47

Happy Birthday to me! Well, to me and everyone else celebrating today. I share this birthday with baseball's J.D. Drew, football's Mark Gastineau and Joey Galloway, comedians Richard Dawson and Dick Smothers, musician Joe Walsh, and a trio of gorgeous actresses: Bo Derek, Sean Young and Veronica Hamel. This was also Bobby Kennedy's birthday. I woke up a little over an hour ago after a pretty good night sleeping, and my 47th birthday started out about as good as I could ever hope. My wife Debbie Veasey was already awake and nearly ready to leave for work, but before she left she greeted me with a big smile, a hug and kiss, and a sincere "Happy birthday, honey!" And she had a birthday card for me too. One of those with a real nice message and signed off with her love. It really doesn't get any better than that. Now here I sit alone at my dining room table just like many other mornings. A fresh, hot cup of Wawa coffee beside me, loaded up with their irish cream, which I understand that they are discontinuing. Wawa is one of life's pleasures, the local chain store for food, cigarettes, newspapers, and other essentials of American daily living. Here at the Veasey Ranch, we buy bags of their coffee so that we enjoy the brew not just on the run, but right here at home. The irish coffee creamer product that Wawa produces at their dairy is my personal favorite add-in. It's creamy and tasty, and along with a couple of packets of Equal, helps make the perfect pick-me-up beverage in my world. I hope the rumors turn out false about the irish cream. Don't you just hate it when some store discontinues some product that you have enjoyed for a long time? So it is with me and birthday cakes. As a boy growing up in South Philly, my local corner bakery shop was a little place called Hier's Bakery at 3rd & Wolf Streets. You could live and die right there at that intersection, which was just around the corner from our little house at 2321 S. American Street. The four corners at the intersection of south 3rd Street and Wolf Street featured Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on the southeast, the Murphy-Ruffenach funeral home on the northeast, a doctor's office on the northwest, and Hier's on the southwest. Those institutions are still on those same corners today, though the actual doctor practice has changed, the funeral home gone through a merger, and the bakery ownership has also changed a number of times. When it was Hier's back in those 'Wonder Years' days for me of the late 1960's and early 1970's, they always featured a cake that became my birthday cake every year. The cake was layered with a chocolate layer on top of a yellow cake layer. Running between the two cakes was a delicious, thin strip of white cream. Surrounding the whole creation was the most incredible, full, sweet, dark-colored chocolate icing. And then at the top was another layer of that same white icing that ran through the middle. I would always take a slice and eat the yellow layer first, making sure that my fork took the thin vanilla icing layer with it. This was only the opening act though. Then I would move on to the upper chocolatey world. There was something about the interplay between this particular chocolate cake, chocolate edge icing, and white top icing that exploded in your mouth. I can taste it still this morning, even though I have not had a piece of that cake in about 25 years. At some point during the 1980's, whomever owned the old Hier's business sold out. I did go in a couple of times and inquired about the cake, but the new owners didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I never saw my birthday cake again. My guess is that the recipe is likely laying around somewhere, maybe in some drawer at the home of a former bakery owner. Maybe the recipe has been passed along, and the cake is being made today in some bakery out there that I have no idea even exists. It is one of those little things in life that was a regular feature of my childhood that is now gone. It is something that was here, is gone seemingly forever, and that I do miss. To find it again one day would be a miracle akin to a Christian explorer locating the Holy Grail itself. Well, okay maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. I hope that little slice of heaven from my childhood is not repeating itself here in my middle-aged adult life with the Wawa irish cream. But one thing that I have learned over these 47 years that I celebrate the anniversary of today is that things change. But as to those things large and small that we have come to welcome and enjoy in our lives, the little things that make life just a wee bit more enjoyable, they will stay with us forever, at least in our memories. I thank God for that childhood birthday cake. I thank God for Wawa irish cream. I thank God for the woman that I woke up to this morning. And I thank God for these past 47 years. Happy birthday to me!

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

I was born and raised in the Two Street section of South Philadelphia, and during the late 1960's and into the mid-1970's my parents sent my brother and I to school at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a Catholic elementary school. The school provided me with a tremendous education, and my experiences there were some of the most memorable and valuable of my life. I'll get to some of them in a future post. But one thing that I can say for sure is that never during the entire eight years that I spent at what was known to us simply as 'Mount Carmel' do I recall being told just who or what was our namesake. So it's well past time to take a little trip to the web libraries and find out just what and whom the namesake of my original and still thriving parish is all about. Per Wikipedia, Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel and the West Bank, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. It is characterized by a 'richly fertile hillside', thus its name which means 'plantation of high quality trees' and its tradition of being known as 'the vineyards of God.' Israel's 3rd largest city of Haifa is located in its northern slopes. What is regarded as 'one of the most important human fossils every found' was located in one of Mount Carmel's caves during excavations there in the early part of the 20th century, in the form of the skeleton of a female neanderthal now named Tabun I. These excavations were able to trace human developments passage from hunter-gatherer groups to more complex agrigultural societies over what has been estimated as a span of roughly one million years of human evolution. In a key battle of World War I, General Allenby led the British in the Battle of Megiddo, which took place at the head of a pass through the Carmel Ridge, and which led ultimately to victory over the Ottoman Empire. The mountains have long been considerd sacred, with the great prophet Elijah being most associated there, and with a legendary altar to God having been built there as well. The Carmelites were a Catholic religious order founded on Mount Carmel in the 12th century at the site of what was believed to have been Elijah's own cave. A community of Jewish hermits was said to have lived at the site of the cave continuously since the time of Elijah, and the cave was situated at the highest natural point of the entire mountain range (pictured above.) The Carmelites founded a monastery there, and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary in her 'Star of the Sea' (Stella Maris, another South Philly parish) aspect, which was an ancient manifestation of Mary as a guide and protector to those who work and travel on the seas. The monastery changed hands many times during the Crusades, even spending time as a Muslim mosque, and Napolean even turned it into a hospital in 1799. The original monastery was destroyed in 1821 by the Ottomans, but a new one was later built by the Carmelites on the same site. The scapular, a religious artifact or collar consisting of a length of cloth having two pieces of material at either end, often with religious images, is the object most associated with the Carmelites and their relationship with Our Lady. It is said that the Blessed Virgin appeared to Saint Simon Stock, an English Carmelite, in Cambridge, England in July of 1251 and conferred the first scapular on him asking him to take "this scapular of thy order as a badge of my confraternity and for thee and all Carmelites a special sign of grace; whoever dies in this garment, will not suffer everlasting fire. It is the sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, a pledge of peace and of the covenant." It is said that if one faithfully wears the scapular constantly until death, they will receive eternal salvation, assuming that you receive penance for grievous sins committed. So the Virgin Mary in her manifestation to Simon Stock, and thus specially related to the Carmelite order, is the answer to the question 'who', and the scapular is the answer to the question 'what', in regards to the background of the namesake for my childhood parish. Founded in 1896, the church and school for Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish are still alive and well at 3rd & Wolf Streets in South Philadelphia. I was raised and lived most of my life until a little over a decade ago, over three decades in total, on American Street, a small street that looked out over the church, and I heard its comforting bells chime every Sunday morning. My maternal grandfather, Ray Gilmore, was active with the church for a long time, and my own mother, Marie Veasey, was a regular worshiper through her adult life battling illness. Thanks both to these direct examples and my schooling there, I will forever carry wonderful memories of a Catholic education and community. An education that gave me the foundational skills to be able today to create, write, and maintain this blog, and to research the very origins of the parish namesake, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The Assumption of Mary and Marie

This past Friday, August 15th, is celebrated each year as the Feast of the Assumption in the Catholic Church. 'The Assumption' represents 'the happy departure of Mary from this life', and 'the assumption of her body into Heaven'. The online New Advent encyclopedia further refers to it as "the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin." It is thus incredible to me, or maybe in retrospect not so much so, that this holy day coincides with the anniversary of my own mother's passing. My mom, Marie Therese Gilmore Veasey, passed away on August 15th, 1998, alone in her home on what was also a Friday in that year. I had the unpleasant, but perhaps fortunate, task of finding her. Unpleasant for obvious reasons. Fortunate in that I can't think of anyone that I would have rather walked in and found her that day. I was always close to my mom, and had lived with and helped take care of her throughout my twenties and into my thirties while she dealt with an often debilitating illness that had robbed her of much of her adult life. Still, my mom was able to enjoy the best things in life, both big and small. She was a huge church-goer at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church which was located directly across the street from her home in South Philly. She loved her mystery dramas on TV, such as 'Murder, She Wrote' and 'Matlock', and the woman was a nicotine and caffeine fiend. I don't know if I ever knew someone who both smoked and drank coffee as much as she did. She also was able to overcome her illness much of the time, especially in her last years, as medications got more advanced and effective. She was able to not only attend, but dance at the wedding of Deb and I three years before her passing. Though I was initially incredibly saddened by her passing, I realize now that she is with the Lord, and freed from the shackles of that earthly illness. She would have absolutely loved her great-grandchildren, Elysia and Reznor, and would have loved hanging out with us in our backyard on Larkspur Street, but she never got to experience any of that. Perhaps that is our loss more than hers, because she most assuredly is watching down on all of it from her place in Heaven. In that place, she has also most assuredly been in the presence of the Virgin Mother with whom she shares the anniversary of their earthly passing. Mary loved her son, Jesus Christ, without reservation. As a child, she scolded him when she needed to, as a young man she supported him no matter her reservations, and until the day he died and beyond that she had faith in him unconditionally. I never felt anything less from my own mom. When life left me at times beaten, bloodied, and scarred, my mom was always, always there with a warm smile and a genuine hug of encouragement. Mary died in the presence of all of Christ's apostles, and was laid in a tomb much like her son. But when that tomb was later opened, Mary's body was gone, and the apostles rightly concluded that the body had been taken up to Heaven. Mary was not only the mother of Jesus Christ, the very human direct link to God, but a mother to all of us. As with all of my blog stories, the title is a link to more information, and you can learn much more about Mary by clicking there. While it may seem to some as a sad day not worthy of celebration, I disagree, and feel that the anniversary of Mary, and my own mom Marie, leaving this earth is also the celebration of their arrival in Heaven. Now that is something to truly celebrate.

A Third Story on American Street?

I grew up in a traditional, small South Philly rowhouse in the 2300 block of south American Street. Our block was one of the few in our working-class rowhouse neighborhood that had houses on only one side of the street. Our houses were situated on the east side of the block, between Wolf & Ritner Streets. On the west side was Our Lady of Mount Carmel church and school (pictured here from the Wolf Street entrance.) The neighborhood eventually became known to some as 'Whitman' and it led into the next neighborhood north known as 'Pennsport', but nobody from down there used those names. To us, and to those in the other South Philly neighborhoods, we were 'Two Streeters', the name owing to 2nd Street which ran through the neighborhood and was home to many of the Mummer's Parade clubs who maintained their headquarters facilities along the street. For those neanderthals not familiar, the Mummers are the thousands who parade each year on New Year's Day through the streets of Philadelphia in what is a cultural phenomenon of our town. But that topic for another day. Down on Two Street, we were mostly white of Irish ancestry, with some Germans and Polish mixed in as well. South Philly is largely known for it's Italian community, but they were further west from us. There weren't too many Italians down on Two Street. So back to the topic of this blog post: A third story on American Street. Our block was, and still is for the most part, a long block of two-story homes with peaked roofs in front. It is a kind of signature to the block and a couple of others around that area. But some one has committed a travesty, and they have done it right in my old house! They put a 3rd story on American Street, and man does it look out of place. Now those houses are small, so I absolutely understand the idea of wanting more space. Growing up in that house, we had a first floor living room of moderate size that led into a smallish kitchen, big enough to keep a kitchen table for the family to eat around, some cabinets, and your appliances, sink, etc. A door in the back of the kitchen led directly out into a small concrete yard. Upstairs on the 2nd floor, there were three smallish bedrooms. The main bedroom was in the front of the house, looking out on American Street, and that was, of course, the parents room. It was my parents bedroom for years, and it became my own room during my first marriage. There was a small middle bedroom without windows, but with a skylight, and then a small back bedroom that on our block looked out over the rear schoolyard of the public Sharswood School. In between these was a smallish bathroom. Enough space for a tub, toilet, sink, and a small closet. If you haven't caught on to the key word here to describe the house, it is 'small'. But it was just the right size for a young family starting out, which is what it was meant to be in the first place. My parents bought the house in 1960, and the house remained in our hands for the better part of the next four decades. It stayed in our hands through divorce, illness, child-rearing, and death. My dad started to fix it up back in the early 70's, and was doing a pretty good job, when my mom's illness and their ultimate divorce put a halt to that effort. The next real effort at fixing it up came after my mom's death in 1998, when my brother did some work there to prepare it for sale. We used to order pizza on many a Friday night when we still lived there as a family back in the late 60's and early 70's from a place called Celebre's (still serving South Philly to this day), and my dad, brother and I all did it one more time for old time's sake before the place finally sold around 2000 or 2001. My understanding is that this is the 2nd owner since we sold it, and as far as I am concerned they may have gained more space, but they have taken a huge bite out of the character of American Street. With one little 3rd story addition, they have shown me that truly you often can't go home again even if you wanted to. Our block of American Street was used for filming scenes of the movie Invincible, the Mark Wahlberg underdog story of Philadelphia Eagles receiver Vince Papale. In the film, Papale's father's home is just two doors from my boyhood one, and you can see our old porch and the look down-the-block that I grew up viewing on an everyday basis. It's nice to have that preserved in a major motion picture. If you ever decide to stop down to Two Street, and ride over to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel at 3rd & Wolf Streets, you will find American Street just to the east of the church. A tiny street that is tough to turn down and drive on if you're not used to it, you won't be able to miss the monstrosity of which I speak, the now 3-story home in the middle of the block. What was my childhood home, and the childhood home to my kids, is gone, and so is the character of my little, lovely block. It now just lives on forever in my memories.