What For?

By Patrick Flanagan

“Do you ever ask or think about why we are here? “  There was a momentary silence as Andy looked at me, quizzically and clearly had to stop for a moment to think about what he would answer.

Then he answered, “Well, I was drafted and our country needed us to fight back.  I guess it is patriotism and my love for my country.”

The sun was beginning to set in the western hills of jungle as evening came closer and Andy and I settled down into our night-time position as a listening post, listening for the enemy in the dark and act as a defense against an enemy who was trying to kill us all.  I hated this duty and wished I was back somewhat in the safety of my bunker at our firebase.  But somebody had to do this.  I’m just not sure why.  Usually this duty rotated and tonight was our turn.  It was dangerous as only the three of us were outside the protection of the base, hidden in the bush, the jungle, listening until dawn once again came back to the world.  Another day for us to live.  We didn’t have a dugout here, or a trench to cuddle up into.  Just our army green ponchos laying on the ground to act as a ground-cloth, our faces blackened so that we would just fade into the jungle and become invisible.  I often thought we were really hiding from the enemy.

“Yeah, but we are in their country fighting them.  They aren’t in our country.  They never attacked us.  We are blowing up their villages, their homes, their schools.  And it all seems to be the right thing to do, but I’m not sure just why.  Oh, sure, I know tonight a few of them might try to sneak up on us, surprise our brothers in the base, and try to kill them all.  I certainly don’t want that to happen, so I guess we have to stop them, kill them before they get that far.  But why are they doing this?  How did we all get here trying to kill each other off?” as I posed the question a bit deeper.

“Well, they are Communists,” Andy responded.  “Their main philosophy is to make us all communists and make us all live like they do, get rid of capitalism and democracy.  They want to destroy our way of living and make everyone live the same way.  We can’t allow that to happen.”

Brent had been quiet as he listened to our lowered voices.  He added his two cents: “Well, I’m here just trying to stay alive.  I know I have to spend a year doing what I was told to do, and then hopefully go home, back to my wife and kids and try to just live a comfortable life.  I guess somebody has to fight in order to make the world a better place.  It just was my turn.”

“Well, how do we know whose system is the best?  I’ve never lived under communism, but I do know they have schools, hospitals and cities just like we do, and we seem to be trying to destroy it all in the name of democracy.  To date, the U.S. hasn’t lost one school or hospital to the North Vietnamese.  Oh, yeah, maybe those friends of ours in the south of Viet Nam have lost some, but we haven’t, yet here we are away from our families and risking our lives.  Does this really make any sense?  Brent, time to call the base and give them a Sit-Rep so they know we are setup for the night and still alive out here.”

Brent nodded his head, picking up the handset on the radio and began to call in our situation.  It was the custom to call into the base on a regular basis.  That way they knew we were still alive.  If we didn’t call on schedule, then they would try to call us.  Maybe we were the silent dead.

“Andy, before it gets real dark, check all the Claymores to make sure they are facing right and not towards us.”  Brent had put them all out but it was always good to double-check.  God help us if they were facing the wrong way.  Weapons don’t care who they kill; it is up to the person firing them that really matters.  I always felt it was good to double-check everything and make sure that safety was the priority.  More died from friendly fire than from the enemy.

“Andy, remember when I had to kill the sapper using the Starlight Scope?  That was such a strange evening.  That poor North Vietnamese soldier was doing everything by the book, but he didn’t know I had a machine that let me see him in the night.  He crawled so slowly and quietly with his explosives strapped on his back.  He was doing exactly the same things we were taught.  Thank God for the cross-hairs in the scope but I was amazed that it took many minutes for him to move off of it.  Up until then, he just blended in with the jungle.  He was moving so slow toward the barbed wire defense that surrounded the other platoon.  If I hadn’t had that machine, he would have succeeded on his suicide mission.  Clearly he was going to blow himself up so that they could attack.”  I paused for a minute as I retraced that night.  The Starlight Scope was brand new and I was one of the first to field test it in actual combat situations.  It was huge in those days, and I was sworn to secrecy on it as I had security clearance.  It made night turn to day.  As good as that soldier was, technology was making it meaningless.

“Yeah, I remember, “ Andy replied.  “That was a hell-of-a-night.  I remember you calling me up to take a look as you just weren’t sure you were seeing what you were seeing.  I wasn’t even sure; it just all looked like jungle blowing in the slight wind that night.”

“Amazing to think that it took about three hours of watching the cross-hairs on that man before I was even sure that it was a man and his intent was to blow us all up and kill us.  Patience and just watching that the scope didn’t move off the target.  It seemed like it took forever.   A lot of time to just think about how good he was in what he was doing.  He had no idea that he was being watched by an unbelievable machine.  How many times in those hours did I think he was like me?  He might have had a wife, a family, back home and here he was, going to blow himself up and give that all up.  Why?  And then, he didn’t know that I was watching him move, and that I was going to have to try to kill him.  I admired his skill and how good he was.  I imagined myself doing similar things yet it all just came down to each of us trying to kill each other.  What bothered me a lot was that he must have had family too, family at his home.  And it was all going to be gone in a brief moment of time.  Why were he and I both doing this?  Willing to give it all up.  I guess we were both doing our job as well as we both could.  But somebody was going to lose.  For what?”

“Yeah,” Andy said.  “That was quite some night.  You were really good in discovering him.  You had to kind of use the scope to look all around and you caught him.  And even then, you weren’t really sure.  Good eyes, Pat.”

Once I was sure, we then had to call the lieutenant to notify him.  It was clear that we had to stop the sapper and that meant we had to fire our weapons on him to stop him.  We couldn’t fire until we got permission or unless we were being fired upon.  So far, we still were all safe but I knew time was running out.  We had to kill him before he got much closer to our barbed-wire defense.  There had to be others behind him just waiting to rush the base once the defenses were down.  I knew where we were heading and it wasn’t so nice no matter what.

“So is that what this is all about,” I reminisced.  “That I was saving democracy and killing communism?  In my own small way.  Is that how I justify taking this man’s life away from his parents, his wife, maybe his kids.  They will all get some of his medals, I guess.  He surely will get some medals for having given up his life.  Was he also fighting to save communism?  It was the “big picture” and all of this was just a small snapshot of what we were all doing?  Maybe some of our brothers will get some medals too.  Just because I get him doesn’t mean that it is all over.”  I remembered my fear that night, that some of my brothers might still be killed or wounded.

The sun now was setting in the foothills as darkness started to spread around where we had set up for the night.  It got so dark so fast in the jungle as all the green vines turned to black.  Hopefully no moon tonight, let alone a full-moon.  Full moon’s seemed to reflect against our green ponchos and potentially could give away our position.  It would be over eight hours of guarding now until we could get up and go back to the base, our job of an outpost done for the night.

“Brent, are you sure there aren’t any of those damn ant hills around.  I don’t want to have to get up during the night and change position because I happen to be in their way,” I asked.

“Yep, Pat.  I checked.  No anthills and no snakes that I could see.”  Brent was good at that.  Nothing worse than being in the way of Vietnamese Red ants in the middle of the night or getting bit by a snake.  Only good thing is that snakes usually don’t move in the night.  Brent seemed like he could always smell the critters out like that.  Pretty soon it would be total darkness and the time for talking would end.  Voices travel further in the night and in the dark as the jungle seems to go into deep slumber with its own kind of silence.

“You know Pat, sometimes I think you think too much.  It happens.  It’s war.  We try to kill them and they try to kill us,” Andy responded.  “Then, we believe in God; they don’t.  Maybe that’s why; we are fighting for God.”

“Yeah, all I want to do is stay alive,” Brent said.  “That’s my priority.  If I have to kill to stay alive, I will, quick, and sweet.  I’m good at it.  And I’m still here as proof.  I don’t know ‘nuthin’ about democracy or communism; just that it’s either me or them.  It’s that simple.  Nothing else really matters except me going home.  And all in one piece.”

I had to think about the God comment for a moment.  It was true that I felt it wrong for a government to get involved in whether I believed in God or not.  I felt that everyone could make their own decision in that area, even atheists, but they shouldn’t try to make me like them.  Maybe that was why we were here doing all of this.  There were a few moments of just silence, and then the jungle moved in front of us with a rustle.  Now just silence as all three of us looked at each other in response to the swishing of jungle leaves up ahead.  A small twinge of being alert and fearful.  Our senses more alive than normal.  A trace of adrenalin pumping.

“What’s that,” I whispered, looking at Brent.  Brent was good at explaining the sounds of the jungle.

Brent whispered back: “I think it’s just a few monkeys trying to find a place to safely spend the night.  It’s coming from the top of the jungle.  Something that monkeys like to do and be above the other animals out here.  Not the NVA, they’d be making more noise and it would be different.”  One could see the relief on Andy and my face as it all made sense.  Just monkeys.

“Well, time for us to get sleep.  Brent has the first watch, then me and then Andy,” I reminded them.  “One thing that still bothers me.  We got the sapper that night, found blood in the area the next morning and it was all over.  We didn’t even get attacked.  His body was gone but there was the blood all over the jungle vines where he had been.  It was all over.  But it really isn’t.  I still think about him, his family, his life and how it was all gone for him.  And that it could have been me instead, or you, or one of our brothers in that platoon.  I still wonder today just why?  Why are we all here, doing this?  Why couldn’t we just stay at home, send our kids to school, be with our families, maybe work on our houses or on our cars.  Do the fun things.  Build something; be constructive, instead of this.”

In his plain home-grown St. Louis wisdom, Andy replied with the last final words for the night: “Yeah, I guess, but we wouldn’t get any medals for doing that.  Good night, and sleep safe.”

Imminent Death

By Patrick J. Flanagan

Once born, we must all face the time of inevitable death.  It is inescapable and given as a preordained certainty.  As I grow older and closer to that time in my life, I am amazed at the vagaries and verisimilitudes of the event itself.  We really have no choice in this, yet it can be different for us all.  Death will happen but how it happens is just so varied and imaginative, but the final outcome is the same.  We no longer exist in the world as we know it.  That is the constant.

Just the very phrase, “He was close to death”, raises interesting possibilities as to outcome.  “He had a close brush with death,” is yet another.  Just so many stories in our lives but the final moment of death is always the same for all of us.  It is how we get there that is so varied and often out of our control.  Sometimes we can cause this, sometimes it is caused by other events.

Thinking back, the first time I came close to death was at an early age of eight.  We were visiting friends with a swimming pool and I couldn’t swim yet.  I was playing in the pool with a rubber inner-tube and it flipped accidentally.  All of a sudden, I was trapped under water and in danger of drowning.  My mother immediately noticed but she didn’t know how to swim either.  I started to drown and became very scared as I struggled to get to the surface.  I began to take in water, when, all of a sudden, the rubber tube righted itself and I could breathe once again.  A lot of coughing up water as my lungs cleared and I acquired an inordinate fear of water from that day on.  After a very long battle with swim instructors, I was finally able to swim without fear or close to it.  I have always carried a deep respect for water since that day.

It was years later that I began surfing on the beaches of Santa Cruz.  A number of times, I would be caught in a rip-tide and repeat once again that fear of drowning.  I am sure that I could have drowned under the right conditions, but I didn’t and continued to take this risk as nothing feels quite so good as when one is “riding” a wave.  Still, I continued with my fears.  For years, I had a difficult time with snorkeling or swimming underwater with an air tank.  I just got claustrophobic and fearful of being underwater for extended periods of time.  It wasn’t until years later that I worked hard with a trainer that I was finally able to stay under water for long periods of time.  Still, my fear remained and my respect for the vagaries of swimming became an integral part of my very being.

I would have to say that the next major confrontation with death was my involvement in the Viet Nam War.  Unlike other events of confronting the “moment” of death, this experience lasted for days, months, even a year.  It was to be expected to such a degree that one counted the days of just living.  Death was ever-present and always a part of one’s day.  Sometimes unexpected, and yet on other days it was ever-present and immediately threatening.  Death surrounded us each day as we witnessed others die or come close to death while we lived.  The daily question, “Why them and not me,” haunted us more often than not.

This was a period of my life when death was ever-present, but three events are etched into my very being after so many years have passed.  In war, death is ever-present and a given, but some days are engraved deeply into our very being.  One was when a fellow soldier accidentally shot his M-79 and the high-explosive round hit me in my shoulder but didn’t go off.  Just a stroke of luck, but we were alive with just a sore shoulder.  We should have all died right then and there.   

Another was in the jungle with three others and the enemy came within a few hundred yards of us.  We were clearly outnumbered and our only hope was to call in heavy artillery upon our position, hopefully killing them but letting us survive.  Whether I survived now came down to my knowledge of geometry and prayers that the first round flew above us and not on top of us.  I can still hear that artillery round buzzing above our heads as it hit the target and then the dozens of rounds which followed.  We were all still alive.  But it was close.

The third time was toward the end of the battle to keep Fire Support Base 29 in the hands of our unit and out of the hands of the North Vietnamese Army.  Again, we were outnumbered and this event was one of daily death and trying to just stay alive.  It started with just sniper fire and daily intensified to rocket and artillery attacks from mortars and enemy fire.  Our casualties were growing each day and we finally were coming to the realization that we were losing.  We fought hard as our brothers fell, wounded and some dead.  Two helicopters crashed into our base as we struggled to get them medical aid, but we just asked for more air support and artillery from the friendly bases around us.  The moment of death and life was often only seconds away from each other toward the end of the battle when we realized that we had to retreat and escape.  We had to all go down a cliff in order to leave the base, as the enemy started to overwhelm our bunkers and trenches.  It was then, an incoming mortar round buzzing above me, that I knew I was near death.  Luckily, I jumped into a dugout as the round hit, but my dog which was with me was gone.  He was dead and gone.  And then the struggle to go down the cliff with full battle gear in order to get to safety and away from the enemy.  There were moments that day that I did not think I was going to make it.  Yet I did and the memories are just as vivid again about how close I came.  There were many events of death during that time in my life but I survived.  Yet these three events are still so vivid in my mind to this day.

Then it was years later, driving home from Virginia City, that I hit a patch of black ice and lost control of my automobile.  In seconds, I hit the mountain and totally flipped the car 360 degrees, totally destroying it.  It all happened so fast yet all I had was a few scrapes and cuts.  I had only been going about 35 m.p.h. but realized that it was again a very close call between life and death.

Now 68 years have passed.  I’m sure that there were many other events in my life where it came close to being ended, but some moments just are so clear and so etched into our very being.  One cannot forget.  All I can do is wonder why I survived, why I’m still alive to live on, to go on with life.  In this process, my friends are all dying.  We are all getting older and time seems to be running out.  It can be so sudden, or it can take time, but the moment of death is still just that, a moment when we are gone.  As we age, it becomes imminent.  The process is what seems to be continuing as that inevitable moment gets closer.  Recently, my cousin died unexpectedly.  He was healthy and younger, but, with no warning, he died.  I could never have imagined this.  Then I still have some friends in their 90’s, still alive and alert, but I’d be a fool to not expect that call to come about their demise, if I’m still alive.  Death is just so imminent as we age, but how many times we escape it is not.  So we continue on, and on, until that brief moment which must come and the journey is over.  Enjoy it while one can and don’t complain as you continue to live and escape the inevitable a bit longer.

God Exists?

By Patrick Flanagan

 

The question is not whether God exists, but rather “Do You Believe that God Exists?”

From almost time immemorial, the question of God’s existence has intrigued the minds of men from the days of Plato, Socrates, even to the days of my birth and 68 years of my search for Him and perhaps soon to come to a conclusion in a great atom smasher searching for the God Particle as proof, a perhaps modern vision of God Himself.  Imagine the gall of man and presumption that he can reduce God to a particle as a way of finally proving His existence.  Only man could presume to reduce infinity down to a single particle in resolving one of the greatest mysteries of all humankind.

My efforts to find God, to know He exists have consumed almost all of my life’s thoughts and have certainly taken a very different approach than any of those others before me who have also searched.  And this is such an important question to answer.  It changes everything.  If God exists, then the questions of why man exists all must be then answered; if He does not, then the future of man and why he exists changes just so radically and carries a very heavy weight upon us all.

Then there is also the question that if I prove that God exists, how do I then get others to agree and to share the truth which answers the ageless question that must possess almost all of mankind?  Unlike others before me, I wish to approach this question and answer in a much different manner: I believe I have proven God exists finally, and by explaining this adventure, I will also hopefully lead you to the same truth at your own time, place and manner.  Certainly the search for God’s existence is both subjective and objective, but His existence can only really be the objective resolution of the question.  Otherwise, the search becomes meaningless.  So we must engage in a journey of life, my life and the lives of others, and at the end finally reach our destination.  Be patient and aware of the events as we travel together toward that end.

Preface

Like all of us, born from the womb, God didn’t even enter our minds even though many might say He had a hand in our very conception.  I was no different.  My brain and mind were clean as a slate, totally unaware of what was to come.  Why, I didn’t even know that I may also have a soul but I did know the happiness of being held close to my mother and that I was protected.  I was innocent and unbeknown of what was to come.  It wasn’t until later that I realized I was being exposed to love as one of my first real experiences, and it was an unconditional love.  Or at least it should be, but, sadly, often is not for others.

So my first real memories of God and His existence started out at Assumption School managed and run by the Dominican nuns.

I guess one might say that I was blessed from the beginning in that my parents strongly believed in education, tried to be religious and that it must be a quality type of education.  Most of what we gossip about nuns in those days really happened to me.  They were tough and started out in teaching the assumption that God existed; it was a given to them.  Each morning, we started in our Religion classes.  And all day, no opportunity was missed to remind us that we were getting a Catholic education.  The Baltimore Catechism was the Bible and foundation.  Then at night, on a black and white television, the message would be reinforced by Bishop Fulton Sheen who would reinforce St. Thomas Aquinas.

My first real confrontation with God’s existence really came about in the fifth grade where I was exposed to the Five Proofs of God by St. Thomas Aquinas.  This was different than Religion class; it was the beginnings of Philosophy.  They are not the same.  I was fascinated by St. Thomas, his logic and thoroughness.  No stone was left unturned.  I read those five proofs over and over, wrote essays in English class on them, and even became an altar boy and sang in the Church choir, all in the quest for God’s existence.  But I still didn’t believe.  I still questioned and I would continue to question throughout grammar school.  To me, God’s existence was still in question.  Yet almost all my fellow students and their parents all seemed to know He existed…or did they?  At times, it became difficult to ask questions as my peer group all seemed to accept God.  I went to the public library for solitude and also to expand my search, mostly in the stacks of Philosophy.  And I prayed.  By my eighth grade year, I was seriously thinking of entering the priesthood thinking that the seminary would complete my search.  At the last minute, I changed my mind.

The Gospel Truth

 

So in 1959, I enrolled into Bishop O’Dowd High School to continue in my search.  I was honored to have a number of very brilliant priests as my teachers and all were striving for excellence and professionalism in education.  Now my Religion classes had changed to Theology classes.  Plus I had to study Latin, the Romans and the Greeks.  My search was expanded and my professors encouraged me as they all assumed that I believed in God’s existence.  By this time, I had become silent in my disbelief.  My thoughts were radical and different in an environment which just seemed to accept God as a given, He was the Gospel truth that all just accepted.

During those four years, I was exposed to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, naturally St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal, and Kant.  I was confronted with the ageless debates on good vs. evil, ethics, knowledge, and all the other areas of philosophical dissertation and exploration.  As strong as St. Thomas was in his Five Proofs, I began to realize that others had spent time in proving that God did not exist.  And their arguments were strong and intelligent, logical.  I was now in more conflict than ever before in my search.  I began to question the very existence of truth, did I even really exist, let alone did God exist.  Instead of answers, I was being confronted with more questions and a further expansion of my quest.  My thoughts were very confused and in conflict.  I still did not believe in God and now realized that my search was expanded to even my own existence and whether good and evil even existed.  It was here that I was confronted with a subjective morality thanks to Dewey and others and now the objective morality even came into question despite the eight years of Dominican nuns saying otherwise.  Perhaps this was the start of the Church’s crisis which few wanted to discuss in Catholic schools.

It was in those four years that I began to revolt against my Catholic education.  Instead of solid truth, I was discovering that many were also questioning God’s existence and that the Church was being threatened to its very core.  My original strong belief in objective morality was now under attack as I expanded my awareness and search.  I was constantly reading and going to the library.

And then, in my junior year, the priests started confiscating books from me.  They were my books but they took them away if I brought them to school.  How could a priest steal and why.  The very foundation of my education now was being challenged and raised the level of my questioning even more.  Perhaps the major confiscation was my books by Aldous Huxley.  That only peaked my curiosity as I wondered what other books may be censored by the Catholic Church.  Thank God for our public libraries as I searched for more books which I shouldn’t be reading.  And it was here that I discovered changes happening in the world which few wished to discuss in the Catholic environment.  And it went back so far to my birth when this quest for God started.  These were days when even the U.S. government was censoring Miller and James Joyce.

The world had changed during WWII.  And it changed in the cafes of France.  The worlds of Theology, Philosophy, History and Literature were all merging together over cappuccinos and lattes.  From Huxley, I moved to Arthur Miller, Anais  Nin, Hemingway, Orwell and realized that quite another world was developing.  The complexities of Philosophy were interacting with the complexities of life, history and just living one’s personal life.  God’s life was being discussed in a number of different disciplines and trying to challenge the everyman to question.  It was the Everyman Era.  All while I was being kept in solitary to be indoctrinated with a pure Catholic or Christian world that censored and stole to prevent the question of God’s existence.  I still, and even more now, did not believe in God’s existence.  After 12 years of education, I began to realize that a whole new world had been kept from me and that I really knew nothing except that others were asking the same question and still not answering or finding the real truth to the question.  I was discovering agnosticism and atheism and having to give both a fair hearing in my disbelief.  I was now about to graduate from high school with still no answers to the central question of my life, but I also began to realize that I was not alone.  Perhaps God was dead.  Time Magazine even carried the news on its cover.  Was that the Gospel Truth?  So the Church responded with Vatican II.

Ite, Missa Est

So I then continued on in my journey by choosing the University of San Francisco as my next step in education.  This was a Jesuit university and Jesuits were known for their high demands in education and in having a very strong base in theology and philosophy.  Yet they also were known as radicals in the Church.  It seemed like “questioning” was a given in their creed and, considering my rebelliousness, it was the place for me to be, learn and continue in my search.

It was exciting times as Vatican II was in session and in deliberation.  It appealed to the radicalism of Catholic youth who seemed to enjoy conflict and wanted to challenge all of the past.  Student debates on priests getting married, use of birth control, the place of mysticism in the Church were frequent and heated.  In all of the background was the drug community of the Haight Ashbury and the re-emergence of spiritual meditation aided by hash and mushrooms.  It was about this time that I started to look at the Rosary as a form of spiritual meditation.  A new interest in Asian religions also began to emerge in an effort to greatly expand the reach of Christianity and its tenets.

In his own way, Pope John XXIII opened the Council with a portend of things to come:

“What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council.   What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men’s moral lives.   What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms.   For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.”  Blessed Pope John XXIII (Opening address to the Council)

The sense of hope for the Church was strong, but I still did not believe in God.  Vatican II did excite me and encourage me in my quest.  It gave renewed strength to continue my search.  These were things that I could believe in.  Many of my religious teachers of my past began leaving the priesthood as part of that questioning.  I was no longer by myself in my questions.  We were on a very new and different journey.  And many began to question.  The brainwashing of the Dominican nuns and the Baltimore Catechism were coming to an end or at least now in question as well.

Michael Novak, another radical, described Vatican II as a spirit that "sometimes soared far beyond the actual, hard-won documents and decisions of Vatican II. ... It was as though the world (or at least the history of the Church) were now to be divided into only two periods, pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II.   Everything 'pre' was then pretty much dismissed, so far as its authority mattered. For the most extreme, to be a Catholic now meant to believe more or less anything one wished to believe, or at least in the sense in which one personally interpreted it.  One could be a Catholic 'in spirit'.  One could take Catholic to mean the 'culture' in which one was born, rather than to mean a creed making objective and rigorous demands.  One could imagine Rome as a distant and irrelevant anachronism, embarrassment, even adversary.  Rome as 'them'. “  Part of me said yes, and part of me said no.  Vatican II was a time of both rupture and of consolidation for me.  It was painful and exciting both for what was to follow.

It was here at the University that I discovered Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J., another Jesuit radical.  Perhaps he attracted me as I had wanted to be a paleontologist as a youngster.  I was fascinated by Darwin and again questioned him against Adam and Eve.  To me, this was tied to the search for God’s existence.  It was Chardin who opened my eyes up to the possibility of man evolving as an individual and also as a species.  And it was Chardin who taught me to see evolution as truth yet still be consistent to believe also in Creationism as truth.  Chardin was a radical as well, having much of his writings restricted, but I never gave up on him.  The Church was in revolt.  For some reason, I felt that I was getting closer to discovering God and that the truth was attainable.  My search continued.

These were the times when Harvey Cox’s Secular City was in full debate on the campus.  It was ushering in the Age of the Spirit for Christianity and that seemed to me natural.  God was, if He existed, around us all and not just in the Catholic Church.

 Karl Rahner S.J.  came under attack about this time from the Jesuit order itself.   In his own way, he was trying to revitalize St. Thomas Aquinas with the post-war movement of existentialism.  It  seemed to me that he was also probing for the truth and joined the ranks of Chardin.  The basis for Rahner's theology was that all human beings have a latent experience of God in any perception of meaning or "transcendental experience."  Was this somehow the path to my discovery of God?  The idea of a special revelation became something that warranted more investigation.  I was now moving into a much different area than ever before in my life and was dismayed by his period of censorship.

My search for God was really also trying to become aware of God around me.  As this states it quite well, I quote: “The basis for Rahner's theology is that all human beings have a latent ("unthematic") awareness of God in any experiences of limitation in knowledge or freedom as finite subjects. Because such experience is the "condition of possibility" for knowledge and freedom as such.  Rahner borrows the language of Kant to describe this experience as "transcendental.  This transcendental experiential factor reveals his closeness to Maréchal’s Transcendental Thomism.  Such is the extent of Rahner's idea of the "natural knowledge of God" — what can be known by reason prior to the advent of "special" revelation. God is only approached asymptotically, in the mode of what Rahner calls "absolute mystery." While one may try to furnish proofs for God's existence, these explicit proofs ultimately refer to the inescapable orientation towards Mystery which constitute — by transcendental necessity — the very nature of the human being.”

This kind of explained my journey up to this time.  And showed me why my quest had and was so difficult in achieving.  What shocked me was Rahner’s dependence upon the early writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and his effort to renew and rediscover Aquinas’ relevance to the 20^th century and the turmoil of Vatican II.  It was if my years of search were coming right back to their beginnings.

So it was natural now that I finally ended up in the philosophy of Jacques Maritain and his wife, Raissa.  It was in his teachings and philosophy that my search was coming to an end and providing me with new tools to continue in my search for God’s existence.  All of this was beginning to make sense but I still had not found God.

Tools of One’s Trade

In my search, I had started out with logic and critical thinking.  St. Thomas Aquinas had been one of the strongest in this area with his “Five Proofs”.  I had also tried getting closer to God by my years as an altar boy and singing Gregorian Chant.  My years of Latin, study of early philosophers up to the modern ages had also expanded my use of critical thought in my search.  Then came the days of Vatican II and the movement of mysticism and meditation.  The mistaken use of drugs as a means to find God was also part of those changes but led nowhere.  The turmoil and debate, censorship and acceptance, all of the changes of the 1960’s seemed to again reinforce that I was not alone and that many were in search of God.  Many in the world were coming to believe that “God was Dead!”  Yet the existentialism of God and Christ was now being introduced by Jacques Maritain in opposition to all of the agnostics and atheists whose ranks seemed to be growing.

It was not the philosophy of Maritain which captured me though it did reinforce my respect for St. Thomas in the 20^th century.  No, the major breakthrough came from the experience of him and his wife with the “Light”.  It had nothing to do with critical thinking, philosophy, but rather the experience of God Himself.  What fascinated me was that both Jacques and his wife were both agnostics, perhaps even atheists at some points, always questioning like I.  While I have never been able to verify this, one day both walked into the Cathedral of Chartreuse and walked out later with both believing in God.  How could this have happened?   They both then went on to be baptized and became great leaders in a neo-revitalization of St. Thomas.  It is just so miraculous to see how they spread God’s existence to all that they touched.  How could all of this happen?  How could an existentialist philosophy which appealed to non-believers now be adopted by those that believe and make it a very strong counter-movement in the support of God and Christ?  For the first time, I saw Jesus Christ as the perfect existentialist and this brought new meaning to all of my Catholic teachings.  St. Thomas was again relevant.  Christ became more relevant.  The very idea of an “unconditional love” was just such a perfect “existentialism”. 

So it was in one moment that everything changed.  While I cannot verify the event, it is verifiable from the words of Jacques and Raissa themselves that this moment of transformation involved a “Light”.  A brief moment happened which changed their entire lives and ended their search for what we all search for, a God and a greater meaning for our very existence.  It was not all the teachings, the philosophies, the strange events in one’s life, all of my efforts; it was just one moment, a transcendentalist moment.

This is not to say that everything was a waste of time.  No, it was a long journey and I gained so much in knowledge and wisdom.  If not making that journey, I may not have come to know that the answer was in just one moment.  And I just owe so much to the Maritains for giving me that knowledge and revelation.  All these years of searching, praying to finally find God, and then now to realize that it all came down to one event, one moment.  I call this moment, “Listening to God”.  That is how we come to know of God’s existence, a brief moment when He talks to us and we are humble enough to listen.  And then we firmly believe that He does exist.  The search is finally over but only to lead on to many other searches for a spiritual life.

How to Listen

We always seem to “pray” to God, talk to Him when we need things or are sad.  I remember an important book I once read by Mortimer Adler, “How to Speak and How to Listen”.  Seems obvious to me that listening is just as important as speaking.  Ironically, Adler also was a Thomist but conducted his own search which paralleled mine.  His conflicts were the same as mine.

He was such a brilliant man and it is ironic that his answers were in a book which had nothing to do with God, but with just the human need to communicate.  It was Christ who tried to teach us how to listen.  Sadly, I believe that Adler never really believed in God and never followed his own advice to “listen” to God as a way of finding that belief.  Perhaps in the end, he finally did see his own “Light”.  We may never know.

Adler once wrote: “I suggest that the men and women who have given up religion because of the impact on their minds of modern science and philosophy were never truly religious in the first place, but only superstitious. The prevalence and predominance of science in our culture has cured a great many of the superstitious beliefs that constituted their false religiosity. The increase of secularism and irreligion in our society does not reflect a decrease in the number of persons who are truly religious, but a decrease in the number of those who are falsely religious; that is, merely superstitious. There is no question but that science is the cure for superstition, and, if given half the chance with education, it will reduce the amount that exists. The truths of religion must be compatible with the truths of science and the truths of philosophy. As scientific knowledge advances, and as philosophical analysis improves, religion is progressively purified of the superstitions that accidentally attach themselves to it as parasites. That being so, it is easier in fact to be more truly religious today than ever before, precisely because of the advances that have been made in science and philosophy. That is to say, it is easier for those who will make the effort to think clearly in and about religion, not for those whose addiction to religion is nothing more than a slavish adherence to inherited superstition. Throughout the whole of the past, only a small number of men were ever truly religious. The vast majority who gave their epochs and their societies the appearance of being religious were primarily and essentially superstitious.”

As you read what follows, you must consider also what Adler said, “Applying … insight to the fact that the existing cosmos is merely one of a plurality of possible universes, we come to the conclusion that the cosmos, radically contingent in existence, would not exist at all were its existence not caused. A merely possible cosmos cannot be an uncaused cosmos. A cosmos that is radically contingent in existence, and needs a cause of that existence, needs a supernatural cause, one that exists and acts to ex-nihilate this merely possible cosmos, thus preventing the realization of what is always possible for merely a possible cosmos, namely, its absolute non-existence or reduction to nothingness.”  Could it be that physics now is close to seeing the infinity of many cosmos as we search for the God particle?  Does the existence of an infinity of dimensions now also lead us to the belief in God just as St. Thomas tried to lead us?

Adler finishes by pointing out that the conclusion reached conforms to Ockham’s Rule (the rule which states that we are justified in positing or asserting the real existence of unobserved or unobservable entities if-and only-if their real existence is indispensable for the explanation of observable phenomena) because we have found it necessary to posit the existence of God, the Supreme Being, in order to explain what needs to be explained-the actual existence here and now of a merely possible cosmos.

Adler stressed that even with this conclusion, God's existence cannot be proven or demonstrated, but only established as true beyond a reasonable doubt. However, in a recent re-review of the argument, John Cramer concluded that recent developments in physics appear to converge with and support Adler's argument, and that in light of such theories as the multiverse, the argument is no worse for wear and may, indeed, now be judged somewhat more probable than it was originally. To me, it is amazing just how all of the pieces now seem to be coming together.  It is all so Paschalian and Thomist, yet still consistent with Einstein.

I agree and disagree with Adler.  Belief in God can only be based upon a truth which is beyond a reasonable doubt.  But we seem to be closely approaching that moment in physics and in philosophy.  If we would only listen.

To listen to God is very different than how we listen to man.  He speaks to us almost in a multi-physical manner.  To listen to God, we must not just use our ears, but our eyes, our feelings, our minds, and all of our being.  We must be very observant as often He speaks not in words but in events.  Sometimes it may just be the “Light” of the Maritains.  If we listen, and we hear Him, we usually will now finally believe in God about as much as we can and under Adler’s constraints.  Much more than that, we cannot hope for until we finally die and experience the Truth in the end.

I guess I am blessed that God has spoken to me a few times in my life and I was listening.  People who know me, know that it is hard for me to listen so perhaps that is why it took me so long to believe in God.  I thought I would give you some instances where I listened so that maybe it would help you to also listen to God.  Perhaps we all listen to Him differently, or He speaks to us in a different way, but the most important is that we are aware and ready to listen when the time comes.  It may just be a “Light” or it may be something just particular to you.  What I do know is that if you listen carefully, you will finally believe in God as I now do.  And it is in support of this that I must say here that all great spiritual people I have met in my life have all been successful in listening to God.  They all believe and we are all brothers now in a new quest for a higher life of spiritualism.  The quest for life stays but just changes the loftiness of attainment.

God Speaks to Me

My first real listening to God was soon after I had read most of Jacques Maritain.  It was when I was dating my wife and going through the process of courtship.  All of a sudden, the thought came to me that she was trying to love me unconditionally.  She really did love me even with all of my faults.  I was both honored and humbled.  And it was then that I decided to also love her unconditionally; I thought I could really do this.  The feeling that went over me was quite unbelievable and I felt that God was there when we made this joint acceptance.  After all, He was just reminding us of what Christ tried to teach us all.  There was no light, but there was a very unusual love at that moment and I then believed in God.  Maybe Jacques and Raissa also felt that love when they saw the light.  I would like to believe it is so.

The second time that God spoke to me and I listened happened at the Grotto in Portland, Oregon.  It was on Good Friday and the occasion of my oldest daughter’s Confirmation.  By happenstance, I found myself within the Grotto alone and decided that I would pray the Stations of the Cross.  By this time in my life, I was searching for a higher level in my spiritual life.  I was fascinated by St. John of the Cross, Mother Teresa, and so many others who had clearly achieved very high levels of spirituality and goodness.  And they all had experienced the Hours of Darkness as part of that process of listening to God much more closely.

The Grotto had a small place where all of the Stations of the Cross were remembered with sculptures; in front of each, there was a wooden kneeler for one to kneel on as one commemorated that particular ordeal in Christ’s Passion.  The time was about noon when Christ first started his ordeal on that Friday and that I was going to commemorate in my prayers.  Perhaps this mystical ritual would absolve me of all of my sins and bring me peace.

So I prayed at each of the stations and finally finished.  I took all of this into my perspective and then realized that at each station, my knees had been very painful at the stations where Christ was in pain, but my knees had not been painful at stations where Christ was being consoled.  I went back and looked at each station again and realized that this was true and that this had happened.  Yet all the wooden kneelers were exactly the same.  How could all of this be?  Was it my imagination or was God trying to speak to me?

I still had time in the Grotto but I was shaken by these events.  I then saw a very large cast sculpture of Christ carrying the Cross in what was kind of a secluded area nearby.  I then decided to then pray the Rosary which I am a very big believer in as a form of spiritual meditation.  It can be a way of listening to God if we let it.

In the front of this area were two very large camellia plants in full flower with tons of bright red petals.  As I walked into this area where the large sculpture of Christ carrying His Cross was, all of the red petals of the two plants dropped to the ground as if tears of sorrow.  There was no wind; they just dropped in sorrow.  All of them and at once.  I looked at my watch and it was 3:00 p.m., the time we remember as to when Christ finally expired.  I then went into the area and said the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary in memory.  It was as if I could feel the tremendous sorrow of Christ’s mother as she removed her Son from the Cross.

After, I had a tremendous sense of peace and realized that I was very honored to have had Christ speak to me that day.  I just listened and my belief in His existence was firmly set within my heart, my mind and my soul.  The Grotto is a very holy place.

For the rest of my life, I have tried to rise in my spiritual capability.  This has not been very easy.  I have become a very big believer of the Rosary as a prayer which helps us to listen to God.  I have tried to meditate in different ways and tried to do good things for people in my life.  And I often am weak and I fail.  I wish and want God to speak to me more often but who am I to demand such a thing.  I can’t.  All I can do is listen and hope.  Sometimes I begin to doubt during these periods of darkness.  St. John and others warn of this in the quest for spirituality.  Then I remember the time in the Grotto and regain my strength and resolve.

At this time, it is important to note another time when God spoke to me.  It was a period when my daughter was very sick and ill.  There was nothing that I could do for her but wait.  One night I was so worried and upset, I went into our backyard for some peace during the night.  It was then that I saw demons upon the wall of her bedroom where she was resting.  They were so horrible and crawling all around her bedroom.  I was terrified.  I was helpless.  All I could think of doing was to pray the Rosary for the intention of my daughter and her safety.  After I was finished, all of these demonic shadows were gone and I had peace that she would recover which she did.  It was a very scary evening, but I realized that if demons exist, if evil exists, then God must also exist and good must as well.  I also realized that I am weak and cannot fight against the demons without God’s help or the help of His angels.  I was humbled as I realized just how helpless I am without God.  I realized just how hard humility is and how much we need to reach for it in our struggle for spirituality.  God spoke to me that night but in a way which I just was not prepared for.  I now knew that evil exists and that demons wish me to fail, to despair and to give up in my belief of God.  Ironically, the opposite was the result.

This happened again to me.  One night I entered into a bar in Virginia City.  I was drinking alcohol very heavy in those days.  I ordered a drink and then felt the presence of evil.  As I sipped my drink, I looked up to the wall of the bar and again saw the same demonic images there, as if they were watching me, hoping for my despair.  Again, I was very frightened and knew I had to leave.  I left immediately and said the Rosary as I drove home for my protection.  Again, God was talking to me that the presence of evil also strengthens the belief that God and good also exist and that they will be victorious.  I was listening to God again.

Not too long after the bar event, I developed a severe case of pancreatitis.  I rushed to the doctor’s office and he immediately rushed me to the hospital where I was informed that I could die within the next 24 hours if they didn’t get this to stop.  The cause was probably from my drinking of alcohol.  I had to take a test and wait for an hour to see what the doctors could do to save my life.  I was very scared and desperate.  I really thought I was going to die soon.

During my wait, I roamed the hospital and found a small chapel.  I decided to go in and say the Rosary, hoping that God would answer my prayers and allow me to survive.  I went in to the chapel, sat down and started to recite the Rosary.  By now, I use my fingers and have it memorized.  After, I felt tired and laid down in the pew to rest.  I fell asleep.

 

As I was sleeping, I had a dream.  In this dream, I was in the very same chapel at the hospital, sleeping in the pew but I was not alone.  Above me, over my stomach and pancreas were three small cherub angels.  They were all black dressed in flowery white dresses, hovering above me and waving their hands all around my stomach.  Imagine, black angels in white dresses.  Who could have dreamt of such an incongruity unless it was a reality.  I then woke up.  I then got up and left to go back to the doctors.  The pancreatitis was gone.  I left and stopped drinking alcohol from that point on in my life.  This time God spoke to me and kept me living for reasons that I still am not sure of.

Oh, there are other times when God spoke to me; sometimes I was listening, sometimes I was not.  The most important thing is to try to listen all of the time.  If you doubt God exists, maybe this will help you to find him.  It has been a very long journey for me.  I can only urge you to read some of the works I have discussed here, some of the brilliant men who shared the same journey as we all do.  I urge you to keep all of your senses open to the word of God, your eyes open to His light and how He speaks with the actions and events around us.  Be aware and be observant, listen.

One last instance of His speaking to me.  I have for a number of months been trying to help a good friend of mine regain his eyesight.  His wife had passed away and he got cataracts which progressed to such a point that he was really blind.  It has been a long battle and many visits to the hospital, the eye surgeon, to the grocery store to buy groceries, to the mail boxes to pick up mail.  Once blind, life is very limited, but we always had hope.  It was a lot of work and took a lot of time.  I will never forget the day of his first eye operation to remove the cataract and he was starting to see again.  Then the operation on his other eye and more of the world was coming back to him in his eyes.  It was then that I had such a feeling of honor that I now felt what Christ felt when He made the blind man see again.  That feeling is and was priceless. 

During this, both Mike and I went through a lot of emotions and despair.  We were disappointed with progress and often had doubts as to where we were going.  We had setbacks but we continued on.  It is just so frustrating to take a man who is blind grocery shopping.  One must have patience and perseverance.  But the gamut of emotions during this battle has been all over the place, both good and bad.  I often had my doubts about all of it but often told my friend that I think God wants us to do this.  Deep in my heart, I still wondered.  I wondered where we were going and whether all of this was worth it.  Our friendship provided us strength during the difficult times and I prayed.

Then one day, as I was leaving my friend at his home, I noticed a very bright red tulip growing in all of the weeds.  Red tulips are one of my favorites.  I told my friend right then, this is God speaking to us.  That we are doing the right things and that everything is going to be just fine.  That tulip was growing where none should have or could have grown, but it was just a quick word from God to both of us.  A few days later it was totally gone but the Word of God still stays with us.  And I now feel what Christ felt when he cured the blind man; I am so honored to have shared such a feeling in my life.  It makes all of the doubts and trials worthwhile, just with a tulip as a short word.  Brief and to the point.  But we had to listen.

I hope this helps you.  I hope that God will speak to you soon and often.  Just listen.

Up To Alaska!

Alaska, Here We Come

By Pat Flanagan and George Watters

 

 

It was the spring of 1963.  Right before our high school graduation.  George Watters and I had been working on getting a job in Cordova Alaska since the winter of 1962 and had succeeded with the help of my father, Joe Flanagan who represented Pt. Chehalis Packers in Cordova.  It was a small company which processed Dungenese crab, King Crab, Snow Crab and a bit of Salmon.  It was going to be our first real move toward independence from our parents and being on our own.  The goal was to go and work, make lots of money and then fly back in August or September to start our college years.

This wasn't an easy decision for us to make and we did have our reservations.  George had to borrow money from his father to pay for the plane trip and our costs to get started.  George's father argued with him on whether he should commit to the trip.  Without George, I'm not sure I would have committed to go by myself.  George was adament with his father that he could make it on his own and that he would pay the loan back.  Almost at the last minute, after George listened to his father's points of view, he cried at the dinner table and told his dad that he was probably right, and that maybe he shouldn't go.  His dad replied, "I want you to go!  I just want you to think realistically.  You will learn."  George borrowed the money and made the final decision to go.

 

Barney Neilsen was the owner of the company and worked out of Westport Washington and sold most of the product in the U.S. with Joe Flanagan handling a lot of the sales for the western United States.  He advised us and setup the job hiring with Jim Poore who was the plant manager in Cordova.  I will never forget one phone call just a month before we were scheduled to leave: "Make sure you bring sleeping bags and prepared to live a very rugged lifestyle.  About 50% of the town just burned down and fire trucks had to be airlifted in from Anchorage and Valdez so many of the buildings are gone."  All of the hotels were gone.  We had no place to stay but we never gave up on our plans.

 

The night before we were scheduled to leave, we had our Senior Prom.  What a night that was and we were ready to celebrate leaving early the next morning.  It was the start of a very turbulent time.  My date that night was Sandy Christiansen and I had hopes of making it to "2nd" or maybe even "3rd base".  I had my parents' car which was a seldom treat and didn't have to go with anyone; just Sandy and I.  After the dance, I drove up to a remote area where we wouldn't be disturbed and a favorite spot for "neckers".  Well, she just wasn't in a very cooperative mood.  Try as I may, my advances were severely slowed down and time was running out.  I got very upset and then decided it was just time to go home.  I slammed the accelerator down and backed out right into a big redwood tree with a crunch.  Great end to my Senior Prom.  I was so young in those days, I didn't even realize that a major dent had now appeared in the old Oldsmobile trunk.

 

The next morning, we had to get up early for our plane leaving Oakland Airport.  I was anxious and then discovered the huge dent before my mom came out to drive George and I to the plane.  She couldn't help but not see the damage and all I could think of was that I'm soon to be gone.  I told her I would explain when I got back and let's not be late for the plane!  It kind of worked but I knew I was in trouble.  I blamed it all on Sandy!

 

That plane trip was really something.  We started out in a jet from Oakland to Seattle.  From there, we transferred to a turbo-prop and on to Anchorage.  At Anchorage, we then boarded a small regular prop plane to finish our trip to Cordova.  In one day, we had flown on all three types of planes which I thought was exciting.  A moment of air history for me.

 

Well Cordova Airport was the real start of our trek to Alaska.  It was small and we had to get a taxi into the town which was a few miles away.  By then, we knew that the town had been devastated by the fire but was rebuilding slowly.  We went directly to the Pt. Chehalis plant which was on the wharves down by the inlet.  It was there that we were told that we would start working soon and to try to find a place to stay in the meantime.  There was nothing in the small town except for a few bars which had survived.  Both George and I were under-age but we could still go into the bars.  It was there that we started our search for a place to stay when not working.

 

Thanks to George's resourcefulness and imagination, we finally got a room, a small storeroom.  I can't remember the rent, but it wasn't cheap.  No beds and a heating pipe going right through the room.  One could look through parts of the wall and see the outside and I don't think we had any windows but these holes.  It was dark and primitive but it was our first home in Alaska.  And maybe we could get some free alcohol?  We were still just kids.  By then, it was the beginning of summer in June of 1963 and still the store room was very cold except for that pipe.  There was just enough room for both of us to sleep in our sleeping bags and it was just the beginning of our adventure, miserable as it was.  Curled around a pipe.

We then started off to work under the tutelage of Jim Poore.  Washing Dungenese crab with powered rotating brushes.  Getting all that mud off of them.  It was soon that we met our fellow employees and one was named Ken, a Tlinget Indian.  He told us of a home out by the lake which might give us room and board for a reasonable price and get us out of our storeroom.  After work, we followed up and met Ms. Hansen for the first time.  She was in charge of a Lutheran Home for juvenile delinquents and needed some role models to help these kids get back to a normal life.  So we made a deal, a minimal rent, free room and board in return for taking the kids to the movies, hikes, and just general fun things to do together.  The Lutheran Home was quite large and with a huge kitchen where Ms. Hansen made bread daily and cooked just so good.  After meals, we would always read a bit of the Bible and discuss it at the table.  There were probably about 20 kids in the home, and some were really difficult and dangerous, but not to us.  Some were mentally disadvantaged like Gook who was huge and had no clue as to his own strength.  I remember watching him one night ripping a door right off its hinges.  I kept my distance.



 

 That meeting with Ms. Hansen was the start of a very rewardable 3 months of time.  George and I continued to work when called at Pt. Chehalis and, in our time off, we spent counseling and taking some real tough kids out on trips to the real world.  Perhaps the most memorable were our two mountain climbing efforts to reach the summits of both Mt. Eccles and Mt. Eyak, the two highest mountain tops above Cordova.  We chose a small group of kids and climbed both mountains with basically no gear at all.  I think Mt. Eyak was the toughest and will never forget Gook shoving large boulders down upon us as we made our way to the top.  He thought that was fun.  I also remember along the way of finding a "lily" pond which was quite beautiful, and George taking off on his own to reach the summit by going across some very dangerous iced areas.  He made it to the top and we met him there.  On the trip to Mt. Eccles, we came across a porcupine and killed it so that we could eat it later.  That was really stupid as nobody wanted to skin it.  A really stupid thing but we were young and stupid in those days.

Another event was taking all of the kids out to a glacier.  Most of the roads in Cordova were named "11 Mile Road" or "13 Mile Road" as that was as far as they went.  Most ended at glaciers.  We spent the whole day picnicing and playing "Capture the Flag" with the kids.  It was a great time.  Most of the kids just needed to be kids again.

The Lutheran Home was a bit out of the main town of Cordova and a fairly good walk from work.  We had developed a short cut from the road through the brush from the road leading to town.  One day George confronted a large brown bear checking out the nearby garbage cans.  The bear checked George out.  He looked back at the garbage cans, looked at George, and then grabbed more food from the can.  Later that day, George measured the bear's footprint in the mud from his open fingers to his elbow and a little more.  Within the next few days, a hunting party from town killed the bear as they did not allow big brown bears near town or especially near Ms. Hansen's place.  It was common for us to be stopped by both bears and moose and always made our hearts beat a bit faster.

I also remember how big the hospital was in Cordova.  I got a case of histamine poisoning from handling all of the crabs and had to go in for treatment.  What amazed me was most of the patients were in for alcoholism or sexually transmitted disease.  Kind of gives one an idea on what people do during the winter and when no daylight ever hits during those times.  When we were there, the sun was up almost all of the day, just the opposite.

I will never forget one day at Pt. Chehalis coming to work and almost all of the women didn't show up for work.  I was told that the Coast Guard was in on leave and just gotten their paychecks.  The women were all busy servicing the Coast Guard and would be making much more money doing that than working in the cannery.  I couldn't believe some of the statistics.  Some women had sex more than 40 times in one day and came back with just tons of money.  For days they would all be comparing how much each had made during the two days of furlough.  Sex was clearly marketable in Cordova and a very hot commodity.  The ratio of men to women just was in favor of the women.

The other event I remember quite vividly was the night coming home from work when both Ken and George convinced me to go with them to a trailer outside of town where a French prostitute lived and worked.  Once there, they both pants'd me, knocked on the door and ran off.  There I was, basically naked as a fairly beautiful French woman opened her door.  I obviously had no money, being stark naked, and ran off as well.  Can you imagine?  I am now running naked through the forest, worrying about running into a bear or a moose, and wondering how I was going to get back into the Lutheran Home without causing a rucus.  It was a very scary run home.  I finally made it and crept through a window to our room and got dressed fast.  I can't remember what I did to George and Ken to get even, but I must have done something.  What a night that was!

One thing that George and I did at Pt. Chehalis was figure out better ways of doing things.  We ended up doing a lot of different jobs and doing them faster than most.  As a result, we got laid off because we were putting others out of work.  Jim Poore felt bad about this and helped get us a job at Alaska Packers with the warning to not work so hard or we would lose that job also.  We got paid a lot more and even got dinner sometimes when we had to work into the night.  The food was great!.  I remember one day working 20 hours straight; I was almost sleeping while I worked.  Just sliming salmon, cutting the blood vein out of the salmon's spine as it would affect the taste when canned unless all the blood was cleaned out.  I did thousands of salmon.  Some days we got double pay, sometimes even triple.  We were finally making good money but the work was sporadic and dependent upon the boats coming in to unload.  

Well, everything does come to an end and soon it was time for both George and I to return.  Ms. Hansen had left temporarily to go to a conference in Europe and the adults left behind certainly did not have the command she had when present.  The night before we left, the kids threw a riot in our honor and also to express their disatisfaction with the powers that be.  It was quite a night and the place was chaotic.  It finally settled down but a number of chairs were broken and the adults in charge had clearly been given a message that Ms. Hansen needed to come back. 

The next morning I will never forget all the kids going with us to the airport for our departure.  Many had tears in their eyes as we hugged each other and made commitments to keep in touch.  It was a very moving experience for both George and I.  We had made many friends and they were all good kids in our eyes who just hadn't been given a chance to be good.  We respected them all and they all respected us.

George and I came home but without telling our parents.  By then, I had a fairly long red beard and surprised my mom when I got home.  She thought I was a burglar.  Then she recognized me and gave me a big hug.  George's parents weren't home and we knew they wouldn't be.  We planned it like that so that we could throw a big party at his house for our return from Alaska.  We thought it was a great idea and we even got a few kegs of beer to make sure it was a great party.  Bad idea.  The evening got more raucous as the beer levels dropped and finally the police came and broke the party up.

The only reason we didn't get arrested at our return party at George's house was that Andrea Galvin (whose uncle owned Galvin's Butcher Shop on McArthur) was one of the attendees. She lived right across the street from George and was the daughter of the reserve chief of police. She intervened with a few tears in her eyes and the police let us all go. When George's parents got home several days later, they called George to their bedroom and showed him some beer cans they had found in their bed and in their closet. George remembers at the party that Alan Peacock spent most of the time naked and passed out in the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom.  I seemed to have missed that one. 

I don't think anybody was arrested but it was the final denouement for a very amazing and exciting summer in Alaska.  A summer that I and George have never forgotten.  We were still just kids.