22 July 2005
As I write this, it is exactly one year to the day from my departure from Lagos. And on this day, over in Nigeria, the Nigeria-Ghana Region will officially and formally become the West African Province, no longer dependent on the New York Province but in charge of their own affairs as an independent Province in the Society of Jesus. It is a great day for them – a little scary, for the ones who fully understand what that means – but yet another sign of the growth of the Church in Africa and especially in the English-speaking western area. The new Province will include five countries – Nigeria and Ghana, obviously but also Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and Liberia.
And I am still out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And doing well. Let me get one technical note out of the way right at the beginning. I have been writing missives to my friends since January of 1993, recounting my adventures as I arrived in Nigeria and wandered in and out of different jobs and assorted adventures. There have been many of them – initially on paper, with friends in the US making copies and mailing things around, and more recently electronically.
A cousin of mine sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, saying that her son was wandering around India, and was recounting his travels on a Blog, and I should go and check it out. Now I confess, much of this 21st century technology came into being while I was in Africa, and I was still not completely sure what a Blog was. So I followed the address, and lo and behold, there is a site where people can leave their stories for pretty much anyone to read.
This sounded like a good idea – so I started to accumulate the assorted Massive Missives and thought I would put them all in one place, so anyone who might have missed one or wanted to go back and read one or more, could. I made two discoveries –
1) Not all the missives were in my computer or on a disk, and so I have spent hours typing away, turning hard copy into electronic whatsis, so it could be uploaded.
2) Even with that – I seem to have left or lost a whole lot of writing. There are gaps in the record, and I have no evidence that I ever wrote letters about the assassination I found myself in the middle of (where the man’s brains and bloods were on my trousers) or recording my first albums or the trip to the US for my mother’s death or final vows or the death of the two young Novices or watching the towers come down from Belfast – and yet I am sure I did. Now I have been guilty of thinking of letters in my head and then never writing them – but I cannot believe I would let events of such magnitude go un-remarked. Never an unpublished thought, as was said about one of our more prolific Jesuits.
So I have posted what I have – about twenty odd missives – here at Blogspot and you are welcome to peruse and comment. If any of you have any of the material I mentioned, either in print or in a computer somewhere, I’d love to receive a copy. Or if I ever sent you anything you think worthwhile that’s not at the Blog – send it on. I might even use the space to post other things for comment or reaction..
Now there are some technical notes. I am new to all this, and not always as competent as I would like to hope, so while there are missives starting with #1, I can’t seem to find a way to get all the list available at once. The items are all there – postings, they call them – and I have tried to keep them in some kind of order - but you have to go into the archive section to find them and they’re not broken up by posting and it’s not as neat and easy as I would like it to be, or as I think it probably could be, were someone with more skill to be dealing with it.
So here I am, one year later. And the latest Micronesian meandering posted takes us all up to before Christmas, including the added note about my Open House and birthday celebration here on the island, in the midst of a mission and a storm and other stuff. (It’s the other stuff’ll kill ya, if you’re not careful.)
Sooo – let’s do a quick catch up from January, so we’re all more or less at the same place.
It is hard for me to express how much I enjoyed my Christmas tree. In Lagos we decorated the swamp plant in the living room for several years, and eventually we got artificial trees, and before I left we had a tree for the living room and a tree for the lobby of the office and a small tree for the waiting area and I had a small tree in my office and we put lights on the hedge and other stuff all around. Catherine, our secretary (I think they call her an office manager now – whatever her title, she ran a large portion of our lives) came to be in charge of the decorating and devoted one whole day to that every year. And was also in charge of putting away.) But it was an artificial tree that went into a box and while it was pretty – well, you know.
This year – real tree. There is a barge that comes full of trees and wreaths and the Boy Scouts sell the wreaths and the high school sells the trees. We bought a large (mahungous – my spell checker doesn’t think this word exists, but we know better, right?) tree for the chapel, which the Catholic community decorated (brilliantly, I might add – the Protestant community decorated the rest of the large chapel. We help each other out.) and I bought a regular tree for the house. My house. My living room. Cut off the end, let is stand overnight in sugar and water and aspirin, set it up on a small table (so I would not have to crawl on my belly like a snake to keep putting water in it – some things you never forget). I had been buying Christmas ornaments and decorations since I arrived – the previous occupant either took all his Christmas things with him or he didn’t have any – but there was nothing when I moved in. I put large candy canes all around the front yard, and set up an artificial treet outside the front window, with lights, and had a plastic (lit from inside) Jesus and Mary and Joseph grouping and a large plastic star hanging above them. (Sounds tacky, I know – it was. It was all I could afford. And in the daylight it somehow peripherally made you think of plastic flamingos, only not so classy. But at night, when the light went on inside the plastic bits, it actually was really rather nice. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I have pictures.) In the upstairs windows I had three illuminated stars, one in each of the windows.
But the tree – and the wreath. I didn’t do anything with the wreath but hang it up. It had some holly and berries but was mostly a lovely evergreen wreath. I just hung it – one at home and one in the office (where I had another small artificial tree next to my desk and a small crystal nativity scene on the desk). The tree. That wonderful smelly aromatic made it a joy to come downstairs in the morning tree. I wasn’t sure about decorations and lights, but I had done well in my ordering (except for tinsel, which today seems to be so flimsy and light it is practically unusable. I have a lot of unused tinsel.) and the tree looked good without being too crowded. I heard my mother’s voice as I was putting up the lights (put the lights deep inside the tree, John) and when I was hanging the reflecting balls (put them where they will catch the light) – and it was all very nostalgic. Left over ornaments and odd bits I put all around in odd places – my mother used to have a touch of Easter egg hunt in our Christmases, as ornaments that wouldn’t hang and extra pieces got put on the stairs, on top of lamp shades – all through the Christmas season you kept finding little Christmas bits tucked away. And just like Easter, she could never keep track of them, so inevitably you’d be finding little Christmas bits all the way into February. Which is kind of fun, actually.
Every day in the evening I would turn off the living room lights and just sit and look at my tree. Music playing in the background. I’d open the blinds so I could see the tree when I came up from the outside – I could sit outside at night by the glow of my plastic statues and smoke a cigar – but the real joy was sitting and watching my tree at night, and coming in from the outside or downstairs from the upstairs to the smell of the pine. Or fir. Or whatever it was. It was lovely.
However – fast forwarding – it was also a major pain in the hoohoo getting out. Despite my best efforts at watering and murmuring tender words of encouragement, by January 6th (which is when all sensible and caring and tradition minded people keep their trees until – I won’t even BEGIN to talk about the heathens whose Christmas trees were on the curb on December 27th. Pagans.) When I was a boy… (When you find yourself starting a sentence with that particular phrase – or in the case of women, appropriately modified – stop talking and go and have a drink.) But in our house for years and years, we only put the tree up (into the stand and into the living room) on Christmas Eve. It was not decorated – Santa did the decorating. I am sure that my parents each got into heaven on the merits of their lives. But I am equally sure they got better seats because of this gift to their children. Christmas morning, not only did we have presents, we had the marvel of the decorated tree! It might have meant sleepless nights and panicky mornings but it was worth it.
I wander. Taking down the tree. Needles everywhere. As late as July, sweeping and cleaning, I would find needles in strange places. And I even had a plastic bag which I had put the tree in before I stuck it in the stand. I was thinking ahead. But the theory and the practice diverged somewhere along the way, and January 7 – a Friday, hence my day off and a logical day for the taking down and cleaning out of a tree thereunto – was a long and nasty event. The undecorating part was ok, a little sad but ok, and even the taking off of the lights was fairly orderly. (Again – as children, we never participated in the taking down of the tree. One day we would come back from school and without announcement, it would all be gone. Our mother did it while we were away. Again, magic. A little depressing, but magic nonetheless.)
But even with the needles and spilling water and the nuisance of it all – the tree was a balm to my soul, and I loved it. I haven’t totally decided if I am going to do it again next year or devolve to artificial and a can of spray. And scented candles. July is not the best time to make those kind of decisions.
Even though the tree is down, I can’t leave Christmas without a couple of other notes. The things we do on Kwaj. I don’t remember – did I talk about the underwater pumpkin carving for Halloween? Or the underwater turkey hunt for Thanksgiving? Well, we have a variety of Santa’s for Christmas. There is a big community tree lighting ceremony early in December, and closer to Christmas, Scuba Santa comes ashore with his helpers (all with their scuba tanks – yes they appear in the Lagoon at night, with lights and lots of accompanying festivity.) The Marshallese community had a special night, with dancers and singers and special activities and at the end of the evening, Santa came and threw candy to the crowd. Guess who was Santa? Yup, and I am sure they asked me because the Santa suit didn’t have a beard – and I did. Very full and doused with talcum powder. I have a picture, if I can ever figure out the technology.
One of my several innovations this year was a Nativity chapel. Early in the season I had suggested making a large nativity scene at the rear of the Catholic chapel. Because the main chapel is non-sectarian, we aren’t allowed to leave any Christian symbols in the place when we finish a service. In the chapel, however, I can do what I want. I got some folks interested, made some suggestions – and one Sunday, while I was up on Roi, they came in and did a magnificent job, much better than anything I had imagined. The Protestants were delighted and people kept dropping in throughout the season. I took pictures (there’s that technical thing again).
We had a children’s pageant on Christmas eve as part of the Mass, and then I went over to the Vet’s Hall, to bless the table for the Christmas Eve party, and then back to the church to get ready for the ceremony of carols and Midnight Mass. Not as large a group as I would have hoped, but a very nice ceremony. Folks on Kwaj are good people, but very oriented to their comfort and convenience. Christmas morning we had a small Mass (since it wasn’t a Sunday, some folks felt they didn’t need to go to church. Sigh.) and then I went over to Ebeye. Jim Gould, the Apostolic Prefect (a Jesuit – sort of like a bishop) had come to be with the people and say the Christmas Masses, so I visited with him for a little and then joined a Marshallese group from Kwaj for the traditional Christmas routine. Which is…
On Christmas, each of the churches entertain one another with singing and dancing. Groups go out and visit other churches – and in a reversal of what you might think, the group that visits brings candy and treats and throws them to the crowd at the end of the performance. Of course, each group is in the audience and collects candy themselves from the group that comes before them. Great fun to see the various performances. They had made me a shirt of the same pattern as everyone else in the group was wearing – I didn’t dance, but I did sing occasionally. And had great fun. Around 5 in the afternoon I went home for a quiet night.
Of course the next day was Sunday, so I had the usual schedule of Masses here and on Roi and on Santo. The week after Christmas is perhaps my favorite time of the year, lots of quiet time and smoking of good cigars and enjoying my Christmas tree (I’ve already said that, huh). New Year’s Eve I went over to Ebeye to say Mass for them, and when I got back to my house in the evening, I was simply too calm and quiet to go out and join the New Year’s Eve festivities. And thus endeth the year in which I left Nigeria and came to this small spot of land and humanity in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
January had the usual parties – recovering from Christmas. I joined with the Protestant Minister and the island psychologist and we did a presentation on stress, identifying it and dealing with it, for the IT department, the computer folks who get hazzled every time something goes wrong. (Hazzled – a combination of hassled and frazzled, and worse than either.) And the parish softball team started practicing, including – guess who? Yup, that guy again who keeps asking where his brains are. In an effort to encourage people to join up and play, I said I would play. Now – the last time I had a baseball bat in my hand for athletic purposes (rather than, say self-defense) was before some of my teammates were born. The things I do for community. Actually it was fun, and I got no more injured than guys younger than I. I spent most of the season playing catcher – my arthritis in the back made it hard to throw with any power, and since you can’t steal in softball, I didn’t have to worry about the throw to second. We had a couple of numbers in the win column, but honesty makes me add they were all forfeits. We didn’t actually “win” a game but we did have a lot of fun. Did Mass in Latin one weekend – Latin, English, Marshallese – one is nothing if not flexible. Said the blessing at a Kemem – the one year party were the whole community comes together to celebrate. It is a major (MAJOR!) event – can cost up to $10,000 and people bring food and gifts from many other islands. Neat kind of a coming together, and I prayed in both English and Marshallese.
In February the first part of the shipment of my personal effects arrived, 17 boxes of books and music. Had three kids who received their First Communion before Lent started, and Ash Wednesday with distributing ashes throughout the day and a good penitential service in the evening. During Lent I hosted Lunch with the Father – each Wednesday people brought their sandwiches, and I provided soup, and we had conversation about any topic people wanted to explore. Not only did a create some WONDERFUL soups- and I did – but suddenly people were showing up for lunch who had never said boo in church. Bertold Brecht was right – first feed the face, and then talk right from wrong.
Another innovation from the peripatetic Padre – we had a Mardi Gras party – Death By Chocolate. We had a good DJ, lots of costume pieces and masks and decorations, we used the Country Club – and admission was free except that people had to bring something chocolate for the table of Chocolate (or the table of death, depending on how you looked at it). I made rice krispy squares with cocoa krispies, and a chocolate marshmallow candy that was extraordinary. It was a great evening. And because of the time zone and time change, we got to watch the Superbowl before the whole thing started.
I also got a letter from Princeton Day School, saying they wanted to give me the Alumni Service Award. (For those not intimately involved with my life before high school, I went to a private boys’ school called Princeton Country Day. They merged with a girls’ school called Miss Fines, and the new school is Princeton Day School. It is a terrific school, and I have been a fan and supporter of theirs for years – even before they gave me an award.) It took a little while to get the permissions and work out the schedule with my employer (I’m still getting used to the fact that I have an employer and a contract and a salary and stuff like that – just like a real person!) So in May I went back to receive the award. They had said if I couldn’t make it, they would award it to me next year but hey – they might change their mind.
Other events? Helped to dedicate a new catamaran – holds about 180. Although we are an army base, we have a fleet about around 30 boats. We had an emergency call one night – an Air Marshall Island plane was coming in and couldn’t get the landing gears down. All the emergency services were called out, including the chaplains. The pilot flew around for a while, used up fuel and made a beautiful landing right in the middle of the runway.
I made an impression on St Patrick’s Day – green glittery shoes with pointy toes, green lei, shamrock pin that lit, and a bag of pins to give away. I was on the morning radio show for two hours, and had a most interesting rest of the day. I bought a piano, and on the Monday after Palm Sunday, another innovation – we had the way of the Cross in the community. I had had a large cross made, and we had prayers at a number of places around the island – at the airport we prayed for those without the freedom to travel, at the police station for those unjustly imprisoned, at the library for those who cannot read and are denied education, at the bank for those suffering economic oppression, and so forth. It was a great success and a number of people came out to participate. I also got the shipment of the rest of my personal belongings.
April – Frank Perdue, the chicken guy died. So did the Pope, but we knew Frank, Terry had worked at Perdue’s for a number of years and she and Frank were on first name terms. There was a large fire on Ebeye – about six houses destroyed, which means about fourteen families dispossessed. The Kwaj folks rallied around, and we loaded three containers with the donated items plus about $10,000 in cash. One of the annual events here is the Spring Break Music Festival. It actually started out as a beer festival, with music – a fair number of folks here are into brewing their own beer and their own wine. Now it is a music festival with a fair amount of beer. I was asked to sing, and although most of the acts were bands, I took the stage all by myself, with pre-recorded accompaniment. In all humility – they had never seen nor heard anything quite like me. (Modest, ain’t I? Just reporting the facts, m‘am, just the facts.) Did Fiddler on the Roof, Slow Boat to China, the Largo al Factotum (Ah bravo Figaro!) Bring Him Home, New York New York (with sexy dancing in the middle) and Ole Man Rover to Close. People came from blocks away to see what was going on. I was – what’s the word? – a hit.
I’m selling my CD’s and one of the reasons I agreed to do the singing was that I had announced a concert in May, and I figured I needed all the publicity I could get. And beer – did I mention there was beer? For much of my life, weight (as in having too much of it and trying to lose it) has been a major pre-occupation. Part of the problem, of course, was motivation. I am not a fan of exercise for its own sake. But beer is a great motivation. I order to drink a beer, I know I have to do a certain amount of exercise, just to keep things in balance. If I know an event is coming up, I can do a little exercise ahead – like storing up electricity in a battery. So – in order to lose weight – drink beer.
I know, it needs a little work, but I think it’s a system that could gain a certain degree of public support. I can imagine a poster…
We did a special Mass here for the Pope, and had a number of non-Catholics in attendance. Certainly the media coverage was extraordinary. Our television is AFN – Armed Forces Network – which means we get a fair sampling of US television, reflecting US tastes. So there is a lot of sports, and when the Tony Awards came along, they were not aired, since the feeling at the highest levels (and I know this, because I had lengthy email correspondence with the AFN hoorah’s) was that this was not an event of interest to most of the viewership. I agreed, but my argument was that the minority occasionally needed a crumb thrown in our direction. Once a year an opera or a ballet, a classical music event, a Tony Awards ceremony. It was not an argument I won. But we did persuade them to show the Live 8 concert.
We also took the congregation over to Ebeye one Sunday morning for a joint Mass with the Queen of Peace Marshallese congregation. I was the celebrant – Mass was in Marshallese, but the homily was in English. We had about 80 people who made the trip, and it was a great success. Many people were talking about the next time even before we got to the boat for the trip back. The congregation prepared a huge buffet for everyone afterwards – of course, they got to keep the collection, so it was a (warning – badly over-used cliché about to appear) win-win situation. (Sorry.)
I won’t bore you with all the parish things that go on – wedding vow renewals and First Communion and special Masses, and thank you parties at the end of the year and Parish Council activities (another of my innovations – I started a parish council) I am going to do a first year review in another couple of weeks, and I will post that on the Blog – and shortly I will be announcing a web site that folks can access who aren’t KRS affiliated. We’ve had a web site for some time, but at the moment, it can only be reached by people who have privileges for the local net (which excludes a bunch of folk on-island, which is why I do a weekly electronic version of our parish bulletin – which also goes to folks who ask for it, and right now we have more people off-island who are receiving it than folks here. Mostly former residents, some families of residents, and a couple of people who have come through and asked to be included.)
The two major events in May were my first Kwaj concert and the trip to the US to receive the Humanitarian Service Award. I keep saying what an easy life someone like Pavarotti has – when he sings a concert, all he has to do it show up. Someone else has printed the program and handled the advertising and decorated the set and set and focused the lights and arranged the chairs and set up the sound system and like that – I pretty much did all that myself. Some folks did volunteer to help, and they were a great help – but I could have used six more just like them and starting about three weeks earlier. About ten days before the concert, USAKA (the government) announced IT was sponsoring a performance of some local stick dancers. On the same night. In the same facility, just next door. Now the stick dancers are very good and they’re nice people – but they come about once a year. And their whole performance lasts about 45 minutes. BUT – they have the panache of being exotic, and they were raising money to fund a trip to perform somewhere or other, and people around here don’t even think in terms of going to one event and then going to another, so the competition didn’t help my attendance. Not bad – but definitely under 100, which for an island of 2,000 population, is not breath-taking.
I did have someone tape the concert – a good videographer but with a camera with which she was not familiar and a tripod that did not move easily, so while we have an historic record of the event, it fits right in the mold of the Nigerian Video tapes. One of the big hits of the evening was “Kwajalot” – a song about life on Kwajalein sung to the tune of “Camelot.” I have since done it on the radio (and they taped it, so the could play it in the future without my having to get out bed) and I did it again on the 4th of July. I’ve been giving away copies of the words, so it may become an island classic. That, or one of the pieces of evidence in my deportation hearing. Certainly those who did come were most enthusiastic, and they had never seen anything like it here. There is already a lot of interest for my announced concert in December – Father John’s Birthday Bash. I’ll keep you posted.
Two days after the concert I took off for the US. Flying from here is always something of an adventure. You have to come down to the airport and check your bags in around 2. These days the overbooking has become something of a problem (Continental Airlines – bah, humbug) so people are showing up sometimes as early as 12:30. The airport is right across from the chapel, so I can look out the window and see how the line is forming – I went over a little after one. Lots of folk I knew were on the plane, so there was a lot of visiting back and forth. Checked in easily – now you go away and wait and come back between 4 and 5. Okey-dokey. The first leg of the flight is a 45 minute jump to Majuro, where those who are actually going to Majuro and all those sitting on the left side of the plane get off. Yup – with all your carry on. Nice stretch of the legs, except that after only 45 minutes you don’t need a whole lot of stretching. Then you have the long go to Honolulu. You leave here around 6:30 in the evening and get into Hono at around 2:30 in the morning. The airport is closed – about the only thing open is the luggage a carousel. I had arranged to stay with the Jesuits, so I took a cab and off we went. About twenty feet. The driver stopped and asked if the people where I was going were home. (This after I had handed him a piece of paper on which the directions were printed out.) I pointed this out to him, we read through the directions together, and off we went. Again. Found the campus of the University (not a major accomplishment, it is several hundred acres) and we found the campus of the high school, and after a little wandering about we even found the Jesuit house. I paid off my driver, found the note directing me to my room, and quietly collapsed. Strange sound rather like running water, but I couldn’t identify it.
In the morning, I discovered that the strange sound was running water. The Jesuit house is built right next to a stream, and it is a lovely residence. Several rooms downstairs (where I was) and several more upstairs, along with a gorgeous small chapel. I made myself some breakfast, ran into one of the members of the community, checked email and went for a walk. I thought I would catch the midday Mass at the university chapel but was informed the Mass had been moved to 5 PM. So off I went to see Honolulu by foot. Had a wonderful walkabout, full of mini-adventures and exotic people – and got home around 3:30. Yes, a three and a half hour walk. Had a shower, watched a little of the video of me performing (shameless, I am shameless. Well, I was curious.) and then went off to catch the 5 pm Mass. Visited with the chaplain afterwards (who is also the superior of the local community where I was staying) then back up to the house for dinner and to catch the shuttle I had ordered to take me to the airport.
Dinner was breath-taking. They have a cook who is a marvel. And good thing I had given in to this particular temptation, because when I got through the formalities and what-nots at the airport and settled into the plane, I made a discovery. Plane leaves at 9 PM arrives at Newark at 1 in the afternoon. Ten hours roughly of flying. When you leave Honolulu, they give you a bag of nuts and a drink and a piece of cheese that a rodent would consider a light snack. That’s it. About an hour before arriving, they give you a cup of coffee and a croissant (the French should sue – make them use some other term to describe the soggy bread thingy they call a croissant) with some egg in between. That’s it. I guess they figure since they have made the seats so much smaller, they will now work on making US smaller so we can fit in them. Grumble, fratsis, snort.
My seatmate ate the nuts and drank the soft drink and went promptly and efficiently to sleep. I was impressed. I stayed up to read and watch a movie. (I have no idea what movie.) About seven hours later my seatmate stirred, and while he went to the rest room, I walked about. When I came back to the seat, he had opened the bag he had brought on board, in which was a take-out meal and he was happily munching a chicken dinner, complete with rice and a salad. Aha, sez I to meself sez I, THIS guy has taken this flight before. Note to self: if circumstances are such that we find ourselves again on Continental – and since it is the only airline that flies out of Kwajalein – and if we are not in Business (which is not in the realm of gonna happen soon), check out the take out options before going through security. Maybe before going to the airport. Plan ahead.
Got my bags and took the bus from Newark to Grand Central, walked over two blocks and figured it shouldn’t be too hard to get a cab. The pilot of the plane (yes, the same plane on which I arrived) had the same thought, and so we shared a cab going uptown. Turns out he is a Boston College grad, ole Jesuit alum, and so he ended up paying for the cab for the poor missionary priest (that would be me, for those who were not paying attention, or who do not tend to think of me in that particular light.) Got into the Jesuit residence, found my room, made a few phone calls, unwrapped the rental cell phone I had ordered for my time, and went off to meet a friend of mine who works in theatre and was in town for a meeting of theatre folk.
She is a Tony voter – one of the select who cast ballots and decide who wins the Awards. Which means that once the nominations are out, she has to see every nominated show (assuming it has not already closed). We met at one of the mid-town hotels and went to a party for these out of town theatre folk thrown by Spamalot. Free drinks and food, I saw some people from the business that I knew from my time before, we got a sample of the show, and then we went off to get some dinner and saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Walked back to the hotel, visited a little more and I went up to the Jesuit residence and collapsed. My first day back on the mainland.
Don’t worry – you’re not going to get a day by day of every day on the mainland, fascinating though those days were and scintillating as my telling about them might be. I went up to the Bronx and visited some Jesuits who were in residence at the infirmary there, and got the keys for the mission car, collected my bags at midtown and drove town to Princeton. The joy of driving. Grass and flowers and a chill in the air – none of these do we really have on our island paradise. Princeton, of course, is where I grew up, and so I drove around a little when I got there. (OK – I confess – I tried to take a short cut and got lost in the Jersey back country, and ended up at Old Tenent Church, where we used to have picnics when we went to the dentist. That’s the place where Molly Pitcher made history, fighting for the colonial army.) I bought a pair of sandals at the same shoe store where we bought shoes fifty years ago – and the same family is running it. Nice. Went out to the friends where I was staying ,visited for a while and changed clothes for the cocktail party that night at the school that was giving me the award. (Does that mean the drinks were free? It does indeed.) Met old friends, made new ones and had a lovely time. Back to the house for more visiting and relaxing and enjoying. My body never learned about jet lag (and don’t you DARE tell it!) so I seem to be able to move in and out of time zones without a major shifting of biological gears.
Next day – a lovely ceremony, a bunch of guys form my class showed up – Randy Hobler had been in touch with some of them, and Peter Morse and his wife were in town and came (the same Peter Morse I ran into in Lagos,Nigeria) and Bob Leventhal, who had been one of my best friends in school, and Lee Smith, whom I hadn’t seen for more years than either of us wanted to remember. Great fun. The folks running this bash had said they had reserved a table for me and my family – and I had a flash of sitting all by myself in solitary splendor. Another alum won the Achievement Award – she had been a columnist at the Washington Post but had died recently. Several teachers were also honored for years of service at the school. And (again) I won the award for traveling the farthest to attend the reunion – this time from the opposite end of the globe.
I don’t mean to sound like someone’s grandfather, but as I grow older, I do appreciate and understand more the things I was taught in school, and treasure the teachers and experiences I had. We knew our school was very good (and very hard – and that the teachers were really cruel) and there was a certain pride in that, rather like the recruits who boast that they had the toughest sergeant in the Army. As the years have gone by, the value of the experience has become more apparent to me, and I have treasured the opportunity to go back and say thank you to those teachers still alive, and encourage and applaud the young teachers who have taken up that same work.
That evening there was a small dinner with guys fro our class and their wives. Regan Kearney came, and Wes McLoughlin, who was one of our teachers, and Ward Kuser who was another of my closest friends in school and who has remained a close friend through the years. He’s an architect and an intellectual and one of those renaissance men who keeps curiosity alive and has a tremendous giving heart and is one of the deeply best people I know.
The next day I went to St. Paul’s Church in Princeton to concelebrate one of the morning Masses. I had emailed from Kwajalein, offering to give one of the priests a break, but they said come ahead and concelebrate. Another item in the small world category – I sent off the email, and a couple of days later got a response from the web master (web mistress?) of the parish web page. Turned out it was a woman I had been in high school with, with whom I had run a small business at one point, me doing photography and her drawing pastel portraits form my pictures. I confess – there was a time I thought she was the ultimate, you know, climb oceans, swim mountains, bring the moon on a silver platter, that sort of thing. There she was – unfortunately, we only had a chance for a short visit after Mass. Also unfortunately – the celebrant was a delight, and the church is great but one of the married deacons preached, and in all humility, I have to say, I could have ad-libbed a better homily on the spot. I’m sure he’s a lovely human being, but – sigh. Less time in purgatory.
Visited with some other friends in the afternoon, and one of Rob French’s sons is doing a project about his father, one of my best friends in the world, and so he did an on-camera interview about Rob.
Monday morning – off into the wilderness, beautiful day, gorgeous drive through the New Jersey and Pennsylvania countryside, to a place called the Bavarian Inn. The location was chosen because it was near John and Judy Rosenbaum, and mid-point where another old friend of mine from Indiana and I crossed paths. She was on her way to New York to collect her daughter, and I was heading the other way, so we had a chance to visit, have dinner and enjoy the most gorgeous view of the Shenandoah River. Great place, great dinner, great time. The next morning she went on to New York and I had lunch with John and Judy and from there had a gentle drive through back roads to Joel Garreau’s house.
Aside – one of the great dimension of life in an internet age has to be MapQuest. You type in address a), you type in address b), you push a button and bingo – you have a printout of explicit and clear driving directions going from a) to b). And when you get to b), you throw away the directions with a clear conscience.
b) was wonderful. Les Garreaux are great friends – he had just finished his latest book, RADICAL EVOLUTION. (Go right out and buy a copy. It is truly wonderful – full of fascinating stuff and just plain fun to read.) Had a chance to visit and meet new people and went for a walk and loved being in the country. The next day I moved on to my next stop, a visit with a couple I knew from Lagos – and they invited other people I knew from Lagos, so it was a Lagos remembering festival. (I also register a firm vote of approval for friends who not only have spare rooms for visiting and wandering missionary types, but who actually have whole separate mini-apartment arrangements. Bravi Maurice and Connie!!!)Next morning off for lunch with a godchild, who has just started working in DC, and from there, on to stay with another friend who lives in downtown DC. She and I and her boyfriend went over to the apartment of another old friend from college, and THAT evening was a college theatre remembering night with singing and story-telling and nostalgia about knee-high.
Aside – I have said it before and I will say it again, I have no greater treasure, no greater gift in my life than the friends I have made and kept through the years. Going house to house is perhaps not the most relaxing way to spend a very short period of time but getting to spend time with old friends was infinitely rewarding.
From there I went to spend a couple of days with my sister, with a stop at the Annapolis Bridge boatyard to visit with some friends who have a boat moored there. The weather was seriously nasty, so we didn’t go out on the water, we just stayed in and enjoyed NOT being out (except for when Robert went to the restaurant at the end of the dock and brought back some of the most delicious clam chowder I have wrapped my taste buds around in a long time. A truly noble being, someone who will go out in a gale to bring back clam chowder. An extra star in his crown in heaven)
I stayed at the rectory (priests’ residence, for those not up on Catholic jargon and terminology, or crossword puzzle addicts) because it is quiet, beautifully laid out, and my cousin and her husband and their small son were visiting at Terry’s. I had never met the husband and their son – so I got to get to know new family members. Terry and I had a chance to go through some family things, and I celebrated Mass on Sunday, and the night before we all went out to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (the center of the crab world) run by a Lebanese. I had steak. Smothered in crab sauce. Thought I had died and gone to heaven. (My appetizer? Crocodile, of course – or was it ostrich? One or the other – I always get those confused.)
I keep getting reminded about detachment – being detached – not getting a-ttached to things. Stuff. When I went off to Africa, I left a bunch of stuff in the basement in Maryland. In one trunk there was my Irish greatcoat with the cape (I LOVED that coat!) and several good sweaters, and memorabilia from college and high school, including yearbooks and some photos of shows I was in, and my ice skates. When I was in South Bend, I got seriously interested in skating, and at one point, someone stole my skates. So I got angry, and I went out and bought blades – spent about $400 for the blades, and then more for the boots, and had the blades fitted to my feet, all very professional. Figured these were skates I could keep until I got old – and skating is something you can do until you’re old, so I thought I was in business.
Except for floods. At one point, my globe-trotting sister was off somewhere (Thailand, Korea, Egypt, who can keep track?) and while she was away, there was a flood. In the basement. Where no one would see it. By the time she got back, the things that were not above the two-foot level (like my trunk) were soaked, soggy and a right mess. As she described it, they didn’t even try to see about salvaging anything, they just shoveled out the basement. Sigh. Even if the boots were ruined, the blades…. Obviously this is a sign from God that I am not going to be one of those graceful old men gliding elegantly around the ice in their 80’s. Or at least, not on their own personally fitted blades.
And back to New York. (I checked my diary – turns out the appetizer was alligator. See above. I was close.) Found a place to hide the car, changed clothes (into one of my dress outfits from Nigeria) and met Pam Heilman, an old friend from Buffalo, who was in New York. Her husband was in China, so it was just the two of us. She took me to dinner at the River Café, just under the Brooklyn Bridge – a place with a very strict dress code about having a jacket and necktie – except for people in Nigerian dress outfits and bright red caps. Pam is very personable and outgoing, so between the two of us, we got to know the histories of everyone within hailing distance. Our waiter is an artist, who has worked at the place since its beginning. The scenery is breath-taking, the service is amazing – and the food beats everything else. Except maybe the music. All during dinner there was a background piano that sang. So when we finished, we strolled over to the bar area (where else would you put a piano?) and got a table near the guy who was making the piano sing. Turns out he is from Brazil, and has been playing there since the place opened. He played and we talked. Then I played. Then he played and I sang, and then he played some more – we spent some time there and judging from the requests, people seemed to enjoy it. Quite a night.
Monday I spent taking the car back to the Bronx and visiting Jesuits, and last minute shopping. I had been out or visiting pretty much every night, so it was nice to stay at home, have dinner with the Jesuit community, and make some phone calls. And do laundry. And pack. Which included packing four boxes which I mailed the next morning before the van came to take me to the airport. Newark Airport. Continental Airlines. Full body search at security. Bah, humbug. The guy who was sitting in front of me used to live on Kwaj, and he recognized the shell cross I was wearing as being of Marshallese design. Not only did we have a nice chat, when lunch came around, turned out he had eaten at the airport so I got his hamburger. And there was no one sitting next to me, so although I didn’t have a great seat, it was nice enough. The bag came off easily, and I headed for the infamous Airport Motel – a five minute walk from the airport, but since I waited for the free courtesy van, a 35 minute trip. Had a swim and a beer, some folks from Kwaj had talked about getting together for dinner, but I couldn’t find them so just stayed in and went to bed early.
Since we had to be at the airport around 5:00 AM. Coffee and Danish and off to Kwaj. I had been talking to a professor, and the woman at the counter recognized him, so she gave him one of the exit aisle seats – and since I was talking to him, I got one too. Next best thing to Business Class (which I may never see again!). Room to type, and rooms for the legs (mine) and a whole different feeling. It was nice to hit Kwaj, dropped my bags off at the house, and was back in the office for the afternoon and evening Mass and without a pause, the routine of daily life on a small island had re-asserted itself.
So here I am back on Kwajalein. I’ve had one short trip to Majuro (back to the world atlas – I’ll give you a hint, only a 45-minute flight from here), sung for the 4th of July, prayed for the Baccalaureate and a change of command ceremony, had some visiting Jesuit Volunteers spend a couple of days, learned that a visiting Jesuit was going to be covering the Masses on Ebeye until the end of July, had a pancake breakfast, hosted a very elegant dinner party for the Parish Council, spent some serious time in my hammock and spent a whole day sailing on a tri-maran. Took a 4-day course on a new computer program, got a new laptop computer thanks to the generosity of some friends, prayed in Marshallese at the opening of a new branch of the Bank of the Marshall Islands – if it ain’t one thing, something else is right in line behind it.
So now it’s time to get this up and out and see if the new procedures work. Some will get this letter – others will get a note that it is waiting at the blog site to be copied or read or downloaded.
Now you’re caught up. If I haven’t seen or talked with or written to you in a while, the blank spaces have been filled in. If I have, you might have found yourself on these pages. If not, I was trying to condense and keep things simple.
In the next missive I will spend more time talking about the Marshallese, life in the Marshalls (as opposed to life on this little slice of the U.S.) and the work of the Church and the Jesuits out in this part of the world.
You can make comments on the blog site, but you can also send me emails and my address is
johnrsheehan(at)yahoo.com
I have a U.S. military address but I try to keep personal email off that one. Love to all of you, and your families and friends (whether I know them or not).
Finished – July 31, 2005. Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and the guy who said you should strive to find God in all things. Now, if you can't find God in the beauty of being on a small island in the middle of the South Pacific, you need to get yourself a really high-powered spiritual director and I mean NOW!
I'm going to go out and talk to a palm tree.
