is now tax day 1996 and I am back at the machine after a two-week plus absence. June and I had a great time in St. Petersburg, FL Warm weather, warm friends, and the generosity of Rich and Shirley made our Easter ’96 a memorable one. I won’t bore you with the details (no pretentious thoughts either!) but will pass on the highlights at a later time. We have made three visits to this country of St. Petersburg and this time we signed an agreement to purchase a property with a view towards seeing it more often, and some day maybe permanently…We have a time table and a ARM mortgage of three years. We also have a dividend of having the property presently rented. It, the rent, will pay the mortgage and the agent-former (we hope) owner is going to see to any new tenant if we so desire. The present tenants are a young couple, she is an RN and he runs his business from the home. They are looking for a residence. They may leave in August ‘96 or continue looking.

So that this may arrive sometime in April I am closing this month’s jottings…I’ll add a salutation and valedictorian…as I can.

Bill King, the premier running historian, has added some corrections and footnotes to my February reveries. He recalled the Tom Osler story about Tom’s name appearing in paper as the winner of a run. However, a few important corrections are: the parties were Ed Dodd and Neil Weygandt and the distance was not 50K, but 50 Miles (!). Both Neil and Ed are ultra-marathoners and the distance is not one that would frighten them. It also would not be the kind of item too many people could challenge or care about back there in the 70’s nor even now.

His addition to the story of Brownie’ s “Oh! The hell with it follow the guy in front of you!” was a reminder about a very good runner in those days named Moses Mayfield. Moses usually won whatever road race he chose to run. So appropriately Bill recalls an incident when Brownie remarked after making a stab at the directions, was: “Oh! The heck with it! Just follow Moses!” (With a nod to the Biblical admonition: “And he shall lead you from bondage…”)

The run I mentioned in Haddonfield to the national park, or center, was called, Bill added, the “Jonas Cattel” It was nine point seven miles (9.7). A point-to-point run and maybe “Jonas Cattel” was the name of the place where it ended. He, Bill, wasn’t sure. As fate would have it in the mail this week (2/10/96) came an ad for a run, of all places Haddonfield. It was a 15^th Anniversary. The big difference however, is that typical of running today: It has Four different distances, 5K, Kings Mile, 1 mile run/walk, and a Kid’s fifty yard dash!! Ten Sponsors, including Archer & Greiner P.C. (Frank Allen’s law firm), and a race day breakfast, from 8:30 till 11:00. The folder contained four typed pages, with directions, awards, and computer application form which permits you to put the whole thing, the meal, race entry, contribution, and what ever else you want on you VISA or MC card…My have times changed!!

I thought Brownie was an innovator in those early days when he used tongue depressors with numbers printed or written on them. As you crossed the finish line some one would hand you one, and then you would turn it in to the record keeper. He would then record your place in the finish. Now they just scan your number or they just tear off the bottom part and place it on a spindle while someone just clicks on a counter the place.

Mentioning Moses Maysfield reminded me of incident back then. There was a run that covered Long Beach Island from end to end. It was approximately 18.5 miles, from Holgate to the Barnegate Lighthouse. In 1973 the run was dedicated to the Israel Wrestlers who were killed at the ’72 Olympics in Munich, Germany. It was only fitting that “Moses” won the race that day making even more apt the Biblical admonition “And he shall lead them…”

Bill added a story of his own about Tom Osler. The champ was PhD holder in Mathematics and a college professor. He also wrote a column for the early Runner’s World. It happened that one such column was entitled “How to run injury free” or some such similar title. Tom had done so for years. As luck, or fate, would have it, before the next issue Tom was injured. He then in good humor added a footnote to his next column about the physician healing himself.

I had planned to return to Meaghan’s Grandpa questions. I took a peek as what was the next subject. It was “My Home” and it referred to the “house you lived in” or home. After the checking that night I had a dream about the house at 4116 Baltimore Ave. I could see the front with the steps going up under the v-shaped porch roof. It was so clear that I promised myself that when I awoke I would sit down and sketch this Victorian structure for her. It never happened, I couldn’t put on paper that which my mind clearly saw. Michelangelo or even Norman Rockwell, I’m not, but there it was clearly on the left side of Baltimore Avenue as you go down the hill, either walking or in a trolley car. It’s in the middle of the block, attached on its left side to the red brick wall of an apartment house. The apartment house extended out to the sidewalk, while the house at 4116 sat back from it with a small grass plot surrounded by a low iron fence in front of it. I never remember anyone cutting the grass in that plot. It could be it was done while we were at the shore. But I do remember a handy man or handy men who worked around the place. I suppose they were working off a fee. One name that sticks with me was “Charlie”. If he ever had a last name I know I never heard it nor remember it.

Sitting back beyond the grass plot was the “Porch”. It was “L” shaped with the short part of the “L” running parallel to Baltimore Avenue. It ran from the apartment house wall for about 30 feet and it ended at the entranceway. It was a set of five or six steps about six feet across with railings of iron. The steps went up and under an upside-down v-shaped facade of yellow and brown. When you reached the top step you had another 20 to 22 feet, the long part of “L”, to walk to reach the front door. That door was huge by today’ s standard unless you are familiar with some of the old houses in center city on Pine or Locust streets. It was made of a mahogany with the upper half being thick cut glass. Over the door was a “transom” which is no longer found on the doors of today? On the transom were the gold leafed large numbers “4116”. The door opened into a “vestibule” or anteroom of tile floor with large mirrored clothing and hat rack. (For the word-watcher: “Vestibule” is French word derived from the Latin: vestibulum, an entrance hall) The room was just a little deeper than the width of the door, which was about 4 feet. You would then turn left to enter the house proper. You would immediately be facing another set of doors. These were two. Both made of the same mahogany with cut glass filling the upper half.

Once you entered these doors you could see across the hallway was a stairway starting up with three or four steps and then turning right and rising up along the wall. That would be the apartment house wall on the outside. To your immediate left as you stood in the vestibule entryway, was the entrance to the parlor. It was covered with drapes which were usually pulled back to permit you to enter and see the two large windows that rose from the floor to the ceiling looking out on Baltimore Ave. I have very few recollections of sitting in the “Parlour” (note, it was not a “parlor”). I remember it being the room in which wakes were held. I also remember coming home from school and finding Mother and Catherine (our live-in baby-sitter) crouched next to the radio. It was a Zenith console that stood three feet tall and had automatic station finder. They would be listening to a soap usually “Stella Dallas” or the like. Later in the evening on certain nights we would listen to “Jack Benny” or “Fred Allen Show” or the “Lone Ranger”. Our main congregating room was a second floor sitting room with an alcove that ran out over the back kitchen and looked out on the garage roof. The room had a piano and walls filled from one end to the other, from the top of the bookcases to the ceiling, with pictures – pictures of the children. One row when the child was a baby, next row when the child received Holy Communion, and then above a picture of Mother with the child, or the children, as they moved along the wall and the numbers increased to end with a family portrait. There was an abundance of pictures of Rosemary. It was later explained that as little babe or shortly thereafter she had an unusual operation to remove a tumor from her abdomen. They feared the worst so many pictures were taken to preserve her memory. She, as we all know, survived and as they say: “the rest is history!”

Meaghan’ s book next question is: “Describe your yard was it big?” Our yard was not big. It was all concrete and used mostly for the hanging of clothes. Just beyond the yard was our garage and we could enter it from the yard and then go out through the garage automobile doors to the street or alley. Our garage was the end of the alley. It extended from our garage door to the city street, a block away, viz., Chester Avenue. The alley was about 10 feet across with curbing on either side which was about 2 feet wide running to the walls (wooden) of the property on either side. The surface was brick. Here was where we played mostly when around the house or we would go to the park, Clark’s (which we mentioned before as having the only statute in the world of Charles Dickens and his character Little Nell). Over the automobile entrance to the garage were a basketball backboard and a hoop. We even sometimes had a net in the hoop but most of the time it was just a “hoop”. Here we played pick-up games, and “horse”, etc. Dribbling was art since the brick surface was uneven and along the side was the curbing, which tended to deflect the ball in erratic directions. The walls on either side of the small sidewalks were the out of bounds so it was like playing in a cage.

Next she asks, “Did you have your own room?” No, shared it with at least two brothers most of the time. On occasion it moved up to four. It was a large dormitory-like room with bunk beds. It was the front room third floor, which had an alcove looking out over Baltimore Avenue. It had a large desk in another alcove along the apartment house wall. In that one was a roll top desk with several cubby holes in which you could hide things, and two or three drawers under the desk with cabinets with glass doors across the top, while sitting at the desk on your left was a radiator and a large window with a good size windowsill. The window faced Baltimore Avenue. Having the radiator there made it a good place to do your homework in the winter but I remember doing it more often down on the kitchen table under the supervision of my Mom.

I had intended to end my recalling of the house on Baltimore Avenue, but June and I went to Cape May on Friday and one more image came back. It was the tower that ran from the third floor roof up into the sky. It was the corner of the building and where the alcove was in the third floor front bedroom. Seeing all the Victorian houses in Cape May reminded me of the witches’ hat that sat on the corner of our roof. So I thought I should add it! Just to show how old the old homestead was.

We are now in March. We spent the weekend using our children’s Christmas gifts – the certificate to the Golden Inn from Mike and Cindy, and the cash from the McSorley’s. We left Wednesday night and visited with the Hopkins at their favorite Casino. June managed to walk away a winner. It was a great way to start the weekend. We checked in at the Golden Inn, which was having a Big Band Weekend, with Al Alberts…late of the Four Aces. We had music and dancing every night and even Dixie land for Sunday Brunch. Friday we visited Cape May with the thought of obtaining a place for a week in the summer. After a day of walking the entire front of Cape May City we ended up taking a week at the Golden Inn. The week will not be disclosed until later in this broadcast. We even drove to Ocean City and checked out its environs from 34^th to 58^th Street but still felt the best deal was there at the Golden Inn. Amen! The weather was not very cooperative. We did get a good walk in Friday, but Saturday the view was more of Vermont than “New Joisey”. A wet snow decorated the gazebos and the sand dunes to make it a winter wonderland.

We also celebrated “Leap-Day” February 29^th. It is the extra day we receive every four years. The next one will be in the year 2000. Sounds like science fiction to be talking in terms of the “year two thousand!” It was a time to note that the ancient Babylonians, the Greeks, and Egyptians all tinkered with the calendar. They would add leap days and even leap “months” to get it straight. The problems were they were using the moon, or lunar, months…which could be 29 or 30 days. But a dozen lunar months never jived with the annual cycle of the sun or year. So that as one wag wrote,” A senator in the forum could say ‘same time next year’ and it could mean almost anytime” What they did know was that the solar year ticks away at 365 days five hours and a few seconds. It was Pope Gregory XIII who, in 1582 ordered the adoption of the calendar we now have with its four 30-day months, seven 31-day months, and February with its extra “leap” day every four years.

This all sounds so simple until you talk to a physicist or astronomer and they start talking about how to calculate a “second”. The figure they arrive at could fill the line across this page. I also learned that they believe the earth’s rotation is slowing down by milliseconds (?) per year. But at the rate it is doing so I don’t think it will be a problem for me (or any one who reads this since the number of years necessary to make a correction will find us gone from this planet).

Came across some great similes, which I am pleased to pass along. They were by Lauch Faircloth, Republican Senator from North Carolina, and recorded by Francis X Clines of the N.Y. Times during some hearings. He states that getting information out of the White House is: “…like eating ice cream with a knitting needle”, or “…like skinning a hippopotamus with a letter opener” or, “like teaching a kangaroo to do the limbo”. LET A SIMILE BE YOUR UMBRELLA (W. Safire) SEE YA!!