Baccalaureate 2003

Here is a transcript of a videotape of the Baccalaureate speech that I gave to Newfound’s graduating Class of 2003. This was Chip’s class and I was one of the two class advisors.

The original speaker had backed out and one of the class officers asked me to take his place. I accepted but I had made a previous promise to myself a few years before.

I had given the commencement speech for the Class of 2000. I had poured my heart and soul into the speech and had spent weeks preparing it. This was very unlike me. It was delivered in a very hot gymnasium because of the threat of foul weather. It was fairly well received, a few even raved, but several felt that it required too much thinking and was very complex and deep.

So, much to the concern of the principal, I decided to make this one up on the spot. I had a general idea that I would relate a trip to New York City with Rich and Val to faith, hope and love, quote a song… and that was about it.

My parents were in the audience (because of Chip’s graduation). My mother was to pass away seven months later. This speech was one of the finest and proudest moments of my life:

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Greetings!

First I’d like to thank the class for the honor and the privilege you have given me this evening. Secondly, I’d like to let you know how uncomfortable and anxious this has made me. (low laughter). And you will probably see this as we go along. Up until just a few short years ago, at the end of the scholarships, I did not return. I don’t consider myself a religious person but I do consider myself spiritual. And after hearing Mr. Gilman’s speech, just a few short years ago, I realized that there is a lot to spirituality.

But I decided to look up ‘baccalaureate’ to try and ease my anxiety….so I got through some definitions..’graduation sermon’. …I didn’t like that. –So I’m lookin thru, lookin thru- ‘sermon: a long and tedious speech’ – I’ve done that plenty of times. (ripples of laughter).

The day after Nicole asked me to do the speech, we were heading for New York City with some very close friends. And I don’t know if you are familiar with the island of Manhattan – it is very long and thin. And in the middle of it is a big green rectangle, called Central Park. And it stretches for miles and miles… trees, flowers, bridal paths, reservoirs, pond, …plenty of people.

So when we left our hotel and we had decided what we were going to do..The girls went one way and the boys went another way. So Richie and I decided that we would walk up the west side of Central Park to the Museum of Natural History, We’d go see the Rose Science Center.





As you get to the Museum of Natural History, it looks like a traditional museum but on the side is – a glass cube. It’s about 70 feet tall. What’s also impressive about it is that there is no span across it, just a glass cube. But inside it is a huge sphere.


Now as you come into the science center you walk around this sphere. And they use this sphere to try and impress upon you the scale of things in the universe. At first you might be looking at Jupiter as compared to maybe one of the moons. Another time you might be looking at a hydrogen molecule as compared to an electron. It is very fascinating just to walk around.

Then you go into the bottom half of the sphere, where they present you, on the bottom half, with a film of the birth of the universe…How they got the cameras there, I don’t know (strong laughter) (pause, shoulder shrug)…CNN! (spoken a la James Earl Jones). So..Maya Angelou narrates the birth of the universe. And, after the big bang, they let you out, your head is reeling just a bit. And you follow a long spiral path…Every step you take is ten million years ..(pause)..it takes a long time to get down. As you wend your way down, which is quite a ways, you realize you covered thirteen billion years. At the end…the very end, there is a very small line …and that represents the presence of humanity…in the history of the universe.

So we got out of the Museum of Natural History and go to..oh excuse me, we didn’t leave..We went upstairs to go to the top half of the sphere…And they have redone, with technology, the entire floor of the top half of the sphere as a sub-woofer. It vibrates as you watch the universe unfold before you.

And as you did leave the Museum of Natural History, and got some sandwiches and headed for the park, we were just reflecting on our cosmic experience. One of the things we reflected upon is that there is so much that we cannot, and never will, understand. And to me, that is the basis of faith. You cannot know..everything.. or explain..everything. You just have to go on. And, to me, being there in Central Park with my friend, in awe of the cosmic sense… It’s the same awe one might feel watching the sun set over Newfound…or maybe in climbing the mountains in the Presidential Range. … or maybe being with a close friend.

And we sat and ate our sandwiches and we started to get up and walk so we could meet Gini and Val over the other side of the park…when, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of runners come running by us. … all full of energy. Two of the runners were way ahead because they were aliens. They were running way too fast. (chuckles) And then there were just hundreds and hundreds of people just going by us. And we made ourselves to the other side of the park over to the Guggenheim Museum, which, again, I recommend you go to, because in the midst of all the squareness and angles of Manhattan is this long, flowing, wavy building. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

So we got together and started walking…finding our mandatory cup of cappuccino …. and began thinking: What is it that causes us to build these huge buildings, and put this green rectangle together, and to run like crazy through it with all this energy.

I believe it is one of our contributions to the universe..and that is hope. Why should we, in the midst of not knowing, not being able to know, should we invest all this energy? To make great buildings. To make wonderful places to sit and have lunch. To expend our energy just for the feeling it gives us.

As we wended our way through, and I decided I wanted to see a movie..I had to make my way to Times Square. I was standing there waiting to cross the street in Times Square and I realized as I looked at all the corners..There are more people here than in all the Newfound School District! (good laughter) And as I watched these people…I saw families… I saw friends… lovers… people just going around, having a good time… And then it made me realize about the connections that we make. How we get outside ourselves and how we become connected to the universe. I believe that to be love. Every time you extend beyond your own limits, when you step out with faith… with hope…and you connect with somebody, you are connecting with the universe. And that, to me, is what I believe… to be love.

Faith, hope and love… These are our contributions and our connections to the universe.

(Reaching into the inside pocket of my jacket to take out a folded piece of paper and putting on glasses)
As I walked up the west side of Central Park… I walked by a person’s house that used to live there. And as I was trying to do that, that person had a bit of an effect on my personal life. Let me read you something…

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one (voice shaking)
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

(Folding up paper, putting it back inside the jacket,)

So, my hope for you…is peace.

Our gift to you is love.

(Flashing the peace sign)
Keep the faith, baby!
(taking off glasses)

(Uproarious applause, standing ovation)

Post Script to Shaw Hospital

Greetings:

As a Post Script, Terry sent along pictures of the drawing of the young girl that we had in our room at the fraternity house. this picture was used at the Shaw Hospital and supposedly had the tear appear while it was there:

Everything You Know Is Wrong (Part Three)

Greetings Ouijaphiles!

Those three weekends were amazing in their frenetic nature. We needed maps of Lowell in order to find cemeteries described by the board. We found gravestones with predicted inscriptions….It was basically nuts.

One of our brothers, “Ma” (so called because he was so neat and a role model for truth justice and the American way), who was in ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) at the time, and eventually a retired lieutenant colonel for the Air Force, became intrigued. He was from Whitman, Mass and went home during this time and did some research that, I am sure, affected us.

He discovered the ties of the Ouija board to its role of religious dictation; that there was a hierarchy of communication that could be ascertained by the position of the stylus on the board (or plastic disk in our case). At the top of this hierarchy pyramid was Jesus. This position was almost never achieved and you should dial 911 if perceived. The next level was quite interesting. It consisted of two entities, Rosenkreuz and St. Germain.

The Rosicrucians were related to the Knights Templar era and St. Germain was an alchemist. I believe if the stylus stayed between ‘R’ and ‘S’ it indicated Rosenkreuz and if it slid back and forth between ‘G’ and ‘T’ it was information from St Germain. (If out of town then call collect!).

There was also a satanic position and I am not going to seed your little subconsciouses with that location.

Ma swore that at one of the sessions back home a blinding flash of light appeared in the room while in contact with some upper hierarchy. This did not help us focus on our studies.

The dean of the college had to ask his father, who had lived in Lowell all his life, about the information we gave him concerning the Shaw Hospital. When it was verified, he was somewhat curious as to how we found all this out. “Ouija board, Dean!”. I think the dean preferred the regular Monday morning meetings with fraternity officers to consist of explaining police reports rather than the occult.

Someone discovered that the witch had been in contact and was curious as to any succeeding events after the séance broadcast. It was quickly agreed she would come back and visit the fraternity house. It is to my regret that Gini and I decided to spend that weekend at her apartment in Boston rather than in Lowell. I did not find out what really happened that weekend for over a year.

Here is what I eventually was told:

The witch arrived with her own board. It was multicolored and ‘dipped in morphine’. She was a member of a coven (you know, instead of getting together to play bridge you cast spells) and the coven members were focusing on and supporting her from afar for the evening.

A tape recorder, which actually had been used in recent sessions, was set up and a recorder designated. The session kicked into gear quickly and the Shaw Hospital became the ongoing topic. I do not know how long this transpired but at some point the stylus switched to the Jesus position on the board, the tape ran out, the recorder stopped recording and of the more than a dozen people there, only 12 were awake (oh, you apostles, you).

The board then began to personally address each person in the room through dictation to the point where each person broke down crying before dawn because of the intimate nature that the board was describing about their personal lives. They were supposedly assigned a mission and were to meet one year later and no one outside the group was to know about this. Subsequently they were encouraged to go to church in the morning. I was told that when they emerged from the fraternity house, dawn was most refulgent (who needs LSD?). However their collective experience at the church was a bit of a disappointment and all returned to get some sleep.

Now I return from Boston and begin hopping around, “What happened with the witch? Did you find out anything else about the doll or the hospital? What happened? Huh?! Huh?!”.

This was met by very guarded responses. they talked about the strange board the witch had brought, the coven and some information about the hospital, not much of it new.

What I was not told was that one of the brothers (was it Rick?) who lived in an apartment and would use my bed on the weekend when I visited Gini, was told that he would wake up screaming that night. So he did not get much sleep. I, on the other hand, then became the next person to sleep there. It was the top of a bunkbed. Terry was in the lower bunk. Bill and Dave were next door in their bunk beds. I started to drift off to sleep. In my mind’s eye a face appeared and started to come closer to me and as it did it became older and older and closer and closer….

I screamed.

There was a slight pause. Then Terry quietly asked, somewhat petrified, “Captain, are you alright?”. Dave and Bill (also participants the night before with the witch) had their fingernails clawed into the adjoining wall and door.

“I think I’m okay but I had this image of a face getting closer and older .. it really freaked me out!”

Terry followed with, “Well, the witch said that if Rick went to sleep in your bed he would wake up screaming. We weren’t supposed to tell anybody.”

My quick response was, “Thanks a shitload!!”

I did not learn any of the rest until the future appointment a year later had come and gone without the group reassembling.

What did all this mean? Who the heck knows?! It did happen and many of us still have sharp recall of the creepy feelings from specific parts of the tale. In fact, Terry just wrote me yesterday to reminisce about how outrageous all this was. He pointed out that the radio station had the year wrong. It was 1970 and not 1971. This makes more sense.

My grandmother Rienzo, the mystic (and that’s another story) would have had quite a chuckle about these naïve children of the sixties floundering in wacko-dimension land. But, as stated, it just reinforces the idea that everything we know is wrong.

Everything You Know Is Wrong (Part Two)

Your basic Toys R Us Ouija Board.









When the board was moved to the main floor many people tried to use it. Each time one of the two with their hands on the stylus would accuse the other of moving it. Everyone denied it.

The board seemed to know its audience and how to get them on edge. It spelled everything quickly, correctly and in complete sentences. It became very specific about the history of the Shaw Hospital. It claimed the reasons for all the brouhaha was that illegal and sloppily performed abortions and operations were the reason for the eventual closing of the hospital. Spirits from these people were not at rest. Much to several people’s chagrin, seven sets of initials were presented as being associated with seven of the patients/victims at the hospital. Gini was one of them. This was not really my idea of ‘showing her a good time’.

The seven were then charged with liberating the spirits of these unfortunates. This could be done by finding records of these incidents and publishing them. These records could be found inside a doll which was somewhere in the hospital.

Obviously we all took this very calmly – yeah right! Thankfully no one changed appearance or their voices. However we did have to pop the plastic disc out of the center of the stylus because it had taken to traversing the board quite rapidly. Only one finger of each of the two ‘conduits’ was now on the disk. It was easier to control this way. Again, thankfully, when the fingers were removed the disk stopped moving. It did want to spin and twist as a tripod and slide quickly off the edge, ergo just use the plastic disk.

Now since Dr. Shaw was not too pleased with ‘those college students’ from the radio broadcast the night before and had boarded up all the windows and doors to the hospital, we were concerned about our mission. As we were discussing how to get in to the hospital the board stopped hovering over letters and switched to highlighting numbers; none of which were higher than 7. Some brilliant person cried, “They must be musical notes!” and ran off to get a guitar. So we then played “Name That Tune”.

Either myself or some other crazed Irishman announced that the tune was “Tu Ra Lu Ra Lu Ra”, an Irish lullaby. This tune was to be sung on our way to the hospital.

Can you imagine us now treating this board like another person as we asked, “Who should go?”. The board immediately slid and threaded out, “All 20 of you”. Now who had been keeping count of how many were coming and going in a fraternity house on a Saturday night? So we stopped and counted…16..17..18..19…oh shit…20.

Each count resolved itself the same way…whoops! We then found our focus and asked the board, “How do we get in there”. Zippin’ and zappin’ it spelled out that we should use the northeast stairway and go 22 steps. We should do this at 9:07 (or sometime close to that).

Well, we decided that we would accept the challenge and we should all go. That is, 19 of us did. Prow, a fraternity brother of long standing and our cook, was in the kitchen banging around pots and pans. He was not going.

Prow (for some reason our nicknames bespoke of a nautical paradigm, mine was Captain) was a rather large person but was a mild mannered student who worked in the Plastics Department. He actually became rude as he emphasized he was not going.

“Prow, come on! We have to sing this song…go at 9:07….find the papers..free the spirits..come on!”

He would not budge until finally, at 9:10, he told us why he would not go.

We were fairly new to this fraternity house on East Merrimack Street. In fact the first house for the newly formed chapter of Kappa Sigma at Lowell Tech was on Methuen Street the year before. Prow was one of the charter brothers who helped start the chapter. He was also a member of the ‘House Search Committee’. This group had looked at several large, old houses in Lowell (of which there were many to choose)…including the Shaw Hospital. They had eventually decided that there would be too much work to be done to get the place up to code and had moved on to other properties. However during the tour of the hospital Prow distinctly remembered seeing something that was somewhat inconsistent with the hospital surroundings…. the doll!

Now we were sure there was a series of explanations that would rationally align all this but somehow it escaped us. So now, 19 of us, struck out for the hospital singing Tu Ra Lu Ra Lu Ra walking down the middle of the street.

Our poor neighbors..they had been subjected to parties, rock bands, the sixties and now this sight – arrgh!

One of the crew reached in his pocket to pull out a rosary and jokingly yell, “Look we’re protected!” but what he showed no longer had the crucifix attached. He was replaced by a puff of smoke making its way back inside the fraternity house. He was later found hugging a Jack Daniels bottle and mumbling, “Glory be to…”.

So 18 is a good number isn’t it? ….Tu Ra Lu Ra Lu Ra…Tu Ra Lu Ra Lai…Tu Ra Lu Ra Lu Ra…Hush, now don’t you cry…

We stood before this brick monstrosity of a hospital, complete with spire and tower and, using the nearby Merrimack River to orient, determined the northeast stairway. Counting 22 steps we turned to a solid brick wall. That was it…gotcha!

We began our sheepish retreat to the fraternity house but the conversation settled into- “What if we should have paced 22 steps instead of counting 22 stairs? There were landings along the way up.”

So we ran for our handy-dandy Ouija Board and demanded, “Steps or paces?”. … “Paces” was the response. Further conversation with the board resulted in Gini, two others and myself as the candidates who would return to the hospital.

Upon re-encountering the staircase we used up several of our ‘paces’ on the landings and wound up much further down the stairway. We turned…there was a window…there were no boards or plywood over the window…we pushed…it opened.

Gini and I then duly appointed ourselves the guardians of the open window and would defend against impossible odds anyone who would attempt to gain entrance to the house while the other two explored. Our offer was accepted and they entered. After about ten minutes they returned…doll-less.

Our return to the house led to some more rapid ‘dictation’ from the board and it was all duly recorded. Love those engineer-types. The only remaining dramatic instance from that particular night was a call for a bible. As someone went to fetch one (see – we may have been crazed hippy freaks, engineers and jocks but there was a bible in the house) the board dictated a book, chapter and verse. This was done before the person returned, so we waited.

When they returned they placed the book down already open. Of course! It was already open to the chapter and verse cited by the board’s gallivanting. The passage pertained to murdered children…need I say more?

The next day, Sunday, we went down to the hospital to check for possible entries that were not obstructed. There was only one. We also managed to procure the original tape of the broadcast from the radio station. As stated earlier, some of the brothers worked at the station and could get it for us. Also, remember that the on-air broadcast had been edited through a several second delay, specifics of the location and the background of the hospital would not be heard over the radio.

We compared the notes from the night before to what we heard from the tape. The accuracy of what we had written when compared with the portions of the tape that were not broadcast was a bit disconcerting.

Returning to the transcript of the WBZ broadcast:

“…And everything that we got was not one hundred percent of what was on the tape but everything that we got was a hundred percent accurate …And that pretty much , uh-ah, brought it to our attention that maybe we were playin’ with somethin’ here and we managed to further investigate the hospital…”


“…We were asked to do all sorts of bizarre rituals such as singing of songs, finding of graves and, uh, all the information that the Ouija Board would volunteer …we would have no idea what it was talkin’ about but then it would give us enough direction so that, sure enough, its information would be correct…To the point where we were asking the dean of the college as to the background to the Shaw Hospital. And our basic mission for this whole thing was to, supposedly, vindicate certain spirits and certain people operating the board were associated with these spirits….Though they were never, ah, physically affected by it. The board just associated them with it. And this went on for, oh, about three weekends. Until they finally brought the witch back and, uh, I wasn’t there that night. And the night they brought the witch back…”

Oh what a night! To be continued…..

Everything You Know Is Wrong

Ah – All Hallow’s Eve. This day rated as my favorite holiday. (Bastille Day was second – serving our Heads of State to the masses). Granted there were times during the punk era when it seemed like we celebrated it daily!







It does bring out creative talents. Gini gave it her School-Of-Fashion-Design-all to enable Chip to ‘come up to bat’:



In fact, each year we felt it was a challenge to gather the Von D’Luccis and let ‘er rip. When we lived at Branch Street in Lowell we were famous throughout the city for our Halloweeen festivities. Literally hundreds would show up in this 8 apartment, century old Victorian house. Each apartment was devoted to some theme such as food, dancing or ‘other’. We even had visitors from Remulac…er…France:



Metamorphosis was not uncommon. Take one bank executive and one software consultant and poof! It’s Magenta and Medusa casually discussing what to do with the guests.



Though my all-time couples appearance for Gini and myself was as Patty Hearst and Gary Gilmour (look him up in your Funk n’ Wagnalls), sad to say there is no photographic evidence to reminisce. However we can ogle the Pink Panther and her alluring tail:



Some of us, however, aspire to artistic heights year after year:













But topping all of these soirees is the all time Zuma/Rodriguez/Von D’Lucci Halloween experience – the Shaw Hospital and its aftermath. To this day it remains the wonderful enabler to the adage, “Everything You Know Is Wrong!”. It occupied the lives of those of us attempting to go to Lowell Technological Institute (now UMass Lowell) and redesign the fraternity experience during the cerebrally challenging 60’s and early 70’s.

Each year, as a teacher, I would reserve a class day for the telling. At one point, while teaching at the University of Lowell (yet another manifestation of LTI), my lecture hall, usually about a third to a half full, would teem to capacity with eager listeners to what became known as the ‘Ouija Board Story’. Fame spread to WBZ radio whose nighttime host, Larry Glick, decided to broadcast the story nationally (11/4/1991), thus including myself in Warhol’s prediction of fifteen minute fame (actually a half hour).

It all began with a the college radio station wanting to have a live broadcast in a haunted house in Lowell. These facts can be objectively viewed at:

http://www.wuml.org/history2.php
(in the last quarter of the page)

The station at the time was WLTI (now WUML) and they had convinced a real witch, from New Jersey no less, to be in on the shenanigans. It was Friday, October 29, 1971. The fraternity heard the first rumblings, however, the next day. Several of our brothers worked for the station and one was involved with managing it. Other reports had emerged about students freaking out at a house near our fraternity house on East Merrimack Street. In fact the house was the Old Shaw Hospital only five houses away. It was a favorite ‘haunt’ of ours because of its imposing architecture and the ‘ark’ in back which was actually a creation of Dr. Shaw.

The radio website agrees that someone who believed she was a witch cooperated with them to do the broadcast as a ‘fun’ endeavor. The hospital was prepared with gimmicks and sound effects. Participants were collected at the school, blindfolded and then brought to the hospital. A séance was initiated. Before the evening was over many of the volunteers would initiate information about where they were and incidences in the history of the hospital. The tape of the show was eventually procured and the events were even shaking up the announcer as his voice quavered and cracked. At one point a charcoal drawing of a girl on the wall was thought to turn blue and have a tear appear on a cheek. The witch finally declared that this was all too much to handle and everyone ran from the house (a la Monty Python – “Run away! Run away!!”). None of the planned gimmicks or sounds had been activated.

Our weekend at the fraternity, so far, had been part of a series of events planned to enjoy with our dates. Saturday’s scheduled activity was a hayride. Gini and I had just started dating and were looking forward to the fun.

My roommate, Terry, was affianced to someone back in New York and decided to forego the hayride. He convinced a few other brothers to indulge in a trip to Toys R Us to purchase a necessary item for one of his ‘hobbies’.

We had been roommates for three years (Mike F had joined us for one) and I had traveled home with him on vacations so I could ‘practice’ on his parents before I took on mine. During those visits it became quite clear that he was a key member of a cabal that partied with Ouija boards (you know, the original internet). Well, maybe not a cabal, just very close high school friends. Many times they severally attested to the strange and bizarre whenever their group ‘seanced’ and the board did its thing.

So as we returned to the house after our golly-gee-willikers hayride, we were met by a darkened house. On a Saturday night?! Cautiously we realized that there was a small cluster on the second floor. The scene was discovered to be candle-lit and the board was very ‘active’.

At this point I will attempt to transcribe from the narrative I did on Larry Glick’s radio broadcast:

“..But when we came back from that hayride, they had the stylus on that Ouija board moving very, very quickly and managed to be describing relevant events to the Shaw Hospital. They managed to describe events that we had not heard through rumors; that we had not heard through the radio station. In fact, the radio station was careful to eliminate certain information from being broad cast over the air. I am sure you are familiar with tape delay… We had managed to pick up this information independently through a Quija Board. And later, after we got this information, we took it down in written form after it was dictated from the board and compared it to the tape from the radio station, which was unedited. And everything we got wasn’t a hundred percent of what was on the tape, but everything we got was a hundred percent accurate. and that pretty much uh brought it to our attention that maybe we were playing with something here and we managed to further investigate the hospital…And I don’t know what Jim (friend of Larry Glick and my student at the time) has told you, but some of the more dramatic events were that the people who owned the hospital, boarded up the hospital after the séance…Not wanting any more college kids to run around ‘spookin’ the neighborhood… And we managed to find out a way to get into the hospital mainly through the Ouija Board after he (Dr. Shaw) had gone through a lot of trouble boarding up windows and doors…we were brought specifically to a spot in the hospital so as to gain access, two of us did, and we were asked to do all sorts of bizarre rituals such as singing of songs, finding of graves and all the information that the… “ (pause transcript)

There’s a lot to fill in here that the radio broadcast did not cover in detail. This posting has gone on for quite a bit. What do you think? Do you want some more of the story?

Go Away...Please! Go Away!

Well it’s a wrap. Was it the internet? Was it the economy? Well, yes but there does come a time...

When we first moved to Bristol and I began to circulate among the community socially and through civic organizations I had a distinct impression. It seemed that women were very much involved in running things around the Newfound area. Many successful businesses, if only for longevity, were owned and run by women. Atlas Travel only reinforced that opinion.

In the case of Atlas, an amalgam of skills and talents was manifest. From even before we moved full time to the “Youngs’ chicken barn” in Alexandria, Bob and Carol Huber looked out for us. Bob was in charge of our initial ground and foundation projects at the barn as we made the usual noises of flatlanders who said they would move ‘up north’. Lo and behold it did happen. Gini quit her job at Astro Travel; I quit teaching at the University of Lowell and after 12 years of being brats we decided to become parents. Chicken coop – ho! (“You’re really not going to live in a chicken coop are you?” was the echoing response of the gestating Von D’Lucchi).

Carol tended bar (and still does) at Rossi’s restaurant from the first day it opened. Her previous years in the business made her an ideal choice to schmooz with Exit 23’s itinerant and resident clientele looking for some good Italian food. Since our barn was not ‘ideally’ equipped for cooking (gas stove top fastened to some upright two by fours) when we took a break from our weekend-away-from-Massachusetts, Rossi’s was the place. The girls began cooking a scheme of their own. Gini had good experience in the travel business and Carol knew just about everybody – Voila!

With their blessing and friendship we decided to quit jobs, move to NH and prepare for the arrival of Chip. We were 34 at the time and yet our parents acted like we were teenagers who could not see the forest, the trees or the benefit in erecting walls around a flush toilet. However, taking in (and abetting) all our madness were Bob and Carol:

Now Atlas Travel, itself, has been a ‘well-traveled’ business. Originally these women had a storefront in a small building next to the Huber house until they decided to move a little closer to town…about 9 feet closer. Bob lifted the building, I presume swept under it, and put it back in its new location. Later they began to play musical rooms in the building next door as they could not let any moss gather. There were a total of 4 locations but one site – there’s a pun in there somewhere.

Gini and the travel business had originally been on a collision course. She experienced her first taste of the Old World during a summer jaunt with relatives while still in high school. Later at Rivier College (Nashua, NH) she became versed in how to travel on a scooter in Bermuda, a sobering experience.

Her degree from the Boston School of Fashion Design raised her to the ranks of the shopping cognoscenti and demanded a future with promising venues. Her next stint as an orthodontic assistant braced her to finally declare that there had to be something better than this. And besides, Chris had a lot of time in the summer and all those school vacations!

Enter Astro Travel and Mr. Butler…he was one of the good guys. He impressed upon Gini the idea that travel made you a better sales person. Gini needed very little convincing. So back to Bermuda:

She became quite adept at bargains and smart traveling. On this same trip she was able to collapse me into a bottle and put me in her carry-on.:

Upon emerging I gave her any wish she desired.



Gini became more and more the professional. She was able to immerse herself in new cultures and locations. At times though it became a trick to bring me along since I was still dedicated to changing the world through non-violent but clever revolution. To give you an idea where she had to start, here is square one:

Square two was not all that much better as I was convinced that a green cap with a red star would be the next tri-corner hat


Gini, as we all know, is very upbeat and optimistic. So she decided to be proactive and give me a unique (for me) Christmas present. It made its appearance in a nicely wrapped small box. I eagerly ripped at the paper and quizzically espied a certificate enabling a couple to take a Caribbean cruise for only the price of the sales tax. Gini was sorely tried as she became the ubiquitous audience for my dissertation on the exploitation of the working man and the excesses of the decadent. But I did finally embark:


The first two days were tough as I tried to rally everybody from our cabin steward to the dining room waiters to unite against the oppressor. Gini, bemusedly, would enjoy the food, the sunshine and the sophisticated patience of the staff as they did their professional best to ensure our comfort and pleasure. In fact, our cabin steward spent about an hour sitting and talking with me on the floor in the hallway outside our cabin and he, very politely, re-adjusted my take on the third world proletariat to a more gracious level. By the third night I was in my dinner jacket with Gini and a martini on a moonlit deck watching my hippie-self go down for the third time in the ship’s wake.


So, need I say it? Booking the next cruise was my idea:






Gini was so proud.



















She has provided us with a wealth of experience and enjoyment.


Yes that’s the Great Wall and it is aptly named!

Our son has reaped the benefits of world travel and multiple cultures.


Yah mon – every ting is iree!



The magic that was maybe Atlantis on the island of Thera (Santorini):




Gini thrilled our godchild, Colleen, the daughter of our roommates by taking her along on a trip to San Francisco. I got to play Uncle Aldo and drive the convertible hither and yon:



She was also able to take her dad to San Fran soon after her mom died and he had a wonderful time.




But there is something very special about seeing and being with Gini when she is traveling. She is an integral part of the adventure. The joi de voyage. She makes sure that the hotel is affordable but elegant, that touring opportunities are known and understood; that your luggage is packed efficiently or she will send you to the Russian front (there is a little Nazi in all of us); that lunch on the train will be a dining experience:




She will definitely get into the spirit of things:



From sunrise in Sicily:



To sunset in Jamaica:




Her career is a mark of excellence, enjoyment and realized opportunities. Thank you Carol and Gini for so many years of service to those of us who want to get away from it all. May all your sunsets be filled with refulgence and every ray beaming from a satisfied customer.

Chapter I - I Am Chained To The Mast

Greetings All:

Yes, bless me readers for I have slacked - it's been too long since my last confession, er, submission.

A visit to Chip, data madness with the beginning of school and just plain inertia are all at fault.

So what I have decided to do for now is to submit the first chapter of a possible book, Cosmic Flux (or Boomer Retirement), and ask for your reaction. Hopefully I will be able to get something together concerning Gini closing her business of 25 years and post that soon.

So......

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The day started with my stepping on Gini’s earring stud that she had lost and given up for recovery. I always like these moments of joy and surprise especially when my serendipitous shuffling makes me out to be a hero.


“Oh my god! That’s it! Where did you find it? Oh – I love you!”


My response no doubt was a single entendre for sexual favors that was met with joi d’earring that echoed with promise and delivery.


The only problem was that it was so early in the day. That meant subsequent events could not top this … and perilously on the list was our trip to the NH Retirement System in Concord, NH to file papers at 10AM. Oh well.


Now let it be said and briefly debated that the cup that is either half this or half that has holes in it anyway. Like those math problems with flow rates involving hoses and drains and suspect liquids in arcane containers. No sooner do you get the idea that you might be able to calculate whether it is filling or draining when the person from whom you borrowed the hose drops by and casually asks for it back. So what cup were we talking about?


Oh yeah, the loving cup of retirement. So if it is a reward then is it about being tired and having done so well I get to get tired all over again? Or are we talking treads and mileage here? Sometimes I think anecdote is just a Rorschach for babel. One thought leads to itself and any sensibility must be muscled from the reader.


Okay – we were going to file retirement papers and Gini’s life was missing one less stud. The paperwork had been completed the day before as an exercise in maturity and planning. But – but we forgot it had to be notarized twice. This was meant as a fail safe that my worst enemy was not surreptitiously terminating my career or that he nor I had lured a surrogate spouse into being my beneficiary. It is times like this that make me marvel at ‘the powers that be’. So we had decided that we would be at the bank at 8:30 so as to have plenty of time for the 40 minute drive to Concord and our 10:00 rendezvous.


Well the bank was thinly staffed and we had to go to a second bank. Usually during such incidents my demeanor is often confused with a colicky infant and everyone must pay! Luckily I was still reeking with maturity from the previous day.


Somehow James Joyce could make an entire novel out of this day articulating each moment and suspending thought and intention. However, oblivious to the drive, my next recollection is finding the NHRS building with our notarized documents carefully tucked in my organized folder. Car after car was swinging and wending to the same location obviously reminiscent of Woodstock. I wondered if they gave lollipops or brown acid upon successful completion of the document submission. Well we were sure gonna find out.


The waiting area was bursting with budding retirees and soon-to-be-heckled-by-his-lordship-due-to-his-hanging-around-the-house spouses. That is until we sat down and the room systematically emptied in about 74 seconds as NHRS staff emerged like cuckoo clock anime beckoning everyone but us.


“Was it something I said” drew a spontaneous chuckle from the receptionist in her can-I-take-your-order cubicle.


The next beckoner emerged but seemed hesitant as we assumed it must be our turn.

“Are you here for the Spring Fling?” was her attempt at evoking the secret password from us. Our eventual nodding and spirited “Yes” was backgrounded by my thought that we must look so young we must be here at the wrong time and the wrong place.


“Duggan” brought a quick check of the potential beckonee checklist and a smile. Hoping we were not being led to the Group W bench we followed. Obviously NHRS had heard about the fact that during my eighth grade parties’ Lady’s Choices no one would ask me to dance. Eventually my female classmates conspired to enact one of the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount and dutifully appointed someone to dance with me whenever the situation arose henceforth. NHRS, in its compassion, invited us to sit in the buzzing room with the six tables in a “C” bursting with NHRS staff and individuals/couples reveling in retirement pubescence.

We could sit at the table with everyone else but we would have to pretend we belonged since staff were still unavailable at this time. This allowed observation of notary stamps (My god we could have had it done here!); overheard instructions on how to fill out the forms and what the form was about and just general brouhaha.


Then it was over.


Our documents were filled out less one social security number. Easily complemented. Our documents were already notarized. Our questions were noted and answered…and we were done.


As we left Woodstock I blurted something about getting a Bloody Mary. This was again met with a spontaneous chuckle. This time from a couple who had been sprung and flung in stereo as they were both leaving the teaching profession. Resident districts and mutual acquaintances were exchanged and then TTFN.


It was 10:10.


Gini was always good for an agenda. We could shop, pay bills, shop, consume, shop or buy things. Buying gas won with a coffee chaser at a café on Main Street. Ah - $3.29.9 a gallon – what a bargain. Ah - $8.20 for cappuccini and cake. Ah – we only have five dollar bills and change. Let’s renegotiate for the cappuccini. Okay, so we waited a half hour. I am sure that we were eventually viewed as paying customers.


Meanwhile we could not shake the feeling that we were recovering something-or-others from our bureaucratic experience. Had an era ended? Was this Kahoutek-like and the glitzy comet tail was just a rumor? I am not even 60 yet and the acts of retirement have already ruined my life.

GA (Gini’s Agenda) led us to a parking lot near downtown and a movie theater that we had web-investigated during our mature phase from yesterday. Having recently enamored myself with John McDonald’s Travis McGee I could crinkle up in the front seat, open the windows to enjoy the summery day and wait for Gini to find an antique spoon/cup for her college roommate’s newly born grandchild.


Now I have been writing this like someone would be reading it. So let me tell you briefly about our college roommates. My college roommate married Gini’s college roommate. Isn’t that just wonderful? Luckily they are still married so it is wonderful. We are godparents to their daughter and we are all part of an extended family called the Von D’Lucci family. So what do you think? Should we continue with our lunch in Concord, NH or do the Rorschach babel boogie?


Well….


Lunch was uneventful save for the spew of children that flooded the area where we would place our order. We made the mistake of looking at the menu before ordering, allowing this confluence to erupt.


The mothers all ordered draft beer along with pizza and sodas. Modern motherhood prescribes reason and tolerance. Gini was in one thousand percent agreement.


Sequestering ourselves at a street side window allowed us to view the anomalies that bespeak humanity in Concord. Some were sitting on the curb as others attended; others haberdashed on their lunch hour and still more begged the imagination. Thankfully the ham, roasted pepper, artichoke heart pesto medley on six grain bread went down well with Sam Adams on tap. Gini continues to espouse her love for white pizza especially when it was this good.


GA had noblesse obliged to view Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film showing at the new theater in town. It was a private showing in stadium seating with plush seats that leaned back and a sound system that rivaled the world imagined by Aldous Huxley. And could it be more empathetic than to be regaled by geriatric rockers as a Doppler effect for our retirement entente? Giving full credence to Einstein’s relativity we contexted that the Beacon Theater in NYC (site of the concert) was a mind blowing experience and just because we knew the words from forty five years of mimicry could not dim our enthusiasm for this cinematic experience. Long live rock and roll!

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