Salve Regina

Notre Dame Cathedral. So sad. I have such fond memories of being there once.

In speaking to a colleague yesterday about the fire, I actually became slightly emotional. We were discussing the loss in terms of architecture and history and art, and I cited the point that the soaring edifice was also home to one-of-a-kind artifacts of religious significance.

Like the Crown of Thorns. And a relic from the True Cross of Christ.

And as those words left my mouth -- the True Cross of Christ -- I felt my throat tighten just a bit.

My colleague never commented on my tone. She does know that I am a practicing Roman Catholic, as the point has come up in various political discussions we've had along the way. But I could read sympathy in her eyes.

Thankfully, these priceless items have apparently been saved. Divine intervention, perhaps.

Stories and memories of Notre Dame are everywhere today. And I've got one as well.

March 1984. I was in the midst of a study abroad semester in London with 24 other students from SJU. As the semester unfolded, a group of us decided to go to Paris for the weekend.

We took a bus to Dover and got on the Sealink -- this was all pre-chunnel, folks -- to France.

The morning we arrived, we navigated the Metro (not a one of us spoke French, by the way, other than how to pray the Hail Mary) and made our way to Notre Dame.

I don't remember the particulars of the tour we took, except for its finale. After exploring the interior, we were led up a series of switchback staircases outside to the roof of the two columns. From there, we were led across the rooftop on a narrow pathway bounded by a parapet that came up to perhaps my hips.

My acrophobia kicked in. That barrier between us and the plaza below seemed much too low to be of much good, and I backed myself as far away from it as I could. I inched along, flat-backed to the wall of the church.

One of the guys in our group passed by a gargoyle and said to me, "C'm-here, Dan. I've got a great idea for a picture."

How many troubles were started with exactly that question?

He borrowed my wool hat and placed it on the gargoyle's head. And as he prepped to take a picture, the wind whipped it off the grotesquerie and blew it below.

I mustered the courage to lean forward to see it drop on another walkway underneath the rose window, far below where we were. It didn't land in the courtyard where I would have a chance to nab it when we descended.

It was being held hostage by Our Lady.

I immediately knew I had to get it back -- it was a favorite hat and I wasn't eager to ride out the rest of the winter in London without it.

We descended with the tour and I immediately searched out someone on the cathedral staff to help me.

The language barrier was huge. "Mon chapeau!" was about all any of us could manage. We pantomimed and pointed our way through the other details.

Our aide wasn't too happy to have to a) figure out what these idiot Americans wanted and b) act on it. But he did. Within 15 minutes or so, I was reunited with my hat.

"Merci! Merci!"

I'm not sure what the French word for eye-roll is, but I got an unmistakeable one.

The punchline to this story came after we got back to London and my housemate got his film developed (hah... remember having to get film developed?).

The shot was perfect: A leering, crouching gargoyle. And a hat in mid-air about two feet in front of his skull, about to submit to gravity's pull and cascade downward.

That hat is now long-gone. Many of my pictures from that trip are also MIA. And I've long ago lost contact with the friend who suggested the picture.

And now the Cathedral itself is nearly lost as well.

But this much is true: Catholicism is all about Resurrection. And even though pieces of this story have been lost forever, the church in Paris will rise again.

Vive la France!

Swing and a Miss!

Philly baseball season 2019 opened last week with Fightins' against the Atlanta Braves.

And surprisingly, there was a big finish -- the grand slam that sealed a win. Would that all (most, some, any) games generated this kind of big finish.

In all honesty, I've never really gotten excited about baseball.

First off, grand slams aside, the game to me is deadly dull to watch: It is long stretches of nothing followed by the occasional something.

Zzzzzz. 'Ray! Zzzzzz...

Now I know that's a broad -- and somewhat harsh -- judgment. Devotees of the subtleties of the game will tell me that I'm not watching closely enough. That there are areas of finesse throughout every pitch, both offensively and defensively. And that once cued into these finer points, the game becomes fascinating.

Uh-huh. There are also a hundred miracles involved with the blossoming of a dandelion in the lawn. That doesn't mean I'd make an afternoon out of watching one.

No, as I've stated before, I'm much more of a football guy. Sixteen games from September to January; three playoff games and boom... a Super Bowl.

Done and done.

So baseball to me has two strikes against it: The games themselves are too long and boring. And the season itself -- lasting from Easter to Hallow-frigging-ween -- is just too much.

Maybe my disinterest stems from being so lousy at the game as a kid.

Each spring, Dad would haul out the gloves, and we -- my brothers and I -- would gently massage the winter out of them with splurts of Neatsfoot oil. We'd then spend some twilight spring evenings tossing the ball back and forth.

I enjoyed these catches. They were more about spending time with my dad and brothers than honing any skills.

And it wasn't like I was totally inept at hitting and fielding. In the neighborhood, we played a form of baseball using a mini-bat and a tennis ball, and these epic games would stretch on throughout summer evenings until darkness made it too difficult to see anything.

But somehow it all fell apart -- the coordination, the camaraderie, the hustle, the fun -- in a more formal setting.

I did play little league. Lamely.

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" indeed... As long as it's a football game.

1972 shot of me on the left, in the blue cap/uniform

The Dog-Gone Car

I am an unapologetic owner of a dog. And a car. And said dog rides in said car. Which has its upsides and its downsides.

As a result, I have a dog-car. In fact, in our family, I have the dog car. As in, the only one he's welcome to ride in.

It's easy to identify a dog-car. Let me swipe an old conceit from David Letterman (from his pre-Ernest Hemingway beard) and inform you on how to tell if you own a dog-car:

Top Ten Signs You Own a Dog-Car

10. It is a make/model that is not a two-seater or a high-end sports car. It's some form of SUV with enough room to accommodate a crate (or crates).

9. The carpet contains enough embedded hair to knit a sweater.

8. The glove compartment has a stash of empty poop bags; the console between the front seats has dog treats

7. The license is either LOVZDOGS or the bumper has some dog-related sticker on it. Or both.

6. Opening the door releases the aromatic scent of citrus/lilac/pine-needles, attempting but epic-failing to erase the distinctive perfume of wet dog

5. Somewhere under one of the seats is an errant dog toy. Or if you're really inattentive, an errant toy dog.

4. It may be a payment or so behind schedule, owing to the budget-busting cost of a) canine medication; b) a vet bill; c) show entries; d) compensation for a neighbor's ruined flower beds; e) 2,392 items classified as "dog stuff"; or f) all of the above.

3. The interior has an abstract-art look to it, comprising flecks of mud that were produced after a rain shower when the dog hopped in the back and you uttered the panicked phrase "NO! NO SHAKE! DO NOT SHAKE!" just seconds too late.

2. Despite the number of meals you've eaten while driving, there is not one consumable crumb anywhere to be found. And come to think of it, that used Burger King wrapper is gone, too.

AND THE TOP SIGN YOU OWN A DOG-CAR (drrrrrrum-roll):

1. Windows. Nose-art. 'Nuff said.

Make 'Em Laugh!

From an item about a year ago from "The Mirror," a daily British tabloid.

Two women were kicked out of a cinema for laughing out loud.

The movie they were ejected from was Absolutely Fabulous, a 2016 comedy.

Some of the details are fuzzy -- reportedly, nobody in the seats complained until theater management approached the ladies in question. Apparently, the conversation that ensued is what other movie-watchers found objectionable.

But whatever the source -- tee-hees or talking -- the din was enough to give the pair the boot. They received a set of complimentary passes on their way out. I guess the idea was to have them return for a three-hankie weepy or a terrifying horror movie, where the respective risks would be crying or screaming too loudly.

I have never been asked to leave a theater for laughing too loud. I have, however, been chided by Kristin for my enthusiastic response to big-screen funny business.

"Geez, dad! All I could hear was you going ‘HO-HO-HO! HA-HA-HA!’ It was so embarrassing!!!"

I mean, who can help it? The Pink Panther and Back to the Future and Ghostbusters are funny and do warrant an audible, appreciable response. I remember screaming in the theaters over Airplane and the Naked Gun movies. And I wasn’t alone.

I have noticed, though, that modern-day movie audiences seem to be very reticent in the way they process a movie.

I remember seeing The Little Mermaid when it came to theaters in 1989. The energy and dazzle of "Under the Sea" was so impactful as a musical number that when the last chord of the song sounded, the audience erupted in applause!

It was a beautiful demonstration of a shared experience that a theater full of total strangers was compelled, in unison, to perform an act that made no sense at all. 

Think about it. Exactly who were we applauding? It certainly wasn't singers/dancers in a live show. It was, I guess, a set of animators, artists, musicians and singers who had done their work months prior.

But I got it. The sequence was so inherently theatrical that we responded theatrically. 

Honestly, it was a little thrilling. It was energizing. It was nostalgic. And it was wholly appropriate.

There's something about a large auditorium full of people exploding in laughter at the same moment. It happens at concert halls and comedy clubs and professional theaters all the time.

And it used to happen in the movies, too. But not so much anymore.

I was thinking maybe it had to do with theater size, that because they're no longer the cavernous spaces that fit hundreds of people, audiences have lost the anonymity that allowed them the freedom to burst out laughing and not be ridiculed for it.

Or maybe it's people becoming more aligned with watching movies on personal devices. I don't think anyone would sit on the subway watching a comedy on their iPad and physically laugh about some screen gag.

Claire and I were discussing this and she rolled her eyes: "This isn't yet one more thing you're going to blame on Millennials, is it?"

"No," I said defensively. ".... um... Not really."

She did, however, see my point. "I'll laugh at a comedian at a club, but not in a movie."

"Why?"

"I don't know... I don't want to disturb anyone else."

"Well what about crying?" I asked.

"Crying can be quiet," she said. "Nobody really needs to hear it."

Maybe it has something to do with movie comedies that frankly aren't that funny. I never really appreciated the male-centric slob comedies of the 1970s and 1980s (Animal House). So the 21st century counterpart, the female-centric slob comedy (Bridesmaids), doesn't have much appeal either.

All I know is this. Should you be seated near me during a revival showing of, say, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, don't expect me to hold it in.

I will laugh.

Out loud.

And hope I'm not ejected from the theater.

Thomas Wolfe Was Right

Nope: You can't go home again.

Not even virtually.

This is 4235 N. Marshall Street, Philadelphia, PA, via Google Streetview, dated July 2017.

This was the home of my paternal grandparents.

It was a place of parties and visits, of overnights, of Thanksgivings and Christmases.

Of springerle cookies, tall birthday cakes, personalized bags of Halloween candy and large Easter eggs with our names scripted on them in white icing.

It was where we reconnected with cousins, watched home movies from a whirring projector and sang while washing/drying dishes.

It's where Sunday dinners ended with the family gathering in front of the TV to watch Disney's The Wonderful World of Color, and where we as kids protested mightily if Dad suggested we leave before the show ended.

The concrete pad in the photo above used to be a small but lush patch of lawn that my Pop-Pop kept neat and tidy with the help of a rotary push-mower.

Those gates hide a porch that was once shaded by a set of green-striped awnings. Hanging those awnings every spring was a task that Dad was often asked to help with (apparently it was quite a struggle), but the comfort they offered from the setting summer sun made the task worthwhile.

There was also furniture on that porch, including a lounge chair that tipped upward, raising the occupant's feet for added comfort. I remember us as kids -- cousins, neighbor kids, brothers and me -- piling on that chair and screaming with laughter when it would unexpectedly tip.

I remember that house vividly.

When we would occasionally stay over and it was time to go to bed, we were told to to go "...up the wooden hill," which meant to climb the staircase to the second floor. We were also reminded to "scrub our teeth" rather than brush them.

I remember the upstairs bathroom had a skylight, which I thought was very cool.

And the basement had a separate toilet... not a full bath, but a commode that came in handy when traffic upstairs was heavy.

That basement also had a thousand treasures. Pop-pop would project home movies -- shots of people we didn't even know -- but he would hold our interest by running the films backward and cracking us up.

He also liked to use a screwdriver to short out the front doorbell. We would stifle giggles at the sound of Nana walking to the front door, only to find nobody there.

So many memories: Their silvery artificial Christmas tree. The scroll on the end of the bannister as it landed in the living room. The step-stool/seat in the kitchen. Their small garbage can on the back stoop. The fence in the backyard, with its iron humps. The twin beds that, when we kids stayed over, could be pushed together to make one large place for three brothers to sleep.

Those sleepovers often also involved a trip to the zoo, which Pop-pop loved. And a walk on Sunday morning to Mass at nearby St. Henry Parish.

My great-grandmother -- Pop-pop's mom who lived with them -- had "her" chair in the living room, from which she watched Lawrence Welk on television.

That home was the site of my first encounter with a color TV set.

And a window air conditioner. I remember escaping the summer swelter by just standing in front of its adjustable louvres.

I also remember that Dad and I would often travel there on Sundays after Mass for a visit. My brothers were other-occupied, and Mom was sleeping after a night-shift as a nurse. So Dad and I would drive in, bringing a box of donuts. We would gather at the kitchen table and just talk.

I don't recall the exact timeline of my grandparents departure from that house. I know Pop-pop died there in the early 1980s. Nana continued to live there alone, much to the concern of the rest of the family. I know she was there as late as the mid-1980s because when I studied abroad in London in Spring 1984, I sent her an Easter card that she saved. And the address is 4235 N. Marshall.

She saved that card. I have it now.

Nana understandably but regrettably sold the house at one point, driven out by a decreased ability to attend to the upkeep and an increased worry about her security.

She moved a few times after that, continuing to live on her own after her husband passed. As the years rolled on, she needed full-time nursing care and was put into a facility where her safety and health were assured. She passed away at 103.

The Marshall Street house remains. Not in its former glory, but it's still there. And I guess there's something to say for that.

And if ghosts do exist, whoever lives there, when things are quiet-quiet, may just hear singing from the kitchen.

As if someone washing and drying dishes is easing the task by humming a tune.

Mulch Ado about Nothing

This past weekend, I celebrated Mulch Day.

Mulch Day in our house is the one day a year when I roll up my sleeves and clean up the bed in front of our house.

And truth be told, as noted prior. I'm not a big fan of Mulch Day.

Maybe it's because the whole concept of mulch was foreign to me.

I came from a non-mulch home. Growing up, we never mulched anything. We mowed the lawn. We pulled crabgrass here and there. Maybe planted a bulb or two.

But nothing on the order of Mulch Day.

There really was no need. My childhood home had a similar bed out front, below the picture window that looked into the living room. But it had some kind of ground cover -- I want to say pachysandra, but I'm not sure -- that rendered mulch superfluous.

But our home now has no such eye candy. And Eileen comes from a family that was firmly devoted to mulch.

So each spring, I do a general cleanup of the bed and end it all with a coating of moist, black, shredded, smelly wood chips.

There's something from the Myth of Sissyphus about all this: I pull every weed. I spray those tiny ones that are emergent. I trim the bushes. And I lay the mulch.

And initially, it's all neat and tidy.

But generally, before July 4, the bed's a mess again. The weeds have shoved their way back into prominence; much of the mulch has disappeared (where does mulch go? Does it blow away? Is it removed by birds? Do squirrels eat it? I have 0 understanding of where $120 for 12 bags of mulch goes in a mere handful of weeks); and the bushes need a haircut once more.

It's a sweaty, muscle-aching, sunburny job.

I will say that it all looks so nice when I'm finished.

And I do enjoy that it seems to herald the firm arrival of spring.

But all things equal, if we're talking about "days" in May, this much is true:

I much prefer the leisure of Memorial Day to the work of Mulch Day.

Leap of Faith, Three Letters... Answer? Pen

I've written here in the past about my love of Scrabble (actually, two posts, both almost verbatim... my blog-memory for topics isn't as sharp as it should be).

As noted (twice), I inherited my talent with tiles and two-letter words from my Mom.

From Dad, however, I inherited a different word skill: tackling each Sunday's big-sized New York Times crossword puzzle.

This arrangement is the exact opposite of the Scrabble tradition:

Whereas Scrabble was driven by Mom and shunned by Dad, the NYT puzzle was a Dad-favorite that Mom had little patience for.

Actually, she would attempt it. But she somehow couldn't wrap her head around the themes. And the wordplay -- rather than intriguing her -- seemed to annoy her.

She also had a nasty habit of working the puzzle in pen, which was against Dad's 11th Commandment:

Thou shalt never work the NYT crossword in pen!

Side note: I actually did this -- worked a puzzle in ink -- for the first time about three weeks ago. We were on a long flight, and I had packed the puzzle in my carry-on but neglected to pack a pencil. I borrowed a pen from Eileen (airports apparently don't sell pencils), held my breath and dug in.

Actually, things turned out pretty well.

The tips I've learned in tackling crosswords all came from Dad. He taught me, for example, that if a clue is plural, so is the answer. So, for example, a clue of "Alleyway Felines" would be CATS; whereas a clue reading "Alleyway Feline" would be CAT.

And that if the clue contains an abbreviation, so does the answer.

And that the overall theme of a puzzle is usually a play on words or a series of truly groan-worthy puns.

And that there is value in putting a puzzle down for a while and coming back later. Sometimes, he would say, a fresh perspective brings a couple more answers.

... and that's a truism that applies to life itself, as well as crossword puzzles.

Dad and I would work these puzzles together throughout the week. The folded paper would rest on the kitchen table or in the living room, and when one of us felt up to the task, we'd pick it up and pore over the open spaces.

When Dad would dig in for a while and then realize he had hit a series of dead ends, he would hand the page to me and always say the same thing:

"I finished all the hard ones; you can finish the easy ones."

Yeah, right.

Although I've done other crosswords -- those in our daily newspaper, for example, or the enterainment-oriented ones that used to show up in our published television listings -- the only one that I've stuck with is NYT. A lot of the others are stupidly easy, which erases all the fun. A puzzle that can be completed accurately in 20 minutes is a puzzle that's not worth doing.

My collaborations with Dad on the NYT crossword faded over time. When I moved out and got married, sharing the puzzle became too difficult. But we would often discuss our progress when talking on the phone.

His passing in 2006 put an end to our tag-team solving.

But I'm still at it.

And every now and then, when I get stumped, I imagine him looking over my shoulder and offering a hint or two.

Or suggesting a different read on a clue.

Or pointing out an error.

Which makes it a good thing that I work in pencil.