The Dedalus Log

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
This is heavens part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them til they died?
I write it out in verse –
MacDonah and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
(Easter, 1916: W.B. Yeats – 1916)

Any essay about a voyage taken begs the question, why? Why write about a journey to a foreign land, or a trip to a far off isle? Is it to describe the sights, and the cities, towns, and villages we saw and visited, so as to induce others to follow in our path, or is it to give others some points for comparison? Why write about it at all? Why not just experience the trip, savor it, and remember it? I’ve pondered these questions since returning to Los Angeles, and the only answer I can come up with is this: I write in order to process and make sense of the thoughts, feelings, and reactions I experienced why traveling through Ireland. I was confronted by so many surprises, sensations, ideas, and questions about this country and its people, that it seemed impossible to encapsulate, when asked, “How was your trip?” I felt the need to figure it out before I could answer the question. I had to make sense of the whole experience for myself. Every tourist walks away from a city, town, or country they visit with their own opinion of the land, people, sights, and food. Some even write travel books about it. This is not a travel book. I don’t want to list all the places we visited, the sights we saw, and describe and evaluate them. I simply want to describe my impressions of Ireland and be able to cite the things I learned about it and myself. So that is my task, and, hopefully, what you will read.


Kathleen and I just completed my second trip to Ireland in three years. The first was in late December of 2015 to celebrate our 40^th Wedding Anniversary, and the latest in September to celebrate my 71^st birthday. The real purpose of this trip was to complete the tour we had originally planned in 2015, but which had been unceremoniously cut short by a medical emergency that necessitated my spending four days in St. James Hospital (see The Irish Sage; or Do You Love an Apple). So after two attempts, I can honestly say that I come away from this land of rugged beauty and harsh history with barely a novice’s impression of Ireland, its history, and its people. I also recognized in Ireland the attractive native characteristics I had all ready detected in all the Irish-American friends I made over the years, and in the Irish-American family I married into. I encountered these traits throughout the island – in their friendliness and charm, their openness and willingness to help, their self-deprecating humor and love of travel, and their songs and laughter. Despite the difficulties of driving and travel, and relocating into three cities and one village, Ireland felt like home. I know it sounds strange coming from a Mexican-American, with strong ancestral ties to Mexico and Mexico City, but it many ways Ireland, its history, and its people felt like home to me.






Our 14 day excursion of Ireland involved stays at four locations, plus travel: Dublin (4 days), Galway (3 days), Ballyvaughan (2 days), Kilkenny (2 days), and Dublin again (3 days). Of all the many positive aspects of the trip, I was only really ambivalent about the travel involved. We journeyed by plane, train, automobile, bus, and foot. Of these different modes of transportation, airport security, the long airplane rides, and driving on the left side of the road were the most arduous for me. I was searched at each of our two airport security stations at LAX and Heathrow Airport, and a third time as one of the unfortunate victims of a “random search” before I was about to board our plane for the trip home. I will never be able to overcome my immense dislike of having to unpack and separate designated electronic devices from ones carry-on luggage, and practically disrobe (okay, that’s an exaggeration) of coat, jacket, belt, and shoes. It’s a tiresome necessity, I know, but it’s such a hassle, and it always prompts me to nostalgically recall the blissful days when we dressed up in coat and tie to fly, and one simply sauntered into the airport and casually boarded your plane to assume a roomy and comfortable seat. Adding to theses hassles was my inability to sleep comfortably during an eight and eleven hour plane ride. Even the luxury of 1^st Class accommodations did little to mitigate my inability to sleep dreamlessly and uninterrupted. But even the discomforts of airplane travel paled before the hair-raising, white-knuckled reality of driving on the left side of the road, in cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side.




So let my get this second peeve out of the way. On my first outing in a rented, Irish vehicle on the outskirts of Galway, I sideswiped a parked truck with my left side-view mirror. I then spent the next hour on a wide double-lane highway in Connemara, enroute to the town of Clifden, in terrified silence – searching for road signs and speed limits, and concentrating on keeping my vehicle in the middle of the lane, while fighting the tendency to drift to the left. It was a nerve-wracking experience that allowed no time for sightseeing, conversation, or the notion of making photo stops at scenic vistas or locales. I was a man on a mission – get us to our destination as soon as possible, alive, and without further damage to the car. Irish-American Kathleen, on the other hand, seemed to meld right into the art of driving and had little trouble adjusting. When she drove, she pointed out the scenery, conversed naturally about the sights and their characteristics – pointing out the rock fences, the loughs of Connemara, and the thatched roof houses we passed along the way. She took single one-lane roads in stride, never blanching when confronted with wide, on-coming buses and trucks, and casually pulling over to the side of the road to inspect first hand the ruined monasteries, chapels, towers, and beaches she saw along the way. Having gotten those two personal peeves off my chest, let me just add that the trip would not have been possible or successful without the necessary tribulations of airplane travel and driving.









Traveling by train from Dublin to Galway was especially delightful and it allowed us to experience the quick transition from a bustling, cosmopolitan city to the rural countryside of Ireland. The change was shocking. Ten minutes out of Dublin on a smooth, modern, and seemingly motionless train, and suddenly one is presented with the pastoral beauty of Ireland – lush green meadows, and pocket-sized pastures with huge cattle, and black-faced sheep, all divided by fenced in barriers. The trip Dublin to Galway took less than 2 hours, and yet it seemed to present a variety of scenes and vistas that would take days in California: pastures, meadows, villages, towns, rivers, forests, and loughs. It was breathtaking in its scenic rapidity.





Once arrived at our destinations, walking, with the occasional need for motorized travel, fleshed out the tour. Dublin, Galway, and Kilkenny are flat cities and meant to be walked and inspected by eye and foot. Each was unique, with its own feel and charm. Dublin was the first and last of our stops, and in many ways the most significant. I was already somewhat familiar with Dublin from our first trip, having previously spent two full days walking through its various sections – St. Stephen’s Green, Grafton Street, Trinity College, the River Liffey, O’Connell Street, the Abbey Theatre, Temple Bar, and Dublin Castle – and traveling throughout the city on the Hop on Hop off Bus Tour, and stopping at the Guinness Storehouse. On this occasion we expanded on these points to include visits to specific locales near the bus stops: Merrion Square, the General Post Office (GPO), the Book of Kells, and various museums and pubs. We would also visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Teeling Whiskey Distillery, and Kilmainham Gaol. The overwhelming sense of Dublin is its political, economic, and cultural significance, and its role in Irish history, independence, and tragedy – the sum of which I will touch upon in my conclusion.






In all the previous tales I’d heard about traveling in Ireland from reliable past travelers (Kathleen and my friend Jim Riley) there was one consistent narrative – to fully appreciate the rugged beauty of the land, and the charm of its people, one had to travel west out of Dublin, and explore the counties of Galway and Clare, while visiting the regions of Connemara, the Burren, and the Cliffs of Moher. The city of Galway was a delightful contrast to Dublin. It was smaller, quaint, and more approachable. Kathy had masterfully booked us into The Jurys Inn Hotel, so we were situated on the banks of the River Corrib, near the Spanish Arch, and the old fishing Claddagh section, at the entrance to Galway Bay. We were also next door to the Latin Quarter of town, with its plethora of restaurants, pubs, shops, and jewelry stores. This made eating and shopping incredibly easier than in Dublin, and the city was centrally located to the regions we wanted to explore by car – Connemara, and the Burren and Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Galway was also significant because it signaled the throwing out of our fixed itinerary to a more spontaneous selection of places to see and visit. Since the day we picked up our rental car was so sunny and clear, we impulsively decided to set out on the national highway toward Clifden, a seaside town in the Connemara region, and then work our way back to Galway along the Atlantic seacoast. When we were about halfway there, we serendipitously decided to make a rest stop at a village called Maam Cross. There, Kathy engaged a hostess at the nearby hotel to discuss travel options and directions. Annie, was another of the countless Irishwomen and men we encountered on the trip who went out of their way to be helpful and friendly. This was not merely a verbal transaction to gain useful information; it became an introduction to a full conversation of past and present circumstances, ending in friendship. Annie advised cutting our trip short and heading south through the Connemara region on small roads, which allowed better viewings of the area, and then traveling along the Atlantic coast toward Galway, stopping at the seaside villages of Spiddal or Furbo for lunch. There was little traffic on the roads, and with Kathy driving, we were able to slowly and comfortably take in the sights of the countryside, with its rock walls, lush green pastures, and nearby loughs.






I’ve always kidded Kathleen about her TMI tendency – her proclivity of revealing or volunteering Too Much Information about herself, her children, or me, in her casual encounters with strangers. I’ve always considered it a personal weakness and would never have recognized it a national trait. But in Ireland this tendency was rampant in the people we meant and spoke with. In every city and in every any situation we encountered Irish men and women who always welcomed a verbal encounter to learn about us, and to share their own stories, travels, and counsel. We met these citizens in hotel lobbies, lounges, stores, pubs, and on the streets of cities, towns, and villages of Ireland. And after all of these encounters I walked away learning more about the person we met than what we revealed. We learned about Dublin’s problems with affordable housing from a young Dot Com data manager with a growing family, and the fact that Kilkenny was the primary “stag and hen” destination city for bachelor and bachlorette parties from a lounging smoker in Ballyvaughan. In fact, during a musical interlude in Dublin’s O’Donough’s Pub, a stranger named John expounded on this Irish proclivity of sharing stories and giving friendly advice to strangers as a paradoxical byproduct of their harsh and brutal treatment at the hands of the British. “Ask anyone on the street for help”, he volunteered in accented brogue, “they’ll always take the time to guide and direct you. That’s our nature”. Kathy, of course, was in her element in all these encounters that allowed her to tell stories of her own. She would stop strangers in the street without a moment’s hesitation – questioning a covey of uniformed schoolgirls on their way home, or chatting with a bride and bridesmaids on their way to a wedding in Kilkenny. In every conversational encounter with Irish men, women, or children, the informational scales always tipped in our favor.






In many ways my Irish-American mentors, Kathleen and Jim Riley, were right. I found MY Ireland in the West – specifically in the village of Ballyvaughan, the Burren region of County Clare, and the Cliffs of Moher. Connemara was truly lovely in its pastoral landscapes, but nothing compared to the desolate, stony terrain of the Burrens, and the craggy beauty of the plunging seaside cliffs of Moher. These regions called forth memories of my native California when I first discovered the breathtaking beauty of the Pacific Coast along Highway 1, and the sparse mysteries of the desert. But while I usually traveled these Californian terrains by car, the west of Ireland invited them to be walked and meditated upon. Walking along the Cliffs of Moher was a religious pilgrimage of sorts that I felt compelled to make. I had seen old photographs of Kathleen, my teenaged son Tony, and my niece Maggie Denison, during their first visits to Ireland, standing on these cliffs that also seemed to beckon me. The imperative to join their number demanded my obeisance, and I walked the long, worn, cliff-side trail in reverent silence – speaking only once to ask a fellow pilgrim to take my photo with the craggy cliffs in the background. Ballyvaughan stood in dramatic counterpoint to the robust landscapes of Moher and the Burrens. It was a tranquil village that invited you to pause and breathe slowly, allowing your heart rate to lower to a dreamlike level. A walk from our hotel to the seaside dock, with Monk’s Pub standing sentinel, saw the color and look of the scenery change every hour, and at each tide. The weather could vary with a blink of an eye – shifting from sunny and bright, to dark and misty. There was a timeless quality to the air that called forth thoughts of mythical Brigadoon, the romantic village that appeared once every 100 years. And at night, one could see the lights of Galway city slowly come alive across the bay, and twinkle their greetings to the neighboring county. It was a village and a region I hated to leave, and swore to remember.









The most significant change in our itinerary was substituting Kenmare and the Ring of Kerry for a two-day stay in the medieval town of Kilkenny. After our earlier trials with driving, we decided to forego the longer drive to Kenmare, for a shorter one to Kilkenny, which would also shorten our ultimate ride back to Dublin. It was this castle town with its winding, romantic river, and countless churches and cathedrals, that brought out the song in my traveling companion. While strolling along the medieval walkways during our first afternoon in Kilkenny we espied a picturesque restaurant called Kytellers Inn. There Kathy noticed a sign advertising its musical schedule for the night. For the past week she had scanned the front of every pub we passed in Dublin and Galway, futilely listening and looking for signs of Irish music – all to no avail. She was not about to pass up this final opportunity, so clearly marked and advertised. So later that evening we returned to Kytellers Inn for dinner and music, and I witnessed a musical colleen come alive in Kathleen. I’ve seen Kathy’s face radiating happiness and joy on numerous occasions – while watching her children and grandchildren cavorting on the beach, or walking into the silent beauty of an old church – but I’ve rarely seen her whole body sway and vibrate like a tuning fork while listening to the singing of Irish ballads. We stayed for the entire set of the group called Drops of Green, and I left with an exhausted, but elated companion.









Dublin was where our travels started and where they ended – beginning with our stay at The Alex Hotel near Merrion Square and Trinity College, and ending with an immensely sweet reunion with our son Tony and his wife Nikki, who had flown in from Scotland.  There is something special about meeting up with a family member in a foreign country, away from the normal boundaries and routines of home. Despite the difficulties of merging two diverse travel itineraries, we managed to connect with Tony and Nikki at the Pearse St. Station, around the corner from our hotel, and take them to dinner at Kennedy’s Pub in Dublin. Although the capital city lacks the picturesque beauty of Galway or Kilkenny, it remains the historical, cultural, and economic cornerstone of the country. During any leisurely walk along its streets one can’t help stumbling over an artifact or footnote of historical or artistic significance: The General Post Office (GPO) on O’Connell Street, where the Easter Rebellion began; St. Stephen Green and the Shelbourne Hotel where Irish insurgents battled the British Army; or Kilmainham Jail, where the Easter rebels were imprisoned and later executed. These were the streets that Michael Collins traversed by bicycle, directing the IRA’s undermining war against the British Empire that finally brought it to its knees. Simply strolling through Merrion Square brings you to the former residences of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde, and crossing the River Liffey brings you to the Abbey Theatre, the Mecca of Irish literary arts. Gazing into a shop window when leaving Kennedy’s Pub brought me face to face with a display proclaiming it as the store where Leopold Bloom, Joyce’s fictional hero of Ulysses, purchased a bar of soap for his wife Molly on June 16, 1904. All these locales and literary footnotes seemed to point to a sorrowful past and a people’s continuing attempt to sublimate it into something artistically and historically redeeming. Still, Dublin is a modern city that struggles with modern problems. Although its economy is rebounding mightily from the Economic Recession of 2009, when the Celtic Tiger collapsed, the city grapples with a bulging workforce. Ironically, while there are jobs to be had in Dublin, there is insufficient room to house its growing population. This points to the final characteristic I found in many of my encounters with Irishmen, young and old. So many of the men I met and spoke with in Ireland had lived and worked in Los Angeles, California, and other parts of the United States. In every encounter their stories were the same: not enough work in Ireland, outside of Dublin, and encountering visa problems in the States which prevented their return. They also ended their stories in the same way, each man voicing an optimistic (though sardonic) attitude that everything would somehow work out. These Irish men and women had an air of universal citizenship, as if they could be comfortable in any city, state, or country – yet always retaining their unique cultural and poetic traits. It was no accident that James Joyce chose to make Leopold Bloom, his fictional Irish hero, a Jew – a member of a world-traveling people from a country without borders – but first and foremost a Dubliner.











So I fly away from Ireland a more thoughtful man than when I arrived. The visit filled in some of the blank spaces I often wondered about: How a land so small could be so diverse in its beauty? How a terrain and a climate so rugged and harsh could be so mystical and soothing? How a history so terrible could bring forth such a romantic and openhearted people? I didn’t leave with answers to these questions, but that was never the point. I flew away having seen the country and gotten a taste for its people, feeling richer for the experience.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(W.B. Yeats)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Sixties lately. You know, the decade that was ushered in so brightly with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1961, ended with the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, and was then sealed with the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. Strangely enough, I wasn’t prompted into these thoughts by music, which is my usual trigger to thoughts of the 60’s, but by a writer – Joan Didion – and our current political state.


I discovered the writings of Joan Didion years ago, when I was searching for essayists to copy. Her style appealed to me. Her essays were thoughtful, elegant, and personal. She was part of the new wave of journalists who inserted themselves into the narrative of the stories they were telling, without actually participating in them. They were dispassionate observers or witnesses to the people and events they were describing, never quite revealing their own sentiments, or at least masking them so well that they were hard to decipher. That was the type of writer I wanted to be – so I read her essays from time to time, and her two-bestselling memoirs on death – The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights. However, it wasn’t until I rediscovered her works on Audible (an online provider of spoken audio books, information, and educational programming on the Internet) that I began listening to her works anew, and hearing her collections as a whole, to discover their unifying theme.


After listening to her first two collections in sequence, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and The White Album, (the former published in 1968 and the later in 1979) I was actually startled by the way Didion described the 1960’s of my youth. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about the 60’s for a long time. I thought the decade long gone and without much merit outside its music. Sure, they encapsulated the ten important years of my academic education, but I considered that time dead and over, with my 50^th high school reunion acting as its final memorial. However I was not prepared for Didion’s perspective on the 60’s and the way she saw that era as a type of Armageddon, signaling the disintegration and end of the American Dream she had envisioned in college. In those two books she was chronicling the Sixties in a uniquely masterful manner. She eschewed the campy, sarcastic style of Tom Wolfe’s non-fiction books on the psychedelic adventures of Ken Kesey, Neal Cassidy, and their bank of Merry Pranksters who travelled across California and the country hosting LSD “acid test” parties in his The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Instead, Didion stands seemingly aloof from the stories she is telling of hippies and the drug culture of Haight-Ashbury, Joan Baez’s Institute for the Study of Non-violence, the wedding chapels of Las Vegas, the Black Panthers of San Francisco, and the Manson Murders. In a subtle, nuanced fashion, she is in fact describing the deterioration and crumbling of the American Dream, and its optimistic trust in The West.


In 1968, Didion began her first collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, with a poetic epigram from W.B. Yeats:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds,
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

Then she proceeded to say: “This book is called Slouching Towards Bethlehem because for several years now certain lines from the Yeats poem have reverberated in my inner ear as if they were surgically implanted there. The widening gyre, the falcon which does not hear the falconer, the gaze blank and pitiless as the sun; those have been points of reference, the only images against which much of what I was seeing and hearing and thinking seemed to make any pattern. ‘Slouching towards Bethlehem’ is also the title of one piece in the book, and that piece, which derived from some time I spent in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, was for me both the most imperative of all these pieces to write and the only one that made me despondent after it was printed. It was the first time I had dealt directly and flatly with the evidence of atomization, the proof that all things fall apart: I went to San Francisco because I had not been able to work in some months, had been paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act, that the world as I had understood it no longer existed. If I was to work again at all, it would be necessary for me to come to terms with disorder…”


This idea of  “coming to terms with disorder” resonated to me while listening to (and later reading) Didion’s unsettling descriptions of the 1960’s in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and The White Album. I found myself relating to the books on two levels. First, there was real surprise at her feelings that the 60’s were a manifestation of the revolutionary destruction of the American Dream (with its idealization of The West) and the undermining of the American Way of Life. It was a perspective I’d forgotten about because, as a participant of the 60’s, I never took it seriously  – considering it the old-fashioned thinking of my parents, and mere evidence of our generation gap. Second, and more importantly, I now began to see how her reactions to the 60’s seemed to mirror my own responses to the current decade we find ourselves in – the 2010’s (the “teens” of the 21^st Century. You see, ever since the inauguration of President Obama on January 20, 2009, I believe I’ve seen things falling apart, because the center wasn’t holding; and I’ve seen “anarchy loosed upon the world” with the election of Donald Trump, and watched innocence drowned. I’ve witnessed how the “best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”. These two reactions constitute the body of this essay.


I believe that Didion’s nuanced stories of the Sixties and Seventies very much reflected the sentiments of the generation of my parents and the children born during WWII – my older aunts and uncles and Kathy’s older siblings. Like Didion, these were Californians born in the early and mid 1940’s and raised in the Fifties. They shared the values and aspirations of their Depression-era parents who came to California looking to build and not destroy. These were generations looking to build on the social and economic progress of their own parents, and saw the achievements and affluence of America as a continued strengthening of its democratic ideals and values. Order, tradition, manners, and decorum were essential, and went hand-in-hand with trust in our American System of democracy and Capitalism. It was a conservative California that nurtured and cared for them, but one that also believed that a quality public education and the new California University system was essential in building foundations to insure its continuity. All these foundations began cracking and crumbling in the 1960’s with the disorder of the Civil Rights Movement, the violence of the Anti-War Movements, and the unsettling music of Rock and Roll. And even though I lived through the same times that Didion described, I somehow missed, or misunderstood, her perspective on it.





The first eight essays in Slouching were titled “Lifestyles in the Golden Land”. Taken separately they told acerbic stories of California in the early Sixties and how they reflected a weakening in the fiber of traditional American life, and a slow moral and cultural disintegration. One recounted the story of Lucille Maxwell Miller, a wife who moved to San Bernardino with her dentist husband only to become disenchanted with that modern Southern California lifestyle and murdered him for the insurance money and the hope of trading up for a better marriage. Three more described the absurd political naïveté of socialist and liberal causes and organizations developing in California, centering on Joan Baez’s Institute for the Study of Non-violence in the Carmel Valley, Michael Laski and the Communist Party of the USA, and the Liberal “think tank” called the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Another piece was on Las Vegas, and how it was “the most extreme and allegorical of American settlements, bizarre and beautiful in its venality and its devotion to immediate gratification, a place the tone of which is set by mobsters and call girls and ladies room attendants”. A place where “there is no time, no night and no day, no past and no future.” Essays on John Wayne and Howard Hughes presented interesting contrasts. The first was idyllic, presenting Wayne as a symbol of the old western concept of the heroic cowboy facing the onslaught of cities and industrialization, but being brought down by the ravages of cancer. It was titled, “John Wayne: A Love Song”, and it ended with Didion wanting him to “take me to the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow”. Howard Hughes, however, was painted as a different type of western man. He was the bizarre, rich, and antisocial personality who sold airline companies, bought casinos in Las Vegas, and hid from sight. Yet “that we have made a hero of Howard Hughes tells us something interesting about ourselves, something only dimly remembered, tells us that the secret of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power’s sake, but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific…” The last essay was the darkest and most disturbing. In a detached and emotionless manner Didion describes the contemporary wasteland of Haight-Ashbury in Sixties, “where the social hemorrhaging was showing up. San Francisco was where the missing children were gathering and calling themselves ‘hippies’.”




At the time, I never saw the destructive, viral effects of the counterculture that Didion was describing from 1964 to 1967. Those were the middle years of the Sixties for me, when I was in high school and just smelling the early euphoric whiffs of teenage independence. The wondrous decade opened with President John Kennedy’s youthful promise of a New Frontier and continued through President Johnson’s Great Society. They were idyllic years for me, with the soundtracks of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan playing in the background. Idealism and change were in the air, and a belief that the adult attitudes, prejudices, and hang-ups of our parents were wrong and needed to be exposed, re-worked, or replaced. The Civil Rights Movement was the first clarion call for social change. Photos and newsreels of civil right marches, sit-ins, and boycotts pointed out the injustices of the times, and young people felt obliged to support, join, or participate. We had youth, idealism, and intelligence on our side, but what our post-war generation of “baby boomers” lacked was thoughtful and moral guides or models to follow. Change was an end in itself, and our motto seemed to be to distrust anyone over thirty. So there developed an attitude of being open, tolerant, and accepting of anything new, with rock and roll musicians leading the way: peace, Love, drugs, and sex. The sheer size and vocalness of our generation must have scared our parent’s generation to the core. We were a tidal wave about to crest and wash their civilization away.




I have never mentioned Donald Trump in my blog, although I do admit using his picture with the caption “You’re Fired!” to illustrate an essay I wrote about dismissing a teacher. And ever since the inauguration of President Obama, I’ve avoided politics in my blog and on all social media outlets. But as I was reading these two collections by Joan Didion, I was struck by how much her reactions to the 60’s reflected the ones I was feeling during the 2010’s. From 2009 to the present, there has been one catastrophic event after another: the banking collapse and economic recession, the bitter and divisive partisanship in congress, the do-nothing attitude of the Federal Legislature, the growing racism and anti-immigration feeling in the nation, the election of Donald Trump, and the publication last week of a book and an anonymous op-ed piece in the New York Times describing a resistance movement within the White House to prevent our flawed, impetuous, and temperamental President from doing something dangerous or detrimental to the welfare of the nation. Even Didion’s mental health diagnosis seemed to mirror many of the same symptoms I was experiencing after watching the daily news on television, and reading The Los Angeles Times, and New York Times. I suppose all I can hope for is to learn the lesson that Joan Didion offered in her essays while living through the Sixties as a depressed and despondent adult, and was confronted “directly and flatly with the evidence of atomization, the proof that all things fall apart… Perhaps we too need to come to terms with the disorder around us, and continue telling stories so that we can live through it.

What do you think about love?
Is it a game to be played?
To be torn and lost in the wilderness?
To be lost and lonely after all?

What do you think about love?
Is it a way to be saved?
To feel the warmth of another love?
To be lost and lonely after all?

I really don’t know anymore,
I really can’t say.
I really don’t care anymore,
I’m just that way.
(I Don’t Really Care Anymore: Christopher Cross – 1980)

It started with Peter Greaney’s Facebook post in June, when Kathy read it and informed me that our godson Peter was participating in a rough-water swim across San Francisco Bay for charity and was asking for sponsors. She immediately called him to get the facts about making a contribution for Cancer research, and finding out the details about his swim. After the phone call we began talking and reminiscing about Peter, and our other "Greaney" godson, Billy Kirst. Bill was Kathy’s oldest sister, Mary Ellen’s oldest son, and Peter was Kathy’s youngest brother, Greg’s youngest son. They’re sort of the yin and yang of nephews and godsons (Kathy and I also have one godson on the Delgado side of the family - Tommy, the youngest son of my sister Grace Holiday Baloh). I’ve mentioned both "Greaney" boys in a few of my blog essays, but Peter has somehow always gotten the major ink (see tag: peter). Kathy makes a point of always staying in touch with them, sending them notes and gifts on holidays and birthdays, and calling them periodically to see how they are doing. The spiritual connection of god-parenthood somehow makes them special, and a little different from their other nieces and nephews. Last summer we even managed to have them visit us at the beach house we were renting in Ventura. Talking about Peter and his latest athletic venture got me to thinking about god-parenthood and these two young men, and I told Kathy I might write a personal essay about them.
“About them, or about you?” She asked accusingly with a smile.
“Well”, I answered defensively, knowing how my essays always tended to revolve around my personal memories and perceptions of people and events, “it is MY blog.”
The way that I remember one occasion went something like this.





In June of 2014, Kathy and I drove to La Jolla to attend Peter’s graduation from the University of California in San Diego. We were staying at the same hotel as his parents, Greg and Anne, and his two brothers, Clay and Clark, and planned on joining them for the graduation ceremony on the following morning. After unpacking, I took my camera and we went down to the lobby where we found Greg and Anne there with their boys. Joining them in the spacious lounge, we began talking about family events and what they had been doing recently. At some point in the conversation, while I took some photos, Anne interjected, in her usual attentive and expressive manner,
“I can’t believe you traveled all this way just to see Peter’s graduation! You took all those wonderful pictures at his high school graduation.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I responded. “Kathy wasn’t able to make that graduation because of work”, I explained, “so I wanted to get plenty of pictures for us.”
“They were fabulous!” Anne exclaimed.
“I’m hoping to get just as many of him at this graduation”, I added. “You know Peter is a special godson to us.”
At that last statement Anne’s face suddenly froze, and her eyes widened in confusion. This was followed by a long eerie silence. This look was not typical of Anne’s complementary, conversational style. Normally she would have expanded on my last sentence, and been effusive about our support of her son. Instead she looked over at Greg as if pleading for assistance. Greg, however, simply reflected back a look of non-engaged neutrality, leaving Anne to dangle on her own.
“I thought,” she finally stammered, apologetically, “ that Peter had another Godfather”.
Now I was stunned into confusion and looked to Kathy for clarification. Crazy thoughts started careening through my mind. Hadn’t we stood side by side at San Roque Church as Godparents to Peter and sent him gifts and cards at Christmas and birthdays? Could I have imagined all this? Was Peter’s baptism a false memory? Had I been living under a delusion all this time? Greg’s intervention finally broke the uncomfortable silence and halted my spiraling descent of self-doubt and pity.
“I’m sure Tony and Kathy are Peter’s Godparents and we have the certificate somewhere. So,” he added, bringing this topic to a close, “you two will be joining us for dinner, right?”





I’ve occasionally wondered why I let this little lapse of memory bother me so much. After all, God-parenting has become something of an anachronism in these post-modern times. In America, the role of godparents seems mostly symbolic, calling upon two adults to act as christening sponsors for a child, and boosters of the parents. It doesn’t carry the same level of responsibilities as in other cultures, especially in Latin America and some European countries. In Mexico and Italy, for example, the term for god-parenthood is “compadrazco”, or co-parenthood, and it embodies the concept that parents and godparents shared a cooperative responsibility for the upbringing, education, and professional success of their child and godchild. Kathy’s level of involvement in the lives of all three of her godsons (the third being Jeff Parker, her sister Debbie’s son) comes closest to this concept. She made a point of intersecting with their lives, and making time to call or visit them whenever possible – and I go along for the ride. I recall two of many such occasions with our godson Billy that had a special significance for me – when he graduated from college, and last September when he was in Los Angeles for a business meeting.





There was never any doubt that Bill Kirst was our godson, because his birthplace and baptism were unforgettable. He was born and baptized in Tehran, during the times surrounding the fall of the Shah, while his family was living in Iran. Kathy and I were asked to be his godparents by proxy – meaning that two other adults stood in our place in Tehran during the actual baptism, while we signed the certificate in the United States. However the only times we saw Billy as a child and young adult were when his mother and father would visit Los Angeles in between their travels, and we could talk to him about his life and plans for college. When he graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2000, Kathy and I travelled to Washington D.C. to attend the ceremony, while staying at a hotel near his parent’s home near the National Cathedral. That evening, while Kathy and I relaxed in the outdoor patio of the hotel, with the pomp and drama of commencement and a family celebration at an Annapolis restaurant behind us, we saw Billy emerging out of the darkness to join us. There we listened to a naïve and thoughtful young man speak of his hopes and fears at this crossroads of his life, and reflecting on graduate school, relationships, and happiness. We offered advice where we could, but spent more time simply listening, and supporting his plans and dreams. Over the next 18 years, which witnessed him joining the Army, working at the Pentagon, and pursuing a career in Management Leadership, we kept in touch with Billy by phone, social media, and visits, and he with us. He joined us at the beach last summer when we vacationed at the Channel Island Harbor in Oxnard, and he spent the night with us last September when he was in Los Angeles for a business conference. It was there that we heard a now mature man describing the stresses of work and travel, the hardships of maintaining a long-distance relationship with his loved one, and the contemplative strategies he employed to cope with them. Then, as before, Kathy and I spent more time listening and validating his plans and actions, always expressing our joy over his successes and happiness. I suppose that’s all a parent or godparent can do when children grow up and become adults.





The morning after the god-paternity issue arose, I decided, in true Greaney fashion, to make light of the awkward conversation over who were Peter’s godparents by moving it to the forefront of conversation and making a joke out of it. Geared up with camera and telephoto lenses, I made my way to the staging area of the commencement exercise, prepared to take pictures of Peter from beginning to end. There, excusing myself for my presence and constant intrusion with a clicking camera, I introduced myself to his friends and schoolmates as “his true godfather”. You got to love Peter for his patience with me when it comes to taking pictures of him, he just smiles and puts up with my posing requests. This was the case in high school and in all the Greaney family reunions and celebrations. I must admit that watching the faces of these young men and women that were reflecting the nostalgic realization that their carefree collegiate days were over also caught me up in the paradoxical excitement of the moment. Young people who were laughing, hugging, mugging, and crying surrounded me – and I photographed it all. Once the processional began, and Peter disappeared from view, I made my way to the seating area and joined the rest of his visiting family.






Peter’s Facebook announcement of his participation Swim Across America to fight cancer brought back all those old memories, as well as pride in his budding career as a scientist for Genentech. He was moving on and forward, and Kathy and I were going to remain a small part of his life, with or without verification of our god-parenting status. I suppose I really don’t care anymore about official certification. I’m simply claiming the family title of being Peter’s godfather, with all its burdensome responsibilities, along with the joys of watching him grow old and happy in his achievements in the future. I’m just that way.

On and on, over the hill to Ardglass.
In the jam jar, autumn sunshine, magnificent
And all shining through.

Stopping off at Ardglass for a couple of jars of
Mussels and some potted herring in case
We get famished before dinner.
On and on, over the hill – and the craic is good.

Heading towards Coney Island
I look at the side of your face as the sunlight comes
Streaming through the window in the autumn sunshine;
All the time going to Coney Island I’m thinking,
“Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time”.
(Coney Island: Van Morrison – 1989)

“Hey, John”, I exclaimed as I answered my cell phone, seeing that my friend John O’Riley was calling.
“Hey,” he barked back. “Is this a good time to talk?”
“Sure,” I replied, wondering what had prompted this call, since we had just played golf together the week before. “What’s up?” I asked curiously.
“Greg asked me to call you,” he said. “He wants me to convince you to come camping with us next week, since you already turned him down. You interested in going camping with us?” He asked.
I burst out laughing in unexpected surprise. It was a combination of prolonged chuckles and bellowing amazement at this ludicrous strategy. “You’re kidding,” I finally gasped. “Greg actually wants you to talk me into going camping? I can’t believe it. I told him ‘no’. I hate camping! I’m too old to camp. No way I’m sleeping in a tent, having to wake up and go outside two or three times a night to pee”.
“I have the same problem”, John countered, “but there is a solution for it.”
John’s dogged optimism and confidence at dismissing all my excuses kept me smiling in delight and laughter. John wouldn’t give up. Somehow managing not to nag, he offered a friendly solution or compromise to every difficulty I raised.
“Do you have a sleeping bag?” He asked
“Yes, but I don’t have a tent”, I argued.
“I’ll have a tent for you,” he countered.
“I don’t have an air mattress,” I grumbled. “I can’t sleep on the ground.”
“Greg will bring one you can use,” he replied.
Somehow John’s reasonable and friendly persistence kept me smiling and receptive.
“Look,” I said, bringing the argument to a close, “believe it our not, I’m sort of inclined to try it. Let me check with Kathy first. I need to see her calendar to make sure we have no commitments on those dates.”
I called my organizing friend Greg Ryan back the following night and confirmed that I was joining him on his trip, and finally got around to asking him where we were going.


You got to love Greg. He loves driving, traveling, cooking, camping, and judging BBQ contests in the most exotic locations. He’s also reliable about getting friends and people to join him. Apart from our periodic group-planned camping and mule packing trips to Big Sur and Mammoth, I remember first hearing of Greg’s spontaneous travels in high school and during our college days, when he would, seemingly, go on road trips and camping trips at the spur of the moment. I would hear about these trips later, when he and his usual traveling companion, John, would talk about their experiences on their return. Greg, it appeared, was the organizer and driver, and he could take a suggested idea, event, or locale, and turn it into an impromptu travel adventure. At some point I finally tired of being left out and feeling envious of these trips, and I begged him to always invite me, even if I, more than occasionally, turned him down. He said he would then, and he has kept his promise to this day.




I’ve previously written of my three high school friends and our traveling adventures (see tag: amigos). They are Greg, and the brothers, Jim and John. On this trip we initially rendezvoused at John’s home in Camarillo, CA, on Wednesday, May 16^th, with Greg driving up from San Diego, and picking Jim up in Lakewood. Since John and Greg were bringing up all of the heavy and bulky camp gear and firewood, we took two vehicles. Jim accompanied Greg in his SUV and I rode shotgun with John in his truck. Although we departed at the same time, we quickly lost sight of each other on the road, owing to Greg’s lead-footed driving, and John’s reluctance to drive faster than the speed limit. In the past, this tortoise-like velocity used to irritate me, but I finally accepted it as a minor inconvenience if he chose to drive. We traveled the first 200 miles north on Highway 101, through Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Paso Robles, arriving at Greenfield, a small town between Salinas and King City, in the Salinas Valley at about 3:00 pm. There we went west on Elm Street until it connected to Arroyo Seco Road, which paralleled the Arroyo Seco River. It was along this road that we discovered there was no cellular service in the area, rendering our mobile phones useless, and making it impossible to communicate with Greg and Jim. None of us knew anything about Arroyo Seco Campground or its layout. Greg found it on a map when he wasn’t able to get a reservation at Big Sur. Although Arroyo Seco is part of the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, it is located on its eastern extremity, in the Ventana Wilderness, near the Carmel Valley. With no sight of Greg or Jim at the camp entrance, we drove into the campground, hiding our growing sense of unease, and started searching, finally encountering a Camp Host near the main facilities who directed us further into the park. Along the road another host pointed us to our reserved campsite where we met up with our friends.

Inspecting the circuit of reserved, but still vacant, campsites in our location, ours was by far the best. We had a canopy of three towering trees, two fire pits, a wooden picnic table, and strategically located boulders and tree trunks, on which we could sit, recline, or balance objects and tools. The site was at a corner of two sloping hills, one dropping quickly to a river below, and the other, gently sloping towards a marshy lake. Standing at the ridge above the river, we could marvel at the overpowering sight of an enormous green mountain rising up from the river below. It would act as our welcoming morning and evening sentinel for the entire trip. After exploring the grounds, the bathroom and water facilities, and shaking off the stiffness from our long car rides, we finally got around to unloading our tools, cargo, and equipment, and began setting up camp and our tents.





I should confess that of the four of us, only Greg and John are the REAL campers and cooks. They have the gear, supplies, equipment, tools, and utensils to make the camping experience possible and bearable. Although Jim loves to camp, and is always willing to go (especially if it is to Big Sur), bringing along his portable CD player and music, he is totally dependent on Greg and John for the essentials. Me? I’m the tourist in the group. I come along to be guided, take photos, record memories, and try being as helpful as possible. Jim and I are basically supernumeraries on camping trips, ready assistants and helpers, and providers of beer, wine, and snacks, but dependent on the two chiefs and cooks. So with no embarrassment or shame we borrowed the supplies and gear we needed to set up our camp chairs and tents, and then asked what was on the menu. John was handling our first dinner with beef stew and French bread, and then egg, bacon, and hash brown potato burritos for breakfast. Greg was grilling street tacos and refried beans for our last supper on Thursday night.





The one unique quality of all our road-trips and camping excursions is the lack of a fixed itinerary or plan before we set off. The destination is the mission. Once we arrive, what we do, or where we go, is never fixed. Even though some of us may have an idea or two to volunteer, we make it up as we go along. Impromptu traveling you might call it. In the surrounding darkness of our first evening, while sitting near the warm and burning log fire, we finally started pitching ideas for the following day, supporting some and criticizing others. John had brought along playing cards and poker chips to while away the time in camp, but Jim wanted to drive a short distance west on Arroyo Seco Road, then double back toward the Salinas Valley, and perhaps stopping at a nearby mission and a vineyard or two, before returning to camp. The only suggestion I made was my desire to drive beyond Arroyo Seco Road, continuing west on the Carmel Valley Road to Carmel. I wanted to see the entire Carmel Valley, and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Pastures of Heaven that John Steinbeck wrote about in the 1930’s. I first heard of the Pastures of Heaven from Jim and Wayne Wilson, another friend from high school, on one of our early camping trips to Big Sur during college. On the day we were returning home, Jim suggested a detour along the Carmel Valley Road to see if we could spot one of these heavenly pastures. We didn’t drive too far in, and quickly made a brief stop by a pretty grass field, dotted with flowers. But I always wondered what lay beyond, deeper into the Carmel Valley. Finally, without having expressed any ideas or suggestions, Greg brought the discussion to a close by saying that he would drive – thereby making himself the final arbiter of our explorations on the following day.








 The next morning, after a hearty breakfast of egg burritos and coffee, we set off along the Arroyo Seco Road finally coming to the Carmel Valley turnoff. Although Jim suggested turning back at that point, Greg countered with the final itinerary. We would continue through the valley to Carmel, stopping at a store there for some extra provisions, and then take Highway 1 north to Monterey, and cross over Highway 68 back to the Salinas Valley where we could search for a winery and Mission. I thought it was a delightful compromise for Jim and me, and I would finally get a chance to see the entire length of Carmel Valley and search for the Pastures of Heaven.




It is in the prologue to a collection of short stories titled The Pastures of Heaven, that John Steinbeck tells the story of a group of 20 converted Indians who abandoned the Catholic mission they were building in Carmel.  A Spanish corporal and a squad of horsemen chase the runaways into the Carmel Valley and through the mountains beyond.  After a week of searching, the corporal finally captures the runaway Indians and sets off to return to the Carmel Mission.  On the journey back, while hunting a deer, the corporal arrives at a ridge where he has an astonishing view of a fertile valley below.  The beauty and serenity of the wondrous valley stagger him, and he quotes Psalm 23: "Holy Mother! he whispered. Here are the green pastures of Heaven to which our Lord leadeth us".  From that day on, the corporal dreamt of returning and retiring to this valley, which he dubbed "Las Pasturas del Cielo". I’m not sure if we ever came upon these same pastures on our ride through the Carmel Valley, but the fields, meadows, and forests along the way were truly staggering in their beauty and fertility. I snapped countless photos of the scenery, always wishing they would do justice to the alluring vistas.





On our way back to camp, having stopped briefly in Carmel and at a spot overlooking Monterey and the Bay beyond the city, we had the chance to really appreciate the authentic beauty of the Salinas Valley. Previously, I’d only seen the Valley from a car, speeding along Highway 101. However, on the route Jim suggested, and Greg took, we drove along the River Road, closely paralleling the Salinas River. For the first time I had an up close view of the vast fields of lettuce, broccoli, and strawberries carpeting both sides of the river, and could marvel at the countless fruitful vineyards garlanding the eastern slopes of the Santa Lucia and Gabilan mountains. This was capped off with a stop at the Hahn Vineyard, whose Tasting Room porch provided a vast panoramic vista of the entire Salinas Valley. We culminated this scenic tour with quick stop at the Soledad Mission, before finally returning to camp for an afternoon of card playing.






A camping trip isn’t a camping trip without evenings under the stars with music, a bonfire keeping you warm and comfortable, and endless conversation with wine or fine Irish whiskey. It was during our first night in camp, with Van Morrison’s Coney Island playing in the background that Jim asked if we knew what the lyrics “and the craic is good” meant. I’d always assumed Morrison was alluding to crack cocaine, which he must have brought along on his trip to Coney Island. So I was delighted to learn from Jim and Greg that Morrison was actually using the Irish term craic, which meant news, gossip, stories, and enjoyable conversation. This revelation seemed very timely to me because it is the “craic”, or conversations, during these trips that I love the most. It is the chance for old friends to catch up on the events in our lives, and find out how we are doing, and to argue over differing memories of places, times, and events. I’ve also used these opportunities to ask very personal, and possibly embarrassing questions, of my longtime friends – a tendency they sometimes find annoying. On the first night of our camping trip, after the natural flow of conversation had temporarily ceased, I asked a question that had puzzled me for a long time. “When was the first time each of us met one another?” I suppose I asked that question with an assumption that each of us would reveal one significant scene, event, or a particular moment in our life when we recognized each other as a friend. At least that is what happens in movies, and in novels – friendships being bonded during a memorable moment. Sadly, real life doesn’t always follow a script, because none of us could come up with one moment or event that initiated and cemented our almost lifetime friendships. We could identify common interests, activities, classes, and a connected network of other acquaintances and friends in high school – but no one event that created our current friendships. It was disappointing in one way, but natural in another. I suppose most friendships, like all human relationships, EVOLVE and grow. Friendships that manifest themselves in a startling epiphany might happen, of course, but they must be more rare that I thought.





On our last night around the fire, looking up periodically to absorb the glorious vastness of the starry heavens, I asked another personal question that I assumed was benign. Of course, the immediate response was a general groan of “Oh God, here we go again”.  Although everyone answered, some chose not to elaborate, refusing to share more information. Unfortunately, instead of dropping the matter, I persisted by changing the issue from merely answering my question to explaining their refusal to elaborate – and a heated argument ensued. The pointless bickering continued for a while, until a predictable explosion of anger occurred. That ended the discussion and someone changed the topic. But I was left with the bitter after-taste of disillusionment – not in my friends’ unwillingness to share, but in my own selfish arrogance in demanding more. These are men I have known for over 50 years, and friends I love. But that night I’d failed the essential test of true friendship by not accepting them for who they are, and wanting them to be more like me. The question I had asked was an easy one for me to answer and share, but I’d failed to understand the personal and emotional boundaries of my friends. If these guys can accept the annoyance of my personal questions, I can accept whatever they wish to share. So, overall, I would judge this camping experience a success, even though the nights were colder than they had to be because I delayed putting on my tent canopy until the second day. As Van Morrison said, “the craic was good”, and I learned something about asking nosey questions, and accepting the personal boundaries of friends.

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But, she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hand
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe It's got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break
you'll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without warmth from
A woman's good, good heart
(Daughters: John Mayer – 2003)

All ideas of getting near enough to my subject to take close-up photos evaporated when I saw the pint-sized players scrambling onto the baseball field. Resigned now to shooting pictures from behind the spectator barriers and screens, I watched the slender, long-legged Little League baseball player with the blonde hair bound onto the outfield grass to warm up with two other players. Her long hair sweeping back to the sides of her baseball cap like yellow wings, she ran to a spot and formed a warm-up triangle with her teammates on the field. It is always easy to spot Sarah on a soccer pitch, basketball court, or ball field. Her luminous hair stands out like a beacon, and her quick gazelle movements seem to radiate bursts of charged energy. Her unconscious antics always make me smile. She does spontaneous summersaults on the soccer pitch and skips while running back to play defense in basketball. I haven’t seen enough of her baseball games to identify the unique “tell” which will indicate her happiness level in this new sport. Sarah is a joyous athlete when she plays any game or sport, whether its catch, kickball, soccer, or basketball. Baseball is her newest sport and I was at the North Torrance Little League field to see her play for the first time.





Introducing one’s own children to the sports you loved as a child is a special right of passage. I took Toñito and Prisa to their respective tryouts for T-ball and Softball when each turned 7. Prisa was the youngest on her team when she joined in 1987, but she could catch, throw, and field better than some of the older, more experienced girls. I had played catch with her, and pitched Wiffle balls to her since she was four years old. Prisa “had game”. After playing as a reserve outfielder her first year, she moved up to starting catcher her second, and made the traveling all-star team in her third year as a multiple-position utility player. Even though Prisa played other sports from middle school through high school, she never failed to include softball every spring. She loved the game. Sarah, however, was not playing Girl’s softball; she was playing Little League hardball.




When I asked Prisa about this choice, she explained that she was acceding to Joe’s wishes of having his first-born child play Little League baseball, as he had. It was a preference that I completely understood, but it had also brought to mind an essay I wrote about Toñito’s first experience with baseball, and the lessons Kathy and I learned from it:



When Toñito was seven years old, I proudly signed him up for tee-ball at the local park. I bubbled over with excitement over this new step into organized youth sports. Tony had played three years of AYSO soccer, but that was a messy game. Soccer consisted of little children running around an open field kicking a ball in the general direction of some netting. Baseball was Tony’s introduction into an organized sport that required physical acumen and teamwork. I saw this juncture as his first step on the same road I had traveled as a youth; a journey I could now relive with him. Together, we made the required pilgrimage to a sporting goods store to purchase a fielder’s glove. As I carefully explained how an oversized glove would enhance his fielding abilities, I could see Toñito soaking in every word. He was great at games; but until then, they had been board games, problem-solving games, and mental games that complemented his intellectual and reasoning skills. This was his first athletically demanding sport, and he was carefully listening and internalizing the rules, procedures, and equipment of this new game. Later, I volunteered as an adult helper on his team, assisting with practices and games, but I was more interested in watching Tony’s individual progress. Even though he was awkward at the mechanics of baseball, he looked like a real ball player – being tall and lanky, with long arms and legs. We practiced at home by going out to the front lawn to play catch, field ground balls and fly balls, and bat. There his five-year-old sister Prisa always joined us. Instead of relegating Prisa to the task of “shagging” and returning balls hit into the next yard, Tony was happy to let Prisa bat, field, and throw with his equipment. She got as much practice as he.


Half way through the season, on a weekday afternoon before practice, Tony came into my study as I was working.
“Can I talk to you Dad?” he asked, sounding very serious.
“Sure” I replied, rolling back my desk chair. I was amused by his formality, but I didn’t laugh and gave him my full attention.
“Can we talk alone?” he added.
Now I was curious. “Let’s talk in the bedroom,” I said, leaving my desk and leading the way down the hall. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited for Tony to enter and close the door.
“Dad” he said, “I don’t want to play baseball anymore”.
I was stunned.
“Did anything happen?” I asked, searching for a specific reason to explain this shocking request.
“No, nothing happened”, he said. “I just hate it, Dad. I’m no good at baseball”.
“Did anyone do or say anything to hurt you?” I pressed, still hoping to find a problem I could fix.
“It’s not one thing Dad; it’s everything. The kids don’t listen when they’re supposed to, and the coaches don’t really teach; they just expect you to play. And baseball is so boring!”

These were only the first erupting emotions that Toñito had been repressing about baseball. I was unprepared for such a litany of unhappiness. Tony was miserable because he felt forced to play a sport he did not value or appreciate. He described the pointless drills, the indecisive directions, and the boredom of standing in the outfield waiting for nothing to happen, because tee-ball batters rarely hit baseballs that far. But even more frightening was the growing fear that my desire to see him play baseball was the cause for his misery. I listened to all he said, and was then compelled to ask the question I dreaded to voice. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to play” he replied, firmly.
The finality of his response was another shot to the gut. “You mean right now?” I asked uncertainly. “You don’t want to go to practice today?”
He nodded silently, never taking his eyes off of me.
I felt the reservoir of my calm demeanor bursting, with the realization that I could rescue my son from all his unhappiness with a word. The onrushing flood of Tony’s misery and my desire to help swept over me. Somehow I managed to stop this compelling impulse. I needed time to think, discuss the issue with Kathy, and reach a calm decision. I paused, took a deep breath and straightened my back as I prepared to speak.

“Tony, I love you,” I said. “I never want you to be unhappy, especially in a sport that is supposed to be fun. But I don’t feel that quitting is the right thing to do today. Let me talk it over with your Mom before we decide anything. There is one thing I want you to think about. When you joined the team you made a promise to be part of it for the season. When I was a boy, there was a time I wanted to quit Pop Warner football. I thought it was too hard and painful; but my parents thought it was important to finish what I had begun. I’m glad you talked to me about this, but I need more time. So I need you to go to practice today. Can you do this for me?”
I saw Toñito take a deep breath and say, “Okay”.

I saw no hint of agitation during practice, and on the drive back home he told me he could await my decision. When I talked to Kathy that evening, she said Tony’s feelings about baseball did not surprise her. She had noticed his general antipathy to yard games and team sports at school, and had observed his preferences for individual achievement and competition. We both felt that it was important to finish the season, even though it would be difficult for him. This was the most painful parenting dilemma we had encountered, because it meant forcing Toñito to remain in a distasteful situation. However, insisting on fulfilling one’s commitment for its own sake seemed like such an archaic, old-fashioned idea. We did not believe in continuing a practice simply because our parents thought it best; we had to weigh the merits of this virtue for ourselves. By the end of the evening, we agreed that there was a lesson to be learned from this issue - for Toñito and us. The last question I asked myself was “Am I prepared to insist on a course of action that Toñito will find painful to endure?”  I hated doing so, but my answer was yes, and I knew that I had to tell him by myself. He never looked younger or more innocent than when I asked him to join me in the living room to hear the decision. I could not predict how Tony would react. I had mentioned all the key issues on the first day we talked about this. I hoped that my decision would not be a complete surprise. But Tony was only a seven-year-old child, and I could not expect an adult reaction.

He listened quietly as I repeated the reasoning Kathy and I rehearsed the night before. I told him we loved him, and I was sorry if my enthusiasm for the game had influenced him into joining. However, we also believed that keeping promises was important, and he had promised to join and be part of a team for one season. I concluded by making him a promise: if he finished the last few weeks on the team, he would never have to play baseball or any sport he disliked again; but he needed to complete what he had begun. He did not cry or pout as I spoke; he simply listened, nodding his head occasionally. When I finished speaking, he asked,
“So I don’t have to play baseball next year?”
“You never have to play baseball again, once this season is over” I repeated.
“Okay”, he concluded, “it’s a deal.”
The quickness and simplicity of his answer surprised me. I gave him a hug and said, “Tony, I love you and I’m proud of you. Thank you for accepting a tough decision.”
“Your welcome, Dad”, he replied, squeezing me back. “Can I go play now?”


I tiptoed through the last weeks of the season, watching Toñito for any telltale signs of sadness or pain. I saw none, and when I asked him how he was doing during practices and games, he said “fine”. I finally relaxed at the Awards Picnic at Reseda Park. Two plastic lunch tables were reserved for the team; one covered with trophies and the other with hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and cake. The boys played on the swings and monkey bars, and invented games with loosened balloons. After eating, the coach stood up to thank the parents and award the players for their participation. He called each boy to the table and handed them a trophy, with all the parents clapping and cheering. Some parents called out “speech, speech”, encouraging them to speak, but none did – until Toñito. He was sitting on the grass near the picnic table, so when his name was called he only had to stand up to receive his trophy.
He shook the coach’s hand and said, “I’d like to speak”.
The surprised coach stammered for a bit, and then replied “sure”. Raising his arms for attention, he said, “Tony would like to say a few words”.
Holding his trophy tightly in his right hand, Tony stood up on the picnic bench and waited until the small crowd was silent. I recall his speech going something like this:
“I want to thank the coaches for teaching me to play baseball. I especially want to thank my Mom and Dad for their support at all the games and practices, and for helping me through the year. I learned a lot about the game and I will always remember it.”
I found it difficult to hold back my tears. Who was this gangly youth with the angelic face? What prompted him to call so much attention to himself? There was no hesitation or self-consciousness in his actions or words. The other boys seemed just as astounded, because they all listened intently, without catcalling or making fun.
“I don’t know what the future will bring” he continued, “but I will always remember you and the time we spent together. Thank you.” With cheers and clapping cascading around him, Tony resumed his place and sat down. I just looked at him in wonder as I brushed away my tears of pride. The courage to give this speech matched the bravery he demonstrated during the last weeks of the season. He had respected our wishes, accepted our decision, and suffered the consequences of commitment. He was heroic, and he was free of baseball. As he rushed off with his teammates to resume their competition on the swings, his laughter sounded crisper and happier than it had for a long time.




 Although Sarah’s game seemed to go on forever, she batted only once – choosing not to swing at any of the pitches. I will add, however, that she looked great at the plate, holding a fine batting stance and looking terrific in her uniform, with stylish long stirrup socks showing off her long legs. The coaches also did a good job moving the players into different fielding positions between innings. Sarah played both the outfield and infield on different occasions during the game, and she never looked bored or distracted. Her team had managed to string together a few walks and hits and generated some runs this game, but they were still looking for their second win of the season. When the umpire ended the game, each team congregated outside their respective dugouts while their coaches conferred with the umpire and scorekeeper who checked the final tally. With her cap off and hair free, Sarah looked more recognizable, but with a look of studied concentration as she watched her coach walking back from the scorekeeper. Her leap and cheers, accompanied by the boisterous celebration of her teammates, signaled the decision. The Blue jays had finally won another game.





I caught one more of Sarah’s games last week and was truly amazed by how much her skills had developed in a short time. In the batting cage before the game, she had focused on the pitched balls and swung the bat with determined concentration, making solid contact on multiple occasions. During the game, although she had no opportunities to make any fielding plays, she managed to foul off a few pitches when at bat, and earned a walk. The biggest surprise was watching her slide when she stole 2^nd base on a wild pitch. When I had a chance to talk to Prisa about these games and her thoughts about the season, she told me that she often missed the sights, sounds, and activities at girl’s softball games. Boys she noted tend to sit silently stoically on the bench in the dugout watching the hitters and the action. They did not spontaneously cheer, sing, or invent dance steps and hand movements to fill the time as girls do in softball leagues. She added that Little League games at this level of ability, were mortally slow, low scoring, and with little quality fielding taking place. She worried that Sarah might find it boring, but admitted that Sarah seemed to enjoy playing, especially since her dad was one of the coaches. She would evaluate the season with Joe when it was over, talk to Sarah about it, and make some decision about next year. I nodded my head in sympathy, but was privately relieved that Kathy and I were no longer worrying about youth athletics and how ones children responded to them. There are some benefits to growing old.

The sun was setting over Avalon,
The last time we stood in the West.
Suffering longtime angel, enraptured like Blake.
Burn out the dross, innocence captured again.
Standing on the beach at sunset.
Yeah, and all the boats keep moving slow.
In the glory of the flashing light,
In the evening glow

When will I ever learn to live in God?
When will I ever learn?
He gives me everything I need and more.
When will I ever learn?

Whatever it takes to fulfill his mission,
That is the way we must go.
But you’ve got to do it your way,
Tearing down the old, bringing up the new.
(When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God? Van Morrison – 1989)

The other night, I listened to the Van Morrison song, When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God? And it struck me that I had been feeling that same sentiment lately. Ever since the silent retreat in Sierra Madre a few weeks ago, I’d been going through some changes. I started going to daily mass, meditating, reading the Gospel, and listening to spiritual directors on Audible. Kathy, watching these practices, and listening to me describe them to her, put it this way:
“You’ve been here before”.
She did not say it mockingly or in jest – she was just stating a fact. I have been here before – feeling the NEED to go to mass, read scripture, listen to spiritual direction, and meditate. So where is HERE? Where am I that I’m repeating behaviors and practices that I’ve employed before? What events or situations had I experienced in my life that had called up these familiar, but long ignored, strategies and practices?




Over all, I’d have to admit that I’ve had a wonderful life. Two parents who loved and cared for me and my 5 brothers and sisters; provided a comfortable and happy home, with lots of attention; sent us to Catholic schools where we received structured and developmentally sound educations and religious instruction; and tolerated and guided our adolescent mistakes and rebellions. Our parents emphasized and supported the need for an enlightened college education, and engendered the priority that professional lives and careers also carried a responsibility of service to others. The sudden death of our father in 1971 was a shock, but the family rallied together, and we all pitched in to reorder our lives in this new, fatherless paradigm, until we started separating from the family by the need for independence and marriage.


My marriage to Kathleen in 1975 was blessed. How I came to meet and wed this fabulous girl is a tale I’ve told before, and the life we created together was the fulfillment of our hopes and expectations. We both started our careers as high school teachers, until Kathy took time out to raise two children, Tony and Teresa, in our home in Reseda. It was there I began a professional trajectory that would lead me from classroom teacher, to bilingual coordinator, instructional adviser, dean of students, personnel specialist, assistant principal, and finally middle school principal. In all that time, although every job and position challenged me and stretched my skills and abilities, I was pleased with the way I mastered each new situation and responsibility, and immensely flattered by the attention and praise I received from immediate district supervisors and superintendents. I was just entering middle age at 45 years of age when I became principal of El Sereno Middle School in 1992. Ah, middle age.










Wikipedia describes “middle age” as the time between 45 to 65 years of age, with many changes occurring at this stage. The body may slow down and the middle aged might become more sensitive to diet, substance abuse, stress, and rest. Chronic health problems can become an issue along with disability or disease. Emotional responses and retrospection vary with people, and some experience a sense of mortality, sadness, or loss at this age.  Taking a different tack, Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar, and noted spiritual director and inspirational speaker, interprets middle age this way: “By the time most people reach middle age, they’ve had days where life has lost its meaning, they no longer connect with an inner sense of motivation or joy. Sometimes this manifests as clinical depression and requires a therapist’s skilled care and medication. But even if we don’t experience depression, most of us go through periods of darkness, doubt, and malaise at some point in our lives.”




Entering middle age and becoming a principal at the same time was like crashing into a double wall of reality. At the time, I believed I had reached the apex of my professional and interpersonal skills and abilities as an instructional leader. I was proud of my advancements and achievements, and I thought I had learned all I needed to know. I was now the master of the ship, like Captain Kirk on the starship Enterprise. All I had to do now was give commands and lead my loyal crew of teachers into “strange new worlds, and to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” That’s not what happened, and my ego took a beating. I thought I had been a popular assistant principal at two schools, getting teachers and parents to do what I needed them to do. I had been valued and praised by my principals and other district officials, but they weren’t around anymore. Suddenly I felt isolated and alone, with vocal critics and unhappy teachers who seemed unwilling to take my direction. I felt split into two selves: one pretending to be a knowledgeable, confident, and self-assured leader, while the other was an overwhelmed novice, struggling with resistance, frustrations, and failures. That was the first time I began searching for coping strategies and practices that would help me survive emotionally and professionally.



At first I addressed the problem logically and practically, thinking that I only needed to become a more efficient administrator and leader. So I began researching and reading as many management books I could find: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey; On Becoming a Leader, by Warren Bennis; The One Minute Manager, by Blanchard & Johnson; and In Search of Excellence by Peters & Waterman. None of these books worked. They did not make me a more effective principal at El Sereno, and they certainly did not make me happy. The only times I was happy was at home with Kathy and the kids. So while looking for alternative strategies that might address this unhappiness, I found myself falling back on long unused methods for dealing with times of family and personal sadness, pain, and despair. I turned to my childhood and college practice of going to church and receiving the Eucharist. Luckily, I passed Holy Family Church in South Pasadena every day on my way to school. I could attend their 6:20 am daily mass and then proceed to work. The liturgy at this church had the benefit of two excellent homilists who could take the daily readings and interpret them to illuminate their messages for every day use. Daily mass and communion helped immediately, and they got me started looking for other supportive spiritual practices, which Kathy greatly aided. She recommended specific authors, spiritual directors, books, and tapes. Soon I was reading books and listening to audiotapes by Frs. Anthony de Mello, Richard Rohr, and Thomas Merton on my way to and from school. Kathy and I also began attending workshops and conferences that identified spiritual alienation from God as the cause for much of our personal and emotional sufferings, and recommended methods and strategies for reunion. These practices stabilized my emotional situation at school, but before they became habitual I was transferred to Van Nuys Middle School in the summer of 1995. I saw the change as a second act and an opportunity for redemption.







I entered Van Nuys Middle School a different person from the arrogant, self-assured, and ambitious administrator I was at El Sereno. That principal had met failure and resistance at every turn, and had walked away humbled. At Van Nuys I wanted to learn. I suspected that hubris was the primary cause of my difficulties, and now I wanted to learn how to lead by serving. I wanted to learn from the teachers, counselors, and other administrators. I wanted to learn how to work with them, listen to what they had to say about the students, the school, and, together, find ways to let them achieve. My first year was a blissful honeymoon period, where I avoided hubris and my previous mistakes, and became part of a cooperative teaching and learning community, in which I had their confidence. Going into my second year, I felt I had the cooperation and backing of the 3 essential foundations supporting a successful school – teachers, staff, and parents. What I never saw coming was the subversive influence and mayhem a small band of zealous parents could cause when led by a pair of disaffected and angry staff members, the Title 1 Coordinator and her husband. That year was a pyrrhic war against an onslaught of false, malicious, and slanderous charges from these parents who besieged the district superintendent, claiming that the school was being ruined, and demanding my removal. Unfortunately at first, I fell back into old patterns of independent action, and defended myself and countered these measures alone, thinking that this group of parents was my problem alone.





Entries in the daily journal I kept at that time stretch from September 22, 1996 to April 17, 1997 (when they suddenly stopped for 8 months). They chronicled my solitary struggles and the steady deterioration of my physical and psychological health as I battled the insubordination, defiance, and undermining efforts of these two staff members. The conflict began as a tropical depression at the start of the year, gained intensity through the winter, and reached hurricane proportions in the spring. Principals are easy targets if one wishes to relentlessly criticize and attack them, because they are responsible for EVERY aspect of a school, and for EVERY action, error, oversight, and mistake by the people they supervise. Principals sin by commission (what they actually do), and omission (what they didn’t do); and they are only as successful as their clients (teachers, parents, and students) believe them to be. If principals become hesitant and fearful, they run the risk of pandering to their opponents, and judging themselves through the eyes of their critics. In doing so, they lose all confidence, becoming more and more isolated and suspicious of everyone; finally despairing, completely – as I did. At first, I arrogantly thought I could handle the growing problems by myself; refusing to believe that two or three unhappy, and determined, staff members could effect my removal from a school. I was confident that if I acted intelligently, professionally, and ethically, I was safe and secure. I never expected the opposite behaviors by my antagonists: unauthorized and unsigned letters with outrageous lies about me, assistant principals, and teachers, being placed in faculty mailboxes; formal petitions with unverified parent signatures being mailed to District administrators and board members demanding my immediate removal for lack of leadership; and visits to elected officials and community leaders by spokesmen of a parent organization secretly directed by my disaffected coordinator to make unsubstantiated allegations of supervisory incompetence, intimidation, and racial discrimination. It was a gradual campaign of slander and innuendo, which grew and grew because the accusations were so outrageous and so incredible, that reasonable parents, teachers, and administrators began wondering if there weren’t SOME grounds for suspicion. In December I was ready to ask for help from District consultants and my administrative team (composed of assistant principals, trusted coordinators, the teacher’s union rep, my administrative assistant, and a counselor). I didn’t want them to assume my burden, but I realized that I desperately needed their help to generate ideas, implement strategies, and win others to our cause. The District consultants recommended a battle plan of transparency, honesty, and full disclosure; which translated into systematically exposing the sneaky, underhanded, and unethical maneuvers employed by our opponents, and pouncing on their errors and misjudgments. In doing this we built leadership capacity and awareness in the faculty and among parents, and I documented every unethical and unprofessional misstep they took – following it up with a witnessed meeting and a conference memo. It was a smart strategy, but it took time, a long, long time of ceaseless conflict and emotional damage - and I did not feel I was winning.


In April of that year, I was dreading going to school. Every day promised a new catastrophe, a new crisis, or another emotional scene of defiance and confrontation with one of the opposing staff members or their minions. I could only compare my feelings to the “battle fatigue” that bomber crews experienced during World War II after countless missions over flak infested skies where they were sitting ducks for enemy fighter pilots and anti-aircraft guns. Yet, even at that point, I hadn’t hit the depth of my despair. It was not until the first Friday of the month that I realized how broken I was. I was driving home when the aftermath of the week caught up with me. The week was the same as many others that year, with the usual emotional incidents: the same group of parents going (for the fourth time) to the Office of the Deputy Superintendent to demand my removal; the coordinator and her community rep again scheduling a meeting with the Cluster Leader to report my unfair treatment of them; and the parent officers of the advisory council demanding my presence at a special budget meeting to answer their questions. These highlights flashed through my mind, and when I arrived home, I just sat in the car, without moving, for about 30 minutes. I felt shell-shocked and depressed. I was comatose – just sitting there, gulping deep breaths, closing my eyes, and then opening them to stare off, vacantly, into space. I’d spent the day dealing with emotional personnel and angry administrative interactions that had drained me. I was paralyzed and unable to think or make decisions. I felt helpless and overwhelmed by these never-ending problems and the constant realization that they were being taken “over my head” and delivered directly to my superiors. Feelings of failure and inadequacy welled up like a giant, black wave, and then came crashing down over me. I only had one wish – I wanted to feel competent again. I wished I could once again act with confidence instead of reacting with doubts, fears, and uncertainty. That evening Kathy finally stepped in and, by telling me all that she had been observing in my actions and behaviors, put a mirror to my face and let me see for myself what I had become in the course of the year. I wasn’t sleeping through the night, awakening daily at 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. and not being able to return; I was experiencing gripping aches and pains in my back, neck and chest which were recurrent; I was coming down with constant colds and coughs; I had stopped jogging and exercising, replacing a healthy routine with daily cocktails at 6 o’clock, and drinking wine with dinner; I had developed an uncontrollable and annoying twitch in my upper eyelid; my handwriting had deteriorated so badly that my secretary (who had worked with me for 4 years) could no longer decipher it; and I was always so sad, that not even my daughter Teresa’s animated talk after a basketball game could cheer me.  Kathy told me that she loved me, and would do anything to help, but if I could not recognize the symptoms for myself there was no hope. I was stunned, but not blind. I called Employee Assistance the next day, and scheduled a psychiatric assessment the following week. The psychiatrist confirmed what Kathy already knew and I suspected; I was clinically depressed, and had been for a long time. What surprised me most was my quick consent in accepting medication and therapy; a long period of stoic bravado, machismo, and hubris gave way to my desire to be ME again – the intrepid, curious, and humorous assistant principal who found his job interesting and wanted to learn how to be a principal.



By May, the conflict had boiled to the point of direct confrontation. A handful of parents had finally gone to the School Cluster Leader demanding that I meet with them to answer their complaints, allegations, and demands. Suspecting an ambush, or, worse, an inquisition followed by public burning at the stake, I had dodged this frontal assault for weeks - believing myself vulnerable and defenseless. The Cluster Leader, however, sided with the parents and she directed me to appear at their meeting. That weekend, feeling alone, cornered, and defeated, it finally dawned on me that there might be people willing to help me, if I were humble enough to ask and let them. Nothing (except my pride) prevented me from inviting other school “stakeholders” (students, teachers, parents, and community members) from joining this meeting. On Sunday night, I called Dorothy, the teacher representative, and asked for her help. She gave me her unqualified support and, between the two of us, we divided up a telephone tree composed of teacher leaders, department chairs, staff members, and administrators; asking them to join us on the night of the “tribunal”. That evening, the original, hand-picked audience of 10 denouncing parents was outnumbered and outmatched by a crowd of 30 open-minded and supportive teachers, staff members, and parents. Every outrageous slander and lie directed at me, or my staff, was challenged, countered, and contradicted with the truth by other parents, teachers, and counselors. What had started as a trial for my job, ended as a vindication of my leadership. The tide had finally turned, and within weeks of this Armageddon encounter, the three staff members would resign, and eventually be released from their positions for the following year. There would still be some emotional skirmishes at parent meetings, and an embarrassing parent demonstration in front of school that was covered by television and newspapers, but the opposition was tiny, exposed, and irrelevant, and it faded away over the course of the next two years.





Looking back at my 10 years at Van Nuys Middle School, I would call them the happiest, rewarding, and most successful professional period of my life. I fell in love with the school, and in dealing with the inevitable problems, disappointments, and difficulties that arose, learned how to be a principal. I did not learn it from practical books on effective management and leadership – I finally learned from the people I worked with. I allowed them to help me and to influence me: assistant principals, teachers, clerks, deans, counselors, students, district consultants, and therapists. All of these colleagues, friends, and helpers gave me advice, insights, practices, and behaviors that I incorporated into my own attitudes and actions. The most important lesson was realizing that the job of principal was ABSURDLY IMPOSSIBLE, and you can never please everyone. There was simply no way ONE person could assume and perform the overwhelming number of duties and responsibilities heaped upon them by parents, teachers, boards of education, superintendents, universities, state legislatures, governors, or presidents. There is no way ONE human being can do it all, or please everyone. Trying only leads to frustration, disillusion, or depression. The more a principal acts in the belief that they alone can perform this role in a controlling, linear fashion (“getting all their ducks in a row”), the more they will experience paradoxical consequences and unintended outcomes. I found that the more I tried to CONTROL people, choices, and events – the opposite results would occur. I noted this phenomenon at El Sereno MS while there, but it didn’t make sense until I read a book recommended to me by a District consultant called Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership, by Richard Farson. There I discovered that once I accepted the notion that the job was overwhelming and impossible, I was liberated to ask for help and advice, and to act in the best interest of children. I let go of the illusion of the all-controlling and all-responsible principal and focused on my IMMEDIATE (momentary) interactions with people. I concentrated on doing the RIGHT thing (being fair, honest, and caring), or not doing anything. CONTROL requires clear choices and decisive actions – even when the alternatives are bad (picking the best of the bad choices). FREEDOM from this illusion allows one the option of doing NOTHING, and letting other people, or other forces come into play. It recognizes that something, or someone greater is in control. This was illustrated for me when I stumbled into a prayer group at school. Even after my “Night of Armageddon”, I was never certain of the outcome of the conflict until the day I hurriedly unlocked the closed door to the Dean’s Office and discovered Magda, a school clerk, and four classified employees, sitting quietly in a circle. I was surprised and embarrassed. Magda just smiled and put me at ease by saying “we were praying”. I mumbled an apology for intruding, turned around, and closed the door behind me. As I paused outside, I was embraced by a sensation of such comfort and warmth, that I imagined myself being carried to bed, in the arms of my father, while pretending to be asleep in the car after a long ride home. Without another word of explanation, I KNEW what Magda and the other women were praying for; they were asking God to resolve the conflict and bring peace to Van Nuys Middle School. She knew and loved all the parties involved in this crisis and she was not picking sides; she was picking God, and beseeching him to take control. For the first time that year, I knew everything would work out fine. God was in charge, and I knew He would answer the prayers of these women. All I needed to do was concentrate on the essential interactions of my job and leave the grand strategy and future to God. In 2005 the District transferred me to a new school, Sun Valley Middle School, where I served four more years before retiring in 2009, at the age of 62 – finally leaving the profession of education and middle age behind me.






It took me years to realize that I had survived a mid-life crisis. My ego had been shattered and I was forced to grow and change. The person who walked into El Sereno MS as the new principal was not the same person who retired from Sun Valley MS. People, difficult circumstances, and failures, had melted me down – but a boatload of teachers, helpers, books, new behaviors, healthy habits, and projects had reformed and recast me. When the logical, analytical, “either-or” left-brained thinking of Covey, Bennis, Blanchard & Johnson, or Peters & Waterman didn’t work, I finally had to turn to right brain teachers, with their creative, intuitive, spiritual, paradoxical, and  “both-and” way of thinking.  I continued reading books and listening to audiotapes by Frs. Anthony de Mello, Richard Rohr, and Thomas Merton. Kathy and I continued attending religious workshops and conferences. I started jogging and meditating regularly, and was opened up to a new dimension of creative expression by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Cameron’s book offered a radically new approach to self-awareness and creativity. In her work with “blocked” painters and writers, Cameron helped them overcome their creative paralysis with journaling - the simple practice of producing 3 pages of spontaneous, reflective writing every morning. I never thought of myself as artistic, or creative, but the practice helped me to maneuver my years at Van Nuys and led me to writing personal essays for this blog.

Here I am again
Back on the corner again
Back where I belong
Where I’ve always been
Everything the same
It don’t ever change
I’m back on the corner again
In the healing game.

Down those ancient streets
Down those ancient roads
Where nobody knows
Where nobody goes.
I’m back on the corner again
Where I’ve always been
Never been away from the healing game.

Where the choirboys sing
Where I’ve always been
Sing the song with soul
Baby don’t you know
We can let it roll
On the saxophone
Back street Jelly Roll
In the healing game.

Where the homeboys sing
Sing their songs of praise
‘Bout their golden days
In the healing game.
(The Healing Game: Van Morrison – 1997)

Last February, my brothers, Eddie and David Alex, and I got together to see the latest Marvel movie, Black Panther in Monrovia. It was the first time the three of us been together since Mom’s funeral in December. I was looking forward to seeing the much-ballyhooed movie, but more importantly, I wanted to see how my brothers were doing since Mom’s death. We’ve made these movie dates before, and they’re something of a symbolic reenactment to the days when I would drive 8^th grader Eddie, and Kindergartener Alex to a comic book store in Culver City to buy Marvel and DC comics. After the movie, as was our custom, we walked to a nearby pub for lunch and a discussion on the merits of the movie, and to find out how we were all doing. Sometime near the end lunch, Eddie said he’d like to bring up a different topic. He explained that he had on occasion gone to a Men’s Weekend Silent Retreat in Sierra Madre as part of his Lenten practice, and he wondered if Alex and I would be interested in going this year. The surprise invitation brought an affectionate smile to my face. Eddie has had an up and down relationship with the Catholic Church, but he loves and sees the value and the meaning of its rituals and traditions, and he’s inclusive about giving others an opportunity to participate and grow in them. Neither Alex nor I immediately jumped at the offer, but I was secretly intrigued by the idea, so we promised to consider it. Honestly, I didn’t think anything would come of it. The retreat was scheduled for the weekend after the Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, which Kathy and I planned on attending, so I thought I might be overly saturated with religiosity, and I doubted Eddie would remember. I was wrong. It was probably receiving Eddie’s follow-up email about the retreat that turned the tide for me. I again heard a tiny inner voice telling me to heed this invitation and go, because I might get something out of it. So when Eddie called, wanting to confirm if I had decided, I said, “Sure, I’ll go”.




The last time I remember going on a religious retreat was in the spring of 1975, a few months before I married Kathleen. Her father, The Doctor, invited me to join him in an Ignatian retreat at Manresa, the Jesuit Retreat House in Azusa. He said he had taken each of his first two sons-in-law to this annual Lenten experience before their weddings to his daughters.  With this lead in, I felt immediate pressure to accept, thinking that it must be some type of test or initiation rite before marrying Kathleen. Dr. Greaney emphasized that it was an Ignatian retreat, modeled on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, with strict silence being required. He made it sound pretty intimidating.


I can count on one hand the retreats I’d been on prior to Manresa. The first was in the eighth grade. It was held on the grounds of St. John Bosco, or Salesian High School, in a separate residential dorm near a chapel. In high school, St. Bernard held annual, daylong retreats at the school, divided into general sessions in the gym, followed by private time for mediation, reflection, and confession. Needless to say, a daylong retreat in your own high school, surrounded by restless boys who would rather be elsewhere, was not a conducive environment for experiencing a spiritual renewal. We spent most of our private time reading, doing homework, or passing notes to friends. In my senior year, a group of us were so bored that we decided to sneak off campus after the first session and return by the last period homeroom. Unfortunately we were caught trying to get back into school. It was the Paulist priests of the UCLA Newman Center who directed the most meaningful retreat I experienced during my freshman year in college. Far from silent, the retreat was largely interactive, with the priests posing situations and questions about our faith, scripture, and the sacraments. They opened my eyes to the messages in the “Good News” of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, and moved us beyond the narrow confines of the Baltimore Catechism. All the previous retreats were composed of fire and brimstone lectures by priests reminding us to avoid the pitfalls of sin and temptation, which usually meant sex and girls. The Paulists, on the other hand, challenged us to understand the revolutionary messages of Jesus in the Gospels, to act on its principles, and to live our faith. The spirit of the Vatican II reforms permeated the experience and left me breathless and renewed. So, on the basis of that lone positive experience, I said yes to Dr. Greaney and went on his retreat.






I don’t recall many details of the Manresa Retreat in 1975. It was a long drive from Venice to Azusa on a Friday afternoon, and we were only allowed to speak before the welcoming session. Dr. Greaney looked and dressed as if walking out of Esquire Magazine – creased slacks, monogrammed golf shirt and sweater, clean-shaven and groomed. He introduced me to a number of doctors who were there, and the Retreat Master, Fr. Deasy, who was a personal friend of his, and had agreed to preside at our wedding. The only other person I remember now is Dr. Pulido, who Dr. Greaney introduced as the only other Mexican-American on the retreat. I don’t remember much of the spiritual direction I received that weekend. As opposed to my college experience, this was to be a solitary encounter with my faith, with the only sources of input coming from the retreat master, my readings, or private meditations. The rooms were monastically cold and bare, and in those days before cell phones or iPads, the only evening activity was finding something to read in the Retreat Library. On the plus side, the grounds were beautiful, so I spent most of my private time exploring and thinking, but I did walk away with the notion that a person only got as much as he put into a retreat. Manresa was the last weekend retreat I attended until Eddie’s invitation.


That’s not to imply that I was in a spiritual wasteland for 43 years. My work as a school administrator drove my spiritual journey through life. Once I became a principal in 1992, the burdens, responsibilities, and hardship of the job literally impelled me to seek out sources of spiritual support and guidance. With my long drives to and from El Sereno Middle School near Alhambra, I began listening to audio tapes by countless spiritual directors, and then reading their books: Fathers Richard Rohr, Anthony de Mello, and Thomas Merton. While at Van Nuys Middle I added new spiritual and creative practices, like meditation, journaling, and jogging. I also started tagging along with Kathy when she attended the annual Archdiocesan Religious Education Congress in Anaheim. The conference offered a bonanza of spiritual and religious speakers, authors, and directors. In all those years, as trying and difficult as they were, I never felt spiritually directionless – until recently.


Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center is a beautiful Catholic facility tucked away in the hills of Sierra Madre. As I passed the front gate and drove up the long, winding road, I was greeted by a “deer park”, a meadow filled with deer, motionlessly gazing back at me. Everything about the grounds whispered the promise of peace and tranquility. I started exploring the facility right after checking in and unpacking, and, later, I bumped into Eddie on our way to supper in the dining room. Following dinner, the retreat master, Fr. Michael Higgins, welcomed us, and we met the other members of the retreat team. I have to admit that the title and description of the retreat immediately intrigued me. It was called Going Without Knowing: Pitching Our Tent in Faith, and it used Abraham, the Old Testament patriarch, as it central figure and symbol. Here was a man who had such deep faith and trust in the voice of God, which only he could hear, that he left lands, country, and family connections to journey in search of the home God promised him. I think it was then that I was struck with the queer notion that perhaps my purpose in being here was to have some kind of an “encounter” with God and then receive instructions from the retreat team on how to respond. All I had to do was sit, listen, and pay attention.






In general, I would have to give the presenters mixed reviews. As a former principal, I tend to be a critical evaluator of teachers and speakers. I want to be intellectually engaged and directed to new insights by speakers. The conferences I attended at the annual Religious Ed Congress in Anaheim usually met those criteria. At this retreat the effectiveness of the three-member retreat team varied, with the strongest presenter being Deacon Manuel, who led the 1^st and 3^rd sessions. Different priests led the other two sessions, and although they repeated the main themes and messages, they failed to develop them fully, or to really engage their audience.





Brother Manuel grabbed my attention from the first morning session. He combined Jung’s idea of the Stages of Man with Joseph Campbell’s Stages of the Hero’s Journey to develop what he called the “The Four Stages of Faith on our epic Journey of Faith”. He identified these stages as:

                                                I) The Call/or The Invitation;
                                                II) The Wilderness/ or The Messy Middle;
                                                III) Death/New Life/Rebirth; and
                                                IV) The Gift/ or New Awareness


However, even though Brother Manuel identified four stages, he only discussed the first two, explaining that they reflected, more or less, where most of the men in attendance found themselves on their Faith Journey, struggling in the “messy middle” of life while trying to answer God’s call. After the session, Brother Manuel continued intertwining the struggles of the Wilderness phase of our “Faith Journey” with the passions of Jesus Christ, as he directed us through the Stations of the Cross. In the evening session, Brother Manuel elaborated further on image of “The Call” by having us sit in a darkened room, surrounding a bramble bush lit up with red lights symbolizing flames. He said it represented the moment in the Old Testament when Moses received his Call from God coming from a burning brush that was not consumed by the fire. It was here that Moses received his command to return to Egypt and free the Israelites from captivity, with the promise that “I will be with you”. It was, Brother Manuel explained, a call for Moses to serve his people, and trust that he was never alone, because God would be with him always.





Even though the presentation was dramatic, and the imagery startling, I was getting impatient and antsy at this point of the retreat. I had spent the day walking alone, meditating in the chapel, and going to Confession, and I still hadn’t HEARD anything. I had even begun writing irritated messages to myself in my notebook during this session:
“We hear God’s call when we LISTEN. How do I listen? How should I listen? Meditation? Mindful Breathing? Do I listen in the liturgy of the mass? Do I hear God in the ordinary things around me? In other people?” My frustration finally came to a head when I heard Brother Manuel say:
“Now I want you to break up into groups of no more than 4 people and share. Where are you on your faith journey?”
“What!” I thought, in a burst of panic. “This is supposed to be a silent retreat! I don’t want to share. I don’t know what to share. I haven’t heard anything from God yet. What am I supposed to say? I don’t know where I am on my Faith Journey! What is a Faith Journey?”
After this emotional eruption I calmed down and decided that the best way to proceed was to simply be honest and answer the question.





The three men in my group were all younger than me, probably somewhere in middle age, and they all seemed to be actively involved in some aspect of their faith. One was a devoted member of the Legion of Mary and very involved in transporting the Pilgrim Virgin statue of Mary to different parish churches for the purpose of saying the Rosary for the petitions of others. Another was a convert who had become interested in faith healing through the power of prayer, and had joined a group that offered their services and prayer to the sick and dying. When it came to my turn to speak, I said the first thing that came to mind, and it came out something like this:
“I’m stuck. I don’t know where I’m at on my faith journey. I guess I feel like I’m off track. Ever since the death of my mother in November, learning about the death of a colleague and dear friend from work, and then going to visit another friend in Portland who’s dying, I’ve been off track. I guess that’s why I came to this retreat. I came to find a way forward.”





It was a strangely liberating and embracing experience. I had finally been honest with myself about my current emotional state, and I was deeply moved by the response of the three younger men around me. One even offered to pray with me after our sharing to ask for God’s mercy, and the other two men agreed to join. I felt embraced and cared for by these three strangers. On Palm Sunday, the retreat ended with Morning Prayer and a final conference before Mass.


Looking back on the experience now, I would have to say that I returned home different after encountering Deacon Manuel’s “Burning Bush”. It was there that I came to the realization that I was stuck. I’m stuck in sadness and grief over the deaths of my mom, my friend JoAnna, my friend and brother-in-law Danny (and probably my own mortality).  That was hard to admit – grief. The word is so small, and its effects so subtle, but its denial is so insidious. The denial had really blocked me from my feelings, sentiments, and emotions over and about these three deaths. I think the denial was causing me to go numb – feeling isolated, cut off, and off track. Instead of facing it, however, I kept myself busy with pointless distractions, while, at the same time, dropping more and more positive activities and practices. I probably would have continued in this manner unless Eddie had invited me on this retreat. Driving to a Sacred Space in the foothills of Sierra Madre got me out of myself, and opened me up to the themes, stories, metaphors, and ideas that were presented in four sessions, and in the other sacred rituals and activities that I had abandoned. I made time to walk, sit in “thoughtless” meditation, and listen as Deacon Manuel pointed out the universal truths in the myths and bible stories that described a sacred journey to a promised place or home. Abraham, Ulysses, and Moses were called to a lifelong journey that required recurring mistakes, difficulties, failures, and wounding. But there was always the promise, and the actual intervention of God (or gods). The heroes just had to trust, or have faith, in the Call and the promise that God would forgive them, heal them, and put them back on track. God could show them the way, but they had to walk the path, trusting that God would always be with them.