St Raphael Academy HS 50 year reunion

We had a fifty-year golden high school reunion on September 18 and 19, St Raphael Academy Pawtucket RI class of 1960. There were many colorful scenes -- -- the best of which was the reception in the Galway Bay Irish Pub, a seedy rundown ethnic local pub with a house above where the proprietor keeps close watch. Now that's class!!  Can you imagine that people mistake me for an uptight proper New England WASP!!

In any case there were many colorful and poignant scenes meeting friends of 50 years ago. Many erstwhile drinking buddies still holding a bottle of beer in their dominant hand like I left them 50 years ago ----  in a look-a-like musty dark rundown pub. There was so much magic -- conversations picking up from 50 years ago without even a pause --- bonds reconnected that ran deep --- being with best friends that you really knew, each with a 50-year story to tell --- carefree laughter recreated from our teenage years. The feeling that you were really home after 50 years of displacement, navigating by memory through streets with no name with each corner resurrecting delicious warm memories of carefree childhood. Yet all the while knowing it is but a visit to a distant home that now had a different character.
After reminding me of my Huckleberry Finn childhood including being thrown out of the high school my classmates were all quite surprised that my professional career turned out successful -- -- likewise to this day so am I surprised. Little did we know that all the tumult in high school was purifying my character for the topsy-turvy experience of an entrepreneur, and it turned out the combination of pure mathematician and Yankee underclass grit is deadly.
As you can tell by the picture the Galway Bay Pub bar is elongated and runs parallel to Pawtucket’s South Bend street. I arrived late to the reception and the place already had a healthy hilarious buzz.  Each tap on the shoulder awakened a long forgotten friendship ---  each a separate celebration of laughter and joy -- -- no polite warmup necessary. At this age part of the celebration is just being alive and the beauty of this age is that ego is finally put aside and the laughter, hugs, and affection are finally all authentic ---- just like it was back in the high school days. It was best showing up late meandering like a bumper car through each of the narrow side conversations and having people tap me on the shoulder exclaiming ‘Baron’.
My nickname was Baron --- I had a certain royal indignant posture that let me skate above all the bothersome high school responsibilities of homework and assignments -- -- and somehow get away with it. The flood of emotion and memories forgotten now reawakened opened me up -- -- the usual guarded comportment stripped away. Best yet I had to interact the way these old high school buddies remembered me -- -- the Baron was back!!  More compelling than memories of old buddies are the memories of ourselves back them --- more authentic, outlandish, and crazy than now. And for a brief moment in the Galway Bay Pub I was indeed the Barron of old. And it felt so comfortable and so much fun and so silly and spontaneous -- -- it was glorious. I stayed until the very last drop of alcohol and in fact found another old friend, not of the class of 1960, who was tending bar -- -- and we hugged and told a few more good stories.
Back at the hotel that night I recounted the experience many times over with my wife trying to hold on to the high school years and the innocence of my adolescence. I knew it wasn’t me but it also wasn’t a masquerade -- -- it was true and authentic, a chance to relive the past and exalt in the gift and glory of childhood.
I still hold a piece of it now and as my degree of separation increases thought it best to capture the sentiment in writing. I have this notion that life turns back and revisits its past, mine was glorious, and I’m not through with it yet. All this is so special to me because, thank God, I never grew up.
In any case there's the making of a good story here --- thought I would share my first thoughts.

A visit to Cezanne's Studio and Picasso's Studio at Aix-en-Provence

I have always been fascinated about artist's studios and places of work.......I cannot describe how I feel when I am in the place where creativity happens , it is almost like entering a place so sacred that I tip toe not to break the air, specially those places were artists are long gone to a different place or to a different world...... My heart rate races , my eyes don't know where to look, and I smile of indescribable joy until my face hurt.

The trip I took with my French/American fiancé to Aix en Provence gave me the chance to visit not only one but 2 studios, Paul Cezanne's ( I touched his coat , No one saw me). And Picasso's Studio at Chateau Vauvenargues, which is where he is buried.........I had to touch his easel , I got yelled at....who cares I had to touch the flat edged screw that he must have touched hundreds of times to adjust his easel .... Crazy yes, I am.

Thank you Tim

What a great meeting at Tim's house. Most of us express our creativity keeping the homestead safe, on an easel or on the web or in a book. Not Tim, he lives inside his creation. We steped inside Tim's gallery, with a room by room tour with each room telling the story of it's destruction, reincarnation, reinvention, re-creation

We each experience a sinking chaos when trying to form our vision with uneven unhinged working material --- can you imagine what it feels like to rip a room apart, in the name of creative expression. And like Phoenix arising from ash we witnessed Tim marvelous bigger than life creation.

There is a certain zaniness that comes from following the creative spirit. As Tim told his story I was struck by how everybody was rejoicing in and celebrating Tim's creative initiative . When we take on a creative project it takes ignoring the demands of the outside world and the experience is uneven with a certain price to pay. We each act on our own  creative instincts and together with Tim's story we celebrate it with each other. Everybody identifies and empathizes with Tim's magnificent zany story and our shared creative crazy gift.

There is no place I would rather be.

Red Has No Reason

Mary's postings this evening have reminded me that I want to share with you all the news of my new poetry collection entitled Red Has No Reason -- the publisher is Plain View Press and the book is also available (discounted) at  amazon.com.  The final poem in the collection, from which the title is taken, is:

      Aurora Borealis

     As there is no purpose for violet,
            there’s no purpose for purpose.
     As there is no order for orange,
            no order exists.
     As green escapes gravity
            and indigo invites inertia,
            as blue begs argument
            and yellow fails to yield,
     As red has no reason,
            reason is repealed.
                                                                       JoAnne Growney 2010

New Poem--Ode to the Beach

Ode to the Beach


If only blue water could forever wave
white bonnets at gulls that dig for dinner
among silver fish flashing, scattering
to swimmer’s skin with pinpricks light
as wings of angels brushing past.
A poet could tip back onto a soft cushion,
lay into a sun so warm it travels to gills
of grouper and wrasse, passes through fins
to sparkle on kelp and coral nourishing
the dolphin leaping with a sly smile.



Mary L. Westcott

New Poem

Five-Year Olds Creating a Heart Agreement
the First Day of Sunday School
at Unity of Gaithersburg



Rambling nonstop with guess whats
and stories of the pet goldfish that died
and came back to life, somehow,
the girl leaped like a fish to another bowl
of words about the goldfish swimming to heaven,
or how to draw the Big Head of God,
or should a sea nettle be colored magenta
or green, how we shouldn’t bite each other
in Sunday school, that was for a dog
one boy piped up, a dog who nipped at people
like the mailman and fire engines, biting
that just wouldn’t do on Sundays.
The boy drew his bad alien spacecraft
(to be destroyed by a bigger and nicer ship)
and still the talk was of fish
and cats who chased squirrels that
dressed in pink and sea nettles
that swam to shore and bit their legs,
and the boy listened patiently because
we agreed to be friendly in Sunday school.

My Father's Cane

My Father’s Cane
(After Pinsky)

When I had no words, I listened to the rain,
to the crystal silence between the pages.
I could feel the cadence of my father’s cane.

When I had no meter, I was not quite sane.
I looked for joy in trying to assuage
the memory of the cadence of my father’s cane.

When I had no rhythm, I walked the lanes,
placed words on pages, a sauntering sage.
I sang to the cadence of my father’s cane.

When I had no image, prosody was my bane,
I borrowed from Neruda: he was my gauge.
When I had no words, I listened to the rain.

When I had no lyrics, I let images reign
like the one of the heron standing on an edge
with one foot tapping like my father’s cane.

I sat at the table to the right of pain,
to the left of father, away from his rage.
When I had no words, I listened to the rain,
and wrote the cadence of my father’s cane.