A Not So Unfamiliar Story

Current Presidential Immigration 
Actions Hit Home

Waking this morning to news of detentions at airports of visitors, refuges, immigrants and green card holder from middle eastern countries listed in President Trump's recent executive action immediately raised my anxiety/compassion level. These reports sadly melded with my own family story of an immigrant detention at port of entry.

In 1921 my Sicilian grandfather, long a citizen of the United States and veteran of service in the US Army durning World War I, returned to the US from a visit to his homeland. He brought with him a new wife and her 10 year old sister. Upon arrival at Ellis Island the authorities were required to admit my grandfather as a citizen and his wife by virtue of that citizenship. But his young sister-in-law did not fit into that formula. She was neither his wife, daughter or blood relative. Although he asserted his willingness to fully support this child he could not prove his ability to do so. He had been out of the country for almost a year and therefore could not provide evidence of gainful employment. He must have had savings because within four years he would by a three family house in Brooklyn. But it may also have been impossible at that moment to provide proof of any assets. The authorities determined that the 10 year old girl who could not speak anything but Sicilian had to be detained in Ellis Island facilities until my grandfather could return with proof that he could support her and prevent her becoming a burden to society and government coffers.

An Italian woman with young children apparently took little Carmelina under her wing for guidance and protection. It was November and during my aunt's two week detention Thanksgiving was celebrated and a special meal provided. Eventually my grandfather returned with proof of support in the form of bank passbooks or a pay stub and the small family was reunited. Our family heard this story recounted by my Aunt Millie every Thanksgiving. As a child myself I remember being horrified at the tale and wondering how this could possibly have been done to a little girl. 

This mornings' news went directly to the memory of this story. Today as a mother and grandmother I struggle to imagine how my grandmother may have cried and screamed at being separated from her little sister in a strange and forbidding place after a long ocean voyage. My heart still cries for the little girl who never knew her own mother and looked to her sister for everything in her life feeling such panic and wailing at their separation. It is within this emotional space that I considered the stories of those detained at airports this weekend; many already extensively vetted, some holding 'green cards' as vetted resident aliens in the US who work here, own homes, have families and pay taxes.

On Saturday, January 28, when Brooklyn Federal District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly upheld an action by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging detentions by executive order she wrote that such detentions could cause "irreparable harm". I can attest to the irreparable harm done to my dear aunt by her detention so many years ago. Each time I heard her anguished story I thought, "Thank God they don't do that anymore." How wrong I was.

Saturday Afternoon Opera

A Lifelong Companion

For many, even those who enjoy classical music, opera is a yet to be acquired taste in music. Remember Tony Randall of "The Odd Couple" and way earlier "Mr. Peepers" fame on TV? He was an opera lover of the first order even to being one of the expert panelists during the Opera Quiz intermission feature of the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. He did not discover opera until in his early 20s when my father, his unit buddy in the U.S. Army Air Corps stationed on Guam during World War II, challenged him to put aside his Beethoven and "try some really great stuff"; to join him in listening to a recording of Puccini's La Boheme. The rest is history.

Opera was not a taste I had to acquire over time. Rather, it was in the air I breathed from the very beginning. My first memory of listening to records at home comes from around 1952 when my parents purchased a Magnavox TV console which also included a radio and a turn table. In 1990 my father converted it into a cabinet for his stereo and later his CD player. Two recordings stand out in memory; the cast recording of South Pacific ( Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza) and Lily Pons' 78 rpm recording of the Mad Scene from the opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" with the Bell Song from "Lakme" on the flip side.  Pretty interesting combination, isn't it. My father's tastes were very eclectic.

Early on I was introduced to the very best, not at the opera house but by recordings and the Saturday afternoon Met broadcasts on the radio. Wherever my father was at that time his radio was tuned into WQXR with Milton Cross mellifluously giving a synopsis of each act and offering commentary. Occasionally Saturday afternoon might find me in my uncle's Buick sitting next to my Aunt Millie and begging her to tell the story of what ever Met opera was coming through the car radio. I listened to these opera lovers rate performances and compare singers. Soon I learned what to listen for and who I should be sure to hear.

Each year I check the Met broadcast schedule for the season and try to plan Saturdays based on the days of performances of favorite operas or singers. Yesterday was the regular "Cav/Pag" double header of two short operas, "Cavalleria Rusticana" by Pietro Mascagni and "Il Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Yesterday I planned my long trip to visit my mother in a Brewster nursing home around the first half of the broadcast. "Cavalleria Rusticana" set in a Sicilian village and sung with a libretto true to the Sicilian dialect with which I am so familiar.

This opera is a small gem. The melodies are moving and soaring communicating beauty in a bucolic countryside, passionate love, religious devotion in Easter morning worship, destruction wrought by jealousy, and prayer of utter despair. The opera also sports a huge chorus which is used to full effect.

I few years ago I discovered a You Tube video of Franco Zefferelli's film production of the opera featuring Domingo, Obraztsova, Bruson and Pretre. It was filmed largely out doors in an Italian village. In this way the way film builds upon what is called the "verismo" quality of the opera which provides for a portrayal of Sicilian culture and customs with great realism. It is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQBY_ZpejI. The technical quality of the film does leave a great deal to be desired but the music and the singing is great. But what makes it even more special are the visuals of the village and Sicilian customs of the period. This may be a small sip that will begin your process of acquiring a 'taste' for this evocative art form.

Note: Link to a synopsis of "Cavalleria Rusticana" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalleria_rusticana

Halloween Remembered

Am reading a very interesting book entitled The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of the American Community by Marc J. Dunkelman, New York: Norton, 2014. This essay speaks of the quality of community that is lacking in many places these days. This Halloween memory is vivid for all who knew the Schultz family in Kingston, NY.

 

 

Mr. Shultz

Early every morning, except for the last few months, he walked past my house headed for the bakery and a copy of the New York Times. Rejecting jogging sneakers and shorts, he wore all-purpose leather shoes with khaki work pants and favored the layered look topped by a worn plaid shirt. A rumpled tan fishing hat completed the look of a man prepared for some woodland adventure. His once tall lanky frame now somewhat bent from academic pursuits maintained a steady unaffected stride. He was Mr. Shultz. I never got to know him better than that because he lived a few blocks away. He was just Mr. Shultz whose house my sons and I had visited once a year on each of twenty Halloweens in response to the offer of cider and doughnuts for any trick-or-treater, young or old, who needed a place to catch his breath, hide from ghosts and goblins, or duck barrages of shaving cream.

            Mr. and Mrs. Shultz rearranged the cherry and oak antiques and Chinese porcelains in their living room each All Hallows Eve. After covering half of the room with painters tarps, they placed indestructible wrought iron furniture at the periphery of the protected area and set out long maple benches laden with bowls of doughnuts and cool, refreshing cider. Family and friends gathered to view the costume parade from the intact end of the room while sipping an evening cocktail. Mrs. Shultz ladled out cider. Mr. Shultz extended a warm greeting at the door. The only requirement for visitors was that each sign the guest book where attendance could be verified and compared to statistics kept since 1946. Could that first Halloween open house have been a joyous celebration of long-awaited peace, a welcome to those boys who returned from war along with Mr. Shultz, or a tribute to the memory of past trick-or-treaters who did not come home? I never asked.

            Two days ago, Mrs. Shultz died at the age of seventy-five. A detailed obituary in the daily paper mentioned the Halloween open houses. Its straight forward narrative filled out the character of Mrs. Shultz beyond that of hostess feigning fright at diminutive ghosts and admiring awe for dainty fairies. She had graduated from Vassar, raised four children, founded the Boys’ Club, managed a business, sat on numerous boards, and loved Mr. Shultz for over fifty-three years. It seemed fitting to pay our respects to Mr. Shultz on this occasion out of sync with the annual round but in memory of that Halloween hostess and accomplished woman.

            At Carr’s Funeral home, a daughter greeted us. We explained that we had been Halloween visitors. She replied, “Isn’t it wonderful that the paper included that in the obituary. Of course, my father wrote it.” Turning from another conversation, Mr. Shultz took my hand in immediate recognition and acknowledged my son. “We’ve come in memory of Halloween, “ I said. “Oh, I’m so glad. Wasn’t it great of them to put it in the paper. Did you sign the book?” We nodded. My son said, “I should have written that we came because of Halloween.” “Oh, please do that,” said Mr. Shultz, “we’d love it.” He continued to hold my hand as another daughter approached saying, “I see that Kermit the Frog has arrived.” My son and I marveled at her memory. We chattered in a highly self-conscious struggle to express the heartfelt. Mr. Shultz seemed a little more bent, pale and lost. Our hands had parted as he spoke of not knowing what to do about Halloween. I told him that the obituary was beautiful and that his wife’s achievements had impressed me so. Unexpectedly my eyes filled with tears and my lips quivered a bit as I praised her accomplishments and devotion. Mr. Shultz’s face began to glow, his features becoming more animated. As we said our “good-byes”, he expressed his gratitude for Halloween visitors. I took his hand to shake in parting, a final gesture of sympathy for the loss of his wife. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. With eyes steadfastly focused on mine, he said, “Thank you”, appreciating me for appreciating her.

Hildegard Pleva

1995

Family Context for the Boomer

The Oreo Generation

Long ago a promise was made here to attend to the Boomer experience; to reflect upon the relationship of this generation, a generation in or entering retirement, to the slice of population born before them, the younger generations that follow them, as well as the social and cultural reality in which they live.

The image of a sandwich has been used as metaphor for the experience of this generation in between. I prefer the image of the famed Oreo cookie. What is the experience of being the filler in this generational alignment while surrounded by a contextual  smorgasbord including technological revolution, economic shift, constant war, realities of aging, global warming, the ebola virus, etc., etc., etc.?

Why propose the image of the Oreo? The filler in an Oreo does not rest between two yielding slices of soft bread. The filler attempts to meld two unyielding firm and demanding cookies. In addition, its sweetness is to soften the more blunt flavor of chocolate striving to assert itself.

This is a vision of the Boomer reality experienced by many these days. Many are trying to be lovingly, responsibly and appropriately in relationship with the generation that came before us (parents and other older relatives or friends) and the generation which came from us, now our adult children. As in the Oreo cookie, we either take on or have cast upon us the task of supporting or holding together this generational mix. And like the cookie filler we are to be a sweet, pliable, and present and wise element of the structure.

Most recent posts touched upon the cause of world peace, issues in the Church, history, social commentary and more. However, the events of my personal life in last five months call me to ponder this Oreo phenomenon. As Boomer well into the last years of my life the experience of the Oreo filler is mine. The most recent episodes follow all too rapidly on the heels of placing my mother in an assisted living facility, supporting Hospice care for my father in his home, experiencing his death, selling the family home and dealing with the collections of their life time.

Future posts will tell the story in more detail. The story is presented at least in part as a cautionary tale for the Boomer and for the generations that surround them. But here I will merely post the remembrance/obituary piece I wrote two weeks ago upon the death of my mother's brother.

In Remembrance of Joseph Milazzo

Joseph Milazzo peacefully slipped away in the morning of October 3, 2014 at Putnam Ridge Nursing Home, Brewster, NY following a brief but serious illness. He was 82 years old. Following a physical collapse in Florida on July 20^th and hospitalization, he was moved to Brewster on August 13, 2014.

Joseph was born on December 1, 1931 in Brooklyn, NY.  His parents were Rosalia Galante and Frank Milazzo, both natives of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. He is survived by his older sister, Matilda Nimke, widow of Helmut Eric Nimke. Matilda now resides at Putnam Ridge Nursing Home. He also leaves his nieces Sister Hildegard Pleva, OSsR of Beacon, NY and Commander Rosalinda Hasselbacher, US Navy Nurse Corps Ret., of Shelton, CT as well as four grand-nephews Jonathan, Matthew and Andrew Pleva and Erich Hasselbacher, their spouses and five great-grand nieces and nephews.

It has been arranged with Halvey Funeral Home, 24 Willow St., Beacon, NY 12508, that the family will gather at the funeral home at 10:30am on Wednesday, October 8, 2014. At 11am there will be a brief prayer service at which Fr. Richard Smith, pastor of St. Joachim and St. John’s Parish in Beacon will preside. Immediately following we will proceed to St. John's Cemetery, 80-01 Metropolitan Ave., Middle Village, NY 11379) in Queens. Uncle Joe will be buried in the grave of his mother who died in 1932 at the age of 29 just three months after his birth. There is something very touching in this reunion of the two of them.

My Uncle and all his Brooklyn buddies who I remember from my growing up years are in many ways like characters from a Damon Runyon story but with a Sicilian/Brooklyn accent. My Uncle began life in the Depression with many strikes again him so he was not what I call a 'straight line kid.' Did not finish high school; went from one unskilled job to another; was drafted during the Korean War and served in Germany. He did get a GED and finally, through a friend of my parents, began a job working as an apprentice in the carpet trade. Slowly and with much hard work he rose through the Union ranks and became a skilled carpet mechanic with the ability to lay intricate designs in wall to wall carpeting. He would come home and talk about doing work for the likes of Claudette Colbert and Lena Horne. After his retirement he took on the pattern of a snow bird, living in Brooklyn during the late spring and summer months and returning to his condo in Margate, Florida to enjoy being on the beach with his many friends every day. He eventually took up permanent residence in Margate.

He was only 15 years older than my sister and I so he was the young gay blade who taught us how to dance the cha-cha and how to let the man lead on the dance floor. When my sister went off to St. Vincent's Nursing School in Greenwich Village in 1968 it was an awful neighborhood and he knew that sooner or later she would be out and about in a threatening neighborhood and meeting with friends at the local hangouts. She recently shared that before she left for nursing school Uncle Joe said that if she ever had a problem or got into a fix she did not want to drag her parents into she just had to call him and he would be there. This was the type of presence he offered in the family.

He had a beautiful girl friend before he was drafted and kept to his death an album of all their pictures while dating. I believe he received a "Dear John letter" from her while he was in the Army and it broke his heart. He always had a woman in his life, women he could bring home, but he never married.

He worked very hard, enjoyed life, loved good food and had many friends. But he saved money and played the market. When he knew the market had gotten beyond him he placed his money in wise investments. So his generous gifts in life will be matched by bequests in death leaving a legacy which will enrich the lives of those he loved.

He was known as "Joey Blue Eyes". He was a generous friend, treated his ladies with dignity and respect as a gentleman. He loved his sister and her husband, my parents, and called them from Florida every Saturday. And he loved his nieces and their children.

After his collapse on July 20^th of this year, even in his dismay at his deteriorating condition in hospital and nursing home, he remained concerned about others and grateful for care. He was always inquiring as to what or where I had eaten and if I was a feeling comfortable in his condo and finding everything I needed.

We did everything we could for him but something else was winning the race and finally he just slipped away.

I see now that the act of writing has been the creation of a more intimate obituary than is usual. I share it with you to give a sense of the man.

There will not be a Mass because he was only a weddings and funerals type of church-goer. But he was good and loved by God and conquered many demons in his life, I am sure. And "now he knows." The prayers offered at the funeral home and cemetery will be as much for those he leaves behind as they are for him as his ‘awareness’ expands to all eternity.

Soldier Reports on Jim Crow

My father died only five months ago and it remains difficult for me to live in acceptance; to believe that his formidable personality, intellect and influence are no longer present in my life. Yet in memory; in the way I think; in what I appreciate; in the faithfulness of my life he is surely present.  Many treasured objects also conjure his presence. These days it is this trove of letters that make him so very alive in my thoughts. Enthusiastic response to previous mention of these letters here and their historical significance  prompt me to revisit them. The letters were exchanged between my parents from mid-1943 to November 1945 and cover the period just before his draft into the US Army Air Corps; his stateside service largely in Meridian, Mississippi, one semester of study at Georgia Tech, Atlanta; their marriage in August 1943; two periods of living together near the base; and his overseas assignment to an air weather reconnaissance squadron on Guam in the Pacific. In the spring of 1944, the period discussed here, my father was a few months short of his 23rd birthday. He graduated from a New York city public high school in the Bronx and completed about three semesters of City College of the City University of New York. When he received his draft notice he was working as a machinist apprentice.

Demonstration for Voting Rights Act of 1965

We have recently celebrated the history-making, soul uplifting event of the 1963 March on Washington, a plea for the civil rights of all citizens of the nation. We have also marked the 50th anniversary of the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church which killed four young girls just weeks after the March. It is with these events in mind that I have been reading my father's letters and appreciating his witness to a time some have forgotten, to atrocities hard to comprehend. His reflections provide such valuable context to our acts of remembering; the context of full appreciation of the situation that existed in our country at that time and long before.

Many comments about the sad plight of the of the Negroes are sprinkled through Dad's letters. By March, 1944 my father had spent over a year in Mississippi and my mother had joined him there for about six weeks. Each had become all too familiar with the Jim Crow south. With his letter of March 22 begins a brisk exchange concerning events of the kind caused him to write on March19, "No Sweetheart, there is nothing in this damn South, not even the joy of Spring - nothing but hatred and discrimination."

Many have said to me, "You should write a book." I resist because I know what research would be required. I've had to do some here to get the full import of this episode. Turns out that a Senator from Mississippi, Theodore Bilbo, a Democrat, had risen through the ranks to become head of the Senate's District of Columbia Committee. It has been said that he ruled the city like a plantation owner. He called Clare Booth Luce a "nigger lover"; praised Hitler; and declared  that whites were "justified in going to any extreme to keep the nigger from voting." For years he blocked anti-lynching laws."  In his book Washington Goes to War journalist David Brinkley wrote:

Bilbo seemed to hate everyone: communists, Jews, union leaders, union members, anyone who could, by any definition, be called a foreigner, and above all, of course, blacks. And Bilbo never hesitated to make his hatreds known.

When he ran for the Senate in 1934, he denounced an opponent as "a cross between a hyena and a mongrel...begotten in the nigger graveyard at midnight, suckled by a sow, and educated by a fool."

When he received a hostile letter from a woman named Josephine Piccolo in New York City, he wrote back and addressed her: "Dear Dago."

As one of the nation's most outspoken racists, Bilbo hated the fact that nearly half the residents of the city he helped administer were black. "If you go through the government departments," he once said, "there are so many niggers it's like a black cloud around you." He repeatedly introudced a bill to deport all Negroes to Africa and once suggested that Eleanor Roosevelt be sent with them and made their "queen." Throughout his tenure on the district committee, Bilbo judged almost every proposal on the basis of its effect on race relations. Anything that might benefit blacks -- and in a city whose black population was growing rapidly, that was most things -- he opposed. Nothing outraged him more than the effort in 1941, by blacks themselves, to confront racial discrimination in employment.

That sets the stage for my father's reportage on March 22

Mia Dia,

As always, the radio in Tech Supply was babbling to itself this afternoon - being peacefully ignored in talk and in the hard rain outside. It continued to be ignored until it drew attention to itself with the outbursts that made all of us, there in the building, keep quiet and lend our ears to the most criminal and flagrant contribution to [the] Negro problem I ever heard.

Darling, you've never heard anything like this. You've seen it, being here, but to have heard this is to gain insight into problem as the South sees it - or should I say refuses to see it.

I am only sorry that a printed copy of the speech is not available...but the best I can do now is to as you to accept these quotations. We were all so moved that Kuspeil said, "That man is starting the next war right now." I can't write what I said.

The issue was the Mississippi (?) broadcast of a speech by Senator Bilbo made from the state capital - Jackson where he addressed the legislative bodies of this fair state in joint session. The subject, which must keep these warped people awake at night, was the Negro and social equality.

From the start you could see the vicious farce the whole thing was with half an eye. For the benefit of the untrained audience he seemed to adopt a benevolent attitude, but he gave himself away with some of the worst hateful and bared faced statements I ever heard. Remember they came from a Senator for State consumption.

He covered his subject, beating the drum of White Supremacy, the Negroes Place and the Color Line in the well worn language of the Baiter, he finally came to the climax of his comparison between the North and the South. Stating this climax as if the North had the worst disease known to mankind - rather than seeing it for the southern problem that it is.

He hit his nail on the head like this. In bringing up the "dreadful progress" the negro is making toward equality he mentioned the equality extended the Negro at the Washington [DC] C.I.O. canteen. Here, he said, an equal number of whites and negroes were served in the same place by an equal number of white and Negro waitresses - all eating together. With this he illustrated his point, kept quiet a moment to let it sink in, and the brought up the artillery. "Can we conceive of such a thing, such unheard of social equality?"

That Honey, is unheard of for this man of the stone-age - twice the Governor of this beautiful State.

But the real dynamite came later when continuing to analyze what trouble the North is creating by extending equality - get that Sweet - we create the problem, not they. He said, "If the North thinks we want to live like that, we will tell them, our nigger lovin' Yankee Friends, to go straight to Hell." And that is a quotation.

So this is how they solve a problem. No, in reality he's not trying to do that, only to maintain the whites here on the backs of the Negroes. By the way, he couldn't say that word - he said "Nigger".

But he belied his false benevolent attitude by saying, "White Negro lovers should be treated like we treat the niggers." This swept away all he said about negro benefits here, bringing into focus the fact that much treatment is considered the worst punishment. Then how are the Negroes treated with benevolence?

The shabbiness of his argument also appeared when enumerating the rights of equality a negro has here, he drew laughter from the audience by saying they have equal space rights on public conveyances. Yes, its a joke to them. But I'd hate to be in their shoes when the negro turns the worm here. These people can't see the problem for what it is, they refuse to recognize it as their Frankenstein - rather, they feed it. He pointed to our difficulty with the riots, but didn't mention that these were caused whenever color lines were drawn - to the just resentment of the negro. Those lines are dirty rags these southerners drag up with them and see them stimulated by the enemy to create conflict. Actually we have much less resentment and strife than they do here, where they are sitting on a volcano they've built themselves.

Honey, I am pretty sore tonight.

In his next letter my father enclosed a newspaper clipping from the editorial page of the Jackson, Mississippi Daily News of March 20, 1944.  Bilbo was not a lone racist mad man in a position of power. The editorial reads:

 

GO STRAIGHT TO HELL

 

An (sic) United Press dispatch from Washington says:"The United States office of education

 today called on white educational institutions in the South to open their doors to negro scholars."

 

And here's telling the responsible head of the United States department of education, whoever

 he may be, to go straight to hell.

 

The South won't do it - not in this generation and never in the future while Anglo-Saxon blood

continues to flow in our veins.

 

Nobody but an ignorant, fat-headed ass would propose such an unthinkable and impossible action.

 

The speech and the editorial appeared in 1944, 19 years before the March on Washington in 1963 and 21 years before the Voting Rights Bill was enacted as the law of the land.

 

The story will continue in the next post.

 

Remembrance of Things Past - A Night at the Opera

Two tickets for performance of "La Boheme" On February 9, 1944

at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City

Terra cotta frieze from the façade of the old Metropolitan Opera House

mounted in fireplace

 



Since the second week in January I have been living with my father who will be 92 years old on May 25th. My father is many things: husband for almost 70 years, father of two daughters, native of Germany, US Air Corps veteran of WWII, retired professional engineer with credentials both in mechanical and civil engineering, and former member of the governing board of the community where he and my mother have lived in the house he designed since 1968.

But his curriculum vitae would include so much more. I have described him as a Renaissance man: builder of boats and ham radio equipment, lover of history ancient and modern, devotee of the arts especially classical music and opera, patriotic and interested citizen and supporter of the best interests of the country which welcomed him at the age of eight and provided him with the finest of educations at no cost at The City College of New York of CUNY.

My parents' home is filled with collections of material connected with each of my Dad's areas of professional or personal expertise as well as my mother's collections reflecting her interests in needlework, painting and gourmet cooking. Since Mom is living in an assisted living facility receiving care appropriate to her stage of dementia and Dad is receiving my care and the wonderful care of Hospice I am able, at every free moment, to begin the process of going through it all, weeding out, assigning destinations for a great deal and often rewarded by the discovery of a treasure.

 

One of our family stories is attached to the ticket stubs shown here. I found these stubs resting at the bottom of a small drawer in my mother's bedroom desk. On February 9, 1944 my father was on leave from the Army Air Corps before going to places like Meridian, Mississippi with his young wife. He thought to give my mother and her aunt a treat by taking them to the opera. He was to pick them up at their place of work, the fashion house of Nettie Rosenstine on 7th Avenue. Rosenstine was a famous designer for whom my mother worked as one of a number of sketchers in the design department while my aunt worked with a group of accomplished needlewomen who were sample makers, creators of the first sample of a new design. Upon his arrival at the assigned location my father found himself fairly run over by a bevy of scantily clad models. He said it was a surprise but not hard to take.

 

Arriving at the opera house Dad went to the box office to buy three tickets. He was told that tickets for that performance had been set aside by season ticket holders for the exclusive use of GIs. The tickets he received were for the center box in the Diamond Horseshoe (first row of boxes) held by the Astor family. My aunt, an opera lover who had sat in the balcony for many Met performances could not have been more delighted or impressed.

 

Years later, when the Met's old house was being demolished after the company's move to Lincoln Center, my father purchased the frieze which appears above.  The fireplace for their new home would be designed around it. Another treasured item in search of a new home.                                            

Helmut Eric Nimke - 90 Years Young

My Dad's Birthday Celebration

A Speech

* son

* husband

* soldier

* father

* engineer

* boat builder

* reader
* student of history
* lover of art
* traveler
* citizen
* compassionate democrat
* grandfather and great-grandfather

Mom and Dad - 68 years married

Dad had some definite ideas about how he wanted to celebrate his 90th birthday. It had to be at West Point. His family and old friends had to gather around. Good food and drink had to be abundant. The cake featured his design in keeping with a patriotic theme. And there had to be opportunity fora speech. Thus it was.

My father's speech was motivated by his tremendous gratitude for the gift of American citizenship. He arrived here at the age of eight years. He served in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1946. He is a student of history and keen observer of the national and international scene. He spoke of his concern for our troops and his belief that they should all have been home a long time ago. He sopke of a country that has lost its fundemental bearings as a democracy for all, serving all. He spoke of the absence of compassionate capitalism in a time when corporations seem the only worthy charities in the eyes of many. He spoke from his experience of the Great Depression and World War II; from his firsthand knowledge of the benefits of US Citizenship, free higher education at City College of New York and the G.I.Bill; from his commitment to organized labor.

My parents remain in their own home (not without worry by his daughters). He drives and cares for my mother. He reads a great deal and is still performing mechanical miracles which would be daunting to others like replacing the motor in the snow blower he continues to use!

Blessings on this next year, Dad!

See more photos at eric90yearsyoung.shutterfly.com

Memories of Strawberry Picking

The new header above is an sign of the season - strawberry picking season will arrive in a few weeks. My son Matthew, whose art has appeared elsewhere on this blog, was inspired to create a memory piece for a magazine featuring local food producers and restaurants. Beneath the piece (what appears above is a detail) he wrote, "When picking strawberries as a child at The Greig Farm in Red Hook, New York, I was always worried that they would wiegh me on the way out and realize that I ate more that I picked." Matt probably also remembers how after picking strawberries on our hands and knees we would walk over to the pea patch to bend our backs for luscious edible pod sugar peas. I never had it in my heart to cook them. Eating them raw was such a pleasure. Two great fruits of the earth coming into season at the same time.
http://web.mac.com/mattpleva/Site/Home.html

Some Family News

New Exhibit

"When I Grow Up..."

Precise Art of Matthew Pleva

Ocotber 3 - November 30, 2009

Keegan Ales
20 St. James St, Kingston, NY

Long time readers of this blog may remember past postings about the work of my son, Matthew Pleva, an artist specializing in tiny, detailed, and precise renderings of mythological and folk tales, historic buildings and events and a variety of other things that inspire his creativity. Some of these come in the form of minute diorama's mounted in wooden boxes as small as 3" x 4'. The drawing posted here is a detail of one of the pieces developed for the theme of the body of work on exhibit, "When I Grow Up...". Inspiration for these works came via postcards sent to him by friends and and others who were asked to write about how they answered the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" when they are eight to ten years old. Visit Matt's website at http://web.mac.com/MattPleva If you visit the site you will find that if you click on any image it will open up to a larger view of the piece. Enjoy.

Memorial Day and a Birthday

Tomorrow, May 25th, our nation will celebrate Memorial Day with parades and picnics, band concerts and speeches. Tomorrow is also my Dad's 88th birthday. He is a very proud veteran of service in World War II, the Pacific Theater, as a member of a United States Air Corps Weather Reconnaissance Unit flying out of Guam.

Last year he was invited to be the speaker at his town's public celebration of the day. He may very well be the oldest veteran in residence. It was evident that he was delighted at the prospect. His patriotic feelings run high. His concern for the state of our nation is obvious. He has an excellent mind. Plus, the speech would be given on his birthday. What a gift!

But as the day approached this year it became apparent that a precious opportunity for photo-op and glad-handing on the part of local politicos was going to infringe on my father's allotted time. Rather than shorten the speech he had already prepared thereby giving short shrift to the message he wished to deliver, he bowed out.

Dad, forgive me the few edits. I hope they serve your message.

Reflections on Memorial Day
by Helmut E. Nimke

Rosemary Bennett wrote:

If Nancy Hanks
Came back as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of what she loved most,
She’d ask first,
“Where’s my son?
What’s happened to Abe?
What’s he done?

Poor little Abe,
Left all alone
Except for Tom,
Who’s a rolling stone;
He was only nine
The year I died.
I remember still
How hard he cried.

“Scraping along
In a little shack
With Hardly a shirt
To cover his back,
And a prairie wind
To blow him down,
Or pinching times
If he went to town.

“You wouldn’t know
About my son?
Did he grow tall?
Did he have fun?
Did he learn to read?
Did he get to town?
Do you know his name?
Did he get on?

Nancy, he is here with us.

The privilege and honor of a Memorial Day “Last Hurrah” has been given to me in this President Lincoln’s bicentennial year. And so, please bear with these personal reflections of an old man, on his 88th birthday.

Our nation is blest in that our war heroes come in such a variety of identities and convictions. Yet, they have a single common denominator; their oath to primary duty, to “support the Constitution of the United States.”

Memorial Day is not a wake. Lincoln made it a thanksgiving and call to duty. Our thanks are due those who, in their service to this nation, paid the highest price. To their honor, hero or victim, willing or unwilling, with or without conviction, the value of their service, as the objective of their oath, survives.

Since 1789, members of the armed services have sworn at enlistment, “I will support the Constitution of the United States.” For our Commander-in-Chief, the Presidential oath reads, “preserve, protect and defend”; a duty properly one step higher. These oaths have no expiration dates. Survivors, as I, carry the duty still. The Constitution is a “Contract”, the guarantor of the assertions of the Declaration of Independence. As such, it has been made the subject of the oath of service sworn by the President and all those we honor today. As citizens we share that same duty to each other as a legacy.

President Lincoln is in the pantheon of war dead. He is with us still as mentor. At the most trying time in our history, he left a profoundly prescient summary of the foundation of our Memorial Day and our patriotic duty.

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln dedicated a cemetery at Gettysburg where rested those who died in the 90 decree heat of the first three days in July of that year. The 4th of July saw Lee’s unopposed retreat. The battle had cost 6,000 killed and 27,000 wounded; losses felt to this day.

At the conclusion of his famous dedication speech Lincoln said:

It is for us the living…to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is… for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The work Lincoln bequeathed continues every day. Lincoln seems to have written these words yesterday. He spoke of the “People”. The Constitution of 1786 begins with the words, “We the People”. These words were made real in1789 with the addition of the “Bill of Rights”. The Constitution is still democracy at work.

As to Lincoln’s “New birth of the freedom”, the States of the Confederacy worked at aborting that. Under fraudulent ‘States Rights”, domestic terrorism and disenfranchisement were to follow for over 70 years; the Constitution not withstanding. Without legal restraint, from 1866 to 1876, more than 3,000 African Americans and their white allies were murdered by terrorist organizations as the South de-constructed Lincoln’s re-construction.

Bi-partisanship and brotherhood were not children of that war. The Ku-Klux-Klan ruled while wearing the mask of religious virtue, in the manner of terrorists with whom we are familiar today. The rebirth of such groups with their neo-nazi flavor darkens our constitutional horizon. Terrorism is no stranger to America.

Having sworn to “protect” the Constitution at my own induction in 1942, the Army thought I could do that best in Meridian, Mississippi, where my bride would come to share its honeymoon attractions. As Yankees, it disturbed us when the Negroes stepped into the gutter to allow us free passage on the sidewalk. It shamed us. The Army was right; the Constitution needed “protection”. The population, along with the Services, were segregated by the “States Rights” rules of the Confederacy. There were many Whites in the South who, in personal hazard, abhorred it. Lincoln was saved all that.

In his wisdom, Lincoln had urged:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must dis-enthrall ourselves and then we will save our country.

All wars, good, bad and the many undefined, have a way of turning blood into gold. That of the many for the few. Today we are dedicated to sending our heroic youth to feed the dogs in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever policy opportunity affords.

In its April issue, the American Legion Magazine writes, “There is a very small percentage of people who are sacrificing an awful lot in what is soon to be the longest war in our nation’s history.”

The valor of ordinary citizens in support of the Constitution also deserves Memorial notice. By their effort, the Confederacy, as the North, has been made to do substantial social laundry with constitutional detergents and law. The rough road was traveled with purpose by three young men whose defense of civil rights honors the nation.

Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman where murdered on Sunday, June 21, 1964, in Nesoba Country, Mississippi, by domestic terrorists of the Klan’s “White Knights”, dedicated to the destruction of Lincoln’s Re-construction and the “Bill of Rights”. A trial was held in Meridian, Mississippi concerning civil rights charges, but not murder. The terrorists are with us still, while, as always, our service youth, under oath, defend the Constitution and illuminate our duty.

Birthdays bear gifts. You’ve given me the gift of your attention and patience. I thank you. I gave you the memory of duty. In support, I provide you with the user’s manual entitled, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Untied States”. Pick up a copy when we close. Study this booklet as a property owner’s mortgage contract, with fixed interest, never to be foreclosed, of “we the People” with each other and with those who govern. Only with every citizen’s dedication to it will this nation endure.

Thank you all for honoring this day and those ahead.

All in the Family

Breaking Vocation
News to the Family

Sr. Julie Viera, IHM is the blogger I would like to be when I grow up! Her blog, A Nun's Life at http://anunslife.org is just terrific. She is doing a tremendous service to religious life by demystifying it, publicizing its past and current achievements of service, and giving valuable information to those who are considering vowed religious life. Her question today is about family. How does one break the news of a religious vocation to the family? How does one present the determination to enter a contemplative monastic community; a cloistered monastery of nuns. Of course, this has its own particular set of issues for younger people whose families are looking forward to the achievements coming from the college education they bankrolled and parents who are eagerly awaiting the arrival of grandchildren, that great reward of their own years of hard work and sacrifice.

But my case is a bit different because when I had to present my intentions to my parents I was 55 years old, had already used that college education and then some, and had presented them with three grandsons. One would have thought that the job of being a good daughter had been fulfilled. Not so. As my mother reminded me when she expressed concern over my well-being after having had a baby, "You will always be my baby."

It is quite amazing to think that the very same fears that kept me from following through on the call to religious life when I was a teenager were still hanging around some 40 years later. A bit of background is necessary here. While I was raised in a culturally Italian household; while my parents were diligent about their two daughters being educated in the faith and receiving the sacraments; neither of them went to church, nor did the other two adults in our nuclear family. Many people find that hard to believe especially since my faith has always been so vital to me. My parents felt that religious education was good moral education but it did not go further than that. Nor were children given much leeway in our home. Expectations were high.

After public elementary school, I attended a high school where the teachers were the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood both familiar and attractive to me in the parish setting where, probably in eighth grade, the idea of becoming a sister emerged. It remained in my head and in my heart all during high school. I followed the advice of older girls headed for the convent and visited a priest they had found helpful. But when it came to telling my parents, I just could not do it. I could not muster the courage to deal with all that I knew would have to be endured. Eventually college and love stepped in and the rest is history.

At the age of 55, my three sons were well on their way; the old and very inexpensive mortgage was almost completely paid off; and the always lingering desire was blooming. Where secular institutes had refused me because I was too old, it looked like the Redemptoristine Nuns had never totally given up on old ladies. The community knew me well; a three month live-in experience confirmed what I thought was God's will for me; and the application was made. I did not approach my parents until I had been officially accepted and then only with the advice and support of a counselor and the promise of support from my sons. And this last was my salvation.

I invited my parents to come for dinner. My middle and youngest sons were to be present and they knew it was my plan to break the news. I said to my parents, "Remember how I spent last summer at the monastery. Well that was not just for a long retreat. I was testing the waters to see if I really wanted to enter the community. And now that is what I am going to do. I will finish teaching in six months and then I will enter the community for a trial period." Just what I had expected to be said 40 years before was spoken at that table. It was painful to hear the disappointment and the scolding voices. But something happened which I did not expect and it lightened my heart. I was seated at the head of the table with my parents on one side and my sons on the other. The conversation soon turned into a ping pong match between the sides and I just sat quietly while my sons respectfully did battle for me. I was so proud and happy. Finally, my middle son said to his grandparents, "We don't really understand this either but we know how much Mom has done for us and for others. She has let us do what we wanted to do. How can we not support her in this?" My parents had no answer and no understanding of the generosity and acceptance being expressed by my sons.

How did it all turn out? My sons, daughter-in-law, sister and parents came to be present at my entrance. My parents visited me in the monastery every 6 weeks or so until about three years ago when their ages became a factor. They have been comforted by seeing that I am not hidden away from them and am still part of the family although in a different way. They know, and this grows in importance with each passing year, that if they should need me I can be there for them. Since they are not "church types" they seemed quiet observers of the rituals of my first profession, all quite new to them. But gradually they have grown more and more comfortable. Now my mother closes phone calls with, "Send my love to the ladies." On the occasion of my solemn profession, my father told me, "I am glad that you have found your place."

Feast of St. Monica, Mother of St. Augustine

Mother's Day in August

Because I wear a veil and, most of the time, a simple red jumper and cross, I am always recognized as a nun. This, combined with the sight of gray hair at the forehead and whisping out at the temples, makes people think I am an old, very wise and, of course, holy nun. Occasionally I have the opportunity to tell them not to be fooled into the wise and holy part.

I have learned to curb my exuberance among strangers because I am apt to mention my sons in conversation. This always draws wide-eyed disbelief, if not shock. Many still have not caught up with the phenomenon of "sister moms." I do not wish to scandalize, only educate.

Being a mother; having a history of nurturing, encouraging, being patient with, providing a good example for and dedicating one's life to children is good preparation for life in community. Yet it is a mixed blessing because it is another in the long list of things which, if not left behind, are changed forever while remaining the same. Even those who have not entered religious life but have experienced seeing a child go off to college or move away and then encountered that empty nest syndrome will understand. They grow-up, marry, become adults, have families of their own but are still your children, forever entangled with the strings of your heart. During one of my pregnancies, my mother expressed her concern for me. I told her not to worry and she replied, "But you will always be my baby."

So today I still have my "babies", each a mature independent man, for whom I worry, for whom there is a tenderness that is as easily brought to life as on the day of their birth. St. Monica, patroness of all mothers, would understand. At this stage of the game the best advice is to keep your mouth shut and pray. Monica must have bit her tongue raw! The remove necessary in the maternal relationship required at this time is accentuated by my personal remove to a contemplative monastic community. For all of us mothers in religious life it is essential to discern the rightness of the vocational choice and the normal pangs of that motherly 'missing' of adult children. I have been told that the final test of a mother's vocation is the arrival of grandchildren, a storm of emotion I seem to have survived although it does bring one to new heights of trust and detachment, easier to attain at some times than others. Lay people whose grandchildren live across the country or beyond the ocean are also familiar with this detachment.

Monica had plenty to worry her and a husband who was not "with the program" either. But she knew the faithfulness of God and she knew her son, Augustine, far better than he knew himself. Would that all children could appreciate that gift in their mothers. It is Monica's brand of trust in the faithfulness of God on which I depend. And in spite of all the pains and aches, the sacrifices and the well-worn tongue, I am grateful beyond description for the gift of these sons, for the gift of receiving them to guide and form and love, and for the gifts they have, in turn, given to me.

"Some Enchanted Evening"

"Endurance is Everything"
65 Years of Marriage

Contemplative nuns and monks, indeed all those in vowed religious life, often speak of and pray for the gift of perseverance. The Redemptorist priests and brothers add a fourth vow to the usual poverty, chastity and obedience - a vow to persevere in the Congregation. These days another type of perseverance in vows has been the subject of my prayer and meditation. Today a group of family and friends came together to celebrate the 65th wedding anniversary of my parents. My father's motto is, "Endurance is everything." Surely they are a model of endurance.

Mom and Dad married on August 3, 1943 in the middle of World War II, a time of great personal and global uncertainty. Not only did they endure through the fears and separations caused by that war, they also persevered in uniting two very different cultures (Prussian and Sicilian), living in a multi-generational family, combining work and night school for professional advancement, raising two children, building a house, creating friendships and fulfilling commitments, and perfecting the art of retirement in mutual caring and support. What better example of perseverance can there be?

My father brought a recording of "Some Enchanted Evening" sung by Ezio Pinza to our celebration because it speaks to him of the night he met my mother totally by happen stance; he accompanying a friend to a going away party for someone called up in the draft and she attending with her father at his request to come along. Someone introduced them and at the end of the evening my father told his friend, "I am going to marry that girl."

They were married at St. Finbar's Church in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year. She wore and heirloom Belgian lace veil and a tailored floor-length dress made of parachute silk. He wore his wool Air Corps dress uniform. A reception followed in the nearby apartment of an aunt where all enjoyed sandwiches and lots of cold beer. Washington, D.C. was the site of their honeymoon. My Dad was shipped to Guam late in 1944 and returned early in 1946 to meet his six-month old daughter for the first time.

It is absolute truth that my parents are as in love today as on the day they married. They know how to be patient with each other's idiosyncrasies, how to support and encourage, how to fight well and eventually get over it. My father, in perfect health at the age of eighty-seven, is very attentive to my mother's medical needs. When he argues with doctors about her treatment he reminds them, "I am her best friend."

Storytelling - A Family Tradition

As if a lengthy Christmas letter did not sufficiently pack the envelope, about ten years ago I began to add on an original 'Christmas Memory Story.' This is the first of those stories from 1998.

A Christmas Memory

Trees used to be fresher. The pungent aroma of Christmas evergreen could be recognized upon entering the front door. In my girlhood home on 85th Street in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood, the tree, always a prickly, short-needled spruce, stood in the living room corner in front of the door to the back porch my father built. He always picked the tree from a local lot or, more likely, a merchant who opportunistically added Christmas trees to his stock of fruits and vegetables displayed on the sidewalk under the elevated train along 86th Street’s commercial zone. He trundled it home in the cold and subjected it to evaluation by my mother who had an eye for empty places which could be hidden against the wall. Another option was Dad’s compensation by cutting off excess low branches and inserting them into holes drilled into the trunk where fillers were needed. A poorly balanced tree would be securely anchored by guy wires fastened to cup hooks hidden in door or window moldings.

My sister and I waited impatiently for Dad to hang stubborn strings of large light bulbs, an endless and vexing process punctuated by frustrated expletives. Finally decorating would be turned over to us except for placing the most dainty and delicate of ornaments at the top of the tree. We learned early on to graduate the weight and size of decorations, always leaving the heaviest and largest for the bottom of a well-decorated tree. From ancient yellowed tissue paper emerged curious ornaments: birds, pelicans and Santas of featherweight glass as fine as ribbon candy along with striped balls with colors resembling Depression era glass juice tumblers. Like icing on a cake, real lead tinsel was judiciously applied strand by strand an inch or so apart along each branch and shoot as ice would naturally coat a tree in the forest.

In the end, the tree was to be surveyed in darkness. We basked in the multi-colored glow of our masterpiece. Only then could we lie down on the floor, scoot along on our behinds to place head and shoulders under the tree and gaze upward through a wonderland of shinning lights, sparkling glass, and shimmering tinsel; a vision only made more glorious by viewing it through gently ‘squinched’ eyes. This kaleidoscopic sight, a surreal painting seen through a fringe of curly eyelashes, had the power to appease the heart of a child yearning for Christmas.