Month: September 2015

What I missed not being brought up in Pittsburgh? Aunts, Mom and Grandmothers in the kitchen cooking. When my mother rushed us out of Pittsburgh before I even turned 3, I lost a great experience. I remember hot streets and beaches in Miami, but not FOOD. Today as I walked around I shared a few photos on text messages (I think my sisters think I am crazy) and now I’m offering some day to share photos with anyone who asks (as soon as we get home and I print them). Thanks for walking with me if I texted you today as I sniffed and ate my way along Penn Avenue from near the Point of the 3 rivers, down to 25th street in "the Strip District." Back in the day, food used to come in to food warehouses and distribution points (like it does to Seattle’s Pike Market, or New York’s markets), and restaurants grew up right there. So today we ate pirogis, mele, Italian sausage and pepperoni rolls with home made sauce, cinnamon bread, biscotti, and Chuck bought salami and parma ham…. WHAT is my blood work going to look like? Perhaps I better just give in and let the doctor call me a fatty and take the pills he keeps threatening me with. And, burp, I am thinking about a nap! Well it was hot out there. God bless you.

I choose to use the word dead in my title rather than victims, because we are talking about heroes. Many people fought to live and fought against evil on September 11. So today at the submarine convention we remembered heroes. In case the Twin Towers and the Pentagon dominate our memory, a post script to the day is that a United Airlines flight 93 left Newark airport with 33 passengers, one unborn baby, 4 hijackers and 7 flight crew crashed at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plane was delayed in take off from Newark 25 minutes. That was enough time for people on that plane to hear from friends and relatives that airplanes had attacked at 3 sites. Headed for San Francisco, the plane was overtaken by 4 hijackers at 9:28am and she banked and turned over Cleveland to head on a SE course headed presumably for the White House or Camp David which is 85 miles SE of the crash site. No one knows exactly what the planned final destination was. I tried to imagine how I would have acted that day. 13 people placed 37 phone calls to report what was happening onboard. When it became clear that their plane was to be used as a weapon, the 33 passengers and crew took a vote and decided to counter attack. Probably locked into shock, fear, and grief, they prayed the Our Father (this was heard on cell phones) and then, presumably led by Todd Beamer, they rushed the cockpit using a flight attendant food cart and boiling water prepared for burning the highjackers by the flight attendants. At 9:57am the cock pit voice recorder recorded shouts, thumps, crashes, breaking glass and plates. Investigators speculate that the hijackers remained in control of the aircraft, but the plane pitched onto its back and at 10:03am drove into the ground at 563 miles per hour exploding with a huge fireball. First responders arrived within 15 minutes but there was nothing but a crater and a large debris field that today has been thoroughly investigated and covered with wild flowers and grasses. This debris field is surrounded by a black low wall. The plane was 18 minutes from Washington DC when it crashed coming to ground from the NW. The descent path is marked by a visitor center / museum on a hill, and a long white wall with the passenger and crew names carved on it. Not yet completed is a walk way out to the point of impact that today is a temporary walkway and a large boulder. We went first to the Memorial Plaza which is a slab of concrete that borders the debris field. From there you can view the descent path and a giant boulder that was the point of impact. We placed a wreath on the Memorial Plaza. When I read the names of the dead, one name Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas was followed by and unborn child. What a loss. We then went to a small chapel that was originally a Lutheran church sold and turned into a feed and seed barn and purchased by Father Al Mascherino to be a permanent memorial chapel for the tragedy. The tiny chapel stands in Shanksville, on the flight path of the doomed airliner, on a holy mountain, as our host suggested today, and is a beautiful testament to the faith of a people who saw the need for a place of refuge and prayer for peace. Father Al, passed away, wrote "Tread gently on our hills. Welcome visitor, tread gently." You are on ground hallowed by people who, in the final moments of their lives, demonstrated courage, strength, purpose and commitment. In the sanctuary is a lamp that is shaped like the crater, yet a perpetual light shines. Above it flies an airplane. There are beautiful stained glass windows in this little chapel. One is a gift from Congregation Emanu-El Israel signifying the grace and wisdom of God. There is a mural with rolling thunder clouds and 40 stars called "How Great Thou Art." As we left the church, Father asked each submariner to toll the giant steel bell built in 1860. One toll for each soul. 40 tolls. It is called thunder bell because the people of this peaceful place heard thunder one day and it changed our lives. We ate lunch and were entertained by a wonderful trio of actors who sang patriotic songs and celebrated American heroes starting with Patrick Henry’s speech. It was a wonderful 45 minute celebration of America with all the heroic songs including God Bless America and the National Anthem. The ride back to Pittsburgh was a long one but the host put in a John Wayne biography so we watched John Wayne for 2 hours from his first film to his last (the Shootist). Wayne died after receiving a medal from the White House "John Wayne American." Pray for America and for the world as refugees leave home in numbers that remind us of the Irish exodus and the Exodus of Jews to Israel. We still have the opening of the convention tonight with a Welcome Aboard Party. God bless you.

Last evening after we unpacked at the convention hotel, we were picked up by Marion and Bob who took us up to the top of Mount Washington to a lovely seafood restaurant with a "to die for" view of 3 rivers, all of Pittsburgh, and most of Pennsylvania if you have an active imagination! We looked down on the submarine we will visit this week and on the baseball and football stadiums. My cousin Bob joined us with his friend Maureen so we had a table of 6 to share old stories about my Uncle Bob and my dad and their family growing up. This morning we started Labor Day with a 2 1/2 hour parade that was key noted by Joe Biden. When we realized the parade was going right by our window, we watched from the 17th floor. The sub vets walked in the parade with a car trailing a little submarine that is carried to all the conventions. Marion picked us up at 12:30 and we went to the church (St John the Baptist) where our grandparents (Michael and Sarah) were married July 1, 1908. But the church has been sold and purchased by a company that turned it into a brew pub. Oh dear. I took photos of the aisle and where the altar would have been (it is now the brew kegs)… we sat in pews and ate and drank brewery beer. Then Marion took us through the old neighborhood where my father and uncles and aunts grew up, but the houses are gone, razed and a hospital was built on the land. We drove on Winebiddle Avenue where Sarah went to Ursuline Academy which has been purchased but it looks like it is still used as a school. Drove then to the Calvary Cemetary where, under a Celtic cross with the name Mccarthy on it, our grandparents, my dad, and my sister Annette among other family members are buried. We dug the grass and dirt off Annette’s little stone and I have to call and ask the cemetary folks to put some base under it. That was a teary time… Marion’s parents are buried there too. We parted promising to find some more time this week to see some amazing place that Pittsburgh has to offer. Tomorrow we begin the convention with a trip to the flight 93 memorial site. God bless the people who died in the September 11 horror that will be memorialized this week. God bless you.

How odd it felt to see the first image of the Pittsburgh skyline from the Interstate 376 which dropped us into "down town" and when we reached our final destination at the Westin Convention hotel on Penn Avenue. All my life, I’ve heard of St Francis Hospital, Milvale Avenue, Calvary Cemetary and other places that this week will become familiar. I’ve actually been here twice with my Mom and one more time with Chuck but that was to drive in and visit Aunt Jean and cousins Henry and Lois, now gone to heaven. All my family comes from Pittsburgh, Mom and Dad’s parents came here from Ireland and Italy… And so I settle in to a hotel room and look out the window and try to imagine what my cousins Marion and Bob will be like "after all these years". I actually met them at a family reunion in California about 15 years ago… but that was hurried and, I hardly remember. On top of this exciting reunion is the submarine convention. The hotel is already hosting some submariners and the hospitality suite is open. So. Onward, into the week. This is what we left Miami May 1 to do. This is the final stop in a long journey that took us "while we are at it" all the way to St Petersburg, Russia, to England for a month, to the Queen Mary 2 special anniversary crossing. This is the final destination after dumping our car on willing cousins Laura and Dennis, the wedding in Atlanta, the visits to Al and Shannon, Karla and Mark, Katie and John, Andy and his brother, Moira and Dave, Linda and Joe, all the Larson cousins. On this vacation I celebrated my 68th birthday and Chuck and I celebrated 45 years of marriage. Time to go home! To hang laundry on the line, to sleep on my own sheets and pillows, cook in our kitchen, clean the oven, ride around in the pontoon boat. You name it. Home. I will write about what happens here, but sufficient to say. Thank God for a successful journey. No scares (beyond the big one in Talinn, Estonia where Chuck was pick pocketed and got his wallet back…) and no illnesses (except for the unholy nose blowing due to spring in England…). Thank God for a great journey and now dear Lord bless the rest of our journey and our meetings with more cousins and many submariners. God bless America, and God bless us all.

We arrived in Hartford to be celebrated at an old mill turned restaurant. Ate Sunday brunch with 10 cousins! Took photos and sent off to the cousins who aren’t here. We celebrate family this week as we remember "Old Uncle Horace" whose mustache tickled and who had a great old car. We sat in the back yard of the house in Waterford Uncle Horace built that has come down to Chuck’s sister Thelma and we remembered and told stories. We are spending a lot of time with cousins Bill and Barbara Keish/Poirot whose Mom Chuck’s Aunt Georgie was a beautiful happy woman who went to heaven too early. I never met Georgie but I’ve heard she sang and danced and loved life! Cousins Kenneth and Barbara have children Charles (who lives in Virginia) and Roberta and her husband Mark and 3 very accomplished children whom we are visiting. The grand parents (Barbara and Kenneth) have a downstairs wing of the house and the kids are at one end of upstairs with Mom and Dad on the other end of upstairs. We have a lovely corner bedroom of one son who has gone "off" to college. We have attended a soccer scrimmage and Chuck went to (a very boring) soccer game that finished after 2 overtimes a 0 tie. He is talking about going to a UConn football game. Today we drove out to visit cousin Barbara Poirot who just had surgery and she is doing fine. Thank God. Tomorrow we will go to Mark Twain home in Hartford. Busy busy. We cook large and varied meals as there are about 8 people at any given meal! I’m off to wash lettuce to use with the farm raised tomatoes and cucumbers that abound this time of year. It’s hot in CT, but the trees are already showing orange… God bless you!