The Healys of San Francisco

                                                    A little tribute to Margaret and her family.

A family which to me personally typified one of the precious gems we discovered when we migrated to the San Francisco area. Our early challenges and doubts experienced by most immigrant families coming to live in a new place among total strangers, could not have been made easier because of how this family welcomed and treated us. It greatly assisted us adapt to the changed conditions our family found ourselves in.

Maybe a little retelling of the Healy family would help reveal and unravel the great wonder and appreciation we developed over time in our associations with its members.

Margaret and her family lived in the Sunset District of San Francisco, a lovely place comparatively near the ocean and, I was told, was built on mostly sand dune. At first glance, we thought we were inside a movie set when we entered their house. I thought so because it reminded me of the many American movies I had seen as a kid growing up in the old homeland. Except that our experience had become real.

Though looking very Irish, Margaret had an Italian father who once operated a very popular bar in San Francisco. But husband, John Healy, was definitely very Irish and even had two sisters who were nuns. And he retired as fire captain in the SF Fire Department. I used to spend countless interesting times in the Stonestown Mall parking lot conversing and exchanging ideas with John, while we waited for both our wives to finish work in the bank nearby.

Margaret had been such a sturdy support and mentor of Evelyn when she started working with her in the bank. Again the transition was made that much easier because of the presence of Margaret and other friendly co-employees. We also got very acquainted with all their children who were just as helpful and accommodating.

Our first Christmas ever in San Francisco was spent in their house as their most special guests. Our entire family, I, Evelyn, and the 4 kids were in attendance. It was quite memorable experiencing a Christmas celebration largely different from what we were used to in the old country.

And over time we would get similar invitations to their house or to family outings, where we would be introduced to their friends and relatives. They definitely made us feel that we were part of their big extended family.

And for that and more, we are all forever grateful.

Four Score and Counting

The milieu was World War II, another conflict to be noted as one to end all wars.   It was December of 1941, and already the threatening dark clouds of global war  were wafting through the Pacific.  What was needed was an incendiary spark  to light up the entire planet.

It came on the morning on the 7th of the same month.  The blistering early-morning attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan ignited the Pacific region where the US had a very commanding presence, the Philippines being one of them.

Thus, without delay Philippine residents all the way down to the island of Mindanao went on "evacuation" mode, fearing  similar surprise attacks by Japan against US forces. In a week or so, my family and the rest of my father's family had quickly hied to their well-hidden haven in the hills, in the place called Taguanao.

Three weeks after Pearl Harbor I would be born under such trying conditions.  It is related that the family had to send people to the town, maybe including even my father, by horseback to engage the services of the family doctor, in the cover of dawn. To stealthily ride into a city that had now largely been shuttered and deserted.

Now we know that conflagration raged like wild fire for many years, at great sacrifices of men and material.

Thus, 80 years ago, I came into this world very inauspiciously, with everybody else focused on and mindful of the ongoing war.

Four score is a long time to reckon and take account.  

But we all try our best to justify our continued existence, and assess our relative worth as stewards to this blessed land of God.  And hope that our continued living is justified.

                                                  000000000000000000000000000

My own thought for the day lent to the written word:

                                

                                     A LESSON IN LIFE

The greatest gifts we can give are neither touched nor fondled.  

Neither wrapped nor bundled.

Because of their very nature, neither get tarnished nor soiled.

Neither diminished nor roiled.

Beyond the grasp of ashen being, they endure time and space.

And the vagaries of petty human caprice.

Transcending puny aspirations, rising to eventual rapture.

Which bring nods of assent of our Creator.

They are the unnoticed deeds we churn out daily in solitude.

Hoping for a change in our attitude.

Attempting to leave the world a little godly than we entered it.

A consummation, we devoutly wish it.

Memoirs of a High School Instructor

 

           Frs. Campbell, Quirke, and O'Donnell  (Taken from FB timeline of  Ramoncito Cruz)

                                                    

The year was 1965, and I was just completing  the academic requirements for my 2nd undergraduate degree.  BTW, the old pictures attached would be about the same year, 1965.

Time to look for a permanent job, I said to myself chomping at the bit to challenge what I had learned so far.  And at 24 years of age, the time was more than ripe.

Alignment came easily.  I broached the idea to my then regular  counselor, Fr. Paul D. Campbell, who found the idea feasible.  He was of course, a very a close ally of the HS principal, Fr. James O'Donnell, being the HS Student Counsellor.  In no time, I was sent to the office of Fr. O'Donnell for the possible job of an instructor and class moderator.

But a little flashback.

Returning back to the old hometown with an undergraduate degree after an absence of over 3 years, I had decided to go back to school tormented by the uneasy feeling that my preparation then had been inadequate.  And this was starting to be a maturing phase of my existence when I begun to realize not only the gravity but also the profundity of life, my life, which at that time was characterized with mercurial aimlessness.

Time to get serious, I told myself.  And indeed the following years blossomed into a life of purpose and a pervading feeling of a  deep sense of mission.  And looking back my academic accomplishments appeared to echo that.

I had developed the habit of not only of going into intense daily prayers and devotionals, but also of going to daily Mass early in the morning.  I went typically to the XU chapel which was quite close to our house, and whose ambience was a good fit for my purposes.  These I did with almost single-minded devotion, almost unaware of the things happening around me.

Till one morning as I was leaving the chapel lost in my religious fervor, I heard a salutation coming from the entrance of the chapel.  Coming from a white-frocked man with a very deep voice.  After the good mornings, he asked about me and my name which he easily connected to a younger brother who was in high school and thus under him.

I did not know then, but he was Fr. Campbell and thus would start our association until I left the school completely years later.  I treasure memories of many visits to his office, with riveting conversations at times getting deep into the evenings, like when the school lights had already been turned off.  I could say that those unforgettable times were most helpful to me during my perilous journey through life.  Many thanks to Fr. Campbell for that.

Anyway, my initial interview with Fr. O'Donnell  was short and sweet, and when I left his office I was already preparing myself to be an instructor of several unrelated subjects, to a fresh bunch of 1st-year highschoolers. And that I would be moderator for the assigned class.

Our next immediate step was for me and a close friend, Berchmans Abejuela, to be sent to Ateneo de Manila to attend some orientation classes for teachers like us, and to spend a couple of days during the weekend.  And this we both did without any hitch or complaint.  For me that would be the only formal  orientation I would get to begin the arduous task of teaching.

I did not then really know much about Fr. O'Donnell and his stint as principal.  Of course, certain unavoidable elements preceded him.  His huge physical presence, a very deep cadenced manner of speaking.  And more importantly, as a strict disciplinarian and a devoted stickler to rules and regulations.  And lastly, as quite frugal with idle conversations.

Knowing and keeping that in mind, our relationship pretty much was my trying to avoid as much contact with him as possible, though making sure I crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is when it came to school work.  I pretty much followed that religiously since I do not recall any incident when I had to bring up with him  any school problem involving my kids, or the other way around.

And Fr. O'Donnell was quite true to the reputation that preceded him.   I had thought that he was as packaged by people. Except it was coming only from people I knew then.  Because much later I would hear from others a quite different side of him.  Almost a completely new portrayal of the man I had known and left then.

When the school year begun, the heady honeymoon period that usually goes  with new endeavors quickly wore off for me, finding for myself the growing difficulties of teaching  inscrutable adolescents, who were just starting to flex their unsteady wings every which way at the world that they have just woke up to.  This would show in my physical appearance which would be  aggravated by my problematic thyroids.  By the time the school year had ended I had lost over 20 pounds and was reduced to a haggard and ragged figure.  I felt I needed  time to myself to recover and refocus.

Thus  my short stint as high school instructor ended as quickly as it started.  But coming out enriched by one abiding lesson.  Teaching is no easy job, one that not only required  tons of knowledge but more importantly tons of dedication and patience.  Thus, found a new sense of admiration and value for those who spend long years in the profession of teaching.  A profession for the selected few.

Seeking Truth

  

No doubt many are confounded why during these times getting at the truth and sticking to it is hard.  Amidst these times of pervasive misinformation and disinformation, all labeled loosely under the term, fake news, getting at the truth is one challenging task.  Many would argue that it could boil  down to who to trust.

But many of sources and institutions who were traditionally trusted have now been exposed as abandoning their time-cherished ideals, in exchange for exigencies demanded by their ideology and/or politics.

This is what we always have to keep in mind when seeking truth.

First, we have to eliminate what the pursuit of truth is not.

Truth is not difficult because of its obscurity or difficulty in discovery.

Truth is not difficult because these are confusing or chaotic times.

And lastly, truth is not difficult because of the steep challenges of the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Truth is difficult to accept and stick to because of one simple fact.

Many people are found to not want to arrive at truth and to accept it.  Many are too  invested in their own notions and versions of truth, they have allowed their minds to burying the real truth.  And would thus, maliciously propagate warped versions of truth.

Under this  thicket of  briars, we find the world we are inhabiting .  Prickly.  Uncomfortable, and damning.

Of Elections Past and Days of the Dead

THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEOPLE

These past months, judgments have been passed all around.  From the “high priests” of our times, the media, the rich and ruling elites, academia, etc. to the lesser-lite “potentates” in the administrative state and traditionally-revered government agencies, and including those kibitzing galleries of the world at large.

And with almost one collective voice, they have declared Trump unfit and unworthy to continue to sit as President of the most powerful country in the world.  Off with his head, they appear to declare.

But in one day, November 3rd, the only judgment that counts will be rendered by the people, the governed.

How shall it stand?

The crowd of a prior though similar time had also been ambivalent.  At first, it too marveled at the man on the hustings.  They adored his awe-inspiring miracles, his simple but profound teachings, the reverential promises of salvation and good will he had declared, his cool and calculating demeanor. But in the end, they too wanted no part of him.  So mesmerized, enamored, and subdued by the enticing rhetoric of their betters, the people who were supposed to know better and were trusted.

So history came to be as written.

Will it be repeated?

Note:  Yes, it was repeated.   But the road ahead could not be as rocky and dismal.

                                0000000000000000000000000000

In these days of the dead, it serves us well to remember how we regard life.

If one perceives life as having value unto itself then it is most important that everybody lives and nobody dies.

 But we have been taught that earthly life is not that significant. Christ taught by example about sacrificing a life so a greater good can be attained. Earthly life then has value when it has purpose, not because it is life and has to be lived to its natural end.

Thus, when we think about the dead, rather than think of the life itself, we memorialize instead the greater good accomplished.

                                 000000000000000000000000000

Living in an imperfect world with imperfect people, one can still practice some kind of perfection in our elections, given the supposedly democratic way they are done.

Thus, if one must have to choose from a slate of candidates, so that the overall choice would truly represent and typify the people being governed, at the very least please select candidates to represent the different defined sectors of that society.  Sectors to be prioritized as to number significance and importance.  One to represent big business, small business, the vulnerable and underprivileged, the world of academia and students.  One for Women?  I would say no, else in fairness we would also need one for Men.   Etc.    BTW, let us stay away from the whys and wherefores of the PartyList system.  It sucks.

 Also, we ought to forget about family relationships, friendship, or acquaintances in arriving at our choices.

                                                           0000000000000000000

Written 8 years ago but still relevant and apt for today.

But maybe with a bit of qualification, for in this current electoral exercise, I have witnessed so much unwarranted anger and hateful rhetoric thrown against an incumbent that many do not support coming from out of the woodwork.

Thus, instead of expressing thoughts and ideas why a certain candidate should be chosen over another, many instead unceremoniously unload on the person on the other side, detailing his many flaws and failings, plus various deleterious commentaries collected from a host of sources, as from other pundits and disgruntled relatives.

Personally, such method reeks of a heavy smell of self-righteousness that clearly is misplaced. For after all, we are all ourselves flawed and are all answerable to another authority.  And may also thus be guilty of such unwanted blemishes.  We ought rather to focus on pertinent misconducts rather than ad hominem assaults.

On why I believe that we ought to be active and partisan in our politics, with regard to issues and policies we find objectionable:

And I take a quite divergent view about our free will and how it operates in our reality.  I subscribe deeply to the attitude of Ignatius with regard to prayer for it rationalizes how free will and a whole host of paradoxes like God being all-knowing are justified.

Ignatius compartmentalizes prayer, the first part being the actual prayer say for assistance on the eradication of evil; and here we ought to pray like EVERYTHING depended on God’s will and Providence.  But the corollary part which is the actual doing of actually attempting to eradicate that evil, we ought to maintain the attitude that EVERYTHING depended on us.  So we work our butts to try and realize it.

If what we wish for does not happen, it is then less attributable to God than to ourselves.  That maybe we did not exert sufficient efforts and determination to try to eliminate that evil. Or also that with this tribulation some good will be born from it, to bring us closer to our eternal goal.  This due to the almighty and at times incomprehensible wisdom of God.

Therefore, regardless of which side we have hitched our chariot on, we ought to exert maximum efforts in bringing out that change.  Leaving no stone unturned.  And I say it should be less about whether the outcome would personally affect our own lives or not, but more because it is the right thing to do!

                                                    0000000000000000000000000000000

A Heavy Dose of Humility: In These Troubled Times

As I trudge along daily in the confines of the virtual worlds I visit in silence but ever alert, places which have now become familiar sights, I find one common thread.  Made more compelling under the intense heat of hotly-contested  politics and elections.

 And it is that like the pandemic scourge that has inflamed and disrupted our worlds, evil or its traces can find residence even in the best places and people that we hold dear.  Quite unlikely locales, but like COVID 19 its infiltration easily takes roots.

And like the scourge, we do find it insidiously in residence, whether knowingly or unknowingly, in places and people we think unlikely to be infected.

But then that is the nature of evil, it is smart, persistent, and definitely more resourceful than many of us, even the good-hearted among us.

How does it manifest itself in our words and actions?  In multitude of ways and means.

One typical manifestation.  How easily we treat as gospel truths snippets of facts we have acquired and clung to tenaciously, informing and hard-casting our profound beliefs, and then like the seers of old, imposing them on the rest with haughty authority and command.  Yet in truth, people may find what we know as scant, sparing, or even only a warped version of the truth.

What is it about wealth and power that when formerly ordinary folks acquire them, they start acting like gods? Like Imposing their will on others in certain ways, and anointing themselves as our moral and ethical guardians.

 What could be an antidote?  Unlike the pandemic, we do have the “vaccine” to assist us mitigate it.

Humility is one such answer, a ready tonic for arrogant pride.  It opens the path to knowledge and understanding.  It opens the doors of our minds to possibilities closeminded-ness, or even just pigheaded-ness, could never attain.

                                             0000000000000000000000000000000

Speaking of the 2020 US Presidential Elections 

When we were living there which had started forty years ago, the US electoral system was the envy of the world, not only for its process but its ease in handling and counting millions of votes expeditiously in a huge and widely-dispersed country. Even then, manual counting was the preferred method. And unquestioned results were known and broadcast quickly. By midnight of the same day, typically even partial results were already such that presumptive winners were already known.

But over time, it started to show its inherent weaknesses or time-borne shortcomings which were left largely unattended to and unmitigated. We know that any system is just as good as the people using it. In this instance, there is little doubt, it is the people responsible for its fall from transparency and integrity to one similar to lesser developed countries.

How ever this particular election is resolved, henceforth the US will have lost the vaunted transparency and integrity of its electoral system. It will be likened to like any in less developed countries.

 No doubt the US system has weaknesses or shortcomings exacerbated over time. When voter rolls are left not updated, then we have many dead people vote. It is reported that in California alone about 3 million names in the rolls ought to be expunged. But no such action.

 The massive mail-in ballots sent or other early voting schemes suddenly promulgated under cover of the pandemic, also contributed greatly to the chaos and exposed the system to possible massive voter fraud. Was it an unintended possible consequence or was it willful?

The latter is where the focus of the current and pending legal challenges will be centered. BTW, it is common knowledge that there are no electronic systems that cannot be hacked, one way or the other.

                               00000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Some Observations, collected over time.

The US as a country has always been center-right (essentially conservative in its values) likely as far back in history to its very founding. Any poll even today will show that. It is for this reason that the left has always been frustrated in the ballot and in legislation, though it is possessed of arsenal that the conservative right cannot match (power and influence coming from media, big tech and big money, etc.) No doubt because of this, the left has had to resort to other means. Like putting unelected judges who instead of interpreting laws, will try to legislate from the bench and thus move forward leftist agenda.

This premise may explain and validate the results of the last 2020 presidential election. In spite of the formidable concerted efforts arrayed against outlier and much-maligned Trump he still was able to garner over 73 million votes, which one could easily surmise were earnest and legitimate voters who not only favored Trump and his agenda, but also loved him since their vow of support included prayers offered to him. This is the most that any sitting president has ever received. Thus we have people of faith who find Trump promoting and elevating their values and faith practices.

This election also brought to the fore an added issue that has not been addressed before in any serious manner. Voting Fraud. Which we believe did not just happen now, but had started to creep into the system over time. Though there is yet no verified and confirmed claims of fraud that could overturn the initial count, no doubt fraud has been committed on a large enough scale, as we are finding more and more daily. The forced exposure to sunlight on this issue could bring about reforms to protect its transparency and sanctity, so a frustrated people could restore back its trust and confidence in the system.