Category: Uncategorized

Birthday girl

The little girl in the above photo is the daughter of my friend Janet Tanglewood and her husband Wendell H. Ford, Jr. in Chicagoland. I have never seen the girl, who is now probably four years old. She is a beautiful child, innocent. She looks to have a future of amorousness and good hearted deviousness evident in her bewitching eyes and turned up nose. (for more information on her probable ancestors see www.bewitched.net)

The story of my friendship and one time romance with Janet dates back to when we met at a park near Howard and McCormick in Skokie, IL. She was a freshman at Regina Dominican High School and I was a freshman at Niles West High School. Janet had manners, class and knew table etiquette. She was schooled in an elite girls school on the North Shore and picked up many snobbish tastes in clothes, art and movies tempered by a great sense of humor. She wore L’air du Temps perfume and clear cherry lip gloss

My family moved to NJ two years after I met Jacque and the next year I went off to school in Boston University. We always remained friends though, and still talk almost every week.

I regretted never marrying her, and still to this day have dreams about her a couple of times a week.

The Afghani baby.

We have a new addition to our family (actually b.2/10/04) whose parents are of Sri Lankan and Russian Jewish ethnicity, therefore entirely American.

The baby girl has beautiful eyes and a winning disposition. She seems to smile and babble a lot. Nobody knows where her light eyes and paler skin came from, but her eyes and forehead favor her Father, while her mouth and chin come from Mom.

Because she seems to blend the best of Asia with Eastern Europe, she has been dubbed “the Afghani baby”.

Orange Chevy wagon.

We accidentally walked into a hot rod car show today in Old Pasadena.

Black t-shirts, goatees and knit caps are required to attend hot rod show. 

John Paul II
The death of Pope John Paul II is seismic, for he stood as a bridge not only between two centuries, but between heaven and earth, totalitarianism and freedom, spirit and suffering.

He is the last in a line of figures from the last quarter of the 20th Century who once ennobled and led us in optimism and hope: Reagan, Princess Diana and Pope John Paul II. Yet the Holy Father lived in the most wrenching times of war, death, hunger and oppression. His indomitable strength, intellectual fiber and moral character withstood the crushing horrors of Nazism, Communism and religious persecution.

He did make a miraculous and wonderful journey to the very pinnacle of the Church, a 2,000 year old institution of learning, faith, hospitals, saints, and political power. Yet his heart and his soul always remained devoted to the sick, the oppressed, the needy. His orations and blessings were bestowed upon every individual on every continent. The world, in turn, gave him love and respect.

After the long dark night of Communism, a warm and rising sun of spirit and liberty shines upon Eastern Europe. Poland, long the epicenter of Stalinism, lived to witness the very son of Krakow sit in the chair of Peter. Freedom and Karol Josef Wojtyla are synonymous.

Our world is actually changed sometimes by that rare human being who can summon the better angels of our nature. John Paul II the was one of those kings of humanity who practiced and lived the modest and humble life so well.