"Now is the [Easter] of our discontent" --- BUT --- "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as [the Newman Easter Vigil of 1969]"

...  if not our "discontent,"  then certainly OUR DISCOMFORT.....

The Coronavirus, CODIV-19, has knocked so many of our traditional Easter practices and celebrations into a cocked hat.....

Nonetheless, there are many memories of Happy Easters past that we can recollect and in some ways enjoy again.....

ONE OF THE BC NEWMAN CENTER EASTER CELEBRATIONS STANDS OUT TO ME WELL ABOVE THE REST  <<< --- >>> THE 1969 NIGHTLONG EASTER VIGIL AND SUNRISE MASS

In this Year of Our Lord 2020,  few of us are readily able to engage in contemporary overnight mass gatherings and celebrations for the Vigil of Easter, or anything else for that matter.....  (And just between us girls, at some of our currently calculated ages,  few of us are likely able to engage in "all-nighters" of any sort,  no matter how much we might want for it to be so.)

HOWEVER  ---  THERE IS ALWAYS MEMORY LANE.....

With or without Joe Franklin,  maybe some of you can recall that It was almost fifty-one years ago that the Brooklyn Newman Center conducted an all-night Easter Vigil event that was patterned on the celebrations conducted by the French and International Ecumenical community at Taize, in the Burgundy region of France.

It was on Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, 1969, that the BC Newman Chaplain Father O'Sullivan was joined at the Newman Center by Father Batchelder from a nearby Episcopalian parish who presided at times jointly and other times individually over several prayer services conducted at various places in the building during the all night vigil.  The whole thing culminated in a celebration of a mass at sunrise in the Newman Center Chapel,  with Father O'Sullivan, as the celebrant,  along with Father Batchelder, as  Deacon.

The evening was punctuated by several more secular type events, such as:  movies like "Doctor Strangelove" upstairs in the ballroom, and including multiple showings of a very vivid and up-to-date NASA documentary about the first manned mission to the moon, which by plan orbited the Moon but didn't land on the surface; poetry, prose readings and folk songs in the lounge  ---  where there was plenty of coffee, and some bagels and pastries; and various planned and unplanned jaunts to nearby venues for things like pizza and a few adult beverages (and I'm sure that a few six packs made it back inside 1260 Ocean Avenue that night,  because I remember Father Batchelder toasting "A Holy and Happy Easter to All" with a can of "Bud" sometime after a prayer service for the midnight hour).

There was a very good crowd at the beginning of the evening, because many expected a more normal Easter Vigil service followed by a mass that would have satisfied their Sunday obligation..... Most early evening attendees departed before very long;  however, about twenty hung-in for the movies and some later prayers and socializing;  and about a dozen endured the whole ten hours or so until the break of day---  in the end, about thirty folks assembled and/or re-assembled for the mass at sunrise (including Economics Prof. Arthur Hess, the "Night Newman Faculty Adviser," with his family).....

Afterward, it was generally thought that the whole event was both spiritually and socially worthwhile,  especially for a "first try"  ---  and given that so few, who came to the beginning of the Vigil's prayers and celebrations, knew that it would require marathon endurance.....  Sadly, , to my knowledge,  there never was a similar followup event like the 1969 Easter Vigil during the rest of my time at Newman.  On the other hand, that made the 1969 Newman Easter all-nighter additionally memorable as a one-off event and experience.....

March has been an eventful month indeed.....

This Brooklyn College Newman Alumni blog has been slowed to a crawl due to the Coronavirus  ---  COVID-19;  and everybody's responses to it

My quick and early departure to my beachside bunker not far from the famed Daytona Beach fowled-up my internet access for three weeks

So far, none of our band of associates has suffered the depredations of the disease itself,  but most if not all have been significantly inconvenienced by shortages of many necessaries in the stores  ---  and to a growing extent the so-called "lock-downs" or "shelter in place" orders  ---  and just yesterday,  talk about a variety of travel restrictions were being discussed far and wide,  and at varying levels of local,  state and/or federal government

Let's keep each other in our thoughts;  and a little prayer each for some or all of the others wouldn't hurt either.....

March 5, 2020 was an eventful day..... a few more wonderful people came on board

MUCH OF THIS MATERIAL ALREADY WENT BACK AND FORTH ON THE FACEBOOK FEATURE OF THIS BLOG

I reached out and touched Joe Wronka with news of this blog   ---  Joe had trouble getting a comment in here ---   then Joe Wronka reached back and touched us with news of his very professional blog  ---  and I'll tell you and Joe now, why that impressed me so.....

Meanwhile, Kathy Rogan Hurley jumped in with four feet  ---  two of her own and two for her hubby

There's no need for me to show my more recent outreach efforts to Herr Doktor Professor Joseph Wronka and Kathy Rogan Hurley.....   They're more or less cut and paste versions of what most of the rest of you got by E-mail several days earlier.....

Joe's response was quick and pithy.    And, this is what he said:  "I didn't find a way to post anything, as I continue to be somewhat of a technophobe, but you (and possibly others) may wish to take a look at my webpage at: www.humanrightsculture.org. Anyway, will look forward to other posts with memories back in the day when we went to BC in rather exciting, yet turbulent times...."

I was so moved, I put it up on Facebook with its own little banner headline; "WOWSUH ! WOWSUH !! WOWSUH !!!"  ---   certainly, not to be confused with one of Galewyn Massey's "Banner" headlines  ---  Unlike the fictionalized responses of my alter ego, my enthusiasm here was real;  because for almost fifty years, I have thought that Joe Wronka did one of the most impressive things done by a fellow BC Newmanite during my time at the college and Newman. As I remember it, during one of the summer breaks, Joe backpacked around the Mediterranean, both on the European and North African sides.
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Enough about Joe !!!  The other bright spot of the day came out like a ray of sunshine from the Richmond area of Virginia.....
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Bing, bam, boom (I know, I know, in New York,  especially here in Staten Island, and in parts of New Jersey, we say it "Bada Bing-Bada Boom !!!"), but they are in Virginia now,  Kathy Rogan Hurley ante-ed-up for herself and husband Dan. Quickly, Kathy was  "liking" and commenting on the Facebook site.

Although I'm taking a bit of liberty in straying away from a 100% accurate timeline, all of the above and a few other responses from folks caused me to put this up on the Facebook Newman Alums home page:

[REVISED SLIGHTLY] "I get all verklempt at times like these, but instead of wishing my meschpuca >>> zei gezunt and to have a pickle <<< let's cue up Bob Hope on our favorite old vinyl playing device, from the post-war black bakelite RCA 45 player of our older siblings or cousins, to the top of the line Gerards or Harmon-Kardons that some of us bought once we had some disposable cash.....  Take it away Bob, you old ski-jump nose ---

"Thanks for the memory
Of sentimental verse, nothing in my purse
And chuckles when [some of us] said
"For better or for worse"
How lovely it was....

Thanks for the memory
Of tinkly temple bells, alma mater yells
And Cuban rum and towels from the very best hotels
Oh, how lovely it was....

We said goodbye with a highball
Then I got as high as a steeple
But we were intelligent people
No tears, no fuss, hooray for us

Strictly entre nous
Darling, how are you?
And how are all those little dreams
That never did come true?

Awfully glad I met you
Cheerio and tootle-loo
Thank you
Thank you so much."

It's gotten very late; so late, that it's early again.....  So, let's close in the words of Harry Nilsson: (yes, I'm doing an encore  ---  I've stayed awake so long, I'm all manic):   

"Life was clear, Close your eyes  

Remember, is a place from long ago 
Remember, filled with everything you know
Remember, when you're sad and feelin' down
Remember, turn around
Remember, life is just a memory
Remember, close your eyes and you can see
Remember, think of all that life can be
Remember

Dream, love is only in a dream, remember

Remember life is never as it seems. Dream

Long ago, far away, Life was clear, close your eyes"

[Remember "You've Got Mail"  and when Meg Ryan still had her young look and before Tom Hanks was Mr. Rogers.....]

Little by little we are making connections with more BC Newman alums

Mary Langro Traynor and Amy Sucich (Amelia Iazzetto) are the latest to turn up in my net  ---  in my own way I have become a "fisher of men (and women)"......  

Maybe, it's not unlike a latter day Saint John Henry Newman, in a belated and roundabout faux-techy kind of way

The way I've been going about this has been slow work on my laptop (which I actually use like a desktop).....

Not only am I not very tech-savvy, I am a dilatory dilettante when I am taking a rest from being a languid laggard.....

In spite of all that, I am making progress in small but meaningful ways (at least that's what I'm telling myself).

Thoughts & prayers,
Jim McCall  (aka Galewyn Massey*)


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PS

*There will be a substantial prize for whomever figures out how I came up with that pseudonym......

j

Arranging a late Spring get together for lunch

The group that met at Karcsma, the Polish restaurant in Williamsburg, in January 2020, is talking about getting together again in the late Spring around the time of the Kentucky Derby,  maybe a little later, but certainly before the Preakness  ---  like last time,  since most of us are retired or semi-retired, mid-week looks like the best bet

We have chatted about trying to meet at Kennedy's Restaurant, which is located on the bay side inside the Breezy Point Cooperative on the Rockaway Penisula, in South Queens  ---  it has good parking and is somewhat convenient for Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn, and it is a great year-round beach spot to have lunch  ---  a second possibility is London Lennie's.  It's on Woodhaven Boulevard, just to the north of St. John's Cemetery at the intersection of  63rd Drive and Woodhaven Blvd.,  also in Queens;  parking is OK, but not great, and there's no beach,  but it's closer to the LIE and Northern Queens and Nassau.

As the plans get finalized, there will be updates

This group is happy to lunch with any and all Newmanites of all vintages,  so think about trying to be there with us, if you'd like.

For those of us that want to channel our inner Kirk Douglas,  maybe we can have a "Seven Days in May"  Preakness Pool.  Kirk made that movie in the mid-60s,  just before anybody heard about his son Michael (who is more of our age)  ---  remember,  Kirk made it well past a hundred, so there's hope for the rest of us.....

Just Getting Started

Little by little I'll try to build this blog so that it can function as a bulletin board for Brooklyn College Newman Center Alumni from the 1960s and 70s

Even when I'm diligent,  I'm slow and plodding  ---  So, please be patient.....

Let's see how this goes !!!

Please,  feel free to comment in any way that you might choose to do so.  What's the the worst that could happen ?  (There will be a short delay before your comment appears;  usually not more than a couple of hours if I am diligent.)