NOW what is he doing?

As part of my mini-sabbatical, I was given permission to visit some friends in London, and to make a reminiscent trip to the student days when I was at the University of Innsbruck and studied in Salzburg. Those activities took up most of the month of March. Seems a long time when you think about it, but once you start planning and scheduling and dealing with travel and expenses and like that, suddenly there is not nearly enough time to do even a small portion of what I would like. But I’m going to do my best and the following pages and subsequent entries will chronicle the true vacation part.

THE LONDON TIMES
(Clever title, eh? Before the lawyers start calling, this in no way refers to a newspaper printed in the United Kingdom.)

The first day of March was the first day of my vacation time, although it really began the day before with the trip to the airport and the flight over the ocean. The flight was largely empty and so the triumph I had felt at getting an exit row seat evaporated when I realized that one could pretty much almost any place you wanted. There was a car waiting for me at the airport, and I got to the Jesuit Missions house in Wimbledon in good time. (Although there was a moment at the airport when the driver announced he had forgotten his wallet and did I have any money? Not English money, but I did have a credit card, which the parking ticket machine accepted. And I learned an interesting fact, in England you don’t have to carry your driving license. If the police stop you and you don’t have it, you simply go home and get it and at some point drop by the local station and show them that you have it. I wonder how that system would work in New York? Yeah, I’m laughing too.)

The Jesuit Missions house has offices on the ground floor and bedrooms for visiting missionaries and Jesuits upstairs, with a kitchen and a living room and a chapel. There was only one other person in the house, and he was leaving the next day, so essentially I had the house to myself. Since my last visit the house now has wireless, so I can take the computer into the living room and work there. My first day was spent just walking around Wimbledon, I bought a few small items - a newspaper, a couple of books, some grocery items, and I met the new people on the staff. Those who have been regular readers of past Missives may remember Tony Montfort, the layman who was head of Jesuit Missions for some 41 years. He had retired since my last trip, and is now engaged in fighting cancer, pretty close to a full-time job. Not exactly what he had planned, but he is (according to the doctors) doing very well. Father Tim Curtis, a Jesuit who has been in Guyana for many years, is the new director, I have known him for years. Alan Fernandez is still there but the rest of the staff is new and they all seem very good and excited about the work. It has changed but it continues to be a neat place, and very welcoming.

I went into London proper the next day. I love London. My first visit was in March of 1966 (dear God, that was 41 years ago! That thought will keep reoccurring to me, almost always accompanied by an exclamation mark.) and I have been back many times, each with a different adventure. I wandered through Trafalgar Square, where a young soprano with a tape accompaniment was singing in front of the museum, with a little pot out to collect contributions. Down in the center of the square there were large inflated figures with people inside - something to do with the upcoming Olympics although the connection for me was a little vague. I went to a movie in the afternoon - I’m not a big movie goer, but Helen Mirren had just won an Academy Award and it sounded like a film I wanted to see, so I went to see The Queen.

I was disappointed. She was very good, and the script was good but I rather wish it had been less about the late Diana person and more about the larger scope of what it is to be the Queen of England. In our increasingly politically correct entertainment industry, I wonder if that influenced the vote. Certainly the Al Gore film was not the best film in the documentary category, but it had the most politically correct message, and the same can certainly be said about the Best Song winner. I found myself wondering if Helen’s selection was weighed because of the Diana connection (I think Diana was on screen more than Helen.). Hers was certainly a very strong performance, and I have seen none of the other candidates in that category. But I think I had expected something more.

One of the reasons I chose London as a stop is because I have so many friends there, and I fully expect not to be able to see all of them. Not for lack of trying, but just because people and schedules and time and I’m sure I won’t be able to touch every base. Anyway, I spent a large part of one day with Elsie, a friend from Nigeria. She had been on the board of the Loyola Jesuit School at one point and had been a help when we were first setting up that school. She is Irish as well as Nigerian, and has moved at this point to London, where she is working and has pretty well settled down. I don’t think she will be going back to Nigeria (which is true for many Nigerians I have talked with who have left the country. Part of me can certainly understand it - and yet, there is a part of me that is also a little sad when I hear that.)


Here I am outside Trockadero. Inside, thousands of teenagers and about to be teenagers. Enough to give you bad dreams.


We met for lunch - at an Indian place where else? - and then we went down into the West End. Elsie had talked of going to a movie but it turned out she had seen pretty much everything there was to see. We wandered through a couple of places, (I had never been inside Trockadero, and somewhere here there is a picture of me outside of Trockadero - it’s really designed for teenagers, so the appeal is limited) she bought some Chinese spices and then we headed back for a Jamaican dinner with her son and his wife and their son. (If you were hoping for culinary theme here, I think you’re out of luck - Indian lunch, Chinese shopping, and Jamaican dinner, with one Nigerian side dish.) He has just finished 15 years in the French Legion, (now THERE is a resume credit you don’t see every day!) and he is adjusting to life back in England. (Man, in that company the subject of MY re-adjusting doesn’t stand a chance.) Interesting folks and a lovely night.


Here I am with Elsie just before the magnificent dinner. Had to be before - afterwards, it was hard to stand.





The next day - a damp Sunday in London - I went over to the Lavender Hill area (for those who are fans of Peter Sellers, yes, there IS a Lavender Hill, with or without mob) and had lunch with Keith and Chris Gale, well-known for many years in any number of missives, going back probably to the second or third number in the group. He has lost a bunch of weight and looks very good, she looks great as well, and we had a lovely lunch at home. (Of course, any meal that includes a large hunk of lamb has more than halfway won my heart anyway.) For those who do not know him from earlier episodes, Keith is Jesuit-educated and a great fan of the Society. Credit to the Society as well, for he can talk knowledgeably about a range of subjects, and continues to be curious and reads a lot and continues to amaze me with what he has read and even more what he has retained.

(NOTE: There are no pictures here of Christine and Keith, because the pictures I took of them are so bad that if I posted them here, I would lose two very dear friends. Trust me - they look great.)

There was an announcement on the telly that a small airline, one of the BA subsidiaries, had been sold to a budget airline and the first thing they were doing was to cancel about a thousand flights. Now I am flying to Austria on a small BA subsidiary, but turns out it was not the same one. From the high drama perspective, I was a little disappointed. But from the “how nice to keep things working smoothly” department, a sigh of relief.

Another name from the Nigerian days now in London is Patricia Shour and her family, and again, readers of back editions of the Missives know her well. (Come on people, the sub-text here is that if you haven’t read the earlier editions, you really should. Get with the program.) One of the things I have learned over the years about the Lebanese - and even especially when dealing with the Shours - is that they are incredibly generous, and where food is concerned, we are constantly seeking the more, in quality and quantity. If a Lebanese orders food for eight, probably means there are four for dinner.

The apartment where they are staying is fairly breath-taking, and the boys have grown into startling young men. Several people joined us for dinner and when we went to get a cab, we found a replica of a 1930’s square can, with two jump seats in the back and lots of room. I was going to use the camera I was loaned (which can take pictures) but when we pulled up at the restaurant, Cipriani’s for those who like to keep track of these things, there was a crowd of papparazzi waiting outside. I don’t know who they were waiting for, but I was intimidated - I mean, to take out a camera phone and take a picture of a cab in front of THAT group? Not me. So we just went in.

Now that this is a place that has a crowd of photographers hanging around outside the front door should tell you something about the place. And if it did, you would be absolutely correct. It is exactly that kind of a place. Great food - several kinds of pasta which we shared, and octopus slices, veal chop, lamb chops, liver, kidneys - and everyone sharing everything in the true Lebanese style. At the end of the meal, in spite of my saying I would just take a tube, they insisted I take a cab (actually a private car) to Wimbledon, so I rode back through the evening rain in something approaching splendor. The problem with those moments is that when the occur, all too rarely, there is never anyone around to see you.

The next day I got to take Tony Montfort out to lunch. Now in the days when he was Director of Jesuit Missions, that would be an headline announcement. Tony was notorious for not letting anyone else pick up a check. Lovely place, terrific food - there was a couple there when we arrived, and I was sure I knew them, but not sure enough to interrupt. Nigerian, and I know I know them - I wonder who they were.



One of the truly great men of our time, Tony Montfort.



After a rest at home, it was time to head off for the evening show. I came all the way from New York to see Wicked in London. (I never claimed to be sensible.) The theatre is right next to Victoria station so I got my ticket - the 30 pound ticket cost me 44, with a delivery charge (I picked it up) and handling charges. That’s almost 30 bucks. Ah well - walked around for a little, went into the theatre - nice seat in the center, although way up in the top. Good sight lines, but during the first act, the woman in front of me kept leaning forward and when she did, she wiped out the whole center part of the stage. I talked to her an intermission and she was very embarrassed. But I had a good second act. Treated myself to an ice cream, mostly for the tradition of it. Lovely show - they wrote the Glinda part for Kristin Chenoweth, you could hear her in the whole part. (Which added a lovely dimension for me, since I think she is one of the greates things to happen to musical theatre since... I don't know, notes? Sings, acts, is drop dead gorgeous - yup, I'm a fan.) The show raises some interesting issues - it would be a good show for a class group to see and spend some time talking about - and I will be interested to read the novel, which came out before the play. I miss the real vibrato in the voices, lots of loud flat tones that only vibrate at the end of the breath. But it was a very emotional time and worth every cent. Train back - walked home - watched tv and wrote and bed.

Wednesday, March 7 - For reasons I cannot identify, I find myself in a real funk this morning, very depressed, out of sorts, sad and hopeless. I realize it - but I don’t know where it came from. Had cereal and coffee, watched tv, did some writing. Weather holding good. Went into London and went to Harrods and bought a present for Kyra for her graduation. What I had originally wanted wasn’t in stock and the Waterford people at the factory couldn’t tell me when one might be available - so I went with something else that they actually had. (I can't say what it was in case she reads this before she graduates. But it's very nice.) I browsed for a wedding present for Ralph and Sabrina, and saw a very large rhino for something over 7,000 pounds. (That would be in the neighborhood of $15,000 - plus shipping.) I took a picture. Went to the theatre and got my ticket for the evening G&S performance. Found a bookshop and got a German book for light reading, and went to see The Last King of Scotland.

Brilliant - Forrest Whittaker is scary. The counterpoint - the hero, if you will - the young Scot who goes to Uganda as a new doctor for the adventure and gets as much adventure as you could want - he’s not a nice guy, and you tend to lose sight of that in the greater evil that was Idi Amin. But he tried to seduce the other doctor’s wife, he does seduce one of Amin’s wives (and ends up getting her pregnant, and causing her to be horribly killed). He is responsible for the death of at least one of the ministers of state - and just because he is beaten badly at the very end and manages to escape does not redeem him, at least in my slightly jaundiced eye. He is no hero. There really is no hero in this film, just bad and badder.

Strolled back to the English National Opera and went in early. Beautiful old theatre, with gold filigree everywhere around the ceiling, statues of gods and goddesses with chariots and horses and what-not. The audience was itself a minor show, lots of older people, one family right in front of me, Mom and Dad, two boys, grandparents a regular family outing. When the overture started, Mom and Dad were holding hands and bouncing together in time to the music - it was a very sweet moment. The set and costume design sort of mod campy, minimalistic but well done and neither a great addition to the show nor a distraction from it. Chorus was good but muddy - they used the surtitles whenever anything was sung and for those who did not know the show, probably just as well. I certainly would not have understood some of the singers without the help of those printed words over their heads. Soloists were good but again, nothing outstanding. Sometimes the character work gets sacrificed to a great voice, or vice versa - in this case, neither was outstanding. No one was bad, several were good but no one really blew you away, with either the acting or the singing. A gentle trip home.

And when I checked my email, I learned that Ralph Mylius had died. (There is a section here about Ralph - I won’t repeat myself here, but somehow I do believe that the funk I was in was somehow connected to his dying. I tried calling Sabrina but could not get through. Awful.)

Thursday, March 8 - One of the problems about letting one’s hair grow longer than 1/2 inch is that it has to be cut. With a short hair style, I can take an electric slipper and put in the appropriate blade and run it all over my head in every direction until the hair stops falling and I’m pretty well done. Every now and then clip along the edge. But with longish - longer - hair, something professional is occasionally required. And today was the day. I went into London and found a cheap barber shop and had a proper haircut. Ran a few errands, walked around a bit and finally found a spot in the sun at Leicester Square and read and smoked a cigar - I watched people see the empty seat next to me and start over, then spot the cigar and swerve in another direction. Met Pauli around 4 and we went in to see Apocolypto - fantastic. Photography is breath-taking, strong plot, great faces. The whole thing is done in Mayan, with subtitles. Gives it a quasi-documentary feel. The parallels within the film are intriguing - chasing the tapir through the bush and the chase that is much of the last third of the film - ripping the entrails out of the tapir, and ripping the hearts out of the living sacrifices at the temple. The escape over the waterfall and through the water and the woman in the well – the re-appearance of the animal trap - and on and on. We took a bus back to the Shours, had drinks, others came and joined us including three young women, Claudia (a cousin) Carina and Lysa (Patricia’s best friend and the woman who had been with us on Monday) joined us at the restaurant, a Lebanese place, very good food. Finished around 11:30 and they sent me back to Wimbledon in a cab. Raining all the way - several road closures, the poor driver (name of George) had an awful time finding a way.

Friday, March 9 - Off to Southsea. Those who read my story about leaving Nigeria and heading to Kwaj might remember a sojourn to visit some friends in the Portsmouth Southsea area, friends who not only came to visit me on Kwaj but came twice! (For those who have read the Kwaj missives.) Now I am returning the visit. English trains are fascinating, and in spite of all the well-advertised problems and complaints (the Scottish Rail System is on strike as I write this, and there are threats the strike could spread south if things don’t get resolved quickly), they are still a wonder to this American’s eye. An announcement - “We regret to announce that the 10:32 to someplace unpronounceable with stops at several places whose names I cannot understand will be delayed by approximately six minutes. We apologize for the delay and any inconvenience this might cause.” Now really. If Amtrack ever ran a train within six minutes of the announced arrival, there would be champagne in the corporate offices. If they ever apologized for a train being late, passengers would faint. You ask a rail employee a question, whether the track for a departing train, the route to another station, the reason for a delay - by heaven, he either knows the answer or trots off and finds out for you. He doesn’t shrug and say he doesn’t know, he doesn’t refer you to someone else - he gives you or gets you the answer. So using the British trains - except that they seem somewhat expensive to my poor pocket book - is still rather fun. The trains are clean, the station stops are all announced before arrival and again on arrival, there is lots of easy to find information at every station and at every platform and at every track - this is not a bad system.

First stop - we went to the fish shop and bought a huge live crab, some clams and a large Dover sole. What’s a Dover sole doing in Portsmouth you ask? Fulfilling its heavenly purpose for existence by providing supper for wandering Jesuits and friends. We dropped the crab off at a Chinese restaurant where they cooked it and we went home for a coffee and a visit and then back to the restaurant for lunch. Huge crab, when he’s cooked and looking at you slightly cockeyed and a little surprised, sitting on an only marginally larger plate, on a bed of angel hair pasta, covered with a lovely sauce. (Large enough to be a doorstep for the door on a cathedral church. ) A cold beer and a wipe for the sticky hands afterwards and just a little slice of heaven in southern England. There is no way to eat crab except with your hands - and I don’t care of you’re in a Maryland Crab Shack with a plastic table cloth or a Chinese restaurant in Southsea with a crab slightly larger than an American football - hands is the way to go. And go we did. We ended up with two pieces left over, which we wrapped up and took home for Mark, who was returning that afternoon from a week in Canada. We talked about going up in the Portsmouth tower (yes, Portsmouth has a tower, not quite as big as the CNN tower or the one at Niagara Falls and certainly not in the class of the Empire State Building - but still, it is a tower and it is the pride and joy of Portsmouth) but every time we made a move, the clouds came in and darkened the sky, so instead of the tower, we went to see Alex Bentley, Kemi’s tailor.

Alex - He is not as tall as the tower, but much more fun, and no admission charged to get into the shop. While Kemi had a suit fitted - actually she had two suits fitted - fitting suits is not just a job for Alex but something of a hobby, gives him lots of opportunity to chat with people - I visited with his wife and played with their two dogs and tried on hats. He had some nice hats - and when the visit was over, and we were leaving, I discovered that Kemi had liked the way I looked in one of the hats and had bought it for me. I also liked the way I had looked, so I was very pleased. Somewhere there should be at least one picture of me wearing the hat and you can decide for yourself if YOU like it. It’s a dark green fedora, not the grey Irish cap I have worn for several years. (When we got back to the house, I found that Mark had a hat exactly like the one I had picked - no wonder she thought it looked good.)

Alex got talking, and we learned about his family history - turns out he is Jewish (which Kemi had not known) and his grandfather had been a Jew in Berlin all during the war, hiding out under false papers and with the help of many friends. But at one point he had gotten tired of the hiding and the solitude and turned himself in. He died in Auschwitz a couple of weeks before the war ended. His great grandfather was a Russian Jew and his mother one of the French aristocracy - he was an architect and designed the notion of putting a window in the roof, a design feature that bears his name - the idea was not just to provide light, but also to avoid the then prevalent tax based on the number of windows one had. I can’t remember all the details of the family history but his father had been a tailor before him for many years on the same street where he is now working - something like 40 years on one side of the street and then they moved and 27 years on the other side. He had been for one year the Mayor of Portsmouth (or was it Southsea?) And during the year, when he hired someone to run the shop for him, he made more money than any other year, because the man (who didn’t really know anything about tailoring) simply assigned prices and if people argued, shrugged his shoulders, and they usually ended up paying.

Mark came in shortly after we got back - Kemi was upstairs working and I was watching a cricket match on television (Who laughed? I love cricket, and understand enough of the game to enjoy it, although I am by no means an expert, never having played it. I think it is one of those games you cannot fully understand until you have spent some time on the pitch yourself.) We visited for a little, and then headed up to a local pub, to meet some local pub types and have some local pub beer and smoke a pub cigar (that was my department) and munch of pub chips (I never knew that you could get sweet prawn marinade chips - they’re actually not very nice, but the British have evolved crisps, as chips are called over there since they say chips when they mean French fries, but you knew that, didn’t you? into a number of odd and unusual flavors and some are rather fun but sweet prawn marinade aren’t) and it was great fun. Home for razor clams - I had never had razor clams - and some very nice wine - and then the Dover sole we had bought at the fish place. Dover sole is a mysterious creature, and this one was obviously enchanted - by a wicked wizard. Kemi is (usually) a wonderful cook and has produced some truly amazing meals over the years I have known her. So the fault had to lie with the Dover sole - which you probably could have taken out and attached to the tire on a car and gotten another couple of thousand miles. Now between one meal and another, I had no need of one more bite of food, so that the sole was not a success was also not a disaster - not even a misfortune. And we staggered off to bed, because the alarm had to go off the next morning at 4, so we could leave by five, to catch the chunnel train to France. Lovely hot shower before going to bed.

Saturday, March 10 - Alarm at 4 - off in the dark and the cold. Mark’s car is a top of the line Audi - heated steering wheel, heated seats- automatically closing trunk lid and doors, on board navigation system and screens in the back seat so you can show a DVD to the kids while you travel. (There are lots more gadgets but you get the idea.) Lovely to ride in, and I imagine it must be great fun to drive. A diesel, smooth ride, very quiet, lots of power. We got the train site in time to visit the bathrooms and buy a newspaper and then the call came to board so we drive through the maze and onto the train. Now I have to report, oh you security conscious worriers, that England is not terribly interested in the people who are leaving - might be a different story coming in, but no one even looked at a passport on the way out, or in France. There is a system of random pull you over to check you but no one looked at us twice. About a 25- minute ride, you sit in the car and think lovely thoughts. (Of course while we were in the queue waiting, we watched tv - another gadget, tv in the car - and watched a giraffe being born. Talk about globalization.)

From the station it was about another six hours to Eric’s - we stopped one for diesel and a rest stop - naturally the men’s room was being cleaned so we waited and we waited and finally into the Ladies - where I discovered, a little late in the overall process of things that the stall I had selected had no toilet paper. Sigh. Now, being an old experienced international traveler, I can deal with this sort of thing. But - sigh.

After another little bit we stopped and had something to eat, and I have to report that the whole atmosphere of the French roadway rest stop is very different than we have in the US. The snack bar (HA!) has a salad bar, a huge display of fresh bread and rolls, wine and beer available along with the diet Coke and espresso, and a hot area where you can get roast chicken, steak (cooked to order) ham carved from the bone to your preference and a dessert table to die for. I had a small quiche and salad and a bottle of water - hey, we’re on our way to visit a chef, why should I fill up with restaurant food, no matter how good. The atmosphere of the place was not the hurry up and get out move very quickly mood one gets on the turnpike - there were families having lunch I suspect had come from the surrounding community rather than on their way to or from somewhere. (That’s the kind of construction that does not bear analysis, since any time you are going to some place, you are also coming from some other place.)

After a long trip or a long day, different people relax in different ways. Kemi (in the middle) obviously does it with her eyes closed. Mark likes to look at something that isn't moving (since he did all the driving). And Eric's wife is just fascinated looking at the other two.




We got to Eric’s around 3:30, visited for a little, chatted with his wife, who was on her way out for her afternoon shift working at a local home for elderly people, I gave him his hat and mug (I didn’t know what to bring a French chef as a gift, so I brought along a NY City Police Department cap, and a matching mug - I figured it was a pretty safe bet that these were things he would not already have), we had a tour of his house (three bedrooms, living room and dining room, small but nice kitchen, porches on the front and back, a huge garden area in the front, and a cellar underneath the whole house. He has done a lot of work on it - although he kept telling us how much work there was still to be done - and then we went out to a local market to do some shopping for things to take back to the UK - including a very nice bottle of single malt for the priest (that would be me). (The French supermarket - aisles and aisles of wine. Lots of fresh foods - but lots of very elegant packaged food as well. The usual toiletry and household goods departments, but it was a very large and very well-stocked place. Expensive - you can drop E100 very quickly. But the fun thing is that you can ask for help in any department, and suddenly there will be a cheese expert, for instance, to help advise you on your purchases.) Back to the house for a drink and some more talk, and cheese and fresh bread - both baguette and walnut bread. Mark took a short nap, and then when Emi (Eric’s wife) came back, dinner - ahem - ready?

Snails with garlic and butter as a starter, and then king prawns fried in a light sauce - more finger food - for another starter. (Fresh baguette and walnut bread throughout) Then fish and rice and spinach - a white wine with the starter and a red with the entree. There was more cheese and fruit - at which point Kemi faded away completely and headed for the bedroom and Emi disappeared because she had an early shift in the morning and was going to be leaving the house by 6 - and then Eric brought out a Baked Alaska. (This is the point where I say that it was a proper baked alaska, the kind you had when you were a boy - or a girl, depending - all made from scratch, no store bought things added to the top, or short cut things added to the sides - the final flame burning away merrily inside a half an egg shell inserted into the center of the fresh-made meringue - lovely, lovely, lovely. I know, I know, at this point my cholesterol is around 3000 but I’m on vacation. I’ll make it up when I get back.) Bed was lovely too.


Arguably the most perfect Baked Alaska I have seen (or tasted) in years.


A word about Eric - I met him when I visited Mark and Kemi on my way through in 2004, when I left Nigeria for good and headed for New York and then on to Kwajalein. He was the head chef at Truffles - could be he was running, or helping to run the place, I don’t remember. He is French, but a British citizen - his father had been with the Free French during the Second World War and had been given citizenship in gratitude for what he had done for Britain. His English is quite good, and he has worked at a variety of jobs all around the world, through many different careers, two previous wives, and he has definite opinions about many things. I found him delightful on my visit and we had stayed in touch, and he and Mark and Kemi are very close, and so this visit seemed a perfect chance to re-visit. He is about my height - probably a couple of years older, with a slightly balding crown and long hair on the sides and back. He has more jokes and stories ready for the odd moment than most Masters of Ceremony, and he is full of odd facts and histories (factual) about any number of things. Conversation with Eric is both entertainment and education, and eating with Eric - when he is the cook - is a delight to the tongue. The palate. All the senses. He is not thrilled with where he is at the moment - although he chose it - but the house is proving to be more work than he had anticipated and the surrounding community less stimulating than he had hoped and when his wife is ready to retire, I suspect the house (which by then will be in terrific shape) will be sold and they will move to a yet too be determined location. It could be in France, although I think there are other countries under consideration. There are pictures somewhere in this blog.


Here is Eric standing outside his house, thinking about all of the things he needs to do.




















I don't know if he is coming or going - but then again,I often have the same problem with myself.


Sunday, March 11 - Eric went out go collect the croissant he had ordered yesterday from the local bakery as I was getting dressed (7:15 or so) and as I opened the shutters - yes, they use shutters - the vista was chilly and foggy and beautifully mysterious. And since I knew he was going to get fresh made croissant, it was even nicer. Coffee - email check - and fresh croissant with a tangelo and nice people. Around 9 we headed off for the Abbey.

For those with Google satellite connections or a bizarre interest in geography, we are in the southern part of France, east of Angers. There was a deep and exotic mist along the way, the sort of thing from which you would not be expected to see strange creatures emerging. There is a river along which we drive, and there was flooding in the river (I don’t know the name of the river - look it up) We passed Saumur where the trained horses are, like the Lippizaner in Austria, and Eric reminded us of a story I had previously heard, of the cadets riding out against the tanks in the second world war. Very dramatic and foolish and of course, tragically unsuccessful. We also passed the Mushroom Museum (we did not go into the Mushroom Museum, which leaves us free to imagine what would be included in a mushroom museum - THERE is something to occupy your thought for a while) and along the river there are les maisons des troglodytes - You know what a troglodyte is? A cave dweller. (If someone calls you a troglodyte, it is not usually a complimentary thing.) But here they have these great cliffs of a very hard chalk, and the walls of local castles and buildings are made from this. They dig into the cliffs to carve out the rocks, and what they have done is continue to carve in and build houses inside the cliffs - troglodyte houses - with beautiful almost Georgian design fronts, but except for the facade, everything else in the house is inside the cliff. Cool in the summer, well well insulated and therefore easy to keep warm in the winter, easy to make burglar proof (the only way anyone can come in is through the front door). Fascinating, and there are lots and lots of them. Some have built out, so there are rooms in the cave and rooms that stand outside. But it is a fascinating use of a natural resource. There is a small castle in one town along the way, looks like a miniature Walt Disney event. Ah France. If only they had mastered the art of politics like the art of baking bread. But I digress.

We arrived before the abbey had opened, and so in the best local mode, retired to a nearby cafe for a cup of coffee and the chance to sit and watch the locals. And let the locals watch us.

Fontevraud Abbey - This is the abbey, where Richard (the Lion-Hearted) and Henry and Eleanor are buried, and there are some pictures of it and us in it. There is a web site for those with a burning desire to know more about the place (http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/fontevra.htm)
Those with theatrical background, think The Lion in Winter. Wonderful play - and those are the central characters. Saw a wonderful production with Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor.



This picture is really mostly so you can see the hat. Do you like it? If not, keep your opinions to yourself.






I'm not putting in a lot of pictures of the Abbey because there are lovely pictures on the web site. I have some - but you'll have to ask. Mark and me at the Abbey in the garden, and above a picture of the trio taking a break from being tourists.




Home for more cheese and cold meats and fresh bread and then it was time to head off to the ferry. Shorter trip this time - only about two and a half hours driving, on beautiful multi-lane highways with practically no one else on them. Toll roads in France let you use your credit card to pay, so there are fewer staff and quicker pass-throughs. Got on the ferry with no queue - very empty ship, so there was lots and lots of room. Free internet service in the lounge, lots of men watching rugby on tv - chairs to sleep in and decks to walk around in - did I mention that the weather has been breath-takingly beautiful, and everyone keeps commenting on how warm it is for March. I smile, and remind them that they ARE traveling with a priest. (Hey - I’m going to get blamed if it rains, so I might as well take a little credit when the sun comes out.) The ship did not sell newspapers, so no chance to get the International Herald-Tribune with the Sunday puzzle - I’ll try in Wimbledon and see if W.H. Smith has one left over.

There are two dynamics at work on a ferry - make the crossing comfortable for the passengers, and separate the passengers from as much money as possible while crossing. So the degree of comfort - here as in so many places - is in direct relation to how much you are willing to pay. Regular seats, reclining seats, sleeper seats and full cabins. Snacks from machines, snacks from snack bars and regular restaurants with scheduled seating times. Gambling halls - duty free shop - gambling machines - internet wireless connections for a fee - and on and on. I like the ocean and I like ships, so I rather enjoyed the whole thing - but the design of the place is not aimed at my tastes and so they did not get much of my money beyond the ticket. (And let’s be honest, I didn’t pay for that either, I was the guest of Mark and Kemi.) Who spent much of this crossing planning their next trip.

I, with a burning desire to be back in Wimbledon so I could do laundry, went from the ferry to the train station for more travel - the easy trip from Wimbledon to Fratton on a Friday afternoon turns into one of those “You can’t get there from here” moments on a Sunday evening. The ferry docked around 9:30 - and what with unloading cars and getting through formalities (which include John - that would be me, having to get out of the car to fill out a landing card for Customs - on this trip my passport was examined three times - as I thought, they are much more interested in who is coming into England than who is going out), on to the station to catch a 10:42 bus to Petersfield, then a train to Clapham Junction, and another bus to Wimbledon. Thank heaven for the cabs at the station, the notion of walking with bag and computer did NOT fill me with joy, especially since it was now something after 1 of the AM. Kemi thought I was crazy to do a trip like that at an hour like that, but I think I just wanted it done, so I could spend all of the next day making sure I was ready for the next two weeks. The bus to Petersfield came early, the train was waiting for the bus - it was a sad moment when we went thorough Wimbledon on the way to Clapham Junction - but I was in Wimbledon and cab and at Edge Hill by 1:15.

Monday, March 12 - There is (if I have anything to say about it) a special place in heaven for people who iron other people’s clothes. One of the services that Jesuit Mission provides is a wonderful woman who will do your laundry and iron your clothes. (She will also cook dinner for you.) I had said I could deal with my own cooking and washing, but someone to iron the shirts? This is good. And so I was up early to do my laundry so everything could be ready when she came in. David Smolira came in - the former Provincial of the British Province who is now based in South Africa. We chatted for a bit, and I went back to my packing and getting ready and he indulged in British television.

This is a logical place to pause - go get a sandwich, use the facility (remember to check for paper FIRST!) and stretch your legs. Tomorrow morning I am off to Austria for two weeks, so while you go and do whatever it is you do, I will think up a cute title for the next bit, and try to have everything neatly tied up and in place before your return.

RALPH MYLIUS

RALPH MYLIUS

While I was in England, I had one day when I woke up in a funk. Not a foul mood, exactly, but a bad one - I was depressed, irritated, absolutely and completely out of sorts, and I could not find a reason why. Everything was going beautifully, I had had no major changes in my diet, no one had done anything to annoy me - and yet I was ready to take a bite out of the first person who came too close. I went off and spent the day downtown, and with admirable restraint, did not bite anyone. When I got back to Wimbledon, I found several emails telling me that Ralph Mylius, a friend of mine on Kwajalein, had died.

Ralph was, based on the limited knowledge I had of him, an extraordinary gentleman. He was, first and foremost, a gentleman, in the old school sense of the word. He was gracious, unfailingly tolerant, creative, witty, sympathetic, had excellent taste in a number of things including wine and women (more on that in a second) and he was solid. As a friend of mine who is Australian would say, he was “good value.” (And for my Australian friend, that is about his highest compliment.) He always managed to bring a sense of elegance to anything he did; to use an old word, he was “courtly.”

Kwajalein is a small community, and when it became known that Ralph and Sabrina were “seeing” each other, everyone was delighted. Because everything good one could say about Ralph, one can likewise say about Sabrina. Maybe even more so. Certainly Ralph rose a step or two in everyone’s estimation simply because Sabrina liked him. That, on Kwaj, was perhaps the highest character reference one could get. And the two of them were like my parents - not that they scolded me and made me eat my spinach, but rather that somehow the two of them together were more than just the sum of their parts. One plus one somehow equaled three. Or four. Or some mystical number that always had something to do with champagne. For instance, when I was hosting the weekly Padre’s Pub, a gathering of friends to share food and gossip, Ralph and Sabrina would often arrive early, bearing chilled champagne and three glasses. (One for me, of course.) Champagne is often used to make an occasion more special; Ralph and Sabrina somehow made champagne more special.

They were to be married in April, and last December were going to go on a trip together to South America. Before they left Ralph had not been feeling well, and had gone to the local hospital on Kwaj. (Those who are regular readers of this blog know of my adventures with and opinion of the local hospital on Kwaj.) They checked him out and said he was fine. Since he still did not feel fine, when they got to the US he went to see another doctor who ran some tests and promptly put him in the hospital for intravenous drugs and absolutely said he was in NO CONDITION to take the trip to South America. (As I understand it, the caps are the doctor’s.)

He returned and apparently never completely felt right. He had been sick for a while, and then got feeling worse, bad enough to go back to the hospital on Kwaj, where they checked him out, said he was fine and sent him home. That, if I remember the sequence correctly was Monday night. Tuesday night he felt worse and left Sabrina to go back to his own apartment to try and get some rest. He did not show up for work on Wednesday morning, and when the local police entered the apartment, he was dead.

The Kwaj community showed the depth of their love and rallied around Sabrina. As she put it, she could hardly imagine being a widow without first having been a bride. I have not always had great things to say about the company that runs the place, but in this case, from everything I have heard, they have responded magnificently, treating Sabrina like the spouse she was about to become, and doing everything they could to help out. Friends in the States have likewise been devastated and emails have bounced around among people who don’t know each other, trying to figure out ways to help.

I include this section because Ralph deserves a story in the Times, and since I can’t do that, I can at least give him a section in a blog. I include it because if I am going to be honest about writing stuff that happens, this is certainly one of the biggest (and worst) events so far in my mini-sabbatical. I include it because stories of love and support and generosity should always be told, and that has been the theme on Kwaj since the news first got around.

I include a picture of Ralph and Sabrina that was taken at one of the parish parties when I was still there. Ralph is the one with the beard. There is no way of telling which is the one with the greater love.

ON THE ROAD - AGAIN

What would a sabbatical be without a little travel, I ask you? And I answer - Why, nothing at all.

So from February 28 through March 31, I will be on the road. First to London - although I am sure Her Majesty would be delighted to see me, and I her, she is so busy preparing for her tea with Helen whosis from the movie that I am sure she will not be able to see me. Just as well, as there are a bunch of friends I would like to see whilst there.

I am going to be visiting Mark and Kemi, of the TWO visits to Kwajalein fame (What?! You haven't read about their visits to Kwaj? Tsk, and tsk again, and hie thee to the appropriate prior entry. Or entries.) We will be going to visit a mutual friend who lives just outside of Paris, so that will be another fun (and gastronomically exciting) adventure. Our friend is a chef, you see, and is out hunting snails even now, in anticipation of our arrival. They are not actually in London but down in Southsea, near Portsmouth, so that's another little trip that leads to a longer trip.

And then to Austria. I was a student in Innsbruck in the mid-60's, at the University there, and spent almost two months in Salzburg, and haven't been back since. Soooo - I've been brushing up my German and I'm off, to visit old haunts (as these things go, so far most of my old haunts have been torn down - but Europeans generally are less into tearing down than are Americans, so the places I remember from my student days might even be there still.)

I will also spend a couple of days with some friends in Gaming (Niederosterreich, for those who like to follow these wanderings on a map) and then back to London for a couple of days, and I will return to the U.S. on March 31st, the day before Palm Sunday, just in time for the parade in the church with the palm branches and the looooong Gospel reading (The Passion).

I have some study work with me for the trip, and any time I run across a piano, I did bring my music with me, so hopefully I will not forget too much during this time away from my routine of daily practice. I have determined a couple of things - I do enjoy the practice, and am more disciplined about it than I thought I would be. I am also not a child prodigy - certainly not a child, nor, unfortunately, a prodigy. Even with a fair store of musical talent and experience, this comes with effort. I think of the child Mozart, five years old, whipping off minuets and symphonies and playing in front of kings and emperors and I want to wring his little neck.

Since coming back, I have been to concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and organ recitals at several churches. I heard a wonderful choir at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and went to the Metropolitan Opera for a great performance of Simon Boccanegra. I saw Kristen Chenowith in The Apple Tree and an odd-Broadway production of the C.S. Lewis book The Great Divorce. Love the book, hated the play. Takes a certain effort and a lot of hard work to make ole C.D. boring, but by heaven, they managed to do it. I went ice skating last weekend for the first time since 1992 and I did very well for an old man on rutted ice with rental skates that had no edges to speak of. The instincts came back, and the next morning I was able to get out of bed and walk around without pain or making suffering sounds. I was really rather pleased with myself.

Contrasting that with my two attempts at bowling - I hurt myself both times, and the second time a couple of those pains are STILL with me. If they survive the Europe trip, it's going to be back to the doctor. Imagine being too old to go bowling!

Now I know those who have suffered through these many pages are going to think I have a "thing" about the company on Kwajalein that didn't fire me - so they kept telling me - but I still somehow found myself out of work. (Last I heard they still hadn't found anyone for that spot. Maybe they don't WANT anyone....) Anyway, because of the way the company does things, when I left I had to pay for my own plane ticket from Hono back to New York, and then (once the flight was completed - not when the ticket was bought, mind you) along with the other reimbursable expenses for the leaving, they would write me a check. The total comes to something over $1,100. I bought the plane ticket in October - it is now the end of February, I am about to go away for a month and guess what?! No check. I was assured weeks ago it had been sent. So the man with the vow of poverty is carrying the subsidiary of Bechtel for over $1,100 from October until - well, now it will be April.

I know - I shouldn't let myself get upset. But - well, just but. If any of you are looking for a great present to give me, stock in this company would not be a good idea. (Although it would mean I could go to a stockholders meeting, and.... bad John. Bad John.)

So if, during the next month, you are coming to New York and were hoping to see me, let me know and I'll email you a picture. 'CAUSE I WON'T BE THERE!!! I love New York, and I am looking forward to coming back. Some neat stuff is going to be going on in April, and in May, and in June - and in June I might even learn what my next assignment might be. But for this month - new currencies, old places and new adventures, and change of scenery.

Have a wonderful Lent. (What did YOU give up?) I will be checking email hopefully at least once a day - and the Minister at the Jesuit community and my sister each have phone numbers where I can be reached in case of real emergencies. I will take copious notes, and who knows, there might even be an old-fashioned massive missive come out of this. I will be remembering many of you in prayer - well, some of you don't need praying for, and some are beyond help (Kidding, just kidding). And I would hope that every now and then, when you are engaged in conversation with God, you would mention my name. He is even busier than the Queen, and yes, He IS God, still - for reasons we cannot begin to understand, He likes to be reminded. So make Him happy - remind Him there is a fuzzy Jesuit wandering about Europe who might need the occasional taking care of.

That will make me happy too.

Love and hugs and prayers and stuff like that.

AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY

January 30, 2007

The word “sabbatical” comes from the notion of Sabbath, that on the seventh day, God rested from all His labors. If it’s good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for the rest of us. And the extrapolation is that every seven years, one should get a rest. In academic circles, the idea was that every seven years, a professor would get time off to re-tool, to explore new areas of study, to not just rest but to re-energize.

Sometimes, even in religious life, members are given that same opportunity. Now I am getting a mini-sabbatical - not a full year, but a chance to refresh and explore. As some of you may know, I had made a couple of proposals, ideas I had had about how this time might be spent. Father Provincial was not impressed, and sent me back to the drawing board. But we had a very good meeting, I got caught up on what’s going on in the Province, and he got caught up on what I had been doing and was/am feeling. I came away with a much better sense of what he and the Society of Jesus expected from this time.

So I came up with plan 3. And shortly after I submitted it, with some further thought and talking with people, I revised even that one into plan 4. And plan 4 it is.

So - for those who keep track of these things - I will be based in New York until July, with the following dimensions. In February I will be studying piano, and working on music theory. Also exercise - both for keeping healthy and I would like to lose a little more weight. (When in my life has THAT not been the case? Sigh.) But in addition to the treadmill and the bicycle in the basement (and I use them, I really do) one can easily do golf and ice skating and bowling. (Bowling? Yup - I had not been bowling in more years than I can think about, and last week I bowled three games. Thought I was going to die - started to think seriously about a thigh transplant. Talk about using muscles one doesn’t usually use. I heard that - yes, I have muscles. They’re disguised, but they’re there. I went again today - I am nothing if not stubborn - and on the first ball hurt my hip. I may be too old for bowling. Next week - ice skating.)

In March I will be going to England and Austria, to visit some friends and places I have not seen in a long time.

In April and May I will be back in New York for more work on the piano, and some study on the problems of aging in religious communities. I’ll be going to the Rotary International Convention toward the middle of June, (Salt Lakle City!) and I’ll be visiting some friends in Texas, and I will spend a little time in West Virginia and Washington.

I will also have two times when I go away for retreat - times of prayer and silence, and I hope to do some reading on the Gospel of John.

I’m in residence with the Jesuit community on 83rd Street, and I will have the same room until July, so the phone numbers remain the same. If you don’t have my phone numbers, send me an email and you’ll get them automatically. (I’m not crazy enough to put my phone numbers on a public blog site.) Probably in June, the Provincial will have a conversation with me about the next assignment. I asked if there were any merit in using some of this time for preparation, and he wisely said no, use the sabbatical time for its own purpose, and if any preparation is needed, we’ll deal with that once we decide on the next assignment.

So, at the moment I am studying piano and practicing 4-5 hours a day. I really am. I have an electronic piano in my room, with earphones, so the community doesn’t hate me, and I am trying to take advantage of being in the city. My teacher is the conductor of the Riverside Symphony Orchestra. I was introduced to this group by the cousin of a friend of mine on Kwaj, and it is a wonderful group. Through this introduction, I have been to jazz at Squadron A, and found a weekly jazz group at St Bart’s, and a weekly jazz presentation at St. Peter’s. I’ve been to several organ recitals, and recently I went to the Carlyle Hotel to hear Rita Moreno. (Yes, she is still alive.) She’s 75 years old and did a wonderful show. The voice is a little thin and breathy but she controls it superbly, and a couple of ballads were tinglingly beautiful. (My spell checker doesn’t know that word, but it is absolutely correct, and if it doesn’t exist, it should. And now it does.)

Let me back up a little and try to bring a little chronological order into this. I returned from Kwajalein the day before Thanksgiving, and celebrated the day itself with Jeanne French, mother of Rob French, who was perhaps my best friend in all the world. He has gone, but Jeanne is very much with us, and hosted a whole gathering for the ceremonial eating of the turkey. (That would NOT be me.) I think there were eleven people gathered around the table. I started getting used to cold weather - this is a process that is still ongoing. Christmas in New York was fun, and I started to catch up with old friends. I went to a wonderful concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and did the tourist thing of Radio City Music Hall at Christmas. Great fun - they had a 3-D movie segment that was very well done, and the two organs played before the extravaganza started, and the orchestra rose up and went down and the rose up and slid across the stage area - making room for the ice rink to come up and down and up and down. (Okay it was a small ice rink but let’s not lose sight of the fact that it was an ICE RINK.)

At the end, staying with tradition, there was the Nativity story. And they had live donkey and camels and sheep, and they read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and from the Gospel according to Luke, and they had Joseph and Mary and the Kings. What they did not have was angels - no mention of the angels. And the word “God” was never heard, nor was the word “Jesus.” It was as delicate a bit of writing as you could hope to find. Imagine doing a whole Nativity scene without ever mentioning Jesus. Now at the end there was a great light shining behind the Holy Family and everyone on stage was in various poses of adoration - but as the conclusion, a scrim came down with the old thing about one solitary life - you know, this one man never traveled more than 30 miles and never commanded armies but no one has ever had more influence, cha cha cha. A very secular view of the nativity - but at least it was there, and the whole thing was really great fun.

Treated myself to another Christmas tradition in New York (at least for me) and that is the Big Apple circus. The night I went there were a whole groups of kids from some organization who were being treated, so the energy under the tent was remarkable. Every time the lights went out, the volume moved from loud to deafening. But they also quieted down just as quickly, and it was a fun night. Critic that I am, I have to say it was not the most exciting version I have seen from this group, but great fun. Someone I know is a relative of the lead clown Grandma - and blessed if I could remember who it was. I did talk to him (Yes, Grandma is a him) but since I couldn’t say who I knew who knew him, I just told him how much I enjoyed his work. Always a safe thing to say.

One of the nicest things that happens to me is meeting new people, and so far in this incarnation, I have been blessed several times. I mentioned the relative of the guy from Kwajalein - very active in music, a lawyer who was in the Special Forces, very generous with his time and acquaintances - invited me to a salon before the Symphony concert, where I met the woman who is the speech writer for the Commissioner of Police, and several other interesting folk, including the guy who plays trumpet at the Friday jazz group. He gave me tickets for the first concert - which included a harmonica concerto by Villa Lobos (yes, a harmonica, and the guy who played it makes a living playing with symphony orchestras around the world), and introduced me to Oscar Hijuelos, the Pulitzer Prize winning author, whose writing (if you are not familiar with it) will blow you away. WONDERFUL stuff. (And I now have signed copies of his books for the library.)

At a party after the concert, I met another guy who is working on a musical for Broadway. Now, in New York, it is not difficult to meet people who are “working” on a Broadway play. But we chatted for a while, and the guy called me up the next day. The idea was that I might be able to sing some of their music for a backer’s cd they are trying to put together. I went over to his apartment, and was delighted to find that the music is really good. I’ve been over four or five times, the author likes what I have been doing, and I am really enjoying it. It’s work - music changes as we work on it, I’m sight reading and trying to do interp, and the author has his own ideas and it’s all great fun. In fact they’re working on two shows - one completely original, one an adaptation of Androcles and the Lion (the George Bernard Shaw script), and what I have heard from both is very good music. Who knows? I might get to do a Broadway show yet. (I have another friend who is also working on a show, and he has a place for cameo shots, and he has promised me one of those if it makes it. Can’t have too many chances.)

In December, an old friend of mine from Buffalo came to town and introduced me to a friend of hers who had just moved to New York. This new friend is in the State Department and was formerly Consul General in Toronto. She is here on assignment to the Council for Foreign Relations. She is delightful, and basically, I have a playmate to do things with in New York. We went to the Riverside Symphony together and joined my cousin and her friend for dinner, and have done all sorts of other things. Friends are a little startled when I bring a “date” but she is enjoying learning about New York and we have great fun.

I celebrated my birthday in Arizona, with very special friends. (I am trying not to say “old” friends) - I share the date with Ed, and in our past, we have celebrated together. I was with them on my memorable 40th, when I shaved my beard and no one knew who I was. So I went out to the warm weather (although as these things work out, it turned out to be warmer in New York than in Phoenix. New York had the warmest December on record since 1877 and had no snowfall during the whole month. I learned that my two favorite words since coming back are ”Unseasonably warm.”) We played golf and had dinners at wonderful restaurants and breakfast where they brought us cake with candles, and because it was my first time they gave me four muffins. I saw the museum where they both volunteer, and I got to meet some of the Rotarians in the eclub to which I belong. Nice to meet people in the flesh you’ve been working with for a year.

And after the first of the year I traveled again, this time to Tulsa, for the wedding of the daughter of another long-time friend (there’s that “old” problem again.) Got to see some college friends I had not seen in years (and years and years) and again, got to meet a whole bunch of new people and renew acquaintance with some I had not seen for a while.

One of the nice things about growing older is that your friends are too, and are getting more respectable - which includes having houses in the country. I got to visit two friends who each have houses in the country - one in upstate New York and one in Connecticut. I saw the grave where Virginia is buried (of “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” fame) and I met more wonderful people and had amazing food and most important, got to spend time with friends.

Now those of you who know me and who have been reading carefully will note that I have made no mention of opera or Broadway theatre. That’s ‘cause I haven’t been, a combination of finances (lack of) and opportunity (ditto). Trust me, I will remedy that in the weeks to come. I have not been doing as much singing as I would have liked, and I will have to add that to the schedule.

I do hear from friends on Kwaj. A number of people have left and are leaving - they love the place but I keep hearing that the work environment continues to deteriorate and they simply don’t think it’s worth it any more.

For instance - A friend who was feeling sick went to the hospital on Kwaj, and was given aspirin and told to rest. (no x-ray, no blood work, no meaningful diagnosis.) He went to the US, before he was supposed to go on to South America for his vacation, and the doctor there diagnosed a severe intestinal infection, put him on a heavy dose of antibiotics, close observation and cancelled the trip. Said if he had waited another week he could have been in serious trouble. Reminds me of my own appendix adventure.

On to new and (we hope) greater things. There probably won’t be any more blog updates until after I return from Austria - or I get a visitation from an angel. Or win the Lottery. Or like that.

But the assorted emails all work, phones work, I even get real letters in the snail mail from some people. If you ever get near the NY area, give a shout - I’m always glad to have people to play with.

Hugs and prayers and love to you all - and let us continue to pray for one another. (And if you haven't been praying for me, NOW is the time to start. Get on it!)

Fr. John's Christmas Note 2006

DECEMBER 2006

And what a year it’s been. I write this from New York City - Manhattan - the Big Apple - the place of my birth and where I worked professionally as an actor and the center of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus. (When I first was applying to the Jesuits, the Vocation Director said at one point, “You know, since you live in Princeton, technically you are in the Maryland Province, and you could apply to join that Province. You’re free to apply anywhere, but I wanted you to know you had that choice.” I looked at him, and said, “But New York is the center of the universe.” He said, “OK, you should apply here.”)

Back in New York. This note assumes you have read the missive (which is also found here) “The Priest Has Left the Building” which explores my leaving Kwajalein. If you read last year’s missive, you were probably surprised I was leaving. So was I. It was a very busy, very good year - and I’m going to zip through some of the high points of it right now.

HEALTH
I have crossed the invisible divide - I’m 60 years old as of December 13th - and so (like so many “old” men) I find myself talking about my health. Aches and pains. Bodily functions.

As the last massive missive for last Christmas ended, our hero (that would be me) was still suffering from an unnecessary appendectomy. They had taken out my appendix because of the pain in my gut, only to find out that the poor little guy was perfectly healthy. Actually, that didn’t upset me a lot, since it’s nice to have that essentially useless appendage out of the way. (They tell the story of Eisenhower as a young officer, saying that he thought he’d have his appendix removed. Someone asked him if it had been bothering him, and he replied, “No, but it might rear up and put me out of action some time when it was really important.” The ultimate in planning ahead.)

What upset me was the pain. Not only that it continued but that it continued to grow worse. And the doctor didn’t seem to be terribly interested. Maybe he was embarrassed that the appendix had proved healthy, but there seemed to be no curiosity about what had caused the original pain, and no curiosity about what was causing the ongoing pain and even less interest in trying to stop it. I kept going back and each time I was told, “Let’s give it a little longer.” Finally, after a month, I exploded, slammed doors, raised my voice - and changed doctors. (One of the hospital staff said to me, once the decision had been made to send me to Honolulu - hereafter referred to as Hono - that several people on the staff couldn’t understand why I had waited so long. Sigh.)

So off I went to Honolulu, where a nice surgeon took about ten seconds to diagnose (in his words) “a really big hernia.” His question to me was how in the world they could have missed this where I was. For which I had no answer. So they cut me open (although I missed an opening in the surgical rotation by about a half an hour and so had to wait four or five days before the job could be done) and they put in one of those net things to hold everything in place. It’s a great system - I came from the hotel by cab early in the morning, they checked me in, tucked me into a bed in an area where lots of people were being prepped for out surgery. I had my own little tv set to keep me company (and I was even able to tune it to the Golf Channel) - heated sheets (now THERE is a nice touch) and I dozed off. When I awoke, I was in another little cubicle - they brought me coffee and toast - called me a cab - I was back in the hotel by 2 pm, and feeling much better than I thought I would. Of course I was doped to the gills, hence the lack of pain and sense of general well-being. The hotel staff had been alerted, so if I needed anything they were ready, and I had laid in a supply of food and drink in the little fridge in my room. This was all good.

Now the next morning was a little tough - there was a lot more pain on the day after than on the day of. It took me a full 30 minutes to get the determination and sheer will power to complete the task of actually sitting up. Sitting up was tough. But once up, I could (with concentration and focusing really hard) move a little - and each day got a little better. It was frustrating, being in Hono without being to see anything or do anything. I had had a nice tour of the island before the surgery - a friend of a friend took me on a tour of the island (by car, since walking was painful) and since she is Hawaiian, I got to see some great things. One of the parishioners from Kwaj was passing through, and he took me shopping and we had a fun lunch - and I managed to get to two Rotary meetings - so the time before wasn’t a total waste, nor the time after. But each adventure prior to the surgery took its toll (I was in a fair amount of pain at that point) and it was NOT your typical trip to Hono, and since the company had very tight limits on what they would pay for, I couldn’t do very much. (Not being able to walk and not being able to pay for a cab cuts down on the options a WHOLE lot.)

When I got back to Kwaj, I was under doctor’s orders not to walk more than block at a stretch, not to even try riding a bike for a number of weeks - how does one get to and from work? I had permission to get a golf cart - but there were not any available - or so I was told. So I walked. I had bought myself a little folding stool in Hono which I carried about, so I could sit down when I needed to. And I walked slowly. But there was no choice. Visitors to the island could get carts so they didn’t have to walk around or ride bikes to which they were unaccustomed. VIP’s had vehicles - but apparently there is no provision for employees who need temporary help in order to do their work. (Grumble, fratsis, snort.)

Bit by bit it improved, and while I still get an occasional twinge in that area, the doctor I saw in New York did not seem unduly concerned. As long as we’re talking about health things, that same doctor did a whole physical on yours truly, and pronounced me fit and healthy “with the blood pressure of a 15-year old.” (I wish I had some of the other things of a 15 year old.) The dentist has pronounced my teeth fit - so barring some surprising news from the podiatrist or the eye doctor, I enter into my 61st year with the body in good shape.

EVENTS AND ADVENTURES
OK - now that we’ve taken care of the physical stuff, what about other things? Well, January, for all the pain I was in, was a busy month. I was still going up to Roi Namur for Mass, and for those who like to read significance into events, it was in January that one whole side of the small chapel collapsed.. Fell right down. Fortunately no one was around, so there were no injuries, just mess. Bless the workmen - they not only came in quickly to fix and clean, they even put the Stations of the Cross back together. Glued broken pieces, put something in the cracks and painted over, so you were hard-pressed to tell where the damage had taken place.

Unfortunately, it’s indicative of the general state of things in many places on Kwaj. Buildings are decaying, in some cases downright dangerous. There is one office where (I speak nothing but the truth here) they literally wear helmets at their desks, because of concrete pieces falling from the ceiling. The trailer where I lived was built in 1962. Now in ’62 they built good trailers, so the thing is holding together. But I doubt they thought the useful life of this thing was going to be almost 45 years. And in a climate where a bicycle will rust out in less than two years, because of the salt land humidity.

One wonderful woman on Kwaj gave me a Christmas present - a day of cleaning. (Isn’t that a much nicer gift than a fruit basket?) I invoked it on the day the Christmas tree came down and so not only did my trailer get a WONDERFUL cleaning, there were no residual pine needle popping out from unexpected places. (Says something about my own skills as a housekeeper that when I left my hard housing residence in October to move into the trailer, and we did the final clean out of the place, after the furniture and everything else was gone, there were handfuls of pine needles in the final trash sweep.) Later in January I went to Majuro for a couple of days of training, with other Jesuits from the Marshalls, and a couple of our men from New York who came out. It was nice to be with other Jesuits, if even only for a couple of days. The pastor of the church in Majuro was ordained the same time I was, although when I came for this visit, he was on Pohnpei for another meeting. Ain’t it always the way?

And then to Hono for the surgery. Back to Kwaj for recuperation. When I got off the plane, a friend came by with a truck and drove me back to the trailer with my suitcase. On the way (foreshadowing of things to come?) he said the latest rumor going around Kwaj (Kwaj exists on rumors) was that KRS was going to do away with the chaplains, had I heard anything about it? I dismissed it as silliness, because the Army requires chaplains. Hmmm...I wonder.

February brought a visit by Ken Hezel, the Regional Superior of the Jesuits and the First Communion candidates receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time (confession for your older hands). There was a great Mardi Gras party (at which I was crowned King of Kwajalein - picture available somewhere on this site) and the parish had a terrific second year of Death By Chocolate, a combination Mardi Gras and dessert party at the Country Club, for kids and families as well as single folk.

In March I had a formal evaluation of my work as chaplain - rave reviews, high marks, compliments up and down the line. (I have a copy if you’d like to see it. Darn thing practically glows in the dark, for all the good it did me. I don’t mean to keep harping on this being sent away business, but it does rather frustrate when the powers that be give you a glowing evaluation and then send you away for reasons they won’t discuss. Grumble.) Lent started, and I made a guest appearance in the high school production of Taming of the Shrew (I played a priest - let’s hear it for type casting). Fran Hezel (cousin of the Ken Hezel mentioned before, and one of the great experts on Micronesia) came out to do a Day of Recollection for the Parish, a workshop with kids in the high school, and two talks for the general population.

As I reviewed events of the year, I kept coming across these little foreshadowing moments. On April 1st, I was late coming into the office, and I told the secretary and Rick Funk, the Protestant Chaplain, that the reason I was late was because I had been over at HR handing in my 90-day notice (ie resignation) and filling out the paperwork. Yup, I said, I wrote down my name and my date of birth, today’s date, April 1st - and I paused. It was such a successful April Fool’s I sent it out to a bunch of friends as an e-mail. (I wonder if that started to give people ideas?) I was supposed to go to Pohnpei for a gathering of Jesuits but I had sent my passport off to get new pages in it, and it did not get back in time. In fact, it arrived on Kwaj the day I would have returned.

Holy Week is always a busy time. On the day after Palm Sunday we had the Way of the Cross through the community, carrying a large cross to a number of places around the island, At each we would stop, read a little Scripture for reflection and pray. On that same day, I had confessions, and then I went and joined a group who were bringing presents and food to a small community on Carlson, about a 50 minute boat ride from Kwaj. On Wednesday there was a Town Hall meeting. Can you imagine scheduling a gathering like that in the middle of Holy Week? Sigh.

Holy Thursday last year was also the first night of Passover, so we combined the Holy Thursday ritual with a traditional Jewish Seder meal. The first part of the ceremony was the Seder, with the prayers and readings about the meaning of Passover. That, along with a Gospel reading, was the Liturgy of the Word. We celebrated that sitting at tables in the large public gathering room at the high school. Then we moved to stand around the altar at the far end of the room. After Mass, those who had made reservations returned to the tables, where we had a meal. At the end of the meal, I re-enacted the washing of the feet, and then, since the New Testament tells us they “went into the night singing psalms”, we carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession along the ocean road, singing hymns. It was a great celebration, very dramatic, and we had about 90 people for the Mass. My years with the Jewish Temple keep coming in handy.

Holy Saturday - the great day of silence of the Easter Triduum - and the powers that be scheduled a Mass casualty exercise. Sigh again. I know, terrorists could very well strike on Holy Saturday as well as any other time. But really and truly, it does rather seem to be a tad inconsiderate for the people who are trying to keep the spirit of this extraordinary weekend. Between the Town Hall meeting and the mass casualty exercise, you’d almost think there was a plot against maintaining a religious spirit of Easter. (Last year I managed to get a party for kids changed from Good Friday afternoon. )

May is always a busy month on Kwaj, because we have high school graduation and the parties that surround that, and many people are preparing to leave. Of course, lately people seem to be leaving in a fairly constant stream throughout the year, but in May the pace picks up, both the permanent leavings and those who go away for the summer. We also celebrated First Communion in the parish, and Mother’s Day, with the traditional May crowning (some traditions never die).

One of the aspects of the Kwaj community was the way in which we could sometimes incorporate bits of the Marshallese community around us into our liturgies. For First Communion, for instance, Marshallese women came in the day before and created spectacular palm frond weavings for the front of the church. The young people were in matching outfits, native style, flower leis for the priest and altar servers. All quite beautiful. Palm Sunday is another occasion when the palm weavers really shine, and they can make the most extraordinary palm weavings out of a single palm, with the individual fronds split and woven together in a dazzling display of imagination and dexterity.

In May I gave a thank you dinner party for the CCD teachers, and I sang a concert up on Roi. Last December, Neil Dye and I were supposed to repeat Father John’s Birthday Bash for the Roi residents, and at the last minute, because of a mission, Neil couldn’t go. I did a solo concert up there anyway, but we had promised them something special, so in May, Neil and I and Jane Christy, with Win Keller, Jr on the piano did “Beauty and the Beasts.” Great fun. We did everything from opera to Broadway (very broad) to folk songs and lots of jokes and stories. For the terminally curious, there is a DVD of the evening - bad photography but you get a sense of what you missed. (For that matter, there are disks for three of the four concerts I gave while I was out on Kwaj. I’m not distributing them but if we’re ever together I can show them. I might leave the room and go read, but they do exist. For the wonderment and edification of future generations.)

Summer is quiet on Kwaj, because so many people are away. So, at the time when the most people are off island, the company decided to have a survey, to find out what the workers really thought about some key issues. On the face of it, this sounds like a good idea, in a place where morale is in the toilet. But not only was this scheduled for the period of fewest people around, when the forms were sent to each member of the community, we discovered that the forms were numbered. Now THAT is a good way to discourage anyone from responding. When the issue was raised, the response from the company was that there were no plans to track individual answers, but rather that they were trying to prevent people from stuffing the boxes. In other words, they didn’t trust the employees. Of course, the employees don’t trust them either, so I guess that’s fair. Most places, people who run a survey are delighted with small responses. If someone is willing to go to the trouble to make extra copies and stuff the boxes, I think that says something. Some did answer, and some really took time and wrote pages of supplemental material. No one really believes that it will have an effect on anything, quite honestly.

The other thing that happened during the summer was that two of my god children came to visit. They had each just graduated from college - they are brother and sister but Rob had taken a detour for a while, and so he and his sister ended up finishing at the same time. She was at Cornell, did a double major, Magna cum laude, and he was at Johnson & Wales. For those of you who do not know these things, J&W is perhaps THE best school for catering and food service management there is - hot stuff.

So this was my graduation present to them. I have not seen much of them growing up (I have been away most of the time) so I thought before they disappeared into careers, I’d at least have a chance to get to know them a little. We did the full range of Kwaj things - boating and fishing and they each got their Open Water Diving certification. Several people fell in love with Tory and Rob cooked - boy did Rob cook. One of my good friends on Kwaj is, among other things, a personal chef. (That’s a job - he had done that as a career for a number of years, and he’s really good.) And Rob held his own quite handily when the two of them cooked together for a St Ignatius Day dinner and then for the regular gathering of the Padre’s Pub.

(Padre’s Pub? This was a weekly coming together of odd folks that I had inherited. It was started by a great guy in the fire department, Mike Gabany - the company got rid of him because he would not certify things as safe that manifestly weren’t. When he left, a couple of others hosted the gathering for a while, and then I took it over and named it the Padre’s Pub. Anyone was welcome - people would bring food to cook and share, we fired up the grill, and we never knew from week to week how many might show up. One week we’d have eight, the next week 23/ It was great fun, and there was always more food than people. Folks enjoyed it because they got to meet people they would not otherwise cross paths with, and great friendships were formed across departments and ages and backgrounds. Sometimes people brought instruments and there was music - sometimes not. One never knew.

As I was leaving Bob Hamel offered to take it over, and so one night we had a ceremonial passing of the torch. .A real torch, of course. We had it light at my place, and about the middle of the evening, complete with singing and a recording of the Olympic anthem, we all marched the torch from my trailer down to the new location, and ceremoniously passed the torch, had a drink, made short speeches and then went back to finish off the desserts. The tradition continues.)

So Rob and Tory were out for about two weeks, and that made the summer much more interesting. Tory went back to start law school (anyone looking for a summer law intern, I’ve got a really great prospect for you) and Rob went looking for work. Ah, the real world. One entry for the “how small is the world getting department.” When she was visiting, Tory was still looking for a place to live in Austin. During the visit, a very good friend from Nigeria (actually she’s Italian, married to a Nigerian - been there for years and years) called from the US where she was visiting one of her sons who lives in - wait for it - Austin. And she mentioned that she had just bought an apartment, as an investment. I mentioned I had a god daughter who was looking. One thing led to another, and sure enough, Tory is now in Katia’s apartment. I love match-making.

Two other friends, who had visited last year, called about this time and said they wanted to come back. Now they’re based in the UK, so this is not an idle trip for them - London to NY (or some intermediate US city) to Honolulu to Kwaj. Except that, being creative people, they decided this time to come the other way. So they went to Japan first, then Guam, then Kwaj.

Now in between when I said come ahead and when they arrived, I had learned about the not having my contract renewed thing. So they got to be around for farewell parties and the last night of the pub and things like that. Mark is a great diver, and in fact, as it worked out, my last dive on Kwaj was with him. And a small shark who decided that we were most interesting and stayed with us for pretty much the whole dive. He wasn’t big enough to be bothersome, he was just cute and inquisitive.

Mark and Kemi are individually entries on my list of amazing characters I know - and together, their impact is just that much greater. Last time they came, by the end of the first week they knew people I hadn’t met, and complete strangers were coming up to me to talk about Mark and Kemi. (She is the daughter of a dear friend in Nigeria, who is herself and author, and you should betake yourself immediately to Amazon.com and look at Splendid, which is her first book (of about 8) and arguably her best. He is an engineer, twelve years in the Royal Navy - I was duly scolded for having said he was in the British Navy. Apparently there is no such thing as the British Navy, so he couldn’t very well have been in it. Oops.) This time people were coming up to ask when they were coming, where they were staying, and they got invited to all sorts of parties and events I wasn’t invited to. But they took me anyway. Good friends to have, ones who get you to parties.

Other highlights of the year? Well, an idea that had been talked about off and on for several years finally came to pass - the taxi program. Bicycles are the primary mode of transportation on Kwaj, and bikes are often being “borrowed” by people who don’t have them right handy. Usually the borrower is Marshallese, but not always. As an attempt to help that situation, the chapel got ahold of a bunch of bikes (when I left we were up to 57) that were painted yellow, with “Taxi” stenciled onto the center bar. The idea is that if you see a Taxi bike anywhere you can take it and use it. You can’t lock a taxi bike or take it home and hide it. We also have several bikes at the chapel that we reserve for visitors and people coming down from Roi.

The other thing that was a first was the Chaplain’s Cup Golf Tournament, and that one was my idea. We raised money to underwrite the cost of printing Bibles in Marshallese, and we had a full house. Four man scramble (unfortunate term, since we also had women in the groups) best ball format - and great fun. A friend of mine had found a golf ball imbedded in a large piece of coral - the coral had grown up around it - and that became our trophy. Rick Fun, the Protestant chaplain, made a base for it, and got a brass plaque which we had inscribed. We begged prizes from different groups around the island and everyone had fun. Lunch was included - the chaplains neither won nor did we come in last.

The only other really big thing was, of course, packing and moving. Moving on a regular basis is probably a good thing, because it does force you to take stock of what is important and necessary and to get rid of the things that don’t meet that criteria. (And, let’s be honest, that’s really most of it.) One Jesuit recently said that the secret to not being bothered by moving or worrying about losing a lot of stuff is not to have a lot of stuff to begin with. This is a level I have not reached. I have some good friends who offered to store my bits and pieces until we know what the next assignment is going to be. For the record, something like 60 boxes of bits and pieces, depending on how many actually arrive at the end of the moving process.

Although I am getting better at having fewer bits and pieces. And consolidating. So many of us have moved from records to tapes to CD’s and now many of the cd’s have been copied onto the computer and into a little tiny mp3 player. I discovered recently that I could buy a CD (well, two CD’s) on which are all the scores of all the Verdi operas. And another with all the Wagner operas. And another with all the Schubert songs. ALL the Schubert songs - that’s a lot of songs. And another for Puccini, and another with tenor songs and arias - about 300 of them. So instead of two or three shelves of very heavy books, one can have five CD’s, from which one print individual songs or arias as needed. This is good. And as I get smarter I will perhaps even get around to scanning other books of music and pieces of paper and turning all my boxes (well, some of the boxes) into digital formats.

Cast of Characters
I think I should start to try to bring this wandering to a close. But I cannot wander off without a few words about other people. My sister, to start with. If you know her, then you’ll want to know how she’s doing. (If you don’t know her, you are missing one of life’s great experiences. Of the two of us, she is far and away the most extraordinary. Not as flashy as her older brother, perhaps, but multi-talented, much smarter and with a capacity to get to know and care for people that continually leaves me breathless.)

She’s doing well. Her body continues to give her troubles - they put in a piece to help her ankle but her body rejected it, so they had to take it out, and they’re try again in a little bit. She’s going in right after Christmas for an evaluation to see about killing some nerves to ease pain around her neck. And a half a dozen other things I can’t keep track of. But in between doctors and hospitals and what-nots, she travels to see cousins and friends, and belongs to a group that does trips all around the world. She was supposed to go to Egypt in January, and I think there was another trip she has to miss. She is definitely going on the safari trip in September, to South Africa and Kenya - and who knows where else she might turn up. (If you see her, say hello for me.)

And my rambling on about Kwaj has really done nothing to give you a sense of the amazing cast of unusual and rich characters that have assembled there. One of the gifts of Kwajalein is the extraordinary level of intelligence of the average person, the varied backgrounds from which they come, the breath-taking imagination and creativity they bring with them, and sense of goodness and dedication that is inspiring. It is really and truly a little bit like living in a Norman Rockwell painting in the best possible sense of that overused phrase. (And the company does everything it can do kill all those good feelings and drive away those good people. I know, I’m kvetching again. - but it’s the same kind of disbelief I felt when I read about the guy smashing the Pieta or slashing the Mona Lisa. Mindless destruction.)

I was thinking about talking about some of them but I realized this would suddenly become a twenty or thirty page missive - and I would all unintentionally leave someone out, and feelings would be hurt - so maybe (uncharacteristically) shutting up is the best route.

There is or will be shortly a companion reflection at this very blog site on coming back to the US and spending time in New York. In fact, I am finishing this up while on a plane to Arizona, to meet with some Rotarians I have been working with online for a year, and have never met in person, and some other friends with whom I am going to celebrate my coming of age. The Rotary thing is really quite fascinating. I am a third-generation Rotarian. My grandfather was a Rotarian, and at one point, my father was the youngest Rotarian in the US. I have belonged to clubs in the US and in Nigeria and it’s a great organization. I am the charter member for Nigeria of a group called RTI - Rotarians on the Internet, one of the first Rotary group to seriously try to make use of this new technology.

When I went to Kwaj, I figured my Rotary time was again suspended, since the nearest Rotary club was a couple of thousand miles away. But Rotary International has sanctioned, on an experimental basis, the operation of a few eclubs around the world, groups based not on geographic association but rather on association through the internet. So I joined the Rotary Eclub of Southwestern US (Recswusa for short). We have members in South Africa, Italy, our incoming President is in Japan, and members in six or seven states in the US. (We used to have a member in the Marshall Islands - but you know that story.) We have a truly global perspective when we discuss issues, and the resources we can bring to bear for a project or a problem are most impressive The founding core group is based in Arizona, and so I’m really excited about meeting folks. I am the current Sgt at Arms for the club, and put together the first club directory. (Anyone want to give me a birthday present can contribute to help me gain another level in my Paul Harris Fellow - signifies a contribution to the Rotary Foundation. I became a Paul Harris Fellow when I was in Nigeria, and for my 60th thought it would be nice to move up one level. It’s only a thousand dollars, and I have a couple of gifties already. End of pitch.)

One of the great things about Rotary is that wherever you go, you can attend the meeting of any Rotary club anywhere. In fact, your obligation as a Rotarian is to attend one meeting a week, if not your own club than some other. As an eclub, attending a meeting is much easier because the meeting is on line and you simply sign in and read the material. Maintaining the level of fellowship that is the Rotary ideal is a challenge in our circumstance, and I am also chairman of the fellowship committee, so it’s a problem I continue to wrestle with.

God is full of surprises. When I left Nigeria I was all prepared for one thing, and it quickly turned into something else - which then turned into something I didn’t expect. When I first suggested going to Kwajalein, I had thought it would be a quiet semi-retirement posting. While it was not Lagos (among other things, no cars and no one shooting at you) it was also a lot of work. People with real needs. Lots of time spent with people both Catholic and not. And just as I was thinking I was starting to get the hang of that, boom, here we go again. This is good. I used to nag the people on Kwaj, find God in all things. (It’s a Jesuit mantra.) And while not all things may COME from God, God is definitely in there somewhere, and it’s not His fault if we’re not always smart enough to figure out where.

I‘m actually pretty much at peace with the changes and the future. (Although looking at the number of times I’ve referred to it, maybe I still have a little settling to deal with, eh?) But I am looking forward to whatever comes next.

I hope your Christmas season is filled with wonder and joy and wonderful people you can hug, who will hug back. (A very dear friend read somewhere that you should never be the first one to let go of a hug. She made the mistake of telling me, and we engaged in some truly mammoth hugging sessions. People would come and go and we’d just hang on - little contest thing going on. Well, if you’re going to have a contest, at least with this one, both people win. And she is a wonderful hugger.) May the joy of the Hanukkah lights illumine all your days, and the richness of the Kwanza celebration fill your cups and plates and hearts. (Covered everybody?)

As I write this, the plan still is that I will be at 83rd Street until at least the end of the year, maybe even a little longer. Mail can always be sent c/o 39 E 83rd, although for the moment I am in residence at 53. Same zip code. I don’t want to put the phone numbers on this very public place, but they’ll be good until I leave - and if you send me an email the reply has all the numbers. As soon as I know anything definite, I’ll put the news here on the blog site. (Ain’t technology wonderful?)

Hugs and love and prayers and stuff like that.

And thus endeth Father John’s Christmas Letter for 2006.