My Aunt Elsie

My Aunt Elsie turned 90 this month. Ann, one of my cousins, gave her a party at Ann's house in Virginia. It would have been a nine hour drive and was on a Saturday, so I couldn't go down and back and be in church on Sunday.

Elsie is my only living Aunt or Uncle and I had quite a few. My mother was one of seven (though 2 died in childhood) and my father one of five--so I had 8 sets of Aunts and Uncles at some point. All are dead except Elsie. Family was vital in my childhood, so I spent a lot of time with Aunts and Uncles and my 20 older first cousins. I was the youngest until Aunt Elsie and Uncle Harvey adopted Denise who was 8 or so when I was 14. Being the youngest for 14 years in a dual family of 16 Aunts and Uncles and 20 first cousins (all of whom lived within 20 miles of each other--except for Elsie and Harvey) was quite an experience, let me tell you. Spoiled? You don't know the meaning of the word unless you are me...which you aren't!

For years, I would go and spend a week in the summer with Aunt Elsie and Uncle Harvey. Harvey was a Nazarene minister, so that week was full of church and prayers on our knees in the living room before bed. But I loved the visits in spite of that. They lived in Dunbar, WV, a suburb of the Capitol, Charleston. Considering I grew up in a town of 500, spending a week in a metropolitan area of about 100,000 was a serious 'trip'.

When Uncle Harvey found out I was going to Harvard Divinity School, he sat me down and said, "It's bad enough you're an Episcopalian, don't let those folks at Harvard make you a Unitarian!" Sage advice....

To illustrate the 'family-ness' of our family, I was the one of only 3 Jones cousins (my mother's maiden name) who didn't get there for the party--and there are 17 of us! I migrated to New England and get left out of most 'cousin' stuff since they're all in Virginia or NC.

I did send Aunt Elsie (who has a Ph.d. in Education, by the way) a cross I often wore over my years as a priest. (I don't wear crosses or collars any more--but that's the subject of another blog.) I told her to hang it somewhere and think of me when she saw it.

A couple of days after the party, Aunt Elsie called me. She told me "Jimmie" (yes, that's what they always called me and with an 'ie' instead of an "y") "you couldn't  have given me anything that meant more to me than that."

I got a little misty in the conversation. She is so well educated and well spoken and a tad reserved that I was deeply moved by her emotion.

Elsie is all that stands between me and being the "terminal generation". Long may she live. She is dear to me in many ways.

(Elsie and Harvey once had a dog that wouldn't eat well. She hand fed him twice a day. That tells you more about her than all my words could....)

Mary died

Mary Suchanek died this week. She was 93 and ready to go, but I wasn't ready to let her go.

The last time I visited her she was bedridden in her home and asked me if I would pray for her to die. I told her I couldn't do that, just couldn't but did pray with her that God take her into God's heart.

I visited her several times over my years at the Middelsex Cluster Ministry. She was so delightful and full of joy though her life had not been easy. Now she has what she prayed for--she is at rest in the Heart of God.

Nancy Thompson, a journalist, who is also a member of St. James in Higganum, wrote a story about Mary and her husband, Joe, 20 years ago. She sent it to me and gave me permission to put it here.

This is the story. Listen....

LOVE LEAVES ITS LASTING MARK ON A BEECH TREE IN DURHAM: [1N GREATER MIDDLETOWN Edition]

The majestic beech rises straight and true in the dense Durham woods. Nearby, deer tracks run close to a crystal-clear brook. There are no sounds except those of the forest.

For Joseph and Mary Suchanek of the Higganum section of Haddam, the century-old beech is more than a pretty spot in the woods -- it is a living family tree.

Its bark tells the story of two generations of Suchaneks, from the early years of this century to a 55th anniversary celebration today.

Joe Suchanek's grandparents ran a boarding house at their Foothills Road farm in Durham, catering mostly to fellow Czechs from New York City, and it was there that his parents, Mary Hanus and Joseph Suchanek, met in the first decade of this century.

One day in 1911 the young lovers carved their initials and the date in a beech tree on the farm. They married soon after, and young Joe was born in 1915 after the couple returned to New York City, where his father was a policeman.

The couple, with their young son, soon returned to the 400-acre farm to raise turkeys, cows, tobacco and wheat. It wasn't easy to go from police work to farming, but Joseph Suchanek Sr. was willing to try.

"He really was no farmer, but he got to it," his son recalled.

The younger Joe first noticed the tree with his parents' initials when he was a child. He loved to fish in nearby Miller's Pond Brook and often passed the tree as he roamed his family's woods.

As a young man, he courted Mary Cernan, a young woman who had lived in Higganum nearly all her life. "She was kind of the girl next door," Joe said.

They soon fell in love.

Because he had visited the tree often, it seemed natural -- a family tradition, almost -- to take his girlfriend into the woods and add their initials to the smooth bark.

Using his pen knife -- Joe says he has never left home without it -- he carved their initials in a heart and added the date: 9-25-38.

They were married Aug. 12, 1939, and moved to a house on Main Street in Durham, where they lived for 40 years.

The year after their wedding, Joe's family sold the property to a family from New York who wanted it for a summer place.

For more than 50 years, through wars and storms and ordinary, everyday events, the tree grew and its bark stretched, expanding and distorting the initials. Nobody gave much thought to the carvings, and if hunters or hikers noticed the marks, they probably didn't know who the lovers were.

Earlier this year Higganum resident Art Wiknik noticed the tree and its initials while walking through the property that his brother, Jerry, had bought. His family and the Suchaneks had been friends for many years, and when he saw the tree he realized the initials were those of Mary and Joe, and Joe's parents.

Wiknik took photographs of the tree and sent them to the Suchaneks, who were surprised that anyone would be interested in the carvings.

Illustration

PHOTO 1: COLOR, Corey Lowenstein / Special to The Courant PHOTO 2: COLOR, Paula Bronstein / The Hartford Courant; Caption: PHOTO 1: * Mary Suchanek, 71, and Joseph Suchanek, 79, of Higganum, carved their initials in a beech tree in Durham in 1938 before they were married. It was the same tree where Joseph Suchanek's parents had carved their initials in 1911. PHOTO 2: * Earlier this year Art Wiknik noticed the tree and its initials while walking through the property his brother had bought, and got in touch with the Suchaneks.

Word count: 613

Bye, Joe...We knew you well....

So, the vice-President isn't running. Sorry about that. My top three choices were this:

1. Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump--socialism at last!

2. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren against anyone.

3. Hillary and whoever against anyone but Jeb.

Too bad for me that my third choice is the logical one. And I will vote for her multiple times if I could.

I'd rather the Democratic/Socialist or Elizabeth Warren as VP.

But I'll support Hillary since that seems to be the default truth. First woman president--I'd prefer Elizabeth Warren, but that's not happening.

Third choice is better than any of the other options from the clown car that is the Republicans.

And, can they even elect a speaker of the house???

What I don't understand

Well, there's lot of stuff I don't understand, if I'm truthful. But the most viewed post in the last few days has been a post from September 2012 about redoing our kitchen.

Why are people looking at that? It is good to know about when we redid our kitchen since I have this issue with linear time. Had you asked me when we 'redid' I kitchen I would have looked at you with a blank stare and wondered.

So, sometime after September 2012. I've got it narrowed down now.

My whole thing with linear time is a problem, I know. Today, Bill, one of the guys who comes to our Tuesday morning group, talked about when he was in Turkey in 19-something. I don't remember when he said, but he was sure it was true. And he talked about a rug he bought and having lunch with the guy who sold it to him.

Amazing to me that he knew exactly what year that happened.

Here's what I know: whether it happened before or after Bern and I got married or before or after Josh was born (1970 and 1975) or before or after Mimi was born (1979) or before or after our twin granddaughters were born (2006) or before or after Tegan was born (2009). That's the best I can do with linear time--before or after when something wondrous happened.

Did you ever read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut? A character in the book, Billy Pilgrim, is 'unstuck in time'. That means he goes back and forth to things in the past.

I don't do that, but I am 'unstuck in time'. I went to Israel after my children were born and before my granddaughters (any of them) were born. Beyond that I can't tell you when. Or the first time I went to Ireland. Or how many years since I've gone. Or when I had prostate surgery. (I know when my appendix was removed only because it was the millennium and it made me miss a huge party at St. John's in Waterbury.)

I know when I graduated from high school and college and Harvard Divinity School and Virginia Seminary and when I was ordained. But of course I can remember those dates. But beyond that, not much. Odd it is, to be so disassociated with time.

Not bad...I don't mind it...just odd.

And I don't understand why that's the way I am.

Kale

OK, I grew up eating tons of Kale because it grew so well in my grandmother's garden and my father's garden. It grew like crazy and we had to eat it.

Boiled to within an inch of it's existence and covered with oil and vinegar, it was barely consumable.

Now, Kale is the big thing.

We had kale tonight, boiled within an inch of it's life and barely etible.

Folks are eating raw kale in salads.

What's next, we start eating dirt and not worrying about the grit in our teeth.

As someone who has eaten kale since his youth, don't pretend it's the 'new thing'. Don't eat kale. Under no circumstance should you eat kale.

Really.

Personal politics

Yesterday, after church at Emmanuel in Killingworth, I talked with; Jon Bush and then his wife, Jody. Jon is the brother of President Bush I and uncle of President Bush II. He and Jody are the salt of the earth, wonderful, lovely, dear people.

Talking with them is the only thing that makes me doubt my idea to outlaw the Republican Party. There are dear and gentle people who are Republicans. Jon and Jody are, of course, supporting their nephew Jeb and think The Donald and the heart surgeon and Carlie are a distraction and 'so wrong'. When I talk with them I make sure I appear as a liberal Democrat instead of the full blown Socialist that I am. I don't want to take them a bridge too far.

Politics becomes confusing when it becomes personal. My friend, Bill, is a conservative Republican and a conservative Episcopalian. And I like him a lot. Like the Bushes, who are so dear and clear and together.

My father, for goodness sake, was a life-long Republican. And I was as a teen. I wrote on a wall with spray paint "AU H2O" when I was a Senior in high school. Gold-water is what that meant.

As time went on, I came to realize I belonged on the far left of the Democratic Party. But it is cool to know wonderful people who are on the other end of the spectrum. It keeps me from being an angry, vengeful socialist.

The Bushes and Bill give me hope that we can eventually figure this stuff out and govern the nation and move forward together.

That's what I pray is possible, at any rate.

How time flies

I've been looking at a whole bunch of photos from my Installation as Rector of St. John's Church in Waterbury. Dozens of them. That would have been 1989--26 years ago. A lot of people in the pictures are dead, that I know, having officiated at many of their funerals.

And my hair is dark brown, though my beard is graying. I've had white hair since I don't know when, so it is odd to me to see me with brown hair. That and being with dead people is a tad awkward and not a little disturbing.

I have a son who is 40 and a daughter who is 37. Bern and I have been married since September 5, 1970. 1970, for goodness sake! 45 years, oh my God!!!

How time flies. I can barely recognize the me that was 'me' in our wedding album. Who is that guy with a brown Fu Man Chu Moustache and dark brown hair in a tux? The problem is, Bern looks a lot like that woman in the wedding gown. Time hasn't flown for her. Somewhere there is a photo growing older of her. Really.

Stunning, how time flies.

Getting older is much better than the alternative.

But it is disconcerting how time flies.

At least, I've been having a lot of fun....