When in Rome - (Lunedi -- la mia serata finale a Roma)

Monday evening -- my last evening in Rome. 

Dana and Tom have invited me to their home for dinner tonight.  I haven't seen them for quite a while.  They left NYC two years ago for a year-long visit to Rome.  That one year has now extended into its third year!  They live in a very old building deep in the Monte Rione section of Rome, near Trajan's Forum, so I head out to the Via Cavour to begin my walk down to their apartment.   Along the way my right hip gives out so I hail a cab.  The cabdriver insists he knows where Via di Campo Carleo is, but it seems like we are driving in circles -- I'm seeing the same landmarks over and over.  I ask him if he is certain he knows where he is going and he tells me if I don't like what he's doing I should exit his cab immediately.  I refuse because my aching hip needs us to get closer.  So I begin to give HIM directions (based on my fascination with Google maps for weeks before arriving in Rome).  We eventually get to a street that I recognize as being very close to the little street, ending in Roman ruins, called Via di Campo Carleo.  I exit the cab, give the driver half the fare, and hobble down the hill to a building I easily recognize (also from Google maps) as my destination -- (easy -- as it's rather unique:  painted yellow, around six storeys tall, has an ancient tall tower, and has stacked rooms in a bridge over a side street -- how could I miss it!).

I ring the bell for what I assume to be the topmost apartment.  Fortunately I am correct and soon hear Dana's voice on the intercom telling me to take the elevator to the 6th floor and then walk up a flight of stairs.  She buzzes me in and I find the elevator -- one of those open types (I always think they're French, for some reason) -- big enough for perhaps two French people, with lots of open ironwork and a wooden bench well-patinated by dozens of years of buffing derrieres. 

Arriving at the top I'm greeted by Dana and Tom and their 2 boys, now ages 13 and 11.

Dana and Tom

I haven't seen this family since Sam, their older son, was two years old and Michael, their younger, was soon to be born.  What a nice family they have become!  They are enjoying Rome and their travels in the Mediterranean area tremendously.  The boys have taken Italian lessons since they were toddlers so attending excellent Italian public schools is very easy for them.  Outside of school they are busy with sports, music lessons (piano, cello, and clarinet), and reading.  Every day purposeful reading is de rigeur.  They have been blessed with the same inquisitiveness and zest for learning as their parents.

I'm given a tour of their apartment.  It has many rooms on many different levels.  At the top level is the master bedroom -- in a 14th century tower.  

14th century tower with 18th century exterior embellishments and a bedroom inside!

Taking some steep narrow steps from that bedroom to the rooftop of the tower provides a priceless 360 degree view of Rome.  The Palatine, the Esquiline, and the Capitoline Hills, the Colosseum, several other ancient towers and monuments, domes everywhere including St. Peter's, and extensive areas of excavations of buildings from Imperial Rome.

Back downstairs we spend the evening on their huge west-facing terrace, blooming profusely with bougainvilleas and jasmine and affording stunning panoramas as well.  We watch the gulls swoop and dive.  The most amazing views of Rome are everywhere I turn.

Right below us are remains of Trajan's Forum and Trajan's Markets.  When it was constructed (AD 107-112), it was the last and largest of the Imperial Fora and was considered one of the most important monuments of Imperial Rome.  The giant complex was "unlike anything under the heavens."  And now, to realize in 2011, the colonnades and the western hemicycle are just feet away from this family's everyday life.

 

Just to our left, across the Boulevard Via dei Fori Imperiali (built by Mussolini at the expense of destroying much of Trajan's Forum and other sites) is the Palatine Hill.  It is thought that Rome has its origins on the Palatine.  Recent excavations have shown that people have lived on the site since approximately 1000 B.C.  According to Roman mythology, the Palatine hill was where Romulus and Remus were found by a female wolf that kept them alive, allowing Romulus to grow up and choose the site to build the city of Rome.  The Palatine, due to its close proximity to the seat of power, became "the place to live."  The very powerful and wealthy chose to build their homes there.  Eventually the emperors took over the hill completely.  (more info here)

The Palatine

Just to the left of the Palatine is the Colosseum.  The Colosseum, built in AD 79, is located at the foot of Mussolini's Via dei Fori Imperiali. This architectural masterpiece was designed to hold approximately 50,000 spectators.  Underneath the original wooden floor a series of storage rooms and passageways were added later. In this confined space, a range of animals, fighters, slaves and stagehands worked in almost total darkness.  I was able to briefly see the Colosseum up close the next morning before heading out to the airport but next time in Rome it will be first on my list of things to do and see!

The Roman Colosseum

Below is a view of the huge Victor Emmanuel Monument completed in 1911 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Kingdom of Italy with Victor Emanuel II as its emperor/king.  The northern side of the Capitoline Hill was chosen as the site.  To clear the site, many churches and ruins that stood there were first destroyed. That fact, and the mass of white marble used, make it not a popular addition to the neighborhood.. 

The Victor Emmanuel Monument

Off in the western distance is St. Peter's Dome and the setting sun.  In a few hours AD XXIII May MMXI will become part of history too.  What a spectacular way to finish up my 3 day whirl through Rome. 

By the way, in the lower right quadrant of the photo above is a building on the Via dei Fori Imperiali where Mussolini lived and used the large open window to greet the public and watch passing parades.

Dinner on the terrace with Dana, Tom, and the boys was wonderful.  Vegetables and pasta from the local markets were a treat.  It was so good to catch up on what's happening in their lives and to see the boys thriving in all they do.  Michael, the 11 year old, has decided he wants to be a pope so he can take the name Sixtus -- and be Sixtus VI.  Why not, he would live just down the via!  

After hearing that, there was not much else to do but take the following obligatory photograph and bid everyone arrivederci.  It was a very special evening that I will never forget.  Molte molte grazie, Dana and Tom.

Dana and Tom K.

While On the Front Porch

This afternoon, after 3 days of drippy rain, Topper and I enjoyed some autumn sunshine and watched the world go by from the front porch.  At around 3 p.m., seeing the kids walking home from school reminded me of something from my childhood.  I wrote about this memory in 2007 when I was retiring from Old First in San Francisco.  I'll use this opportunity to get that farewell essay into my blog.

A FEW WORDS IN PARTING

September 2007

I was raised in Connecticut, where I lived near a pond with polliwogs and skunk cabbage, where I played in Mr. Peck's orchard and Mr. Davis's pasture, where I walked past Mr. Davis's big foursquare stone house every day on my way to and from school. Up a long sidewalk with tall hedges on each side, most days on the broad front porch there sat 90-year old Mr. Davis.  Sometimes we just waved as we went by.  But frequently we stopped to visit and most often he was in the midst of putting together a jigsaw puzzle, stabbing and lifting each piece with a dental tool because his fingers were frozen stiff with painful arthritis. We kids sat with him for a while and he often entertained us with adventures of his growing up in the mid-1800's!

Then off I went to a Jesuit prep school and college, where I ingested the lifelong fruits of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and closely followed the conjugate-able and decline-able exploits of J. Caesar, Marcus T. Cicero, Publius Virgil, and others.

After college I moved to New York City, where for 15 years I played a lot, lived a lot, drank a lot, and found a Higher Power, who saved my life.

In the mid 70’s, a New York management consulting firm sent me to San Francisco to assist Levi Strauss & Co. in managing their phenomenal growth. Levi's was my client for five years; I traveled all over the world coordinating the way they moved their piles of paper from place to place.

Levi's wanted me to work longer in the Far East, but I decided to stay in San Francisco and open a dessert bakery. I supplied restaurants like the Carnelian Room and hotels like The Clift with desserts and made wedding cakes and mail-order cheesecakes. After six years, though, the work was more accounting and personnel than bringing joy to people's palates, so I sold the business and started looking for something else to do.

That was October of 1988, and my partner, Don Briggs, was leaving the Administrator’s job here at Old First. Interim Pastor Bob Vogt (the second in a line of four successive interims) offered me the job, and I took it.

The church was very quiet during those "interim years."  I spent long lunch hours soaking up the sun in Lafayette Park. I had planned to work here for only a short time while I searched for a "real" job. But days turned to weeks, and months to years, and I found that this congregation had a hold on me. I learned this was my real job.

During this time at Old First, most of my good friends died of AIDS. I am very fortunate to have been here. I have relied on the friendships established here probably a lot more than I would have if my personal support group had not dwindled. How lucky I’ve been to be part of the Old First family.

It has also been a privilege to work here. The examples of faith put before me have been awesome. It's going to be hard to break the daily ties, but in some ways I will take a piece of you all with me. So now, 14 pastors, 369 new members, and more than 1,000 Sundays later, it's time again to start looking for something else to do.

I am not going off to O'Malley's Home for Wretched Aging ex-Catholics. I have plans to finish restoring my old house in Healdsburg and take some classes in Botany. I hope to get seriously into sculpture. Maybe during the rainy winters I can finish the quilt I started during a gray 1979 winter in Brussels. Maybe I'll bake a cheesecake.

Each spring and fall, maybe I'll sit on my front porch, watching the kids walk home from school while I put together a jigsaw puzzle that has little holes pricked in all the pieces. Half a century ago, old Mr. Davis gave each of us kids a puzzle after he worked it. This puzzle and I have traveled hither and yon; we've made it this far.

I wonder if the puzzle still has all its pieces. I know some of mine are missing! I’m leaving them at Old First!

Say “Goodnight,” Gracie.

On the Brink of Impending Youthiness (again)

This is McAuliffe Hall, the freshman building where, that September of 1956, we began our 4 years at Prep. It was the perfect ediface in which to inhale the first whiff of the rarified atmosphere that was to surround the next four years' education. A huge circular staircase, wide hallways, creaky floorboards, classroom fireplaces, mammoth windows, drafty rooms with floor grates that blew warm oiled air on snowy winter days, our requisite suit or sport coat with buttoned shirt and tie, and those sit-up-straight, clunky wooden chair-desks straight out of British public school lore. As I said...the perfect place.

Fast forward fifty years...it's now 2010 and we'll all be converging on the Prep Campus Friday evening, June 4th, for a reunion reception where we'll see who's still upright, who's got hair, who's got a waistline, who's compos mentis, etc.  Will those long-saved memories of classmates emerge from deep recesses as soon as I actually see who it is I am looking at?

I'm already reminded of the smartness of the boys at this school.  There was Gerard DeF., sort of a precursor of the Fonz, who was smart.  And Charlie B., who kept us laughing, was big and played football, had a heart as big as can be, and was smart.  And Peter S. who always knew the answers because he was smart.  And Bob J. who sat in front of me (alphabetically) for most of the 4 years, who had the compulsiveness of youth, the guile of a prankster, and was smart.  Even Peter B., who smoked like a chimney and had a beard as thick as a middle aged cossack, was smart.  They were all smart, and at first that was scary.  But it was okay to be smart here; it was a noble goal -- to learn, to achieve.  Good study habits were formed early and "stick-to-it-iveness" was an ideal for which many strived.  Still, sadly, some boys did not return each September.  Most of us did whatever we could to keep that from happening to us.  We knew early on that we had an opportunity that was not to be wasted.  We knew that with these 4 years under our belts, we would have chances at further education better than most.  Yes, even at age 15, we knew it was an honor to be among these "prepsters." 

The Book of Recollections I've been working on has now been sent to the University Print Shop. It's a happy-hands-at-home type of thing; probably won't win any prizes, but should add some fun to the 50th Reunion weekend. 

This is a photo of our brave German teacher, Fr. Butler,

 with 6 of us sixteen-year-olds at a restaurant in Mexico City

during a six-week-long trip he chaperoned in the Summer of 1959.

(The only things German we encountered were the Ambassador's wife and her Mercedes Benz)!

The Reunion Committee has been busy these past months led by John S., our more than capable class president.  Woody S. and Jimmy W. have been busy putting together the events of the weekend.  The main event on Saturday evening is a Pig Roast dinner to be held in a huge tent on the Prep Quad.  Tom C. has been contacting all alums across the country to see who's coming.  Ed K. and Nick P. have been working on getting contributions to our class Gift.  The goal of $200K has nearly been reached by the first 50 classmates reached.  A portion of our gift is being set aside for a full 4-year scholarship so a bright young man can experience what we have experienced.  (Our yearly tuition of $315 is now in the $15K range!).  We all get to meet him at some point during the weekend. 

On Sunday, we "graduate" with the Class of 2010.  We receive our "golden diplomas."  Are we now actually peers of Betty White and Bea Arthur?  It'll be "real cool" going up individually to shake the hand of the young President of the school.  Then being set free again!  Free to go out into the world to do good things.  Gimme a break -- I'm 67 years old -- it'll be time for a snooze.

Memories of Young Men in the Great Class of 1960

The weekend of June 4-6, 2010 is fast approaching.  It's the weekend that I get to share with 50 or so fresh-faced, smart, grateful, and still eager 68 year-olds the golden anniversary of the culmination of one of the most important opportunities of our lives.  It's the reunion weekend of Fairfield Prep's Great Class of 1960.  It's the weekend when doctors, lawyers, judges, writers, scientists, monsignori, brokers, educators, and we regular folk get together to honor each other for the part we played, and still play, in each others' lives.

For this event, I've been charged with the task of putting together a book of recollections.  So I've solicited each member of the class to send me some unforgettable feelings, happenings, or events that pop to mind when he thinks of his 4 years at Prep.  Some thing that may have bored the daylights out of family members when Dad got in a story-telling mood over the years.  Some thing that only we, as co-conspirators, would fully appreciate.

I've gotten some wonderful responses.  How nice to be reminded of things I have totally forgotten.  How could I not remember the tale of the firecracker and the beehive?  Hearing about it again puts me right back there on that warm spring day when McAuliffe Hall was closed down for an afternoon due to invasions of nasty yellow jackets.  

Interspersed with the classmates' memories, I'm inserting scans of memorabilia like this calendar that made it through 50 years of cross-country moves stashed in a carton with report cards, reading lists, class notes, programs, and some text books.

I expect I'll write more about all this during the next few weeks.