“Where will Buddy go when he graduates St. Joseph?”
“He will go to Boys Haven…a wonderful place for boys of high school age, and he will go to Trinity High School…a new boys school in St. Mark.”
“Suppose St. Louis Bertrand wanted to sponsor Buddy?”
“Well, I’m certain that any financial help you would want to give Buddy would be greatly appreciated not only by Buddy but also by Boys Haven.”
“Might it be possible for Buddy to come live at the priest-house and go to school from there?”
“Of course it would have to be cleared with Buddy’s mother, but I would see that as an advantage for her since she lives nearby…and then we would want Buddy to consider it, as well…but it sounds like a promising opportunity for him.”
“Certainly Father, I will await your counsel, after you have had an opportunity to speak with Buddy’s mother, whom we also know…and then with Buddy…perhaps we could have him to the rectory and see what he thinks.”
“Sure, I’ll contact Buddy’s mother by mail, explaining the offer to her.”
Two weeks passed, Katherine Quinn had received the letter from Father Hermann but she just felt inadequate about answering the letter. Ham was of no help either but he did offer a good piece of advice. He suggested that she call Father Hermann or Father Edwards, explaining that she was unable to write the letter. Ultimately she decided to call Father Edwards and try to get an appointment since he was within walking distance.
The appointment was set for six o’clock on a Friday, three weeks after the letter had gone out from Father Hermann.
“Mrs. Quinn, thank you for the call.” Father Edwards said.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“May I get you something…coffee, water, soda?”
“Coffee will be wonderful with cream and sugar.”
After the coffee came, Katherine was made to feel comfortable by Father Edwards.
“Does the offer appeal to you Mrs. Quinn?”
“Yes, very much but of course it would be up to Buddy.”
“Shall I speak with Father Hermann for you?”
“Please Father, I know how busy he is.”
So the two priest made arrangements to get together and discuss the plan with Buddy.
“Buddy, Father Edwards and the parish at St. Louis Bertrand would like to sponsor you in high school and have you live at the priest house where you would have duties like answering the phone and serving at the Masses. Would you have an interest in living at the rectory?”
“That would be great.”
“We have spoken with your mother Buddy and she is all for it since you would be close to her and could walk over for visits.” Edwards said.
“So if you are amenable Buddy, we could arrange for you to start by going over to the rectory and just spending the night to get to know the other priest, most of whom you already know.”
“Terrific…when do I go?”
“What about Saturday a week on the 15thof April?”
“Sounds like a good day to pay your taxes.” Buddy said. It wasn’t what Buddy was expecting…after all being the kid for half-a-dozen priest was pretty unconventional…but the hours were good. There was a great gym to practice basketball and he was used to getting up early for Mass so having to serve for the early Masses wasn’t asking much.
There were lots of bonuses, Buddy could connect with all his old friends and ride the bus with them to high school. He hoped they too would be going to Trinity but there was the possibility the he would go to St. Xavier, which was located at 2nd and Broadway or he could go to the other new Catholic High School called DeSales or he could go to the old venerable high school in the west end, Flaget High School. There were lots of options and Buddy wanted to be with his buddies at St. Louis Bertrand, he had outgrown the gym at St. Joseph…but he also knew that he could not dunk the ball in any gym except at Horney Hall.
Horney Hall was a cracker box…the so called gym at St. Joseph fit the requirements of 5thgraders but beyond that it was simply a big room with a six-foot goal at one end. Horney hall served lots of purposes. Not only did it provide cover for all the children in inclimate weather but it also acted as the primary gathering place for all special events like the Christmas play and the annual birthday party for all the boys. Regardless of your actual birth date…every one celebrated all the birthdays on March 18 of each and every year. Sort of like thoroughbred horses…all horses become a year older on January 1.
But on March 18…the feast day of St. Patrick (Irish Day), a feast was held each year featuring the boys of the orphanage. Uniquely, helping to celebrate the event, Father Hermann had scripted an adoption process whereby each boy at the orphanage was assigned a “Big Brother” to have lunch with at the Birthday Party, and it was hoped if the two ‘hit it off,’ that the big brother would come back to the orphanage thereafter to visit and even take the ‘little brother’ out into the real world for a week-end visit to their homes while providing mentoring and spiritual guidance for the young fatherless boys.
Mr. Horney (aka William Horney) was older than the orphanage…a very small man…and elf…no taller than five foot with a size four shoe and a hat size to match came to the orphanage religiously every Thursday to coach the “World Famous, Horney Midgets.” William Horney was an insurance salesman, and a pedophile. As were most of the “Big Brothers,” as Buddy Quinn would soon discover.
Buddy Quinn “lucked out,” in the words of the other boys. When it came time to assign a big brother, the magic wand connected Buddy with Phillip Strange, a forty odd year old man who worked in the office of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, and lived in a small two-bedroom apartment with his brother Leonard and his widowed mother who slept in a chair.
Phillip Strange was also the Boy Scout leader at the orphanage…took the boys camping and hiking through the woods. Looking for his victims, he would not be discouraged by the lack of interest on the part of Buddy Quinn. Strange, who did not drive a car, somehow passed the muster of Sister Mary Como and Father Hermann who should have suspected Strange if only for the way he looked in his Scout Master uniform. Have you ever seen a forty-year-old man, overweight by a good seventy-five pounds who insist on pulling his pants up over his gut…counter to the classic “Gut over the belt” of the average beer drinker? Strange had one other “queer” profile. Whenever he said something to one of the boys, after who he was lusting…the last word became an event which never seemed to end. Strange carried the word out in a noxious sort of singing method…like “there you are Buddy…yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss,” he would say with a leering smile and with the classic Phil Strange ‘bottom teeth over the top’ like a Pekinese dog…it was perfect…and Strange was a queer to behold.
But he had never touched Buddy, literally…only leered and glared at him. He took Buddy home with him on a cold December Saturday. They walked to the end of Ward Avenue and caught the bus bound on a westerly course for Louisville. They arrived at 4thStreet and Walnut just before five o’clock…it was freezing and Buddy had no gloves. Strange took him into Rhodes Men Store…fine name for what was on Strange’s agenda. He purchased Buddy a wonderful, pair of leather gloves with fur liners. To which Strange said, “thereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” while making his patented Pekinese bottom teeth over the top impression. Oh how Buddy hated that look!
So now they caught the Fourth Street bus headed south, and then southeast toward Iroquois Park to Inverness Avenue where they got off the bus and walked five blocks east to the Iroquois Park Apartments. Newly built, there were some 300 apartments with a rather English look…all neatly trimmed for Christmas…with lighted lamps at the edge of each sidewalk leading to each four plex apartment.
In the Strange apartment, Strange’s mother had baked a chicken and she seemed genuinely pleased that her son had a play-mate to spend the night. Strange showed Buddy to his bedroom, which contained a set of bunk-beds…with the old man taking the lower bunk.
Buddy was exhausted aft
er the day of walking more than twenty miles. After dinner, while Strange and his brother Leonard played cards, Buddy went to sleep in the top bunk. The next morning, Strange invited Buddy to visit with him in his bottom bunk…Buddy didn’t like the idea but finally gathered all his courage and came down for the feeley-touchey session he was certain was going to occur. But Buddy was pleasant surprised when Strange’s advances were deferred, Strange did not insist. Instead they got dressed and walked to Mass.
Years later Buddy discovered that there was a Catholic Church within six blocks of Strange’s apartment project but Strange chose instead to walk ten blocks from his entrance over to Iroquois Parkway and then another twelve blocks to Patterson and then another fifteen blocks to the church. Buddy wondered how a man with a gut the size of Strange’s could do all this walking and not be as thin as a shadow. Perhaps the real Strange was a shadow and this only a monster in disguise.
Historical Review
For anyone who happens to be in England, the attraction of a visit to Wales is the attraction of going into a ‘foreign’, country without crossing water, changing money or needing a passport. Of course the United States has made travel between the states a non-issue since its inception. Passport, money are all issues of a nation so divided, so threatened that getting in and out becomes a ugly ritual, causing many either not to go or to stay out of Europe. But the Welsh are a separate people with their own language, customs and characteristics, and with deep national aspirations to run their affairs, in their own way and in their own country. No one could feel more abroad than when standing in the parlor of an inn at, say, Beaumaris in Anglesey, surrounded by a throng of Welshmen chatting together.
Unless the visitor happens to know Gaelic or Celtic, not one syllable will sound familiar to his ears, as it might if that person was in France or Italy. And the manner of speaking will have an excitement and emphasis which most Englishmen will deliberately avoid. So there you go…right off the bat there is hostility for the language and the Brits avoid it…rather typically snobby wouldn’t you say there old man?
This coolness between England and Wales began in the 8thCentury AD, when King Offa of Mercia built the dike that bears his name. It ran from Prestaryn (sounds very much like an abbreviated Presbyterian…a protestant) on the Dee to the north of the Severn estuary near Chepstow and long stretches of it are visible today. It was built not so much as a defense as a boundary-a boundary to separate the Celts of Wales from the Anglo-Saxons of England. But it was such a formidable boundary, that not only did it keep the Celts out of England but it also kept the English out of Wales. End of story…you would thing, ask any Irishman how they would like to have kept the English out.
Gradually these strangers in the other world beyond Offa’s Dyke became known as Welsh, a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘foreigners’ and, to the English at any rate, ‘foreigners’ they have remained with their different looks, different temperaments, different and unpronounceable language and ability not only to sing in tune, but in perfect natural harmony.
What the Welsh have always preserved, perhaps because of their isolation-is the innate Celtic hospitality. Nowhere in the world, once a man has established his own authenticity, will he be made more genuinely welcome. And to a stranger in a strange land little is more important.
Anticipating the Welshness of Wales, the visitor entering the country on the north coast road from Chester may be disappointed to note how ‘English’ Colwyn Bay, Rhyl and Prestaryn have become under the influence of holiday-makers from the north of England. The mood changes noticeably at Llandudno, a rather elegant resort nestling between the two Ormes Heads-Great and Little. ‘Llan’ is the commonest prefex in the Welsh place names and is the Welsh word for church, so it was appropriate that it should have been at Llandudno- ‘The church of Tudno’- that the Reverend Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, first met Alice Liddel whom he immortalized as Alice in Wonderland.
From Great Ormes Head, whose 679 foot summit may be reached by rail or cable-car, there is a spectacular panoramic view which takes in Snodonia, Anglesey, The Isle of Man and the Lakeland Peaks. From Bangor the main road crosses Thomas Telford’s 1,000 foot long suspension bridge built in 1826 and arrives in Anglesey close to a village that is famous not only for the 58 letters of its name which we shall spare you…but it can never be missed as it is fully chronicled on the train station wall, garage and a news agent’s stand but, generally it was abbreviated to Llanfair, PG. Anglesey lacks only mountains. It is beautiful, rugged and productive island with numberless sandy beaches and bays. The island must have been a popular place in pre-historic times judging by the wealth of architectural remains.
On the mainland across the Menai Strait, Snowden is the great natural feature. For those who do not wish to climb it (it is little more than a challenging walk) or go up to its 3,560 foot Strange on the mountain railway from Llanberis, the classic road tour is from Caernarvon to Llanberis, over the Llanberis Pass, turn right to Beddgelert and right again to Caernarvon-a trip of about 30 miles. Snowden is the center of Snowdonia National park-845 square miles (220,000 hectares) of countryside preserved against unsuitable development and stretching from Llanberis in the north to the Dovey estuary on Cardigan Bay, pushes out into the Irish Sea, protecting a chain of characterful seaside towns and villages that ring the bay: Abersoch, Llanbedrog, Pwlheli, Criccieth, Portmadoc, Portmeirion, Harlech, Barmuth, Tywyn, Aberdovey and Aberyst-wyth. There is a panoramic walk from Barmouth up the Mawddach River to Dolgellau. From there are grand mountain views of Cader Idris and Craig Lwyd, its summit.
The countryside between Machynlleth and Welshpool, near the English border is high moorland, little visited and only thinly inhabited but beautiful in a wild way, further north, however, the Vale of llangollen is green and tree-filled. Llangollen itself is famous for its annual Eiseteddfod, which attracts competitors throughout the world. Famous too, is Plas Newydd, the mansion home for fifty years of the ‘Ladies of llangollen’, eccentric sisters, Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Pomsonby, whose graves can be seen in the churchyard of St. Collen’s. Llangollen quite recently achieved a new distinction, when the Prince of Wales presented the British Tourist Authority’s ‘Come to Britain’ Trophy to the Llangollen’s Canal Exhibition Centre.
Caenarvon is another of Edward I’s castles, built to dominate the newly-subdued Welsh, though it was not begun until after Prince Llywelyn’s death. It is larger and more imposing than Conway and is generally said to be the most magnificent in Britain except perhaps, Alnwick in Northumberland.
The transference of an architectural idiom from one country to another is rarely successful, and to do so from the drenching sunlight to the grayer skies of Wales would seem to be courting disaster. Yet Portmeirion, on a wooded peninsula between Harlech and Portmadog, has obstinately succeeded. A replica of the Tower of Portifino, Italy provides a little diversity in an otherwise ineffective landscape.
The southern half of Wales is a very beautiful land of mountains, lakes, waterfalls and rivers; of superb coastal scenery, especially on the Pembroke coast; with two national parks covering hundreds of unspoiled square miles; with fine Roman remains; with castle and monasteries both ruined and working; and the valleys, many sadly scarred because of the wealth of the coal that lay beneath them, but now greening over again and still lovely on the upper slopes.
The poet Shelley brought his 16-year-old wife, Harriet Westbrook, to live in the valley. Cwmlan, their home, for a few unconventional months, lies at the bottom of one of the man-made reservoirs. One farmhouse, typical of those in the valley, which were about to be submerged, was dismantled and rebuilt in the national Folk Museum.
The 700-year-old Caerphilly Castle, is second only to Windsor in size. During its early years it was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt and, in the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell’s troops blasted its famous leaning tower nine feet out of the perpendicular, which remains today.
The steeply dropping Wy
e valley road from Monmouth to the south passes Tintern Abbey about half-way to Chepstow. The beauty of the Abbey’s setting in lush green meadows beside the river Wye, with tree-covered hills rising beyond, was an inspiration not only for William Wordsworth to write poetry-‘these water, rolling from their mountain springs with a soft inland murmur’-but also innumerable artist to paint this most romantic of scenes.
Further south nearer the Gower Peninsula, which South Wales is particularly proud of and concerned over. It is something of a miracle that this delectable area of headlands, sandy bays and open downs, so close to Swansea and llanelli, was not permitted to be overrun by industrialism through the soil-banking of some 4665 acres by determined preservationist, but their success in maintaining the unknown and beautiful spot is now attracting thousands of visitors and may prove to be its undoing. The author discovered Tenby, an ancient town that began to grow in the eighteenth century…many years ago, and often finds his way there with his family to enjoy the sea water baths, the serenity of Carmarthen Bay, the genuine hospitality, the food and the pristine nature of this holiday resort and its fine sandy beaches, one facing north and the other south.
The famous actor and former husband of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton was born in Wales and held it dear for all the years of his life. It is said that he credits his substantial talent and all the wealth he possessed, which was quite substantial to his meager life in Wales.
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In word terms the British Isles are tiny, Great Britain, which is merely the political term used for the three countries of England, Scotland and Wales, covers an area barely one-third that of the state of Texas. During World War II, the United States sent two million soldiers across the Atlantic to save England from the assaulting Germans. There was widespread disbelief that there could possibly be enough room for so many additional people in ‘this little dot on the map’. Britain has in fact about 60 million acres of dry land and another 600,000 acres of rivers, lakes, inland water and canals.
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