Very early June update

We did not end up going to the baseball game in Columbus this weekend. Saturday I went to a training on how to approach visiting sick church members. Stephanie mowed and clipped the front lawn and tended to some more plants. Our landlord’s air-conditioning repair people replaced the house’s central air-conditioning condenser outside.

We also took a nap and went somewhat inadvertently to the movie “Lymelife," a tale of Lyme disease and 1970s suburbia that reminded me a bit of Ang Lee’s somewhat edgier “Ice Storm.” It featured among others Jill Hennessy from “Law and Order” and “Crossing Jordan,” Alec Baldwin from “The Hunt for Red October,” and - from another 1970s tale of suburban woe - Timothy Hutton, from “Ordinary People.” (One of the two Caulkin brothers in the movie, Baldwin, and Hennessy in the movie pictured below.)

Sunday was our church’s big annual outdoor Pentecost Sunday service plus potluck. We weren’t able to talk Vincent into going to that – they honored graduating seniors and gave them a cake. But Vincent pleasantly surprised us by going to the annual end of the year church youth group picnic and swim (another potluck) at the Jewish Community Center (with parents too). He had basically not been to a youth group event since the start of the year Deam Lake event (see “Deam Lake”). But his girlfriend’s parents have put her on a diet of two visits with Vincent per month. After a late night out with Vincent and her older sister’s former (?) boyfriend Seth, Samantha was also on a cell phone ban. So, cut off somewhat from her Vincent went with us to the pool party and then went out for some more food with Stephanie, his former prom date (Jessi), and her mother and a friend of Jessi. Afterwards, somewhat manic Vincent came home and had a somewhat long, interesting conversation with Stephanie, which I didn’t catch all of.

The background for the late night and Samantha diet (he had still been walking her home from school almost every day, evading her parents’ ban in that respect) includes him urging her to resist her parents’ wishes more and him starting to hang out with Seth, a 20-year-old with a car who apparently also lives with his parents and has no job and is not going to school (all like Vincent). Seth supposedly has a kind of trust fund, was the youngest KY elected official (serving on the Moorland city council), and plotted last year with two 14-year-old girls to kill one of their friends. To learn more click here:
http://www.wlky.com/video/15979277/index.html

At the youth group picnic we learned that a church family knows the would-be victim.

So, now instead of going over to Samantha’s family’s house every night or walking her home every day, Vincent is riding around town with this accused murder conspirator who ironically ended up pleading guilty to the charge Vincent originally earned (making terrorist threats).

Monday, I remembered, was the fifth anniversary of my first day at the Presbyterian Center (June 1, 2004), and in the afternoon I remembered to bring in some treats.

I have been discovering with my new position (especially administrator of the Presbyterian Panel) I am more responsible for bringing in my own paying clients. Click here to see my first product as new Panel administrator (I wrote the summary based on results of a survey we take every three years – my predecessor wrote the survey and there is no client for this once every three years survey: http://www.pcusa.org/research/panel/summaries/08fall-summary.pdf )

It’s remotely possible that without such clients someday someone could decide to end the Panel, which might also involve cutting my position. Having some of this in mind made meeting all of these researchers in government and especially in the private sector (Gallup, Nielsen, Arbitron, etc.) at the conference in Florida more interesting.

Monday was the last day of school for students in Stephanie’s school district. Stephanie has been winding down for a while, since she has stopped pulling students. Wednesday was a second annual International Festival which she helped organize and got a front-page article in the local paper (lunch pictured): http://www.news-tribune.net/archivesearch/local_story_148134641.html

Monday Stephanie kept on eye on 5th grade students who had not earned a trip to Holiday World in southwestern Indiana.

Tuesday and Wednesday Stephanie has planning, grading, and clean-up days (though grades were due back on Friday). (We weren’t able to get Vincent up to work on his classes on the faster computers in her room.)

Next week she’ll substitute tutor for a couple of days. Then summer school will take place 8-12 for the final two weeks of June.

-- Perry

More appointments

Tuesday was a big day with Stephanie’s father in Franklin County court over a landlord-tenant issue that has been brewing for some time, and Stephanie’s mother and my Aunt June back to chemotherapy treatment. Then today my Mother was off to the orthopedist for the first of appointments with doctors and physical therapists about her back problems that her regular doctors just recognized a few weeks ago. Today I went back to work for the first time in two weeks and Stephanie’s school had their second annual International festival, which Stephanie helped organize. Tonight is our final Children’s Fellowship, which may be inside (thanks to the rain). Sunday is an outdoor Pentecost worship service (weather permitting) with me serving as head usher for the third and last time this month, after our final (bilingual) Sunday school class of the school year. I am tentatively slated to go to a training for hospital visitation at church Sunday morning and at least Stephanie to a Columbus Clippers baseball game with some former high school classmates Saturday night at the new Arena district stadium (pictured above) between downtown Columbus and Goodale Park. We’ll see which of these work out. Hope confronting medical and legal issues this week is going OK for our family members.

-- Perry

Memory lane

My week-long travels through South Florida reminded me of several trips:Miami area: My family made a couple of trips to the Miami while we lived in Gainesville. During one trip we camped in the Everglades (something I replicated twice with others), and on another trip we traded houses with the family from whom we had bought the Palm View Estates house – who had moved to Hollywood, FL, where I stayed for the conference last week. I don’t remember their house so well, but remember going to the Orange Bowl parade in Miami. I didn’t think so much this past week about Everglades trips.

Once as a family we visited the Fort Myers area, but I only remember going to Sanibel Island. During the mid and late 1990s and while I lived in Sarasota, I visited the Miami area several time: Once a flew there and stayed for 4 ½ days, doing research for my book – leaving Columbus, Ohio, just minutes after turning in grades. I thought about this trip when I was planning this trip, for it’s the only time I had contact with the Fort Lauderdale airport (I flew into there) and stayed on Miami Beach. A few years before I stopped in Jupiter and driven to Tampa before and after five days on Miami Beach for my first American Sociological Association meeting. And before that I had flown into Miami to meet Abby, whose parents were staying on Miami Beach. That ASA experience was memorable for a variety of reasons: One was – I flew into Miami, even though many tourists were having trouble renting cars and then getting carjacked. And, sure enough, one of my New School classmates got carjacked in a rental car. Last week was the first time I’ve flown into Miami since then (although I tried to route our Guatemala flights through Miami – unsuccessfully – note that in the book trip that followed my ASA trip I flew into Fort Lauderdale, not Miami). On the ASA and book trip I got to spend a decent amount of time on South Beach, on the second trip interviewing people around the beach. I also visited various friends and their families, including two I visited this time (Andrea and Daniel) and one I didn’t (Greg and his family subsequently moved to Texas). At some point in there I went to Miami Beach for “family weekend” at the Barbara Brennan school, which was then meeting at a hotel in Miami Beach. Then weeks before I headed to Tallahassee, then to Minnesota, away from Sarasota (and two months before 9/11), I visited Daniel and Andrea again.

A year before this, in late August 2000, on Stephanie and Vincent’s first amazing trip to visit me in Sarasota, on Sunday we drove down to Fort Myers, where her great aunt and family lived (with their Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs and the dog that helped inspire the Frisco acquisition – with all those famous pictures from that trip) – lived in Fort Myers Shores (where she and her extended family lived for some 25 years before Lana and Dick moved up to Tennessee (pictures to be posted eventually) – there are still cousins there – some of them drove up to Ohio for Aunt Catherine’s funeral – but I didn’t look them up – on a Thanksgiving visit by Papa Larry to Tallahassee and Bradenton – he rented a car one day and drove down to Fort Myers Shores to visit with them.) We stopped by the Ford-Edison mansions (before a renovation). Then we happened upon the Shell Factory store/attraction, on Tamiami Trail in North Fort Myers on our way home, which she had visited with her grandmother and father in past trips she made to Fort Myers, when her grandmother was alive. In and around Bradenton and Sarasota – and even around Tampa and St. Pete – I thought of various other visits they had made to see me in Sarasota and in turn me to see them in Bradenton (including that worldwind Memorial Day weekend Saturday in Tampa and St. Pete (eight years ago this coming weekend) and then – critically – the next Sunday – when we drove to Myakka Springs state park with the dog, through Arcadia (where Aunt Lana had once lived), and then Stephanie urged us to keep going to visit Zora Neale Hurston sites – putative, at least – around Lake Okechobee and in Fort Pierce (not all so putative, as it turned out). (Of course, don’t forget our trip to Orlando several years ago, when Mom (and sometimes) me were at the Florida AAUW meeting, Vincent was at an anime convention, and Stephanie and I visited the botanical gardens in Orlando and then Eatonville, where Zora Neale Hurston grew up.

(Of course, just 1 ½ years ago – I think – was my last visit to Bradenton and Sarasota, when I drove down from Tampa – hours before a conference I was attending was to start there – and did my favorite widest arc through both of our old neighborhoods and out on the beaches – Anna Maria Island, Bradenton Beach, Longboat Key, St. Armands Key, and Lido Key – Several times my family came from Gainesville to visit Sarasota, including the Ringling Museum and Asolo Theater, St. Armands Key and Lido Key, and even the antique car museum and New College. On this trip I overlapped with where I went 1 ½ years ago – but I purposely did something things – skipping some things I did last time (before I got my digital camera and before blogging – the beaches, the Presbyterian church, and downtown Sarasota)).

And then there’s another gripping Memorial Day memory. Four years ago today (Tuesday) or tomorrow, Grandma Martha arrived in Bradenton to help us finish packing – and several of the people I visited with in the past 24 hours (Marilyn, Emma, and Caroline) also helped us pack – while Vincent said good-bye to his Manatee School for the Arts friends – including in a party after school Friday) – and then we pulled out Saturday morning. The way I tell the story isn’t literally true – but of course I thought of it as I was driving across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge at lunchtime today. At lunchtime on Memorial Day Saturday 2005, I was driving the big rental truck over the bridge – on the way to Louisville) – overlapping the beautiful Tampa Bay and Fort Desoto Beach on a sunny morning – and turned to Stephanie and said: Now, tell me – Why is it again that we’re moving away from here?

(Six months later – the last time Stephanie, Vincent, and Frisco have been to Sarasota/Bradenton – the four of us visited a few days before Christmas – we didn’t really visit my New College friends then – but visited Marilyn. Stephanie was in Orlando a couple of years ago with Angie, for a conference, and Marilyn, Brantley, and Emma drove over to visit – but Marilyn told me she felt pretty sick during that visit. (Marilyn’s mother loves the Kentucky Derby, and they’ve all talked about getting up there, but getting Marilyn and her family up there would be quite an undertaking.) One month before, Stephanie and Grandma Martha met at the Orlando airport, and then they drove to the AAUW in West Palm Beach – which I thought of as I drove past West Palm Beach on the freeway (back in Gainesville days my family and I only went there once and I skipped it for my book trip. After 4 ½ days in Miami, I stopped in downtown Fort Lauderdale to interview Mom’s AAUW friend, the Broward County historian, before heading across Alligator Alley to interview Andrew and Jan’s old diving instructor. Instead of trying to get to Ford-Edison (since I knew it closed early), I detoured and drove through Immokalee (site of agricultural worker organizing) before making it to the Tampa area.)

There’s one very important trip I left off. During spring break 1984 (25 years ago – if I’m counting right), Melanie and I headed to Tallahassee while Cindy and one of her brothers headed to West Palm Beach. Melanie, Cindy, and I were all housemates in the “Red House” in Swarthmore, and Melanie and I were starting to go out. (I’m remembering a somewhat ill-fated foray down to Sarasota with Abby – while we were staying with Todd in Tampa – when the recently resuscitated Fiesta broke down in Bradenton, and we had to wait for it get fixed).) Melanie and I visited Todd in Inverness (I’ve driven through there within the past couple of years), and then we slept in our car in the Holiday Inn parking lot on Lido Key. Then we drove past Avon Park (where I also went on my book tour) and then stopped on the shores of Lake Okechobee (which Melanie remembered from Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”). There we came across an African-American woman and her grandson who had been fishing on the lake. Somehow the grandson had become trapped in the trunk, and somehow I crawled back through the back seat to rescue him – or something like that. We kept driving along the lake and the canals that empty the northern Everglades into the Atlantic and picked up Cindy at a campgrounds in West Palm Beach. After visiting the Everglades and Naples (which I did not replicate this trip . . . OK – I’ll be frank – Just now I think I’m combining trips. The Okechobee/West Palm Beach trip that included visits to the Everglades, Naples, back to Avon Park, and to St. Augustine was a later trip, after the spring break trip (I think). For spring break 1984, Melanie, Cindy, and I went to Tallahassee, but it was still cold and rainy there. So around Wednesday we got back in the car and continued south. We wound up in Fort Myers on Thursday morning. We drove over to Sanibel Island where we stayed on the beach. This situation became three’s a crowd a little on the beach. Even though it was a little cloudy, we got a little sunburnt and a sea shell – at the world’s third best seashell – cut her foot and was bleeding. We wound up staying in a cheap motel in town – the Korean-owned and run Green Wave Motel (I remembered it partly because of the Green Wave is the mascot of Tulane University in New Orleans – probably an unintentional connection). Sunburnt and all we went to Fort Myers Beach to eat dinner. Probably the next day we headed down to Naples to connect with Andrew and Jane there.

One more trip I remembered: In very early May 2000, having just returned from Ohio and finished (for the most part) my dissertation research, I went for job interviews for one-year jobs at central PA’s Bucknell, where Abby had taught (I bombed), at central Michigan’s Albion (where Andrew taught), and then – at a school I had always wanted to teach at – Sarasota’s experimental, progressive, four-year public liberal arts college, New College. I remember I flew down to Tampa Sunday afternoon, rented a car, and drove on Interstate 75 to University Parkway, and found my motel (in the Day’s Inn which ended up being blocks away from where I lived for the year). Then I hopped back in the rental car and drove the three or four miles to St. Armand Circle, which my family and I had visited several times when I was a child – and had supper there (before heading back to the motel for one of my TV shows). In the morning I met the person who became my sponsor/mentor the next year, Penny (a sociologist) for breakfast, talked with a sociology class about my research, had tea with some students, and had lunch with Sarah, the person whose place I ended up taking for the next year (and who I’m still friends with). I remember walking around the campus (and being ferried around by Sarah). I sat in on Sarah’s class in the building on the bay (where I soon had an office – though I never taught there) and sat in a great class, a social theory class taught by David – in the same building – which I compared favorably with seminars at Swarthmore and the New School – and which helped save me on the college. It was a beautiful early May day – and I wore the same clothes more or less that I wore at the conference last week at Hollywood Beach – and I left with a good feeling (somewhat unjustifiably good in hind sight) about teaching in New College and living in Sarasota (Penny also showed me the house where I ended up living for a year). Amazingly, a week later I was back in NYC agonizing about which of the three offers to take (I ultimately picked New College). Interesting trip with several features I was to replicate this past week (flying out of Tampa, rental car transaction there, driving over the Skyway bridge, walking around New College campus, etc., etc.)

Interesting memories throughout.

-- Perry

Keynote talks

Thursday night’s American Association for Public Opinion Research keynote speakers were both interesting. Nielsen research head honcho Paul Donato saw survey researchers going back to the future and then heading in new direction. Donato described how in-person surveys gave way to phone surveys, which costs and then missed coverage with all-cell phone households gave way to Internet surveys, which now also seem imperiled because of rather extreme duplication (same people on multiple “Internet panels”) – especially with apparent “professional panelists” – and missed coverage – with the “digital divide.” Donato said we may be going back to in-person surveys (he may have mentioned regular mail surveys in here somewhere).

But Donato also highlighted new digital research strategies (which he called "listening,
as opposed to "asking," which is what he said surveys do). Nielsen (the company that historically monitors household TV viewing) has apparently started tracking and “coding” (categorizing and counting) text in Internet chat rooms and on blogs and is assessing volume and content. He also linked viewing of CNBC business reports with consumer spending two weeks later. If a lot of people are watching CNBC, they’re worried about the economy – and that means they’ll spend less two weeks later. Another Another fascinating example Donato gave was what he called “electronic ethnography” – sending subjects cell phones and texting them every hour during the day to ask what they’re doing and asking them to take pictures of what’s in the refrigerators and cupboards every day. (Yet another example was linking social networking Web sites with Geographic Information Systems – so friends could monitor their friends’ whereabouts – like on Yahoo mapping – and researchers were monitoring both: both what friends were saying and doing and where they were at.)

Ken Prewitt, director of the Census Bureau during the Clinton Administration, not so implicitly criticized Donato for focusing on commercial issues and for not talking about areas in which universal coverage is important. For democracy and fair policy-making to work, the United States needs something like the census that covers everyone. Prewitt battled the Republican Congress back in the late 1990s about whether Census 2000 would employ sampling – and lost. (About this, Prewitt quipped: When you look out the window to see if it’s raining – do you insist on looking out all of the windows before deciding to go out with an umbrella?) Right off the top, Prewitt suggested, because of concerns about the census and immigration control, without sampling, the census is likely to miss up to half of Latinos. And when so much of government resources (from Congressional seats to Community Development Block Grant funds) is allocated on the basis of census information, this is fundamentally unfair. Ultimately – since sampling seems unlikely to win out now, too – the government may have to abandon the household as the unit of census enumeration (partly because cell phones and e-mail addresses aren’t intrinsically linked with geographically based households; and partly because household surveys – in-person, phone, or regular mail – are so expensive) and may need to turn more to administrative records (gathered for some other purpose, like Social Security records – which at this point aren’t very accurate except for certain information that is key for the program they’re gathered for) and perhaps for the kind of digital information that Donato called for.

-- Perry

Around the kitchen table

The shot

Getting ready

Singing at mass

Headless procession

First communion (2009)

For the third time in the past four years, Stephanie and I (this time without Vincent, who's only gone once) attended the first communion worship services at the roman Catholic church in New Albany that has Spanish-language services, St. Mary's. For the third time, we also went to a party with the family of a student of Stephanie's afterwards. This time (on Derby weekend and the day after our Ohio River Grand Excursion) Stephanie also got a written invitation beforehand, from the family of her longtime student Saul (who we saw at another student's birthday party we also went to a couple of years ago). St. Mary's is a beautiful old Catholic church near downtown New Albany. A couple of her Anglo colleagues attend English-language services there. You might recall that Father Tom (pictured below) is the disabled Anglo priest who went to Mexico to learn Spanish for the Spanish-language services at St. Mary's and at St. Rita's in Okolona in Louisville. You might recall that we - only half joking - say that Father Tom was responsible for Stephanie getting her job - because priests still can influence the mainly Catholic politicians in Southern IN river towns. Below Father Tom is beckoning the 3rd and 4th graders about to participate in their first communion (after some religious training - the closest thing to this among Protestants is confirmation as members in 7th or 8th grade) to go to the back of the church and then process in. The kids sat with their families near the center aisle in the rows towards the front.



Below is Saul, on his way back.

Father Tom leads the procession. All of the grils were in fancy white dresses. Saul was in a white suit, but some other boys were in black suits.

Below is the front of the church after the procession.

Below is one of Stephanie's former students, Thalia, (now in middle school) helping read the scripture for the service.

As always, Father Tom preached for about 15 minutes in Spanish. Having been in a blingual Sunday school class and having just been to Guatemala, I was able to understand a little more of it.

Some of the kids and their families looked on below.

Most of the kids sitting near us were girls, and below they start to go up to participate in communion.

And communion continued . . .

We had taken communion earlier in the day at our own church and not being Catholic we did not participate.

Each kid also had a candle, which - if I remember right - Father Tom lit.

And the kids returned to their seats. The teenager in the simpler white dress was preparing for her quinceanera celebration - religious and secular - a celebration of 15th birthdays for girls only.

The boy pictured below - returning to his seat - on the right - in front of Father Tom - is Oscar (formerly aka Butterball) who Stephanie saw a lot her first year - at Mt. tabor - when he was in kindergarten. He shifted with her to Fairmont, where last year he "graduated" from the English as a new language program. Stephanie still keeps track of how her former students still at Fairmont are doing in school and they take standardized tests with her and her current students.

Below Father Tom started to wrap up the service (which included many adults and older kids there participating in communion by "intinction").

Father Tom smiled at us as he headed to the back of the church, walking in front of the 15-year-old.

And others headed back.

We'd lost track of the written invitation to the party, and so we got the directions from Saul's aunt, Susanna. Last year I didn't to go Perla's party, because I couldn't find it up in Floyds Knobs, and so the directions issue was not-trivial. Susanna and her family live closer in, near Mt. Tabor school.

After the service (and after getting the directions) all of the first communion kids gathered at the front of the church and posed for pictures.

And Father Tom sprinkled water on them.

And then families separated for pictures.

Saul posed with his brother and parents (now separated).

And with other kids, Cecilia (Stephanie's now student) and Edson (who she will have next year), both cousins to Saul and Daniel.

Stephanie and I shifted over to the side of the church, where Stephanie posed with Saul (below).

Stephanie also posed with Luis (in the black suit, below). Following students' progress for several years at a time isn't something Stephanie has been able to do until she started teaching in Southern IN (although she did teach in FL for two years - plus she's Facebook friends with just two of her former FL students - they're graduating from HS now!).

Oscar's mother - who I remember from a Mt. Tabor PTA event - invited us to his after-first communion party. And we took down the directions (in case we tried to get there later). Stephanie explained that she had received the invitation from Saul's party a couple of weeks earlier and she and her colleague Stephanie had a de facto division of labor, as the other Stephanie was planning to go to Oscar's party. Stephanie (a rare non-Catholic among her colleagues), however, did not go to mass, and ended up not going to the other party. (The other Stephanie teaches kindergarten and first grade, and so Oscar had her before graduating from ENL.) However, Stephanie taught younger kids for that one year at Mt. Tabor and has had younger kids in summar school, which the other Stephanie has not taught at. Stephanie also knows lots of the kids in ENL and not at Fairmont - because of tutoring, Culture Club, pulling in to other classes, bus duty, etc.

Stephanie posed again - I think with Oscar and his sister.

Luis and Oscar posed with Stephanie since they both had Stephanie in second grade.

We left the church and drove past Stephanie's school the 2-3 miles to the house of Saul's aunt, Susanna, in a suburban neighobhood close to the Southern IN perimeter highway. Below - sitting at the kitchen table - is Saul's cousin, Edson, who has battled (and apparently is currently beating) childhood leukemia.

After talking with some family members in the living room, we settled down for some great food (no chance to lose the 5 pounds I gained in Guatemala on this weekend). We ate with a visting group of Saul's relatives and some friends and neighbors.

I'm afraid at this point I can't remember what everything we ate was - a meat dish, tortillas, and some vegetable dishes.

That's Susanna and Saul's mother to her left.

After dinner but before dessert, they got out drinks. They brought three different bottles of tequila - mostly unopened - three different Mexican brands of tequila - all bought, like most of the food, at a nearby (Clarksville) little Mexican store. And then began the campaign to get me to try them - under the guise of which I would like best. "Pero yo soy el esposo de la maestra," I said - but they didn't go for that. I thought of the Tequila bluffs story or the Diana Pearl story - but to no avail. Finally, I relented and tried one shot each of the three different kinds of tequila. A middle-aged woman was pushing most, and I ultimately concurred with her favorite.

Thankfully, some other people tried some too. Next came dessert. Saul's family had ordered a huge tres leches (three forms of milk) cake from the same Okolona area bakery that we've ordered tres leches cake from (sometimes for home - usually for Presbyterian Center events). Saul's mother brought it out. (Several men in Saul's family - including Susanna's husband - drive trucks for a Chicago trucking company that has a Southern IN satellite operation. If I remember right, Susanna's husband is in management now. Susanna suggested that - when she first moved to New Albany and her husband was out on the road a lot and there were fewer Spanish-speaking people in the area and she knew no one, she was more lonely - eight years ago. But now some of her family has moved there, there are more Spanish-speaking people, she has taken English classes at the school district's adult education center, she speaks English well, and her husband is gone less. Something we brushed up against a couple of times but of course quickly veered away from was folks' immigration status. One reason why people might not go back to Mexico is if they're here in tenuous legal status.)

Saul's mother eventually got him to go back and put his white shirt back on - apparently for pictures like what we and others were taking.

Below is the woman who ultimately got me to try the tequila. (She looks just a tiny bit like Hulmani, my late paternal grandmother.)

Saul came back in white.

And he took the lead in cutting the tres leches cake after explaining what all the symbols on the cake represented (the dove = the holy spirit etc...).

His mother helped too. Maria also showed us pictures of her brand-new grandchild back in Mexico. Her 20 year-old daughter just had a baby this past week. She had been sent pictures via e-mail and printed them out to show everyone. So Saul was also celebrating becoming an uncle.

Great cake (super moist)!

As we went to leave, Saul and other kids in his extended family were playing something like Wii Soccer (or futbol) on their big TV.

And - I'm including this for content even though it's a bad picture - some of the adults in the family were talking with extended family members in Mexico via Skype on the computer (this on the same weekend that Stephanie and I saw that riveting "Sin Nombre" and on one of the first "swine flu" virus weekends).

Only in America. Thanks for your hospitality, Susanna and Father Tom! Congratulations, Saul, Oscar, and others (and to Stephanie for your good work with these kids)! To paraphrase Tom Hanks in "Saving Private Ryan": Make it count.

-- Perry