Sunday Sermon 2 Epiphany

            "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:47

                        Second Sunday of Epiphany 2018

In today’s Gospel we hear an interesting conversation between two young men who will become two disciples of Jesus, Phillip and Nathaniel. Phillip, a newly called disciple of Jesus who hailed from Bethsaida on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, while talking to his friend, Nathanael, added “from Nazareth” to Jesus’ name as a means of identification since the name was a common one, and it located exactly who he was, and where he was from.  Nathaniel’s response certainly shows his personal bias and prejudice against the town from which the longed for Messiah sprang. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” He sort of scoffs, and as we close our eyes, we can easily imagine him with a condescending smirk on his face. He has some strong pre-conceived notions about that tiny village. Why is this local prejudice showing? Well, Nazareth was the decidedly quintessential “backwoods” town, a far flung hamlet of a massive empire whose population might have topped 500 when Jesus was living there. Smallest of the small potato towns in the smallest and most inconsequential part of immensely important Roman Empire, in our modern jargon: a real nothing burger.

And yet, I feel drawn to the plight of that little town because, even though we live in one of the largest cities in the world, our piece of the city, in the words of the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect. We are the Nazareth of the Big Apple. There are some folks who don’t even realize we are part of New York City.  Listen to the hordes of tourists who cram onto our beloved ferry to get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.  I think every travel agent in the rest of the country and overseas tells each person who comes to New York that the ferry is free, and to ride it, and get right back on to return to Manhattan because there is nothing to do in Staten Island.  I have heard tourists tell each other that Staten Island is where the rest of New York City sends their garbage…not so.  Just FYI: the city’s garbage is sent by barge or trucked to a landfill in Pennsylvania (I learned this from my son who works for the Sanitation Department).

I have also heard that the people of Staten Island are very backwards compared to those who live in Manhattan or Brooklyn. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people at Diocesan meetings ask me if I have my passport with me…and then laugh. I usually tell them it takes me less time to get there by mass transit with a metro card than those folks who travel from the mid-Hudson region, and, please note, they never ask them the same question.  (If I sound a bit annoyed, well I am)

I have read in the national media that we who live on this rock, hold old fashioned ideas and are intolerant of others, including immigrants. These folks don’t know what the truth is.  Here on Staten Island we are home to the largest Liberian population outside of Liberia and the largest overseas Sri Lankan community on earth. Take a walk up Victory Boulevard and you will see Caribbean beauty parlors, Latin American bakeries and florists, Sri Lankan restaurants, and Halal supermarkets next to Chinese, Columbian and Italian restaurants.  Immigration comes in waves on our island and many hardworking immigrants are making an impact on the makeup of our island and its commercial enterprises. Statistically the 49th City Council District that encompasses our North Shore, is the most diverse in the whole city.

And we know something else; something we need to broadcast more than we do.  Many faithful Christians live out their faith live here.

 And just as Nazareth, that small, insignificant town filled with hill-billies and small-minded, unimportant people, was the place from which sprang the one who was to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world; here in this corner of the world, on the streets and in the schools, in the offices and in the parks, in the restaurants, pubs and the churches of our little island, there are the people of God every day who are living out their faith in both small and glorious ways: bearing witness to the truth at work and at play, expanding their faith in Bible study groups, visiting our neighbors in hospitals, hospices and homes,  engaging in prayer groups, bringing the concerns of the world to the church, to this altar, and hastening the Kingdom that is to come.

Despite the concerns of Nathaniel, we know that everything good came from Nazareth, and from that “good” the “good” continues to grow from here, our small corner of the greater Kingdom, as well.  

Hey NYC Kids: SNOW DAY!

In the closing minutes of the movie "Hope and Glory", a story about the life experiences, for good or ill , during times of unspeakable horror and idyllic moments in the English countryside, of a Londoner schoolboy during the Second World War, we see the unabashed glee of the entire student body who arrive to find their school has been bombed and destroyed by the German blitzkrieg. "Thank you, Adolph!", an elated ten year-old boy joyfully exclaims as he throws his school books into the air. There was something of that macabre joy and irony here in New York City today as the first official "Snow Day" was called on the almost unpresented night before this hellicious storm even hit.
                                                                                                      

The palatable joy that bust forth on my Facebook feed last night around 9pm was fast and furious, and not from the kids.  As a retired New York City educator: teacher, mentor and staff developer, I have many friends and relations who are still involved in that behemoth of a bureaucracy known affectionately as the DOE: The New York Department of Education. Over my many years in the employ of this municipal agency, the calling of a "snow day" has always had major political as well as public safety considerations. It always appeared "dicey" to me once mayoral control of the schools was wrested from local school districts by Mayor Bloomberg in the early 2000's. During that time most decisions came out of "Tweed Courthouse" that hunk of a building that bears the name one of the most corrupt men in our city's history, William "Boss" Tweed, who ran this municipality from his political core, the Tammany Hall Democratic Club. It sits on Chambers Street in one of the most congested parts of Manhattan.                         

One thing locals understand about Manhattan is that it is built on rock, a very specific rock called Manhattan Schist, a gneiss that is the result of volcanic activity and then the movement of a polar icecap that resulted in a very hard and dense bedrock that makes the construction of skyscrapers possible (that, and the invention of the elevator). This bedrock holds the heat that is generated by both the subway system and the steam heat systems that warm our many municipal buildings which surround City Hall and the Tweed where such decisions as school closings are determined. So when decisions are made in Manhattan, where snow melts quickly, the rest of the city suffers and shovels out from under lots of outer-borough snow.  Mayors Dinkins, Koch and Bloomberg were all Manhattan dwellers whose children were all either grown and gone or non-existent, so their decisions were made from an economic point of view....i.e. parents need to get to work; ergo, schools need to be open. Now we actually have a Mayor whose children went to public schools when the family lived in Brooklyn on a street that did not always get plowed on a regular basis.  He understood the dilemma: Do I keep them home, or do I send them out in the storm? Who is going to be here if they stay home? Whom can I call to help out? These questions are easier to navigate the night before as opposed to the morning of. 

But I digress.                              

I recall with fondness those days spent snuggled under my parents' down comforter listening intently on the local radio hoping to hear that my personal school was closed or, for the "big announcement" that ALL the schools in the city: public, private and parochial, were closed. The one thing that knitted all of the schools together was the school bus system, and once that was compromised, the whole system ground to an icy halt. Ah, the sweetness of that news, nothing could compare except that final June day that marked the beginning of summer vacation.  But summer break or the hard won winter break (once referred to as Presidents' Week) are known factors, a "Snow Day" is serendipitous and random...a gift from Mother Nature, so to speak...an unearned respite that causes one to slow down and hunker down and often inspires a day of baking and soup making that will fill your home and your stomachs with the joys of the winter's cuisine we often take for granted.

So, boys and girls, friends and foes,daughters and sons, grandchildren and happy nieces and nephews: Enjoy! Relish this gift of at-home time granted on this snowy and windy winter day...make merry and make muffins and most of all make memories!

It's Snowing! Heck, it is winter!

I am mostly annoyed and somewhat amused at the on-air pundits and weather forecasters who are quick to jump on the weather related Armageddon that is just a winter in New York. These guys usually set off a major grocery store stampede that leaves shelves stripped of bread, milk, beer, soda and chips...the vital necessities for urban survival.  Because we live so close to the ocean...well, just on the ocean, our temperatures are on average, higher than the rest of New York State and the Eastern Seaboard, so most storms are not as violent here as even thirty miles north. That is not to say that we have never been summarily "dumped" upon by Mother Nature.  We have had our fair share of double digits worth of snow, raining and hailing No'easters and full blown hurricanes...I recall Sandy, Gloria and Carol as particularly destructive. And I do appreciate those meteorologists who temper their forecasts with statistics and constant reminders that their science is not an exact one.

In retrospect, I appreciate the teachers I had in elementary school who took the time while teaching geography to explain and show and diagram for us and with us just how weather and climate work.  I remember designing  "weather maps" in which we colored in the different types of climate: Artic, Sub-Artic, Tundra, Temperate, Continental, Mediterranean, Tropic, and Sub-Tropic. We also learned how to read weather maps with their warm and cold fronts and precipitation symbols. I still like looking at those maps in our local paper.  When I taught Earth Science at the intermediate level, I would use those maps to teach the concept of latitude and climate even using them to track hurricanes and snow storms.  I would also play, "How much snow will fall on Mrs. Swanson's car?" if a storm was predicted or if it began to snow during the school day.  It is interesting what seventh graders will do to get a homework pass. They would bet down to an eight of an inch. It was one fun way to introduce math skills to real world problems.

But, I guess this is not so much a part of the curriculum these days...my teacher peeps can let me know if these skills at still being taught to our children today. It just seems we ,as a society, have become too dependent on the "talking heads" on local networks, cable or on other social media for information they are basically reading to us.  Most of them have experience in broadcast journalism, but very few are meteorologists. They are referred to as "weather forecasters", but not meteorologists. Meteorologists are part of a larger group known as Atmospheric Scientists.  Most atmospheric scientists work indoors in weather stations, offices, or laboratories. Occasionally, they do fieldwork, which means working outdoors to examine the weather. Some atmospheric scientists, like Sanitation workers,  may have to work extended hours during weather emergencies. Their median wage is $92400 per year, nothing to sneeze at, and their employment opportunities are projected to grow by 12% over the next ten years. Most of these folks are employed by private industry.

So, my question is: Why are we listening to weather forecasters who are not the real deal instead of the professionals? Have you ever been "spooked" and then "fooled" by their forecasts?  Shall I count the ways? Okay, so I am now looking at about 3/4 of an inch of snow that began falling at 9am. Maybe the forecast for one to two inches is correct.  Too bad I  haven't played my snow depth game since retirement.  I could have been the big winner today.

Looking back

I have been around the block more than a few times and I have a very long memory when it comes to all things political.  I was bitten by the political bug at a young age when I first saw John F. Kennedy in a motorcade in Manhattan during his presidential campaign in 1960.  It was also my first tickertape parade, so it made quite an impression.  I remember watching the local television reporter that evening who had stood a few yards from the spot where my Grandmother and I stood near the Battery in lower Manhattan as this constant fall of paper tape cascaded and whirled around us before it hit the ground. Kennedy was young, strong, and decidedly ruggedly handsome with a glint in his eyes that charmed the general public.  My father, a veteran of World War II who, like JFK had sustained injuries while in combat, was enthusiastic about this campaign, and voted for him that November.

I remember watching the election results being reported on our black and white set with flip card numbers being used by the anchors who reported results as they came in on the telephone.
Because of a major snow storm, schools were closed on that Inauguration Monday and we were able to watch the swearing in ceremony and the parade that followed.  I remember Robert Frost being there reading a poem, "The Gift Outright".  In a later iteration, I would watch Maya Angelou reading her poem written for a later inauguration as well. She read her "On the Pulse of a Morning" at Bill Clinton's Inaugeration in 1993, the only poet asked to be at one of these ceremonies thirty-two years after Frost.

In between those two events there were other memorable elections: Mario Cuomo as Governor of New York, who was later at the swearing in of his son, Andrew Cuomo, our current governor; David Dinkins and Ed Koch both elected mayor of New York; Jimmy Carter,  Ronald Reagan, the Bush's father and son, Barack Hussain Obama,  and finally the election of 2016 and the ascent of Donald Trump.

The current days of political screaming and yelling has brought me back to other similar events of the past: the Watergate scandal and downfall of Richard Nixon. I remember it almost as if it were yesterday, and I can see and hear the ghosts of Richard Nixon, HR Haldeman and Martha Mitchell as I watch the current flock of White House staffers scramble to  duck and cover from the inevitable fall out that is soon to come.

I remember my Aunt Marie, at first annoyed that her favorite afternoon soap opera was pre-empted by the hearings on the hill in the House, and the work and presentations to the panel of Congressional representatives, one of whom, Elizabeth Holtzman, was my congresswoman. She later sat hypnotized by the hearings, watching every broadcast wondering how this would affect her daughter who was working in the White House as part of the Nixon clerical staff.  She survived, and went on to serve three more presidents. I remember the very glamorous and blond Maureen Dean who sat stoically behind her husband John who told Nixon "There is a cancer on the White House." Dean has emerged after doing his time  to be a commentator and talking head on various cable news networks.  I am not sure if he is still with Maureen.

I can remember that it was not so much the botched burglary at the Watergate Complex...a place my cousin was living in at the time, but the cover-up that was the "gotcha" moment. I feel we are headed down that same path now.  This is becoming the proverbial "train wreck" you can see coming, but just can't stop. I hope I am wrong, but as a student of history, I know it can repeat itself, if people do not heed it or learn lessons from it.  Perhaps it is time to dust off that old copy of "All The President's Men" and send it to some folks inside the Beltway.

For your reference:

The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England's, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

Robert Frost

On The Pulse Of Morningby Maya Angelou 

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

A New Meaness in America

As a child growing up in mid-fifties/sixties New York City, many of the people I interacted with were immigrants or children of immigrants. The school I attended, Nativity on Classon and Madison in Bed Sty, was both racially intergrated and immigrant friendly. My classmates were children of Cuban exiles, young Hungarian political refugees, immigrants from West Africa,  offspring of African American migrants from post-World War II South and Puerto Rico....whom, by the way, were and are American citizens  I clearly remember one family whose father owned and operated a chain of Chinese laundries himself having escaped China after the Communist take over, and his strikingly beautiful and brainy bi-racial wife, African American and Irish, who kept both him and the books in line. Their five off spring were stellar students.

Fast forward to my years at Hunter College where I sat in classes with a wild group of Italian immigrant boys who played a wicked game of soccer and spent many hours off the field and out of the classroom convincing as many "American" girls as they could into "tutoring" them in their use of English slang. Other classmates were children of Ukrainian immigrants on the Lower Eastside and Haitian immigrants in Brooklyn learning to speak proper English as we studied to become teachers in the polyglot culture and halcyon days of New York City in the early seventies.

In one of my first post-college jobs I worked at a bank with an French girl whose family ran a restaurant in Hell's Kitchen, a very Irish colleen whose brogue was so thick I was often called on to translate what she was saying, and the branch manager, a refugee from eastern Germany and the Iron Curtain. It seemed that my life in New York City was crisscrossed many times over by interactions and encounters with immigrants of all stripes from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Up until the 1920's there were no immigration limits in this country. My paternal grandparents arrived here about 1913 immigrating from Ireland.  Family lore has it that my grandfather left Ireland using his brother's passport, not sure how true that it (and my cousin who is into genealogy will set me straight). Quotas were placed to limit "undesirables"...Asians, Eastern Europeans and Jews...from having easy access to settling in the United States.

During the tenure of my career as an educator, I have encountered more and more immigrants, most of the students were from the former Soviet Union, Africa and Latin America.  Many entered this country legally, and others did not.  In New York City, which is one of those "evil sanctuary cities" that some folks rail against, the policy of the school system was quite "laissez faire". We were in the business of educating children, not reporting them. That is exactly what we did. Most of the immigrant families I dealt with were serious about the children learning English, getting educated and at the very least, finishing high school. I found these students to be hard working who were not ashamed to be hustling on the weekends working in restaurants washing dishes, mowing lawns and bagging leaves, shoveling snow or doing whatever they could to provided more income for their families. Most of the parents of these children seemed to be doing jobs that most other folks did not want to do.  Many mothers were cleaning houses and fathers were employed by landscape services or worked on heavy manual labor work crews as day laborers. Some of the parents arrived under visitor visas and overstayed the time allotted, but the children were not the ones who purchased the tickets, made the trip and decided to stay. They were and are caught in a vicious cycle.

Which brings me to the decision today of the present administration to recind the Executive Order referred to as DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly referred to as "The Dreamers' Act", offering a pathway for children who arrived with their parents to remain in this country, usually the only country they have ever known. Most elected officials, economists and industry leaders agree  that these 800,000 people should remain; they are overwhelmingly productive adults or students in high school and college, none have any history of arrest or wrongdoing, and many are married to Americans; some are even serving in the military. But our Commander-in-chief did not agree; these folks are fodder for his ongoing feud with Congress; DACA must be ended...down the road a bit, but ended, unless, that is, Congress does something; that way he is off the hook. Our Chief Executive did not even deliver this decision on his own, he had the Attorney General do it for him.  And as usual, in a written statement, he blamed the former president and Congress for his actions.  It's their fault; they should have done their job; his predecessor is at fault; don't blame him, he just got into office; he is just the messenger. His press secretary spent more than her fair share of time this afternoon trying to convolutedly defend this action. She was dancing as fast as she could
claiming it was a campaign promise he intended to keep, to get meaningful immigration reform, to strengthen our borders, and to rid the nation of "bad hombres".

I just wonder what Emma Lazarus would think of this. You remember. She wrote the poem that is inscribed n the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus":

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;                                        

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Slavery/Confederates and the Culpable North

Pensacola Daughters of the Confederacy

Over the past several days, the conversations in the nation have tunned to long neglected feelings surrounding race in Trumpian America.  I have always felt that race is, and always was, the elephant in the collective American living room; a living room we all kind of sit around in looking at each other muttering to ourselves that there is something there that we just want to disappear.When Americans think about the Civil War and the reasons why it happened, many will tout the idea of "states' rights" or "agrarian economy v manufacturing economy". They are both pieces of the whole, but the overarching reason for the war was the existence of what many reconstructionist historians have called that "peculiar institution", involuntary servitude, in plain English, slavery.

In times past, those of us who were born and raised in the northern and western parts of the country have felt a bit smug and superior that this part of the nation was on the side of the angels and would shake our heads, suck our teeth and wag our collective finger at those Rebel Boys, those agents of Satan, who fought to keep all those people enslaved.

That never was the true picture. The truth is, as the Cubans would say, complecado.

African slaves were introduced to New Amsterdam in 1626 when eleven African slaves were brought into the colony.  In 1655 the first slave auction was held in New Amsterdam. By 1705 over 42% of New York households owned slaves; the second highest percentage of cities in the colonies, second only to Charleston. In 1711 a formal slave market was established at the end of Wall Street on the East River, and it operated until 1762. New York State, due to the work of the New York Manumission Society under the leadership of John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, gradually eliminated slavery, and by 1827, slavery no longer existed in the city or state.

But slavery still was part of the economic underpinning that fueled our city's economy. Brooks Brothers started their now high end clothing empire producing basic clothing for slave merchants. Back in the day, around 1850, 339 of the first 1,000 policies written by New York Life were on the lives of slaves. Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the largest private investment bankers in New York, was founded by William and James Brown who owned slaves, financed the cotton economy, and went on to establish Brown University, one of America's Ivy League schools.  And finally, Domino Sugar, that purveyor of all things sweet, was the Brooklyn company that packaged, promoted and pushed the use of white refined sugar that was picked and processed on the slave dependent-plantations of the South and the Caribbean. There are no heroes here.

Which brings us to the question at hand that we, as a nation, are currently wrestling with, what do we do with those monuments erected to the sacred memory of the fallen leaders of the Confederate States of America. And, since opinions are like noses, and everybody has one (thank you, Joan Filippone for this reference), there are many proposals floating around. So here are mine.

One of the things I do when I travel is have a theme for photos.  In Europe I take photos of World War I monuments.  In the Caribbean, I take photos of flowers and fauna.  In the Southern part of the United States I take pictures of Confederate War Memorials.

There are two distinct types of Civil War Monuments. One set is the formal horse and rider, sword rattling, hat raising leader a la Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson. Theses are the official kind often in places like parks and courthouse plazas. They represent the idea that "the south will rise again", and were often erected during the era of Jim Crow and segregation to recall the past glory days, and enforce the laws that denied folks their civil rights. These need to be moved from places of prominence and into a local history museum or other place set aside for them to quietly reside. Remember, these military leaders were leading a rebellion against the United States of America and were technically traitors. Yes, most of them were not prosecuted as such due to the interjection of former Union officers who had studied with them at West Point, but the fact that they chose to betray their nation still remains true.

Greensborough, Confederate soldiers monument

The other set is a different matter.  These are often small town monuments to local young men who perished in the service of the Confederacy.  Many of these men were buried where they fell, and families had no grave where they could lay flowers and say prayers. The grief of the family was real, as real as the grief of a Northern family who suffered the same loss. These markers served that purpose and should remain, or be placed in local cemeteries.

So, there it is...just my humble opinion. You are also entitled to yours.

Dating in your sixties part 2

Back in the nineteen-sixties, I was in my adolescence attending an all girls' Catholic High School located in Rockaway Beach which is in the borough of Queens in New York City. Every Friday evening a neighborhood Catholic Church would sponsor  a dance for teens who lived in the various adjoining Catholic parishes. Here they could meet other, religiously acceptable, possible life mates under the watchful eye of our beloved Father Keppler, then a young prelate who would remind those who dared to dance too closely to "leave room for the Holy Spirit." In my adolescent  mind the image of the Spirit as dove and embracing teen-aged bodies merely made me laugh, at least to myself. Now every once in a while a Protestant teen would show up, usually a friend of one of the guys who attended the local public high school; itself a kind of scandal....well, attending Sty or Brooklyn Tech was understandable, but Midwood, Tilden or Madison!  Anathema.
                                                                                                            
As my life unfolded, I met and married one of those Protestant boys who attended James Madison High School.  We were together until his unexpected death five years ago. A few months ago, I decided to get back in the game, and try online dating for seniors fifty years and older. It has been an interesting ride.

I have read the profiles of at least a hundred or so men on this site.  Most are pretty straight forward; they are looking for someone to spend time with.  Others are a bit bizarre: no vegetarians, no city dwellers, no country bumpkins, no vegans, no Democrats, no Republicans, only blonds, only red-heads, no grey-haired grannies. Those are the ones that get quickly taken off my list. Others are looking for someone to relocate and take care of them....not gonna happen, buddy.

I have actually met three of these fellows face-to-face. Each one had a very different story.  Each one had his charms and his drawbacks. Family obligations, alimony, child support, retirement, no retirement, income limits, business responsibilities, long distance parenting, these were among the concerns many of these guys have. I realized that I am not likely to quickly  jump into another relationship since most of the men I have talked to are carrying around a lot of baggage I would rather not unpack.

It has been entertaining, I admit, a diversion from daily obligations and work.  I am not sure at this point if I will renew my membership once it expires in a few months, but I will check the site for some daily entertainment. My friend Dave, himself widowed, but now married to his high school sweetheart, recently told me "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince." Well, I am not a fan of amphibians, I just may sit out this dance.