Another Bicycle Adventure or Ian Sees Angels

Another Bicycle Adventure or Ian Sees Angels

“Papa, there are angels in those chairs.”

Katherine Drexel was richer than rich in the 1920’s, at a $1,000 a day, her trust fund runneth over, but instead of living a carefree socialite existence in Philadelphia, after a conversation with the Pope, she decided to devote her life to the Catholic Church and most specifically to Blacks and Indians (or African Americans and Native Americans if you’ll have it that way).

She has since been canonized a Saint.  One of her three miracles was the Gutherman boy in 1974, who was by all accounts deaf until the long dead Katharine Drexel (then known as Mother Katharine Drexel) got involved.

She started her own brand of nuns, known as the Sister of the Blessed Sacrament.  She built her mother house in _________ just outside of Philadelphia.  It is a sprawling Italian Renaissance style stone affair with verandas with infinite columns supporting the weight of clay tiles on the roof.  The stone masons who built the place knew their work.  It is a lump of stone and cement that seems will never fall down.

The Chapel is all wood and frescoes and stained glass and couldn't be any more beautiful.  Chapels are the short stories of epic cathedrals and like the short story it takes a skill to compact beauty into a small space.

Mother Katharine’s chapel is narrow like a drum.  On opposite walls are carved wooden chairs with intricate filigreed and dark wood that is shiny from the backsides of the blessed sisters.  The chairs are raised from the floor level and could accommodate a Samoan but find happiness with the skinny sisters.

There aren't many of the sisters left these days.  The church has really taken a hit on women willing to donate their lives to Christ.  There are less than 100 left and many are in the later years of their life and waiting to meet Christ in the Chapel.

The mother house sits on 15 acres of ground that is just two blocks from Pop’s house in Bensalem.  We rode our bicycles there the last summer before you left for Costa Rica and I stayed to make money.  It was the last summer we had together.

Pop lives about 2 miles from our house, which doesn't sound like much except if you are 4 and 6 years old and travelling by bicycle.  It was a full adventure to arrive at Pop’s and we were spent for the rest of the day.  We didn’t even ride the bikes home.  We threw then in the back of Pop’s white Mazda Pick-up truck.

We set out at 9am before the sun got too high and too hot.  It was a four block ride to the end of our neighborhood and then we had to make our first crossing of a major street:  Route 13, Bristol Pike.  We crossed at the light and passed the manicured lawn of Fluer Funeral Home.  It is a stone and column box that exudes calm and somber times.

Passing down through the Poqeussing neighborhood we passed skinny Victorians in brick and iron rail then crossed through Andalusia Schoolyard Playground.  I went to that Kindergarten when I was 5.   The more we change, the more we stay the same I thought.  I had traveled through 26 countries and learned three languages only to come back to kindergarten.  We passed through the schoolyard playground where we sometimes stopped but not on this Sunday morning.

This Sunday morning we had a bigger adventure.  We were halfway to Pop’s house.  Exiting the acre sized schoolyard with its modern day jungle gym; all rubber matting and thick plastic construction.  We drank water and rode on.

My father’s store was at the corner of the entrance of Andalusia Schoolyard.  Murphy’s Budget Bakery was housed in three bay garage block building with the store front facing the Pike.  Pop and Grandmom spent 13 years in that building, six days a week, from 7am until 7pm when the lottery number was picked and they closed for the night.

Grandmom would come home at 6 or so and fix supper for when Pop finished at the store.  That store was open all those live long days and I don’t think Pop and Grandmom closed it for more than Sunday in all those 13 years.  I never saw a vacation that lasted more than two days.  For “vacations” we would leave on a Friday night and return Sunday night.  That is the life of the small business owner and his children.

Murphy’s Budget Bakery (they never really baked anything) is now a small windowed, check cashing place that sells cigarettes and Zippos.  The lottery machine is till there but there is a lottery machine in every shop and supermarket so they don’t make the money that Pop did.  Pop got out when the getting was good.

We snaked behind the store to pass through the gravel parking lot of the VFW.  A large stone three story Victorian with an anchor and a flag out front and cigarette smoking vets drinking cheap beers and shots in the back.  My Uncle Jimmy used to get his fix there.  They give out hot dogs on Memorial Day when everybody thinks it is OK to get drunk in the morning.

There is sidewalk for the next two blocks until we reached Rita’s Waterice, where Aunt Joanne worked for 25 years of her life.  She started as the first employee when she was 16 and never gave that job up…through college and graduate school she kept at it until that Italian who told her she was “family” for 20 years, sold to a Jew and gave Joanne the screw. The Italian walked with a few million and she got the shaft.  Never believe anybody that tells you, “you are like family” cause at the end of the day, when it is time to count the money:  You ain’t.

We passed by the waterice stand and moved north on Bristol Pike passing in front of Woodhaven Mall (where I took Ian on his first “date” with his first girlfriend, Samantha, a skinny blond girl that Ian said he loved.  You were five.).

We rode on the sidewalk that is the overpass of Woodhaven Road and we watched the cars zoom by below and felt the gentle tremble of the concrete bridge.  I told you what Uncle Mike told me, "If the bridge didn't shake it would crack."  We appreciated the logic but were still unnerved by the shaky bridge.  After the bridge we made a right turn before the dangerous parking lot of the busiest Wawa in the chain that sits across the road from Uncle Dave’s Bagel Store where we played piano and ate cookies and bagels.

The small street behind Wawa crosses onto the next property which is the back entrance of Mother Katharine's estate and shrine.  Entering from the back we rode up the hill to the Italian stone entrance.  We left the bikes outside and walked quietly past the noisy pond and faced the large oak carved iron hung doors to enter into the side of the chapel.

It is a narrow chapel and reminded me of the saying that relates to the size of homes, “The smaller a home the easier it is to fill with love.”  The same holds true for Chapels.  We entered the heavy silence and wooden mood.

We sat at mid chapel and I didn’t have to say anything about being quiet.  The mood of the place dictated our behavior.  On either side of the chapel are the individual carved thrones where the sisters have sat for almost 100 years.

We sat in silence, your legs dangling and Ian leaned into me and whispered, “Papa, there are angels in those chairs.”  There is my son the seer, attuned to the vibrations of spirits and reverent to their energy.  Spirits don’t have to tell little boys to be quiet.  Little boys know.

“Yes, Ian, there are angels in those chairs.”

It wasn't a miracle to you and Ben paid the comment no mind but I was witness to the heartstrings of Ian and his sense of things not seen.  It had happened before in your life, like the time you saw Mr. Robbins and your memory of your baptism when you were only two and a half.

We exited the chapel and exited the grounds through the tree lined entrance and the heavy wrought iron gates flanked by the stone walls.  Crossing the street we had only two blocks downhill to arrive at Pop’s house.

Grandma greeted us with drinks and so went our longest adventure yet.  You were becoming big boys and your world was expanding.  I have not been with you for over two years now but I know that during the time with you I instilled a sense of wonder because I have that sense of wonder and even though I am not with you; your distance can only be measured in miles.   Your limits and vision are not bound to this world because you see angels where others see only empty chairs.

God Bless my Children.