Mike Time

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Mike Shortall

Bummer …

Step 1 (See Chapter 1) of the Lawn Cleanup Project ran into a light – but steady – rain. Bummer …

So instead I get to enjoy a little Mike Time in a house that’s actually empty. It will only last a few hours, so no time to spare. I feel so guilty.

(Really, really tried to say that with a straight face.)

Loading some free library CD music up to the iPod, concentrating on Joe Cocker this time around. Then maybe a little reading.

Will certainly be wondering if the idiots D.C. – on both sides of the aisle – will get their acts together and pass a budget.

Generally, I agree with the Republican goal of reducing and bringing under control Federal spending. But when the jobs of 800,000 civilian employees (Me included … And who – by the way – are already under a potential five-year pay freeze) are at stake, I get a bit annoyed at reports that policy riders (EPA, NPR, etc.) are the real worm in the pie.

Must be too much to ask, I guess.

And this is taking way too long.

Outta here … For the sake of Mike Time.

My Philly sports memories, circa 1964-80

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Mike Shortall

My earliest sports memory is walking into the living room where my father is watching a football game on the black-and-white TV. He was a solid Philadelphia Eagles and Notre Dame football fan. I recall sitting down and asking him which team he was rooting for – the team in black or the team in white. Whichever team he said he was rooting for, I would say that I was rooting for the other. I’m sure he really appreciated my rebellious nature!

Here are some of the images and names I remember most from the mid-1960s to 1980:

Dr. J afloat, suspended beneath a wild Afro, Michael Jack … firing that bare-handed grab on the charge, Norm Snead, Ben Hawkins … chinstrap flying,

Ben Hawkins

Timmy Brown, Pete Retzlaff, Cookie Rojas, Clay Dalrymple, Bobby Wine, walking through the tunnel to catch my first glimpse of the field at Connie Mack Stadium (Thanks, Dad!), Ballantine rings, Longine clock, the right field “spite fence”, a double distelfink doubleheader, frantic ’64 anxiety, Gene Mauch, silver wings on green helmets, horrible green wings on white helmets, Bobby Jones and Billy Cunningham, Chris Short and Jim Bunning, Doug Favell and Bernie Parent, Wilbert Montgomery breaking through the line against Dallas (’80 NFC Championship), Harold Carmichael and Tim Rossovich (renown glass-eater), Bobby Wine and Tony Taylor, Bobby Clarke and Bill Barber, Rick MacLeish … hair flowing, 1980 Superbowl fizzle, Dave Schultz, The Broad Street Bullies, Darrell Dawkins … Chocolate Thunder, Franklin Field, The Spectrum … blow-away roof, The Vet, Philadelphia Phil and Phyllis,

Philadelphia Phil & Phyllis

The Bull, The Secretary of Defense, Fathers Day ’64 with Jim Bunning, LCB Line, Ross Lonsberry, Dallas Green, Danny Ozark, Dick Vermiel, Moose Dupont and Big Bird, bench-clearing brawls, The Hound, Joe Scarpatti, Leroy Keyes, Wes Covington and Tony Gonzales, The Tugger … arms raised, 1980 World Series victory, Pete Rose … spiking the ball, Boone-to-Rose … The Catch, Joe Kuharich, Leonard Tose, Ron Jaworski, Bill Bergey, the Curt Flood debacle, Richie Allen … massive homeruns, the car, the headlight, “Coke” and “Trade me” scrawled in the infield dirt, Johnny Callison, Bob Uecker, Rick Wise … 2 homerun/no-hit game, Larry Bowa, Bake McBride, nosebleed seats for the ’76 MLB All-Star Game, By Saam, Richie Ashburn, Harry Kalas, Paul Owens, Rudy Carpenter, Steve Carlton, Kate Smith, Dornhoeffer and the Watson brothers, Eddie Van Impe and Barry Ashbee, Stanley Cups in ’74 & ’75, fog-bound games in The Aud (Buffalo), powder blue Phillies road uni’s, George Brett meet Dickie Nole and have a seat!

A case of priest sexual abuse too close to home

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Mike Shortall

I am sickened and disgusted … again.

News broke last night and was prominently reported in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer on a new sexual abuse case linked to children attending an Archdiocese of Philadelphia school. In this case several individuals, including two priests and a sixth-grade lay teacher were indicted by a grand jury for the abuse of two male students – ages 10 and 14 at the time of the assaults – at St. Jerome Church and School in Northeast Philadelphia.

This is the same parish both my wife and I attended as a children during the late ’60s and early ’70s. I graduated in 1970 … Carol in 1972, along with my brother and several other friends. Almost everyone I grew up with was associated with St. Jerome. And many of us have friends and family still living there. Carol and I were married in the church. And both my parents and Carol’s mother were buried after funeral Masses at St. Jerome.

I think having so many personal connections to that parish – its neighborhoods and its people – makes this more personal.

I left St. Jerome in 1985, when Carol and I were married. We then attended St. Martha’s, also in NE Philly. Currently, we live in Horsham, PA and I have been an on-again, off-again member of St. Catherine of Siena. More off-again – than on – for several years, mostly due to my failed faith.

But not my failed faith in God, or in the belief that His Son, Jesus Christ came to us as Savior. No, it’s much more my failed faith in what the Church has become in its quest to minimize liability in cases of sexual abuse of children by members of its clergy.

The Church’s reactions to these assaults is simply incomprehensible, unless it is placed in the context of a very wealthy plaintiff desperately scrambling to protect financial assets from victims’ need for closure and their righteous desire for justice. In any other context offered by The Church, it makes absolutely no sense.

I have failed long ago in trying to comprehend the need of some adults to prey on the trust, innocence, and vulnerability of children. If this was the extent of the problem, I could live with my sense of disgust and the compelling urge to clamor for state-sponsored castration in these cases.

Unfortunately, it goes way, way beyond my tolerance level to witness the continuing actions of The Church when confronted with priests (and now a teacher) who prey on kids. How is that The Church can claim that its people ARE The Church when they consistently refuse to protect their flock from the wolves that abuse?!? How many times can you transfer an individual, against whom credible accusations of abuse exist, from church to church, from and to positions of authority and trust, without performing the only decent actions required … turning the accusations over to law enforcement for investigation and getting the abusers out of The Church and away from children?!?

The grand jury report, resulting from the Philadelphia D.A.’s investigation, states that one of the accused, serving as Secretary for Clergy, “… was acutely interested in shielding abusive clergy from criminal detection … and … the Archdiocese from financial liability.”

This is the crux of the problem, a church more interested in protecting assets than in protecting the true Church – the people who worship there.

I have made two attempts since turning 40 to return to The Church. In one attempt I even went beyond my usual apathetic attitude towards spiritual involvement in a way that made me feel good about myself and what The Lord meant – and could mean – in my life. But in each attempt, renewed allegations of clergy abuse of children and the more infuriating revelations of inaction or outright cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. has smothered whatever flickering flames my attempts rekindled.

It is no longer worth the effort.

Memories of My Northeast Philly, circa 1966-1974

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Mike Shortall

Center of this Universe: Ashton & Willits Roads
Frankie Masters, Joseph’s Delicatessen, wiffle ball, Holme Circle, Winchester Swim Club, St. Jerome Church & School, Father Dougherty, 25-minute Masses, “Winchester, Colfax & Narvon lines …”, EJ Korvettes, Crown Cork & Seal, friendly football games, Angus Road, nasty football rivalry, Grant & Ashton, Grant & Academy, John Byrnes GC, the fence along Torresdale CC, Pollock School & playground, softball, FlatIron, chain-link basketball nets, the “Big A”, turtle jungle gym, huge angled sheet-metal slide, Route 20 & 88 bus, Philadelphia Electric Co substation (Ashton), North(east) Philadelphia Airport, Ryerson Road, Ryerson Circle, the 5 & 10 cent store (Willits), Shop ‘n Bag(s), “Free Soviet Jews” (B’Nai B’Rith??), 15-cent burgers at McDonalds (Frankford Ave.), Linden Avenue projects, I-95, Roosevelt Boulevard, Roosevelt Mall, Thomas Holme School, Cannstatters, Father Judge HS, dances in the gym, Cottage Green, the original intersection of Ashton & Willits, Lincoln HS, the football bowl, Thanksgiving football games, concrete roads, Bluegrass Shopping Center, grass median strips, Nazareth Hospital, Pennypack Circle, jungle-themed miniature golf, concrete underpasses (before and after), Shriner’s Hospital, Pennypack Park, beer parties, cops, running, beer-dumping parties, street hockey, Flyers Stanley Cup street celebrations, Holy Family College, Nazareth Academy, girls at Archbishop Ryan/St. Huberts, robin-egg blue police cars (post-’74?), PTC, Crispin Gardens, pee wee football, little league, The Evening Bulletin, newspaper shack on Ashton near Winchester SC …

(Disclaimer: Dysfunctional memory may result in not-completely-correct recollections. Please feel free to correct any inconsistencies via Leave a Comment/Post a Reply below.)

Sister Mary Elephant

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Mike Shortall

Sister teaching a class 1960's Certainly my experiences in the parochial schools of Philadelphia were no different from anyone else in the late 60’s/early ’70’s. We had nuns we loved and respected. And then there were those we resisted with every fiber of our being, in many cases for no other reason than they expected way more from us than we were willing to give them, with no appreciation for their efforts to prepare us for the outside world. The clarity of hindsight forces us to recognize that those Sisters – despite our rebellions and organized disobedience – always had our best interests at heart.

But that’s beside the point.

Whenever opportunity provides for a group of Catholic grade school products to gather, their stories and laughter inevitably address those unforgettable experiences at the hands of the more colorful creatures in dark-colored habits. They tend not to dwell on those less-than-memorable nuns who were simply great teachers. No, the best stories involve those blessed religious figures with the unique personalities, quirky mannerisms, and – in some cases – borderline psychoses that rendered them unforgettable.

Of these I had a few …

“None” looked like this though …

My fondest memory by far was of saintly Sister Ann David in the first grade at Immaculate Conception (1962-66) in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. (The school was located on E.Chelten Ave, but was lost years ago to a fire.) She had me hook, line, and sinker as a wide-eyed, overwhelmed fledgling. She was kind and gentle … an excellent choice for the task of quelling my grade school terrors. Another sterling example of what Sisters could offer in terms of positive childhood experience was Sister Bartholomew, who taught at my second parochial school, St. Jerome (1966-70) in the Holme Circle section of Northeast Philly. She was the perfect mix of grandmotherly love, combined with a stern refusal to put up with the antics of a herd of prepubescent teens.

The characters-in-habit that I remember most – however – were those in my later grades at St. Jerome. There was Sister Cecelia in the fifth grade, whose seemingly non-stop lotion-rubbing hands were always held almost prayerfully at chin level, as if preaching her lessons to her flock. There was also the bent-over Sister Mary Magdalene, always short-tempered with a face reddened by boiling blood pressure. She once beat a fellow student so crazily she actually peed herself … or so the legend goes.

… more like this.

Needless to say, said fellow student probably got what he deserved; and it’s hard to look back on those days, when kids our age enjoyed expressing our independence and testing the limits of religious patience, without a good bit of guilt. Exasperating the tender inclinations of the good Sisters (Okay … To be perfectly honest, not all of them had tender inclinations.) as they tried to instill in us the favorable qualities of the Palmer Method, the Baltimore Catechism, and long division were not our most Catholic of moments.

But I digress …

By far our most “Sister Mary Elephant experience” came in the classroom of Sister Margaret Leonore, a droopy-faced, ruddy-complexioned saint. She was so clearly over-matched by the rebellious miscreants who swept through her classroom every day. Her venue was the vehicle for my only foray into the realm of class clown, which may have been the height of my grade school rebelliousness. For I was not brave enough to try it with any of the other nuns. But Sister L always seemed like such a push-over, almost incapable of discipline. And that was a recipe for classroom disaster!

So the patients ran the asylum. Every possible disruption, class delaying tactic, and sophomoric stunt was trotted out to howling laughter and a slowly building pot of boiling frustration in the good Sister. But it could only go on until the limits of Sister Leonore’s patience were breached and explosively overwhelmed. If you listened closely, you could hear the tension rising in her voice; her aggravation level bubbling over. You knew it was just a matter of time.

“Children …. Be Quiet. OK … That’s enough. Sit down, please. OK, class, Let’s get back to work. Class … Class … Please be quiet! Class … Class …

“SHUT UP!!!”

Ah … the memories …

Of course, I’m sure we drove them a bit too far from time-to-time.

Roots

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Mike Shortall

(I hereby pledge – despite this blog’s name – to keep the lawn references to an absolute minimum. Having said that, I think “Roots” best describes a discussion of where one comes from … a sort of “from the ground up” perspective. Apologies to Alex Haley!)

Product of lower-middle-to-middle class, blue-collar Irish-American parentage … More American than Irish in a time when most adults in my version of the ’60s and ’70s more readily identified themselves with their hyphenated semi-European ethnicity. Fact is, they were probably the last generation that relied so heavily on hyphenated Americanism to describe who they were. But back then in Philly, it was still easy to identify sections of the city as having been at one time predominantly German, Polish, Italian, etc.

Dad was a World War II vet and worked in a steel processing plant – not in one of those huge, imposing steel mills that dotted much of Pennsylvania, making steel from raw ores. It was more a facility processing steel into finished industrial products (wire, sheet metal, washers, fasteners, etc.). He worked very hard in a dirty, sweaty environment. But despite working in a union shop, it often seemed he could barely keep our financial heads above water. He was a strongly committed and active Roman Catholic, insisting on maintaining his tithe to The Church even when he had trouble making ends meet. Dad had his faults, but being anything other than a good father wasn’t one of them.

Mom was a mom, and solely a mom. Nothing other than wife and homemaker was necessary in describing her. She stayed at home. She never held outside employment. Didn’t have much of an outside life period. Never even drove a car. Relied on Dad for everything. It was remarkable in a way you NEVER see today. But in the end, it was extremely limiting to her sense of self outside the family. I never really appreciated what she gave up until Dad passed away, and she was left with no way to do anything for herself. But as a mom, she was always there. We always had that presence in the house. And I honestly can’t recall more than a day here or there when she wasn’t there for us. It was a sacrifice that’s impossible for me to adequately put to words.

Both Mom and Dad came from HUGE families … the Irish-Catholic way! It mattered not which side of the family was involved; extended family gatherings were incredibly loud and crowded affairs. To a kid it was both intimidating and wondrous. Who were all these people?!?

Of course, my parents were also products of The Great Depression (These stories alone could shape a few posts here!) and World War II, which had to be extremely difficult circumstances for large families. So I often wonder whether that was why – despite their standing as “good Irish-Catholics” – there was only me, my brother Patrick, and my sister Joanne. But I sure do remember many references to “the rhythm method”!

There is so much more I could go into here … some other time perhaps. But going only this far, serves my purposes for the moment.