Book Worm

This picture was taken at Grandma Nolan's house, February 1, 1947, the day before Richard was born. I was 18 months old. Patricia was three when she read regularly to her kitten. In my baby book Mom wrote: "A book worm--she loved all books. At 2 years her favorites were Dumbo, Children's Garden of Verses, Alice in Wonderland. Was always eager for Cinderella, Goldilocks, etc." Under my favorite books, she listed Daddy's and Uncle George's yearbook, Mother Goose, all magazines, ABC book. Later I wrote in Nancy Drew.

Are book worms made or born? Mom and Dad were consummate book worms. People who say they don't have time to read baffle me. How do they stay sane? How do they escape? How do they figure out stuff? My first library card seemed magical. Jacqui Blackstone once paid me the supreme compliment: "Your idea of domesticity is putting your books in alphabetical order." Reading always took precedence over housework in my family. I was enchanted when three -year-old Elizabeth crooned to her doll: "Don't cry baby; mommy will read to you."

Mom introduced me to my favorite author, Jane Austen, when I was 12. Jane Austen introduced me to Andy Graves. I made a Austen literary allusion on an internet support group, and Andy made a witty comeback. I was instantly smitten. Little did I know how much reading about green cards awaited me.

Penguins

This picture brings back many memories, whether fond or not I have to puzzle out. From first grade through high school, I was taught by the Dominican Sisters of Amityville. Richard was in St. Martha's first graduating class, and all my brothers graduated from St. Martha's; I was too old. I went to Holy Redeemer in Freeport for first and second grade and then Queen of the Most Holy Rosary in Roosevelt for third through eighth grade. Richard and I both went to St. Agnes High School in Rockville Centre; Stephen went to St. Mary's in Manhasset. Peter, Michael, and Mark went to Maria Regina in Uniondale.

The tall nun on the right was Sister Miriam Francis; she was the principal at both Holy Redeember and the Queen. She died last year at age 93, having worked well into her 80's. I wasn't surprised; in retrospect she was an amazing educator. A tall, elegant woman, she effortlessly ruled her 800 students with a clicker; she never had to raise her voice. One click, and we were instantly silent and attentive. She knew the name and the history of every student in the school. We all both feared and admired her, were willing to work hard for her praise.

I was a very good girl. In seventh grade Sister Miriam Francis told me I could not have had a more perfect record. So I was never the victim of a nun's wrath, never had an eraser hurled at me, never was hit by a pointer, never had to stay after school to clean the blackboards. My innate shyness was reinforced, however. Good students only answered questions; they never asked them.

The nuns were very young; many had not yet been to college but were expected to teach classes of over sixty students. Everything I know about English grammar I learned from the nuns; we must have diagrammed a thousand sentences. As I get older, my memories get better; I had more good teachers than dismal ones.

Koch Hair

These pictures beg to be shared with everyone. The top one of Mark, Stephen, and Michael was taken June 16, 1974 at Peter's wedding to Merce's mother, Jacquelyn Blackstone. They got married at the New York University Chapel; Jacquie had just graduated from NYU. Mark was almost 15; Michael was 18; Stephen was 25. Richard has rejoiced in his good fortune at not being able to come and be included in this lineup. The family first met Michelle at this wedding.

Thankfully, the groom had cleaned up for the wedding. This picture of Peter and Vanessa had been taken only six months previously.

Politics

This is a picture of Robert Kennedy speaking at my graduation from Fordham University in 1967. Do I have to explain who he is? The younger brother of President John Kennedy, he served as Attorney General, then became Senator from New York. He was running for president in 1998 when he was assassinated June 5, ten days before my wedding to Chris Hawkins. I remember I had a final wedding dress fitting the day after the assassination, and I was in tears most of the time.

In the midst of a heated debate between Uncle Ken and the younger generation, I posted this account of my political evolution. I would love to hear everyone else's stories.

My first specific political memory centered around the duck and cover, hide under our desks, exercises that were a regular feature of my early school life from age 5 on. I knew enough about nuclear war to be terrified. We lived near to an air force base and I used to go out to the backyard, look up at the planes, and try to determine if they were American or Russian. I remember getting a book out of the library on aircraft identification. When I heard Joseph Stalin died, I remember asking if that meant no one would drop bombs on us.

In 1954 I had a severe case of the measles and Grandma Nolan came to help nurse me. She was listening to the Joseph McCarthy army hearings. Hatred of McCarthy's voice
might have shaped my entire political development. The other determining force was my obsession with John F. Kennedy. I first took an interest in political conventions in 1956, when I was 11. Kennedy made a brief try for the vice presidential nomination, and my mom mentioned he was Catholic, that there had never been a Catholic president. From 1956 to 1963, I read everything I could about Kennedy. When I was 15 I did volunteer work for his presidential campaign.

In high school we had political debates to imitate the famous Kennedy/Nixon debates and I represented Kennedy. What he believed in, I believed in. Gradually I moved to the left of his pragmatic liberalism. Certainly Kennedy was responsible for my decision to major in political science in college.

I cannot precisely date my interest in and commitment to civil rights. When I was a freshman, I joined my college's Interracial Understanding Group. I was envious of those college students who have the affluence to spend the summer down south registering voters and didn't have to worry about money to pay their tuition. Kennedy's assassination, occurring in the fall of my freshman year in college, devastated me. I felt like there had been a death in my immediate family. I quickly translated my political allegiance to Bobby Kennedy.

Gradually during college I became a pacifist. Opposition to the Vietnam War right from the beginning was the catalyst. My husband to be, Chris, applied for conscientious objector status and was willing to face jail rather than be inducted. We became very active in the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the War Resister's League, all pacifist organizations. We went on several anti-war demonstrations both in New York and Washington. I briefly attended Stanford University where resistance to the war was at its height. Almost every afternoon, David Harris, Joan Baez's future husband, spoke out eloquently against the war.

My first job after Stanford was as an assistant to Victor Riesel, a labor columnist, who had been blinded by acid thrown in his face by the mob who controlled the waterfront he was exposing. One of my assigments was to read the AP ticker to him every day, clip articles in all the newspapers, labor papers. This was in 1968, when King and Kennedy were assassinated, when anti-war protect was at its height.