December 17, 2008

Magnum Opus

The Shopping Diva, Annabelle Christmas pic 2008

Hey, its me Annabelle.... I wanted to tell you that my Mom has a lot of great Christmas stuff that she wrote while she was living in Hawaii. you can read it here at

Christmas 2004

Take a looksee and enjoy Aloha

Labels: Annabelle, Requested Past Posts, Woody

September 11, 2008

We Will Never Forget~A 9-11 Tribute

On this the seventh anniversary of the attack on the United States by Islamic Terrorists I wanted to rerun the tribute to Thomas Mingione a fallen FDNY hero

To the girl who is seven years old this week that is Thomas's daughter, we have not forgotten your daddy and we thank YOU and your mother for your sacrifice day in and day out


Firefighter Thomas Mingione 132 Ladder 38th Brooklyn Battallion.

Hymn: "Christ in the Rubble"

O Christ, beneath the fallen stones,
Nailed fast to twisted bars of steel
And slain in flesh and blood and bones,
Peirced by the fear all mortals feel.
Arise, from ashes dust and death,
And breathe into crushed hearts new Breath!

O Christ, among the wreckage shorn,
Of hope for those that lie there dead
Yet bathed in sweat of labors borne
To free the greiving from their dread.
Arise from our dispair's long night
And pour upon us Living Light!

O Christ, within a world at war,
Where love and hate fight for the soul,
And all sights trained on death see far
But only Love can see the whole:
Arise from unforgiving pain,
And teach us how to love again!

words by Geneveive Glen OSB c 2001
sung to the tune of
"Eternal Father, Strong To Save"


What makes a hero? There are many definitions of this noble title, and we tend to use it haphazzardly. But on September 11, 2001 the name hero gained a face that will be forever remembered by Americans. The face of the First Responder. The Fireman, the Policeman, the Priest...

The Bible says..."Greater love does not exisit in the heart of any person, than that of one who will lay down their life for another..."
.
Battallion Patch of the 132 Ladder FDNY

Thomas Mingione was a man in the prime of his life. Serving his quiet community in Long Island for a number of years as a firefighter, he found that this duty was not what he was truly called to do. Rather than sit comfortably with occasional calls,in his quiet hometown Long Island neighborhood, he chose to transfer to the 132 Ladder battalion in a underserved part of Brooklyn in the year 2000.

This change was not without risk. Thomas was newly married, and soon a child was on the way. He was away from home more, and in harms way much more. But as a professional seasoned firefighter, risk was just another part of the job discription. He was up to the challenge, "at the top of his game" a family member quotes in a short obituary tribute.

When the call came, that mettle that was tried,as Thomas and his comrades from the 132nd Ladder sped toward the burning Towers. When the Towers fell many of these men were still inside the building trying to get as many people out as they could. Thomas died in the line of duty along with fellow firefighters from his unit.

Andrew Jordan
Michael Kiefer
John Vigiano II
Sergio Villanueva
.
Honor Guard at the dedication to the Babylon Town Memorial 9-11-2005

Thomas was survived by his wife and, according to tribute found on a website a infant daughter born a few weeks after the attack..."she is an angel and looks just like you, Tommy...how we miss you...." I have been unable to learn their names, and perhaps this fufills their desire to remain out of the public light. I have found no mention of a public memorial service, and perhaps the home filled with memories was sold and mother and daughter moved to a new community to start a new life where they would not be the subject of staring. The little girl will be starting kindergarten this week, and yet another milestone will pass without the presence of a father. Yet another reminder of the losses suffered on that terrible day
.
.
Babylon Town 9-11 Memorial

Beneath bright blue skies that were reminiscent of the morning of September 11, 2001, approximately 500 people gathered at Overlook Beach for the unveiling of the Babylon Town 9/11 Memorial dedicated to the lives of 48 people from Babylon who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks including Peter O'Neil and Louise Lynch.
The event was attended by many officials including Congressman Steve Israel, S.C. Exec. Steve Levy, Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, Sen. Owen Johnson, S.C. Leg. David Bishop. The name of each individual was read by Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone, together with the inscription etched into an amber piece of marble. The reading of each name was followed by the ring of a single bell that broke the silence and interrupted the sound of the wind and the water nearby.
Those residents who lost their lives and who are memorialized are: , Thomas Mingione, and many others
taken from the Babylon Beacon News 9-15-2005



The lord is my shepherd


The lord is my shepherd:

therefore can I lack nothing.

He shall feed me in a green pasture:

and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.

He shall convert my soul:

and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness,

for his Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil:

for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Thou shalt prepare a table before me against them

that trouble me:

thou hast anointed my head with oil,

and my cup shall be full.

But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of the

Lord for ever.

Psalm 23, paraphrased by John Rutter



Lux aeterna


I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,

for they rest from their labours:

even so saith the Sprit.



Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine:

Let eternal light shine upon them, O Lord:

Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es.

with Thy saints for ever, for art merciful.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

and may light perpetual shine on them,

From "Requiem" by John Rutter

Labels: 9-11-2001, Requested Past Posts

July 20, 2007

One Giant Leap

My Chinese Desk from the store. Now a showpiece in our home, it reminds me of our time in Hawaii and the hopes and dreams that one can not only have but realize if you grab ahold of the opportunities that come your way...

It comes every year, this date that defined my Father and certainly defined our family. As I wrote last year in the post One Small Step For Man, this event, Man's landing on the moon was a moment that shaped my personal history enormously. It shaped every one of our lives to the point where I dont think there is a single thing, or situation that has not benefited from what we learned as a species from that venture. I am proud to have been connected to it.

I have thought a lot about that recently. I realized at this time last year, as my Mother lay dying and I knew that my life was going to change and be redefined with her passing, that it is this drive that both she and my father had to pursue their dreams that has fueled the drive that I have within myself. And it goes further back than that, to their parents and theirs before them.

I was accustomed to thinking of my mothers family in this light. I know that my mother's parents came from what is euphemistically called "Pioneer" Stock. My Maternal great grandparents sharecropped in West Texas. The land dried up and their older sons went out west to work. The elder landed in California, got work with the Union Pacific and settled permanently. The younger of these two, 15 or 16 years old as I understand,took his newly widowed mother and younger brothers and sister and went to Phoenix. I dont know the whole story maybe I will never know now, but he stayed, settled into a career turning a wrench, married well, had a family, owned a successful business and a home, became a lay preacher and respected member of the community. All of his children completed high school, a grand achievement for a man who had only had formal schooling to the third grade. His story is a picture of the American Ideal that if you work hard and grab onto opportunity when it comes you will make something of yourself.

I have written quite a bit on my Mother,Her defining moment being those days of uncertainty "should I stay?... I love this place, but what will it be like when the war here is over... People are packing, and telling me to get out..." The soldiers from the Revolutionary Army coming onto her little farm in Mahagua, in central Cuba, telling them to not worry that they wanted the teachers to stay, but if they couldn't to tell them, and they would be escorted out. Which was the right option. So the next day they pulled out with an armed escort, Castro's forces blew up the roads and bridges so that there would be no turning back as he marched to Havana. She had the last seat on the last Pan Am Commercial American flight to leave Marti Airport. As she flew over the Caribbean for the short flight to Miami, she wept for the loss of the place and the work that so defined her as a person. I can relate to that...

Pastel painting of the canal and forest behind the home my mother lived in while living in Cuba. Taken from a slide she shot herself while there and painted by her cousin Phillip Stack 1962. We has it restored and reframed in mango wood while in Hawaii. It hangs in out living room above the chinese desk as a tribute to dreams and the taking of risks large and small



For the next 35 years she took risks, made choices some good some not so good, but she didnt play it safe all of the time. Even though I, as her child, paid some of the price for those risks that didnt turn out well, I look back with admiration at some of the things she managed to accomplish in her life.


My Father"s grandmother left a comfortable life in England, a widow with three small children, to pursue an amazing ambition for the times, to work for the legendary Florenz Zeigfeld, whom she had met in London. Her husband had died at sea, a Captain in the British Navy, and she literally slipped out of town and landed in New York where she worked first as a stand in, then as a Chorus Girl in Zeigfelds productions. Her Stage career didnt last long for she met and married a business man and moved to California. He didnt last long either...(I think he was older as was the Captain.)But it wasnt long before she married again this time to a man 25 years her junior. By then her children had grown and I think the scandal was this man being nearly as young as they were... Such is love. Great Grandmother Georgieanne was a risk taker...

So was her son, who won the heart of a visiting family friend, and they ran away and were married. We know very little about my father's mother, other than she was a Spanish national (maybe Portuguese, the State Dept was not able to assertain this when my father was trying to get his secret clearence). She for reasons unknown to us, perhaps to make a family visit,or perhaps to escape what must have been a difficult marriage, went back to Spain in the summer of 1933. She disembarked at Barcelona, boarded a train, and was never heard from again. My father's family who didnt like her forbade discussing her. So ther are many questions and few answers

My Fathers life was a series of risky leaps into the unknown...He ran away from home at 14, and lived in Salt Lake City for nearly a year on his own. He was brought back to San Francisco, and was living with his aunt and uncle,the parents of my Aunt Jean, who I wrote about here his father had been unable to care for him, and died from injuries suffered in a bar fight on the San Francisco waterfron where he worked as a long shoreman. My Father was truly an orphan at 10. Three marriages to three very different women,he didnt have the family he longed for until he was 36 and even then he wasnt able to enjoy a home life, because he was too caught up in the pushing and shoving it took to make his way up a career ladder that didnt reward non conformists too often.Once he "made it" he gave up on living once his dream was realized... not understanding that its the journey that is most important. Its not arrival at the destination so much but the way we handle the bumps on the road to getting there.

Neil Armstrong said as he stepped on the lunar surface, "One small step for a man, One giant leap for mankind"...He was right. But it wasnt that moment that was the leap. It was the millions of man hours and the creative genious that got him there that was the Leap. I know in my own life that the giant Leaps that I have made only came because those that went before me were "leapers" too. Today as we sit before our PC's, sipping coffee zapped in a microwave,reaching for the cel phone,or the dvd to put into the player, let us thank those that created the ideas that make our life what it is, both in personal developement and our 21st century culture. And let us not be afraid to "leap" ourselves, creating new visions to facilitate the "leaps" for tomorrows children...


the original dream, Azure Seas Jewelry 114 Haili st. Hilo Big Island of Hawaii, my greatest leap into the unknown

Labels: Azure Seas Jewelry, Family History, Hawaii, Requested Past Posts

April 05, 2007

"The Keepsake" a story for Holy Thursday

Charity Chapel, Little Portion Hermatage, Eureka Springs Arkansas

We are off to Church this evening, to celebrate this the anniversary of the first Eucharistic Celebration.

In answer to a request I am posting the link to my post from last year for this day "The Keepsake" Have a blessed day!

Labels: Faith, Little Portion, Requested Past Posts