Dear Rozanne:

It's been eleven days since you passed away...and I still think about you. We had some great, great times together in the twenty-five years since we first met at the church you joined when you were little. Man, you touched bunches and bunches of lives...not just at church, but also during the years where you delivered flowers and all the years you brought "Omaha World-Heralds." You really brought the enthusiasm...especially at those concerts we attended. Didn't matter if they were RCTOS events or GPRS ones...or the times it was just you and me at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse. Rozanne, you set one heck of an example for the rest of us to follow. You stood tough. And I'm going to keep trying my best to live up to that example. So doggone glad for the privilege of being a part of your life...and I'm so doggone glad you were (and still are!) a part of my life. Thanks so much for everything! Sincerely, Jim

To John

One day late last month, I looked in the obituaries section of the Omaha World Herald. And I was shocked to find John F. McIntyre's name in there.

When wife Laura Vranes and parents Dan and Barbara McIntyre were listed among John's survivors, it hit me: I met John and Laura on Labor Day 2013 (9-2-2013) at Omaha's Tree of Life Sculpture. The occasion was the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's "Play Me, I'm Yours" street piano art project. By contributing Barbara's old Richardson upright piano to the local exhibit (and enabling Bill Hoover to paint the piano), and with Barb's okay to the contribution in the first place, Laura and John helped make the Omaha Metro's stop on Luke Jerram's "PMIY" tour a tremendous success. The "Boston's Blog" post about the Tree of Life experience ("Monday, September 2, 2013: M-A-G-I-C!") is still up. (Check it out!) John, you, Laura, and Barb enabled so many of us in the Omaha area to have so much fun during "Play Me's" time in the local spotlight. Thank you so much for all the great things you've contributed.

And what's more, the school didn't look the same!

Well, it was Sunday, 9-23-2018...the third and final day of the Class of 1973's 45th get-together in the Des Moines area.

This time, the final major activity of the reunion was scheduled to take place at the very school itself: West Des Moines Dowling Catholic High School. 

Nope...not a pep rally.

No, not another sports event.

It was a Mass.

And two of our classmates- now men of the cloth- were tabbed to say that morning's Mass.  

But first...it was time for interested classmates to tour the very school that gave so many of us so many great, great memories. (This was the tour that was originally scheduled for the previously Friday afternoon.)

And, thanks to a recent construction project, the physical plant at 1400 Buffalo Rd. is bigger and better than before. 

Our host for the understandably brief tour was Ron Gray...the longtime (and legendary) DCHS head wrestling coach who's now the longest-tenured teacher in school history. 

He's been at it for a whopping 41 years!

We got a chance to tour the hallways (lockers, trophy case, and all) and Ron's classroom. (By the way...in addition to currently being the school's head boys' golf coach and head girls' golf coach, he teaches economics and social studies.)

What if we'd had this kind of a classroom back in the late 1960s and early 1970s?

Okay...it's not really the size of the classroom (or style of classroom) that counts.

Now it was 10:30 AM...and time for Mass.

I hadn't been to an out-of-town one since Saturday, 6-11-2005.

It's a long story (and a possible blog post in itself), but after high school, I largely stopped going to church (only to go back to Mass on visits to Des Moines while an Iowa State student). 

I'd had my fill of the downbeat messages the monsignor at the Catholic church I was going to in DSM was giving his parishioners. (Whenever the church wasn't taking in enough money to suit the monsignor there, he'd tell the churchgoers: "You're throwing defiles in God's face!")

I switched to the Unitarian Universalist Church not long after I first moved to Omaha in 1980...only because First Unitarian is within walking distance of where I first lived when I moved to the Big O on 8-2-1980. (I moved back here on 3-29-1997.)

Moved to Sioux City, IA on 6-30-1988 to manage a used-record-and-tape store...and spent the next five years and two months shunning church services.

All this time, though, I'd still go into church basements and get some practice in on those congregations' old-fashioned upright pianos (something I started doing in October 1976, back in Ames). 

Well, that all changed in February 1994.

That was the month I decided to fill up the hole in my life and join the United Methodist Church.

I've felt more comfortable as a United Methodist than I ever did as a Catholic. 

Even so, that wasn't going to stop me from participating in a Mass that Jim Gould and Dennis Wright were to preside over.

It was supposed to be Mike Peters teaming up with fellow Catholic priest Jim G., but Mike P. got called away to another assignment.

So Dennis W., now a deacon in the Des Moines area, took Mike's place. (I remember Dennis' cartoons in the school newspaper...the publication originally called The Aquin but renamed The Paper once the old, all-boys' Dowling merged with the all-girls' St. Joseph Academy in time for the 1972-73 school year and set up shop on Buffalo Rd. in the 'burbs.)  

The Mass took place at DCHS' brand-new St. Joseph Chapel, a much bigger one than the chapel that originally came with the new Dowling.

And it went beautifully...from Julie Russell Craven's music (she played the hymns on an electronic keyboard) to Jim G.'s homily to everything else. 

Once the service- meant to honor the 29 classmates who've passed away- was finished, we went right to the school lobby for coffee and donuts.

This coffee-and-donuts session was more enjoyable than those I was able to attend when I was younger and going to a church whose top priest railed away about all those defiles. 

Tom Meyer, Ron G., Jim G., Dennis W., Julie R., hubby David Craven, and I got together with Joni Hockins Edwards, Lisa Lamberto (one of Joni's fellow cheerleaders), Meg Tibbetts Williams, Margo Munoz O'Meara (never had a chance to see her at the other reunion events), and so many other classmates to talk up old memories and current goings-on. 

We had such a great time that our time together ran into overtime...and the DCHS Class of 1973's 45th Reunion broke up around 12:15 PM.

All I can say is:

Please, please, PLEASE let circumstances allow me to get to the 50th Class of '73 get-together! 

About that Mass I went to on 6-11-2005: The Mass was actually a wedding of Matt and Liz, a young couple I met earlier that year at the Omaha Children's Museum. (From October 1997 to June 2006, I volunteered at the OCM, where they let me entertain visitors of all ages on an old-fashioned upright piano in the museum's music room. The best part of it all: When I wasn't playing, I got a chance to hear the children and some of the adults they brought with them tickle those ancient keys.) 

After they heard me play, Liz and Matt invited me to perform at their wedding reception. I said "yes," and on the second Saturday in June that year, I traveled to Shenandoah, IA, to watch the two of them become husband and wife.

I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading this blog!

We still didn't look the same

Well, it was Saturday, 9-22-2018...the second day of the Dowling Catholic High School (West Des Moines, IA) Class of 1973's 45th reunion.

It started out with a golf outing put together by classmate Mike Chenchar.

But not for me. (I'm not a golfer at all. My younger brother is.)

Instead of trying to embarrass myself at eighteen holes, I had my heart set on going bowling with my younger brother Mike and my thirteen-year-old nephew Jordan (my younger brother's and younger sister-in-law's son). 

Last year, our favorite Des Moines-area bowling center, Plaza Lanes, burned down due to an electrical fire.

So, this time, we got together at Air Lanes (4200 Fleur Dr., Des Moines, IA 50321; 515 285-8632).

I'd never been to Air Lanes before...despite the fact that the bowling center opened in the late 1960s, at a time when I was finishing my growing-up years right there in America's Raccoon River City.

You know how at most bowling centers here in America, the large-screen TVs show you sports events in between the scores the customers are rolling up?

Well, at Air Lanes, in between the scores its customers are racking up, you get music videos.

That's cool, too!

On 9-22-2018, Air Lanes became the very first place where I ever won a game in a family bowling outing...and it came down to the very last ball Mike B. rolled in the third and final game.

Speaking of firsts...all the time I was a Dowling student, I'd never gone to a "mixer." 

Well, back in June, when classmate (and former varsity cheerleader) Joni Hockins Edwards sent me the letter announcing the 45th get-together, I not only said "Yes!" to the invitation, I decided I was going to, at long last, get to that "mixer." 

The reunion's "mixer" took place at another Des Moines landmark, Christopher's (a restaurant at 2816 Beaver Ave., 50310; 515 274-3694).

Jeff Gass and I arrived at Christopher's party room just before 6:00 PM, the "mixer's" start time. Already, a good-sized crowd had gotten seated, awaiting the chance to eat the great food the Saturday-night event promised...while some hits from the 1970s poured out of the stereo speakers in the party room. 

I was able to recognize Dwayne Carter, Chris Adams, Rick Vasquez, Paul Koester, Ann Gladfelder Lawson, Rick Benson, Meg Tibbetts Williams, Bill Lawson, Tom Naughton, Paul Duwelius, Mark Cooper, Ron Gray, and Dan Mueller from the night before at Fire Creek Grill in West Des Moines.

But the Christopher's get-together attracted some classmates I didn't see (or don't remember seeing) at Fire Creek: John Nesbit...Kelly O'Brien (I ran track alongside him)...Mary Manning Bracken (she works for Iowa Public Television; she and I took photography our senior year)...Mary Gallo Eckerman...and two classmates who go back to the eighth grade with me: John Duffy and Greg Murray.

It was fun, fun, fun being able to reminisce (as well as being able to dish on what we've been doing since 1973)...and Jim Gould (he's now a priest in Virginia),

Sue Boesen, Jim Conway (ran track alongside him, too), Cecelia Kirvin (a classmate from senior-year business math), Molly Maloney (she was a varsity cheerleader), and Joni herself came in to the party room to join in on the fun. 

The food was, according to the reunion brochure, supposed to be "heavy hors d'oeuvres."

It turned out to be one heck of a spread instead.

Besides the hors d'oeuvres, Christopher's offered a veggie tray, two kinds of pizza, meatballs, and four kinds of cupcakes...as well as your choice of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.

Among other things.

And then- among the other things- there was the table full of yearbooks and old newspapers in the tap room. 

Some of us- especially John N., David Craven, Julie Russell Craven, and I- just got lost in the yearbooks and old Des Moines Register copies. 

Matter of fact, it got to the point where those of us who'd turned the tap room into a library were the last ones to leave Christoper's. 

So...it was off to the bar at Christopher's, where we watched Iowa blow a 17-14 fourth-quarter lead and end up coughing up a 28-17 decision to Wisconsin.

That bar's also where I caught back up with CeCe Lynch...and caught up with Larry Quijano. (Larry and CeCe run their own eatery, too. It's Quijano's Bar and Grill, at 1930 S.E. 6th St., 50315; 515 243-9595.)

Not long after the Wisconsin-Iowa football game came to an end, it was time for me to go back to the hotel (EconoLodge Inn and Suites on Merle Hay Rd.)...and time for me to get ready to do something else I hadn't done in ages.

I'll let you know what that was when I come back. 

    

We didn't look the same

Last weekend, I traveled to the Des Moines area to meet up with people I hadn't seen in forty years (and a few I hadn't hung out with since the mid-2010s).

The occasion: West Des Moines Dowling Catholic High School's Class of 1973 45th-year reunion. 

It was a tremendous success.

And it was fun, fun, fun! 

First event on the reunion agenda was a football pregame warmup at a West Des Moines restaurant, Fire Creek Grill (800 S. 50th St., 50265)...owned by a classmate named Meg Tibbetts Williams, who used to be one of Dowling's varsity cheerleaders. 

I didn't know what to expect once I walked inside Fire Creek's party room (once I found the restaurant) at 5:20 PM on 9-21-2018.

Within a minute or two, it felt like home again. 

Good thing they gave us name tags to fill out, because without the name tags, I couldn't recognize many of the classmates who came to the event.

I met back up with Bill Lawson...Ann Gladfelder (she married Bill)...Marty Ades...CeCe Lynch...Rick Benson...Cathy Vonderhaar...Mike Timmins...Don "Doc" Henry...Dwayne Carter...Chris Adams (he now sports a white beard!)...Rick Vasquez...Mark Cooper.

Yeah, I know.

We didn't look the same. 

But it didn't take us long at all to remember all the good times we had during the 1969-73 period...or to get up-to-date with each other.

Fire Creek Grill is several blocks away from Valley Stadium, a high-school football facility built in 2002 to replace the famous 1938 structure of the same name.

 

Well, at about 6:30 PM, the Two Ricks and I walked from Fire Creek to Valley Stadium to check out the 2018 version of DCHS football (the Maroons were set to play host that night to the Ankeny Hawks). When we took that walk, we met up with two other classmates: David Craven and Julie Russell (they're now husband and wife). 

Julie, David (he was a debater in high school), and I talked football. 

Once she found out I now live and work here in Omaha, the question came up: "Since you live in Nebraska now, are you a traitor?"

Nope.

Sorry, but...I just don't get the same vibes about Husker football as I do about Iowa football and its Iowa State counterpart. (The nitpicking done by many of my fellow Omahans about everything UNL football was the clincher.)

Getting back to prep football, well...I hadn't attended a high-school football game in person since 1976.

Dowling (Iowa's five-time defending Class 4A football champ) had lost its last two games...and things weren't looking so good in Maroon Nation. 

However, on a cold, windy night, behind a spectacular performance by RB Jayson Murray,

the Maroons crushed the Hawks, 42-0. [By the way...Ankeny was the most recent team other than DCHS to rule Class 4A grid action in the Hawkeye State (the Hawks turned the trick in 2012). In all, Ankeny, Dowling, and other Central Iowa Metropolitan League teams have snared the last eight big-school (that's what Class 4A is in Iowa) football titles and nine of the last ten, with Iowa City High spoiling the party in 2009.]

Rick V., Rick B., and I left after the third quarter came to an end, and the three of us walked back to Fire Creek Grill.

And in the party room, a big-screen TV was playing the rest of the Ankeny-DCHS game.

All the while, I was able to hook back up (and reminisce) with some more fellow 1973 Dowling grads: Paul Duwelius...Dan Mueller...Steve Heithoff (by the way, Dan, Steve, and Paul were two of Bill's football teammates)...Jim Bugler (he played football, too)...Paul Koester. 

Well, the 45th reunion of the first coed class to graduate from DCHS (a previously all-boys school that, in 1972, merged with the all-girls St. Joseph Academy; the two newly-merged high schools left Des Moines and moved out to a new building in West Des Moines) was off to a rousing start.

Wait 'til I tell you how the Saturday leg of the get-together went. (That when I come back!)

Fifty Years Ago Today

It changed America's spirit.

It changed politics.

It changed history.  

It helped turn television into America's leading source for news and information.

And, yes...it made for a somber Thanksgiving and a somber Christmas.

On what turned out to be a sunny day in Dallas, TX, one of three bullets fired from the Texas Book Depository ended a history-making presidency one thousand days after that tenure began.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest ever elected to the most talked-about political job there is (he was 43 years and almost six months old when elected on 11-2-1960), the first Roman Catholic person to get the job, and, as things turned out...the last standing US senator to win a presidential election in this country during the 20th Century.

And the fourth (and most recent chief executive) gunned down by an assassin.

I'd turned eight years of age eleven days earlier. And I was one of the millions of Americans who cried when it happened. 

Yep, I was born during the Dwight Eisenhower years...but I barely remember living through Ike's second term. Compared to memories of Eisenhower's last four years as commander in chief, I've got more memories of JFK's abbreviated term of office.

And those memories include his inaugural speech, his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, a nuclear test-ban treaty signed during the JFK years, America finally getting its space program rolling (okay, flying), the creation of the Peace Corps, and Kennedy's stand on civil rights. 

It took Joseph's and Rose's second son a good while to get hip to the message that advancing freedom all over the world (a message the 35th President brought out in his inaugural address) also means advancing freedom right here in these fifty states.

But after 250,000 assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial on 8-28-1963, that did it.

And those Southern Democrats Kennedy spent most of 1960 trying to woo in order to take the White House back from the Republicans were just going to have to get hip, too.

Almost a week ago, someone from the Associated Press turned in an article talking about the speech JFK gave in response to the 1963 March on Washington. (The AP article made it to this past Monday's Omaha World-Herald, and that's where I saw the report.) 

One thing the article's author put in really struck me. It was the observation that, in lots of American homes during the bulk of the 1960s, you'd find pictures of three prominent people: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and...John F. Kennedy. 

Three symbols of hope.

Three symbols who ended up brutally murdered.

And these three symbols were killed before any of them could reach the age of fifty.     

When Kennedy took a bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald, it began the demise of America's famous "can-do" spirit. 

Don't think so? 

Think about all the talk about health-care reform...and about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Think about all the talk surrounding whether immigration reform should take place here in the United States. Think about what's being said as to whether effective gun-control laws can ever get passed here. And now we talk about whether we should see to it that all of our country's children get a decent education...rather than how. 

One thing's for sure: Oswald's act (no, I'm not into conspiracy theories...especially about just how Bobby's and Ted's and Joseph the Younger's brother died) led to the 1965 proposal of the Constitution's 25th Amendment...an amendment that finally got ratified on 2-10-1967.

When Lyndon Johnson moved up to the presidency this afternoon in 1963, the nation went without a vice president...until LBJ's 1964 runningmate, Hubert Humphrey, became America's second-in-command on 1-20-1965.

Never again would America's government run sans a vice president.    

I've been going on YouTube to check out how ABC, CBS, and NBC (as well as WFAA-TV, the ABC station in the Metroplex) covered the events of 11-22-1963. 

Words such as "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," and "indignation" were reported to have come out of so many people's mouths that day.

Some of the mouths belonged to key government officials.

Speaking of key government officials...some of today's government officials would absolutely love to see the next US senator to have won the White House (that's right, the man in there now, Barack Obama) removed from the White House.

And at least one big-name hate-radio (oops...talk radio) host would love to see Obama (a US senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008) gunned down. 

Really now...do we HAVE to go through this again, with another history-making chief executive?  

Haven't we learned anything from the events that took place fifty years ago today?

Yep...I STILL Think about It

The recent George Zimmerman trial, along with a subsequent episode of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, got me to thinking about what I'd have to tell my biological children...that is, if I'd ever helped bring any biological children into this world. 

One of the reasons I've never been a biological father is this: I would've had to tell my sons and/or daughters that "Way too many of the people you meet just don't want to make you feel welcome here in this country you've been born in." 

In a way, those children would've been welcome here...but not REALLY welcome. 

I take a look at how so many Americans automatically assume that those of Trayvon Martin's color are the nation's archcriminals. Let's face it...let's not kid ourselves. If you're the color Trayvon was (my color), you're going to be more heavily scrutinized and held up to a harsher standard than if you're George Zimmerman's color.

You're going to be forced to constantly prove you're just as human as anybody else on the face of this planet called Earth. 

You learn that you're going to have to be twice as good at something as the average Caucasian person in your field...just to get half the acclaim.

It hurts. 

And you don't want to bring into the world in general, and right here in the world's most talked-about nation in particular, one more child who's going to end up on the wrong end of somebody else's racism...somebody else's sexism...somebody else's ageism...somebody else's homophobia/heterophobia...somebody else's paranoia about that child's religion...somebody else's axe to grind about that child not growing up wealthy.  

Some personal memories came welling up as a result of what happened in Sanford, FL.

One that came to mind happened on 9-1-2002, the day I went to Avoca, IA, to participate in that year's Old-Time Country and Bluegrass Festival and Contest. (That day- the seventh and final day of festivities at the Pottawattamie County Fairgrounds- they had the festival's ragtime piano competition. I didn't win...but I had a good, good time.)

That night, I went to the concession stand (underneath the grandstand) to buy something to eat...in this case, a hot dog and a can of pop (Mountain Dew).

The young woman running the concession stand looked at me as if I was one of the participants in the previous year's terrorist attacks.

She all but threw the hot dog (bun and all) and the pop can at me as I paid for the items. I felt so deflated that I had to tell her it was the fourth year I'd been to the festival...but all it got me was a snide version of "I hope you keep coming back."

I've NEVER set foot in Avoca since then.  

And I'm lucky the festival moved to Missouri Valley, IA the next year. (Now it's in another Iowa burg, LeMars.)  

I've also stopped shopping at the Hy-Vee food store at 51st and Center here in Omaha...because a late-night employee named Shirley spoiled it all for me. I'd been there many times before...but when Shirley asked me if she could help me (and she said this in a condescending way, as usual), that did it.  

Also on my mind was 11-1-2003...the day an Omaha Police officer named Richard Lucero (his first name does begin with "R;" I hope I've got his first name right) stopped me as I was on my way to my church's 5:00 PM service. 

While still in my car, I went to my wallet to pull out my driver's license...but he, assuming I had a gun (I've never owned a gun and don't own one now), told me to freeze or he'd shoot me. 

After he asked for my driver's license and received it to run a make on me, the officer told me my car (at the time, I owned a 1975 Lincoln Mark 4 that I bought at auction in 1999) had a broken taillight. 

He ordered me to fix the taillight (I did, with reflector tape)...and also wrote me a ticket (I paid it a week later). Then he snarled: "Have a nice day."

That day was totally ruined.  

From 1980 to 1987 (covering most of my first residency here in the Big O), I worked for Washington Inventory Service, the San Diego-based firm (since bought out by a rival company, RGIS) that had offices nationwide.

One of my fellow WIS employees was a man who liked to advertise his religion...heavily. And he liked to let everyone know he was a political conservative. I was one of his few friends.

Even so, I didn't feel good about his asking me: "Jim...what do you want to be called?"

I knew darn good and well he was wondering what I call my ethnic background. (And I didn't want to answer that way.)

So I just told him: "I just want to be called Jim. That's my name."

That's how I see myself: I'm a human being first, an American second, and an African American third.  

Another thing: The trial down in Florida got me to thinking about how President Barack Obama's been treated by this country's Republican lawmakers and by their cheerleaders...the people with the shows on this country's so-called news and information stations. 

I'm still burned up by Arizona Gov. Janet Brewer wagging her finger at Obama at Phoenix' Sky Harbor Airport. Utter disrespect from Brewer and so many of her fellow Republicans.

Sure, US Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who lost in 2008 to Obama (at that time a US senator from Illinois), praised him for his speech about the Zimmerman trial. According to McCain, maybe we can finally have That Talk (about ethnicity in America).

It's really not going to happen as long as US Reps. Michael Burgess and Louie Gohmert (both R-TX) keep getting in the way. Burgess has echoed Donald Trump by constantly questioning Obama's educational standing: "He didn't go to Harvard Law School!"

And all Gohmert has done these last four years is question the president's religion, claiming Obama to be a Muslim, not the Christian he really is.

The Republicans continue to "mourn" the alleged "death" of so-called traditional America. They refuse to accept how the country's face is changing, becoming more inclusive of people of ALL backgrounds.

One of those Republicans, US Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, has urged Martin's supporters to get over the recent verdict finding Zimmerman not guilty.

Tell you what, Mr. Harris: Why don't you and other Republicans get over the fact that America's face is changing?

Why don't you all get over the fact that we've now got a president named Barack Obama...and start learning to work together with him and other non-Republicans? 

Why don't you stop having all these phony investigations in the hope that you'll impeach Obama and start passing laws the people can actually use...like a jobs bill, for crying out loud?

Why don't you people start putting us rank-and-file citizens first...and not your party?

If you want the votes of this country's Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of both genders...as well as women of all colors...why don't you STOP dehumanizing and demonizing them?  

You folks ever do that, those of us who don't feel welcome here will start to feel better. 

And we'll finally get closer to the postracial environment so many pundits predicted would come out of Obama beating McCain in 2008.

Thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"