Devshirme

Tag Day always used to fill me with dread.  Two hours or so standing in the entryway of a local bank, making awkward conversation with strangers, and guilting people into throwing change or a dollar into the little carton things we held was no kid’s idea of fun, but it was something we had to do once a year for Little League and Babe Ruth league.  Tag Day now, at least here in Worcester, is a lot different.  The local Ty Cobb Little League (I think it is hysterical that the league is named after one of the nastiest players who ever lived, although he was a heck of a competitor, so that is good) had its Tag Day this past Saturday. The days of asking for money at the bank are gone – these kids collect at intersections throughout the city.  The parents are there as well – it is much too dangerous to leave kids, I suppose, the way we used to be dropped off.  I dutifully contributed – it is a great cause – but I must say I have problems with this system.  The biggest complaint I have is it is extremely dangerous.  The players, and in reality the parents who seemed to be doing most of the work, wander in and out of lanes as cars are moving.  I pray no one gets hurt during one of these events.  There is much banter with drivers and each other, and people get distracted easily.  The Little League is not the only group that does this – other charities, school organizations, etc. can be found fairly often at Worcester’s intersections.  I do not like to encourage this way of doing things but I always contribute – I usually have my collar on, and how bad would it look if a priest did not give something?  But the system needs to be rethought.  There is no reason we can’t go back to the standing at the bank (this time with a parent in tow) rite of passage that we all went through back in the day.

UPDATE: Apparently the law in Worcester is that you have to be 18 or older to “can” in the street.  This explains why it looks like the ‘rents are doing all the work.

Last night at GOYA we were roaming around the front of the Cathedral grounds cleaning up stones that had been tossed from the roof when the snow was cleared (there is a layer of stones on the flat sections of the roof).  At one point I was lingering near the sundial and started to point out to Harry V. the gnomon and dial of what most people assume is merely a decoration.  In fact the dial is angled and calibrated to tell time correctly – I checked this out when I first arrived here in Worcester.  I noticed, though, that there was a crack near the base of the column holding up the dial, and I soon discovered the column was sheared all the way through – mark this up as yet another casualty of the huge snowstorms we had this winter – no doubt piles of snow and fatigue caused this shearing.  Harry lugged the broken piece into the building for safekeeping, and the House Committee is already on the job of fixing it in time for Holy Week.

We had a long, busy and fun Sunday today at the Cathedral, with, in addition to the usual orthros and liturgy, the procession for the Elevation of the Cross as well as the traditional March 25 doxology with the Greek School students.  There were also several mercy meals, a surprise 50th birthday party, and later in the afternoon the Greek School’s Annunciation/Greek Independence Day program.

We had 5 priests in the altar along with 16 altar boys and 2 seminarians, so things were rather crowded.  We ran out of daffodils to give out but fortunately were able to cannibalize the altar flowers and some lucky people at the end of the line received white roses.  Fr. Dean also acknowledged several guests.  Fr. Chris, whom Fr. Dean presented with a cross as we sang “Axios”, is the model for the hockey-loving priest in the movie Do You Wanna Dance, a classic movie about Greek-Americans.  We also honored Gordon Dick, the owner of P A Cleaners on Millbrook St. in Worcester.  Gordon, a devout Catholic, does not charge to clean vestments and church items like altar cloths.  He does the same for police and fire uniforms.  He has saved the Cathedral thousands through the years through this stewardship.  I do not usually endorse businesses here on the blog, but if you have dry cleaning to be done please consider patronizing this business.  Gordon doesn’t do this for us to drum up business nor does he seek recognition, but we are thankful to him – he has a business to run yet does this for our Cathedral and Worcester community.  On a bittersweet note, we also said goodbye to Mike Klezaras today on his last Sunday in Worcester.  Mike’s time here was relatively brief, but he had a positive effect on all of us, and we are blessed to have known him and Kathy.  We will miss them.

The Greek School program was great – many thanks to the students and parents as well as the PTA.  Rubina and the two Elenis did their usual stellar job – people have no idea how much hard work goes into preparing the students and putting on this event.  Rubina’s remarks on the significance of Greek Independence Day were particularly striking – it is indeed an event which we should always commemorate.

Today our family attended the premier Worcester cultural event of the season – the St. Spyridon Preschool Art Show/Open House.  The children as well as Ms. Jenn and Ms. Jackie worked very hard for five weeks in preparation for the opening.  The students learned about artists like Albers, Monet and Pollock while being exposed to a variety of mediums.  They tried their hands at many new creative art experiences, and the results speak for themselves.  The open house/art show continues Sunday after church – make sure to check things out.  Here are some photos:

The room was reconfigured for the event for maximum ease of passage and display surface:

Here is a mobile that Vaia made, as well as her self-portrait:

I was driving in Holden today on my way to visit a parishioner when I saw a sign in the town center for a Civil War discussion or roundtable at the senior center (or something like that).  I was surprised; the Civil War (War of Southern Independence, Second American Revolution, etc.) doesn’t get much play here in Massachusetts.  In the South, of course, it is a different story – you are never too far from a battlefield or historical place, and the Civil War section of bookstores is usually huge.  There is some natural interest in the Revolutionary War, but nothing like what you see in southern states for the blue and the gray.

As soon as this thought drifted out of my mind, I drove by streets named Vicksburg, Bull Run, and Ft. Sumter.  Clearly, something was going on here!  What possible connection could Holden, Mass. have with the Civil War?  Well, sometimes I forget that this is old town New England.  Most of the people I know in Holden have long names that end in “os” but of course we are not ‘true’ yankees in the classic sense: ).  Holden, as I imagine did most every other New England town, sent its share of boys to the war.  Here is an excerpt from Maj. Isaac Damon’s history of Holden:

When eighty years had passed away, and, with the years, the noble men and women of the Revolutionary times, then was found in their children the same love of liberty and right that characterized them; and we find the following recorded in Schouler’s “History of Massachusetts in the Civil War,” under the name of our town; —

“Population in 1860, 1,945; in 1865, 1,846. Valuation in 1860, $796,813; in 1865, $853,695.

“The first legal town meeting to act upon matters connected with the war was held on the 20th of April, 1861, at which fifteen hundred dollars were appropriated ‘for the benefit of the members of the Holden Rifle Company and their families; the same to be expended under the direction of the selectmen.’ [This was a company in the three months' service, and left fort the seat of war, April 18th, in the second regiment that went from Massachusetts.] A town meeting was held July 19, which voted ‘to extend the hospitalities of the town to the members of the company on their return from the war.’ One hundred dollars were appropriated for the purpose.”

As the whole town turned out when this company left for the seat of war to bid them farewell and Godspeed, so likewise did they turn out to welcome them home.

“Holden furnished two hundred and four (204) men for the war, which was a surplus of four above the demands. Eleven were commissioned officers. The whole amount of money appropriated and expended by the town on account of the war, exclusive of State aid, was $7,963.38, and a large amount was probably contributed by private subscription. The ladies of Holden on Sunday, April 21, 1861, instead of going to church, met in the town hall, and worked from nine o’clock until sundown for the members of the rifle company which had just started for the seat of war; and, from that time until the close of the Rebellion, they labored faithfully for the benefit of the soldiers, sending their contributions chiefly through the Sanitary and Christian Commission.”

Soon after the close of the war, the Soldiers’ Monument Association was formed, its object being to procure funds to secure some suitable monument to commemorate the fallen soldiers. The funds increased from year to year until 1876, when they amounted to about $1,100. The town hall was extensively remodeled that year, and made into a memorial hall by placing tablets in the interior, bearing the name and date of death of each soldier who gave his life for his country in the late war. The four tablets are of white marble, with which are chiseled several beautiful designs. These tablets are placed at the end of the hall, on either side of the platform, and upon them are the names of thirty soldiers who perished in the war.

Although they are

“Under the sod and the dew Waiting the judgment day,”

Yet the memory of their sacrifice and noble deeds is ever fresh in the hearts of their comrades and fellow-citizens, and from year to year their graves are strewn with garlands of flowers. To narrate the deeds of valor performed, the suffering in rebel prisons, on the march and on the battle-fields, would be only to relate the history of soldiers who went from every town and hamlet in the Old Bay State. The names inscribed upon the tablets are as follows: -

Capt. Ira J. Kelton, George T. Bigelow, Albert Creed, John Fearing, Edward Clark, Charles Gibbs, James W. Goodnow, James W. Haley, Lyman E. Keyes, George W. Newell, Michael Riley, John B. Savage, Amasa A. Howe, George T. Johnson, John K. Houghton, William C. Perry, Levi Chamberlain, Frank Lumazette, Uriah Bassett, Henry M. Fales, George Thurston, Calvin Hubbard, Sergt. Harlan P. Moore, Winslow B. Rogers, Alfred S. Tucker, Henry M. Holt, H. Erskine Black, Elisha C. Davenport, John Handley, Horace L. Truesdell.

The soldiers returning from the war formed Theron E. Hall Post 77, G.A. R. This post holds monthly meetings in the town hall.

Yesterday was fun.  We had the Sunday of Orthodoxy liturgy and procession, with Fr. Dean and I wearing green vestments in honor of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which started a little bit after we finished with church.  This was the first time in five years that we have not had baptisms or other stuff on parade Sunday, so I went home, had a quick lunch, and walked from my house to a reviewing spot on Park Ave. with some friends.  I had an interesting walk.  Every block or two I would have an encounter where someone would greet me.  These ranged from respectful “hello Father” comments from homeless people to happy “hey padre!” or things of that nature to drunken “forgive me father” exclamations by people having way too much fun (or thinking they were).  Well, my presence at the parade was pretty much the most religious thing about it.

Like Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, and things associated with it, has largely lost its religious significance.  The parade, aside from a float from the KofC and maybe a few others organizations, had nothing religious about it.  It was largely an excuse to be with friends and drink beer.  And I understand this – it was a great time, and no one wants to do Bible study at a parade.  But we celebrate the saint for a reason, and there is nothing preventing us from reverencing the saint while also having fun.  I talked to Fr. Timothy briefly about this this morning – we need to do something.  St. Patrick is, after all, an Orthodox saint.  I am thinking a  Cathedral float in the parade next year depicting St. Patrick as he is shown in the icon as well as a reviewing area for Cathedral peeps.  We could have literature on the saint to give to people as well as party together as a community, which we all love to do.  It may not have much of an effect but at least we will be making a stand for the saint as well as having a good time while doing it.

Here in Worcester we have received a ridiculous amount of snow with no mild days in between – everything that has fallen is still around.  We have actually had to truck snow out of the Cathedral parking lots since there is no more street parking, there is so much snow talking up spaces, and the construction has temporarily made some spots unavailable.  This is the first time in my 5+ years here that we have had to remove snow.

He is not going to like this, but Chris Fourkas deserves a huge shout-out.  Chris, among other sterling service to our church, plows us out each year at no cost.  This saves us, I imagine, 20-30k annually.  Chrysostom not only plows but has been coordinating the removal.  He also turns up at the Cathedral at odd hours to move snow.  Last week I received the thrill of my life when I got to drive his Bobcat around:

In other Cathedral snow news…we had the flat roofs – the auditorium and the office/Tonna Room/hallway link –  cleared yesterday of snow.  I had been thinking about this after seeing reports of up to 100 different roofs collapsing in Massachusetts in the past few days.  We kind of hemmed and hawed on whether to clear the snow, and then on Friday the engineer for the building project strongly suggested we do it.  So yesterday a team of 19 guys got up there and shoveled all the snow off.  This was packed, heavy snow which only would have become heavier with tonight’s freezing rain.

Our youth basketball program at the Cathedral continues to grow – this year we are fielding two teams in the Catholic Diocese of Worcester league.  The boys had a bit of a rough weekend but the White squad ended the day today with a hard-fought victory while the Purple team lost a heartbreaker.  Normally I sit on the bench for the games but late Sunday afternoon/early evening we had both teams playing their games at the same time.  Here is a picture from my vantage point:

I am fascinated by the history of the our Cathedral and especially the Orange Street era, which ran from roughly 1924-1954.  Part of my fascination comes from the fact that not only is the old building no longer extant (unlike the original Assyrian or Romanian church locations, for example, which are easy to locate) but the street itself no longer exists.  My understanding is that Orange Street was leveled as part of the building of the Worcester Public Library – I imagine someone who remembers can pinpoint the location of the church at the library or in the parking lot, but there is certainly not a trace remaining.  In fact, I don’t think I have even seen a picture of the interior, although I have seen the outside – several pictures are hanging in the main hallway at church.  One of the many ideas I have on the back burner is to start a literary ‘zine and call it _ Orange Street (when I find out what the street number was) because it represents to me this mysterious past world that is almost a blank canvas.

Anyways, why am I babbling about this?  Beyond my natural interest in the history of our community, I recently found a cache of icons that I imagine come from the old church.  I was digging around in the “Maintenance Room” – the name for our gigantic closet of ecclesiastical items (the show Hoarders has nothing on our Cathedral) – and could not find an Epiphany icon from our set of the icons of the Lord’s feasts.  I started looking through a stack of framed icons that were obviously really old.  They had that western, neo-Byzantine look that many of our churches here adopted back in the day, and, although not faded in any way, the muted colors and the worn frame suggested a bygone era.  I put out the Epiphany icon below on our children’s stand.  Almost immediately Mike C found the one from the set that I probably passed over four times while looking, and we replaced it, but I decided to examine the picture further.  It is from 1939, which puts it squarely in the middle of the Orange Street era.  It is in what must be its original frame.  Were these hung in the old church?  The only other explanation is that we somehow inherited this set from a closed-down church or one that was moving, and that is entirely possible – again, the Hoarders thing.  But it is cool to know that these are a tangible connection to our past, and now, since I plan to occasionally put these icons out, to our bright future.

When you next see Fr. Solon, whether at the restaurant or at church, make sure you wish him a happy birthday.  These photos are courtesy of CNS Photography: