Out in Africa

"When I was younger, so much younger than today..." one of the attractions of visiting my grandma was the unusual air mail letters (aerogrammes) that she often received from a Jesuit missionary priest in Uganda. What a thrill it was to hear about the "adventures" of Fr. Gene Hattie.

I got to meet him once when I was in college. He used to return to the USA during summers to visit his patrons. My grandma was involved in mission Circle 7 at her church. That particular summer, grandman hosted a visit from Fr. Hattie. We had cake and coffee and, of course, said a rosary.

By the time I moved to Connecticut, my grandma's health was fading. She was dying for 40-some years (but she finally was right). Anyway, during that time, I lost track of Fr. Hattie.

Then, about 4 years ago, something of a miracle occurred. I received one of those junk mail letters from the Jesuits soliciting donations for their holy work and the letter specifically mentioned Fr. Hattie! What was even more significant was that just a few days before receiving the solicitation, I got to wondering about "what ever happened to ol' Fr. Hattie."

So I started to send a few bucks to Fr. Hattie every month and, sure enough, I received one of his famous aerogrammes, written by an old fashioned manual typewriter (see picture above and extract below).

About a year ago, Fr. Hattie was sort of forced to retire due to health reasons. So now he is in a Jesuit Retreat Home in Kenya. You can write to him at:
     Fr. Eugene F. Hattie, S.J.
     Pedro Arrupe Community
     P.O. Box 978
     Karen, Nairobi 00502
     KENYA

If you are interested in supporting Fr. Hattie's most recent project: the orphans of Nsumba Uganda, he recommends that donations be sent to the nuns who are now running the orphanage (do not send any money to Detroit or Chicago):
     IHMR
     Sr. Christine Nantaba
     5244 Manning Road
     Indianapolis, IN 46228
Clearly mark on the check: Fr. Hattie's orphans in Nsumba Uganda.

Of course, the Jesuits have missions all over the world and you are free to donate $ to whatever mission and wherever. But Fr. Hattie has a special place in my heart. I hope that you will pray for his health and his orphans.

National Trails Day

The weather in CT was beautiful today: started cool (50s) and got sunny with blue sky (near 80).

We started early today with an 8 a.m. roller hockey game. This is the start of a new session (Summer). Richard's team, the Rangers, got a good start by winning 10-0.

I had seen some adverts about today (Saturday June 4, 2011) being some sort of trails day (i.e., hiking). I later learned that today was National Trails Day 2011 (see logo above) and Connecticut Trails Day Celebration 2011. 

Heublein Tower

Lynn was game and had several ideas on where we could hike. She likes to walk around some of the trails around the local reservoir. We agreed (although Richard was somewhat reluctant) to hike to Heublin Tower from a different direction than we have done previously. From the map, it looked like about 1.5 miles each way.

View from tower looking toward Hartford.

We started at the parking lot of Water Treatment Facility at MDC Reservoir #6 in Bloomfield, CT. We hiked up the hill on one of CT's blue trails, the Metacomet Trail to the top of the ridge and the Heublein Tower which is part of Talcott Mountain State Park.

Richard and I climbed the 120 steps to the observation deck and got great views (see picture above). As you can see from the postcard (at the left), the Tower is located on the edge of a long ridge; look carefully, and you will notice the city of Hartford in the background.  As part of Trails Day, the Friends of Heublein Tower were there selling hot dogs and hamburgers and snacks. So Richard and I had a burger to fuel us for the descent back to the car. Lynn wanted to show us the Talcott Mountain Science Center, a private school a "short" walk down the traill; it is located at a former Nike missile/radar site what seemed like miles from the route. But what the heck, it was a nice day.

Who knows how far we actually hiked today but it was probably at least 5 miles. And boy were we hot & tired, stiff, and sore by the time we returned to my car.  Richard enjoyed it too; see how happy he looks in the picture (clicke by Lynn) at the right? What kept him going was thought that at the completion of the hike was Dad's car that has "max A/C" (versus Mom's car with "green A/C" [i.e., windows]).

Of course, all the walkin' caused Richard to work up an appetite, so Richard and I returned to Angelina's Pizzaria for a salad and slice of pepperoni pizza. They had the Red Sox game on while we ate (see picture below). We dropped Lynn at her apartment so she could catch a nap since see had been up since 5 a.m.

Inside of Angelina's Pizzaria.

What a good day. Thank you God.

Afternoon at the Cove

The Jones Beach Air Show has been a Memorial Day Weekend tradition for Richard and me the past few years. But not this year. Instead of performing in the USA, the Air Force's Thunderbirds are doing a show outside of the USA, in Turkey.

This year, Richard and I drove to Fall River, Massachusetts yesterday (Saturday 5/28/2011) and visited Battleship Cove, about a 2-hour drive from Hartford. This site has the WWII-era battleship, USS Massachusetts; a WWII-era submarine, USS Lionfish; a destroyer, USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.; two WWII PT boats; and, a Soviet-built missile corvette, Hiddensee.

We were there for about 4 hours. The weather was mixed. When we arrived, the temperature was cool and the sky was gray and dark; we thought we felt some small rain drops. But later, the sun started to peek through, and by the end of the day, the sky was totally blue and sunny (and hot).

At the start, we were startled by the PTs boats we came across unexpectedly inside two buildings; they loomed up over us out of the gray. Then we explored the battleship, climbing up and down, going from stern to bow and back. We had a little lunch in the battleship. Then we toured the missile corvette, submarine, and destroyer. In the forward torpedo room of the submarine we met a veteran who grew up in Clevo and graduated from Collinwood High School in 1957. The picture of us above was taken by a man from Germany.

We also have a tradition of getting those "special" pennies (see picture at left). Richard has a whole collection from different places we have visited. An angel assisted us for this one. I did not have a penny and neither did the snack bar but a gentleman generously gave me two!

We returned to West Hartford just in time for supper. So we stopped at one of our favorite local pizza places, Angelina's Pizzeria. We shared a salad and a "slice" of pepperoni pizza. The "slice" is actually two huge slices or about half a small pizza. We also got a slice of cheese and took home half (i.e., a regular size slice) for Lynn.