MISCELLANEOUS MEMORIES....

1969 - Ponta Delgada Harbor, São Miguel Island. Anyone visiting it today will find the harbor to be one where tourist cruise ships abound, along with an activity that fully represents the growth of the city from the sleepy town I once knew. The breakwater in the distance, was started in the '30s and named originally for the Portuguese dictator, Oliveira Salazar. Although I wasn't supposed to go there when I was a boy, it was one of my favorite city hangouts. I loved being near ships.

RIGHT--PORTUGAL - Just about every country seems to have some out-of-the-way restaurant which creates food that, somehow, has no equal  anywhere. I found one such place just down from the Serra de Sintra and off the beach in Ericeira, Portugal. In my youth, as I studied History as taught in Elementary School, I wondered what the Portuguese had done with King Manuel II in 1910 when he was forced to abdicate. It wasn't until I had come to America and met an old-time Portuguese fisherman that I was told that Manuel had been respectfully treated by the people of Ericeira as he went into exile. Why Ericeira, I asked myself? I found the answer years later. The town, north of Lisbon and west of Sintra, was an ideal departure point. It wasn't until 1991, however, that I visited it. While doing so, I stopped at a restaurant off the beach where I ate the greatest boullabaisse I have ever tasted anywhere. Move over, France. The Portuguese are coming...

1980 - My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary at our home in St. Louis, Missouri. The photo, however, was shot in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they lived most of their lives. Today, they are both buried in Cambridge, at the Cambridge Cemetery. For many years, the Azores acted a a cradle, while the world acted as the Azorean people's grave. Today, for example, there are more people of Azorean background living in the United States, than there are in the Azores. Most of the so-called Portuguese in the U. S. are of Azorean background.

LEFT- 2002- OUR LADY OF LOURDES CHURCH - Chauvins at Jack's Baptism... Addison wearing dark glasses.

BELOW - -Christmas Eve, 2004 - A Partial Family Gathering for Dinner. It's our hope that, after 2003, Jane and her family will join the group.

ABOVE - SPEAKING OF FRIENDSHIPS: I wish I had kept the address of Manuel Pontes. He and my father had been friends since their twenties, at a time when they had the same Azorean boss, Dr. F. Luiz Tavares. Pontes migrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, about three years prior to my father's coming to America in 1944. Manuel Pontes and his wife were the first people my father claims to have visited on his own in the U.S. . Somehow, my father, who lived in the Boston Area and spoke no English, found his way to North Fairhaven, MA, where his friend lived. This photo was the first that my father ever sent us from America.

Left- 1954 - East Cambridge, Massachusetts - In front of 3 E. J. Lopez Avenue, the house described in the essay, NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME (Introductory Section Index Page). The bottom photo shows my father standing in front of the first car our family ever had, a 1954 DeSoto. Behind that car one can spot a black and white dog. He was named Pinky for a good reason. It was one of the few English names that my mother could pronounce. We got the idea from watching an old children's early evening television program where a comedian, Pinky Lee, performed and entertained. My parents, who worked all day for the National Casket Company, would come home tired and Pinky Lee was one of their forms of relaxation. It didn't take long for Pinky, the dog, to have his name modified into Portuguese. My mother soon started calling him Pinquinho, a name that he answered to until his death...

BELOW: Mary Beth's First Residence 829 Taft Street, West Hempstead, L. I., New York

1957 - Although Kathy and I married in Boston, our first residence was an upper-floor apartment in Long Island, New York. At the time, I was with the Allstate Insurance Company, stationed at Freeport, a pleasant town by the sea on the island's South Shore. It was while living in that apartment that I was fired from my first job in publishing. Prentice-Hall had promised me a raise based on performance, which I met. When I asked my boss about the company's promise (Kathy was expecting at the time, and I knew that we were going to need whatever funds we could get), he asked me to wait another month, which I did. The company needed to study my progress compared to the progress of others who had been hired simultaneously with me. Little did I know that the study was the hiring of someone for my job behind my back...Obviously their ploy did not work. I lasted in publishing until my retirement in 1993. I got my revenge on P-H when I signed up a Geometry text by Harry Prenowitz,Ph.D., of Brooklyn College, a book that Prentice-Hall's mathematics editor had been counting on.. There is one other additional item that I remember quite well about life in the Zaccardi's up-stairs apartment. On January 1, 1958, I went to the landlord's apartment to wish him a HAPPY NEW YEAR and to pay the rent. When I extended my hand to give him the check, his dog, a nervous German shepherd bitch, got excited and lunged for me. She bit me on the shin. CLICK

For many years after we married, Kathy talked of wanting to visit Williamsburg, Viriginia. For some reason, I kept putting her off, although I did take her to several other interesting points in the world. In August, 1997, however, while the two of us were on holiday in New England, she convinced me once again to visit Williamsburg. So much so that, on the way home, instead of going west to St. Louis, we went south. I did not enjoy the drive and the Northeast's crowded roads. The New York City area, where we had lived for five years prior to coming to Missouri, was absolute torture. So was the drive through Baltimore-Washington. But we did make it to Williamsburgh eventually and, as we look back, we can only say that it was worth it. We have many other photos of Williamsburg, although we only present those shown above just to give an idea of why being transported into that historical time of America is something not only pleasant, but also enlightening. CLICK

The photo on the right was shot of July 20, 2003, at the home of Nita Solomon, a friend from church. On that day, several of us happily celebrated my birthday. The man in the photo, William Hutchinson, had told me earlier that, although he was retired from medical practice, he was planning to catch up on his certification, something he neglected for sometime. Within less than three weeks after the photo was shot, Bill died. As a physician, he knew about life's fragility, but, even as a physician, he did not know how fragil that fragility really is and how it disrespects whatever plans make us what we are today.

RIGHT - For several years, every Thursday afternoon, a group of us would meet for "senior" coffee at McDonald's on Olive Street Road, Olivette. At first there were several men and several women. Then little-by-little, time and senior ailments started taking their toll. Jack Volland (yellow shirt) often waxed nostalgic about how the group kept on getting smaller, or how the restaurant's standards had gone down since the "club" had first started. Ernie, on the other hand, was always somewhat cheery and, although he was generally the last to arrive, the meeting never broke until it was time for him to go home.

LEFT - July 20, 1986 - One could say that, although the date marked my 55th birthday, my wife, Katherine, was quite happy for another reason. Our oldest granddaughter, Katherine Norman, was baptized on that day at the Priory (St. Anselm's) Church, St. Louis County, Missouri. The sacramental ceremony was conducted by Father Timothy Hoerner, OSB, a scholarly English Priest who, although we were not members of his parish,agreed to do us the honor neverthless..

EPILOGUE: As anyone can see, there isn't much logic on this page. I have gone all over the lot to present it, not paying much attention to its sequence. I did, however, feel that the page should show a path  starting with the parish church where my maternal grandparents were married and ending with a photo taken at another church thousands of miles away - in another country, and another continent - where continuity appeared in the baptismal day of my oldest grandchild. Little Katherine, as this is written, is now a young woman about to enter her last year in high school. Where she will continue her education, only time and her ambitions will tell... Her life, I'm certain, will take many routes and turns on the road. Let us hope that, wherever those may be, whenever she comes to any fork on her road of life, she will not be unwilling to take it. CLICK