Author: Susie

With all the remembering and paying tribute we have done on this trip, and whenever we are with the men of the armed forces, I think more and more about our role as United States in the conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. I’ve read op ends that we can’t do anything in the middle east with arms and amunition, bombs and violence (it just makes them hate us more), and we only anger and separate more when we march into foreign countries to try to help. Except when we marched into Europe, but then we were asked. Last night at our banquet table we had a spirited discussion of the wisdom of admitting even 10,000 Syrian refugees as we can’t really identify them… The conversation was spirited and laden with questions of our role in the world and who is going to "pay for it." I’m homeward bound to my own little homestead on the lake. Homeward bound and praying for peace. Last night at the banquet as we always have, a table was set for one… no one sits there as the table represents the missing in action and prisoners of war. The table is small as the soldier is alone in a small place somewhere. A single candle is lighted as the only light he may see… representing the light we keep burning in memory. During the table setting ceremony, the word remember is repeated. We drink a silent toast with water as the missing cannot respond to us, and they have no wine. We drink and remember. What are we remembering? Christian values of "care for my brother" buck up against how are we going to be able to continue "caring for my brother"… Just what is it exactly that we are remembering? That war is hell and we don’t want to go there? At the end of the ceremony, turning from the silent little table in our midst, we pray for the meal we are about to eat, for those in service, and for those who have fallen or are lost. For our entertainment a troup of children called "the North Star Kids" (ranging in age from ages 8 to 15) perform for us a Broadway medley and patriotic songs. They are brilliant and beautiful. They sing: "Come young citizens of the world; we have one dream of peace, prosperity, and love for all mankind." They sing the Grand Old Flag and God bless America. God bless the kids and grant them the peace and prosperity we have fought for all our lives. God bless us travelers today as we head "home." God bless you.

One of the patches on a submariner’s vest reads, 48,000 lives lost in Viet Nam. We Remember. I’m sitting in the chairs set up to watch the memorial service at the USS Requin, SS 481. The time marked today is in airplanes and souls lost September 11, 2001, but also today we will remember boats and souls lost from the inception of submarine service in the United States. The men are trying to get the Hunley added to the list as she is truely the first… Even though she was a Confederate States boat. We were brothers. I’m surrounded by hundreds of old sailors this morning, many WWII and many, like Chuck who can’t claim a "named war" but wear badges remembering the cold war. The flag is coming in… After the presentation of colors and the National Anthem, our speaker, a submarine captain who was in the Pacific on September 11,2001, said that day our lives changed and we are in a war longer than any war we have ever fought. Submarines are a small force, but are accountable for great enemy losses, and, as I have cited in previous blogs, have the highest % of losses of all services. As the Silent Service, we remember our losses with the tolling of a ship’s bell. We remember the lost beginning in 1915, and ending with SS593 April 10, 1963 the Thresher and SS589 May 27, 1968 the Scorpion. Cold War losses. Before closing with prayer, a poem was read: "Sailor on your final dive, do you wonder, ‘Am I dead?’ No. You made your stand at the bottom of the sea, and you are locked in the hearts of all sailors. Sailor rest your oars." The memorial ended with a 21 gun salute, Taps, and a prayer: " We pray for protection for all service members who are in harm’s way. We ask our Lord to let the healing begin." God bless you.

I cannot find words to say how awesome corned beef from a restaurant named Sammy’s is. Yum. I ate corned beef sandwich washed down with red wine and followed by a raspberry sweet that just leaves me rubbing my tummy… Yum. Tomorrow we have plans to return to the Strip for seafood at Rolands. I forgot to mention we stopped into a beautiful church today called "old St Patrick". Beautiful. How I’ll be able to sleep on this belly is a mystery. We have biscotti from the Strip district to dip in our coffee in the morning. Yum. Sleep well with sweet dreams. Sweet. God bless you.

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!

I repeat a lot about how beautiful America is! We have been site seeing and eating our way back and forth along the south coast of Connecticut from the submarine memorials of Groton to Thelma’s summer home in Waterford where Chuck and Thelma remember coming for picnics in the big backyard… To Mystic, Stonongton, Hartford and other places in southern Connecticut. Visited with Tammy and Chuck helped drive her off to the Boston airport as she globe trots to Malta. We solved one air conditioning problem at one rental house by calling our neighbor Sparky who called for help and got that fixed and got a text from the other house that they have problems too. Back on the phone same neighbor Sparky helping… Being a landlord while traveling isn’t graceful. I hope all gets resolved. Meanwhile Keys are being hit by a storm (Erika) and we pray for only a slight hit… meanwhile we are riding as I type up to Hartford to have brunch with family. Beautiful America God bless you. And God bless us as we travel.

I admit there is no better lobsta than Maine, but the south coast of Connecticut in towns called Mystic, New London, and other coastal beauties, lobster "shacks" abound. Yesterday we ate lobster at Abbots lobster in the rough with cousins Kenneth and Barbara, sister Thelma and golden girl niece Tammy who has touched down to visit family on her way to a vacation to the island of Malta where our Olympians have trained. Apparently Malta has many pools and with great Mediterranean weather, water polo and synchronized swimmers train there in the warmth. We traveled around the coastal towns yesterday, and today Thelma is taking us to Old Lyme and on a ferry and out to lunch. The family has a lot planned for the next week before we move on to Pittsburgh where my cousin Marion, daughter of my Father’s brother Robert, will show us "the best of" Pittsburgh. The submarine convention begins the day after Labor Day and we will once again celebrate America’s underwater heros. Off to tour the coastline. God bless you.