# 11 - US Travels and Military Decrees

September 12, 1994

Dear Faithful Reader,

Peace of Christ!

It’s that time again! John has been to the States, is back from the States, and has stories to tell. And I suspect that those of you who pay any attention at all to happenings international might have a touch of concern about the general safety and being of wellness of one bearded Jesuit. So I thought it was pretty much time to get caught up.

Besides today – which is the 6th of September as I write this – is one of those minor landmark days in the ongoing going-on-ness of Nigeria. Let me quote myself, from the monthly summary of news events I do for our men who are out of the country:

6 September – New decrees have been promulgated that virtually give the federal government absolute and unquestionable power. Henceforth, no act of the government may be questioned in a court of law. The courts have officially been divested of jurisdiction in matters concerning the authority of the federal government. The decree also empowers the Chief of General Staff and the Inspector General of Police to “exercise the power of detention” over any person for up to three months. At that point the detention may be reviewed, and extended for another three months, and so.

The government has also officially proscribed The Guardian, Punch and Concord newspapers. The decree begins “Notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979 as amended or any other enactment of law…” The premises are to be sealed, all the papers and magazines listed are prohibited from being printed or circulated, and nothing else is to be printed on those premises.

Today the dissolved national executive of PENGASSAN (the oil union) formally suspended its three month old strike. The spokesman said that the move was only a suspension, and that the strike would be resumed if government continues to ignore the demands of the union. Reports suggest, however, that many workers had been returning to work well in advance of this announcement.

So we enter a new era in the reign – and I use the word advisedly – of General Sani Abacha. I am – and I will repeat this several times throughout the course of the following pages – safe. As safe as one can be. Safer even. However, in the interest of accuracy and maintaining a certain dramatic tension in the ongoing narrative, I am bound to report that I had an interesting event last Sunday. I had preached at the 6:30 am Mass at Christ the King and was scheduled to also celebrate the 8:30. In between Masses, two men came up, said they were with the Security Police, and warned me I should be very careful about how I talked about the government and the head of state when I was speaking in public. Now, they did not show me anything resembling badges or identification – and this had happened to me once before in this church, with no subsequent activity.

But this time I had had it, so I preached the identical homily at the 8:30 Mass. Then I told the congregation about the two men, and (in a highly dramatic fashion – of which I am capable) I said that if those men were still here, I wanted them to know that I had preached exactly the same homily as I had earlier. I said that I didn’t preach politics, but the Gospel – and if that made the government nervous, then they had better come and lock me up! And if every Nigerian would fearlessly go forth and live and preach the Gospel, here would not be enough jails in all the world to hold the Nigerians. (Great applause.)

So far – nothing. Probably nothing will happen. Worst case – deported. But the government is getting more confident these days, and with reason – they are locking up their opponents at a great rate, silencing any voice they don’t like, and generally dunning roughshod over anything resembling freedom, human rights, civil rights. I’ll keep you posted – and if the next massive missive is datelined New York – or Kirikiri Prison – you’ll know I mis-estimated the government’s interest in one Oyibo priest.

The following was written about a week ago, as part of a letter – but it seemed worth sharing.

You’d enjoy Lagos these days. You pretty much have to listen to BBC or VOA to find out what’s going on. Any newspaper worth reading has now been closed and the editorial staff jailed or gone into hiding. That is the case with the union leaders – if they were not quick and clever about going underground, they are now in jail. Their families can’t see them, their lawyers can’t see them, and in one case, despite eye witnesses having seen one man arrested and later moved, the police are denying that they even have him. The CNN reporter was thrown out of the country on Friday – and the dictator announces in a public speech that he is a great supporter of the rule of law and especially freedom of the press. (Five days after he dissolved he executive boards of the unions, he passed two decrees giving him the power to do that, dated prior to his announcement of the dissolution.)

Fuel continues to be critical. There is some available through the black market and private sources – I am going with a sister tomorrow to see someone at a fuel company who said he would sell a drum – 200 litres – to the sisters for the legal rate, about 700 Naira. I just paid N6200 for a drum, and was delighted to have the chance, since that is considerably less than the N2,000 for 50 litres I have been paying. Queues literally go on for miles, block roads – one major road in a business section is completely shut off because of petrol queues, so the traffic has diverted to a secondary road, which quickly becomes blocked. (I know about this, because I broke a tooth last week and I had to go and see the dentist, and his office is on that secondary road. Over two hours in traffic to drop off x-rays.)

Things are getting violent in some places. One of the activist lawyers who has been involved in several cases had hit office attacked the other day. Several of his staff were hurt, his car was badly shot up and his office trashed. He was not there at the time but it was obviously a warning. Meanwhile the government is staging rallies by “people in favor of the government.” They are obviously staged, and the amusing thing is that the text for the news reports is identical each evening. The name of the state is changed and the name of the military governor administrator who receives the petition signed by the demonstrators – but every word of the news report is the same, and I have heard about five of them.

Sidebar – There was a piece on CNN the other day about a group from the NBA who are in South Africa promoting basketball, running clinics, doing exhibitions, that sort of thing. And they visited some slum areas, and one of the white guys was all broken up about the living conditions and how terrible everything was. I have to say, I saw the houses he had been visiting and they didn’t look so bad to me. Better than a lot of the Lagos neighborhoods where we move regularly. Of course during the current troubles garbage collection has been one of the casualties, and some streets have been and continue to be closed by mounds of festering garbage.

I return to my opening statement – you’d enjoy being here about now. It lives better than the reports in papers might suggest. (Some people with their own flair for the dramatic have sent me copies of the reports in London and the U.S.) The NEPA (electricity) is sporadic – off more than on, no predictability, an with the fuel crisis, we are cautious about using the generator too much. Naturally, prices rise dramatically – the coffee filters that were 45 are now 170. (That’s in three weeks.) The ports are starting to do a little business – they were closed for several weeks – but as their strike was being settled, the banks were closed, so people could not get bank drafts for the clearing charges for their goods on the docks, and the docks won’t take cash (nobody trusts anybody in Nigeria, and so they won’t let their employees handle cash), and the goods kept accumulating storage charges to the point that the charges were more than the goods were worth – ah, it’s a grand time to be alive and in Nigeria.

The house we are building in the back is going great guns. The key to all of this is to remember that we (the Jesuits) are living on a dollar economy, our money comes from the U.S. We are thus protected against inflation, since as the prices go up, so does the value of the Naira go down in relation to the dollar. It is now between 54 and 56 to one; when I came it was 22. So we can pay the workmen and the suppliers of the materials, and since not many can, we get great service. Workmen come early, work late, work hard, and they are supervised to death since we have relatively terrorized the engineer in charge of the project. And we have paid him regularly. So this weekend they are working on putting on the roof and have started the exterior plastering. I will continue to live in the main house even after the new building is finished, so I can watch the process with a certain detachment.

Another of those fascinating tidbits that one picks up – and can only really use in writing like this – did you know that abalone is illegal in the U.S.? Our good friends, the Gales – Keith and Chris, about whom I have written – like the stuff, and so I said blithely that I would have some sent over in our container. Nope – can’t be bought in the U.S. I am going to see if I can arrange a couple of cases via Canada, smuggled in and sent to New Jersey, but I don’t know if I can do it before the container closes. It’s nice to have these little challenges to keep one distracted.

Other news, gossip and miscellanea? My calculator doesn’t work in the evening. (Solar power.) My little electric razor has developed some kind of appetite that devours batteries at an alarming rate, so I have switched to blades for the nonce. (If anyone comes across an ad for those wind-up razors, send me one. The ad, not the razor. Another item on the ever-growing list of things you can’t buy here – sour cream. (Ain’t it grand? According to all the published press sources, the world in Nigeria is about to go up in flames, and here is this Jesuit missionary grumbling because he can’t get sour cream when he wants it. Perspective, everything is perspective.) Envelopes only rarely – I saw some today and bought ten packages. I may go back this week and see if they have more. The telephone continues to be frustrating.

That, in a relatively condensed version, is where we are now. Let me now turn the hands of time back to May – springtime – symbol of innocence – and we find young Father Sheehan heading off to Murtala Mohammed Airport, suitcases in town, prepared to begin several weeks of business and travel and perhaps an odd frolic along the way.

What is it about me that prohibits anything simple ever happening in my life? Under what complicated star was I born? I arrive at the airport on May 12, and the Bon Voyage man was there (the guy from the ravel agency whose sole purpose in life is to help you get out of the country), and the comedy began. They allow you 20kg – I weighed in at 44. The Bon Voyage man finally talked the girl at the desk into writing it as 33 rather than 44, and we went off to find the Duty Manager to see if he could lower it any from that. He was not around. The cost was going to be just over N7,000. Fortunately Bill had some cash (US $ - real money) so off we went to find someone to change for us. We managed to talk him to 45 as a rate, and changed $200. (As we walked away, some police came up and tried to arrest the money-changer, but our travel guy helped get him off.) I then went to pay the money, and the woman at the desk asked if I had seen the Duty Manager and when I said I had tried, she went off to find him. The upshot was that they waived the excess charges. I was ok in London, because they allow you two bags at 20 kg apiece and the reality is that you are virtually unlimited.

The trip itself was gentle and really rather nice. I would usually have two drinks, skip the meal, skip the movie and sleep. Aside from the disinfecting (as soon as the plane takes off, they go through the cabin, spraying a disinfectant, some sort of international health thing you do when leaving Nigeria. Doesn’t bear a lot of thinking about, actually.) The flight was so nice, the food smelled so good, the movie was the one I wanted to see – the long and the short of it is that I stayed awake for almost two-thirds of the film. Of course, I was a wreck when I got to London, but somehow people expect you to be a wreck when traveling.

In Nigeria, you practically have to be related to the clerk to get a ticket. And you can’t get one with Naira – the airlines now will only sell you tickets in “hard currency,” the local term for dollars or sterling. Even at that, British Air tells you that their flights are all sold out weeks in advance. Despite all the talk about being sold out, the plane was only about ½ full.

The plane landed a little after 5, and Bernard Montfort, Tony’s brother, was there to meet me. (Tony Montfort is a layman who runs the Jesuit Mission Office in London – Wimbledon, actually. He has been there for 30 years, and is one of the most charming, most delightful, most caring, most efficient – I could go on, but you get the idea – people you would ever hope to meet. He has solved more problems for more people around the world than practically anyone I can think of, with the possible exception of the Red Cross. If you ever want to add to your list of people you positively have to have at a party, especially if you are having your party in London, pop the name “Montfort” on your Guest List, and success is yours.)

He drove me back to the house, where I discovered Tim Curtiss (a Jesuit fro Guyana whom I know from my days at the Mission Bureau in New York) was in residence, so we had a mini-reunion, coffee, and I went to have a nap.

I won’t do a blow by blow of my time in London (Who said, “Thank God!”?) I did discover on going forth to explore the town that my money was out of date. Yup – guess I had been away longer than I thought, but I tried to spend a 5 pound note, and was told they had changed the money. I went round to the bank and they changed it with only a slight smirk.

On Saturday I was picked up by Michael Gorman, who came to take me to the British Jesuit Alumni meeting. I am, as part of this Development business, starting the Jesuit alumni of Nigeria, and in contacting other alumni groups, discovered that the executive committee of the British group was going to have a meeting this very weekend, to which they invited me.

It was a longish drive, out to Surrey, Mt. St. Mary’s School. In the best English fashion, it got increasingly colder and darker as we went along. Michael had packed a lunch so we stopped en route. He is a stop every two hours person, and a very jerky driver. I discovered later on that he only has sight in one eye, a fact that did nothing to calm or encourage me. Others arrived, they have a nice meeting, then dinner and then we adjourned to the pub across the way for drinks and talk. That is when things came alive. Yours truly, in his own humble fashion, had been politely silent for about five hours which may (he says without actually consulting the record books) be a new mark, and so I started asking questions and giving advice. They said they profited by it, and the head of the group came over later in the week for another several hours of talk. I certainly enjoyed it.

Chilly weather is great for sleeping. We had rain when we awoke which stayed until after we left. Mass, long ride home – at least I got into the country once during my week in England.

Discovery of things forgotten – the telephone can be a very useful tool. I picked up the phone, and ordered a catalogue. They took my name, and said it would mail it to me. Total time invested – perhaps two minutes. Did it again with a different company. Same thing. Called a business supply house, and ordered perhaps $800 worth of supplies. Several times they informed me that they had specials, or that the prices were actually lower than in the catalogue (lower!). They took my credit card number and said the items would be delivered on Thursday. (Note: they were.) Total time invested – maybe fifteen minutes, there were a lot of things.

I comment on this because none of these transaction would be possible in Nigeria. In he first case, the odds are you would not be able to reach the company by phone. If the phone did ring, the odds are that no one would answer it. (Thereby demonstrating a basic point of Nigerian business practice. To get someone to do something for you, you bribe them. Even if it is what you paid for, what they are supposed to do, makes no difference. Action of any kind must be preceded by money. You cannot pay over the phone - therefore, there is no motivation to answer a phone.)

Assume the unlikely – the phone has rung, and someone has actually answered. The possible scenarios now become more involved:

1) The man you need to talk to is not “on seat.” (Translation – he is not available right at this moment. Could be he is down the hall or out of the building or out of the country or dead – or just doesn’t want to be disturbed. He is “not on seat” and that is all the information you are going to get. When is he going to be back? Trust me, no one will have any idea. Leave a message and have him call you back? There are people who would try that. There are also people who believe that if you put your tooth under the pillow, the tooth fair will take it and give you cash. Of the two, my money is on the fairy.)

2) If he should be available, the catalogue will not be available.

And if the catalogue is available, they won’t send it to you anyway. First, because they won’t get any “dash” (ie bribe) for doing it. Second, because no one gives anything away, so you would have to pay for the catalogue And they wouldn’t think of paying for postage either. Never mind that on receipt of this catalogue it is your intention to spend hundreds, nay thousands of Naira with this company. You will have to pay for the privilege.

I think by now you have figured out that if you brave the traffic and go downtown to collect this catalogue in person, the odds are still pretty high that if you actually get it, it will take you two or three trips. Life as she is lived in Nigeria. That is why the experience of simply picking up the phone and doing business in London was really quite startling.

I did get to see a couple (ie two) if shows, Sunset Boulevard – the Andrew Lloyd Weber extravaganza. My ticket was a present, which was lovely. The first Monday I was there, I went downtown just to visit London (one of my favorite cities), do a little pre-shopping and browsing, and see the musical. Well, ok. Too much scenery – not enough melody. So theatrical we lose the theatre. Movie clips inserted into chase and dramatic moments. Betty Buckley is wonderful, a major star in a starring role. And the evening was not anything approaching a loss or a bad night. But curiously unsatisfying. I was sitting next to two ladies from New Zealand, and at the end of the evening, one of them had lost her shoe. We looked everywhere for that shoe – it took about ten people to come up with the thing, and everybody got talking and helping out – the shoe episode had more real drama than the play I had just seen. And a more satisfying conclusion.

I also went to see the Tom Stoppard play Arcadia. Now I love Tom Stoppard, so take my remarks in that context. It was the first night of previews, so there was the odd moment of uncertainty, everything was not perhaps perfect – but the play is wonderful, a romantic Tom Stoppard, the premise is charming and I fell I love with about three of the company. His use of language and his fascination with language continues to enthrall me, and I bought the script on my way out of the theatre. Just a perfect way to spend my last night in town.

On the way to the airport the next morning. I heard the news that Jackie Kennedy had died. Little did I know that I would be present at the funeral. (They call that foreshadowing – or teasing.)

I was staying at our house on 83rd Street, where the Mission Bureau is, and right next to Ignatius Loyola Church, where I said my First Mass and where Jackie was to be buried. When I arrived, there was actually some talk about having me sing at the funeral. (It turned out they had Marilyn Horne sing. Somehow you don’t feel put out when they bump you for Marilyn Horne.) I had told the Rector that with all the craziness that would be going on, if there were anything I could do to help, he should not hesitate to call on me. On Sunday night, he asked if I would be available to helping the broadcast booth, if one were permitted. (At that point, the family had still not decided.) So on Monday morning, I was escorted up to the sub-choir loft where the Secret Service had set up a station, was introduced to my own personal \secret service Agent and spent the next several hours helping the CBS News announcer broadcast the funeral. (Note – the agent was not there to protect me, but rather to protect the important people from me, should that become necessary. Fortunately they didn’t have the time to do a background check on me, so I was able to get in.) She did commentary, I did religious background. (Being a priest, they thought I would know these things. Turned out it was good I was a musician, because I was able to correct a mistake they had on their printed sheet, and tell them what was not on the sheet.)

We were not broadcasting on air, but rather we were doing a direct feed to all the other news sources, stations, networks, CNN, etc. Their people had our voices in their ears, and a separate audio line that transmitted what was actually going on in the church, so when the CNN guy said, “The coffin is now moving down the aisle,” several seconds before one of us had just said to them, “The coffin is now moving down the aisle.”

It was fun, and I did get to meet Miss Horne in the sacristy afterwards. I’m not big on small talk, so I just knelt down in front of her and kissed her feet.

Again (save your applause) I won’t do a dear diary of my travels around the U.S. Someone counted at one point and discovered that I was in something like 27 cities in 5 weeks. Even by my somewhat lax standards, that is excessive. I did see the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion – both Sondheim and Weber are moving ever more into opera, very little dialogue, lots of musical recitative. The woman was wonderful (and to no one’s surprise won the Tony Award) – but appreciation was more in the head than in the heart. Somehow “theatre” got lost in each of those major productions. At least for this reviewer.

The trip was also heavily marked by deaths and funerals. Jackie’s was the first – my Novice Director died the same week, and I was able to be at his funeral. (It meant giving away the ticket someone had gotten for me to the Neil Simon play – but you can’t control the scheduling of funerals.) I had concelebrated a funeral in London of a great Jesuit supporter, and shortly after I arrived, my sister called to tell me that a close friend of our family’s had been found dead at her house the day after she had been at dinner with my mother and sister. They were the last ones to see her alive. I arrived in Buffalo on the day another Jesuit friend of mine was being buried – sheer coincidence, I hadn’t even heard that he had died. And I returned to New York just in time for another Jesuit funeral, this time a friend from Fordham. I also visited my father’s grave for the first time since the funeral. The day I arrived in Canada, the whole country stopped for the funeral of a police officer who had been killed in the line of duty. Everywhere I went, mortality was being sure it was remembered.

Other high points? My 25th college reunion. University of Notre Dame. Now those of you familiar with my somewhat checkered past will recall that at one point, I and the University of Notre Dame had a differing of opinion on the entrepreneurial activities in which I was temporarily engaged (in 1966-67 I was running a fairly large-scale business ghost-writing term papers) and so I had a two-semester suspension of my college career. That not only put me on interesting terms with my draft board, but made me a member of the class of ’69 rather than the ’68 contingent with which I had entered. So I went to this reunion knowing very few people from my year, and knowing in advance that most of the people I did know weren’t going to come. Go, Whatever.

But I could not see missing my 25th college reunion. After all, we were the kids who didn’t really believe that we would live past 30. So off I went. My old friend, David Garrick, who is a Holy Cross priest at Notre Dame, managed to get me a room at Corby Hall, the priest’s residence, rather than a dorm room. It meant I didn’t get to greet as many people as I otherwise would – but I wasn’t crazy about dorm rooms when I was a student, and I could not imagine that my affection would have grown. I also like the Holy Cross community very much – I have stayed there before, I know a number of the men, and have always found them very welcoming and very interesting. And as it turned out, I was sick for most of the tie and it was great to be able to get away and suffer in relative calm.

I enjoyed myself more than I would have thought possible. I wore native shirts and outfits the whole time, and that helped me get to know people. Notre Dame had the most beautifully organized schedule you could imagine, and the class of 1944, celebrating their 50th, was delightful. On Friday night, they had their class Mass just before ours. Most of them were in tuxedo and formal wear, and I asked one of them why so formal. Because of the war, they had never had a prom, so that night, they were having their class prom. I met one guy in my class whose father was I ’44. I said that was something, exactly 25 years apart. Then he told me that his own daughter had just graduated from Notre dame – ’44, ’60, ’94 – talk about organization!

On the last, at the all-class formal dinner, I wore my agbada, the formal Nigerian outfit. I had complete strangers coming up to ask if they could have their picture taken with me. I did meet a couple of people I knew, and went over to St. Mary’s College (the girls’ school across the road, at which I spent more time as a student than I did on my own campus) and saw old friends there too. Advice time – go to your reunions. I don’t care if you loved it or hated the school, people change, and times change, and it is a special time. End of advice.

Let me kaleidoscope through some of the weeks. I went to the Blossom Festival in Chagrin Falls, Norman Rockwell come to life. The world may be going to hell, but here is a community where most people haven’t gotten worried enough to lock their doors. The parade, Memorial Day weekend, was what you remember a parade being like when you were a kid even if it never really was like that. This one is. If Rockwell were to come back from the grave to paint it, it would be redundant. They also have a hot air balloon festival as part of the festivity, and I almost had my first hot air balloon ride. (The wits in the audience are trying to figure out how best to tie together Sheehan and hot air. Too easy.) And I celebrated Mass at St. Joan of Arc church on the anniversary of the day that Joan was condemned to die.

Beside visiting my father’s grave and visiting cousins (my mother has often remarked that I our family, we are very fortunate in having relatives that we really like. We don’t have a great huge family, and I have managed to lose touch with even a bunch of them. But there are some – naming no names – who are just terrific people, and I was great fun to be able to spend some time with at least some of them.) I celebrate Mass in what has been a “family church” going back to my great-grandmother. In fact, my great-grandparents gave the pulpit and the altar rail. The pulpit is still used, the altar rail was removed and made into the structural walls for a prayer chapel. Very attractive, and a nice personal touch.

My cousin Henry has retired, and has gotten hooked on building and restoring model trains. He has a magnificent set-up in the basement, and so when I went to visit my mother, I took my old Lionel trains and the huge train car that had been my Uncle Irving’s, and sent them off to Henry. He had Irving’s engine, and so an old family train/heirloom has been reunited and is being used and enjoyed. Talk about visiting your roots. (Okay – it’s a sign of my deteriorating mental condition that I can get all sentimental and sappy about a set of model trains. There you are, what can I tell you.)

Moment of minor success – I bought a watch. (I know – you fail to be impressed. But I had looked all over London, I looked all over New York, and I finally found exactly what I wanted – well, what I wanted within a price range I could afford – reading a catalogue while sitting on a toilet in Cleveland.)

The things you learn. Did you know that Papers have been so effective in keeping little kids dry that they have had extra problems in potty training them? The kids don’t get wet, so there is no signal, no discomfort. So now they have made a special Pampers that lets a little wetness happen, so the kids can be potty-trained. The over-effectiveness of modern technology. I think there must be a lesson in there somewhere. About something.

I continue to find that people are really fascinated about Africa – and know very little about it. The dominant images are South Africa and Rwanda.

I also got to perform a wedding, a woman I have known since high school. In fact, I was Best Man at her first wedding (and a witness for her annulment). She and her (now) husband had come to visit me when I was up in Toronto, and the schedule managed to work out so that I was able to preside at this ceremony. Great fun – I again wore my agbada (for the reception) and I don’t think the general population in Mansfield, Ohio quite knew what to make of this. Certainly the local priest made sure that all my credentials were in order before he let me go ahead with the event.

Other moments? Attending the rehearsal of the Tony Awards (I kept looking at people onstage and thinking to myself – I can do that. In my heart of hearts, I find it impossible to believe that God is going to let me die without ever doing a Broadway show), going to the “Insiders Party” for Broadway Celebrates – a free concert put on by the theatre folk in the middle of Broadway. Hundreds of thousands of people, Broadway closed off, temperatures up to the one hundred mark – and thanks to a wonderful friend, I got into the air-conditioned, fancy buffet, sit up and watch it all through the window party for the big nabobs and fancy folk. I tried my best to look fancy. Saw a couple of plays – one thanks to some friends in Toronto. Yup, sitting in Toronto, I am asked - wanna see a show in New York? They have a friend who can get tickets, and wanted to give me a present, so I got to see An Inspector Calls.

And I got to go sailing, and spent too short a time on Monhegan Island (last time I was on Monhegan Island was around 1961, maybe 1962), visited with the newly-named director of the Jesuit Seminary and Mission Bureau, saw a whole bunch of friends and celebrated Mass in some intriguing places – did some business and some buying and just about wore myself out, with one thing and another – and before I knew what was happening, I was on my way to Kennedy Airport, with too much luggage.

Remember those heavy suitcases with which I began this trek? I still had them. Plus a trunk. About half of which was books and papers. So I show up at British Air, decked out in my clerical shirt, my Tilley’s bush hat, and my photographer’s vest of many pockets, and the nice man at the counter informs me that my two bags are just over the limit, but no problem. My trunk, however, is by itself outside the limit of what they will take, and I will have to ship it as air freight, which will cost around $300 and I will have to schlepp it over to the air freight building, and there is no guarantee when it will go out. I tell you true, I nearly cried. I explained about the realities of trying to ship into Nigeria, I stressed that I was a poor missionary going back into Africa - and I think he sensed a certain pathetic desperation about me. He grabbed a supervisor, who talked with the baggage handlers on his walkie talkie, and said that they would take my trunk. At that point, I think I would have paid the $300, I was so relieved. The desk clerk asked the supervisor what we should charge, the guy looked at me and said, let him go. (God, please take note of this man, he gets extra credit.) Major relief. Nothing to do but enjoy the trip.

Which I did. May I stick in a plug here for British Air? (Those of you who are faithful readers of earlier editions of this series of ramblings know my feelings about Alitalia. Which have only increased with tie and additional experience.) British Air, on the other hand, may simply be the best airline around. Good food, nice people, reasonable selection of movies – I am a fan.

(Excerpts from my diary)
June 20th – Back in Nigeria. Can’t light a candle when we say Mass I the house chapel – because that’s where we are storing our cans of extra gasoline. There are workmen out back chopping and digging and (in theory) bringing to reality the grand dream that is our simple 4-room bungalow. Gasoline is now a precious commodity, and we do not want to put temptation in any of their paths by having fuel accessible, ie in the back shed where we have normally kept it. We are temporarily also storing the lawn mower in Bill Scanlon’s room. And in short order, there will no longer be a back shed.

21st – My first Pacelli. People seemed glad to see me. Chi-Chi sang at breakfast. I gave the sisters chocolate, which didn’t lessen the warmth of the welcome either. No traffic on the road, lots of things closed, including the post office. I note though that the money traders are still lining the streets. Drove down with Sam to see Keith and Chris. Not just a social call, he had 50 litres of petrol for us. Office filled with people, so we really get to visit too much. The shipment from London is due any day, but of course, the port is closed.

22nd Friday – Up a little after 7, feeling as though someone had hit me over the head with a large stick. Dressed, and came downstairs. I was really looking forward to a cup of coffee and reading the newspapers. Aha – there is a man sitting in our living room. I have no idea who he is, or who he wants to see, but to ask would be impolite, so I invite him to join me for coffee and breakfast and we have a lovely visit. Peter comes back fro Pacelli, and more visiting. Turns out this man is a carpenter, which is what I have been longing for, so we make an appointment for next week. Strange are the ways.

23 – Saturday. Over to CKC in the afternoon with Peter. Heard confessions for almost three hours. Peter went to the airport to pick up the new Jesuit fro Sri Lanka, Ranjit Abeyasingha. Visited with him a little. I stayed at CKC for the night, so I could do the outstations in the morning. When I offed the light to go to bed, there was Jesus, floating over the bed. Turned out there was one of those luminescent crosses over the bed which I had not noticed. Moment of – well, panic might be too strong a word, but certainly a moment of something.

Summertime means a fairly constant stream of visitors and people going away on leave, so I have been very busy trying to get people in and out and around while the rest of the country was doing its strike thing. One of our men was scheduled to leave on the evening of Jul 31st, he Feast of St. Ignatius. So all the Jesuits went out for a nice dinner, and then the plan was I would take Jack out to the airport. (I don’t need dessert anyway.)

During dinner the car was broken into – because Jack had left his briefcase on the seat and it was clearly evident. His air ticket was in it. Fortunately he had his passport and money in his pocket. But when we went to the airport, even though we had lots of ID and a confirmed seat, Alitalia would not let him fly. And by the time they had reached and communicated that decision, it was too late to buy a ticket for that flight, which we would have done. So, no flight. He was not a happy camper, and at least part of his disgust was realizing that part of it was his own fault. We went back to the house, had a drink and Jack went to bed. I had driven in that morning from Benin City (four hours on Nigerian roads!) and I was exhausted.

But – you know there was going to be a “but” here, didn’t you? Clever reader. Just as I was about to go to bed, I realized that there was a box of lobsters (10 kilos) in the trunk of the car. Which had to be cooked quickly or they would go bad. (Now don’t go paging back to see if you missed something – I snuck those lobsters in without preparation. It’s hard to foreshadow a lobster.) When we were at dinner, Keith and Chris said they had a present for me, some lobsters. Wonderful. So while we were eating, their driver put “the lobsters” in the car.

When someone says they are going to give you lobster, you assume something like two, three. Try to guess how many lobsters it takes to make 10 kilos (22 pounds) I have no idea, but more than any pot or container we have could hold. So at 1 o’clock in the morning, I am doing relays of boiling water, turning brown and black lobsters pink. Then trying to find something to put them in, trying to re-arrange the fridge so they could all fit in. Trying not to notice the smell. I was up until 2 in the morning cooking lobsters. It was a scene Fellini would have loved.

God forgive me. The next morning I was so sick of those lobsters that I had our driver clean out the trunk of our car (which was ripe with lobster smell from the night before) and I sent the whole batch over to CKC. They have been acting as our major guest house for the summer, lots of visitors, I figured they could use them. (I later discovered that the pastor there hadn’t told anyone about them, and quietly ate his way through most of them himself. God bless him.)

Jack did get away the next day – on British Air, thanks to the miracle-working talents of Tony Montfort in London. We reported the stolen ticket that night at the airport, and more formally the next day. It took me over one month (and six trips downtown) to get a confirmation from Alitalia that their office in Rome had received the form, so that we could apply for a refund in the U.S.

I performed by first wedding in Nigeria. There are (for you heathens) seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. So far in Nigeria, I have baptized, celebrated Mass, heard confessions, confirmed, buried and now married. (The last one is Holy Orders – have to be a bishop to do that. I have received the sacrament, of course.)

The wedding was originally scheduled (and people invited) for 11, but the church moved us to 11:30. The 10 o’clock wedding before ours didn’t end up until real late, so it was after 12:15 before our show actually got on the road. I didn’t rush, but I managed to finish in under 75 minutes. Then there was a further delay of at least 90 minutes before the reception started (downstairs in the church hall, about a two-minute walk from the church itself – the church is elevated so there is a large parking area and a number of classrooms and the church hall underneath). Sigh. But everybody in the world had to get “snapped” with the Bride and Groom. This, mind you, with a couple that has been living together for several years. Anyway – it was a nice time, lovely day, and the people seemed to enjoy my style. I also had my first kola nut. The breaking of the kola nut is a ceremonial event, and who breaks it, who offers it, who gets offered it, all are matters of great diplomacy and etiquette. I had never had kola nut before – and my question to the person sitting with me was “How do you say Yecch in Igbo?” Terrible, just terrible. If you’re looking for a way to be honored, go with the sheep’s eyeball over the kola nut any day.

Life in Nigeria. One of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, the order that runs Pacelli School for the Blind, among others, has gone into almost total kidney failure, and needs dialysis three times a week, at N5,000 the pop. The order already owes one hospital over N100,000 – the general hospitals are all closed because of the strikes, so the only place she can go is a private hospital, which makes an expensive treatment even more expensive. One doctor suggested that it didn’t matter if the order couldn’t afford treatment. After all, she was a reverend sister, she should go home and prepare herself to die. The Archbishop has given permission for the sisters to go around to various parishes and beg for help – if the parish priest will permit. They expect that most of them won’t but they will try anyway. (A footnote – it was mistreating what doctors thought were malaria symptoms that caused the kidney failure.) At least twice that I know about she has gone for two days without getting the dialysis – the technician isn’t in, or there is some drug that they are missing, or there is no NEPA – some excuse, and in the meantime, the poisons are building up in her system. Helpless is a feeling you have a lot around here.

Shortly after I got back I was asked to give a talk at the Marian Shrine. Huge place – lots of people. I went early to help with confessions. I had worried a lot about my homily, and I only went 35 minutes, but I was suitably impressive. Having a drink with the priests afterwards, I heard that one husband and wife who were both working at the event – while they were there, their 16-year old daughter died. She had had some kind of infection, had gone to the hospital and had gotten an injection of something. It was getting worse, so she went to a jungle hospital – what we would call a traditional medicine place – and they did something exotic like rub the infection with kerosene. Not surprisingly, it got still worse, so she returned to the first hospital, where she died.

Another excerpt from something I wrote to someone who had written to me, worrying about my general safety –

Last July (ie 93) things were very tense and fairly dangerous. As I write this, we have no idea what the next week will be – last night General Abacha removed the heads of the major unions, and two days before had closed the one generally respected newspaper – but so far, things are quiet. The pressure is growing, but a number of us are hoping that things do not “get better.” If there is ever going to be a major movement forward in this country, if a generally placid population is every going to be aroused enough to take democracy and remove the military, then something like the current crisis is going to have to move them. It would be a shame, so many people having suffered so much already, if nothing were to come from this. I think there are many who will be willing to endure more suffering if the final result is the removal of the military.

So while the general nature of any military, and these clowns in particular, might be cause for being careful, concern is probably a level or two away. As soon as I got back I went out and bought several cases of canned good, which are carefully stored away. Our basic security systems are in place, we currently have a black market source for petrol, so while we are strapped we are not paralyzed, and we are careful. Being a white priest in Nigeria is perhaps the safest thing you can be. Being a white priest who knows his way around is even better. Being a white priest who knows something of the people and who knows the street generally is even better. I describe, in these humble terms, myself, So while the stray bullet may nail any one of us, I am probably safer here than some of my brothers who are working in the Bronx.

Some who listen to CNN are especially concerned, what with Jesse Jackson somberly warning that Africa’s most populous nation stands poised on the brink of civil war. Civil war? Not a bit. Jesse Jackson once again is demonstrating his flair for the dramatic, coupled with his usual ignorance of the problem. Mis-states the whole situation here. And to compare Nigeria with Rwanda shows that the author has no understanding of either society. Rwanda was the result of generations of conflict and oppression and real deep hatred. Hatfields and McCoys times ten. Nigerians are a very peaceful people, and there are so many tribes, and so many leftover fears from the civil war (the Biafran conflict) that to mobilize a large group in an organized fashion is very hard to imagine. Popular revolt? Maybe. Uprisings in the street and civil unrest and riot and perhaps even a little good old-fashioned anarchy? Possible. Civil war? I’d best a fairly substantial sum against it. Rwanda is a country of perhaps ten million. (South Africa is around 33 million.) We are somewhere over 100 million in Nigeria – no one is quite sure. But the dynamics are very different.

Had a fairly depressing morning. A girl I had been talking with disappeared yesterday. She is the sister of one of the nuns at the Pacelli School for the Blind, and she had been staying there. Apparently she had gotten mixed up with some strange people, probably some sort of cult (of which there are legion around here), had been the victim of a burglary and was scared out of her mind. Now some of the sisters felt that this was all the work of the devil, and so there were group prayer sessions, all-night vigils in the chapel, clutching the host to ward off the powers of the devil – I am religious as the next guy, but I could not think that a slightly hysterical woman was going to be helped by deep interaction with a lot of other rapidly becoming hysterical women. I talked with her, and tried to put things on a more human level, and assured her that there were a lot of people ready to support her.

Anyway, during Mass (which I was not saying) she disappeared. A girl who had been scared to go to the bathroom alone or be left by herself just got up and walked out the front gate.

Or was kidnapped. Right now we don’t know. She did turn up last night, at a nearby church, naked and bruises all over her body. And incoherent. She was sedated and was staying at the church rectory under guard. Nervous breakdown, kidnap and torture, we don’t know. There are times – and this is one of them – when I tend to associate myself more with the Jesus with the whip than the turn the other cheek Jesus. I can turn the cheek when you are hitting me. But hit someone else, you’re got a problem – me. If these cult folks did snatch her, they are about to get an angry white dude on their case in a major way. I’ll keep you posted.

And then I had a flat tire. Learned that two guys who are supposed to fly out on Monday aren’t going to be able to get the visas in time. Found out that my printer doesn’t want to print the last two inches of a long document I had laid out – it is a simple technical glitch somewhere in the graphics program, but so far, it escapes my eagle eye. One of those days.

See? Fairly boring stuff. Not at all what I read in the NY Times I ought to be doing in the middle of a crisis. I drove downtown today and while it was exciting – I bought some black market petrol, exchanged some black market money, nearly was hit when the door fell off of a bus ahead of me and watched the engine of a Mercedes blow up – probably from using adulterated black market fuel – but nothing worth sending a FAX to the Washington Post about – assuming our phones worked well enough to use the FAX. Which, at the moment, they don’t.

Intermezzo –
When I was in 5th grade, we had a great science teacher. We got an egg into a milk bottle (remember milk bottles?), taught us a whole slew of rhymes about the weather, many of which I still remember and use today, and showed us how to siphon a fluid from one container into another. All of these were great fun, although not, at that point in our lives, conceivably useful. And I have to admit, to this very day, except for occasionally want to impress small children, I have never used the egg in the milk bottle trick. (Not the least reason being how fiendishly difficult it is these days to get a milk bottles of the right size.)

But getting fluids from one container into another? Little did I know just how valuable that particular bit of scientific legerdemain was going to prove in my later years. For petrol (gasoline to you Americans) is indeed a fluid, and right now, moving it about from one container to another is a major pre-occupation of a great many of us. And I freely confess that while I usually try to avoid the “white master” syndrome – Masta, let me do that for you – when it comes time to suck the gasoline, I can almost always be persuaded to let someone else do that for me. These last few weeks I have also significantly cut down on my smoking – there is just too much residual petrol in my beard for me to be entirely comfortable lighting matches that near my face. (I can hear you now – it ain’t that much of a face, John. I know, but it’s mine, and it is attached in some pretty tender places.)

The standard rate for petrol seems to have settled at around N2,000 for 50 litres. (For those not mathematically inclined, that works out to 40 naira the litre. The official rate is 3.75 naira per litre. But the places who sell at the official rate aren’t open, because they don’t have petrol. Wonder why? The black market rate works out to about $3.25 a gallon. You folks in Canada can take it from there on your own.)

The effect on public life can be predicted. Transport fares have gone up in some places by over 1000%. There are few commuter buses and most people can’t afford the ones that are on the road, so there are thousands of people whose choice is work or trek. (Trek = walk. Local usage.) And for many, the distance makes the decision. others get caught in the fall-out. They can trek, but so many in their business can’t, they arrive to find the place closed. Banks are still closed, and most ominous, as I write this, the reserve tanks are drying up. The big storage tanks in Warri are dry, and it is those the government has been using to try to maintain some semblance of order. There is still fuel in Port Harcourt, but the end of domestic petroleum product – gasoline, kerosene, diesel – is in sight. Propane is imported, but the ports have been closed for so long, that is going too. Ironically, the exports have been only slightly effected, since while production is down, the fuel that would have gone to the refineries for internal use, now goes directly to export, since the refineries are closed.

But as long as we can scrape up the cash and find the black marketer (marketer?), I think gratefully of Mr Robson and his lessons on moving fluids easily from one container to another.

Another Intermezzo –

Reflections on building a house. More correctly, on having a house built. Here, when something is needed, it gets built on the spot. Ladder to climb to the second story? Built from scrap lumber. Scaffolding? Built. Framing for cement? Built. No going out and renting equipment. Table for sawing wood – you get the idea.

Not a power tool in sight. Good, given the amount of time when we don’t have power. But everything is done by hand. A truck deposits a large mound of sand in the front yard, and some guy with what looks like a large mixing bowl goes back and forth between front yard and back hard with this bowl filled with sand (or gravel, or whatever has been deposited) on his head. He has a hat he uses when he is carrying bricks, what we would call cinder blocks, except that it is not as hard.

In Nigeria, most poorer people live six in a room. (I am making the figure up, but the idea is that they are a largely communal people, and share living space a lot.) Here are these two white guys living “alone” in a house with five rooms upstairs and three bathrooms and a porch and they are building another house in the back that has four more rooms and two bathrooms. (The bathrooms along stagger the mind, since it is not unusual to have a living complex with thirty or forty people sharing two or three toilets – and seldom is it that all of them work. A petrol queue is one thing; a queue to “relieve yourself” has a whole different feeling about, especially first thing in the morning when tempers are short, time is rushed and… well, you can fill in the rest.) I am not feeling guilty or that somehow we shouldn’t be building this; in fact, our bungalow is only a temporary solution to problems of space, and as we get more “official,” and use office space more like offices, we will need more room than we now have.

I cannot imagine what the guys who are actually building this must think. Probably, as long as they are getting paid, they think it is a great idea, and wish the Oybo Reverend Fathers would build some more.

Idle Miscellanea – have I mentioned that after almost fifteen years of sleeping on the floor, John is now sleeping in a bed? Yup. It does not necessarily indicate that he (ie I) is (ie, am) getting soft in his (ie my) old age. But it does suggest that I had grown slightly weary of sharing my bed with a variety of crawling and crunching things. Not that they have stopped existing, but being a couple of feet off the floor does discourage some of the less adventurous types. And, I confess, it is nice to have a bed. Not so much for the sleeping but for putting things on and sitting – a very convenient apparatus. I have (I blush to admit) even taken an occasional nap.

What has happened is that I have taken over one of our existing guest rooms (our teeny tiny itsy bitsy guest rooms) as my very own, which makes what was my bedroom a reasonable office. Now any office with a piano in it is bound to be a little cramped, and once our container shipment gets here, I will have two console computers to accommodate – but all in all, it’s a great improvement.

All of which leads me up to an observation, that mice enjoy toothpaste. I was cleaning out the closet attached to this bedroom (now office) since that space will be used for office type supplies, and my clothes, such as they are, will be in the bedroom. (It seemed a logical arrangement.)

When I packed to go the US in May, I got a new tube or toothpaste from the closet and discovered (unfortunately in London, after I had packed and traveled) that there was a hole in it. Toothpaste mess. So I used a handy-dandy Zip-Loc bag (without which I never travel) and grumbled at faulty toothpaste manufacturing. When I started this moving and cleaning process described above, what did I find but two (2) more tubes, also with holes! Mice. The mice have chewed holes in the end of the toothpaste. Whether it was the minty aroma or a fussy mother mouse anxious that her little ones have clean white teeth and fresh breath, I don’t know. And I rather suspect that Aqua-Fresh is not going to rush to market with a new ad campaign, based on the slogan “Even Mice love Aqua-Fresh!” Just goes to show you – when you think you’ve seen it all, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

We have now gotten to the point where the robbers in Frank’s neighborhood (that’s the parish church, Christ the King) are telling the street in advance that they will be robbed in the near future, on a specific night. And they keep their word. If you try to involve the police, they will tell you they don’t have enough weapons. (True, true.)

The formation house of the Medical Missionaries of Mary in Ibadan was robbed twice in one week. They also robbed the doctors’ residences in the hospital, where they raped one woman and her 14-year old daughter (she had locked the door and tried to keep them out) and made them kneel in front of them. “Now the white must kneel to the Nigerian” was the repeated refrain. Lots of noise and yelling and commotion, but not only did the police not come, none of the neighbors came over to help either. The received wisdom is that if the robbers come, you ask them what they want, and throw it out the window to them. If they want to come in, you them. If you try to resist them, they get made, and then, boy you’re in for it.

I know a priest is supposed to be a man of peace – but there are times when my first response tends to be more along the lines of a 38 calibre than the 38th psalm.

Let’s soften the mood a little bit.

Another Nigerian recipe.

GYPSY CREAM

1 large cup of oats
4oz Flour
4oz Margarine
3oz castor sugar
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence
1tsp syrup (rounded)
½ tbsp bicarbonate of soda dissolved in 3 tsp boiling water

cream sugar and fat
Mix syrup and vanilla essence with bicarbonate of soda solution
Add to sugar and fat
Add flour and oats
Firm mixture into balls and place on greasy tray
Flatten slightly
Bake for 20 minutes in Reg 3 oven/

The other night on television, I caught part of the Miss Nigeria Beauty Pageant. Some of the girls were attractive enough but the questions they asked the contestants – all thirty of them – were distressing. Some of these young ladies don’t have the native intelligence to some in our of the rain. One of them – a computer science major at the university, thank you – was asked about some award she had received. (This was information she had put down on the information card herself.) Her quick-witted reply was that she couldn’t remember. Another had said that her favorite food was bread and tea. The emcee asked her to explain that, why were these her favorite foods. She said that tea was quick and easy to prepare. He asked her, “And what about bread?” Reply, “I don’t understand your question.” The emcee tried expanding it, “You said bread was your favorite food. Any special kind of bread?” Reply, “I don’t understand the question.” This went on for about four more exchanges until she finally got the question, and her final answer was, “Any kind. I’m an African girl.” Big smile, applause, exit. This was the contestant from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. Undoubtedly the daughter of some high government official. Certainly made me want to go to bed.

Which is as good a closing line as I have come up with lately. Repercussions from the decrees, since Page One? Well, the Attorney General came out the next day and said that his ministry had “no knowledge, no copy or any information about the promulgation of these decrees which sweep away our liberties.” Pretty strong stuff, especially these days. The black market rate went from 55 Naira to $1 U.S. the day the decrees were publish to 62 the following morning, and 65 the day after. They’ve held there for a day now, and we’re all waiting to see what happens next. The “official” government rate is fixed at 21.99.

I may enclose two pieces that I wrote for local newspapers. I sent the first one to the Guardian – the next day they closed the newspaper. Then I sent it to the Concord – they closed the paper and sealed the premises. I then sent both pieces to the Vanguard – they are still printing – mail probably hasn’t gotten through yet.

I am tentatively supposed to travel to Ghana in October for two weeks, and should be going to Germany and Rome in late November or early December. There also might be a side trip to Switzerland an/or Holland at the same time. (I am still trying to figure out a real reason to go to London just before Christmas as well. Anyone with brilliant ideas, let me know. Lunch with the Queen Mother? That would be good.)

Finally, an excerpt from a report I did for our Regional Newsletter on exactly what it is that I have been doing with my spare time lately…

“Several major initiatives have started at the JDO, besides the mechanical process of simply setting up an office:

JESUIT ALUMNI OF NIGERIA : Responses are still coming in from Jesuit schools around the world, but so far, we know of 289 men and women in Nigeria and Ghana who have attended Jesuit schools. We also are starting to get addresses of alumni who are Nigerian and Ghanaian who are living in other places, and the names of parents of children currently in Jesuit schools. The mailing list is growing.

Shortly we will send out an announcement and an invitation to all on our list, and we will also schedule a series of regional gatherings, to which people living in that area will be invited. In January, we hope to publish the first issue of our quarterly Newsletter (name still to be chosen) that will be sent to alumni and friends of the Society (and those we would like to make our friends) and in 1995 we will continue with Regional meetings, and schedule talks and seminars for groups in each area. The goal is to inform people about the work of the Society in Nigeria and Ghana, interest them in becoming involved in what we are doing, and eventually help them develop into a group that will be able to plan and carry out independent projects on their own.

FOUNDATION/CORPORATE RESEARCH: While In the U.S. I spent some time at the Foundation research Center, and I am in the process of identifying likely sources for short and longer-term funding, both inside Nigeria and in Europe.

LOYLA JESUIT COLLEGE: Preparation of materials for the Loyola Jesuit College continues, and as final plans are approved, drawings will be commissioned and the first brochure published. Letters of inquiry and introduction have been sent to a number of international foundations, and a few preliminary contacts have been with some local companies.

MEETING PEOPLE: Ultimately, the success of any funding program in Nigeria or Ghana will depend on the people we get involved. Several people have already volunteered to host luncheons and dinners, to which they will invite friends, so that they might get to know the Society better. Suggestions for people to be included in one of these gatherings are always appreciated.

I will be going to Ghana in October, to meet with the Jesuits there and hopefully get to meet some of the Ghanaian alumni/ae. It will give me a chance to see first-hand what the Society is doing, and talk in more detail about what we hope to do in the future. Tentatively, I am looking at a trip to Rome and to Germany, possibly to Holland as well, to meet with representatives of foundations and introduce them to the work of the Society in our Region.

On a local level, we are working on the 1995 Regional Calendar, and are talking to a printer about a Jesuit calendar for public sale. The Jesuit music tapes we are planning are about 50% completed., and we are negotiating for local recording facilities and sound engineers for the second phase. Two small brochures – one, Fr. Peter Schineller’s homily on the recent Vow Day, and the other, a compendium of basic Catholic facts and prayers – are about to go out for printing bids. And the Regional Newsletter and monthly news summaries continue to come out pretty much on schedule.

At the moment, Jesuit Development Office is like a car that needs to be pushed to start. The pushing has begun, but we still need more people to build up momentum. Some day, the engine will turn over, and the car will take off on its own. Right now, it seems very heavy and very slow. But momentum has begun, and the day will come when this car will roar into life. Until then – we push.

* * * * * * * *

Enough. And enough. My love to all of you, and great thanks to those who busy themselves at Xerox machines or invest huge sums of money at copy centers on my behalf – your reward will be great in heaven. (And won’t you be surprised when you find out that’s really true!) The container for this year closed September 1st, so a couple of people who wrote to ask if they could send me anything – not this year. At the moment, it looks as though my next year visit might be more in the Fall than the summer – middle of October to end of November perhaps. Thanksgiving in the U.S.? Not a bad thought. We are getting a new Regional Superior next summer, in July, and personal travel will depend a little bit on who that is and how his settling in works out. (Assuming, of course, that I am not deported or forced to go into hiding before then… Just kidding, Mom)

You are all, quite seriously, remembered on a regular basis in my payers – even those of you who don’t believe in such things – ESPECIALLY those of you who don’t believe in such things! – and until the next time that we get to exchange hugs in person, know that this large and cumbersome pile of persiflage (you can judge for yourself whether or not it is airy) contains on some subconscious level, a major hug.