Cleaning Out the Archives

Every place of human habitation needs a good housecleaning every so often, and our home is no exception.  With plans to retire, relinquish the property, and relocate to a milder climate in the not-too-distant future, the time has come not only for a good housecleaning, but a major downsizing as well.  With this thought in mind, I’ve packed up and given away many household items in recent months, but of course, more still needs to go.  Nothing in the house, not even the family archives, may be exempt from inspection and possible ejection.

Last month’s project, then, involved a thorough examination of the children’s picture albums.  They had about a dozen of these, all filled mostly with mediocre photographs taken with toy cameras and with some duplicates of pictures taken with more sophisticated equipment.  It was a motley collection, but it did contain a few gems that I wanted to save.  The bulk of the collection was jettisoned, as we had much better quality photographs of the same subjects.  Redundancy is a wise course in both archival work and shipboard engineering systems, but it can sometimes be taken to unreasonable extremes.

Not surprisingly, the photographs that I saved are of ships and ship-related subjects.  Some are quite good.  A few are not so good but unique.  All of them bring back memories, and I’m happy to present them here.  Let’s start with a visit to the Cunard Line’s Queen Elizabeth 2 as she reposes at the passenger ship piers on the West Side of Manhattan.

The bow of any large passenger liner is an impressive sight when viewed from the street.  Here, the great, curved, black steel port bow of the QE2 rises magnificently from the placid Hudson on Saturday, July 3, 1999.  It’s awe-inspiring to think that this great bow was designed to cut gracefully yet purposefully through the largest waves and swells of the Atlantic between New York and Europe.  Few, if any, of the ship’s pampered passengers would give this matter a thought.

 

This great bow, like every other part of the ship, requires regular maintenance.  Here, on the same day, we see two seamen on a camel rolling on a fresh layer of black paint.  Not a job for the faint of heart!

 

In these two photographs, taken on Sunday afternoon, September 1, 1996, from the top level of Pier 90, we have a close-up view of the Queen’s port side superstructure.  From this vantage point, we can look through the oversize windows into the ship’s public rooms and promenades and admire her luxurious accommodations.

 

Leaving the West Side piers now and taking the subway down to the Battery, we next embark on the Staten Island Ferry.  Always a family favorite, these half-hour voyages are great fun, and it’s easy to lose track of the time and spend half the day sailing back and forth.  The first picture here shows the pilothouse of the American Legion on an overcast Saturday, April 3, 1999.

 

A year later, we see the same view of the Gov. Herbert H. Lehman on a bright and sunny Saturday, March 4, 2000.  The blue sky and sunshine make all the difference in these two photos.

Switching vessels on the same day, here we view the southbound Gov. Herbert H. Lehman from the northbound American Legion as the two ships pass “at sea” on the Upper New York Bay. 

 

 From the ferries we watch the shipping world go by.  First, we see the anchored bulk carrier Amphitrite on Saturday, April 3, 1999. 

 

Next we see the anchored container ship Maersk Valentia on Saturday, March 4, 2000.

Later on the same day, we watch as another Maersk Lines container ship emerges from the Kills between Staten Island and New Jersey.  She is rounding Saint George and will soon pass through the Narrows and head out to sea.

Leaving New York now, we go next to Maine.  The Portland area is always a great place to see ships.  First, we admire the academy training vessel State of Maine as she rests alongside the Bath Iron Works pier in Portland on a cloudy and warm Saturday, July 11, 1998.

Next we enjoy a close-up view of the tanker Orkney Spirit at the Portland Pipeline pier in South Portland on a hazy Saturday, May 6, 2000.  The adjacent waterfront area and nearby breakwater are excellent vantage points from which we can watch everything that enters and leaves Portland Harbor.

Heading south now to Massachusetts, we watch the Dutch freighter Schippersgracht discharging cargo in Fall River on Monday, August 27, 2001.  Free to roam the pier and watch the ship unload, we did not know on this date that our unrestricted access to the docks would hereafter be curtailed as a result of the terrorist attacks that were only two weeks away.

Moving farther south to the Delaware Bay, we have an noontime view of the northbound New Jersey silhouetted in the sunlight from the southbound Delaware on Sunday, Christmas Eve of 1995.  When driving to Virginia to visit family, the voyage across the Delaware Bay comes as a welcome break from the holiday traffic!

Returning now to New England, let’s visit some lighthouses.  First we have the storied Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, on Saturday, August 30, 1997.  A popular tourist attraction, this site commands a magnificent view of Casco Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.  One can spend many hours there and never tire of the scenery.

At the farther end of Maine, we have this view of the famed West Quoddy Head Light in Lubec on a cloudy and foggy Monday, June 23, 2003.  This site is often cloudy, foggy, windy, damp, and cold, and it has a rugged beauty.  It’s also peaceful and quiet, with very few visiting tourists, even at the height of the summer season.

In Massachusetts again, we see next the diminutive Plum Island Light at the mouth of the Merrimack River in Newburyport on Friday, June 23, 2000.  Blue sky and sunshine abound at this lovely site which is often overlooked by Boston area residents who flock to Maine instead.

In New York again, this time on the spring vacation from school, the children go with their grandparents to the iconic Fire Island Light on a brilliant April day in 2001.  My sons Steven and Michael pose on the boardwalk that leads through the dunes to the light.

Finally, we return once more to New England, specifically to the Piscataqua River that forms the boundary between New Hampshire and Maine.  The Memorial Bridge spanned this waterway for about a century before it was replaced with a more modern structure.  When the children were little, they were thrilled to walk across this bridge from New Hampshire to Maine and back and watch the tidal current rushing beneath their feet.  This view is taken from nearby Prescott Park on a beautiful but chilly Monday, October 8, 2001.

All these photographs from so many years ago bring back a sea of happy memories for everyone in the family.  We are indeed fortunate to have these memories, just as we were fortunate to go on so many family outings to the oceanfront when the children were younger.  Perhaps even more to the point, we were extremely fortunate to have a house full of happy and healthy children in the first place.  So many blessings, and so many reasons to be thankful!  The psalmist said it well when he asserted, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord” (Ps. 92:1), and when he exhorted, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name” (Ps. 100:4).

An Academician on the Water

Several years ago, I visited the archives of Manhattan College in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in order to research the life and career of my great-granduncle, Joseph Lawrence Scanlon.  He was born in Nyack, on the Hudson River in upstate New York, in 1878.  As a teenager in 1893, he entered the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a religious order less formally known as the Christian Brothers, and he took the name Brother Apelles Jasper.  This pursuit of the consecrated life enabled him to receive an extensive education at Manhattan College, Columbia University, and the Catholic University of America.  This prepared him for a distinguished academic career as professor, dean, president, and trustee at Manhattan College.  In addition, he edited and wrote for several academic and religious journals.  Subsequently, he became a librarian at the LaSalle Military Academy, a Christian Brothers high school in Oakdale, on the South Shore of Long Island.  Finally, he died in New York City in 1944.

In the course of my research, I had the privilege of meeting Brother Luke Salm, a professor emeritus of history and an archivist at Manhattan College.  When he was a young man in the 1930s, Brother Luke knew Brother Jasper, and he remembered him well.  Brother Luke recalled that when he was a college student, he spent his summer vacations at the LaSalle Academy in Oakdale.   During these times, he  observed Brother Jasper setting out on the Great South Bay early every morning in a small motorboat.  Apparently, Brother Jasper enjoyed sailing on salt water!

Of course, this is a very tenuous connection to the sea.  Brother Jasper was not a  merchant seaman, but it would be accurate to call him an amateur bay man.  Besides, in this era before many of the bridges and tunnels in New York were built, he most certainly sailed on ferries across the Hudson River and other waterways.  Thus, Brother Jasper was acquainted at least with the tributaries of the sea.

My interest in Brother Jasper stemmed from our being related.  Getting to know him was facilitated by the lengthy paper trail he left behind,  The archives yielded a storehouse of material written both about him and by him.  In perusing this collection, it became clear to me that Brother Jasper was a very intelligent and very learned man as well as a highly accomplished academician.  This assessment was confirmed by a confrere’s notation that he was “remembered as a teacher for his intimacy with many areas of learning.”[1]  His connection to the Great South Bay came as a bonus.

Among Brother Jasper’s writings was some poetry which illustrated his range of subject matter.  Writing on a religious theme, he incorporated, for example, philosophy and biology, subjects that he taught, into some of his poems.  And while never having been a merchant seaman, he did include the sea in one of them.  Naturally, this one is my favorite:

Though stormy seas about me roll,

And angry waves conceal the goal,

I need not fear.

Though my frail bark is tempest tossed,

And strangers crowd, yea, all seems lost;

I should not fear.

Though friends rebuke and foes malign,

Unholy ones their strength combine;

I will not fear.

For Thou whom winds and sea obey

Will all my pains and grief allay,

When Thou art near.[2]

  

As these verses demonstrate, Brother Jasper was a man of great faith, and he used his literary skills to share this faith with others.  For this, we who read his poetry owe him a debt of gratitude.  I also feel honored that he included the seafaring profession in his work, and I appreciate his use of the metaphor of the storm at sea.

Brother Jasper’s abiding religious faith was evident in all of his poetry and prose.  Also clear was his admiration for the works of charity and acts of selfless service to others that such faith engendered.  He admired holy and Christ-like men who quietly did the Lord’s work without calling attention to themselves.  Furthermore, as a man of quiet contemplation, he recognized that the Lord operated through the still small voice and not the splash of sensationalism, and he asserted, “The divine call to a higher life is a gentle influence.”[3]

Perhaps Brother Jasper experienced some of this “gentle Influence” on the Great South Bay.  The sea and its tributaries have bespoken the existence and genius of God to many of us, and certainly Brother Jasper would recognize such a manifestation of the Deity.  Yet he would also realize that while we live here on the created Earth, we are not entirely a part of it.  As a spiritual man, he understood the human capacity for something higher and greater, and in another poem he exhorted:

O mortal, rise above the clod

That holds thee down so low:

Enjoy the presence of thy God

Wherein all blessings flow.[4]

A colleague wrote that Brother Jasper possessed “a quiet nobility of soul”[5] and had “a remarkable devotion to duty.”[6]  Another stated that he had “a kindness of disposition, an urbanity of manner, an evenness of temper, a goodness of heart, and a never-failing cheerfulness.”[7]  This was in addition to his “more than ordinary intelligence,”[8] which made him “a walking encyclopedia of language, science, mathematics, philosophy, and literature.”[9]  Finally, he was described as “one of the truly great men that every once in a while the Lord sends to the earth.”[10]

It seems to me that the faith and spirituality of such a great man could only have been increased by his experience on the Great South Bay, and it would have been much further magnified if he had actually gone to sea.  I am certain that a transoceanic voyage would have been a truly grand epiphany for him.

Now let us put a face to the name.  I have only four photographs of Brother Jasper, and this is the earliest.  It is believed to have been taken in a studio in New York in the early 1900s when he was in his mid-twenties.

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[1] Br. Casimir Gabriel, F.S.C., The Tree Bore Fruit: Manhattan College 1853-1953, Riverdale, NY: Manhattan College, 1953, p. 71.  This splendid volume recounts the history of Manhattan College in its first century and was a gift to me from Brother Luke. 

[2] Joseph L. Scanlon (Br. Apelles Jasper, F.S.C.), “Fear Not,” in The Manhattan Quarterly, April, 1914, p. 42.

[3] Joseph L. Scanlon (Br. Apelles Jasper, F.S.C.), Life of Venerable Brother Benilde of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, p. 33, unpublished typescript held in the Manhattan College archives and dating from the 1940s.

[4] Joseph L. Scanlon (Br. Apelles Jasper, F.S.C.), “The Flower,” in The Manhattan Quarterly, April, 1914, p. 9.

[5] Manhattan College memorandum on the death of Brother Apelles Jasper on February 20, 1944, and held in the Manhattan College archives.

[6] Ibid.

[7] From a speech given by an unnamed confrere on the occasion of Brother Apelles Jasper’s Golden Jubilee at Manhattan College on December 19, 1943, and held in the Manhattan College archives. 

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Manhattan College memorandum previously cited.

Sunflowers

One day this past summer a pot full of sunflowers mysteriously appeared on our porch.  I never learned who put them there or why, but their big, bright, and cheerful yellow blooms caught my attention, and I took to watering them regularly because they were so pretty.  They also reminded me of a family visit on Long Island that took place about five years ago.

Normally, I prefer not to travel on Sunday.  Sometimes, however, exceptions to this policy become necessary, and because they are exceptions, they are also memorable occasions.  On this particular occasion, Miss Patty and I were traveling to Long Island on Sunday because on Monday she would depart from Kennedy Airport and fly to Brazil for our daughter’s wedding.  And so in the afternoon of July 20, 2014, we drove to New London, Connecticut, and then sailed to Orient Point, Long Island, aboard the ferry Cape Henlopen.  The weather on the water was so beautiful and the crossing was so tranquil and sublime that it seemed, if not actually sinful, at least morally deficient to not be at sea that Sunday.  As always, though, the voyage ended too quickly, and we drove off the ship and continued westward.

Diverting this time from our usual route through the built-up North Fork villages from Greenport to Riverhead, we followed Route 25A, a secondary road through the farmlands of Eastern Long Island instead.  It was a pleasant diversion through less traffic and more open country, a restful alternative fitting for a day of rest.  Along the way we passed several roadside farm stands open for business, and as we neared Wading River, we came upon a roadside floral vender selling sunflowers.

For many years, I’ve been in the habit of bringing flowers to my Mom when returning home for a visit.  Usually, I picked these up at the Petal Pusher in Penn Station or at Howard’s in Mineola.  Today, however, while taking a more bucolic route, an opportunity arose to get her a bouquet made up entirely of locally grown sunflowers.  Mom would love these, we figured, with their bright yellow petals, dark brown centers, and green leaves and stems.  Uniform but not identical, all these sunflowers would be strikingly different from a customary commercial bouquet produced by a florist.

When we arrived at the family headquarters about 6:00pm, Mom liked the sunflowers very much.  Following her usual custom, she placed them in a vase with fresh water and put them on display in the living room.  Several times she remarked on the brightness and cheerfulness of their colors and added that these ranked among her favorite flowers.  In the days that followed, she enjoyed the sunflowers very, very much.

Also in the following days, Miss Patty left for Brazil, and I had a pleasant visit with my parents.  On Thursday, July 24, I took an afternoon train to Boston and then the bus back to Nashua.  Our car remained on Long Island pending Miss Patty’s return from the wedding.

In the following years, I’ve come to associate sunflowers with my Mom.  Aptly named, they have a sunny disposition that resembles hers.  Scientifically known as Helianthus, their simple beauty and bright colors create a cheerful atmosphere wherever they are displayed.  How fitting, then, that they should remind me a of someone who appreciated the beauty of the world and who saw this beauty as the gift of a Creator-God to his human children.

One part of the world whose beauty Mom especially enjoyed and appreciated was the seashore, where the land and the sea intermingle.  During her childhood, she spent summer vacations with her parents and extended family at the seaside on both the North Shore and the South Shore of Long Island.  Later, she continued to visit the seashore with college friends, and after that, with her own family.  Over a lifetime, she became acquainted with Long Beach, Lido Beach, Point Lookout, Tobay Beach, Jones Beach, Cedar Island, Oak Beach, Oak Island, Captree, Fire Island, Massapequa, Lindenhurst, Babylon, Montauk Point, Orient Point, Mount Sinai, Port Washington, and the Long Island Sound ferries.  In addition, she sailed the family sailboat on the Great South Bay for many years, and she made one ocean voyage to Bermuda and the Bahamas aboard the Evangeline as a young adult.  During her last years, with restrictions on her mobility, Mom could well have echoed the words of the great seaman and poet John Masefield:

A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels,

I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;

I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limits of the land,

Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.[1]

And so Mom and my father both took great pleasure in visiting the South Shore barrier beaches and voyaging aboard the Moon Chaser on the Great South Bay when I returned home to see them.

My parents still owned an automobile, so I drove them down to the oceanfront.  On these outings we followed the Ocean Parkway to our first stop at Oak Beach.  There, on a recently built fishing pier, we looked out at the Fire Island Inlet, watched the fishermen go about their business, and decided if we should cross the bridge to Fire Island itself or go to Captree for lunch.  Often we did both.  On Fire Island we admired the lighthouse, sometimes hiking out to it on the boardwalk through the sand dunes and beach grass.  At the beach, we spent a long time walking through the sand along the water’s edge and taking in the majestic view of the great Atlantic Ocean.  This was always a sight like no other, a temporary escape from the densely populated and heavily built-up urban area.  At Captree, we dined in the second floor Captree Cove Restaurant, and we enjoyed the views of the fishing boat docks, the adjacent waterways, and the distant lighthouse as much as we enjoyed the food.

On days when the Moon Chaser was sailing, we drove from the house directly to the Captree Boat Basin.  This vessel sailed on sedate sightseeing excursions in the afternoons, and my parents always sat on the upper deck in front of the pilothouse on these voyages.  From this vantage point, they had an unlimited view of everything on the water.  Leaving Captree at 1:00pm, the ship always proceeded eastward through the State Boat Channel to the open water of the Great South Bay.  Then, she sailed along the northern shoreline of Fire Island as far as the Fire Island Lighthouse.  Along this route she wended her way among fishing boats, sailboats, and the small trans-bay ferries that connected the communities of Fire Island with the Mainland.  There was always plenty of activity, and thus plenty of sights to see, on the bay.  Once abeam of the famed Fire Island Light, the Moon Chaser came about and slowly returned to Captree.  After disembarking around 3:00pm, we usually had an early dinner at the Captree Cove before heading back home.

Since my parents could no longer drive, they appreciated the opportunity to ride down to the barrier beaches and sail on the bay when I visited them.  As much as they both enjoyed these excursions, though, it was my Mom who always spoke admiringly and even reverently about the beauty of the seashore and the open ocean.  She saw the hand of God in everything there.  The innumerable grains of sand on the beach, the abundance and variety of life in and alongside the sea, the sun, moon, and clouds in the sky, and the seemingly limitless sea and sky stretching out to the horizon and far behind—all of these and more demonstrated the existence, genius, and perfection of God for her.  Mom never read this verse, but having studied Thomistic theology in college with the Ursuline nuns, she no doubt would have agreed with the scriptural assertion that:

all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth and all things

that are upon the face of it. . .and also all the planets which move

in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator

(Alma 30:44).

Like many merchant seamen, Mom understood that there was much more to the sea than salt water.  She appreciated the spiritual aspect of the sea, and gazing upon it always involved an epiphany wherein the Supreme Creator manifested himself to her.

This did not happen only at the seashore, though.  Mom saw the hand of God in such diverse locations as the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, the pine tree forests in Maine, the Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn, and the birds and squirrels in the trees of her own backyard.  She loved the world of Nature in all its forms, and she recognized it as a divine masterpiece.  Several times, when viewing the stars in the night sky, she asked rhetorically, “How can anyone look at all this and not believe in God?”  A poem she wrote captures this thought more artistically:

A precious orb that floats in space

Our Earth’s unique, a special place

Where living things together ride

An enormous carousel, and bide

In a friendly atmosphere

Of rich black loam and water clear,

Of sun and shade and rain and snow,

Miraculous ingredients to make us grow.

Dear Earth, some scientists proclaim

You were thrown from the sun, without aim

Or design, to become by destiny

This wondrous planet, this prodigy.

Are you just a freak in space

Or do you exist through divine grace,

A perfect setting for a priceless gem,

God’s image and likeness—men?[2]

Such was my Mom’s view of the sea, the world, and the cosmos.  They were all the work of the Supreme Creator, and she often expressed her gratitude for the majesty and beauty of his creation.

And so whenever I arrived back home with a bouquet of flowers, Mom saw them, too, as the work of God.  She always remarked on the beauty of their colors and then arranged them in a vase for display.  She always enjoyed these fresh flowers, and she especially enjoyed the fresh sunflowers that summer day five years ago.  No doubt she would have enjoyed the pot of sunflowers that mysteriously appeared on our porch this summer, too.

Now let’s look at some pictures!  First, in this vintage photograph from 1947, we seen my Mom on the right with the radio officer and a fellow passenger aboard the Evangeline of the Eastern Steamship Lines on a voyage from New York to Bermuda and the Bahamas and back.  The ship sailed from New York on Wednesday, July 30, and returned about a week or so later.

Next, we see my parents on the fishing dock at Captree on Thursday, June 25, 2009.  The buoys in the water behind them delineate the State Boat Channel, which leads eastward to the more open waters of the Great South Bay and the Fire Island Inlet.

Here, on her day off, the Moon Chaser reposes at her berth in the Captree Boat Basin on Thursday, 

September 19, 2013.

 

In this lovely view we see the Fire Island Light from the Moon Chaser on Thursday, August 26, 2010.

Finally, the million dollar view.  From the uncrowded, postseason, bathing beach on Fire Island on Thursday, September 19, 2013, we look at the great Atlantic Ocean.  A perfect place to contemplate the divine design of the world and the meaning and purpose of human life.

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[1] John Masefield, “A Wanderer’s Song,” in Salt-Water Ballads, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1913, p. 61; reprinted by Bibliobazaar, n.p., n.d.

[2] Justine Elizabeth Burns, “The Earth,” unpublished poem, one of many in her personal papers.