2012 Christmas Letter

One of the basic rules of theatre is to keep the audience slightly off balance – vary the presentation. Shakespeare alternates comic and tragic scenes and some even argue that commercials on television can play the same role. Not so sure about that – but certainly when I was teaching one of my basic approaches was to keep switching topics and approaches so the young men would never get complacent. So in approaching this end of the year Christmas “What HAS Sheehan been doing?” letter, I thought a varied approach might be interesting.

So while generally chronological, there are some times when I will focus on one activity, one event, one project, which may encompass a longer chronological period. Like the motorcycle accident and the subsequent results (“Motorcycle accident? WHAT Motorcycle accident?!?!?”) See? There might even be some surprises. (Of course, the careful reader might also notice that perhaps God is following the same philosophy with respect to MY life – the Three Person of the Trinity saying to one another, “Let’s keep Sheehan off balance.”) And some of the major moments have longer and more detailed stories earlier in the blog.

Starting in January but continuing through May, I did a lot of talks on behalf of the Xavier Society for the Blind at Rotary Clubs, the Optimist Club, Kiwanis Clubs, Knights of Columbus meetings, high schools – anywhere there was a group who wanted a speaker. I talk about being blind, the basic of some of the training that is available, what the Xavier Society does and anything else that was relevant. It was always fun when I would pull up in a car, get out, take my long white cane out of the back seat and head off down the block. Or walking up to a car with my cane, put the cane in the back seat and driving off. More than once I saw people with very puzzled looks.

But also more than once I had someone come up to me to tell me that they had a cousin, a sister, a friend, someone they knew who was blind or going blind or with limited vision and didn’t know where to turn. We’ve only been around since 1900, and we’ve done a mailing to every single parish in the United States and I regularly hear “Gee, I never knew you existed!” (My comment to myself at those moments is not recorded.) 

January was the month when Tony Amato died, founded and director of the Amato Opera. I went out to his funeral, and ended up delivering the homily. I had the pleasure of attending a concert at Carnegie Hall at which Jessica Bachicha0 sang, a gorgeous singer (and a gorgeous young woman) I had met through the NFB. Oh yes, she’s blind – but doesn’t really have anything to do with her gorgeous singing. And as I was looking through the calendar for last year, I realized – starting in January – that I had a LOT of friends singing and acting and appearing in stuff.

 

February I kept on doing talks to groups, the Notre Dame of NY held our annual Universal Notre Dame Night at the Union Leaguer Club, Catholic War Veterans had their chapter convention and a dinner (my memory is that I have sung a song or two), and the President’s Dinner at the New York Athletic Club which is always a major event. But without contest, the highlight of the month was going to Rome for the installation of new Cardinals, and I knew two of them – Tim Dolan of New York, and Ed O’Brien of Baltimore and then Rome, who was head of the Military Archdiocese when I was a chaplain at Kwajalein, so technically he was my boss. Earlier in this blog there is a longer telling of that trip, which was very moving.

 

Jean French and May Moss
at a Thanksgiving celebration

March  – Usually March has St. Patrick’s Day as the major focus, and since I’ve been back, that includes marching in the parade. This year I did it twice. I marched with the Catholic War Veterans, and since the parade focused on honoring vets, we were near the front. As we neared the end of the march, I peeled off, went back down to 44^th Street, changed my jacket and hat, and march the route again with the Notre Dame Club of NY. Rob French was perhaps my best friend in my life, and he died when I was in Nigeria. His mother was a great friend, and spent the last several years living with her other son in California. She died, and there was a memorial service for her down in Princeton. The Board of the Xavier Society for the Blind had been talking about making some major changes, and in March we had several meetings with some people at  Fordham who helped guide us with personnel details. 

Les Lieber celebrates 100 years

I also sometimes have been singing with the Jazz at Noon group, and the leader and founder of that group, Les Lieber, celebrated his  birthday party in March. His 100^th birthday and at the 3-hour party, Les played for most of the afternoon. And the adjutant  of our American Legion post and a good friend, Joel Viders, died and I was asked to do the funeral. Joel was Jewish, his wife is Catholic, so at the funeral parlor I did a service that was mostly Jewish, in Hebrew and English, and at the cemetery I did a more Catholic service. And finally, I spent several days in Atlanta,  visiting another old friend. I hadn’t been back to Atlanta since I worked there doing dinner theatre, and it was a great trip. I even got to sing with a church choir in rehearsal.

April of 2012 included Easter celebrations at St. Malachy’s, the Actors Chapel, and a meeting in Baltimore at the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore. I also got to go to a ball game when I was in Baltimore. The Orioles lost but it was a good game. I got to see Death of A Salesman with a godson who is building a life in theatre as a dramaturg (He’s currently studying in Ireland). The national commander of the American Legion was at a special dinner at the NY Athletic Club – he had spent half a day at the XSB before he took the office so he knows me. Blue Hill Troupe did a production of Utopia Limited, a production that many G&S fans have never seen. I was asked to step in at the last minute and organize the ushers and run the house, which I did, I sang and invoked at the anniversary dinner for the Women’s National Republic Club and got to see a dress rehearsal of an opera at the Met. Last year I gave the invocation at the Kelly Cares Foundation dinner at the Waldorf, with Lou Holtz, Ara Parseghian, Regis Philbin and of course, Coach Kelly. They asked me again this year but I had already accepted an invitation from the Navy League for the same evening. Fortunately the two events were both at the Waldorf, so I checked the schedule, prayed for Kelly Cares and then headed up to the Starlight Room for event #2. At the NY Athletic we had an event hosting both of the new cardinals, which I had a small hand in helping put together, and I spent some time during the month alerting some people of what we were planning at the XSB.

May – May was truly a month of lights and shadows. The great shadow was telling people their jobs were going to cease to exist. Six of them had 134 years of service together. We also made public the decision to sell the building and decided on a real estate agent. A friend took me to see ONCE as a birthday gift, and there were celebrations at Princeton Day School, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and the Christopher Awards ceremony, where I sang for a bit and got to kiss the woman who gave Elvis his first on screen kiss. (She is now a nun!)

Yes,  this is the woman who gave Elvis
his first on-screen kiss

 I went back to Rome,  to give a paper at a Vatican Conference in Rome about the blind. I also had the opportunity to present a two-volume leather-covered braille edition of the Gospels to the Holy Father.  

I was invited to preside at a wedding in Newport Rhode Island over Memorial Day weekend, and it was a truly wonderful event, with delightful people, a gorgeous hotel (complete with a porch where one could smoke a cigar and a rehearsal dinner cruise and a small chapel for the wedding itself.)

June – Several friends died in June, and I got to take a tour of a cruise ship with a group of blind people, looking at the ship and how a blind person gets about. I continued to help out at St. Malachy’s, the Actors’ Chapel, and I went down to Baltimore for a meeting at the National Federation of the Blind (and got to sneak in a game at the ball park). 

Post Commander Sean Powers
at the flag retirement 

The Biker Priest

I took part in the annual flag retirement ceremony with the American Legion, and since I was hoping to ride with the Legion Riders to the national convention, I thought I would be wise and prudent and smart and take a couple of lessons to sharpen up old motorcycle skills. So I signed up for a series of lessons, and on the first day, while practicing U-turns, I got going a little fast which means I was a little wide and I hit the curb. Off the bike and onto my shoulder, where, as a later MRI pointed out, I tore ligaments and tendons. I spent the rest of the day at the emergency room, discovering whole new dimensions of pain and the wonders of morphine. Surgery was scheduled for later in July, and on June 28 I was off to Dallas for the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind. I was wearing a sling, which meant I got preferential treatment in seating but special attention at airport security.

The convention is one of the highlights of each year, three thousand blind people of all ages coming together to share their experiences and their wisdom and have great fun. It’s a marvelous experience and I look forward to it every year. There was a wonderful opening ceremony put together by the National Association of Blind Veterans,  and I was invited to address the whole convention.

July – I left Dallas and headed up to Louisville for the national convention of the American Council of the Blind. It too is a national organization, but has a different character, a different personality. I celebrated Mass for the Catholics, sang in the Talent Show and was the head spotter for the auction. I got to tour the American Printing House for the Blind, and met a whole bunch of fascinating people. When I returned I had my surgery, and spent the next six weeks sleeping in a chair, wearing a sling and learning how much I use my right hand. One of our great Jesuits and a good friend died, and I had an interview on WOR radio.

August – Because of the surgery I had to miss the national convention for the Catholic War Veterans, but I was able to go to Cape Cod for the memorial service for the daughter of one of my oldest and dearest friends. I was invited to sing in the American premiere of a Donizetti opera (an opportunity I would have had to decline if I had not had the accident) and rehearsals started. A few more friends died and I started physical therapy, three times a week most weeks, 90 minutes a shot.

 

September – I seem to be talking about death more than usual, and a friend who was a poet and who ran poetry workshops made it to 96 and her memorial service was a gathering of friends and poets. I held a Blue Sky Day with the Xavier Society staff,  where we got to explore possibilities and ways to proceed into the future.

October – October was filled with rehearsals for the opera, Olivo, and then there was this storm. We had the first weekend of performances, and just got the last matinee in before the transport systems closed. We were closed for a week, weathering the storm, and trying to figure out what comes next. We lost our phone and internet connections, and as of this writing in January we still don’t have them back. At the residence, on 83^rd Street,  there were no signs of the size of the storms – if it weren’t for the television and Facebook we probably wouldn’t have known anything was going on.

November – Recovering from Sandy, the Veterans Day parade, (no motorcycle this year) and I got to concelebrate a funeral on Staten Island for a vet who died during the storm. The Catholic War Veterans have a promise that no vet will lack for a proper burial and we have arrangements with funeral parlors and cemeteries who have promised to donate their services and this was another in that series. I was invited to the Inner City Scholarship Lunch, celebrating a wonderful program that helps inner city students. The ACB State convention was cancelled because of the storm but the NFB state convention went off and I attended that. Two friends from England came over for a football game – yup, flew over, went to the stadium, we met for a lovely dinner and they flew back the next day. A friend who is a producer got me a ticket for Dead Accounts, and since things were getting dull, I had a tooth pulled. We had a very good meeting with Princeton Theological Seminary that may chart a whole new direction for the Xavier Society for the Blind, I gave the invocation for the Naval War College Foundation, one of the former crew from the Enterprise died, and the Notre Dame Club sponsored the Hesburgh lecture.

December – We started December with a party at the Xavier Society to celebrate our volunteers. We had Mass on the second floor and a buffet lunch and open house for four hours. 

 

  

I celebrated Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the feast of St. Lucy, patron of the blind, complete with a young lady with a headdress of candles, as is the tradition in many Scandinavian countries. 

I sang at a post Baptism party and managed to survive the Christmas season. Although I haven’t said Mass at St. Malachy’s since the accident, I did get to celebrate at the Actor’s Home in Englewood the last Sunday before Christmas. Some friends from California were in town and we had a traditional lunch at a Cajun restaurant, and I saw out the New Year at the New York Athletic Club, watching from a balcony on the 17^th floor the crowds down 7^th Avenue and the fireworks in Central Park. A friend gave me a television set as a Christmas present, and so I suddenly have a working tv in my room – which is kind of neat on the one hand, and really depressing, as I am reminded how few shows there are worth watching.

As the year ends I am still going to physical therapy three times a week, working out and being stretched and doing lots of exercises in between and while “better” is not always “good,” I am definitely getting better. The building sale is moving forward and we hope to have a closing on or before March 5^th. We have exciting plans for the Xavier Society for the Blind in the next several years, and if I could only win the Lottery….

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!