FROM SÃO ROQUE, SÃO MIGUEL -  PEOPLE ALONG THE WAY.......

Although I did not graduate from Washington University in St. Louis, my family and I have been associated with it for sometime. The photo at the left was taken when Katherine Jennings of the Gulbenkian Foundation visited St. Louis to present a gift to the W.U. Library for the development of a Portuguese-language collection. The other four men in the photo are associated with the school .

Our granddaughter, Dena, a student at John Burroughs School, St. Louis, caught her other grandfather, Donald G. Soffer, about to have breakfast with me in the school's lunchroom on Grandparents Day. She saw to it that the moment would be recorded, something for which I'm quite grateful. Dena, by the way, is a brilliant student.

Grandmother Katherine lined up our two granddaughters at John Burroughs, Dena (on Don's right) and Sarah (on Don's left) for this photo which I feel the girls will someday treasure. Dena is one year ahead of Sarah at school, I am certain that, in spite of her sister's brilliance, Sarah will leave behind at JBS an outstanding mark of her own.

LEFT - Another child I found in Brazil for another childless couple. A few years later I tried to find a sister for him, but failed. Nevertheless, seeing the future that this child is bound to have in the loving home of his adoptive parents, I can only look at the effort with a certain sense of pride and humility.

LEFT- Both classmates, Harvard Class of '54, Charles Egan, and Jerry MCDonald, lived up to their Harvard potential after our graduation. I wish I could have had also. On the other hand, I wonder if they ever think of me - or of what I could have done with my life... On the other hand, I wonder how many children they ever found for childless couples and the difference they made in their lives...

RIGHT - I never considered Hans-Josef (Joe) Furhmann (Second on the right, top photo) a great soccer player. In fact, I considered him rather weak for his position with the old St. Louis Stars of the NASL. Nevertheless, from the first day I met him in 1967 I always felt that he was a truly fine human being. We have been great friends since then, often using soccer as a common mode of connection. Joe, who after soccer had a long career with Michelin in his native Germany, has found a hobby in retirement - quietly participating in helping children find a better life for themselves in Central America through a German group, Atitlan. All of which goes to prove the height that all human beings can reach even if, in the process, they never become champions.

México was my first step into Latin America and into a world which changed my feelings against stereotyping anyone...

RIGHT - Prof. Dr. Manuel Plata Orozco, School of Dentistry, Universidad Nacional Aut. de México, a great promoter of dental health and a forward thinker in what Mexico needs to do to reach top international standards. A man of great humor also.

LEFT - 1966- At Manila, Philippines, With ALEMAR'S Managers and Amando and Flor Trevilla. Af ew weeks after this photo was shot, I received a wire from Flor indicating that Amando had died. With his passing the world not only lost a good family man, but also someone who could look at it with great humor. It was through Amando that I first heard of José Rizal, the great Philippine patriot, man of letters, and martyr. The last time I spoke to Flor she was living in Seattle, USA, where one of her daughters lived. CLICK

LEFT - Like many other Australians I have met, John Rowe loved Rugby Football and the outdoors. He even took me to a game one pleasant Saturday afternoon and tried as hard as he could to explain to me the fine points of the action. I still don't know them. John, like most other Australians I have met, has a fine sense of humor. Somehow, however, he does not seem to tolerate fools. We were together on this visit of mine to Australia, for example, shortly after OPERATION DESERT STORM and John was most happy over the fact that the military authorites had kept the media away from the action. I did not agree with him - nor did any of his colleagues. John, however, felt that the media would only reveal military secrets, thereby helping the enemy. He gave Viet Nam as an example, not realizing like many other people with a military mind, that the media was not responsible for the American defeat...

RETURNING TO FAMILY.......

ONE could entitle the photo on the right DENA AND HER TWO GRANDMOTHERS. On the other hand, we would be somewhat remiss if we did not say anything about Pearl Soffer, other than the fact that she did see her first of several grandchildren who were to follow. Pearl is no longer with us, and at the time this phto was shot, she already knew that her days had become few. Nevertheless, Pearl never afflicted anyone else with her condition. She always possessed a ready smile for all and, no matter what she ever heard about her granchild, she always had room for more. Too bad she did not get to meet the ones who eventually came after Dena.

LEFT - Grandchildren, Jonathan, Katherine, and Matthew Norman..

ABOVE- Although Matthew is the fifth-born grandchild, he is the first to have ever won a prize. His victory as the Missouri State Mark Twain Days Fence Painting Contest in 2002 not only got him a local radio interview, but also several prizes which he shared with his family. Matthew has a good sense of humor as the photo shows. CLICK FOR POETRY

Granddaughters, Addison and Whitney Corcoran. Like her mother as a child, Addison loves to act. Whitney, on the other hand, although being extremely gentle, loves to mix physical activity with kindness. When she has a cold and has to stay home from school, an occasional hug from PaPa or Nan is usually the best curative medicine. Her ability to interpret and draw what she imagines astounds me. I can't even trace a straight line with a ruler.

There was a time when my mother would refer to her great-granddaughter as Catarina Pequenina, the Portuguese equivalent to Little Katherine.  Were my mother alive today, she would have by now dropped that title. Catarina Pequenina has definitely outgrown her grandmother - the other Katherine.

THREE CHAUVIN LAWYERS.... The fourth one, Jacqueline, is missing.

ANNOTATIONS....

"When you come to a fork on the road, take it..." Yogi Berra

One reads about divorce in modern life almost constantly, yet, when a divorce hits one's family, it's always traumatic. It's always difficult to face the divorced parties when one may be in the presence of both. JC Corcoran and our daughter, Laura, were married for a time, and two beautiful girls, Addison and Whitney, resulted from that marriage. Then suddenly the family was disbanded and both JC and Laura now had to go on their separate ways, each looking for a new form of whatever happiness they could find in their destinies - as if lives could ever be put together as they were in the past. Laura has remarried. She is now Mrs. A. C. McKay Chauvin. JC is still single. The girls, however, get along with their father and their stepfather quite happily going on with their lives as if their past had never existed. Perhaps all of us have something to learn from children...

It wasn't easy to forget a dinner at the Caciolos. For one thing there was always something controversial to discuss, especially if one of the guests was a liberal - a merit of mine of which I am proud. One evening, in fact, I was so angry at one of the guests - a Belgian professor who had spent some time in the Congo and admired Salazar for his hard rule in Angola. At another time, I couldn't quite explain to a friend why American arrogance in search of its self interests often created situations that made people all over the world want to humiliate us as a sort of revenge. We're Number One, shouted the other guest never explaining the meaning of the statement in its entirety. The food and the wine, however, were works of great merit. Carlo's cellar is second to none in St. Louis. As for Piera's cooking, eating it is like going to Heaven and never asking to leave...

Boston, Massachusetts

1979 - We looked happy. The men were celebrating the 25th anniversary of their graduation from Harvard. The women seemed happy to have been a part of their success. The irony is that at least two of the couples had divorced by the time the 45th Reunion had come  around.           Somehow, however, I didn't want the event to end, for within me lived the turmoil of my work once I returned home to St. Louis. I had enjoyed my work up until three years prior to the Reunion. Then suddenly it seemed as if Hell had come into my life. I had even considered suicide while in Frankfurt, Germany in 1977. The political self interests which I had found some of my colleagues pushing forward in lieu of integrity had become too much for me.           The Reunion, however, had its merits. It made me realize my worth and within three months after it had taken place, I quit my job.

LEFT - Ed Schaffer was a bit of a paradox. A devout Catholic, Ed often gave the impression that he was gay. The irony was that his closest friends were either priests, elderly women, heterosexual men, as well as women such as the one on the left. He claimed to be  king of a Senegalese Christian tribe known as Biffeche, although his only trip to that part of the world consisted of having his ashes buried there. Every year he had a Ceremonial Christmas Party at his home, designated by all that night as "The Royal Palace". He also ran several radio programs on several St. Louis stations. I inherited the one he had on WGNU (920 am).

What a time to get sick. Three of the four people above are physicians. Don Oetter (First photo, talking to me, is an allergist, although he and I are probably discussing the merits of his Republican-oriented claims.) With Don, no Republican was ever wrong, or corrupt - not even Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan. On the other photo, Carlo Caciolo, an Italian-born rheumatologist, and former professor of general medicine at St. Louis University, has his back to the camera as he exchanges views with Peruvian-born Luís Schwarz, a psychiatrist, and Don Oetter.

Unlike in the above photos seem to show, there was also a simplicity about my life which I found quite valuable. On Thursday afternoons, for example, Jack Volland, Ernie Fischer, and I would meet with several other retirees at McDonald' in Olivette, Missouri, and, in a way, wonder when it would be our time to pass out of the scene permanently - as other members of the group had already done. McDonald's must have wanted us there for it even had a special coffee price for us, $0.37. The talk would center itself on opposing whatever additional housing, or businesses, had people looking to take over Olivette, and how to prevent the developers from taking over our town. By 5:30 pm, we would be gone - happy to be alive, and ready to meet again the following week. CLICK