Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Poem: 'Ja Cie Kocham'

Mary Baron, 1897-1974

Ja Cie Kocham

When I was a boy,
JFK was president in Washington, DC,
And all the words were Polish in Garfield, New Jersey.

All the words were Polish
As I held my grandmother’s sandpaper hand,
And we walked to Sunday Mass at St. Stan’s.

All the prayers were Polish.
All greetings were Polish on the east side of Lanza Avenue.
Everyone around us, an immigrant.

Returning from church with Babci,
We stop to pick a chicken to slaughter.
She haggles with the butcher in Polish.

At dinner, I devour tender slivers of the chosen chicken,
Mixed in a soup with chunks of rice,
As pots of boiled cabbage simmer on her oven top.

I catch her eye in the changing colors of the kitchen window:
A flickering glow from the outline of a neon bottle
Above the door of the neighborhood liquor store.

Babci knows me, although we don’t speak the same language.
She knows I hate the smell of cabbage.
She knows I won’t, I can’t, complain.

English words were never spoken in Babci’s house.
English words were elitist and foreign.
They confused and intimidated her.

Her child, my mother, spoke English rebelliously when she was young,
Loving all the English words she needed for survival,
Instilling that love in me.

Now I am my mother’s keeeper.
We have both grown old.
My grandmother died long ago.

I sometimes catch Babci’s daughter
staring at ghosts outside her kitchen window.
So I whisper in her ear, although I know she can’t hear me.

I whisper the only three words I remember in Polish.

Monday, January 8, 2024

What Songs Make You Happy?

As a Notre Dame alum, I don't have a rooting interest in tonight's college football championship... except for one thing:

I hope all the Michigan fans are happy at the end of the third quarter.

I hope they all sing "Mr. Brightside." Because, inexplicably, this song makes me irrationally happy.

This past Saturday, my wife Nancy and I were at Jersey Girl Brewing in Mount Olive, NJ, where a local cover band, Not Enough Jeffs, was doing a great job playing popular party songs. People were dancing; everyone was happy. But Nancy was mortified when they started to play "Mr. Brightside."

She threatened to take a video of my reaction, but didn't... because she loves me. But if she had, there might now exist a forever-embarrassing clip that would look a lot like this notable scene from "The Holiday":


Two other songs that my family knows make me irrationally happy are "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen and "River Deep Mountain High" by Tina Turner.

I've previously written about "Thunder Road" here, and "River Deep Mountain High" crept up on me recently (thanks to the Celine Dion cover version) when I attended the musical "Titanique" with my daughter.

My wife and I recently attended a fun and tasteful wedding reception where the couple employed a live fiddle player and a Scottish line dancing instructor. We tried our best to dance, and laughingly failed... but at the end of the evening, I had the urge to ask the otherwise unoccupied DJ if he might play "Mr. Brightside" to end the evening.

Nancy convinced me it wasn't the right setting, so I didn't. In retrospect, of course she was right.

Do I love her? My, oh my.

Not Enough Jeffs performing on a Saturday night in New Jersey

Still, I'm conflicted about these guilty pleasures. Not Enough Jeffs's playlist includes songs like "Flagpole Sitta," "What I Like About You" and "Sweet Caroline" (the "anthem" Trevor Noah cleverly sends up in his latest Netflix comedy special). So I'm thinking that perhaps I'm a cliche of a certain age.

Should I care, though? Isn't it wonderful some songs simply make people inordinately happy, for no rational reason?

What are some of your favorites?

I'm sure there are a few I should check out, to expand my horizons... and maybe learn how to dance.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

A Toast to Frank O'Hara

Lately, I've been haunted by the ghost of Frank O'Hara.

I found many references to the poet on the website and recent event invites from The Poetry Society of New York. They even sell a Frank O'Hara t-shirt.

Then, last night, I participated in an online workshop, led by New Jersey poet Michael Paul Thomas (you can find information about his future workshops... highly recommended... at his LinkedIn or by following him on Eventbrite).

Out of nowhere, Frank appeared.

Michael read from O'Hara's New York City "Lunch Poems," as he led us through writing and revision exercises. He based the discussion around how we develop a consistent practice in creative work.

"Do we always have to wait for lightning to bolt down our arm to the pen?" he asked, then answered with a description of O'Hara's practice of writing a poem a day during his lunch hours in the city. He simply described the world around him, then leveled it up with a poetic twist.

Michael urged us to write what we saw around us last night. So I did, and I've revised it a bit today.

I offer this poem to you, Frank, in Blogger's best typewriter font. I beg you to accept it.

Now, please stop haunting me.

---------

A Toast to Frank O'Hara on This Winter’s Solstice 

I’m sitting in a house that would otherwise be abandoned.

It’s my grandparents’ old home,

Which is still oddly filled with warmth

On this cold night in western New Jersey.

 

When I was a boy I would walk to the open field in the side yard

And gaze at the stars: the only source of light,

Save for the glow of the house and the headlights

Of a lone, lost, angry traveler bound for Pennsylvania.

Tonight, that sleepy country road is a four-lane highway.

From the upstairs bedroom window, I see spotlit car dealerships

Displaying comically large American flags across what is now Route 46.

 

The back road used to border acres of farmland.

Now, it provides access to the busy warehouses that replaced the farms,

And to the back entrance of TD Bank, whose garish green signage glows

Past the bones of the barn where Nonno used to keep chickens and a cow.

In the backyard, a cell tower looms over the ghost of a small orchard,

Which Nonna used to tend to make homemade wine.

Now, there’s a holiday-lit brewery among the back-road warehouses.

 

The hour is too late to talk to the Sun. When I look to the heavens,

Now, I am surrounded by ever-changing, earthbound constellations.

The stars have fallen from the sky,

And darkness envelops me from above.


Wednesday, November 15, 2023

The Legend of Peter Thonis

Peter Thonis was my boss for 12 years, retiring 10 years ago. Late last week, a family friend called with the news that Peter had died.

As his son Chris posted on Facebook, Peter’s doctors told him he had 3 months to live, given his Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

 

Peter’s reaction? “You can’t base this stuff off of years-old data. And, as you know, I’m not the norm.”

 

That was 17 months ago. Peter was not the norm; he was transcendent.

 

---------

 

Here are 3 scenes of what it was like to work with Peter Thonis:

 

Scene 1

I try to call Peter on an important matter, and he answers with a whisper. “I can’t talk now,” he says. “I'm in a doctor's office.”

 

I say, “OK, I understand…”

 

He doesn’t seem to hear me, though, because he goes on to explain that he was about to undergo walk-in surgery to repair a stomach scar covering stitches that had never healed properly.

 

“But it's something I'd rather not talk about,” he says.

 

“OK,” I repeat. “I get it. We’ll talk some other time.”

 

Instead of silence, I hear Peter’s dramatic whisper on the other end of the line.

 

“It was a knife wound,” he says conspiratorially. “It was from a fight when I was young.”

 

Scene 2

I walk into Peter’s office and say, “I need to leave work early today. My mother-in-law is coming for dinner.”

 

Peter: “I know what that’s like. Go! GO NOW!”

 

I head toward the door.

 

“Wait!” he calls out, “Unless you want me to think of something for you to do right now, so you have to work late tonight.”

 

Scene 3

Peter arrives at my office door at 8 a.m. to say good morning. We were working in an office tower at 1095 Ave. of the Americas, the same building where my Dad used to work. He’s completely out of breath.

 

“I’m going hiking with my brother this week in the White Mountains. I’m walking up the 32 flights in the morning to get used to climbing again.”

 

Peter spies an unopened bottle on my desk. “Could I trouble you for some soda?” he asks.

 

“Of course,” I quickly untwist the top and hand it to him.

 

“I really hate to do this,” he says, taking a swig and immediately regaining his wind.

 

“Wait!” He waves the plastic bottle in front of him. “Is this diet Coke?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good!” he exclaims, hurrying off.

 

30 minutes later, I get a phone call from Peter.

 

“Was there an 8:30 meeting?” he asks.

 

“No, you canceled that last week.”

 

“Good, because I was on the 8:30 call, and no one was there.”

 

---------

 

These scenes do not portray Peter’s excellence in actually doing his job.

 

This is a photo of him with our friend and co-worker Valerie Vedda. The occasion was when Peter received the Communicator of the Year Award from IABC-NJ (International Association of Business Communicators) in 2006. Peter’s formal obituary outlines his many other career accomplishments, but here’s one real-life example of his work ethic:

 

On Veterans’ Day weekend 22 years ago, I was mildly annoyed during a day off to interrupt my leaf raking at my suburban home to return a message from Christine Nuzum of Dow Jones. It was about possible phone service problems. I logged in to work and discovered it was in light of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Queens. In the short time it took me to get back to Christine, I also discovered that she had reached out to Peter simultaneously, and he had already responded.

 

Peter had been hiking on a mountaintop in southern New Hampshire. The wind-chill factor approached minus 20 degrees, but he had stripped away three layers of protective clothing to get to his pager, find his cell phone, and dial her back without his gloves on.

 

When it came to Public Relations, he single-handedly prevented multiple media disasters over the years.

 

Here are 5 representative, if unorthodox, PR lessons I learned from Peter Thonis:

  • Regarding crisis communications, the most effective operating philosophy can be summarized in one phrase: “Go ugly early.”
  • Regarding leaks to the media, the advice is this: “A leak isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it isn’t material, it may be just interesting.”
  • “There’s a thin line between being a ‘thought leader’ and becoming a ‘poster boy.’”
  • “You can’t say the word ‘jerk’ to the Daily News and not expect to be quoted.”
  • Regarding a fallback PR position on just about anything… When in doubt, your standby sound bite should always be, “Bring it on.”

Peter was also able to make tough decisions with ridiculous ease. He once described this side of his management style. He said, “You know, Bob, you only have to shoot one person, and it will never happen again.”

 

By far, his best quote about PR came in the middle of an otherwise meandering, boring meeting. Out of nowhere, he suddenly said this:

 

“Our goal shouldn't be to find a better way to tell the same story. Our goal should be to find a better story to tell.”

 

---------

 


As for the person, here are 10 facts about Peter (never call him “Pete”) Thonis:

  • He couldn’t say the word “surreptitious”
  • His favorite finger food at a reception was pigs in a blanket
  • At one time in his life, he was recruited by the CIA
  • He allegedly had the ability to stuff an entire orange in his mouth
  • He once sat at the bar at Kennedy’s (now closed) on West 57th Street and watched an entire baseball game (Peter was a huge sports fan) with Bill Murray -- but only because he was clever enough not to acknowledge who Bill Murray was
  • He had a pathological hatred for the New England clam chowder as served in the Verizon Center cafeteria, fondly recalling how his Mom made chowder from fresh ingredients
  • He once made a map for my family to follow that highlighted a week’s worth of activities on Cape Cod, adding the warning: “Avoid Hyannis”
  • He could, and would, show you how to use a wristwatch as a compass
  • He was an expert limerick writer
  • Peter and I both, unbeknownst to each other at the time, took violin lessons in late middle age

In truth, that last point is one of the only things we had in common.

 

I could never match Peter’s strength or confidence… or empathy. I recall his big heart. I recall his comforting embrace of a tearful co-worker as we all stood in stunned silence from our panoramic 32nd-floor view of the burning World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

 

I recall his support at the funeral home in Totowa, NJ, and his patience and kindness to my family after my Dad died. Peter revealed that he was filled with anger that his own father had passed away in his 50s.

 

I also recall only one day in our 12 years together that he did not show up where I expected him. When I asked Valerie about it that day, thinking he was perhaps unreachable because he had lost his 7th… or 8th… or 9th Blackberry device, she confided that Peter had taken off in his car for New Hampshire in the pre-dawn hours to attend to a health emergency involving his best friend.

 

---------

 

By coincidence, I had lunch with Valerie and her husband earlier this month in New York City. She spoke fondly of visiting post-retirement Peter at his mountainside home (that, when described, seemed akin to the setting of “The Shining”).

 

Excuse all the movie references, but Peter was a bit of a film buff. I’ve had other bosses who loved movies… notably, earlier in my career, Tony Pappas.

 

I began writing this on November 10th, the 5th anniversary of Tony’s death. He was another larger-than-life boss who led media relations for New York Telephone (later NYNEX). I’ve likened Tony to Peter O’Toole’s swashbuckling character in the 1982 movie “My Favorite Year.”

 

I never thought I’d work for anyone like Tony again. Until I met Peter Thonis.

 

Both, foremost, shared a love of exquisite writing.

 

Both had great, though differing, tastes in movies. Tony liked foreign films and “The Godfather” franchise. Peter was more of a fan of “Igby Goes Down”-type films and had an irrational love of Godzilla movies.

 

One of Peter’s favorite movie scenes was from 1997’s “As Good As It Gets.” It’s when Jack Nicholson compliments Helen Hunt by saying, “You make me want to be a better man.”

 

That statement, that scene, resonated with Peter, who always strove to be better.

 

I’ve thought of this often these past few days. It’s inspiring.

 

I’ve also thought of a post-credit scene to give these words a fitting ending:

 

In 2012, Peter sent everyone on his Christmas list, including his Mom, packages from Wine Country with a note, “Enjoy every moment of the holidays.” But someone hacked into the order and changed the message to “Enjoy every f**k’n moment!”

 

Such simple, profound advice, no matter how it’s phrased. Who knows what the future holds for any of us?

 

I only know what Peter Thonis, the legend, would have to say about that:

 

Bring it on.


Moonlight in Chatham during a family visit inspired by Peter

Sunday, June 4, 2023

The Evolution of a Saturday

Posting here about an ordinary Saturday, which began when I noticed a Rambler Rose blooming on a vine that my wife and I feared had died over the past winter.


Later, we traveled to Queens to see the New York Mets -- who lost. It was cold and windy where we sat. The day before, the temperature had reached 90. The scoreboard said the temperature was 63 at game time, and it never changed, but it seemed much colder in the wind.


At the end of our row of seats sat a couple with a baby. A man sitting next to me with his son returned from a food run in the early innings with a wool Mets hat he had purchased for the couple's baby. They were strangers when the game began; they left as friends.

At the end of the game, Mets relief pitcher Adam Ottavino (an excellent photographer who, like me, grew up a Yankees fan) talked to the New York Post about his time with the Mets and Yankees. He said the modern Yankees fan has "a little bit more of an expectation of perfect play and an All-Star at every position. Whereas I think the Mets fan, the expectation isn't quite as high. It's more of a level of hope."

Hope is a journey where great things are possible but not expected. I prefer this approach to life: the unexpected act of kindness, the unexpected rose.

While we were at the game, my daughter stopped by our house to feed the cats. She texted photos of post-prandial Batman, illustrating an essential lesson in portrait photography: the angles make all the difference. 🙂



Before returning home, we stopped for a Guinness and a Harp at a favorite Irish bar -- The Cottage in Teaneck, NJ. The bartender there reminded my wife of her late brother, who lived a kind, too-short life. We toasted him.

The place was filled with laughter. Small groups of friends were competing in a trivia contest, and one woman wore a black sweatshirt proclaiming, "Pigeons Are Liars." On one of the TV screens above the bar, I watched Aaron Judge -- my favorite baseball player even though he's a Yankee -- crash through the rightfield bullpen gate at Dodger Stadium to rob J.D. Martinez of at least a double.

On the journey home, I stopped to take a photo of St. Mark's Episcopal Church. Every Sunday, I post images of churches in New Jersey on one of my Instagram accounts.

It's an odd hobby, but it often fills me with hope.

Saturday, March 18, 2023

Poem: 'Byzantium in Jersey'

My grandfather, 1969, Budd Lake, NJ

Last week's poetry prompt from Dimitri Reyes intrigued me greatly.

"Today is my grandfather's birthday," Dimitri wrote. "Though he is no longer on this plane, I still hear him in my mind and I honor him through voice & spirit... When doing research into my own Puerto Rican culture and discovering how I was going to traverse 'creation myth,' my grandfather's successes and failures helped fill in the spaces -- fully and honestly."

I listened to Dimitri's poem, "Papi Pichón" ("Father Pigeon"), and the poet invited me to "create my own bird."

So this week I couldn't get my own grandfather out of my mind. He died in 1976, and just in the past three months, I've mourned the death of three other close and extended family members.

I also thought of a favorite poem, one I used to recite to my daughters as a lullaby, about the passage of time. This morning -- thinking of Yeats' bird of hammered gold and gold enamelling, and imitating (poorly) the iambic pentameter and rhyme scheme of "Sailing to Byzantium" -- I wrote the following (although, PS, I'm still debating that next-to-last line... considering "This, my father's father's mysterium"):


Byzantium in Jersey

 

This, my grandfather, in his Sunday best:

a cigarette dangling from its holder,

a tattered suit, a worn Italian vest,

with me at his side, decades less older.

He does not hold my hand. There is no rest.

He lectures as we walk, points my shoulders

toward a butterfly he displays to me

along the shores of Budd Lake, New Jersey.

 

This, a back country road, is my classroom:

milkweed, honeysuckle, red columbine,

hummingbirds, spotted touch-me-nots in bloom,

blue robbins’ eggs, goldenrod, dandelions.

My grandfather names them for me, assumes

I will remember that sparrow, that vine,

the chicony, those edible lilies,

the songs of mimicking catbirds we see.

 

These have all vanished for me.

 

I live in the suburbs, reminisce now

about ancestors. One Sunday, I walk

the Hackensack riverbank in a drought.

During the golden hour, a gyring hawk

directs my gaze to a sun-kissed bough

where a crow blinks back in silence, stalking.

This, I know, is my father’s father’s song

of what is past, or passing, or to come.



"Varry and Kate," my grandparents.
Photo by my father.

 

Thursday, March 9, 2023

Poem: 'Grief's Cliche'

I have only one prompted poem to offer today for February, and it was written in March.

Another that I wrote was too personal (naming names). I submitted still another for publication (with the assurance it was otherwise unpublished), and the last of the weekly prompts I received from my poetry Patreon was a reading, rather than writing, assignment.

The prompt for the poem below was simply, "How is your body a mausoleum of flowers?"

"Mausoleum of Flowers" is the title of this poem by Daniel B. Summerhill, and the image had special meaning to me as I contemplated the funeral and burial of my uncle on March 2.

For the past week, I couldn't get this short poem out of my head. I kept thinking of the roses pictured here, the ones gathered in front of the altar of Sacred Heart Church in Clifton and later placed upon the grave at Calvary Cemetery in Paterson. This was my first draft:

Missing You


I pricked my finger on the rose
I cast atop your grave.


My droplet of blood,
camouflaged by the buds
the others threw on you.


Then you were hidden too;
your body, a mausoleum of flowers.


While each of us beheld
the shorn beauty of your life
and pretended we would live forever.


---------


And this is where I landed (revised, 3/24/23):


Grief's Cliche


The rose I cast upon your coffin
is scent-less in the dead winter’s cold.

Thorns, rendered painless;
my fingertips, numb.


Curiously, I see a timid trickle of my blood
mix with the petals already covering you.


Then, lost in red, you are hidden too:
Your body, a mausoleum of flowers.


I exhale. A puff of air dissipates like incense.

My life shorn, my body suspends itself.

Lungs empty, I kill time at your grave.

I crave belief, yet question all truths:

This pretense I am sharing
a final breathless moment with you.


Sunday, February 26, 2023

Remembering Fr. Julian in 1,000 Words

93 years ago today, a mother was cradling her first-born son in her arms at St. Mary’s Hospital in Passaic, NJ.

She had been told her newborn had only days to live or, at best, would spend his life in a wheelchair.

She was a woman of strong Catholic faith, and she offered both their lives to the service of God, if only He would spare her son.

Her name was Rachel Varettoni. She was my grandmother, and I called her “Nonna.” She lived a long, devout life of service – raising and supporting a family of three boys, and instilling in them a profound faith in God’s goodness – and she died 22 years ago on the eve of her 100th birthday.

I called her first-born son “Father Julian.” He fully recovered, albeit (as his beloved nephew Bill reminds me) with one leg shorter than the other, resulting in chronic back pain later in life. As his mother had vowed, Fr. Julian indeed devoted his life to God. He grew, both physically and spiritually, to be the strongest man I ever knew.

That’s us in the photo, after he carted toddler-me around the grounds of his parents’ home in Budd Lake. It was a modest farmhouse on a fair-sized plot of land, purchased during The Depression, where Fr. Julian was its lifelong caretaker. It’s where he suffered a seizure that led to his death last Thursday night on the literal eve of his 93rd birthday.

 

---------

 

Fr. Julian with my sister; Budd Lake, circa 1969;
he chopped all the wood in the background.


Most people remember Fr. Julian at the altar. He was pious. His sermons were thoughtful and eloquent. They didn’t come easily to him since he was uncomfortable as a public speaker. Few people realized this because he practiced diligently – and enlisted the aid of my father with some of his words – to give sermons that would make his mother proud.

He accomplished so much as a parish priest in service to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson. You can read about this in his obituary: his devotion to music ministry (which he also inherited from his mother); his progressiveness in the service of those in need; his lifelong joy in building and fixing and refurbishing… most often with his own capable hands.


Fr. Julian at the altar at my parents' wedding in 1955.
Dad waited to propose to Mom until after his brother
was ordained so he could officiate at the Mass.


He was also the priest at every family wedding, and present at every family gathering. Decades ago, before cell phones, he would record family events with a video camera perched on his shoulder. He also chronicled details of vacation trips on a portable tape recorder.

Fr. Julian was an adventurous traveler: once taking my mother up in a hot-air balloon over Colorado, and once taking my sister Sue and me on his parish’s pilgrimage to Rome. He led us up the centuries-old stone steps of an otherwise closed parapet so we could see a breath-taking, God’s-eye view of St. Peter’s Square.

He married my Mom and Dad. He was the priest at every family funeral. He buried his parents and my Dad. Later in life, he said Mass for my wife and children and me around Nonna’s dining room table every Christmas Eve.

But here’s what I remember most about Fr. Julian. I remember him most in Budd Lake, where he returned for decades every Wednesday on his day off and on Sundays after Masses, to take care of his mother and their home.

When they were young, Fr. Julian and his brothers used to sit on the brick steps by the front porch and harmonize in song. The house faced Route 46, which was a country road back then, and the brothers tried to identify each car by the make and model as it passed. Fr. Julian always won this game, because he could identify the make and model of every car by the sound of its engine, before it was even in sight.
Nonna with her three sons on her 99th birthday.


When I was a boy, I watched Fr. Julian effortlessly perform tremendous feats of strength. He was a carpenter, like Jesus. But he was also an electrician and an architect and a plumber and a gardener. He could fix anything. He could build anything. He would always buy whatever he needed at Sears.

In the summer, he shucked freshly picked rhubarb with the same sure and graceful hand movements of a concert violinist. In the fall, he loved the solitude and repetitive grace of roaming his land on his tractor to collect the fallen leaves.

I once visited him in his basement workshop and heard him, alone, giggling like a schoolboy. Fr. Julian had taken apart his car’s carburetor, and he was reassembling its hundreds of intricate pieces… simply for the joy of it.

Fr. Julian enjoyed jigsaw puzzles; here's the one
he was working on before he died.

As the years went on, and some of the property was sold, Nonna’s garden and grapevines shrank in size, and now lay barren after her death. All the bottles of her homemade wine are empty, but the small greenhouse Fr. Julian built for her still stands. So do the remnants of a path that he cleared behind the old garage. He had installed Stations of the Cross in that small patch of woods, where he and his mother could wander and pray.

---------

Now this extraordinary life has come full circle.

I learned the sad news about Fr. Julian’s death in a phone call from my sister. They were especially close, and my strong sister Sue was in tears. I had taken my Mom to visit with Fr. Julian just days earlier, and it was such a happy, life-affirming visit. Sue was happy to hear this. My wife, when I told her about Fr. Julian’s death, remarked that it was “the best birthday present he could have gotten.”

She said this because Fr. Julian had a profound, unquestioning faith handed down from his mother. My own mother told me that during their recent visit Fr. Julian said he was ready to go “home.” So this is what I believe, without any doubt:

Fr. Julian woke up on his 93rd birthday in Heaven, with Nonna holding him in her arms once again.



Mom, me, and Fr. Julian this past Monday


Thursday, November 24, 2022

Marking Mom and Dad's 67th Anniversary

Following is an excerpt from my contribution to "New Jersey Fan Club," an anthology published earlier this year by Rutgers University Press.

As described by the editor, on this page with ordering information, the book features personal essays, interviews and comics, offering a multifaceted look at the state's history and significance. My essay was about why I post images of New Jersey churches on Instagram every Sunday, and I wrote this about my favorite church:

My favorite church is the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, which opened in October 1954. It was the site of my parents’ wedding on Thanksgiving Day -- November 24, 1955.

People flock to nearby Branch Brook Park every April for the Cherry Blossom Festival. New Jersey has more cherry trees than Washington, DC, with over 2,700 bursting into full bloom each spring.

It doesn't matter to this church. This church is always in full bloom.

Its magnificence is such that my mother, upon finding out she could secure the cathedral for her wedding, sought permission from her pastor in Garfield not to have her ceremony at her family's local church on Lanza Avenue.

Instead, Mom arranged for her immigrant Polish-speaking parents to take the first limo ride of their lives to travel to Newark, where her bridesmaids needed to stitch together two red carpets to cover the distance down the long center aisle.

Mom's wedding was an American fairy tale made possible by my wife's great-grandfather. He was one of the Irish day laborers who laid the stones when the cathedral’s construction began at the turn of the century.

My Babci was in tears when she beheld Sacred Heart. It appeared to her then, as it does to me now, the closest place to heaven in New Jersey.

---------

Dad died before my parents could celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Yesterday, Mom and I visited his gravesite at Laurel Grove in Totowa and, just like every year, Mom placed a single red rose there.

Mom and Dad, November 1955 and October 2005