1076 Reflections

Reminiscence #1 (Only 1075 to go!)
When John Chandler and Ryan Osborn asked me to write a "blog" for the alumni webpage, my answer was, "Sure!", but deep in my head, a voice that sounded strangely like Bill Cosby was saying, "Riiight! What's a blog?" (If you're close to my age, you'll understand the reference.)
     You see, I just turned 70. When I was in grammar school, the height of electronic technology was the telephone. If I wanted to make a phone call, I'd pick up the receiver and waited for the operator to say, "Number, please!". A huge advancement was the dial system...the rotary, not the button. When I started teaching at Saint Ignatius, in the fall of ’61, the phone number was HA-1-5900, originally “Haymarket-1-5900”...and you “didn’t need no stinking” area code.
     So I called one of my daughters, and asked her, “What’s a blog?” She understands my ignor...er...ah...innocence. She told me once, “Dad, to you the computer is the devil’s own magic!” She proceeded to tell me, “Blah, blah, blah, yatta, yatta, yatta...there are 1552 alumni on the Saint Ignatius Alumni Facebook site.” (Again! “Riiight! What’s a facebook site?”) I think that she was telling me that most of the alums, if they’re interested in what’s going on with their class members, go to Facebook or some such internet site.
     Why would two reasonably intelligent young men, John and Ryan, ask a codger to write for a hip-and-with-it “publication” like a blog? Then I realized; it’s because I’m old. What is now history was a part of my life. To youngsters, the first moon-landing is an historical event to be memorized for a quiz. Members of my generation ask each other whether they remember where they were when we first learned of it. (FYI, I was in a cocktail lounge at Lakelawn Lodge in Lake Geneva...probably doing sociological research.)
     So, that’s it. With the help of Frank Raispis and others, I can reminisce, try to explain (Why did we drop football in the spring of ’63?) and, to use Frank’s word, be a part of a unifying element to the history of our great institution.
     The Lord and Katie Cummings willing, I’ll see you down the road.