developmentNEWS

GenesisThe Alumni Magazine of Saint Ignatius College Preparatory, SpringV 2007

A Cat’s Eye View of the World Reports from Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Siberia, Alaska, Honduras, Australia & the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation The SI faculty gathered in Orradre Chapel in March to In This Issue … hear the glowing report from the visiting team of the West- ern As- sociation of Schools and Col- leges.

he older I grow, the more I’m administrators and teachers from local and over again that they had never seen a tempted to report to you from the Catholic high schools and the Diocese of school as rich in opportunity and talent as Tcomfortable confines of my office. Oakland — virtually gushed as, one by SI. It’s much easier interviewing folks by one, they spoke about their own affec- Both these events reminded me of phone than driving across town or even tion for SI and of their encounters with how important it is to look out my win- walking the length of the campus. Two students. One of the seven, after speaking dow from time to time to see the new events in March brought me out of my to a select group of student leaders, said, horizons that lie outside my office. The cave to remind me what a remarkable “These kids are great. Now show me Genesis V campaign echoes this message place SI is. some real students.” She went in search in its theme of “New Horizons,” as the The first one came the week of March of typical SI students and discovered, to school is looking to grow in scope and 11, when the visiting team from the West- her amazement, that they were all well scale, extending our good work beyond ern Association of Schools and Colleges versed in the mission of the school. our borders. inspected the school from top to bottom SI President Robert T. Walsh, S.J., Our contributors in this issue also to see if we deserved the maximum ac- after reading the visiting team’s report, speak to this theme and remind us that creditation of six years. They didn’t quite remarked to the faculty that “this was a the lessons learned at SI have far-reach- bring out the white gloves to test for dust moment of grace” for the school commu- ing consequences. Just as the first apostles on the windowsills, but they did visit nity. and the first Jesuits traveled to spread the every classroom and spoke to students, The following week, I encountered Good News and do good work, so, too, teachers, parents, regents and administra- more moments of grace. We asked LA- do many of SI’s graduates who took to tors. based Loyola Productions to spend three heart the lessons learned sitting in class. They also read our self-study, in days with us to film a video for use by They now work in far-flung reaches to which we charted our course for the next our admissions office. Kevin Grady, the love as Christ loved us: with his compas- six years, listing areas where we hope to admissions director, and I took turns es- sionate heart, with his talented hands and grow. Instead of adding to our list, which corting the cameraman and producer with hopeful eyes that see the goodness in visiting teams generally do when they find from classroom to field to club meeting all life. problems, the team removed one point to musical rehearsal to crew practice. For I am grateful to these Genesis V con- from our list, telling us not to worry so each of these 10-hour days, both Kevin tributors, to the students at SI, and to you much about it. and I were reminded of the rich tapestry the readers of this magazine, for helping No one in the school’s administration of life woven here at SI. We were also me to see something good every time I had ever heard of anything like this hap- struck by the reaction of the folks from look out my window or venture outside pening before. The visiting team — seven Loyola Productions, who remarked over my office. — Paul Totah ’75 Genesis V The Alumni Magazine of Saint Ignatius College Preparatory, San Francisco, Spring 2007

COVER STORIES: A CAT’S EYE VIEW OF THE WORLD 4 Development News Nostalgia and fun meet at Playland-at-the-Prep Auction • Newly named Father Carlin Heritage Society carries on his mission • Scholarship honors Fr. Dick McCurdy, S.J. • SI thanks parents who pledged their support • Teatro Sant’ Ignazio Fashion Show dazzles.

PAGE 11: Brenda Lamb ’93 and Marielle Murphy 11 Cover Stories ’93 treat AIDS orphans in Ethiopia and Malawi. Brenda Lamb ’93 & Marielle Murphy ’93 help put smiles on AIDS orphans in Africa • Brian McCaffery ’75 ponders despair and hope at the world’s edge • Fr. Tom O’Neill, S.J. ’74, reports from the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation • Don Dana ’66 sails in the wake of history • Jim O’Connell ’61 follows Teilhard’s lead • Maj. James Farrell ’86 on staying the course in Iraq • Mike Shaughnessy ’67 argues the conflict in Iraq is an unjust war • Col. Bart Howard ’80 helps the coalition effort to reshape Afghanistan • Students address AIDS epidemic in Honduras. PAGE 13: Biologist Brian McCaffery ’75 reports on global warming from Alaska. 39 School News SI earns high marks from WASC team • ‘No child left behind’ no cliché for Matt Balano • Senior Andrew Dudum’s songs & Rock to Relief benefit Tanzi Project.

44 Alumni News Leo McCarthy receives posthumous honor of Christ the King Award • John Davitt retires as Glendale Community College President • Mike PAGE 26: Did the first people in the New World Pasini reflects on two photos in the digital era. come by boat? Don Dana ’66 attempted to find out by taking a skin boat from Siberia to Alaska. 54 Departments Keeping in Touch • Births • In Memoriam • Calendar • Sports

Cover photo: Wildcat ©iStockphoto.com/Bonnie Schupp; Earth, courtesy of NASA.

PAGE 36: Capt. Bart Howard ’80 writes about coalition efforts in Afghanistan. developmentNEWS GENESIS V A Report to Concerned Individuals Vol. 44, No. 1 Spring 2007

Rev. Robert T. Walsh, S.J. President

Mr. Stephen E. Lovette Vice President

Mr. Charles W. Dullea Principal

Rev. Gerald P. McCourt, S.J. Superior

Mr. John J. Ring Director of Alumni Relations

Mr. Joseph A. Vollert Director of Development

Mr. Paul J. Totah Editor

Mrs. Katie A. Kohmann Director of Special Events

Mr. Fred L. Tocchini Director of Special Projects Coach Steve Bluford Mr. Arthur Cecchin ’84 (left), NOSTALGIA AND FUN MEET Sports Editor along with students, Mr. Douglas A. Salin AT PLAYLAND AUCTION Design Consultant auctioneers George Noceti and aughing Sal wasn’t the only one Auction Chairman Don Mancini and GENESIS V (USPS 899-060) is published Bob Sarlatte, having a good time at the Play- Vice Chairman Brit Hahn were laughing quarterly by St. Ignatius College Preparatory, starts the land-at-the-Prep Fathers’ Club too, gratified with the great party they put 2001 37th Avenue, San Francisco, CA bidding L auction March 3. on, with the enthusiastic participation from 94116-9981. Periodicals Postage Paid at San on a jersey Francisco, CA, and at additional mailing and helmet About 750 guests and another 150 hundreds of volunteer parents, and with the signed by volunteers were laughing along with her, gross revenue — nearly $915,000. offices. the football enjoying a reborn Playland, complete with “Don and Brit did a magnificent job,” POSTMASTER: Send address changes team. Below: a Fun House stage, air shooting up through said Fathers’ Club President Paul Gaspari Marcus and to GENESIS V, 2001 37th Avenue, San Gabriela Rob- the floorboards, a photo booth, and posters ’70. “They both worked tirelessly to ensure Francisco, CA 94116-9981. inson, were of the old amusement park that so many of the success of the event. The SI community among the the guests recalled with great fondness. owes a debt of gratitude to them and to the CONTACT US: You can send e-mail to 750 guests. predecessor chairmen who have developed [email protected] or reach us at (415) 731- 7500 ext. 206. You can also read the issue on this auction into the stellar night it has be- our web site at www. siprep.org. come.” The night began with a cocktail party ST. IGNATIUS, mindful of its mission to be in the Cowell Pavilion where guests made witness to the love of Christ for all, admits bids on silent auction items — including gift students of any race, color and national and/ or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, baskets created by Nick Saribalis and his programs, and activities generally accorded to crew. They enjoyed decorations and special or made available to students at this school. St. effects created by Gary Brickley ’71 and Ignatius does not unlawfully discriminate on Brickley Productions, including a false floor the basis of race, color, national and/or ethnic at the entrance of the gym that shot pressur- origin, age, sex or disability in the administration of educational policies, admissions policies, ized air at guests as they entered, in homage scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and to the Funhouse at the original Playland. other school-administered programs. Likewise, The McCullough Gymnasium fea- St. Ignatius does not discriminate against any applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, national and/or ethnic origin, age, sex or disability.  GENESIS V spring 2007 developmentNEWS Saint Ignatius Board of Trustees Mr. Mark Cleary ’64 Chairman Mr. John Christen III ’61 Rev. Charles Gagan, S.J. ’55 Rev. Michael Gilson, S.J. Mr. Robert Lalanne ’73 Rev. Michael McCarthy, S.J. ’82 Rev. Gerald P. McCourt, S.J. ’58 Rev. Mario Prietto, S.J. Rev. Robert T. Walsh, S.J. ’68

Board of Regents Mr. Robert Lalanne Chairman Mr. Kerwin Allen Mr. David Bernstein Mr. Thomas Bertelsen Mr. Clark Callander tured Super Silent Auction items, including Mr. Peter Casey dozens of vintage wines (gathered by Larry Mr. Al Clifford Walsh and Brad Solso) and a Hobie Cat Mr. Sam Coffey sailboat, donated by Chris Moscone ’80 Mr. Jeff Columbini and family. Mr. Don Dana Mr. Joseph Diffley Auctioneers Bob Sarlatte ’68 and Mr. Ramzi Dudum George Noceti kicked off the live auction, Mr. John Duff which also celebrated SI’s unprecedented Mr. Charles Dullea football season. Coach Steve Bluford ’84 Mr. John J. Fitzpatrick and senior Steven Mauer were on hand to The Hon. J. Richard Fredericks showcase a jersey and helmet signed by the Mr. Lynn Fritz entire team. Paul Gaspari, Esq. Other highlights included several gifts and the gym — and he praised the school Above: Fr. Mr. Gordon Getty by SI parents Chris and Angela Cohan, staff, especially Katie Kohmann, Shirley Robert Walsh Mrs. Nanette Gordon the owners of the Warriors. Guests bid & Br. Douglas Minger, Paul Totah ’75 and Tom Casey. He Draper in Play- Mr. Michael Gorman on a sports package that included a flight Mr. John Jack also praised Debbie and Phil Downs ’73 for land attire. on the Warriors’ jet to LA with the team, Top left: The Hon. Kathleen Kelly their work organizing the volunteers. accommodations at the same hotel as the Christopher Mrs. Mary Lawson “My favorite part came when I sat Warriors, and special seats reserved for the Cohan, owner Mrs. Mary Kay Leveroni down at my table and watched the hard of the Golden Mr. Jeff Maggioncalda team. The Cohans also donated a luxury work of so many people come to fruition,” State Warriors, Mr. Curtis Mallegni suite for a Christina Aguilera concert and added Mancini. “I saw that the auction donated sev- Rev. Gerald P. McCourt, S.J. a San Jose Sharks game that included a ride had something for everyone. Guests could eral wonderful gifts. Mr. William McDonnell* on a zamboni. spend $15,000 for a car or $75 for a res- Mr. Paul Mohun Mancini sang the praises of all in- taurant gift certificate. And I loved how Theresa Moore, Esq. volved, especially Brit Hahn. “A chairman much people laughed as they walked out of Christopher Moscone, Esq. hopes that his vice chairman will be there the photo booth or walked past the video Leo Murphy, Esq. to share it all, and Brit proved a huge help. of Laughing Sal. It was magical to see all Martin D. Murphy, Esq.* He will be a great chairman for next year’s that hard work come together to benefit the Mr. Thomas Murtagh auction.” Mrs. Karen Rollandi school.” v Mancini also praised the two previous Mrs. Anne Ryan auction chairmen — Bob Guglielmi and Francis Scarpulla, Esq. Auction Chairman Don Mancini, Mr. Gerald Simon Dave Pacini. “The insight these two men his wife. Jeannine, and daugh- Mrs. Sara Stephens offered was invaluable. This event is so ters Jackie ’07 and Nikki ’09. Dr. Robert Szarnicki much fun that past chairmen simply don’t Mrs. Barbara Talavan want to walk away from it.” Mr. Fred Tocchini Mancini also singled out Tom Mc- Mr. Gregory Vaughan Guigan ’86 for the prime rib meal he Mr. J. Malcolm Visbal cooked for 900 people — a task made more Rev. Robert T. Walsh, S.J. difficult by the distance between the kitchen

* Lifetime Members spring 2007 GENESIS V  developmentNEWS

Father Harry V. Carlin, S.J., Newly named “Father Harry Carlin Heritage Society Heritage Society”Carries on Mission We especially thank the following lifetime friends who have made provi- sions in their estate plans — bequests, he SI Heritage Society, which hon- SI’s Director of Development Joe charitable trusts, gifts of life insurance ors those who have included the Vollert ’84 sees the newly named Carlin or retirement funds — to support SI’s Tschool in their estate plans, has Society as a linear descendent of the great Endowment Fund. Such gifts provide been renamed The Father Harry V. Car- Jesuit fundraiser. for the long-term welfare of SI and may lin, S.J., Heritage Society. “Fr. Carlin laid the foundation for also provide donors with valuable tax The name change honors this great the current campus,” Vollert said. “The and income benefits during their life- priest who died last year at 89 and who members of SI’s Carlin Society are laying time. The forethought and generosity of the following is most appreciated: left as his SI legacy the Sunset District the foundation for the school’s future. campus for which he raised millions. Their bequests will help ensure that SI “He was without a doubt the father will never turn deserving young men and Mr. & Mrs. Michael Stecher ’62 of the modern SI,” said Steve Lovette ’63, women away for financial reasons only.” Ambassadors Attorney Michael Stecher ’62, who, The Doelger Charitable Trust With Fr. Carlin’s support, with his wife, Patricia, chairs the Carlin Mrs. Raymond Allender Society, remembers Fr. Carlin as “a won- Mr. George Baldocchi the Alumni Association derful priest and a great spiritual lead- Mr. & Mrs. David Bernstein ’80 er.” Mrs. Helen Bernstein provided volunteer labor for Stecher, whose involvement in SI in- Mr. & Mrs. Thomas E. Bertelsen cludes a two-year stint as president of the Mr. Tom Bertken ’50 Father’s Club, 10 years as president the & Sheila McManus St. Anthony’s Dining Room Alumni Association and 12 years as an SI Mr. & Mrs. Carl Blom ’55 regent, often sought Fr. Carlin’s advice. Mr. Thomas P. Brady ’31 the school’s vice president “People looked at him as a fund- Mr. William E. Britt ’36 and a close collabora- raiser, but he was much more than that,” Mrs. Gerhard Broeker tor with Fr. Carlin, who Stecher said. “With his support, the Mr. & Mrs. Gregoire Calegari continued to work in SI’s Alumni Association provided volunteer development office well labor for St. Anthony’s Dining Room Mrs. Beatrice Carberry into his 80s. and the San Dimas youth programs in St. Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Carroll ’43 “He was not ambi- Peter Parish. He was intelligent, humble Mr. & Mrs. Samuel R. Coffey ’74 tious or flamboyant,” and forceful when he needed to be, but Mr. James E. Collins ’44 Lovette added. “He pre- he preferred the background.” Mr. Gerald W. Conlan ’47 ferred visiting the sick to The Father Carlin Heritage Society Mrs. Lillian Corriea asking for money. He did is not the only SI effort to perpetuate his Mrs. & Mrs. Kevin Coyne ’67 it because it needed to be memory. Fr. Carlin came back from sum- Mr. & Mrs. Hal Cranston done.” mer vacation in 1970 and found that the Mr. & Mrs. Leonard P. Delmas ’47 He spoke of Fr. Carlin’s school’s commons had been named after Mr. Harold J. De Luca ’29 him. “We probably could have raised Fr. Harry success in raising $2 million to purchase Ms. Christine Dohrmann Carlin, who money by naming it after someone else,” 11 acres from the San Francisco Unified Mr. & Mrs. Philip J. Downs ’73 died March School District for the new campus in he said. 1, 2006, is Ms. Mary Driscoll the mid-1960s, and then raising the ad- The Father Carlin Heritage Society the founder Mr. & Mrs. John Duff of the mod- ditional millions required to build the currently numbers 95 members. Mem- Mr. Frank M. Dunnigan ’70 ern SI. facilities and pay off the debt. bers are invited to an annual luncheon in Fr. Carlin’s fundraising visits were no- the spring and a Mass and reception in Mr. & Mrs. Robert Enright table for their directness. “‘You’re a busy the fall. For information on joining the Mrs. Myrtis E. Fitzgerald man, and I’m a busy man,’ he would say society and ways of including SI in your Mr. & Mrs. Jack J. Fitzpatrick ’60 after arriving, sometimes unannounced, at estate plan, contact Joe Vollert at (415) Mr. & Mrs. John J. Gibbons ’37 the downtown office of an SI alumnus,” 731-7500, ext 319, or at jvollert@siprep. Mr. & Mr. Rick Giorgetti said Lovette. “He then would add, ‘Let’s org. Also check the SI website for planned Mrs. Fred Grant talk about your gift to SI.’” giving details at www.siprep.org. v Mrs. Linda Grimes Mrs. William Healy Mr. John P. Horgan ’32

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Father Harry V. Carlin, S.J. Heritage Society continued Wells Fargo Supports SI Auction Wells Fargo Vice Presi- dent Don Dr. Peter Kane ’51 Dana ’66 Mr. Francis J. Kelly III ’75 (second from right) helped Mrs. John Kotlanger to arrange a Mrs. Lida Lalanne $20,000 do- Mrs. Phyllis Lavelle nation from the bank to Mr. George D. Leal ’51 help under- Mr. & Mrs. Henry Leidich write the Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Lovette ’63 Fathers’ Club auction. Pic- Mr. John M. Mahoney ’65 tured with Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Maioli ’60 him are, from left, Mr. & Mrs. Mike McCaffery Auction Vice Mrs. Cornelius McCarthy Chairman Hon. E. Warren McGuire ’42 Brit Hahn, SI President Mr. Terrence V. McGuire ’45 Robert Mr. Patrick McSweeney ’55 Walsh, S.J., Dr. Allison Metz Fathers’ Club Moderator Mr. & Mrs. David Mezzera ’64 Douglas Mrs. John Mitchell Scholarship Honors Fr. Dick McCurdy Draper, S.J., Mr. & Mrs. James Monfredini ’65 and, at right, ill Hogan ’55, who sat in Dick Mc- teach English, moderate the literary maga- Auction Mrs. Frank Mullins Curdy’s English class at SI, describes zine and direct plays. Chairman Mr. Jeffrey J. Mullins ’67 him as a “hurricane of fresh air.” “I’ve had only two great classroom Don Man- B cini. Mr. & Mrs. Leo J. Murphy ’65 Hogan’s classmate Mark McGuiness teachers,” said Hogan, “and he was one of Mr. & Mrs. Martin D. Murphy ’52 goes further: “Dick McCurdy was a fantas- them. He would curl up on the windowsill Former Ambassadors tic human being — one of the people God and ask questions that would set our heads Mrs. Cecil Neeley singled out to help our youth.” spinning. He guided our questions and led Mrs. Bernice O’Brien McCurdy — who served at SI as a lay Ms. Mavourneen O’Connor teacher, Jesuit scholastic, assistant principal Mrs. James F. O’Grady and principal — died July 21, 2006, just shy of his Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit. On Mrs. William O’Neill Nov. 3, 35 members of the Class of 1955 Mr. Charles Ostrofe ’49 gathered at SI’s Orradre Chapel to honor Miss Joan Pallas this man who inspired them for half a cen- Mrs. Kathleen Paver tury. Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Payne ’65 They also helped to establish the Fr. Mr. & Mrs. Barry L. Potthoff Richard L. McCurdy, S.J., Scholarship to Mr. Emmet Purcell ’40 help students coming to SI from the Megan Mrs. James J. Raggio Furth Academy — a new school formed Mr. & Mrs. Dante Ravetti ’49 from the combined Sacred Heart and St. Mr. & Mrs. Kevin Reilly ’83 Dominic’s Grammar Schools. Rev. Vincent Ring Given Fr. McCurdy’s long history at SI, Hogan, McGuinness and their class- Mr. & Mrs. Gary Roberts ’75 mates hope that everyone who came into Mr. & Mrs. Timothy Ryan contact with this great priest, teacher and Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Scollin ’65 administrator would consider contribut- Mr. William L. Teglia Jr. ’65 ing to this scholarship. (See box on the Mr. Michael Thiemann ’74 next page.) Thus far, the scholarship has Mr. & Mrs. Robert Tomasello ’67 $29,500 and needs to reach $100,000 to Mr. & Mrs. Paul Tonelli ’76 be fully endowed. Fr. Dick McCurdy, S.J., worked at SI in the ’50s as a Mrs. Elizabeth Travers At 24, one year after he was baptized layman, in the ’60s as a scholastic and in the ’70s Mrs. James A. Walsh a Catholic, McCurdy came to SI in 1954 to as an administrator. Mr. & Mrs. Albert Worner ’36

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knew the wisdom of the Jesuit philoso- phy of offering a “preferential option Are you a member of the following classes? for the poor.” Sr. Cathryn deBack, O.P., principal • 1955 through 1960 at Sacred Heart School in the 1970s, didn’t believe SI would be a welcoming • 1963 through 1969 place for her students. McCurdy told • 1972 through 1984 her that he would accept any student she recommended, and he did. He helped transform SI in his tenure as principal, If so, you attended SI when Fr. McCurdy making it more diverse than it ever had served as a teacher, director or administrator. been. After the November memorial ser- Please consider a donation to the vice, members of the Class of ’55, in- Fr. Richard L. McCurdy, S.J., Scholarship. cluding Fr. Charles Gagan, S.J., pastor of St. Ignatius Church, decided upon Megan Furth students as beneficiaries of us to answers we had never before consid- “I spent 25 years working in TV,” the McCurdy scholarship. Fr. Gagan has ered. He analyzed literature in a way that added Hogan, “and what I learned from done much to support St. Dominic’s and was infectious, and he helped discover him at SI about directing and acting and Sacred Heart Schools and continues to techniques used by a particular writer.” how a script functioned was what I lived support Megan Furth Academy. Many other students were drawn to by during my professional life. I owe Other members of the class who work on McCurdy’s 1954-55 produc- him a huge debt, and I’m not alone in spearheaded the scholarship drive along tions of The Mikado and Harvey. the class.” with Hogan, McGuinness and Fr. Ga- “We went from being theatrical am- McCurdy taught at SI between gan included Gil Ribera, Baxter Rice ateurs to professionals because of him,” 1954 and 1956 before deciding to be- and Dave Clisham. They know that this said McGuinness, who ran the stage crew come a Jesuit. He joined the Society of scholarship will honor Fr. McCurdy’s for McCurdy. Jesus and returned in 1963 for two years promise to Sr. deBack and honor the “He had many friends at the Actor’s as a scholastic. He came again to SI in memory of a great priest, principal and Workshop, which later became ACT, 1972 to serve as an assistant principal teacher. and he called on them to show us how and later as principal until 1981. If you are interested in contributing to create professional backdrops. Our As an administrator, he worked to to this new scholarship, contact the SI De- plays were as professional as any I’ve ever make SI more inclusive. He came from velopment Office at 4( 15) 731-7500, ext. seen.” Sacred Heart Parish in the Fillmore, and 211, or email [email protected]. v

Class of 1955 Creates David P. Dawson Scholarship Genesis V: New Horizons o honor David Dawson ’55, his classmates have started a scholarship in his Campaign Update name. Dawson, a prominent San Francisco attorney, died last year. At SI, he was “a T The Graphic on the right shows the gifted, fiercely competitive athlete in basketball and track and an excellent student,” said his friend Bill Hogan ’55. status of the Genensis V: New Ho- His classmates also believe that their class had a notable absence of cliques thanks rizons campaign. While we are on to Dawson’s ability to befriend everyone. track, we need your help to reach our “Dave held the Class of ’55 together for 50 years,” said Hogan. “ Before there goal of raising $50 million by Decem- was an alumni office, he maintained the database of our addresses and phone numbers and organized our reunions. He established our monthly First Friday lunches and our ber 2010. annual Christmas party, traditions which continue.” If you would like to make a do- An alumnus of SCU and USF Law School, Dawson contributed pro bono legal ser- nation, contact Development Director vices to the California Province of the Jesuits, and was the recipient of the St. Thomas Joe Vollert ’84 at (415) 731-7500, ext. More Award. He was the youngest president of the Olympic Club. 319, or send him an email at jvollert@ Members of the Class of ’55 and all SI graduates who knew Dave are invited to v support this scholarship to honor his memory. v siprep.org.

 GENESIS V spring 2007 developmentNEWS

Genesis V: New Horizons Gibbons Hall of Music 5-Year Campaign: $50 Million Goal

December 2010

Construction on Parents Pledge Support to SI the west campus development, isted here are the SI Mr. & Mrs. David S. Carey which includes freshmen and transfer Mr. & Mrs. Todd J. Carter the Mary Ann Lparents who have pledged Mr. & Mrs. Emmanuel V. Carzon and Jack Gibbons monetary support to the school Mr. Randy A. Caturay Hall of Music, over the next four years. We & Mrs. Leonora P. Malicsi four classrooms, a Mr. & Mrs. Darren A. Cde Baca weight room and thank them for their generosity Mr. & Mrs. Chris J. Cesena batting cage, con- and present them to you, below: Mr. Anka Y. Chan tinues thanks to April 2007 Mr. & Mrs. Daniel Abellera & Mrs. Yim M. Tang generous donors Mr. Tommy Chang to the Genesis V $22.5 Million Mr. & Mrs. Felix Achacoso campaign. Ms. Cristina Aguilar & Mrs. Mei-Chiu Yang & Mr. Clayton Holstine Mr. & Mrs. Edmund Chiu Dr. & Mrs. William Andereck Mr. & Mrs. Kurt L. Christofferson Mr. & Mrs. Vincent Anicetti Dr. Ian Christoph & Ms. Lucile Irwin Mr. & Mrs. John Azofeifa Mr. & Mrs. Terry Chuah Mr. & Mrs. Daniel W. Barnard, Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Martin Coen Mr. & Mrs. Edward A. Barrack Mr. & Mrs. Michael A. Collins Mr. David A. Baylor Mr. Christopher Columbus & Mrs. Theresa L. Helmer & Ms. Monica Devereux Mr. Ernest J. Beffel Mr. Gregory Corrales & Ms. Diane M. Denzler & Mrs. Liane Scarsella-Corrales Mr. & Mrs. Rajiv Behti Mr. Thomas J. Corsiglia Mr. & Mrs. Jon R. Berquist Mr. Paul B. Costello December Mr. & Mrs. Michael J. Bettinger & Ms. Rita C. Beamish Ms. Kathy DePaola Mr. & Mrs. Michael T. Crawley 2005 & Dr. Tim Bigalke Ms. Dianne G. Crosby Mr. Thomas Blomberg Mr. & Mrs. Anthony Crossley Mr. & Mrs. James Boswell Mr. & Mrs. Thomas J. Cunnane Mr. & Mrs. Ray Boudewyn Mr. Marc Cunningham Mr. & Mrs. Kent F. Brooks Mr. & Mrs. Robert Cunningham Mr. & Mrs. Thomas J. Brophy Mr. & Mrs. Richard G. Daniele Mr. & Mrs. Scott A. Brown Mr. Robert D. Danielson Develop Additional $2 Million Off-Campus Sports Fields Mr. & Mrs. Kevin Brunner & Ms. Nancy L. Haubrich Mr. & Mrs. John J. Buckley Mr. & Mrs. Peter De Martini Construct Choral Arts Building, $12 Million Mr. & Mrs. Marlo G. Bugtong Mr. & Mrs. Dean DiGiovanni Classrooms & Weight Room Mr. Scott D. Buse Mr. George M. Doherty Construct an Off-Campus Kairos & Ms. Elizabeth L. Buse & Ms. Kim A. Kyle $16 Million Student Retreat Center Dr. Marilyn J. Buzolich Mr. & Mrs. Donald Dowbenko Mr. & Mrs. James M. Byrne Mr. & Mrs. Michael C. Downing Increase Endowment Mr. William B. Doyle $20 Million Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey Cabuco for Student Aid Mr. & Mrs. Anthony A. Capili & Ms. Susan B. Doyle

spring 2007 GENESIS V  developmentNEWS

Parents Pledge Support to SI … Mr. & Mrs. Ronald J. Dumont Mr. & Mrs. Mark E. Kane Dr. & Mrs. Richard J. McDonald & Mrs. Ann-Margaret Moyer Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Emery Mr. & Mrs. Robert Kaprosch Mr. & Mrs. Brian J. McGovern Mr. & Mrs. Brendan A. Quinlan Mr. & Mrs. John A. Espiritu Mr. & Mrs. Ronald H. Kase Mr. & Mrs. James McGrillen Mr. & Mrs. Thomas J. Quinlan, Jr. Mr. Urbano Ezquerro Mr. James F. Kennedy Mr. & Mrs. Mark T. McGuinness Mr. & Dr. John M. Reher & Ms. Arlene T. Borick & Ms. Debra Kennedy Mr. & Mrs. Michael P. McGuire Mr. & Mrs. Martin J. Reidy Mr. & Mrs. Joseph M. Fenech Mr. & Mrs. Ki Sub Kim Mr. & Mrs. Timothy L. McInerney Mr. Marcus E. Robinson Mr. & Mrs. Steven R. Fernandes Mr. & Mrs. Matthew Kircher Mr. & Mrs. William H. McInerney, Jr. & Dr. Gabriela G. Robinson Ms. Marie Boylan & Mr. Jeffrey C. Mr. & Mrs. John M. Knox Mr. & Mrs. David R. Melone Mr. & Mrs. Stan Roman Freedman Mr. Thomas C. Knutsen Mr. & Mrs. Mark J. Micheli Mr. & Mrs. Mark C. Rosen Mr. & Mrs. David M. Fu & Ms. Kathryn A. Hall Mr. Otto J. Miller Dr. & Mrs. Luisito M. Roxas Mr. & Mrs. Peter O. Glaessner Mr. Louis C. Kolenda Mr. & Mrs. Frank S. Moore Mr. & Mrs. L. Mark Russo Mr. & Mrs. Michael P. Godin & Ms. Linda Cobeen Drs. Honesto R. Mr. & Mrs. David G. Sabalvaro Mr. & Mrs. Martin J. Gomez, Jr. Mr. Keith M. Kuwatani & Corazon O. Morales Mr. & Mrs. Sandro Sangiacomo Mr. & Mrs. Garret K. C. Goo & Mrs. May M. Yanagi Dr. & Mrs. Richard A. Moran Mr. & Mrs. Willy Santos Mr. Mark A. Goyette Mr. & Mrs. Robert J. Lalanne Mr. & Mrs. Chris Moscone Mr. & Mrs. Nicholas Saribalis & Ms. Anne M. L. Goyette Mr. Charles S. Landefeld & Ms. Mr. & Mrs. Dennis F. Murphy Mr. & Mrs. John H. Scott Mr. & Mrs. Thomas P. Graycar Mary-Margaret Landefeld Mr. & Mrs. K.C. Murphy Mr. Albert A. Serrato Mr. & Mrs. Steven J. Grealish Mr. & Mrs. David J. Ledda Mr. & Mrs. Mark W. Murphy & Dr. Claire Serrato Mrs. Pamela D. Green Hon. Gary Lee Mr. & Mrs. Mark R. Murray Mr. & Mrs. Kevin P. Shannon Mr. Robert S. Green & Ms. Kathleen Mr. & Mrs. Peter K. Lee Mr. & Mrs. Michael G. Murray Mr. & Mrs. Kent P. Shepherd A. Kearley-Green Mr. & Mrs. Jamiel H. Lemley Mr. Archie Nash & Ms. Peg Strub Mr. & Mrs. Eric A. Silva Dr. & Mrs. Anil K. Gulati Mr. & Mrs. Russell C. Leonard Mr. & Mrs. Ward C. Naughton Mr. & Mrs. Li Quan Situ Mr. & Mrs. Scott Halsted Mr. Xavier J. Leung Mr. & Mrs. Hernan G. Navarro Mr. & Mrs. Peter D. Skewes-Cox Mr. & Mrs. Austin J. Harkin Mr. & Mrs. Miki Levy Mr. Michael Neville Mr. Jeffrey R. Skover & Mrs. Dr. Paul D. Hartman Dr. Dong Lin & Mrs. Yi Zhang & Ms. Debra Kasper Colleen M. Redamonti-Skover & Dr. Catherine Chimenti Mr. & Mrs. Romando J. Lucchesi Mr. & Mrs. Sam E. Nunes Ms. Judy Y. Soong Mr. & Mrs. John R. Hauselt, Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Terence Lundy Mr. & Mrs. Finbarr O’Donoghue Mr. Timothy E. Sweeney & Mrs. Mr. & Mrs. James G. Hayes Mr. & Mrs. James A. Maciel Ms. Yvonne M. Olcomendy Susan S. MacKay-Sweeney Mr. & Mrs. Bruce M. Heckert Mr. Thomas Maher Mr. & Mrs. Jerry O’Leary Mr. & Mrs. Felix Talavan Mr. & Mrs. Carl L. Hess & Ms. Nancy Lam Mr. & Mrs. Martin J. O’Leary Mr. & Mrs. Christopher Tatum Mr. & Mrs. Brian Holl Mr. Dennis R. Mahoney Mr. & Mrs. Sammy Ruel Oliman Dr. Michael B. Teitz Mr. Kevin Holl & Hon. Kathleen Kelly Mr. & Mrs. Romeo S. Manuel Mr. & Mrs. Matthew A. Oliver & Dr. Mary C. Comerio Mr. Channing Hoo Mr. & Mrs. Kevin R. Marconi Mr. & Mrs. Thomas O’Malley Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Tenerowicz & Mrs. Susan J. Woo Mr. & Mrs. Enrico S. Martin Mr. & Mrs. James A. O’Meara III Mr. & Mrs. Alfredo Tio Mr. & Mrs. David G. How Dr. Arturo Martinez Mr. & Mrs. Jimmy Ong Mr. & Mrs. Joseph P. Toboni III Mr. & Mrs. George C. Hoyem & Dr. Diane Havlir Mr. & Mrs. Philip O’Reilly Dr. Jeff Vanderbilt Mr. & Mrs. Joseph E. Jacobs Mr. Bob Mascall & Mrs. Susan Mr. & Mrs. Dennis O’Rourke & Dr. Chatherine Chesla Ms. Lisa Joe Woodell-Mascall Dr. & Mrs. Carl Otto Mr. & Mrs. Eugene A. Vlahos Mr. Roedijanto Joewono Mr. & Mrs. Thomas J. Mc Caffrey Mr. & Mrs. David R. Papale Mr. & Mrs. Michael L. Walton & Mrs. Myung-Bae Lee Mr. & Mrs. Gerard T. McCahill Mr. & Mrs. Young K. Park Mr. & Mrs. Henry C. Wear Mr. Neil H. Joson & Dr. Yvonne M. Go Mr. Philip P. McCarthy Dr. David R. Pating Mr. & Mrs. Jonathan Wong & Ms. Camille H. Pating Mr. & Mrs. Phillip T. Wong Mr. Bruno A. Peguese & Mr. & Mrs. Tom Wong Mrs. Sheila S. Evans-Peguese Mr. & Mrs. Mitchell L. Wright Drs. James & Suzanne Pertsch Mr. & Mrs. Timmy L. Yan Mr. & Mrs. John J. Pizza Mr. Ron D. Zeff Mr. Michael K. Poimboeuf Mr. & Mrs. Frederick A. Zupancic

Latin Scholars Gather in Menlo Park More than 70 students studying Latin at SI went to Menlo School in February for the annual California Junior Classical League convention where they met students from all over the state. SI’s classics scholars and their colleagues went toe-to-toe in a number of competitions, including certamen, dodgeball, Battle of the Bands, and the loud, rousing Spirit Competition (pictured). Congratulations to SI’s many winners, including Marlo Studley ’10, who won the medal for best individual performance in the arts competitions. Liz Palazzolo ’07 won a $1500 scholarship to pursue her study of classics in college, and Gabriel Abinante, the newly- elected Northern California representative, will spearhead next fall’s Ludi Octobres for Latin students in Northern California. For more information about SI’s Latin program and the California Junior Classical League, visit www.siprep.org/clubs/jcl/JCLhome.htm.

10 GENESIS V spring 2007 coverSTORY A Cat’s Eye View of the World SI Grads Report from Africa, Alaska, Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation, Siberia, Australia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Honduras Putting a Smile on AIDS Orphans in Africa Richard, 4, sat in his chair and smiled at Brenda Lamb ’93. As he opened his mouth, Lamb saw that his gums were swollen from a raging infection. With his parents already dead from AIDS, Richard most likely was infected with HIV. Living in an orphanage in Malawi, he “Richard had never heard of a den- or comfort him, yet he was strong and Brenda Lamb was among 28 million tist before meeting me,” said Lamb, a trusting.” (left) and periodontist now working in San Mateo. Lamb had come to Africa along with Marielle Mur- phy were part people in Sub-Saharan “He was so open and trusting, and her husband, Gordy Lewis, her friend of a team of he never cried or flinched as I gave him his and classmate Marielle Murphy ’93 and dentists and Africa and 800,000 in his injections and worked on him. He just sat several dental professionals to help 300 assistants who there, barefoot and wearing dusty clothes, children and adults last summer as part of worked on own country who suffer 300 people in looking at me with his big brown eyes. He the Palo Alto-based Footsteps Missions. Africa. from this disease. didn’t have any mother to hold his hand They performed root canals, fixed broken

spring 2007 GENESIS V 11 Both Lamb teeth, disinfected gums, filled cavities and many people were waiting for help.” with me my whole life, and extending and Murphy taught dental hygiene. Both Murphy and Lamb were im- community service to Africa was very — graduates of Lamb and Murphy worked in pressed with the courage of the chil- natural.” (Murphy, incidentally, is the SI’s first coed class of 1993 Ethiopia and Malawi — countries that dren. “Only about five cried,” said daughter of math teacher Chuck Mur- — worked on have a ratio of 1 dentist for every mil- Lamb. “In the U.S., approximately 30 phy ’61 and the granddaughter of long- patients in lion people — while working out of percent of the kids have melt-downs at time SI instructor J.B. Murphy.) makeshift den- two churches and one orphanage. one time or another. It was a humbling In Africa, the two women saw tal offices in two churches in Lamb had first heard of Footsteps experience to work on these children.” firsthand the devastation wrought by Malawi and in Missions from a hygienist who works Murphy found satisfaction in help- AIDS and poverty. “We saw AIDS or- an orphanage at her practice and from Dr. Robert ing patients “feel better about them- phans as young as 9 holding infant sib- in Ethiopia. Olson, who has gone on more than 18 selves. This is life-changing for them.” lings,” said Lamb. “We passed villages dental missions. “I had just gotten mar- She told the story of one 16-year-old with no electricity or running water.” ried and thought this sounded great.” girl, the daughter of a pastor, who had At one point, Lamb worked on a girl She told her plans to Murphy, a busi- a large chip in one front tooth. Murphy who was in the final stages of AIDS, her ness manager at Walmart.com, who assisted as Lamb filled the gap. “When small mouth covered in lesions. Lamb asked to go along despite not having a she was done, Brenda gave her a mir- knew she had less than a month to live. background in dentistry. ror to see herself. She smiled so broadly “Most people survive on a dollar a day While Lamb worked on teeth and and then put on lip gloss.” there,” she added. “They can’t afford Both women credit SI for teach- the $19 a month in medicine they need “The patients feel better about ing them the value of serving the poor. to treat their disease.” Lamb spent part of the summer between Both women also saw scenes of themselves. This is life-changing her junior and senior years in Guaymas, tremendous joy, including one Sun- for them.” — Marielle Murphy Mexico, working on an immersion trip day service at a Presbyterian Church, with Fr. Mario Prietto, S.J. She con- which featured several choirs and spir- gums, Murphy served as her assistant. tinued volunteer work at Georgetown ited dancing. “We also had two chil- She sterilized equipment, took X-rays, University and at dental school. “In Af- dren offer us their food,” said Murphy. developed film and, along with Gordy, rica,” Lamb added, “I was able to com- “These children eat one meal a day. I played with children who waited for bine community service with the skills was amazed at their generosity.” treatment. I have and to do dentistry for the first Both women hope to return to Af- “It was hard not being able to time in my life without worrying about rica to continue working with patients, treat everyone who came to us, nor overhead and insurance coverage.” and they encourage others to join them could we fix every problem we saw,” At SI, Murphy found herself drawn in their work. If you are interested, go said Lamb. “For each patient, we had to the Ignatian ideal of being a woman to www.footstepsmissions.org for more to pick the two worst teeth because so for others. “That philosophy has been information. v

12 GENESIS V spring 2007 Despair and Hope at the World’s Edge — a personal reflection on global warming

By Brian McCaffery ’75 resources anywhere these days — in the media, on-line, at the office water cooler. For me, it would also be dishonest to take I live in a land of drying lakes, thinning ice and that approach, because I have come to toppling trees. Coastal villages are eroding away, and believe that we lack the will to use such information anyway. Instead, I invite you the permafrost is melting, releasing ever more carbon di- to explore with me not global warming oxide into the atmosphere. For twenty years, I have served itself, but the effects the crisis has had on me as a Christian scientist who has dedi- as a wildlife biologist in western Alaska, striving to learn cated his life to protecting the environ- ment. In this article, I will share with you more about the mysteries of creation that we might better the dynamics of a flourishing personal de- care for it. And now, at the dawn of the 21st century, the spair and the genesis of a struggling hope that may seem far too circumscribed to more we learn, the more it is clear that we have neither the optimists among you. the knowledge nor the will to care for it as we should. “What is truth?” hat is the truth about global I was asked to write this article for Genesis V, to provide a perspective on the cri- climate change? Before at- sis of global climate change. It is a challenge that I undertake with serious misgivings. tempting to answer, let’s Genesis articles are inevitably confident and constructive dispatches of achievement, W look at a more fundamental question, inspirational communiqués of success and accomplishment. “What is truth?” Standing before Jesus, In that vein, I could, as a scientist, provide a laundry list of climate change predic- Pilate raised that eternal question which tions, and then provide you with a road map to planetary health. But you can find such becomes ever more pressing in this era

Brian McCaffery, a biologist working for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, has seen the effects of global warming first hand. Photo by Jan van de Kam

spring 2007 GENESIS V 13 The Septem- ber 2005 storm surge on the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta inundat- ed hundreds of square kilometers of coastal meadows and tundra, and threatened several coastal villages. The Bering Sea ultimately pushed up to 15 km inland of relativism. Even beyond the realm of mate change? Are the global climate pat- Variable Responses from the ethics and morals, the borders of truth terns we see today truly anomalous? Are lthough the majority scientific coast, where become hazier with each passing day. Al- they beyond the range of previously ob- it still sur- opinions (i.e., global warming is leged truths proliferate and metastasize served or inferred change? Is human ac- rounded this occurring and human activity is permanent throughout cyberspace, where you can tivity responsible? The scions of Socrates A at least in part responsible) appear to be U. S. Fish find your every opinion canonized, every would have us think that science can pro- winning in the court of public opinion, and Wildlife impulse confirmed with the grease of ap- vide the answers to these questions. We Service field that result is not universal. The degree parent authority and fact. The great para- are taught that science is objective, unbi- camp 12 hours and nature of uncertainty about global after the peak dox of the Information Age is that the ased and definitive. Unfortunately, as the climate change plays a key role in limit- of the storm. marvels of the Internet have reduced our debate about global climate change illus- ing personal and social responses to the Photo by Åke certainty that the information we receive trates, that is too often not the case. De- Lindström crisis. Consider the media reaction to the is actually accurate and reliable. spite protestations to the contrary, there recent report from the UN Intergovern- Consider events of the recent past. is no consensus about the magnitude, mental Panel on Climate Change. The Did Al Gore or George Bush actually re- causes or implications of global warming. report confirmed that the planet is getting ceive more votes in Florida in the 2000 The supreme courts of science have issued warmer, and that there is at least a 90 per- election? Are civilian casualties in Iraq in their opinions, but they comprise simply cent probability that human activity is the the tens of thousands as some claim or majority decisions. For all we know, they culprit. in the hundreds of thousands as others could be as wrong as the scientists of In the wake of these straightfor- assert? Is embryonic stem cell research Galileo’s time, most of whom rejected his ward conclusions, The New York Times truly the panacea that both its informed hypothesis of heliocentrism because of its declared that the debate about global and ignorant advocates claim, or, despite empirical, not theological, inadequacies. warming is over, and The New Yorker Regarding global climate, there is a proclaimed that it would be “suicidal” “Do we throw up our hands, as small but persistent minority that refutes not to take radical steps to reverse the the majority opinion, marshaling its own The Washington Post implied, or process now. But National Review On- suite of data, models and assumptions. can the planet be saved?” line pointed out that the forecasts were Because science is frequently biased, it less dire than those in the last such report should come as no surprise that support- the tens of millions of dollars spent on in 2001 and opined that climate scientists ers of the minority opinion include the embryonic stem cell research around the still don’t really know what’s going on. usual suspects — researchers sponsored world, is the continuing litany of failure The Wall Street Journal reflected that, be- by corporations or governments interest- at finding solutions to the well-known cause large scale climate change has been ed in maintaining the status quo. Many challenges in this field evidence of a radi- happening for millennia, we should focus of the minority opinions, however, are cally overblown optimism regarding its on adapting to change, rather than pre- voiced by researchers with no obvious potential? venting it. Most alarmingly, The Wash- political or socioeconomic prejudices. What is the truth about global cli- ington Post suggested that “The dirty

14 GENESIS V spring 2007 secret about global warming is this: We and unequivocally those most vulnerable seems hopelessly naive. Although sin may have no solution.” among us, how can we have the hubris have been excised from the Federation, it This uncertainty can paralyze the to assume that we have the wisdom nec- is alive and well in the real universe. well intentioned and grant license to those essary for dealing with the economic, so- So, can we “save the world?” And if who exploit and profit from the status cial and ecological complexities of global so, whose responsibility is it? Some would quo. Some claim that the economic costs climate change? If, despite the biological say that it is up to governments to enact of implementing changes are too high, evidence, we have such a difficult time de- and enforce policies that will reduce and given the degree of uncertainty about the ciding when human life begins, how can ultimately reverse the processes that have processes we hope to reverse. Others con- we possibly move forward on responding led to global climate change. Regrettably, tend that, even given the uncertainty, the to global climate change, given the phe- the track record of governments is not risk of failing to act is simply too great nomenon’s inherent uncertainties? encouraging. Our own country conspicu- to be ignored, and that we must accept ously refused to sign the Kyoto accords, the prospects of short-term economic Can the Planet Be Saved? in part because of concerns that the U.S. hardship to ensure a healthy biosphere. or arguments’ sake, let’s stipulate would be at an economic disadvantage Others claim that we can have our cake the twin premises of global climate relative to two of the 21st century’s larg- and eat it, too — economic profit and a Fchange: first, the global environ- healthy environment. Although this posi- ment is, on average, getting warmer, and More than 50 per- tion is probably true at small scales now, second, human activity is at least partially cent of the world’s and perhaps generally true decades hence, responsible. Given the preponderance, if population of Black it fails to account for either the magnitude not unanimity, of the scientific evidence, Turnstones nest within 2 km of the coast of of the problems we apparently face right I am personally convinced of both points. the Yukon-Kuskokwim now, or the radical steps that will be re- So, how do we respond? More to the Delta. Many climate quired to turn things around. point, is there reason to hope? Do we change models indi- Debate about how to proceed is not throw up our hands, as The Washington cate that this habitat will be completely limited to the secular arena; it resonates Post implied, or can the planet be saved? inundated by the end through the Church as well. Among the In a different context, that was the of this century.Photo many issues of social justice confront- same question I asked myself 30 years ago. by Ted Swem ing us today, where should followers of Your editor and I worked separate jobs in Christ put their emphasis? Adherents of downtown San Francisco that summer. a particular interpretation of the “seam- Each evening, we’d ride home together, less garment” theology see the care of discussing all that we would need to do as creation as one of many “human life” is- Christians in order to “save the world.” sues, all of which merit equal attention. Beyond the sophomoric presumptuous- est polluters, China and India, countries They often castigate those in the Church ness inherent in considering the prospect that would not be bound by the accords. who define human life issues more nar- of, let alone the need for, repeating Je- Even among signatories to the accords, rowly by elevating certain topics above sus’ unique and sufficient salvific work, however, there has been a notable lack others. Those who focus their attention we were confident in society’s ability to of progress toward achieving the limited on issues directly relating to the sacred meet any challenge, nudged along, of reductions of greenhouse gases specified nature of human life itself (e.g., abortion), course, by our humble efforts. We com- in the agreement. as opposed to the “quality of life” top- bined a natural American optimism with Governments have often played ics often championed by their ideological, the Ignatian search for God in all things. catch-up when it comes to big issues of theological or political opponents, might In retrospect, I suspect that combination justice in our history. During both the bat- respond in the words of Richard Neu- yielded a creeping Pelagianism, far too tle against slavery and, a century later, the haus: “The defense of the dignity of the confident in our ability to dictate our fate battle for fuller civil rights, individual citi- human person at the points of his or her and the fate of societies, let alone the fate zens organized and led the fight, and the greatest vulnerability is the foundation of of the planet. Three decades later, my own government eventually followed along. social justice. If we don’t get this issue of life experiences and a better appreciation So, does citizen action portend well for social justice right, we will not get any- of the magnitude of evil in the 20th and a positive resolution to the climate crisis? thing right” (“The Public Square,” First early 21st century leave me much more Consider the two aforementioned battles. Things 169, January 2007). comfortable with Augustine’s theology of In the fight for emancipation, many abo- I agree with Fr. Neuhaus. If we, as fallen humanity. The Roddenberyesque litionists both spoke out and risked their a society, lack the will, clarity of vision dream of a human society embarking on reputations, careers and even lives to help and compassion to protect consistently a unidirectional quest for social maturity free slaves. During the struggle for civil

spring 2007 GENESIS V 15 ciency; there are hybrids and other new technologies in development, but there are also more gas-guzzlers on the road. As a nation enamored of Hummers and NASCAR, we have still not grown up. Instead, we send our children to fight in a desert floating on a sea of oil, while oceans of water threaten to inundate our coastlines. Some might argue that even in times of crisis, the wheels of response and change turn slowly. Again, howev- er, history reveals a striking dissimilar- ity between past national crises and the present. Less than five years passed be- tween that hot summer in Philadelphia and the victory at Yorktown, between the fireworks over Charleston - Har bor and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. It took less than 10 years to make that giant leap for man- kind, from a President’s inspiration to A dramatic tidal surge in September of 2005 completely washed rural development on migratory birds. In the first human footprint on the dusty away the author’s field camp on the coast of the Bering Sea. The her personal life, however, she insists on lunar surface. storm surge carried one of the camp’s three weatherports (10’ x 20’) 8 km inland and deposited it on the small island of tundra driving an SUV in the city because they The great era of lunar exploration still remaining above the flood waters; the other two weather- have a better safety record in crashes than coincided with the birth of the modern ports were completely destroyed. Climate models suggest that smaller cars. Some would call for more environmental movement. Some would storms of this magnitude will increase at high latitudes in the radical commitment. Like John Brown say that memorable photograph of our decades ahead. USFWS photo by Mike Rearden during the mid-19th century battle over precious blue home above the lunar rights, advocates of justice spoke out, but slavery, small bands of ecoterrorists see landscape almost launched the envi- then also marched and launched voter violence as a solution to today’s problems, ronmental movement. Yet nearly 40 registration drives. Some gave their lives but it is unlikely that their misguided ef- years later, the biosphere continues to in the effort. forts will spark a societal conflict leading degrade. People are not giving up their Such commitment is not conspicu- to greater environmental responsibility. cars, are not increasing the use of mass ous when it comes to environmental ac- Fossil fuel consumption is a good transit and are moving farther from, tivism. Scientists, politicians and NGO index of how serious we are as a nation rather than closer to, places of work. representatives speak out about the mag- about the climate crisis. We currently use Americans are amazingly (and disturb- nitude and timing of the climate crisis about a quarter of all energy produced ingly) docile toward the abridgement globally. Since the Torrey Canyon oil of civil liberties in the face of potential “People are not giving up their spill disaster and the Arab oil embargo terrorism but distressingly stubborn in the early 1970s, we have known that about ceding civic freedom and eco- cars, are not increasing the use of there are significant ecological and geopo- nomic potential in the face of a global mass transit and are moving litical risks to dependence on fossil fuels. meltdown. farther from … places of work.” We have known of these risks for three decades, long before there was a hint of The Anatomy of Despair concern about global warming. In all that “He was shaken by the overwhelm- and then burn fossil fuels driving home time, what have we accomplished? Prog- ing revelation that the headlong race to the suburbs and flying to global con- ress on reducing consumption has been between his misfortune and his dreams ferences around the world. A colleague of dwarfed by increases. In 1973, we import- was at that moment reaching the finish mine serves as an apt metaphor for the ed 35 percent of our oil; today we import line. The rest was darkness.” contradiction. In her professional life, she 60 percent. Take a look at the roads. Yes, — Gabriel Garcia Márquez, “The Gen- aggressively strives to limit the impacts of there are more cars with higher fuel effi- eral in His Labyrinth”

16 GENESIS V spring 2007 lthough I don’t quite feel the same of global warming looming on our collec- weakness.” Here, at the apogee of their sense of personal apocalypse that tive horizon, that ragged ache has become entertaining technobabble, the brothers Astruck the dying General Simón my bittersweet companion wherever I am Wachowski nearly formulate the truth Bolívar in Márquez’s novel, this passage — in Alaska, the Everglades, the Sierra ultimately revealed from the summit of resonates with me more than I would Nevada, the Appalachians. Calvary: Hope is not a delusion, because wish. Like the accelerating dissolution of At times, I feel like Denethor, stew- in our greatest weakness, we find our the South American union that Bolívar ard of Gondor, after gazing into the dark greatest strength. “We preach Christ cru- struggled to create, the misfortune that crystal of the palantir. I see nothing but cified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly I experience is not mine alone. It is our death and destruction. Have my visions to Gentiles, but to those who are called, corporate misfortune to be sharing a dy- been darkened by the dark lord? Have I ing world while holding the cure in our been blinded to the possibility of hope? “How does one persevere in hands. We simply lack the will to use it, What does it take to be like Aragorn, to the face of despair and settling instead, whether we admit it or look into the same dark crystal, to see not, for the pathetic consolation that, by the death of his beloved, and still have apparent hopelessness?” the time the great blue biosphere winds the strength and the courage to venture down, erodes away, and finally unravels, to Mordor to do battle against evil? How both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power our generation will be gone. does one persevere in the face of despair of God and the wisdom of God. For the The threat of global climate change and apparent hopelessness? How can one foolishness of God is wiser than men, has triggered the great crisis of faith in my declare, like Aragorn, “There is always and the weakness of God is stronger than adult life, not in terms of faith in God, hope.” How can one soar like John of the men” (1 Corinthians 1:23-25). but faith in humanity. If the richest, most Cross?: But the hope that flows from Calvary powerful, most politically blessed coun- “Somehow, I continued to go a thou- is an eschatological hope, not a temporal try on earth cannot muster the will and sandfold beyond reaching; heaven grants one. A great chasm yawns between my resources to attack the problem seriously, to the beseeching what they earn through spiritual hopes and my secular hopes, my who will? As a child, as a teenager, as a hope. For no prize but the prey would I confident hope for a future with Christ university student, I was confident that tarry, and hope raised me by and by until and my waning hope for a future of plan- with enough knowledge and know-how, I was so high, so high that I closed upon etary health. I long for a connection, a environmental crises could be averted. the quarry.” continuity, a flow joining one to the other. Now, I no longer believe that. As I search for a means to heal that rift, As the years go by, I spend more and The Anatomy of Hope I encounter a paradox. I find that I am more time feeling like I do when I visit As a Christian, my vision is drawn both a disillusioned biologist and a hope- Hawaii. For someone writing while a high to the slopes of Calvary. Where do ful deacon. In my ministry as a deacon, I blizzard howls in subzero temperatures we find hope at Satan’s festival of death? see no greater prospect of visible success outside his window, that might seem like Although I suspect that Kazantzakis and a good thing, but it isn’t. As a biologist, I Scorsese both overstated and miscon- love being in Hawaii, reveling in the rain strued Jesus’ last temptation, I agree with forests, the volcanoes and the coral reefs. them that he almost certainly was tempt- At the same time, however, the experience ed to despair when he hung upon the is always bittersweet. So much of the bio- cross. As Hebrews tells us, He was like logical richness of the islands was degrad- us in all things but sin (Heb 4:15). Jesus ed or destroyed in the centuries of human could not blithely pirouette past the road- occupation before our own lifetimes, and block of temptation; he had to confront the wave of destruction has not yet crest- it. How else can we make sense of his cry, ed. Degradation of habitats, introduced “My God, my God, why have you for- pests and widespread extinctions have saken me?” (Mark 15:34). Was it merely left the Hawaiian biota just a shadow of a headline for the terminal optimism of its former glory. I experience joy when Psalm 22, or was it a genuine plea of exis- I see a flaming scarlet iiwi flit about an tential despair? Bar-tailed Godwits depend on the rich mudflats of the outer Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for invertebrate prey. Each fall, the ohia blossom and probe for nectar with When Neo chooses to save Trinity in godwits accumulate fat along the Delta coastline to fuel their its long pink bill, but I also feel a hollow Matrix Reloaded, the Architect smirks, 11,000 km flight to New Zealand and Australia. This migration pain of regret for all its feathered relatives “Hope. It is the quintessential human is the longest non-stop flight of any bird species in the world. that have disappeared forever and will delusion, simultaneously the source of Rising sea levels may permanently inundate these mudflats and render them inaccessible to migratory shorebirds. not be seen again. Now, with the specter your greatest strength and your greatest Photo by Ted Swem

spring 2007 GENESIS V 17 than I do as a conservation biologist. I inspire us, to reveal ourselves to ourselves. and question causes my prayer to detour baptize, I catechize adults and children, I We need wild places so that we can hear and dissolve into casual scientific inquiry. visit the sick and lead liturgies for prison- God. When I see with the eyes of the scientist, I ers, I preach at Mass, and I do it all with Many of my most profound expe- cannot listen with the ear of the mystic. no empirically-based confidence that my riences with God have occurred in the I have no such problem before the words will take root and bear fruit for wilderness — on the Yukon Delta, in Blessed Sacrament. I encounter my Lord Christ. And yet, aware of my own sin- the Rocky Mountains, in the Surinamese most consistently in the Eucharist and fulness and limitations, and confronted rainforest. Such encounters with God, can pray most effectively before the tab- continuously with the evidence of sin in infused with the glory of his creation, ernacle. It is here that I literally find com- the lives of others, I exercise my ministry serve as touchstones in my life. Fleeting munion, where the divine and the human, with peace, joy and a firm hope that God foretastes of the heavenly banquet, their the natural and the supernatural, come will use my poor efforts to achieve his will memory fortifies my faith in moments of together. I kneel before the one through for me and others. I have great faith in doubt and spiritual aridity. My experi- whom the entire universe was created, I the words of Isaiah: “For as the rain and ences in nature are not unique. For many kneel before a tabernacle within a church, the snow come down from heaven, and people, their most intimate experiences I kneel in the flickering beams of a candle return not thither but water the earth, with God occur in wild places, far from or by the light gloriously filtered through making it bring forth and sprout … so the disruption and distraction of human- a mosaic of stained glass. And all of them shall my word be that goes forth from my ity. And that raises yet another troubling were consecrated by human hands — the mouth; it shall not return to me empty, paradox. If we are made in God’s image, tabernacle, the church, the candle, the but it shall accomplish that which I pur- if the God-man Jesus Christ brought ev- glass, even the Sacrament itself. Although pose, and prosper in the thing for which I erything together in himself (Ephesians a redwood cathedral can reveal God in sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11). 1:10), why is it that for so many people, needle, branch, fern and wren, I find a Why does such a gap exist between God’s presence is most manifest where more focused revelation in a cathedral the poles of my twin hopes? Saving souls human presence is least obvious? Perhaps of glass and wood and stone. There I can is clearly God’s will, but is saving the the root of that paradox can be traced more clearly perceive His essential nature planet? Will the unraveling of the bio- to Eden. At the creation, we were made as Trinity — a community of persons sphere lead to a radical reduction in the in God’s image, but that image was tar- seeking intimacy with us, his frail and planet’s capacity to support life? Will it nished pretty early on in our history. The flawed creatures. then limp along for centuries or millen- consequences of the fall have a dual ef- And so, as I seek a path that might nia, perhaps recovering, but perhaps not, fect. First, the corruption of humanity, mend the great tear in the fabric of my until the Parousia? Or is the descending our sinfulness, the havoc we unnecessar- hope, I seek the Blessed Sacrament. In spiral a direct and rapid path to imminent ily wreak on the natural world, naturally my home parish, at the Church of the eschatological fulfillment and renewal, to lead those who appreciate God’s creation Immaculate Conception here in Bethel, the arrival of the New Jerusalem, the new to seek those areas where it has not yet Alaska, a great batik hanging adorns one heaven and the new earth within our own been trammeled by human greed, arro- side of the Church’s interior eastern wall. lifetimes? If the latter, does that render all gance and shortsightedness. At the same The batik is about 20 feet high and 5 feet of our efforts to protect the environment time, we see now only darkly, and all too wide, plummeting nearly from the ceiling, useless and contrary to God’s ultimate de- often, we fail to see the good in human then cascading over the small altar of re- sign and purpose? life, human nature, human enterprise. pose where the Blessed Sacrament resides, We cannot know for sure. Yet, my Like Denethor peering into the palantir, before coming to rest on the floor of the guts tell me that an active eschatological the consequences of sin sometimes limit sanctuary. The images on the batik are hope, open to the possibility of imminent our vision to the darker images. enormous salmon, the source of life for fulfillment, cannot be an excuse to aban- many who live here along the banks of don ecological hope, a hope for the res- Healing Wounds the Kuskokwim River. These great pas- toration of our oikos. My passion for the or me, my love of biology is both tel-colored fish, muted crimson and vio- environment arose out of the enjoyment a blessing and a curse. It has been let and orange, are all straining upward and inspiration that awaited me when- Fa blessing because it draws me into against the flow, striving heavenward, in ever I stepped or swam in wild, natural the wild; it provides opportunities to love a desperate, hook-jawed frenzy of self- places. That passion matured in the real- both the creation and the Creator. At the sacrifice, racing to give their lives so that ization that I wanted to share that sense same time, it is a curse because I find na- they might create life. of wonder and peace and amazement ture endlessly distracting. Even when I There, in the swirling school of salm- with others, in the understanding that we escape to nature explicitly to spend time on, I find the bandage to heal my wound. as humans need wild places to restore and with God, my ingrained need to observe The gap between my growing hope in

18 GENESIS V spring 2007 God’s promises and my dying hope for begin to understand what it means to can see safe harbor in the distance. They the world he created is spanned by the love. will comfort and inspire me until I see, in tautly stretched body of his Son on the Christ commands us to love God the words of Gandalf, “white shores, and cross, the one who gave his life that we with all that we have and all that we are, beyond, a far green country under a swift might live. That gap is like the pale band and he commands us to love our neigh- sunrise.” of light between the dark horizon and bors as ourselves (Mark 12:29-31). This dark clouds at dawn. When the sun rises, love must not just extend to those who Postscript its light floods the gap, illuminating both share the world with us now. As John “It is possible I am wrong. It is im- the earth and the clouds. The darkness of Paul II emphasized, we must also love our possible to speak with certainty about futility and the darkness of the unknown neighbors in time, those who will follow very much.” are both dispersed, bathed in shades of us in the years and decades ahead. We are — Barry Lopez, “River Notes” scarlet. “It pleased God to make absolute pilgrims here, and we should leave our fullness reside in him and, by means of home better than we found it, that future erhaps my hope for the planet is too him, to reconcile everything in his per- generations may yet prosper. I want oth- constrained; perhaps my pessimism son, on earth and in the heavens, mak- ers to share the joy and wonder and sur- Pis unwarranted given the scope ing peace through the blood of his cross” prise of God’s creation, and will do what and grandeur of human achievement (Colossians 1:19-20). I can to contribute to that end. across the centuries. Shackled by a cyni- Mother Teresa reminded us that we cal empiricism, I may have miscalculated The Frontiers of Hope are called to faithfulness, not success. Her the magnitude of resilience and promise “...even as a boy, I knew a gesture words provide a welcomed breath of lib- in both humanity and the world. If so, I might mean life or death, and I believed eration. Blessedly, our efforts on behalf beg you to prove me wrong. Dare to save the universe was similarly triggered.” of those who follow us need not be mea- the planet. Learn everything that you can – Barry Lopez, River Notes sured by whether or not we ultimately about global climate change, but more succeed in “saving the world.” They are importantly, take significant action. Act n an era when the potential for envi- not dependent upon earth’s final destiny, as an individual and a citizen in both the ronmental apocalypse is both over- because that resolution is ultimately in personal sphere and the political. Dare to Iblown and underappreciated, a ges- God’s hands. Along the way to that fi- challenge the corrosive assumption that ture is called for. Despite the odds, despite nal day, however, if children and parents unlimited economic growth is the pana- the probability that our efforts will be fu- and grandparents still have wild places in cea for the world’s ills and the avatar of tile, we are called to serve. We are called which to play and pray, then I will have human aspiration. The world is suffering, to participate in a doomed campaign, a contributed to something important. Our much of it due to our own sinful struggles forlorn hope. We can draw inspiration efforts, our gestures today, might make it for power and security. “We know that from the great heroes of history and leg- possible for future pilgrims to have a mo- all creation groans and is in agony even end. We can stand with the Spartans at ment of respite and refreshment. Even on until now,” but “the whole created world Thermopylae, with Pope Leo before At- a wounded planet, future souls may still eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons tila or St. Francis before the sultan, with share a moment of intimacy with their of God” (Romans 8:22, 19). Dare to be Don Quixote before the windmills. When creator when they behold the remnants revealed to the world as children of God, a weary Frodo asks, “What are we hold- of what He created. courageous enough to sacrifice, bold ing on to?” we can stand alongside Sam Perhaps, for me, that hope is enough. enough to hope, foolish enough to believe in the ruins of Osgiliath, and answer, It does not bring perfect peace, it does that redemption and healing do indeed “That there’s some good in the world, not bring contentment, but perhaps it flow from the bruised and bloodied sav- Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” is enough. It is an imperfect hope that ior hanging on the cross. v Most importantly, we should stand strengthens my heart, yet leaves it unset- with the women before the cross, for tled. And that is how it should be. A hope Brian J. McCaffery has conducted there, and there alone, can we be assured that left us perfectly content in this life biological field studies as an employee that “in everything God works for good would be a false hope. Augustine was one of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service on for those who love him” (Romans 8:28). of many wise souls who realized this, as the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Ref- Through Christ’s sacrificial love, all futil- he said, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, uge for the last 20 years. He recently ac- ity is given meaning (Romans 8:20-21), until they rest in you.” Until that blessed cepted a position as the refuge’s education absurdity is made wisdom (1 Cor. 1:21), day, we remain sojourners and seekers. specialist. He was ordained a permanent sorrow becomes joy, and the weary and Until then, these light breezes of hope are deacon in 2002 at Immaculate Concep- broken-down will be renewed (Revela- enough to fill my sails. They will sustain tion Parish, Bethel, Alaska, where he lives tion 21:4-5). At the foot of the cross we me until at last, at the end of all things, I with his wife, Christine.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 19 Fr. Tom O’Neill is stationed at Our Lady of Good Counsel in the parish of No Water, located in the Pine Ridge Reserva- tion of South Dakota, the poorest county in the nation.

‘God dwells here among His people’

suit Tertianship1 program, I was told to Of all of the parish churches, Our expect the region to be a desolate and Lady of the Sioux is certainly the most Story & Photos barren place. There are ways and times modern and comfortable, but like many by Fr. Tom O’Neill, S.J. ’74 that those terms may fit, but they cannot things here, there is sadness behind the aptly describe the rugged, raw and real beauty. On June 4, 1999, a tornado I’ve never been colder. beauty of this place. Raw and real beauty swept through Oglala, destroying the old And I’ve never felt such warmth. describe more than the landscape — they church, the parish hall and the homes of are at the heart of my experience here. dozens of residents. A good number of am writing this on Feb. 13, 2007. I arrived at the Holy Rosary Mission our parishioners still live in trailers pro- This morning at 8 a.m., it was -17 de- campus of Red Cloud Indian School on vided by FEMA, some heated by pro- Igrees outside. It is one of those days Thanksgiving Day, an ironic, if not prob- pane, some by wood burning stoves. In that confuses a poor California boy like lematic day to begin a ministry among one of these homes I met a grandmother me: a bright sunny day, seemingly pleas- Native Americans. The Society of Jesus named Minerva. ant, until you walk outside. Then it’s kind has been on the Reservation since 1888,2 Heroic would be an apt description of like a July afternoon in the old days at when, at the request of Chief Red Cloud, of this remarkable woman, who is raising Candlestick. a group of German Jesuits arrived with five grandchildren pretty much by herself. The Pine Ridge Reservation is a Franciscan Sisters to open a school. To- The first time I stepped into her trailer place of sacred contradictions. Located in day, the Jesuits and the Lakota people and saw wood burning in the small stove, southwestern South Dakota, it is home to run a high school,3 a junior high and two it seemed very quaint, until I realized that the Oglala Sioux Tribe, or as they know elementary schools on the Reservation. In this was the home’s entire heating sys- themselves, the Lakota. Shannon County, addition, Red Cloud Indian School and tem. The place is teaming with all sorts of S.D., the state’s way of organizing this the Jesuit community staff more than a God’s creatures: five young and very ac- part of the world, is, by many measure- dozen parishes, some of which are open tive kids and all sorts of animals — dogs, ments, the poorest county in the United only a couple of days a month, but six of cats and puppies and kittens. (“The kids States, yet it is home to one of the rich- which are fully functioning Catholic com- keep bringing them home,” she says with est and most beautiful cultures in the munities. Upon my arrival, I was assigned a smile.) nation. Before I came here to spend four to help at Our Lady of the Sioux parish in Minerva is determined to keep these months doing ministry as part of my Je- Oglala. beautiful kids away from alcohol and

20 GENESIS V spring 2007 drugs. Unfortunately, that frequently his first basketball game, etc. I asked him and quilts. Outside, there was nothing means keeping them away from a num- if he could point out any places where he but the utter darkness of midnight — and ber of close relatives as well. Half Mexi- sensed that God was with him. Without stars. Everywhere. Silent Night, Holy can and half Lakota, this little family has any hesitation, he pointed to his first bas- Night. Amen. lived all over the place, most recently in ketball game: “On the court, when I have Fresno. I am told that over a year ago the ball, I know that there is Somebody “Everything that seems empty mom gathered up her kids and hitchhiked with me, watching over me and taking is full of the angels of God.” from Mexico to Fresno after a falling out care of me.” This spiritual insight comes with their father. Not finding any family from a kid who, at age 15, thumbed a ride found this quote from the 4th century in California that wanted to take them in, with his single mother and four younger bishop St. Hilary in a book called Da- they hit the road once again, hitchhiking siblings across nearly 2,000 miles in two Ikota by Kathleen Norris. This is the this time to South Dakota. different countries. God certainly is with first time in my life that I’ve lived more They are here in Oglala with grand- him, watching over him, taking care of than 20 or so miles from an ocean. But ma for now, and while here, Minerva him. I only wish my own journey of 30 the wide-open plains of South Dakota wants them all to be fully initiated into days of silent prayer yielded such simple have their own vastness and sense of the the Catholic Church. So they are faith- grace. infinite. Conversely, I find power in what fully at church every Sunday morning for Oglala has only two small churches is finite here. And what borders on the Mass and every Monday afternoon for — Our Lady of Good Counsel in a place eternal, I think. catechism classes. Jose is the oldest, age called No Water, about 15 miles away, Funerals are a big part of life here. 15, and he has already been baptized and and St. Bernard’s in Red Shirt Table 40 One of the most touching funerals in has received his First Communion. He is miles up the road at the northern edge of which I participated took place just after technically too young to be Confirmed the Reservation. We have Mass in each of the first of the year. Destiny Faith, who Jose and (age 16 in the Diocese of Rapid City) these churches once a month. Our Lady was four months premature, was buried Jimmy (Jose is the oldest but he very much wants to be part of the of Good Counsel offered me one of the in a casket just a bit larger than a shoebox. of the fam- catechism classes. He takes his role as most beautiful experiences of my life: She went home to her Creator, buried in ily). Behind the “big brother” very seriously, and his Built in 1909, this tiny little white clap- a beautiful little cemetery at the side of is the Lakota younger siblings — Lupe, “Bear,” Jimmy board church in No Water is a place of Highway 18, blessed on her journey with “medicine wheel” with and Manny — all look up to him. beauty, peace and grace. It stands just the ancient prayers of both the Roman the four sa- The Bishop of Rapid City, Blase Cu- off the highway, with only a dilapidated Church and her own Lakota ancestors. cred colors. pich, agreed with Sister Connie Schmidt, church hall and an outhouse nearby. S.S.N.D., the coordinator of all of the You’ll find neither electricity nor heat in parishes on the Reservation and the par- the church, but you will find water in No ish administrator in Oglala, that an ex- Water, evidenced by the grove of trees ception could be made in this instance, that grow around the site. This is where especially since this may be the only win- I spent Christmas Eve. dow in young Jose’s life that he will have After finishing a 10 p.m. Mass in the support (his grandmother) necessary Oglala on Dec. 24, I got in the truck with to make this step. Sister Connie wrote Sister Connie, and headed up the road to the bishop directly and received a per- No Water. About half a mile or so away, sonal response. It’s nice to know that the we could see the church faintly glowing bishop of a diocese that takes up pretty in the darkness. Without any electric- much half of the territory in the state can ity, the little old building was lit only by take the time to have a personal interest candlelight and lanterns. The flickering in one of the youngest and most vulner- white candles in the windows were not able members of his flock. there to create atmosphere: They were One of the exercises in Jose’s cat- necessary, and real. Inside, it was actu- echism book was to draw a “timeline” ally quite warm and bright thanks to two of his life, noting important occasions. large lanterns hanging from the ceiling Last Monday evening, he spent about 20 and the heat of a friendly wood burning minutes working on a timeline and writ- stove near the altar. On the other side of ing down all sorts of important dates: his the altar was a Charlie Brown Christmas birthday, the date of his baptism and first tree, lovingly decorated. About 50 people communion, his move to South Dakota, gathered for Mass, wrapped in blankets

spring 2007 GENESIS V 21 The trailerhome where Minerva lives with her five grandchildren, who hitchhiked with their mother from Mexico to Fresno and then to the reservation.

One of the major movements of my 30- the van, once it was filled with music wine were real. And became Real. When day silent retreat in the fall was a power- books, vestments, bread, wine, water (No I was in Theology studies, it was hard to ful sense of the presence of my own sister, Water, except for the trees, remember?) keep up with the latest correct terminol- Mary Monica, who died five years before chalice and paten, altar linens, priest and ogy: Was I there to learn how to celebrate I was born. Few things here seem to be pastoral coordinator needed to be driven the Eucharist or how to preside at the measured by the same rationality and the 15 miles or so to the church, and then Liturgy or how to lead a worshipping practicality as the rest of the world. Or unloaded into the old building, which was community? On the Third Sunday of Or- at least the one I’m used to. A life that is not freezing thanks to the early arrival of dinary Time, I did what had happened in barely lived, accomplishing nothing save the entire congregation, Steve Hawk. that sacred, dusty place for a century: I just “being,” is, well, “full of the angels Part of me may wish for a “vibrant just “said Mass.” For all God’s souls in of God.” community of faith gathering in fellow- No Water, “wherever they may be.” ship as a prophetic witness of transfor- The situation at St. Bernard’s in Red The congregation at Red Shirt is mation on the Reservation.” The rest of Shirt Table is much the same. Many of the usually made up of five or six kids me realizes that on this Third Sunday in smaller communities on the Reservation from Mary Fast Wolf’s family … Ordinary Time, Mass starts at 11:30 a.m. are facing the challenge of not being able and the NFL playoffs start at 1 p.m. to have weekly Mass in their local church I am learning to appreciate the way A sensible return on an investment because there are not enough priests to things are measured here. A few weeks of time and liturgical resources? Perhaps cover all the parishes. In the absence of a ago, on the third Sunday of the month, not, but it was a beautiful morning, with priest — I’m a temporary solution — Sis- I was scheduled for the monthly Mass in the sun beaming in through 100-year-old ter Connie has been having monthly com- No Water. The Third Sunday in Ordinary windows onto peeling paint, dusty bench- munion services at No Water and Red Time, though, is not quite the same draw es and statues of the Sacred Heart and Shirt Table over the past couple of years. as Christmas Eve. Present at Mass were Mary that, if they were anywhere else, The congregation at Red Shirt is usually one celebrant (yours truly), Sister Con- would have been retired years ago. But, made up of five or six kids from Mary nie and Steve Hawk, the caretaker of the chipped and dusty as they may be, Jesus Fast Wolf’s family and, maybe, a couple church building, there to start the fire in and Mary are still there, silent witnesses of local ranchers. the wood-burning stove. to a century of prayers lifted to the heav- Mary Fast Wolf is another heroic A sensible return on an investment? ens from those same old empty benches figure. She has a house full of foster kids After all, a homily needed to be prepared, and now absent hearts. But the bread and (probably a dozen or so at the moment).

22 GENESIS V spring 2007 Her house (actually, it’s about four “If you want to stop, did a gentle slide into the ditch on the houses, each a different color, cobbled right side of the road. No harm, no foul. together in a sort of “Winchester Mys- don’t use your brakes.” Several cars stopped to ask if we needed tery House” kind of arrangement) is help, and in about half an hour, two La- filled with room after room of toys, kids ’m not used to driving on snow or ice; kota workers from the Mission drove and pets. But whatever it might look like the freeways of LA have their own out in a 4 x 4 truck and pulled us back — standing in the middle of an open Iunique challenges. But I have only onto the road. Once we were on our way prairie, surrounded by wrecks of cars, driven into one ditch so far. On Dec. 29, again, George gently cautioned me, “If animals of all sorts and junk — it offers I drove from Oglala to Manderson for a you want to stop, don’t use the brakes.” a home to a bunch of kids who other- funeral during the first serious snowfall “If you want to stop, don’t use the wise would not have one. A few weeks of the season. As the crow flies, Mander- brakes”: an improbable contradiction ago, Sister Connie was home with the son is about ten miles east of Oglala, but for this veteran of LA freeways.4 But this flu, and I headed up to Red Shirt on my driving, it is about 30 miles away. Accom- place echoes with contradictions: To get own. As I drove a beat up old van up panying me was my mentor and friend, to Manderson, you have to drive through Mary’s driveway (imagine two intermit- George Looks Twice, a 72-year-old elder Wounded Knee. That very day, Dec. 29, tent ruts in a frozen dirt road, accented in the Our Lady of the Sioux community. was the 116th anniversary of the massa- by rocks and potholes), the house came While he now lives in Oglala, he is origi- cre that took place there in 1890 when to life: Around the corner came about nally from Manderson, the home of the the U.S. 7th Calvary (George Custer’s old six dogs of assorted shapes and sizes great Lakota Holy Man (and George’s unit) opened fire on 300 or so Indians, (“breed” would somehow be too spe- grandfather) Black Elk. mostly women and children. Every year, cific a term to use here), two goats and In Fr. O’Neill’s five kids going to church. Another five studio in his or so stayed home to watch TV or sleep. room, he As the kids came running up to the van, painted the headstone one of them screeched to a stop and cross for Nel- asked, “Where is Sister Connie?” lie Two Bulls. “She’s home, not feeling well,” I “I was asked said. to paint Nellie’s name “Are we still going to have Mass?” on this cross. asked the young parishioner. Sometimes, “Yes.” if a family “You’re going to do it all by your- can afford it, a stone self?” monument Such is the state of parochial affairs is purchased on the Reservation. by the family. At first, Red Shirt Table may seem Usually, this is what you see like a whole lot of nothing: a vast ex- in the cem- panse of prairie and rugged terrain, eteries.” maybe about 20 or 30 houses scattered here and there, and a poorly paved BIA Route 41 cutting the landscape in two, all of which adds up for this City boy to George has taken me under his the event is commemorated by dozens, if be a “whole lot of nothing.” But gath- wing to help me understand some of the not hundreds, of horse riders who retrace ering around the altar in St. Bernard’s customs and traditions here, especially the route taken by the Indians who were with five or six little souls, all of them those having to do with funerals. One of seeking refuge on Pine Ridge Reservation foster kids, all of whom have probably George’s longtime buddies had died on that winter day 116 years ago. seen more heartbreak in their short lives Dec. 29, and I was doing the funeral be- How the massacre began is uncer- than I’ll ever know, all of them listening cause the pastor at St. Agnes in Mander- tain, but what is certain is that the fleeing to the stories about Jesus and curious son was out of town. We had just left the Lakota were no match for the Army’s ar- about the bread and wine on the table parking lot in Oglala and were headed tillery. People say that after that day, some (“Don’t touch!”), I am reminded that east on Highway 18 as a snowplow made part of the Lakota’s dream of returning to empty places are indeed filled with the its way towards us. I instinctively hit the the “old ways” was broken forever and angels of God. brakes to slow down to let it pass. Well, buried in the frozen blood of Wounded on ice one does not use the brakes. We Knee. It remains a sacred and strangely

spring 2007 GENESIS V 23 beautiful place. In any event, George (both traditional Catholic and traditional news. The heartbreak is that infant mor- and I passed the site on our way to the Lakota), lots of extended family, stoic re- tality is five times the national average. funeral. George grew up in the area, and silience and deep, powerful emotion. Life expectancy for a male is 47 years; for his grandfather had witnessed the tragedy I find little to soften the stark real- a woman it is in the low 50s. Diabetes is as a young man. George was filling me in ity of death: After the funeral Mass, the chronic. So is alcoholism. on some of the details and pointing out casket is carried outside the parish hall Last week, at a wake service for an sites (as I was gripping the steering wheel, (the usual site of the services, since the elderly lady, a nephew of the deceased simply trying to avoid another encoun- churches are usually too small to hold came up and sat down next to me. He ter with a ditch and burying my car at all those who attend) and gently placed was probably in his late 20s, and he was Wounded Knee). in the bed of a pick-up truck. Often, the drunk. It was time for one of those mo- The funeral in Manderson was for six pallbearers (or as they are called here, ments of non-sacramental confession, a a 64-year-old Navy veteran. A dozen or “pall-buriers”) sit flanking the body, three Budweiser-induced request made to Fa- so members of the Reservation American on either side. Then, we drive to the cem- ther about everything from God’s exis- Legion, including George, were there to etery. tence and forgiveness to eternal life and offer a military tribute: a roll call, where When I first arrived here, I was asked the possibility of a few bucks for gas the deceased name is called after those of by one of the other priests if I had “a bag money or a ride home. all the vets assembled, and when he does with the straps, hammer and nails” in the He was the father of four girls, and not answer, “Present, sir,” one of the vet- trunk of my car. I did not. I soon found the first tears came when he told me of eran members solemnly announces that out why I needed them. The straps are his sadness over the recent death of Fr. Bill “he has gone to the great commander to lower the casket into the ground. The Pauly, S.J. Bill was a beloved pastor here above.” Very, very moving. Taps, rifle sa- hammer and nails are to seal the wooden for nearly 20 years, who died suddenly of lute, flag draped casket, the whole thing lid onto the pine box that holds the casket a heart attack while on sabbatical in Chi- less than 10 miles from Wounded Knee. in the earth. There are no plaster angels cago. “He helped me bury my wife,” my I picked up a couple of the shell casings or piped-in music here. new friend sobbed. Then, after disappear- from the rifle salute: symbols of con- With the family standing around an ing for 20 minutes or so, he returned to tradiction. Same people. Same military. open hole in the ground, I read the Rite sit next to me again. “My father made me Same country. of Committal, the final prayers of the promise to always take care of my kids. I Life is real here. And complicated. Church for the deceased. Then, maybe do, Father, I really do. My father, he had And confusing. And powerful. And beau- after a chanted prayer by a Lakota holy drinking bad. He died in White Clay, Ne- tiful. man, the body is lowered into the earth braska.5 I love my kids.” So, I’m the missionary who is part of and then the grave is filled with the same As I was leaving, he told me he’d the white man’s world that has changed soil that has been home to the Lakota catch a ride with someone else. As I pulled forever the Lakota’s way of being, and for generations, all done by hand, with out of the parking lot, I saw him sort of my horse has gone lame in a ditch. What shovels and in silence, and, in these last crossing the street, headed south, in the do you do? You stop and help. You’re a months, in the bitter cold as well. general direction of Nebraska. Lakota and 116 years ago the U.S. Army The final sounds and sights that My own pilgrimage through life has slaughtered your ancestors. What do you someone has of their loved one is of the sometimes led me down similar broken do? Fold the flag reverently, play taps, sa- soft but final thud, thud, thud of earth roads, so I’ll not categorize this fellow, lute your comrade and offer a rifle salute. falling onto wood and the silent, loving as we Jesuits love to do from our lofty The sharp crack of rifle fire reverberating labor of brothers, uncles, nephews, sons perches, as “one of the marginalized,” down through the snow-covered hills and and grandsons whose shovels slowly fill but simply as what he is: a fellow traveler, 116 years of memories. the wound in the ground but not the one a pilgrim seeking his way in a beautiful, that remains in their hearts. but often broken world. And the hardest Heartache, shovels & spiritual Death is final. So are the rituals that lesson of all is that we cannot walk the guidance from buffalo carry us through it. Still, the reason I am path alone. there at those stark, hillside cemeteries One of the things that dawned on me eath is close by. Just beneath the — and, more importantly, the reason during my 30-day Long Retreat is how surface and around the corner. they are there — is because we all believe casually I’ve sometimes taken prayer in DIn my first ten weeks, I was part that there is something more: the bosom my life. I have a deeply rooted tendency of over a dozen funerals. Life is real here. of Abraham and the spirits of the Grand- to want to be a “lone wolf,” to think that And so is death. Wakes usually last two, fathers that beckon us home. I can solve life on my own, all by myself. and sometimes three days and involve Life is sacred here and fragile. The Not so. Not here. meals, music (of an absolutely unique birth rate on the Reservation is higher A few weeks after I got here, I variety: Lakota Country Gospel), prayers than the national average. That’s the good stopped by the trailer of a woman whose

24 GENESIS V spring 2007 husband, Lyle Brings Him Back, had re- cently died after a long battle with cancer. After walking up to her trailer and being sniffed by a dog of some sort, I chatted briefly with “Ollie” Brings Him Back. I said that I would keep her in my prayers. “Father, prayer is the only thing I have right now,” she said. Amen. A lesson this priest needs to keep learning. I was not at Lyle’s funeral, but a few days later, I was visiting some neighbors who had attended. Evidently, as the fu- neral procession made its way to the military cemetery in Sturgis, S.D., all the buffalo, which ordinarily are scattered over the countryside, were lined up at the fence along the side of the road, an honor- guard for Lyle, who was an Army vet and then a tribal policeman for years. After being here for just for a few months, I am not about to suggest that it was merely a Jesse Bear coincidence. There is just way too much Robe, a parishioner that is too powerful and too real here for at Our Lady me to presume to know anything. of the Sioux, with her fa- vorite saint, Final thoughts the Little Flower. thousand years ago, another George and his grandfather; and Mary are the Long Retreat (the 30-day Spiritual group of travelers journeyed a with her kids, dogs and goats. After just Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola) and Agreat distance to live among a three short months on the snow-covered, an extended period of ministry in a place people they did not know. The legend barren, broken-hearted and beautiful Pine that will foster growth and renewal. I tells of Prince Vladimir of Kiev who was Ridge Reservation, I have learned much. asked to come to South Dakota. seeking a new religion for himself and for I know there is much more to learn. For 2. The first Jesuits actually arrived in his people. He sent out emissaries around now, I am sure of only this: God dwells 1887, when construction of the school the world to find what they might find. here among His people. v began. The school opened in 1888. Word came back from the great Byzan- 3. In 2006, six of Red Cloud High tine city of Constantinople. The prince’s If you are interested in supporting School’s graduates received Gates Mil- envoys had entered the great Church of the work of the Jesuits at Red Cloud In- lennium Scholarships — the most in the

Hagia Sophia and were transfixed by the dian School, go to www.redcloudschool. Nation. The author beauty of the mosaics, the burning oil lan- org for more information. 4. I later heard George speaking in Lakota in front of terns and the icons of Christ, Mary and to some of his buddies once we arrived in a star quilt the Saints. Notes Manderson. All I could make out amidst that was a gift from a “We knew not whether we were in 1. Technically, the “Third Probation” of the unintelligible but beautiful conversa- family after Heaven or on Earth,” the emissaries told a Jesuit’s formation — the first being Pos- tion were the words, “California driver.” he presided the prince. “For surely there is no such tulancy, which is immediately prior to, or 5. White Clay, Nebraska, population 14, at a funeral. splendor or beauty anywhere upon Earth, just after formally entering the Society, is two miles away from and we are at a loss how to describe it; we the second being the two-year Novitiate, Pine Ridge. It is estimated only know that God dwells there among and the third and final probation, being that the stores in that tiny men.” Tertianship. Usually occurring 5 to 10 town just over the State- Beauty. It is sometimes broken into years after ordination. (I’m a bit tardy; line sell $4 million worth pieces; it is in midnight lanterns filled with I’ve been ordained 16 years.) Tertianship of beer every year to the oil, and it is in the face of God shining is a year of study, prayer and ministry. residents of the Reserva- through Minerva and her grandchildren; The two primary elements of Tertianship tion.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 25 The skin boat used wind when avail- able; with oars alone, it traveled at 8 km/hour in Don Dana’s attempt to show that people who came to the New World could have traveled overseas. Photo by Don Dana. Sailing in the Wake of History By Beth Ashley Dana accompanied the expedition in On other occasions, beginning in a motorized aluminum “safety” boat, al- 1998, he joined scientific expeditions to on Dana ’65 of Tiburon is a lowing him to observe how the skin boat explore Mayan ruins in northern Guate- banker by profession but, if he and its native crew progressed. mala, Neanderthal hunting caves in east- Dhad his druthers, he’d be an ar- When one of two motors on the safe- ern Spain, and a 2,000-year-old game- chaeologist. ty boat failed, the expedition turned back butchering site in Tanzania. He helped to Dana, 58, an executive vice president rather than attempt to round the perilous excavate and gather data. with Wells Fargo Bank, has just returned Cape Dezhnev, the last obstacle before “I have a boss, Howard Atkins, who from an expedition in Siberia, traveling by the straight shot to Alaska. is very tolerant and supportive of my out- “skin boat” up the east coast of Russia, Dana is satisfied with what his first side interests,” he says. “Wells Fargo has trying to prove that ancient tribes could try accomplished. always allowed me the time.” have migrated from Russia to Alaska “I’m amazed at what we did because Dana also serves on the board of the across the Bering Strait by boat. everyone told me it was impossible.” Louis B. Leakey Foundation in San Fran- The trip, in a 30-foot, single-sail The expedition to Siberia is not his cisco, chairing its grants committee. “I umiak made from walrus hides, lasted first look at stone-age cultures. have been to Africa many times.” He made contact with the Hadza The Siberia trip was prompted by a Dana knew that building an ice-age- tribe in Tanzania five years ago, where el- symposium at the California Academy of type boat would involve available ders taught him to hunt game with bows Sciences seven years ago, discussing the and arrows. “I didn’t hit anything,” he earliest human arrivals in America. materials — animal skins & wood says, because shooting an African bow “It was clear that they came from required strength most unpracticed west- Asia, but it was not clear how they got four days. Bad weather, swelling seas and erners do not have. But he lived among there. The leading theory was that people a perilous landscape forced the adventur- the tribesmen in their straw and twig huts walked across a land bridge from Russia ers to turn back short of the 60-mile row and learned how to track game, “moving to Alaska, but that didn’t make sense to to Alaska. But Dana hopes the Russian in and out of trees without making a sil- me,” Dana says. government will give him permission to houette.” Early humans had arrived in Austra- complete the trip next year.

26 GENESIS V spring 2007 lia 30,000 years ago, “and they had to business and law, knowing he would made of whale bones.” have taken a boat. From there, it was not someday have to support his grand- At the camps, the explorers ate a hard to theorize that boats had brought mother, who raised him after the death walrus they had harpooned en route. humans to America.” of his mother. His interest in anthropol- By Aug. 3, expedition leaders decid- Nina Jablonski, who served as cu- ogy did not abate. ed to call it quits after a motor failed on rator of anthropology at the California Jeanne says she will never go back the safety boat. Ahead was Cape Dezh- Academy of Sciences until last week, says to Siberia. “It’s desolate and cold; there’s nev, guarding “one of the most danger- Dana’s voyage will prove that migration no animal life, very little plant life and ous waterways in the world. by skin boat “could have been done. He not much else. I will never go back, but if “Fortunately, we had already ac- is trying to reconstruct the ancient voy- it’s what he wants to do, I’ll support him. complished more than I had expected. ages that were undertaken by homo sa- That’s what we do in a marriage — sup- The voyage to the first three camps had piens trying to colonize the New World port each other.” already provided valuable information at the end of the last ice age. In 2004, Dana struck a deal with the on the capabilities and limitations of “Dana is one of the first non-in- Chukchis of the Lorino Farm Coopera- skinboat travel under Arctic conditions. digenous people to undertake any such tive to build his boat. By 2005, the frame We were disappointed, but we knew it journey as this.” was built. This summer, Dana returned would be foolish to continue.” While a land bridge of tundra and for the main voyage. They had traveled approximately ice existed between Siberia and Alaska at The crew, a captain and six oars- 100 kilometers. that time, and human travelers probably men, chose to name the boat Beluga, a The boats returned to Lorino Aug. used it, the land bridge disappeared as local marine mammal. The boat is fash- 4 and, by Aug. 7, Dana was in the city of sea levels rose. ioned from the skins of two walruses, Provideniya waiting for a flight home via Dana knew that building an ice- female because skins of the more aggres- Nome. age-type boat would involve available sive males are often weakened by scars materials — animal skins and wood. No and holes. metal. No nails. “The (driftwood) frame is entirely He went to Alaska several times, held together by hand-knotted straps looking for potential boat-builders. In from the skin of bearded seals. These 2002, he began looking in Russia for straps act as shock absorbers, (which) al- people who would not only build a boat low for remarkable flexibility, and allow but crew it. for the entire frame to be retightened “I kept going north.” He met with during a long voyage.” the Yupik peoples, who were excellent At 30 feet in length, the boat is de- hunters and mariners, “but had no proj- signed to hold a family and all the gear it ect management skills. If a certain day might take. was a good day to hunt, everyone just After four days of last-minute re- went hunting.” pairs and an experimental run, the expe- A bit farther north he contacted dition took off on July 31. With the first voyage behind him, The 2006 the Chukchi people, traditional reindeer The men and crews spent one night Dana concedes that it was frightening at expedition herders. Their way of life required a lot in an abandoned Chukchi village, where team by times; the Arctic waters are “very treach- their boat of management, herding the animals, they made overnight repairs to the Be- erous, the weather is unpredictable, and with Don feeding and slaughtering them. luga’s rudder and mast. The next morn- the coastline is merciless. If you fell in Dana at the The Chukchis said they could build a ing, they launched again, heading north, the water, you couldn’t live more than 15 far right. boat “and I absolutely believed them.” “but the seas were too rough, the Belu- minutes. “None of us in Marin County On one of his trips to Siberia, he was ga’s rudder actually broke, and the sec- would survive more than a couple of accompanied by his family: wife Jeanne, ond motor for the safety boat failed, so days in the Arctic, where a small mistake daughters Danielle and Natalie ’02 and we diverted to Nunyama,” Dana wrote can mean your life.” son Paul ’01. in his log of the trip. Being part of the expedition was a He has nothing but praise for On Aug. 2, the boats arrived at privilege, he said. “No one had ever been Jeanne, who is “a very patient, wonder- Camp 3 in the village of Puoten. “Along there before. We were all explorers.” v fully supportive wife. Because I have al- the way, we discovered an ancient coast- ways followed my interests, I think she al settlement site which was not on any Mary Beth Ashley is a reporter for knows I have to do this.” map. Two of the dwellings were exposed the Marin Independent Journal. © 2006 Dana had wanted to be an anthro- by erosion. It appears that the people Marin Independent Journal. Reprinted pologist as a young man, but studied must have lived underground in homes by permission.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 27 Following Teilhard’s Lead Jim diverse as 19th Century Army posts and laborators on the latter were Nic Blurton O’Connell 8,000-year-old Eskimo fishing villages. By Jones of UCLA and my long-time Utah was in Haz- da country the time I graduated from SI, I was certain colleague and fellow U.S. National Acad- south of I wanted to be a professional archaeolo- emy member Kristen Hawkes. Eyasi in gist. Both projects involved living with Tanzania in I attended USF for two years and relatively small numbers of people for 1986. Pic- tured here, then transferred to UC Berkeley, where I many months, making detailed observa- he is about completed bachelor’s, master’s and doc- tions on time allocation, food acquisition to leave toral degrees. Since leaving the Bay Area, and processing, the manufacture and camp with I’ve held research and teaching positions maintenance of traditional tools and the a Hadza hunter on a at UC Riverside, the Australian National spatial organization of activities at base “focal-per- University and the University of Utah, my camps. son follow.” academic home for most of the last 30 The Hadza project entailed the ad- The hunter years. I’ve continued to pursue research ditional challenge of operating almost en- (Magan- dula) is in western North America, but have also tirely on foot in rough terrain with highly dressed in conducted multi-year projects in East Af- mobile study groups, far from logistical traditional rica and Australia. support and medical backup. Both proj- Hadza style, I was elected to the two academies ects have helped identify the main deter- except for the cloth on the basis of my work on three broad minants of food choice among modern (rather than topics. One of these is the pre-European foragers, including those factors that By Jim O’Connell ’61 leather) archeology of Greater Australia. This account for the broad differences com- kilt. He region was first occupied about 45,000 monly noted between men’s and women’s carries In recognition of his work as an years ago, probably as part of the same hunting and collecting strategies. The two knives archaeologist and ethnographer, Jim (not vis- wave of migration out of Africa that also results have also contributed to the ex- O’Connell ’61 was recently elected to ible in the resulted in the displacement of Neander- planation of important developments in both the Australian Academy of the Hu- photo), an thals by anatomically modern humans in human evolutionary history, particularly axe (right manities and the U.S. National Academy Europe and, at a later date, the Native 1) the changes in diet, body size and life hand), a of Sciences. He sent this piece in response bow and American colonization of the Americas. history characteristics associated with the to a request from Genesis V to write about several ar- The early Australian record is of spe- emergence of genus Homo roughly 2 mil- his work and his passion for archeology. rows, some cial interest in that it displays the same lion years ago and 2) the diversification of poisoned general pattern of economic and social hunter-gatherer economies over the last (left hand). y interest in archeology dates development seen in other parts of the 50,000 years, the latter involving a set of to the fifth grade at St. Anne’s world over the last 40 millennia, yet dif- evolutionary transitions that ultimately School. Flipping through a M fers from those other records in key de- resulted in the invention of agriculture. volume on “ancient man” in the school tails. Accounting for the similarities and My third research interest is in the library, I came across a fanciful drawing differences contributes to an understand- factors that affect the relationship between of spear-wielding savages chasing a mam- ing of the general ecological and evolu- patterns in hunter-gatherer behavior and moth off a cliff. It made me wonder what tionary processes involved. My Austra- their expression in the archaeological re- it was like to be prehistoric. lian colleagues Jim Allen, Peter White and cord, a linkage that is often surprisingly A chance to pursue this interest came I have written and edited several books complex, yet essential to understand if in the summer after my freshman year at and articles on this topic. the material evidence of past human ex- SI, when a relative on the University of My second area of interest lies in the perience is to be interpreted properly. The Washington faculty agreed to let me at- ecology of modern foragers, people who Alyawarra and Hadza projects both en- tend his archaeological field school on the make their living by hunting and gather- tailed research on this issue, with special Columbia River, east of Yakima. I spent ing, with little or no reliance on domesti- attention to the factors that affect the col- two seasons there, learning basic survey cated plants and animals. I’ve carried out lection, processing and transport of food and excavation techniques. Over the next two long-term projects with such groups, resources and the resulting distribution five years, I parlayed that experience into one with Alyawarra-speaking Aborigines of various kinds of food-related refuse summer jobs in various parts of the west- in central Australia, the other with the between and within archaeological sites. ern U.S. and Alaska, working on sites as Hadza of northern Tanzania. My col- The results have influenced ideas about

28 GENESIS V spring 2007 the spatial scales at which archaeological in Hazda country in 1986, O’Connel had just excavations should be conducted. They recorded the initial cut-up at a zebra kill with his partner and was helping to carry parts back to have also contributed to a better under- camp. “I’ve got a partially defleshed zebra pelvis standing of the behavioral significance of on my shoulder; the young teenage boy stand- differences in the proportions of animal ing to my right has a segment of hide. Like most body parts found in early human archae- boys of that age, he was ‘armed and dangerous’ and made sure I didn’t get lost on the way back ological sites. to camp.” Looking back on this work, it’s hard to imagine having had a better, more for- I not refer to him by name because he tunate professional career, one that I hope has since passed away. continues for at least a few more years. At the time I knew him, he was a As an SI graduate, it’s also interesting clan leader, widely respected in the re- to note the degree to which some of its ing a narrow time period. It was reason- gion because of his good judgment and concerns parallel those of the great Jesuit able to infer that any other site where the steady demeanor. He was born in 1910 paleontologist and student of human evo- type was found dated to that same time (the date known because of the passage lution, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose period. Archaeologists working in the Ba- of Halley’s Comet) and raised in a com- The Phenomenon of Man I read as a high sin have made use of this “dating tool” munity of full-time traditional hunters school senior. I’m not sure Teilhard him- ever since. who were still using stone tools as re- self would accept that comparison, but I The second, more recent example: cently as World War II. do think he’d agree that my four years at Kristen Hawkes, Nic Blurton Jones and I By the time I met him, he had trav- 222 Stanyan, the tutelage I received from combined what we’d learned about Had- eled for decades through the Central men like John Becker, S.J., Fred Tollini, za women’s foraging and food sharing and Simpson Deserts, spoke four lan- S.J., and John Seidler, S.J. (among many practices with former Utah biologist Ric guages, worked as a stockman (cow- others), and the competition and com- Charnov’s work on “life history” theory boy) and, along with his wife of more radeship I enjoyed from my classmates to develop an explanation for the changes than 40 years, had raised five children. have all suited me well for the road I’ve in age at maturity and absolute life expec- After observing me at a distance after I traveled. I’ve always been very grateful tancy associated with evolution of genus entered the community, he quietly but for those experiences and am happy that Homo. Our argument runs counter to the unambiguously assumed the role of the honors I’ve recently been accorded re- conventional view that improvements in surrogate father. We hunted together flect well on the institution that gave me ancestral men’s big game hunting abilities often, made a large collection of tradi- so much. were key to the origin of Homo. Instead, it tionally useful plants for identification makes changes in women’s, especially se- by botanists in Alice Springs and car- Dr. O’Connell, what do you most nior women’s, behavior the driving force. ried out a wide-ranging archaeological enjoy about what you do profes- That’s the reason it’s sometimes called the survey that later formed the basis for a Q.sionally? “grandmother” hypothesis. I like the ar- claim to ancestral lands that was rec- I value the sense of discovery gument because it is novel and also test- ognized under Australian law. Perhaps associated with research. I offer able. We can tell whether we’re right (or most important, he acted as my spon- A.two examples. at least working in the right direction) by sor in the community of senior men reference to the fossil and archaeological My senior thesis at Berkeley involved and introduced me to aspects of ritual plotting radiocarbon dates for a certain records. It’s not yet clear whether we are life that outsiders rarely hear about, let type of artifact, the goal being to deter- on the right track, but that will be known alone experience directly. As a result of mine whether its temporal distribution in the not-too-distant future. In any case, his influ- was constrained — that is to say, whether doing the work needed to pull the argu- ence, I’m it could serve as a time marker. If so, it ment together was very rewarding. a better would have been an important finding for archaeolo- What is one memorable experi- gist than archaeologists working in the Great Ba- ence you have had in the field? sin, where the vast majority of prehistoric Q. I would sites can’t be dated by any other means. I have been looked at the relatively small number of One that always comes to otherwise, sites then known that could be dated by mind involves the senior Alya- and per- radiocarbon, found that the artifact type A. warra man who served as my haps a bet- in question occurred in some of them, cultural mentor while I was working in ter person, Jim and was in fact made and used only dur- central Australia. Custom dictates that too. v O’Connell in 2005

spring 2007 GENESIS V 29 The Case For Remaining in Iraq

By Maj. James Farrell, U.S.A ’86

Maj. Farrell is a Test Officer serving with Operational Test Command, based at Fort Hood, Texas. He served in Iraq from June, 24, 2005, to Dec. 3, 2005. The opinions in this article are those of the writer and do not reflect the views of the United States Army or the United States Army Operational Test Command. “A note on capitalization: ‘Soldier’ is capitalized because the Soldier is the most important component in the Army. It is now policy to capitalize Soldier in every- thing we write.” — JF

he 107mm rocket flew silently over our heads and crashed into a Tlarge concrete wall. It did not det- onate. In fact, the first knowledge I had of Living in a can: Life in Mosul The author interviewed a doctor in the aid station the near miss was when the explosive or- about the equipment he uses. “The doctor made dinance disposal people set a charge near great recommendations for improvements. We talked was stationed in Mosul with the it and exploded it four hours later. This is to everyone — commanders, infantrymen, scouts, Stryker Brigade, which is equipped medics and anyone else we could — to get feedback daily life in Iraq. with the Army’s newest combat ve- on equipment Soldiers have or need.” In 2000, I returned from a peace- I hicle. The Stryker has eight wheels and keeping mission in Bosnia and wrote of light armor, augmented with slat armor city limits. A giant mosque dedicated to my experiences for Genesis IV. Now, I (glorified chicken wire designed to de- Jonah, who is rumored to be buried there, write about a combat mission to Iraq for feat rocket-propelled grenades). It is not stands near those ruins. I lived at Forward Genesis V. How times change, from the a tank or a Bradley infantry fighting ve- Operating Base (FOB) Courage, where name of my alumni magazine to the very hicle but has more armor than a truck. the Stryker Brigade was headquartered. I shape of the world and the issues we as It can cruise at 70 mph and carry a full conducted interviews with Soldiers there Americans face. squad of nine. The Stryker is used differ- and at FOB Marez and FOB Diamond- “I was surprised with the maturity ently from a Bradley because it is a troop back, both in Mosul, and at FOB Q West, carrier first and a fighting platform sec- about 70 km south. and professionalism of even the ond. Soldiers who understand the Stryker I lived in a containerized housing most junior Soldier.” — Maj. Farrell best refer to it as a truck although it does unit (CHU), or “can,” which is essentially not look like a truck. While I was there, a trailer on blocks the dimensions of a 20- My job in Bosnia was to talk to or- the Stryker Brigade changed from the foot cargo container. It has a heater and dinary people from all walks of life and 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division air conditioner unit, a bed and a closet. to assess the degree to which the Dayton Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) to Sandbags are piled around it to the height Accords were working. My job in Iraq the 172nd SBCT from Alaska, so I expe- of about five feet. The units with bath- also involved talking to people, almost rienced people from two very different rooms and showers were close for me, exclusively Soldiers, about new technolo- organizations. only about 60 steps away. People com- gies they use or would like. The interac- Mosul, with its 1 million inhabitants, monly make their cans homier by adding tions I enjoyed and the calm knowledge is the largest city in northern Iraq and the small refrigerators, chairs, bookshelves or of the quality of the work being done by capital of the Nineveh Province. The ru- TVs with DVD players. The biggest perk U.S. Soldiers made my Iraqi tour one of ins of the ancient city of Nineveh, where for being a Major in Mosul was your my most rewarding as an American, as a Jonah preached repentance to the Ninev- own room. In Baghdad, one must be a Soldier and as a Christian. ites, are in a smaller district in the Mosul Lieutenant Colonel to get private space.

30 GENESIS V spring 2007 The new American Solider The Soldiers in Iraq are making those Iraq.” One misperception is that Soldiers A typical decisions on an almost daily basis. Senior in this first part of the 21st Century come small village, located a few was surprised by the maturity and managers at major corporations (and from poor, underprivileged backgrounds. miles from professionalism of even the most ju- generals in some foreign nations) would In fact, the percentage of military recruits the Tigris. Inior Soldier. We, as American citizens, have difficulty making these sorts of de- from the lowest rungs of the socio-eco- expect so much more from our Soldiers cisions. More authority and responsibil- nomic ladder has been shrinking over than we did even a few years ago. Then, ity are delegated to a lower level in the the last several years, while the number only Special Forces and Civil Affairs Sol- U.S. Army than ever before. Soldiers use of recruits from middle-class or wealthy diers were truly involved in teaching de- cutting edge technologies to show them backgrounds is rising. mocracy to people recently enslaved. where they are and where their friends People also believe that the Army Now, all Soldiers essentially have to are nearly instantaneously. The mantra recruits from the inner cities. In fact, ur- be ready to answer questions of social re- is “see first, understand first, act first and ban Soldiers are underrepresented when sponsibility, citizenship, civilian authority finish decisively.” compared to rural and suburban Soldiers. over the military and democracy posed by This does not mean that all deci- Aside from this, the demographics of the local Iraqi people. Very junior Soldiers are sions are good decisions. We all hear of Army mirror the demographics of Ameri- now empowered with tools and technol- abuses. We just seldom hear of the suc- can society, except in education, where 75 ogy the complexity and delicacy of which cesses. That is because the successes are percent of the U.S. population have high was unimagined until recently. When I logarithmically more numerous than the school diplomas versus 90 percent in the started in the Army, everything in a mili- failures. Also, the successes and victories military population. (See www.usarec. tary vehicle was durable enough to be are neither flashy nor flamboyant, while mil.) struck with a ball-peen hammer without the failures and abuses are egregious. The older soldiers surprised me. One making a dent. Now, Strykers and every I was surprised by reactions and medic I met had served as a high school other vehicle have very expensive and misperceptions of people at home in San science teacher and felt the call to join fairly delicate touch screens and comput- Francisco regarding Soldiers. The most the Army after Sept. 11. He said that his ers positively festooned about them. Sol- common reactions was, “Thank God weirdest experiences were those times diers use that technology to decide mat- my parents had money to send me to pri- when he returned home on leave and saw ters of life and death in a second. vate school and give me opportunities, his former students also serving the mili- or I could have ended up having to go to tary, sometimes at a higher rank.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 31 of a city known for its Roman, Parthian and Hellenistic architecture. Saddam Hussein used the underground chambers to store weapons and explosives. It is also famous as the location of certain scenes in the 1973 movie The Exorcist. A small horde of curious children surrounded us as we drove into town and engaged the Soldiers, who allowed one child, Samir, to sit in the vehicle. He had suffered from a cleft palette (repaired) and a malformed hip bone (partially repaired). He walked with a loping limp. His Eng- lish was basic and his pronunciation was poor, but he wanted to learn more. He begged me for some English The author Anyone seeing U.S. Soldiers up close nally suggested charging for parking. In phrases to practice. I racked my brain prepares to in Iraq and analyzing how they behave an area where everything more than 1 mile for something to recite that might do him board the and perform cannot help being impressed. from the Tigris River is open desert, this helicopter some good and settled on an old School- back to FOB The Soldiers there represent many ages seemed somewhat unrealistic. She then house Rock episode. He repeated, “We Courage and economic backgrounds, certainly not suggested charging for basic services, like peephole ord toform a more perfe eeni- from FOB Q exclusively or even mostly the “young power, water and sewage. In Saddam’s on…” “The Preamble” is as good as any- West, about poor,” as described by some newspaper socialist government, the people were a 30-minute thing for practicing English, and if any of flight. “Any accounts I have read since returning. not charged for any services, and conse- it sticks, the civics lesson is good too. time we left Most of the younger people I saw looked quently those services had crumbled from the FOBs, we like my classmates from my years at SI. neglect and overuse. The council grew be- Terp needed to wildered and then angry. “What do you wear armor know of paying for services?” they chal- (the vest) Problems teaching freedom did not wander around in Iraq as I and helmet.” lenged. “You come from a free country was able to do in Bosnia or Kuwait or he Soldiers in Iraq are spreading where everything is free!” Obviously, the IHaiti. I did not have a regular inter- the concepts of democracy and a nuances of “free” had somehow been lost preter (whom we referred to as “terps”) Tmilitary controlled by civilian au- in translation. She explained that she paid assigned to me. However, just outside thority. These are alien concepts in Iraq. not only taxes but also rent, utilities, stu- the brigade headquarters sat a desk for Some Soldiers run into problems with dent and car loans and groceries. When a shift-work interpreter assigned to an- translation. she shared her personal financial position, swer phone calls or translate whatever we A Civil Affairs captain was working the Iraqis were amazed, as they had as- might bring in that required explanation. with a town council to determine how sumed that everyone in the U.S. was rich Khalid worked the afternoon and evening to raise funds to provide better public and that freedom meant Americans didn’t shift. services. In the Saddam era, taxes raised pay for anything. Isn’t that how it looks A big man in his late 40s with a went straight to Baghdad. No money or on satellite TV (which is almost ubiqui- paunch, Khalid is a Kurd who escaped resources returned from Baghdad. Local tous in the Third World)? Baywatch, they Iraq 20 years ago and lives with a wife governments relied upon what we would are learning, is not an accurate depiction and children in Canada, where he started call corruption and pocket-lining. As of the life in the U.S. and sold small businesses. He returned to Iraq attempts to build a democracy and Iraq for the high salary that the coalition working government, it struggles with a Samir forces pay for someone who speaks Eng- lack of revenue for government services, lish, Arabic and Kurdish. I asked him the which can only come from an employed n a trip to Q West to talk to Sol- linguistic differences between Arabic and populace. (This means more foreign in- diers about a new system, I was Kurdish, assuming in my ignorance that vestment and micro-loans into Iraq to Oinvited to interview them while Kurdish was a dialect. He compared the provide business opportunities and gain- out on a daily patrol. The mission was differences to those between English and ful employment.) to go to a town and support a meeting Italian. He told me that most Kurds are The captain brainstormed with the between international police advisors and taught bilingually in Kurdish and English, council on ways to raise revenue; she fi- local Iraqi police and civil authorities. The although Arabic was the official language town was adjacent to Hatra, ancient ruins under Saddam.

32 GENESIS V spring 2007 He was very happy with the totter- on that doesn’t allow you to appreciate near Western journalists to give them vid- ing early steps towards democracy. He the people, their culture, their history or eo to send home, like free marketing for explained that jobs and industry were their feelings about freedom and democ- the terrorists. critical to the success of his people and racy. extolled the beauties and commercial ad- “Did you see action?” Most of the “I worried that the U.S. would lose vantages of doing business in Kurdish ar- “action” one never sees. It happens too its nerve and take us home before eas. (He referred to those places as Kurd- fast. The questions should be, “Were the job was done.” — Maj. Farrell istan. We were forbidden to use that term you ever in danger and to what extent?” because it might inadvertently encourage These are also hard questions, simply In short, the sectarian violence in Kurds to seek independence from the rest because you can’t see behind the corner Iraq was much like the violence we saw in of Iraq, which was not a U.S.-supported or over the wall. You never know what the Bosnian war. The combatants in both policy at that time.) was planned and never executed against countries claimed religious causes, but re- The relationship between the U.S. you (due to poor planning or equipment ally fought for power and control. and the Kurds has been spotty. In the or luck or God’s intervention). Soldiers in (It is false to consider Iraq a tri-cul- early 1980s the U.S. promised to come to the base camps in Mosul were no strang- ture of Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. The the Kurds’ aid against Saddam in return ers to enemy mortar attacks, although interrelationships are more complicated for their support in a local uprising. Twice 1-25 had, through their actions, reduced than those easy and convenient religious Saddam attacked Kurdish areas, once the frequency of those attacks before I ar- labels might suggest.) with chemical weapons of poison gas. rived. The biggest fear I had in Iraq was The U.S. forsook them both times. Yet, I can recall three significant attacks not a mortar landing on my home or an even after the U.S. failed the Kurds twice, on the FOB in addition to the dud 107 IED or sniper or SVBIED (suicide vehicle- they still see America as a great example mm rocket I mentioned at the start of this borne IED) wounding me en route to of a well-run and well-governed country piece. While I was running around the my next meeting. I worried that the U.S. and want an active relationship with us. perimeter for exercise, 20 or so mortars would lose its nerve and take us home be- landed on the other side of the FOB. A fore the job was done. mortar once landed during church. And Stryker ve- Most frequently asked Will the job get done? Might Soldiers when we left FOB Courage for Kuwait hicles come be pulled out prematurely? I don’t know. questions and home, the neighborhood near our in different To read the news media and see the im- variations cans caught some mortars. Off the FOB, suited for ince my return, people ask, “Was ages on CNN or BBC World, Iraq was we came under IED attack once while out different and is falling apart. Bombs daily kill hun- Iraq scary?” This is a hard question. on the road and came under sustained uses. The dreds. People are killed waiting in line to SIt is clearly not like 37th Avenue. direct rifle fire once with no injuries. We ones here Anyone going to a Third World country apply to become police officers. But I was are infantry made it back safely, so the times we felt carriers, but uses a filter that does not hide the filth, constantly amazed at the difference in afraid are really irrelevant. Most guys others are what I saw on TV and what I saw on the grime, poverty or danger, but inoculates — Soldiers who were out every day pa- used for streets. I wonder if Congress will continue you to the shock of these conditions, trolling — had it rougher, so our experi- ambulances, which become a given, a part of the back- to support us over there. Which Iraq do for recon- ence wasn’t particularly noteworthy. I am naissnace or ground, not unnoticed, but also not glar- they see — the TV images of Iraq or the happy I am not a journalist, because it for engineer reality on the ground? ing. Iraq was dirty and poor, but to fixate appeared the terrorists wanted to attack work.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 33 No atheists in foxholes felt their government had enough legiti- macy and credibility to risk calling in a An Unjust here is a well-known adage that tip. Someone who sees or suspects some- you’ll find no atheists in foxholes. thing is immediately at risk for retribu- TI learned the truth of this while tion from terrorists. Hope existed in War in Iraq at church early one Sunday afternoon at Iraqi hearts that stable democratic gov- FOB Courage. ernment was achievable. By Michael Shaughnessy ’67 The singing was fantastic, the ser- mon dealt with salvation, and the atmo- The final question wrote the following piece two years sphere was electric. As the service wound ago, shortly after the U.S. invasion of down, the chaplain’s assistant, who serves osul is the large city in the Iraq had clearly turned into a military as aide and bodyguard for the chaplain, north of Iraq. Of the 19 prov- I occupation. The war, which had been asked everyone to leave the chapel and go inces, it is one of four that M harshly criticized by the Vatican and the back to his or her can. We all figured that has a Sunni Muslim majority. Therefore, U.S. Bishops (with little notice in the the service had run overlong. it is considered one of the places where mainstream media), was unraveling, and In fact, a mortar shell had landed in a democracy represents the most change the pretenses under which we had at- the sand-volleyball court right next to the from the Saddam Hussein status quo of tacked were widely recognized as false. chapel but had failed to detonate. It’s easy patronage for Sunnis and subjugation of (Keep in mind that in 1991, La to imagine God’s hand stopping the ex- the Shittes and Kurds. Civiltà Católica — the Jesuit publication plosion. Because violence and death are Mosul, or more properly the in Rome, which usually reflects Vatican potentially so close at hand, it’s hard to Nineveh Province, was not a calm, thinking — published an editorial dur- chalk that up to dumb luck. That’s why quiet backwater, but it did lack the in- ing the first Gulf War wondering whether there are no atheists in foxholes. ternational attention that Baghdad gar- a just war was even possible in modern This is not to say that faith will al- nered. It was also not the constant shell- times.) ways keep you safe, although a reading shocked place that the news media por- Now we look to a “surge” (an Or- of Psalm 91 is instructive. It does mean, trayed Iraq as. The U.S. broadcasts that wellian alternative to “troop build-up” or however, that survival is not something I see in the states and the BBC World “escalation”) without asking any serious left to random chance, and it is hard broadcasts over there are uniform in questions about the ethical demands of not to wonder if a miraculous event isn’t their message, but the message I heard extricating ourselves from an unjust war. evidence of Providence’s Great Plan at on the ground in Iraq was vastly differ- I teach at SI because in 1970 the U.S. work. ent. Bishops finally spoke out regarding the The number of Americans killed Vietnam War. They said that individual Mosul’s Most Wanted in Iraq topped 3,000 last January, and Catholic Christians needed to follow their I am struck by the cost. The U.S. lost well-informed consciences as to whether he number-one-rated TV show in 2,996 people on Sept. 11, almost 3,000 their participation in that war corre- Iraq when I left was unofficially in a single day. It has taken four years sponded with the criteria of the Just War called Mosul’s Most Wanted of combat to reach that same number. T Theory. They also emphasized that no (MMW). Like it’s counterpart in the U.S., By way of further comparison, the U.S. one should be allowed to graduate from a it highlighted wanted terrorists and re- lost 19,000 soldiers in North Africa in Catholic high school without familiarity quested citizens to phone in tips to Iraqi 1942 and 1943 in one of World War II’s with the Catholic Peace Tradition and the police. smaller campaigns. I’m not suggesting teachings of the Just War Theory. The surprising thing was not that that 3,000 U.S. fatalities is a small num- I remember to this day, sitting in my such a show existed but that concerned ber, just that that number is remarkably class at graduate school, thinking that I people actually called and that terrorists low given the intensity of the fighting had never heard of the Catholic Peace were captured or killed because of these and the stakes at hand: a stable democ- Tradition at Stanyan Street, nor had I tips. One might be cynical and say that racy in the Middle East. been taught the principles of the Just War this multi-ethnic and multi-tribal country At the end of this period in Ameri- Theory. As I have told many classes over would use MMW as a tool to settle old can history, the final question will be my years at the Prep, I consider this the grievances. However, Iraq is more com- this: Was the U.S. able to help a totali- moment when I recognized my vocation. plicated than that and the various familial tarian country throw off its chains and I need to teach young women and men to ties do not conform to these kinds of as- establish a democracy in the Middle follow their consciences when they decide sumptions. East? I hope so, for the sake of Iraq and on participation in military actions. In fact, MMW showed that citizens the Middle East as a whole. v Both of those traditions start with

34 GENESIS V spring 2007 an undisputable premise: War is evil. The people continue to make reference to the question is whether a particular war can United Nations resolutions condemning For a long time I have be justified. The Catholic Peace Tradition Iraq in an attempt to claim legitimacy for (pacifism) says no to all wars. The Just the invasion. The UN never authorized felt a great need to state War Theory holds that a series of criteria a war of invasion; the U.S. was not the the argument that this must be met before participation in (sup- legitimate authority in this matter. Before port of) a particular war can be just; an the invasion, the U.S. cited an imminent war violates the Just War additional set of criteria limits conduct threat from Iraqi weapons of mass de- within a war. struction; this claim proved false. Theory and must The presumption must always be Nationalism (in the guise of patrio- be condemned as sinful. that killing our brothers and sisters is sin- tism) will often provide a rationalization ful. It can never be good, but it might be for war “in defense of the homeland.” we have done, and continue to do, to the justified by circumstances; justifying kill- The criteria of the Just War Theory are country and people of Iraq. ing is always grave. complex and difficult specifically because I do know that the U.S. needs to be While I know that thoughtful wom- war is horrible; it can never by good, but less bellicose in the world, decrease the en and men can come to different pruden- can be “justified” by circumstances. Our obscene expenditure on our military ad- tial judgments regarding the U.S. decision religious tradition challenges us to be crit- diction and approach international dis- to invade Iraq, for a long time I have felt ical and challenging when political lead- putations with less hubris and greater a great need to state the argument that ers seek to rally support for war. humility. this war violates the Just War Theory and A Catholic Marine was just convict- The U.S. has troops stationed in must be condemned as sinful. ed of desertion because his conscientious 144 countries around the globe and All of the following criteria must be objector claim was based on the Catholic spends well over $1 billion a day on met before participation in and support of Just War Theory rather than traditional the military; perhaps this is why the a war can be justified jus( ad bellum): Just pacifism. Another member of the military U.S. prefers military solutions to inter- Cause, Comparative Justice, Legitimate is seeking political asylum in Canada be- national problems. That we pay these Authority, Right Intention, Probability of cause his objection to serving in Iraq is costs while denying funds to address Success, Proportionality, and Last Resort. based on traditional Church teaching. the real human rights problems facing (Go to http://www.answers.com/topic/ Our government does not want to our country and our world is an affront just-war-2 for definitions of these terms.) recognize the legitimacy of their right to to the Gospel of Jesus. v Questions regarding comparative claim conscience because these young justice, right intention and probability of men are not pacifists. They are attempting success could lead to interesting conver- to use prudential judgment in a particular sations. Proportionality deserves special situation: e.g., “This war is not just; my attention since it is both a criterion before participation in this war is not justified.” a war and a criterion of evaluation of all However, our government views this as a behavior during a war. However, the Just political and not as a moral stance. War Theory offers us this challenge: All Back in 1970, the U.S. bishops called criteria must be met for the evil of war to for recognition of Selective Conscientious be justified. Let me address two: Legiti- Objection on the basis of the Just War mate Authority and Last Resort. Theory. Perhaps this vestige of Vietnam is President Bush, in declaring the worth considering. Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War (June, We are committed to helping our stu- 2002), claims that the U.S. can unilater- dents form and inform their consciences ally abrogate the criterion of last resort. in order to make just and moral decisions The Bush administration now uses theo- in a complex world. It is increasingly im- retical threats to trump any need to claim portant that our students see that Gospel self-defense before launching a war. This values challenge our uncritical acceptance devolves to a claim of “ends justifying of assumptions underlying political, eco- means,” a stance explicitly rejected by tra- nomic and military truisms that are pre- ditional Catholic moral theology. I would sented uncritically in our culture. contend that this in and of itself makes I don’t have the foreign policy exper- Mike Shaughnessy is on the Campus any claim to authority illegitimate. tise to specify the best way for us to extri- Ministry team and teaches religious The Bush Administration spokes- cate ourselves and minimize the damage studies.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 35 Helping to Reshape Afghanistan

Children in the Herat Province line up outside a hospital on the first day it opened. Photo by Col. Bart Howard.

By Col. Bart Howard, USA ’80 prised to learn that men and women accents. When we get a cup of cappuc- from 37 different nations now par- cino, a welcomed holdover from when hese days, I find myself recall- ticipate in ISAF — an amazing level the Italians led ISAF, we will often pass ing skills and lessons I learned of international commitment to insure members of the new Afghan Army or Tin Bill Morlock’s world history the security of Afghanistan. Up until Pakistanis who serve as liaison officers. class at SI. I can still remember scruti- last February, 35,000 service personnel Soldiers from the Former Yugosla- nizing the maps of the world and being in Afghanistan were under the com- vian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) fascinated with the mysterious USSR. mand of a British four-star general with secure our compound. When we sit at a Twenty seven years later, I’m put- a multi-national staff, a far-from-token table, we may strike a conversation with ting these skills, and my history degree representation from the international a Portuguese infantry company com- from SCU, to good use in my role as a community. Now, under an American mander, with a Lithuanian staff officer U.S. Army officer in the International commander, thousands of Dutch, Ca- or with my old friends the Australians. Security Assistance Force Headquarters nadian, German and British forces are (I served a year with the Australian (ISAF) in Kabul. positioned throughout Afghanistan, and Army, and I have made great friends After the 2001 Bonn Agreement, more than a thousand Polish troops will with many in its ranks.) a United Nation’s Security Council soon arrive. Our command is tied together by resolution established NATO-ISAF. A It is fascinating to watch Italian a common purpose, by a common lan- bold undertaking, ISAF is NATO’s first forces working side-by-side with Turkish guage (NATO uses English for all orders mission outside Europe and a visible and French units. We also receive a les- and communication) and by profession- reminder of the international commu- son in geography and history at the din- alism. Bringing together so many na- nity’s resolve to build a better future for ing facility, where we see a quilt of vari- tions and finding common ground isn’t Afghanistan. ous uniforms and headdresses and hear easy, but it works, and we have formed Most Americans would be sur- the music of dozens of languages and a true coalition.

36 GENESIS V spring 2007 “Afghans accept as legitimate the presence and commitment of NATO because they know we will hellp improve their lives.” — Col. Bart Howard Certainly enormous challenges ter trade, farmers have an alternative to divided members of the Pashtun tribe, a face us in Afghanistan, and some make growing poppies. As schools begin to problem which continues to fester and the mistake of seeing one event — one open and a new generation of Afghans which is at the heart of the current secu- “frame” of the movie called Afghanistan graduate, citizens have a chance to form rity problem in Afghanistan.) — and think they have seen the whole a national identity and fight the culture ISAF, in essence, is filming the next picture. For an accurate analysis, they of corruption. chapter in the movie of Afghanistan; I am should consider the history and context All of this will take time. To many confident that this movie will have a hap- of nearly 30 years of continuous warfare visitors, Afghans appear to have a dif- py ending. Regardless, it is exhilarating to and destruction including the following: ferent sense of time, but everyone un- be a part of this story, one that is nearly as the Russian intervention my senior year derstands that our mission is to work old as human history itself. v at SI that caused the loss of so many lives, ourselves out of a job. A stable and se- Colonel Bart Howard, a San Fran- the staggering poverty, the low literacy cure Afghanistan will benefit the entire cisco native, received a Regular Army rate, one young girl executed during half- region and, eventually, the world. commission in Armor from the SCU’s time at a soccer game a mile from my of- I hope students today have the kind ROTC program in 1984 and has served fice, the reign of the Taliban, the chaos of world history class that I found with in numerous command and staff posi- that provided the foundation to build Al Mr. Morlock and that this next genera- tions. He has commanded every Ar- Qaeda and September 11. tion has a desire to understand the full mor unit from Platoon to Brigade. He They should also consider the heal- story. I hope they have the ability to lay a recently served as the Chief of Staff for ing encouraged by recent events, such as map on the table and see that internation- Combined Forces Command-Afghani- the Bonn Agreement, the unprecedented al boundaries don’t always make sense. stan and currently is the Military Assis- elections, the work of President Karzai (For example, the jagged 1880 border tant for the NATO-ISAF Commander. and the recent reconstruction and devel- drawn between Pakistan and Afghanistan He is married and has a son. opment. Visitors who have not been to Kabul The author since the Taliban reign of terror tell me met with House of the dramatic changes they now see. Speaker Buildings are rising, roads are paved, Nancy Pelosi stores are open, children are going to during her school and, yes, the kites are back. If visit to Kabul last winter. you haven’t read The Kite Runner yet, “It was a put it on your must-read book list. real pleasure Afghanistan still has a long way to meeting go, and people argue over different paths her and the other mem- to achieve prosperity and democracy; bers of the thankfully, Afghans accept as legitimate delegation,” the presence and commitment of NATO said Howard. because they know we will help improve their lives. Recent independent surveys con- ducted with the Afghan people show an overwhelming rejection of the Taliban and a desire for the basics: a job and a place to live without fear. ISAF, in its desire to create security and to help Af- ghanistan rebuild, is working to provide both these basics. Workers can’t build a road if ex- tremists, criminals or narco-traffickers threaten them. Once we provide secu- rity, workers can finish roads allowing truck drivers to transport goods and services. With the opportunity for bet-

spring 2007 GENESIS V 37 Students Address AIDS Epidemic in Honduras

ere’s the official count: 1.5 percent of adults in Hondu- Students take a break from ras, about 61,000 people, H working to repair an AIDS clinic. have AIDS, as do 2,400 children. Listen to the 11 SI students who have people at the clinics started asking for foundations, digging ditches, building spent several summers working in AIDS jobs. partitions to give patients privacy, sand- clinics there, and you’ll understand why Siempre Unidos now teaches sewing ing and painting. the problem may be far greater. and hires people for Tabita Industrial, a They also saw a level of poverty that Seniors Colby Chambers, Bren- sewing factory that pays Fair Trade wages shocked them. “After complaining about dan Mahoney and John Stanley; ju- for the women who come to the clinics. my breakfast, I saw a child with one small niors Alex and Mackenzie Fotsch, Alex The factory’s first order for 6,250 piece of unripe fruit,” said Freedman. Freedman, Nicola Beaumont, Ryan onesies was delivered to San Francisco’s “Someone told me that was all he had for Geraghty, Sean O’Leary and Tom Mat- California Pacific Medical Center, and the breakfast, and he ate nothing else until timore; and sophomore Bill Mattimore group now makes canvas bags and com- the clinic fed him lunch.” — who have all worked as volunteers puter bags as well. Profits go right back All the students spoke of the joy ex- for the Marin-based Siempre Unidos — into the clinics. pressed by the people who came for treat- will tell you that the men in Honduras, In short, women come to the clinic ment. During one celebration after the as a rule, refuse to seek HIV testing. unemployed and in poor health, and after completion of the clinic at Siguatepeque, “Companies perform random treatment, grow stronger and healthier, the archbishop and mayor came for the blood tests and fire anyone with AIDS,” learn a marketable skill, work in an air- opening along with news crews. “Never said Chambers. “They also refuse to conditioned factory and make good wag- had I seen so many dedicated people in release test results. And few men will es. one place at one time,” said Beaumont. seek independent testing, as confiden- The SI students who have spent their “The speeches moved me and others to tiality just doesn’t exist. People with summers working for Siempre Unidos tears. And once the ceremony ended, ev- AIDS find themselves out on the street, have come back with stories of hope. eryone embraced and sat down to a lunch as their families are ashamed of them. Mackenzie Fotsch tells of a 6-year- of beans, rice and tortillas in the San Juan Mothers with AIDS will still breastfeed old boy who came with his mother every Apóstol Church, while the children played their babies to convince people they day. “She had been diagnosed with AIDS and laughed.” don’t have the disease.” and, fortunately, started treatment before Most of the students hope to return Given the stigma and the lack of she became pregnant. After her son was to Honduras. “They appreciate our pres- treatment available for people with born, she came every day both for treat- ence among them more than any money AIDS in Honduras, Drs. Denise and El- ment and to work at the clinic, making we might donate,” said Chambers. “You liott Main, perinatal OB/GYM physi- lunch for everyone. The boy would work want to go back after making connec- cians, started Siempre Unidos in 1995 with us, helping us dig ditches and at- tions with people there.” and work with St. Stephen’s Episcopal tempting to push the large wheelbarrow. Jenny Girard, director of SI’s Chris- Church in Belvedere to send volunteers He loved hanging out with us.” tian Service Program, praised the SI stu- to Central America. Chambers recalls a story told to him dents for taking part “in a faith journey Currently, the group operates AIDS by Denise Main of a woman with AIDS that brings them in touch with the people clinics in San Pedro Sula, in Siguate- who started crying after someone in the of Honduras. These students have re- peque and on the island of Roatan, and clinic hugged her. “It was the first time turned home transformed in their under- the Mains hope to open a fourth soon. anyone had hugged her after she had standing of the complexities of injustice When the Mains first arrived in been diagnosed with HIV,” said Cham- throughout the world.” Honduras, they asked what was most bers. “For the first time in years, she felt If you want to learn more about needed. “Coffins to bury the dead,” loved.” Siempre Unidos, go to www.siempreuni- they were told. One year later, thanks The SI volunteers spent their sum- dos.org; to order clothing, go to www. to the success of the medical treatment, mers doing construction work — laying sempresol.org. v

38 GENESIS V spring 2007 schoolNEWS

SI Earns High Marks from WASC Team our times a year, students feel a bit told them to fan out at lunch and talk to on edge when SI mails report cards anyone, and they found that all students Fto parents. were as eloquent and as knowledgeable Once every six years, high school ad- about the mission of the school as the stu- ministrators feel the same way. dent leaders.” This past March, SI received a sneak To win accreditation, schools write peek at the report card it will recieve this a self-study in which they evaluate their summer from the Western Association of strengths and create a plan for growth. Schools and Colleges, and everyone here SI’s self-study, coordinated by Kodros is smiling. and Director of Professional Develop- “I have been through six accredita- ment Paul Molinelli ’78, took two years mally, teams ask that schools add new Kate Ko- tions, and I have never seen or heard of to write and involved every one of the points to their action plans.” dros, Stan- ford’s Ann the kind of praise the visiting team gave school’s 164 faculty, staff and administra- Aside from this removal, the com- Rounds of to SI, both in its formal report and in the tors as well as parents, students, regents mittee’s recommendations mirrored SI’s the visiting personal remarks by the visiting team,” and trustees. These men and women own action plan. “We were thrilled with team and said SI President Robert Walsh, S.J. worked in various committees to “reflect the results,” said Kodros. “The accredi- Fr. Robert Walsh, S.J., “While our term of renewal will not on our progress over the past six years tation report validates all our hard work after the be known until July, it was clear from and to chart our course for the next six,” and our sense of where we need to go to reading of the visiting team report that the SI com- said Kodros. make a great school even better.” the WASC munity has achieved notable success and Based on findings from the self-study Mark DeMarco, the chair of the report. worthy recognition.” process, Kodros and Molinelli devised a visiting team and the superintendent of The accreditation team — six high six-point action plan to guide the school. schools for the Diocese of Oakland, not- school administrators and one teacher Visiting team members thought SI ed that his team “found our four days at from schools around the Bay Area — was doing so well, that they asked for SI professionally rich and personally re- “went into every single class and were one of those six areas, an evaluation of warding. We experienced a community impressed with our students and teach- second-semester senior curriculum, to be where everyone is striving to provide a Je- ers,” said Assistant Principal for Academ- removed. suit environment where quality Catholic ics Kate Kodros. “They didn’t see it as a big enough education is a priority.” v “They initially met with the student issue to warrant inclusion in the action “I have never seen or heard of the kind leaders who bowled them over. Then they plan,” said Molinelli. “I have never heard of praise the visiting team gave to SI …” asked to speak with ‘real students.’ We of a visiting team doing this before. Nor- — Fr. Walsh

and embrace the mission of “We are looking at the possibil- are facing right now.” — Kate SI Action Plan the school.” — Kate Kodros ity of providing each student Kodros with a laptop computer. We ver the next six years, Collect and use appropri- hope to provide education to Insure that the student SI will be guided by ate data to assess student faculty and students as to what body at St. Ignatius Col- the following recom- 2. 5. O progress in achievement of a classroom with one-to-one lege Preparatory represents mendations: ESLRs (Expected Schoolwide computing looks like.” — Paul the population it serves and Explore ways for all Learning Results). Molinelli embraces the diversity of the 1.stakeholders to insure the Bay Area. realization of the school mis- “We need to look at our data Create a comprehensive sion of creating women and more carefully to help us make 4.student wellness program. “All Bay Area schools face men for and with others.” decisions about curricular and “We need to create a com- the challenge of maintaining a co-curricular programs.” — prehensive and systematic diverse population that repre- “The visiting team didn’t see Paul Molinelli way of addressing a variety sents the ethnic and socioeco- any problem in this area. This of health issues — from drugs nomic diversity of our region. is our attempt to be proactive Explore and implement and alcohol to sex and eating We will look at existing and and to insure that the people 3.best practices in tech- disorders. We want to help new ways to guarantee that SI who work here and who send nology that assist students in students navigate the complex lives up to its mission in this their children here understand achieving ESLRs. moral and ethical issues they regard.” —Kate Kodros v

spring 2007 GENESIS V 39 schoolNEWS

‘No Child Left Behind’ No Cliché for Matt Balano At nine, he was riding wheelies down the street on a Suzuki DS125, and at 11, he was the best ceramic sculptor for his age that I have ever seen. He clearly was gifted, but he ranked at the bottom of our class academically. He had difficulty reading, spelling and doing simple math. Teachers frequently reprimanded him publicly and made him sit alone in the corner of the classroom. Over the years in school, he became defiant, disruptive and a bully. That his parents, immigrants from South America, spoke English as a second language while living in a large- ly homogenous suburban city, usually Matt Balano and sopho- made parent-teacher conferences more more Sam frustrating than productive.” Arabian. As a teenager, Balano’s friend was att Balano tells the story problems they encountered in middle finally diagnosed as having severe dys- of one junior who cruised school or because of a lack of structure lexia and ADD, but by then his self- Mthrough his freshman and at home. By working closely with SI’s confidence was shot. sophomore years earning B’s and C’s committed faculty and staff, Student “He often referred to himself as without too much effort. Support Services aims to be one more ‘stupid’ and said that school just wasn’t “Then junior year hit, and, with resource to help students achieve their for him. He dropped out of school and the increased workload, he could no academic potential.” began abusing everything from crystal longer succeed just using his natural Balano pairs students with tutors meth to crack. His drug addiction even- abilities.” from CSF and with teachers, and he tually led to his homelessness.” That young man then sought help spends much of his time before and af- Balano sees his friend’s case as a from Balano, SI’s first director of Stu- ter school offering one-on-one help in a perfect storm. “Research shows that dent Support Services, a new program variety of subjects. if children with learning differences go that opened last August. He also offers workshops in time- undiagnosed and unaddressed past the management to help students learn third grade, their chances of academic “Working here, I know that how to schedule their after-school time, success reduce significantly. We also how to mark a text as they read and know that one of the strongest indica- everyone is committed to equity how to prepare for final exams. Some tors of academic success is the parents’ and social justice.” — Matt Balano coaches, especially those working with level of education. Neither of his par- freshmen, have encouraged their teams ents attended college, and they were Balano looked at the young man’s to attend these workshops. He hopes trying to navigate a foreign school dis- planner and saw that he wasn’t writing that any student who needs a little help trict that lacked a support system and down his homework assignments. “He will seek him out in room 107. resources. The end result was that a kid had no study schedule, and his back- Balano is able to help so well, per- full of potential ended up a homeless pack and binders were in complete dis- haps, because as a youth he saw first- drug-addict.” array. I met with him twice each week, hand the need for schools to provide While this experience influenced put him on a steady study schedule at support for students and their families. Balano to start the Student Support home and helped him get organized. By One of his childhood friends suffered Services office, other incidents made the end of the semester, he had earned a because schools had neither the re- him decide to become a teacher. 3.7 GPA.” search nor resources to diagnose learn- Balano, an engaged, bright mid- Sometimes, Balano adds, it takes ing differences. dle school student who had tested longer to help a child succeed. “Some “My neighbor was an athletic, several grades above his own level in kids have wider and deeper gaps in quick-witted, sweet kid who, by age reading, turned into a disinterested their basic skills, in part because of eight, was a competent bike mechanic. high school student who didn’t want

40 GENESIS V spring 2007 schoolNEWS

to attend college. “It seemed as if few on my professional career.” the concept of race and the history people cared about education, even Balano pursued his English de- of cultural myths and stereotypes. in my high school in Marin, and that gree at UC Santa Cruz where he met Students read Song of Solomon, The included the students, teachers and another inspiring educator, Nathaniel Autobiography of Malcolm X, And administrators. I never once had a Mackey, who taught him “to look at the Earth Did Not Devour Him and conversation with a counselor to dis- literature through different lenses.” works by Cornel West, George Fred- cuss my future.” After graduating with his bache- rickson and Ronald Takaki. Balano’s disinterest in high school lor’s degree, Balano (the first person He hopes his Burning Illusions had much to do with the books he read, in his family to finish college) taught class, as well as the diverse literature as “there wasn’t much cultural or eth- ESL and developed curriculum at The in the English Department, will let nic diversity among the authors.” U.S.-Korea Business Institute at SFSU all students see themselves in the cur- Part Latino and Filipino, he didn’t and at the San Francisco Language riculum. see himself, let alone any person of col- Academy of Korea in Seoul. He vol- “Some people I meet still believe or, reflected in the curriculum. “In so- unteered at the San Rafael Canal that SI is not always an accommodat- cial studies, it was as if the entire Civil Ministry and worked for Berlitz on ing place for students of color,” said Rights movement never happened.” Campus before spending two years Balano. “That saddens me. Working At the College of Marin, Balano teaching at the Center for North here, I know that everyone is commit- took a class taught by Walter Turner. “He American Studies in Spain. ted to equity and social justice. These gave me my moral compass, made me ex- He joined SI’s English department are not secondary goals but priorities cited about education and inspired in me in 2001, and four years later created at SI. It’s unfortunate that that percep- a commitment to social justice. Without a a new class called Burning Illusions, a tion persists. I hope my work can help doubt, Walter was the greatest influence senior English elective that examines change that perspective.” v

McCain Aide Dan Schnur On Campus Dan Schnur (sixth from right), the director of communi- cations for Senator John McCain’s last presidential run, spoke to students in several classes at SI last November. Government teacher Justin Christensen studied politics from Schnur at UC Berkeley and invited him to speak at SI. Schnur discussed his personal background and how he rose from an unpaid volunteer to a chief campaign strategist. He also shared tales of working with Sen. McCain on the campaign trail. At the end of his talk, he quoted one of Sen. McCain’s sayings and asked students “to be a part of something greater than your own self- interest.”

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell Visits SI San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell (center) spoke to students in the Nature/Nex- us class about the issues of environmental racism in the Hunter’s Point-Bayview districts. Students in the class took a “toxic tour” of the area in October where they saw first hand the danger posed to residents in the area by the power plant and the Superfund site at the former Navy shipyards. Jimmy Ruck ’07, who interned in Supervisor Max- well’s office, helped to arrange the visit.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 41 fineartsNEWS

Helping AIDS Orphans One Song at a Time The song “Children of the World” after taught himself to play guitar. has ballad-style lyrics and music per- In his junior year, Andrew wrote formed by Dudum interlaced with the song “Fall From Grace” in memory rap lyrics performed by Bovo. Both of his classmate at SI who had died. The Senior students hope that “Children of the Villa Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra will Andrew World” helps listeners make a connec- perform an orchestral version of this Dudum performed tion with children dying of AIDS on a song later this year, featuring Andrew’s at a student far-off continent and motivate them to solo on cello. talent show respond to the crisis. Fly With Me contains 10 songs that in March. Andrew and his father, Rick, a San Andrew wrote over the past two years. Photo by John En- Francisco lawyer and real estate broker, In addition to writing the music and riquez ’09. had been working together for almost a lyrics, he played acoustic and electric hen SI religious studies year recording and producing Andrew’s guitar, bass and cello on the CD. His teacher Mary Ahlbach asked debut CD Fly With Me, when Andrew father accompanied him on piano, and WAndrew Dudum and Rocco approached his father about Ahlbach’s John Geraty ’76 added drums. Dudum Bovo to write a song to help benefit request. Together they took a break and his father mixed the album at their her Tanzanian AIDS orphan project, from Andrew’s project and produced home studio. The songs are available she wasn’t prepared for everything that “Children” on the family record label, at DudumRecords.com and on iTunes, would follow. DudumRecords, Inc., that they started and the response to date has been over- Dudum and Bovo collaborated together in 2005. whelming. on “Children of the World” last year Andrew, a veteran musician, has The title comes from Andrew’s de- as juniors and performed the song at played cello since he was 8, before join- sire to have his friends and classmates a Solidarity Dinner, at a “Tanzi Proj- ing the Golden Gate Philharmonic Or- “fly with me through the past few years ect” dinner and, most recently, at Rock chestra. At 10 he was a founding mem- of my life, through my relationships, in- 2 Relief last January. The boys gave ber of the Presto International Quartet, securities, confidences and struggles.” Ahlbach 200 copies of the “Children” which performed at private and public Dudum found crossing from CD, which she will sell to raise money events throughout the Bay Area. At 12 classical to rock a natural progres- for the African orphans. A percentage he joined the Villa Sinfonia Orchestra sion. “My classical background gave of proceeds from the sale of additional and performed at venues including me the foundation to write pop and CDs will also be donated to this proj- Carnegie Hall; in 2003, he toured with rock songs because I understand how ect. that group throughout Europe. songs are structured. Playing in or- Ahlbach’s Tanzi Project will net Andrew, at 13, began performing chestras also gave me the confidence $2,000 — $1,000 from Rock 2 Relief and cello on the streets of San Francisco to perform on stage and to produce another $1,000 from the sale of CDs. during summers and holidays and soon my CD.” v

Student Arts Showcase Students had their chance to direct one-act plays, sing and dance in the annual Student Arts Showcase in February.

42 GENESIS V spring 2007 fineartsNEWS Student Talent Shines

SI held a student talent show in March featuring rock bands and solo per- formances on piano and guitar. Pictured at right are junior Abigail Colyer, senior Sumner Fontaine, and se- nior Justin Lorentz of Third Wheel. Below, sophomore Dan Ferdon offered his best Elton John impression and senior Dan Lawrie rocked the house.

Rock to Relief for Tanzi Project By Mitchell Cde Baca ’08 Seamus Cronin), the concert drew 300 to Wiegand Theatre to see their peers pianist puts on a captivating demonstrate their musical talents and performance. A guitarist’s pick to watch a slideshow featuring the chil- Astrikes the strings, causing them dren already helped by the Tanzi Proj- to scream. A singer’s voice steadily ect. floats among the ears of its listeners. After humorous introductions by Drums keep pace as colored lights paint emcees junior Reed Campbell ’08 and the scene. These sounds work together Jesse Kay-Rugen ’07, Andrew Dudum for one selfless cause. ’07 kicked off the concert with his hyp- Professional musicians have always notic singing, accompanying himself on with innovative covers such as “Killing Junior Leena used music to raise money for worthy guitar. Floor” and “Free Bird.” Culhane. Photo by causes. Leena Culhane ’08, who already “I thought the talent displayed was Mitchell Cde Three solo artists and one group, has a following on campus, sang four extraordinary,” said Ahlbach. “It was Baca ’08. all SI students, joined that bandwagon original songs, and her toned-down wonderful to see kids having clean, hon- at the Jan. 25 Rock to Relief to raise melodies and poetic lyrics charmed the est, loud fun. Some students paid more money for AIDS orphans in Tanzania, crowd. than the $5 donation because they knew beneficiaries of religious studies teacher Rocco Bovo ’07, a veteran rapper whom their money would help. There’s Mary Ahlbach’s Tanzi Project. who has performed with Snoop Dogg, no reason to sit around and moan about The idea of rock group Way Out then mixed things up with his hip hop AIDS in Africa. It’s so much better to West (comprising juniors John Galan- style. sing and laugh, as the Africans do, and te, Evan Hughes, Brendan Mullins and Way Out West closed the show rejoice in being there for each other.” v

spring 2007 GENESIS V 43 alumniNEWS

Leo McCar- thy’s family Leo McCarthy ’48 Receives Christ the King Award came to SI to honor Each year, Saint Ignatius College Preparatory’s highest alumni honor, the and engrossed himself in his studies. the former lieutenant Preparatory bestows the Christ the King Christ the King Award. From humble After graduating from SI in 1948, Leo governor. Award upon a graduate who has distin- beginnings, this loyal public servant be- served in the Air Force’s Strategic Air guished himself or herself in the service came a political giant, all the while re- Command during the Korean War from to the school and community. This year’s maining a Catholic gentleman, dedicated 1951 to 52, thus beginning his odys- recipient, Leo McCarthy ’48, was hon- husband and loving father. sey into the realm of public service. Leo ored on February 25, 2007, in Orradre Leo Tarcisius McCarthy was born graduated from USF in 1955, earning a Chapel, two weeks after his death. His in Auckland, New Zealand, on Aug. 15, bachelor’s degree in history. Most impor- son, Niall ’85, received the award on his 1930, and found a permanent home in tantly, Leo was married on December 17 father’s behalf. San Francisco at the age of 3, when his of that year to Jacqueline Lee Burke, the family immigrated to the city’s Mission love of his life. by John Ring ’86 District during the heart of the Great Leo then attended San Francisco Depression. Growing up at a time when Law School, earning his law degree s the story goes, a young couple many Americans struggled to provide while serving as an administrative as- from County Kerry set off from for their families, the McCarthy boys sistant to State Senator Eugene McAteer. AIreland in the late 1920s with were taught to have empathy for the less Dedicated and tireless, Leo also worked dreams of finding prosperity out West. fortunate. Leo’s father, Daniel McCar- in the San Francisco office for the suc- After first settling in New Zealand, Dan- thy, was a well-respected businessman cessful Kennedy presidential campaign iel and Nora McCarthy’s young family in 1930s San Francisco, first operating as the 1950s came to a close. During this immigrated to San Francisco in 1934, “McCarthy’s Big Glass” tavern on Mis- time, his own political aspirations grew. sion between 20th and 21st Streets and In 1963, Leo began a streak that would While working so hard & serving then opening more bars and restaurants make Cal Ripken proud: 31 straight California so well, Leo kept his as he built upon his early success. Dan- years in public office in the State of iel McCarthy was always willing to help California. Leo served on the San Fran- family first and foremost. those in need, providing jobs for scores cisco Board of Supervisors from 1963 of Irish immigrants looking for work. to 1968, as a member of the California a decision that would have a profound Leo would take the lessons he learned State Assembly from 1968 to 1983 (and impact on the political landscape in the from his parents with him as he entered as Speaker of the Assembly from 1974 to State of California a generation later. young adulthood. 1980), and as Lieutenant Governor from Today we honor the youngest of After attending Mission Dolores 1983 to 1994 during the final 12 years of the four McCarthy boys, Leo McCarthy Grammar School, Leo matriculated to his political life. ’48, as recipient of St. Ignatius College SI, where he competed on the track team While serving as California Speaker

44 GENESIS V spring 2007 alumniNEWS

of the Assembly, Leo was one of the pri- Service and the Common Good at USF. Leo served as the moral mary formulators of state policy in educa- Regarding the McCarthy Center, Leo compass for many Californians, tion, health, elder care and the environ- said that it “will urge students who pass ment. As Lieutenant Governor of Califor- our way to embrace passionately some performing his job with great nia, Leo worked to help businesses start mission in public service.” Those who intellect and grace … and grow through his role as Chair of have passed his way have done just that, the California Commission for Econom- with Leo a trusted confidant and mentor with honor in future years: ‘I served the ic Development, and headed initiatives to many, including former San Francis- United States Government in that hour on hate crimes, breast cancer, nursing co Mayor Art Agnos, Congresswoman of our nation’s need.’” Leo McCarthy homes, toxic waste and equal rights. Fol- Anna Eshoo and House Speaker Nancy met that challenge head on, serving in lowing the example set by St. Ignatius of Pelosi. the armed forces in the ’50s, attaining Loyola, Leo served as the moral compass Leo also served the Jesuit community public office during the ’60s, serving as for many Californians, performing his well as a member of SI’s Board of Regents California’s Speaker of the Assembly in job with great intellect and grace while al- and on the Board of Trustees at the Je- the ’70s, and finishing his political career ways looking to right the many inequities suit School of Theology at Berkeley. He after 12 years as Lieutenant Governor that existed in this country. served on the Advisory Council for the during the ’80s and early ’90s. While working so hard and serving USF School of Business and Management, Leo McCarthy — immigrant son, California so well, Leo kept his fam- as the keynote speaker at SI’s Downtown public servant, dedicated father, trusted ily first and foremost. Leo and Jackie Business Lunch in 1995 and as the com- mentor and devout Catholic — was able were happily married for 51 years and mencement speaker at USF in 2004. to look back at a life and career with raised four wonderful and accomplished In his January 1961 State of the pride and honor, knowing that he faith- children (Sharon, Conna, Adam ’83, Union Address, President John F. Ken- fully served his family, his country and and Niall ’85). All have attended Jesuit nedy said, “Let public service be a proud his church. The Saint Ignatius commu- schools (including SI, Gonzaga and San- and lively career. And let every man and nity is forever grateful. v ta Clara) and have collectively continued woman who works in any area of our Leo McCarthy, who served California as Speaker of the Assem- their father’s work in the areas of edu- national government, in any branch, at bly and lieutenant governor, greeted Pope John Paul II during cation, law, business and the pursuit of any level, be able to say with pride and his visit to the state in 1989. social justice. Making the long commute to and from the State Capitol every day — he never even had an apartment in Sacra- mento — Leo would arrive home in time to entertain a lively dinner table with les- sons in history and discussions about the issues facing California and the world. In the Jesuit tradition, Leo took great pride in educating “the whole person” when teaching his children, discussing such diverse topics as literature and the theatre, the state of the ’49ers and War- riors, the greatness of Thomas Jefferson and the challenges created by Proposi- tion 13. Nothing ever quenched Leo’s thirst for knowledge, and his devotion to God was never once shaken. These are all gifts that Leo passed down to his 11 grandchildren, two of whom (Courtney Allen ’97 and Kevin Allen ’00) are SI graduates. Since leaving public office in 1994, Leo’s commitment to public service en- dured, and in 2002, he helped establish the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public

spring 2007 GENESIS V 45 alumniNEWS

Reflecting on Leo McCarthy’s PoliticalLegacy By John Wildermuth ’69 or stand up for California’s magnificent career in politics. But unlike many career coastline, he kept his word.’’ politicians, he finished his term as lieuten- eo McCarthy was a politician, and Born in New Zealand in 1930, to a ant governor in 1994, left his office and he made no apologies about it. family as Irish as a shamrock, McCarthy never looked back. L For McCarthy, a 1948 St. came to San Francisco with his family But not before giving handwritten Ignatius graduate who died Feb. 5, a when he was three years old and never thank-you notes to the people he had politician was someone who could make left. He grew up in the Mission District, worked with for all those years, including other people’s lives better, and there was where his father opened McCarthy’s Big the custodian who cleaned his office and no reason at all to apologize for that. Glass, a tavern on Mission Street. He the owner of the Capitol cafeteria, who Talking to a Chronicle reporter in went to Mission Dolores, St. Ignatius and baked him oatmeal cookies. 1988, he called himself “a guy who be- the University of San Francisco and then He spent much of his life after poli- lieves passionately in investing in kids, to San Francisco Law School, working tics with USF’s Leo T. McCarthy Center days in Sacramento as an aide to state for Public Service and the Public Good, Sen. Gene McAteer and studying on the which he helped establish with a $1 mil- long bus rides bus to and from the state lion donation in 2001. He worked with capital. the center, met with the students and even Over the years, McCarthy became taught a seminar, all the while emphasiz- one of California’s most powerful politi- ing that politics can be a good and noble cians. He led the state Assembly as speak- calling for people who wanted to do good er for more than six years and served a and make a difference. record 12 years as lieutenant governor. To McCarthy, his work with the He helped Nancy Pelosi win her seat in USF center was never a consolation prize, Congress in 1987 and served as a close something to do because he couldn’t win adviser up until his death. the Senate seat. He gave it his attention He was never the traditional, back- and his energy, communicating his joy slapping Irish pol, the type of political op- and respect for the political system he

Speaker erator who spent long evenings schmooz- served for so long. of the who is committed to creating jobs so ing with politicians and lobbyists at “He wanted to equip our students to House that families can improve their standard Frank Fat’s and other Sacramento water- effectively fashion a more humane society, Nancy of living. Leo McCarthy is a guy who is ing holes. Instead, McCarthy was on the regardless of the professions they choose,” Pelosi committed to a safe environment, who praised road home to San Francisco, driving back the Rev. Stephen Privett, S.J., president of Leo Mc- was taught as a child, and believes as an to spend the evenings with his family. USF, said to a packed St. Ignatius Church Carthy in adult, that older people deserve respect McCarthy prided himself on being a in his homily at McCarthy’s funeral. a eulogy and should not be put on a shelf in their political technician, someone who could Politicians, colleagues and friends for her final years.’’ former count the votes and put together deals to made their way to his bedside at St. mentor That type of talk was more than get things accomplished. Mary’s Hospital during the long months during his campaign rhetoric for McCarthy. For “He was a person who had a very of his final illness. But in the last days, funeral more than 30 years, as a San Francisco clear vision of what was right, what was McCarthy, as he had for so many years, Mass supervisor, an assemblyman and lieuten- at St. fair and what needed to be done,’’ said Lt. went home, where he died surrounded by Ignatius ant governor, he tried to make San Fran- Gov. John Garamendi, who served with his family. Church. cisco and California a better place to live. McCarthy in the Legislature. In her eulogy, Nancy Pelosi reached And in his final years, he never let himself It wasn’t all roses. McCarthy lost a into the book of Sirach for her final words be put on a shelf. 1966 state Senate race to fellow SI grad on the life of Leo McCarthy, politician, “Leo’s great wisdom was in knowing George Moscone ’47. He was forced to husband, father and SI graduate. that the future of his children — Sharon, give up the Assembly speaker’s job in a “He will be buried in peace,’’ she Conna, Adam and Niall — was linked to clash with fellow Democrats in 1980. He quoted, “but his name lives forever, as the destiny of all children,’’ House Speak- was beaten by Republican Pete Wilson in people recount his wisdom.’’ v er Nancy Pelosi, a friend for decades, said the 1988 race for U.S. Senate and lost to in her eulogy at McCarthy’s rosary. “His Barbara Boxer in the 1992 Democratic John Wildermuth has worked as a jour- word was his bond, and when he prom- Senate primary. nalist for 34 years; he writes about poli- ised that he would protect our seniors It was that final loss that ended his tics for the San Francisco Chronicle.

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John Davitt Retires as Glendale CC President n the 1980s, Dr. John Davitt ’50 served in the Army for two years, and fulfilled a lifelong dream. He then returned to USF for his creden- Ibought a Harley and has been rid- tial. ing ever since. He taught and worked as a coun- Soon after that purchase, he was selor at Roosevelt Junior High School asked to join the board of directors in the city between 1957 and 1964 for the Glendale Harley Love Ride before joining Merritt College. He Foundation made the move down south in 1966 The group sponsors the annual to work at Cal State Los Angeles, and Love Ride, involving 25,000 Harley two years later he began his career at riders in the largest one-day motorcy- Glendale Community College, serving cle event in the country. Last Novem- first as dean of student personnel ser- ber’s Love Ride 23 raised $1.6 mil- vices and later as dean of instruction. lion, which the foundation distributed He became the school’s vice president to 50 non-profit groups. for instructional services in 1983 and, “Leave it to John to turn his mo- two years later, took over as college torcycle hobby into another way to president and district superintendent. help people,” said his close friend “When we first moved to Los An- Robert Holmes, a former member geles, my wife, Gael, and I thought of the Glendale Community College we’d be back in the East Bay in a Board of Trustees and the man who couple of years,” said Davitt. The two hired Davitt as president of that insti- decided to stay, and Davitt eventually tution in 1985. earned his doctoral degree from USC something to eat.” John Davitt Davitt retired as GCC’s president in 1977. Holmes would often see Da- served as and superintendent last June after a As GCC president, Davitt raised president vitt loading the back of his car with 21-year tenure, the longest for any $200 million to modernize the cam- of GCC for food left over from the cafeteria. “He 21 years, community college president in Cali- pus, remodeling the original Mis- would take that food to a shelter for the longest fornia history. sion-style structures and creating new women and children who were vic- tenure of Along the way, he turned a sleepy buildings in the same style. any commu- tims of domestic violence. That’s just junior college into a major force in the Over his tenure as president, en- nity college who he is,” added Holmes. “It never president in state and nation, earning accolades rollment rose from 7,000 to 23,000, surprised any of us to see him doing the history — and a visit — from President Clin- and of those students, 1,400 students this kind of work.” of the state. ton in 1996 for his successful service- transfer each year to a four-year col- In addition to his work at Glen- learning program. In addition, two lege. Glendale sends more students to dale College, where he continues as members of Congress, Jim Rogan and USC than any other community col- president emeritus, Davitt serves on Adam Schiff, have served as instruc- lege in the state. tors at his school. Davitt’s crowning accomplish- John spoke with [the homeless “They joke that I’m the only boss ment, however, is the way he admin- they ever had,” said Davitt. istered. “He took what had been a man] and then took him to Davitt’s commitment to educa- cloistered college on a hill and opened the college cafeteria to make tion and community service began up the whole process of governing to at SI with rigorous Jesuit instructors everyone,” said Holmes. “He made sure he had something to eat. such as Rockwell Shaules, Pierre Ja- sure that everyone had a voice, from cobs ’31, George Dennis and Richard students and the general public to the the board of several organizations Spohn ’31. “These men also taught faculty and classified employees. We and donates his time to a number of me to think logically and to articulate all knew that his door was open.” Southern California organizations, clearly,” said Davitt. “Those were the Holmes illustrates this with a including Holy Family High School, skills that served me well throughout story of one homeless man who wan- where he is chairman of the board, my career.” dered into Davitt’s office. “John spoke Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and After graduating from SI, Davitt with him and then took him to the the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where attended USF for his degree in history, college cafeteria to make sure he had he serves on the School Council. continued on next page

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A Tale of Two Pictures in the Digital Age Davitt’s commitment to the Church and the Jesuits can also be measured by the schools his fam- How to Turn Old ily chose to attend. His wife, Gael (a graduate of Convent of the Sacred Heart and San Francisco College for Photos into a Slideshow Women), has taught sixth grade at By Mike Pasini ’70 tax SLR, so I had gotten him to shoot St. Bede’s School for 33 years. All of 35mm stills of a movie I was making that their children went to St. Bede’s, all hen Paul Totah suggested I involved my English teacher Scott Woods attended Catholic high schools, and write a piece for Genesis on and his entire English class. But this cous- all went to Jesuit universities — two Wdigital photography, my heart in business was a revelation. to SCU and two to LMU. Of his 11 went out to him. I’ve read Genesis for a On our European trip, Keith shot grandchildren, eight attend Catholic while now and it fatigues me to think of about a hundred Kodachrome slides of grade school, one is at a Catholic high all the work he puts into it. Lend a hand? our adventure while I, having calculated it school (Notre Dame Academy), an- How could I say no? was more affordable, wrote poetry. When other is junior at SCU, and the oldest, I thought it would be snap. Espe- we got back, he had all his slides dupli- a graduate of Georgetown, is at SCU’s cially since he carelessly left the choice of cated at a lab for me (which was the only School of Law. subject up to me. Since 1999, I’ve edited way you could copy them in those days). For his excellent leadership at a biweekly of about 5,000 words an issue Several decades later, they are just three Glendale College, Davitt received the on the subject, nearly two million total. feet away from me as I write. Lifetime Membership Award from the How hard could it be to find a thousand Association of California Community fit forGenesis ? THE FIRST PRINTS Well, it was impossible. Fifteen here, 200 there, a dozen from that piece, six few years after our trip, I made Leave it to John to turn his from the other, tied together with a few el- friends with a guy who worked in lipses. Shake, bake, flambé. What a mess. Aa color lab downtown. He gener- motorcycle hobby into In the end, I was forced to start at the be- ously offered to make a couple of 16x20 ginning. Cibrachrome prints for me from that set another way to help people. of images. It didn’t take me long to find my two favorites. Colleges. (He is one of only seven THE PHOTOS The first was a picture of a young recipients of this award.) He also re- he beginning was the moment my English boy traveling alone, still in short ceived commendations from the city mother came out of Orradre Cha- pants, sitting with a smile in the bow of of Glendale, the California State As- pel in the summer of 1970 and the boat which was taking us all down sembly and Senate and the U.S. Con- T heard, to her surprise, a familiar voice. the Thames. John (he introduced himself) gress. “Bernice?” she asked. also wore a raincoat and had an umbrella Davitt’s highest honor, perhaps, “Barbara?” Bernice laughed. with him. But that was it. Quite charming came years before his retirement They hadn’t seen each other since and self-possessed, he was happy to pose when President Clinton chose to visit they were girls, gathered at the Garbarino for Keith. Glendale College to honor its Service or Nassano home for one feast or another. The other image was of a German Learning Center, where 500 students They were, in fact, fourth cousins. girl just as young as John. She stood in participate in service learning, work- And now that Bernice’s son Keith the middle of a barge that was taking us ing with disadvantaged as tutors, Forner ’70 and I had just graduated from to Venice, but she was not at all happy mentors and food servers. SI and were about to leave for Europe about it. Her parents could not convince Davitt and his wife hope to travel with Fr. John Becker, S.J., their paths her they were not about to sink into the soon, but Gael still has several months had crossed again. Which is how, after lagoon and be lost forever. Terrified, she to go before she retires, and John is four years at school together, Keith and I nearly sank the barge with her tears, cry- still recovering from back surgery. learned that we, too, were cousins. ing the whole way across. If you live in Southern California, “Cousins?” we looked at our moth- Keith’s pictures of children are expect to see and hear of Dr. Davitt ers. Then, without missing a beat, we among my favorites in that set. There are as he continues to serve charities and turned to each other. “Cugino!” we others just as compelling, but these two Catholic institutions throughout the laughed and embraced. have greeted me from my living room area. v I knew Keith as the gifted editor of wall every day for over 30 years. Side-by- our yearbook. I also knew he had a Pen- side, unmatched yet somehow a pair, they

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seem to say, “So here are your choices: show together automatically and then go Take life as it comes with a smile, or com- back over it making little adjustments to plain about every little, blessed thing!” how each image is handled. And you get Those first Cibachromes were mar- to watch the show to check your work, vels of the art at the time, using special too — certainly an enjoyable job if there materials that have yet to fade, discolor ever were one. Unlike movie-editing soft- or deteriorate. To calculate the right ex- ware, slide show progams provide very posure for them, my buddy had used a easy ways to pan or rotate an image, and new device, a large color analyzer with they can also display higher resolution a small screen that showed what various images. filter combinations would do. It was ex- I’ve watched this slide show quite a pensive, but it saved a lot of money. few times now, and it’s never enough. I think I can remember everyone’s name, ANOTHER GENERATION but I wonder what’s become of them. In the Beginning: At center Barbara, Bernice and Bernice’s There is unmined data in each of these im- daughter Gayle, 1970. Upper left is Fr. Becker with fellow trav- hen I started fooling around eler Bill Bosque and his mother. At right is the author escaping ages — an invitation to fill in the blanks. detection. Originally shot by the author’s father in 16mm on a with digital photography a I happened to run across an interest- Bell & Howell movie camera, subsequently commercially trans- Wfew years later, Keith’s slides ing program that uses photos as part of a ferred to VHS tape, then recorded to DVD on a Panasonic VHS- naturally came to mind. I wondered how database to tell just such stories. Memory DVD player/recorder from which screen shots were made. I could make digital copies of those im- Miner is the brainchild of John Fox, who ages — both the ones from English class came up with the idea when, in one year, and the ones from Europe. If I had digi- his father died, he got married, and he had tal copies, I could see them any time I a son. He realized there are many stories wanted. I could view them on my screen, trapped in old photos and other analog make some prints of my own — even media (old brains included). So he’s spent large ones. a year creating a program to treat photos When I started to review slide scan- like “individual frames in a type of end- ners, I naturally thought of Keith’s slides. less story board.” I could load six slides at time in the Koni- I imagined what fun it would be to ca-Minolta Elite 5400 II film holder, push click on anyone in those old slides and it into that shoebox of a slide copier and find out just what had happened to them. get very nice copies automatically. These With something like Memory Miner, that copies looked better and could be printed Keith with his white Mustang, 1970. Recovered could actually be possible. from the 16mm film. much larger than the ones I had earlier Keith’s slides from Europe don’t tell done using a digital camera with a slide a story, though. They’re more individual holder. works, each standing alone or, at most, in small groups. They cry out to be printed, BEYOND THE PROJECTOR framed and exhibited. Fortunately, printing images is how I ou’d think I’d finally be happy do printer reviews. Not long ago, I had a now that I had good digital copies new breed of printer to review that could of Keith’s images. But suddenly I Y handle heavy fine art papers as large as had a new problem: how to enjoy them. 13x19. The first prints I tried to make The 30 slides from English class were of John and the German girl. Even told a story, so I decided to make a slide Cibachromes don’t last forever. show — though not just any slide show: I opened the scanned images in Ado- English Class still, 1970. Digitized from a black and white slide. one of those Ken Burns things with rota- be Photoshop and tweaked the color us- tion, pans, zooms and music. I used Boinz ing Pictocolor’s iCorrect plug-in, which printer and paper I was using, I made my Fotomagico but Photo to Movie (which can restore color and optimize the tonal prints. There was John; there the German runs on either Mac OS X and Windows) values in a single click, and I used Nik girl. I had never seen them so sharp, so does just as well. Software’s Sharpener Pro to intelligently vivid before. It was actually fun to do because you sharpen the image. Some of the specialty papers imi- don’t have to be perfect on the first at- After making the necessary adjust- tate traditional art media — canvas, for tempt. You can let the program throw the ments in Photoshop regarding the specific example. To test that, I print images I’ve

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taken of my favorite paintings in the per- manent collections at the de Young or the Legion of Honor. You can photograph in the permanent galleries as long as you don’t use flash or a tripod. I’ve used many cameras to shoot in museums but the ones that do the best job feature optical image stabilization to minimize camera shake at long shutter speeds. Then all I have to do is increase the ISO to no more than 400 to minimize how slow that shutter speed is. The only problem is finding wall space for my museum of favorites. And, no, I wouldn’t dream of taking down Keith’s pictures of John or the Ger- man girl. FAST FORWARD

oday, I suspect, if Fr. Becker were leading a tour of Europe, he Twouldn’t cram us in a Volkswagen bus. It would probably take a caravan of Vespas. And Keith would be shooting with a Pentax K10D, copying 100 pic- tures a day to his laptop and uploading the best to Flickr or Phanfare for our fam- ilies at home to enjoy while we crawled into our sleeping bags. Our younger siblings would have been busy making parodies of our ad- venture on YouTube and offering our souvenirs for sale on eBay. And when we returned, our parents would have greeted us at the airport wearing T-shirts with Keith’s images of us on them and toast- ing us with coffee cups printed with Fr. Becker’s mug on them. I can see the sun setting from my din- ing room window as I come to the end of this. It’s a difficult shot that Keith knew how to take and, in fact, was what he used to end the European series. Sunset in Rome. He’s been gone a long time now, before the Cibachromes were printed, in fact. And while I’ve often felt like I was traveling through life with one headlight out, his images of John and the German girl still light the way for me. They carry his laughter and his humor and his sweet- ness. And he has just elbowed me for say- John on the Thames. Scanned from a duplicate slide. Photo by Keith Forner ’70 ing that. But it is an imaginary elbow and doesn’t hurt. Much.

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I’ll never know what became of John or what the German girl’s name is, or if they happened to meet in Italy one sum- mer vacation or succumbed to some vice or misfortune, of which there’s never a shortage. I conceded it might seem a little odd to have had these two strangers in my dining room all these years. Many people have asked me who they are. I say, I don’t know, but they are not strangers to me. They are two moments of my cousin Keith’s life, moments that made him stop and smile, moments that made it all worthwhile. Moments he cap- tured and that I have not lost. I look at them each day; I smile, and I can not complain. It would be as silly as crying all the way to Venice. So salvage your old photos, bring them into the digital age, catalog them, try something like Memory Miner to tell your story or just make slide shows and movies and coffee mugs. And if I can be any help, just subscribe to the newsletter. I answer every plea for help, even when they come from editors. v

References: • Newsletter: http://www.imaging-re- source.com/IRNEWS/ • Memory Miner: http://www.memor- yminer.com • Pictocolor iCorrect: http://www.picto- color.com • Nik Software Sharpener Pro: http:// www.niksoftware.com • Canon Pro9000: http://www.usa. canon.com • Flickr: http://www.flickr.com • Phanfare: http://www.phanfare.com • YouTube: http://www.youtube.com

Mike Pasini is the editor of The Imaging Resource Digital Photography Newslet- ter. You can read it at www.imaging-re- source.com/IRNEWS/. Go to http://www.siprep. org/alumni/1970.2.mov for a slideshow Mike created of photos of students from the

Class of 1970. Girl en route to Venice. Scanned from a duplicate slide. Photo by Keith Forner ’70

spring 2007 GENESIS V 51 alumniNEWS Phoenix Chapter Gathering

The Phoenix Chapter of the SI Alumni Association met for lunch at Vincent’s Restaurant in Phoenix Jan. 24. Those attending included SI Alumni Director John Ring ’86, Director of Develop- ment Joe Vollert ’84, former faculty member Bob Kaiser, Terry McGuire ’45, Bob Borbeck ’76, Bill Thomason ’68, Alex Keenan Class of 1986 Reunion ’56, Rev. Harry “Dutch” Olivier, S.J. ’44, Jeff Glosser ’83, Jerel Cain ’86, Michael Pasquan ’83, and (pictured from left) Harvey The Class of 1986 celebrated a 20-year reunion last March with only a few casualties. Christensen ’43, his wife, Elsie, and Steve Howell ’61.

Crew Dedication & Alumni Race

The SI boys’ and girls’ crews chris- tened two new boats on Feb. 24 and held an alumni race. The boys’ boat, named The Henley ’06 in honor of SI’s victory last sum- mer at the Henley Royal Regatta in England, features the name of the nine Wildcats who manned the boat. Pictured below are some of the grads who participated in the alumni race. From left are Scott Campbell ’98, Richard Tzeng ’92, Pat Reid ’98, Eric Giessler ’93, Kevin Finn ’00, Seth Berling ’00, Brendan Raher ’98 and Doug Kil- roy ’98. The women who partici- pated included Patsy McGuire ’99 and Katie Yrazabal ’01 (pictured below left) along with Molly Den- ning ’98, Jenna Boswell ’98, Teresa Buckley ’95 and former coach Jen Hayden.

52 GENESIS V spring 2007 Phoenix Chapter Gathering keepingINTOUCH 1947 Joseph Kelly recently celebrated his How Adopting a Pet 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, Cynthia Brown Kelly. All five of their grandchildren currently attend SI. Changed My Life By Kelly (Phair) McCarthy ’94 taught obedience classes to the public. Once a week, I would fly out of the office 49 t sounds like a cliché but I never and rush to class where I helped people Peter Arrigoni retired from the Marin thought that adopting a dog would teach basic commands to their puppies Builders Association Sept. 30, 2006. change my life. In late 2003, my hus- and newly rescued dogs. It’s funny how a He is currently serving as a trustee of I band and I moved into our new home bad day will improve exponentially when the Marin County Employees Retire- and immediately began looking for a dog it ends by playing with little pudgy pup- ment Association. to join us and our previously adopted cat. pies. I practice at a firm in San Francisco, Having both grown up with dogs, and but I still make “doggie time” once a 56 with me an avid lover of all things furry, week despite the long drive. Donald Stenson’s wife, Randa passed we were eager to open our home to an- In 2005 I enrolled in the Marin Hu- away on Dec. 12, 2006, after 45 years other homeless pet. mane Society’s Canine Behavior Academy. of marriage. We fell in love with Molly, a 5-year- In this class, I learned about behavior and old big black Lab/Chow Chow mix, from training from a variety of angles. A year her picture on the San Francisco SPCA’s later, I began teaching my own classes website. We checked the website daily where I put those lessons to good use. As and called the SPCA almost as frequently I became more comfortable with the tech- to make sure she was still there and that niques used for evaluating the behavior of no one had adopted her out from under dogs, I began working with shelter dogs us. Little did we know that Big Black not yet approved for adoption. Heart- Dogs — BBD’s — wait for adoption lon- wrenching as it is, I sometimes need to tell ger than other breeds. Our Molly had staff about my concerns regarding a dog’s been there for three months before we ability to overcome a severe behavioral came along. problem. Molly was found in Bernal Heights As I become more involved with this Park, where her previous owners had process, I find myself fully invested in ani- Members of the Class of 1956 took part in their annual Marin Golf Tournament last winter. abandoned her. After we adopted her, she mal rescue work, work that has opened grew to trust us a little more each day, my eyes to groups of people and to other 57 though she was still very nervous when animals that need help. Alfred Chiantelli was recognized by the we left her alone, around strangers and in Animal shelters across the country Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily new environments. fight a daily battle in making life or death Journal in October 2006 as one of the I signed up for an obedience course decisions for millions of animals. Thanks 30 top mediators in the state of Cali- and began going to classes with her once to funding and generous support of the fornia. a week. I was amazed to see her grow in local community, dogs and cats coming confidence, and I grew fascinated with ca- through the doors of the Peninsula Hu- nine behavior and training. As I watched mane Society are evaluated for health and 61 the trainers teach the classes, I knew I temperament and, if approved, remain at Clay Cavanaugh asks for your prayers for wanted to get involved by helping shelter the shelter until they are adopted. his wife, Rima Karkar Cavanaugh, who dogs with their behavioral problems. Unfortunately, many shelters do not passed away Feb. 9, 2007, from glioblas- Being a person for others is a philos- have this luxury. Limited resources force toma, a rare form of brain cancer. ophy we all know well. With my newly animal lovers who work at these shelters Pat Sullivan’s The Book of Golf Quo- discovered interest, I found a way to com- to euthanize many animals after only a tations has been published by Random bine that sense of duty with a passion for limited hold period to make space for House in the U.K. a specific cause so that I could make a dif- incoming animals. Many owners turn in ference. pets not for behavioral problems or dan- As an attorney practicing in Palo gerous tendencies but because they don’t 64 Alto, I contacted the Peninsula Humane have time, they are moving, they are hav- Michael Hartney, on his retirement af- Society and SPCA in San Mateo (half- ing a baby, or they simply don’t want to ter 34 years of service with the China way between work and home) and began have a pet anymore. Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, re- volunteering, assisting the trainers who As I walk through the kennels, I see ceived the Meritorious Civilian Award. He and his wife, Carol, have moved

54 GENESIS V spring 2007 keepingINTOUCH

from the Mojave Desert to the verdant pastures of Citrus County, Fla., where they can be closer to their first grand- child.

70 Robert Lassalle-Klein has just published Love that Produces Hope, an introduction to the life and thought of Fr. Ignacio El- lacuria, S.J., the assassinated philosopher, liberation theologian and former president of the University of Central America. Rev. Kevin Leidich, S.J., teaches theol- ogy at Jesuit High School in Sacramento, where he is superior of the community.

71 Mark A. Terry, M.D., has lectured and performed televised surgery of the new form of corneal transplantation (which he developed) in Brazil, Italy, Japan, India and England during 2005 and 2006.

72 Peter Clark’s daughter, Tess, is in Germa- ny with the U.S. Army Rangers.

Kelly greets two students before class — Hazel the Pit Bull and Buddy the Treeing Walker Coon Hound. 75 purebreeds, both large and small, work- Nala, the most gentle and loving dog Kevin Lee was sworn in as LL2228 Presi- ing dogs, designer mutts (like the popular in the entire shelter, calmly looks away dent of IAMAW. This union represent Labradoodle) and many loveable breed when other dogs bark at her. She loves more than 1,000 union members at the mixes that could easily be stars of a Dis- to plunk her big old body into a human Lockheed Martin facility in Sunnyvale. In ney movie. lap for a nap and a belly scratch. Had addition he was also sworn in as Delegate Take, for example, Kingo, an 8-year she been another breed, she would have to District Lodge 725, which represents old Lab-Hound mix, whose love for hu- been adopted a long time ago, but, un- IAMAW in the aerospace sector for Cali- man companionship is unrivaled. When fortunately for her, Nala is a Pit Bull, and fornia. Kingo is happy, his mouth opens and shelters are filling fast with this breed that Fr. William McCain celebrated his 20th closes so that his teeth chatter to make has an often-undeserved bad reputation. anniversary as a priest in November an adorable sound. When removed from It doesn’t have to be this way. If pet among family and parishioners of Our his kennel for a walk, he is ecstatic and owners took the initiative to breed their Lady of Loretto Parish in Novato where has to sniff everything. He quickly calms pets responsibly, care for and socialize he has been pastor since 1999. down and focuses on the human attached them, we wouldn’t have the current over- at the other end of the leash and begs for population crisis. While no comprehen- a treat, a belly rub or an ear scratch. All sive statistics exist, between 3 an 5 mil- 76 Kevin Ryan has been named to Irish that Kingo needs is a home with people lion animals are euthanized each year in America magazine’s list of the top 100 who love him and a backyard with room U.S. shelters. The issue of overpopulation Irish Americans for his work as U.S. At- to play. in household pets is very real. Despite the torney for Northern California, a post he Kai is a little 1-year-old black Lab grim statistics, pet owners can take action left in February. with only half a tail who sits quietly in to reduce overpopulation. her kennel and waits for you to take her How can you help? Volunteer at out to play. Fritz, a purebred Daschund your local shelter. You don’t have to be 77 whose owner passed away, is now on his educated in animal behavior, as most James Reidy is in his 15th year as a fire- own. shelters need people to walk dogs or keep man in the SFFD. Last year, he came in continued on next page second for “Firefighter of the Year” for

spring 2007 GENESIS V 55 keepingINTOUCH

his heroic action in saving Lt. James Kircher ’82. He works at Station 8 with a large contingent of Wildcats, including Steve Coffey, Ken Cordero, Al Douglas, It’s funny how a bad day will improve John Ferrando, Luis Ibarra-Rivera, James exponentially when it ends by playing Kircher, John Kosta, Steve Maguire, Paul McDonagh, Kevin McKeon, Tom Mur- with little pudgy puppies. phy, Kevin O’Sullivan, John Rocco, Frank Roldan and Brendan Ward. cats and kittens company. You can also animals. Some people breed ethically and Isa Totah has written the screenplay for make a donation to animal rescue chari- responsibly, but many who lack expertise a movie that tells a coming-of-age story ties follow these steps. allow their animals to breed, contributing of an Arab American growing up in San to the overpopulation crisis and draining Francisco. He hopes to direct this film Give your dogs the tools they need local animal care resources. soon and is currently working with pro- 1.to be good family pets. Enroll in If you are considering getting a dog ducer Mark Johnson on this project. obedience classes and teach your dogs or cat, consider these issues: good manners. You will establish lasting and meaningful relationships with your Adopt a homeless dog, cat, kitten or 80 dogs and ensure that they are valuable 1.puppy from a local animal shelter Richard Ennis, Jr., has started a new job members of your family throughout their or rescue group. If you are looking for a as vice president of National Marketing lives. specific breed, contact the many private and Sales at Savory Creations. Rich and rescue organizations specializing in pure his wife, Valerie, live in Concord with Responsibly care for your pets. breeds. Go to www.petfinder.com for their four children: Marissa (4), Mike 2.Keep track of proper veterinary care more information. (11), Mark (14), a freshman at De La Sal- and insure that they receive proper train- le High School, and Nick (19), a sopho- ing and diet. Never buy a puppy or kitten from more at Auburn University in Alabama. 2.a pet store. The vast majority of Be responsible pet owners in your pet stores get their animals from puppy 3.neighborhoods and local parks. mills or large breeding operations where 82 Clean up after your dogs on a walk and animals are under socialized, poorly bred Michael Menaster, MD, began teaching keep them on leash where required. For and have an increased chance of develop- psychopharmacology last fall as an ad- cat owners, keep your cats inside to pro- ing behavior problems, serious genetic junct professor of psychology at Golden tect them from cars and to prevent them defects or other health problems. Gate University in San Francisco. He re- from threatening the Bay Area’s unique ceived the highest evaulation for a new bird population. If you are going to purchase your instructor. His published articles include dog or cat from a breeder, take “Dosage Adjustments in Special Popula- 3. Get your pets spayed or neutered adequate precautions to ensure that the tions,” “Venlafaxine and Cardiac Illness- and refrain from breeding your breeder is responsible and ethical. For es,” and “Psychiatric Illness Associated 4. with Criminality,” all online at eMedi- cine.com. Calendar 2007 84 May George Alessandria is a financial advi- 1-5 Spring Musical 7 p.m. sor with Merrill Lynch. He and his wife, 2 Board of Regents’ Meeting 4 p.m. Michelle, have two children, Amanda (7) 8 Counseling, Transition to College Night 7 p.m. and Giorgio (6). 8 Ignatian Guild Board Meeting 7:30 p.m. 15 Ignatian Guild Installation Mass & Reception 11 a.m. 16-17 Choral Concert, Bannan 7 p.m. 85 17 Father Harry V. Carlin Heritage Society Luncheon noon Michael Tolentino has been in Chicago 18 Fathers’ Club Barbecue, Commons 5:30 p.m. for seven years and is currently working 18 Faculty In-Service, no classes as an underwriter at JP Morgan Chase. 21 Senior Day Off In his spare time, he manages a small real 22 Ignatian Guild Board Meeting 7:30 p.m. estate company. 23 Board of Trustees 4 p.m. 24 Transition Liturgy, Holy Name Church 8:30 a.m. 25 Awards Assembly 8:30 a.m. 25 Class of 2007 Alumni Lunch 11 a.m.

56 GENESIS V spring 2007 keepingINTOUCH 86 Christopher Martin is living in Monterey are urged to follow the teachings of St. with his family and has left the Infantry Francis. In 1979, Pope John Paul named for the Foreign Area Officer Corps. Af- St. Francis the patron saint of ecology and ter completing a master’s degree in Asian stated that St. Francis “offers Christians area studies and national security at the an example of genuine and deep respect Naval Post Grad School in June 2007, he for the integrity of creation. As a friend will head to Japan with his family for a of the poor who was loved by God’s crea- one-to-three year stay. tures, St. Francis invited all of creation — animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon — to give 87 honor and praise to the Lord. It is my Robert Petrini is working for Infor Global hope that the inspiration of St. Francis Solutions as a senior global project man- will help us to keep ever alive the sense of ager. He is happily married with two chil- ‘fraternity’ with all those good and beau- dren, Tom (10) and Alexandra (6). tiful things which Almighty God has cre- Christopher Ralph married Yaromil Velez ated. And may he remind us of our seri- whom he met at the wedding of Douglas ous obligation to respect and watch over Hagan ’87. They live in the City; Yaromil the most part, if a breeder does not have them with care, in light of that greater attends law school at Golden Gate Uni- a waiting list and has puppies ready for and higher fraternity that exists within versity, and Chris works in tech support. sale, then this is a red flag, and you should the human family.” He recently completed a documentary consider another breeder. We need to act responsibly and re- about the baseball league in Italy called spect our environment and all living City of Baseball. Honestly assess whether you are ca- things. Be aware of the problem of pet 4.pable of caring for your pet for its overpopulation and avoid adding to the entire life. Dogs live between 8-17 years, crisis. Support animal rescue causes or 88 and indoor cats may live past 20! If you open your homes to a pet. By providing Simon Chiu is the new principal for St. move, plan on finding pet-friendly hous- a safe, loving and permanent home for a Joseph Notre Dame High School in Al- ing. If your family expands to welcome dog or cat, we can follow the teachings ameda. After teaching English at SI, he children, plan on putting in the time to ac- of St. Francis and truly be stewards for served as assistant principal of instruction climate both your children and your pets God’s creations. v at Moreau Catholic High School for five to each other. Plan for realistic veterinary years. bills, leaving ample room for emergency The author may be reached at kel- procedures. If you cannot do these things, [email protected] and is available for 89 then getting a pet may not be for you. questions and dialogue about the facts Jacob Wang is an entry-level clerk in the As members of the Catholic faith, we presented in this article. credit and collection services department at the State Compensation Insurance Fund’s main office in downtown San 28 Memorial Day Holiday Francisco. 29-31 Final Exams 8:30 a.m. 31 Baccalaureate Mass, St. Mary’s Cathedral 7:30 p.m.

June 90 Marc Gerardo married Christina Garcia 2 Graduation, St. Ignatius Church 10:30 a.m. in Houston, Texas, on Nov. 12, 2005. She 4 Fathers’ Club Installation Lunch 11:30 a.m. is a designer for Ethan Allen in San Ma- 8 All-Alumni Golf & Dinner, Commons teo. They moved back to San Francisco 15 Bob Smith ’32 SoCal Alumni Lunch, Annandale Golf Club 11:30 a.m. from Houston early this year, and Marc is flying 737s for Southwest Airlines out Reunions of Oakland. May 12 Class of 1977 6 p.m. 91 Aaron “Che” Covey is engaged to Eliza- September beth Rizzo. They are planning a July wed- 15 Class of 1987 5:30 p.m. 29 Class of 1982 5 p.m. ding.

spring 2007 GENESIS V 57 keepingINTOUCH 92 Benjamin Chan was among six chosen from 100 del- egates to lead the Integration of British Chinese into Poli- tics Project, launched in the British House of Lords. He was asked to speak on behalf of the British Chinese Com- munity with Mr. David Cam- eron, the leader of the Conservative Party in Birmingham, who is a main contender for Prime Minister.

93 Roy Reyes, at Christmas m o r n i n g Mass at Sa- cred Heart

Church in Front row, from left: Bob Moore, Bill Helmer, Maui, ran THE BOYS Dan Ravetti, Laurie McCaffery; back row: Pete into Kent Craford ’94, Paige Craford ’97 Arrigoni, Jack Cunningham, Bob Menicucci, Jack and the rest of the Craford clan, also on Mackall, Gerry Martin, Preston Lee, Gene Lynch, OF AUTUMN Pete Labrado, Bill Rippon, Harry Mullins, Phil vacation. The two families got together O’Connor and Tevis Martin for a wonderful barbeque dinner hosted by Robert Moore ’50 as told to by the Crafords in their place overlooking his daughter, Donna Moore Fentanes the scrambling for the ball are all expe- Maui’s Kapalua Bay. Pictured, from left, riences non-transferable to the stands. are Roy, Luke, Katie, Laura, Lillian and t’s September 1948. The curtain Your eyes are fixed on the ball, your Kent. Then, on his way home, Roy ran had come down on World War II, ears alert to changes in motion, the into Alex Rollo ’93 at the Maui airport. Ithe airlift in Berlin was underway, sweat and mud permeate your skin, and something was brewing on the Ko- you spit blood and mud, and you can rean Peninsula that would dramatically smell a linebacker a mile away. 94 affect our lives in the near future. The Football demands all from your Mike Morris, a real estate broker with grim memories of the war were retreat- body, your heart and your wit. We Shapell Homes, received a 2006 award ing to the attic of our collective con- were happy to comply and submit to from the Home Builder Association of sciousness, except for the few whose its demands. Our coach, Mike Hemov- Northern California in recognition of his wounds were so deep that they would ich, whipped us into shape, bruising annual sales volume, which exceeded $24 remain front and center forever. our bodies without bruising our spir- million. This year, Mike is overseeing an With this as the backdrop, the its. Coach Hemovich, a war hero, was income-restricted project in partnership boys of autumn assembled and the the kind of coach who not only taught with Contra Costa County, consisting of season of ’48 began. We were anxious good football, but also taught good 127 townhomes in Danville. to prove ourselves worthy of the red and right living. He was a nice man Lori Samurkashian is now and blue. If we didn’t know each other with nice manners. He treated us kids Lori Jabagchourian. She from the “goof squad,” we met at the with respect and kindness. His stock is married Ara Sept. 10, 2005. two-a-days in August. Our 15 minutes sorely missed today. Groomsmen included her of fame came to us this year, in 1948. There we were — the SI Wildcat brother, Andre Samurkashi- We were SI, and we were going to go all Varsity Football Team. We had a good an ’92 and her cousin, Vahe the way. season and made it to the semi-finals. Soghomonian ’94. Also in at- Football is a great all-consuming From the “goof squad” to varsity, we tendance were Garen Nazar- sport. Just being on the field is excit- saw football first hand playing on the ian ’92, Arthur Bedikian ’93, ing. There is nothing like the smell of field and watching from the sidelines. Azad Deeb ’93, Armen Bedroussian ’94, freshly cut grass, nothing like the sound We wore the uniform; we felt the wet Mike Yacobian ’94, Ani Soghomonian- of a kick-off. The anxiety right before earth; we heard the groans. Tavidian ’96 and Roubina Palayan ’96. a play, the crash of shoulder pads and Then we graduated. We would re- Lori and Ara reside in San Mateo. She

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has sold data storage solutions for seven years and has been representing Network turn to games to see younger brothers in September, the boys of autumn hud- Appliance for the past three years. or just to relive our memories. Then we dled once again for the first time in 58 Annie Wilson has left Louis Vuitton came to watch our sons or bring our years. There we were: the Varsity Foot- North America after five years to become kids to see games. It’s different in the ball Team of 1948, or what remained a project manager at Williams-Sonoma stands from on the field, but you can of us, reassembling on Dante Ravetti’s Emerging Brands (West Elm & Williams- still smell the grass or think you feel the Hillsborough patio. We enjoyed a su- Sonoma Home). She is currently training gravelly mud in your mouth. And you perb luncheon graciously hosted by with Team in Training for her second always feel the pain. Dante and his lovely wife, Terry. turn at the Wildflower Olympic-distance In September 2006, the dusty We weren’t the same sight as 58 triathlon in May 2007. streets of Baghdad kicked off the news- years earlier, but we were definitely the casts. A woman stood poised to become same men. We reminisced and thought the first female Speaker of the House. about those who weren’t with us any 95 Eduardo Caballero is executive direc- Something brewed again on the Korean longer. We commented on how well tor of his own non-profit enrichment Peninsula that could dramatically affect we looked. A good time was had by camp called Edventure More. After SI, our lives or those of our children and all, and at the end of the afternoon, we he graduated from Cornell University grandchildren. then entered into the fourth quarter of and worked for Score. He backpacked On a warm, bucolic afternoon late our lives. What a game. v through South America for nine months before returning to San Francisco and Marin Alumni Reunion starting his camp with co-founder Sharon Mor. They partner with local museums to design fun, hands-on science, art and rec- reation activities, and they have six offices in the Bay Area. Go to www.edventure- more.com for more information. Blamoh Twegbe, after serving as pharma- cy manager for Longs Drugs, is working as an inpatient graveyard pharmacist for Kaiser Hospital in Walnut Creek. She just purchased her first home in lower Rock- ridge. SI alumni living in Marin County gathered at The Spinnaker in Sausalito to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and hear from Bob Drucker ’58, who is retiring in June. Guests were treated to Irish dancers, bagpipes played by SFPD’s Dave O’Connor ’91 and the songs of Irish tenor Rich Mulkerrins ’83. 96 Michelle Los Banos married Mark R. Jerry Brown New Attorney General Jardina on Aug. 27, 2006. They will be moving to Managua, Nicaragua, in Au- gust 2007 where Michelle will serve her third post with the U.S. Department of State, this time as Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua.

97 Brendan Fitzgibbon is working on his MBA at Thunderbird-Garvin School of International Management. He will spend his spring semester studying in Prague and, next fall, in Paris. Jon Mezzera married Alison Cordes at a ceremony in Vallejo. Others present at the The Hon. Kathleen Kelly (an SI Regent) officiated at the swearing in ceremony for her uncle, Jerry wedding included his father, Dave ’64, Brown ’55, California’s new attorney general. Thus far, Brown has served as California’s secretary of brother Vince ’94 (best man), uncle Bob state and governor and mayor of Oakland as well as head of the state’s Democratic Party. Pictured ’72 and cousins Dan ’03, Tom ’08 and with him is his wife, Anne Brown. Photo courtesy of the Oakland Tribune. Jim ’08. Also in attendance were friends Paul Kolsanoff ’97, Phil McMahon ’97

spring 2007 GENESIS V 59 keepingINTOUCH

and Dan Woo ’94. Robert Anthony Peters had a role in Will Smith’s Pursuit of Happyness as a worker at the Glide Memorial Church. You can Coghlan’s Historic Double Dip: check out his web site at www.myspace. SF Broker Swims Length of New York com/robertanthonypeters. and San Francisco Bridges in Same Day

98 By Roy Pasini to avail himself of the food and drink Christina Cardenas, after two years of because he still had another swim to taking science pre-requisites, will be at- This article, reprinted from a 1977 make. tending Duke University’s 16-month edition of the Underwriter’s Report, accelerated second degree bachelor’s in recounts Frank Coghlan’s successful San Francisco Swim nursing program starting in August. She swim across the Verrazano Narrows With a special escort provided by will gain master’s credits during the pro- and across the Golden Gate on the San Francisco airport personnel, he was gram and hopes to continue at Duke in its same day. Frank passed away Jan. 6 at on the shores of San Francisco Bay on acute care nurse practitioner program. the age of 77. the Marin County side at Lime Rock Camille Formosa passed the bar after just six minutes behind his scheduled graduating from U.C. Hastings in May hen San Francisco insurance 4 p.m. (PDT) starting time. Fifty min- 2006. She is currently working at a law broker Frank Coghlan ’41 utes later, he walked onto the beach at firm in downtown San Francisco. Wdecides to go for a swim, he Fort Point and again was greeted by his Lt. j.g. Luke Swartz, USN, is assigned to doesn’t fool around. wife, accompanied this time by two of the USS Ohio, a newly converted missile And when he gets a bright idea, he their seven children, Pat, 13, and Joan, submarine. acts on it. 15. Pat had brought along a bottle of As a result, he spent Memorial champagne which Carmel immediately Day this year realizing a dream to be- poured over Frank’s head to cap the ac- 99 come the first person to swim beneath complishment. Corey Fitzgibbon married the two longest suspension bridges in He answered more questions, was Natasha Paul Sept. 3, 2006, North America in the same day — one photographed some more, and then left at Wente Winery in Liver- in New York, the other in his native for home — a day of fun and games more. They are currently liv- San Francisco. over. ing in Manhattan, where Co- The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, rey is a manager with Advent New York Swim with 4,260 feet between its towers, Software. He began the day at 7:45 a.m. is the longest single span suspension Brendan Raven is attending (EDT) on the bank of the Hudson River bridge in the world. The Golden Gate USF Law School. near Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island. Bridge is 60 feet shorter between tow- Not too many distance swimmers at- ers and 27 years older than the Verra- 2000 tempt the Verrazano-Narrows passage zano Bridge. It was built 40 years ago. Michael Abendroth recently joined Borel because of the amount of shipping traf- That still bothers Mr. Coghlan — the Private Bank & Trust Company as an of- fic and the strong tide. fact that New York now boasts the lon- ficer for business development in the San But 46 minutes later he emerged gest suspension bridge instead of San Francisco branch. from the water in Brooklyn. He kissed Francisco, but that’s how natives are. his wife, Carmel, took some bows, He has been in the insurance busi- donned a Royal-Globe Op Sail T-shirt ness for some 30 years in San Francisco 01 and answered questions from the news, — operating his own brokerage firm radio and television people gathered on for the past 19 years in the West Por- the beach to record the event. tal district. True to his calling, he did a That done, he rushed from his little business too while he was etching Brooklyn landing spot to Kennedy In- his name in the record books. ternational Airport where he boarded a flight for San Francisco — attired in All Tired and Wet Four SI grads reunited to celebrate their his bathing suit at the request of the air- The people at the Royal-Globe 1997 CYO basketball title from their days lines public relations man. Insurance Cos., one of his companies, at St. Vincent de Paul. From left are Ryan He was given the VIP treatment gave him an assist, in addition to the Brittain (graduated UC Santa Barbara in on the 5-hour, 40-minute flight to San t-shirt, in making arrangements for the global studies and works for the Boylston Francisco, but had little opportunity New York swim, and they also gave Group), Charlie Appah (graduated from

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UC Davis in biology and works for No- vartis Pharmaceuticals), Gino Benedetti (graduated Arizona State University in Business and works for Farmers’ Insur- ance Group), and Ryan Lim (graduated UC Santa Cruz in economics and works for Leung, Wong and Choi Accounting Corp). Megan Cavalier is going to graduate school at the University of Washington and is in the doctoral program in the de- partment of pharmacology. Jessica Curiale graduated from USC in 2004 and will begin law school this fall at UC Hastings College of Law. Riley Newman is pursuing a master’s degree in land economics at Cambridge University and playing attack for the Cambridge lacrosse team, for which he has been voted “Man of the Match” nu- merous times by his teammates. He led them in a 7–6 defeat of Oxford, the first Cambridge Varsity match victory in 25 him a nice write-up in their Red Shield New York media surround Coghlan following his years. successful swim under New York’s Verrazano-Nar- News headlined “Hail Fellow Well Mark Swartz is an ensign in the Navy rows Bridge on Memorial Day. Soon after this Met, All Tired and Wet.” interview, he was bound for San Francisco, where learning to fly jets. A member of the South End Row- he would swim the Golden Gate. ing Club and the San Francisco Olym- two inches tall and weighs 210 pounds. pic Club, Mr. Coghlan has swum the He is 53 and uses the Australian crawl 02 Golden Gate some half dozen times. and a backstroke. Chris Patterson will enter Boston Univer- He swims from Alcatraz Island to Fish- He has been involved in distance sity’s Goldman School of Dental Medi- erman’s Wharf each New Year’s Day. swimming for eight years and credits cine in August. His best time is 24 minutes. His Me- the activity with curing a persistent Christina Stevens graduated from UC morial Day time displeased him, but he backache. Berkeley last May, summa cum laude, had high winds and Bay waters, which with a degree in psychology after being were “the roughest I’ve ever seen,” to Holds Tahoe Record admitted to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior contend with. In addition to his San Francisco year. Christina is a Selznick fellow cur- The Verrazano-Narrows swim swims, he currently holds the record rently enrolled in a doctoral and law pro- proved less difficult than he had antici- for swimming across Lake Tahoe. He gram at UC’s Boalt Hall School of Law. pated, he said. At the outset, however, set that mark of six hours, 37 minutes She continues to dance and choreograph he had expected to be accompanied by on July 29, 1974, swimming the 10 at UC Berkeley and is a member of Berke- two boats — one with power. When miles from Meeks Bay to Cave Rock. ley’s fencing team. only a small skiff materialized — and He is already entered in a number he took a good look around on the cold of competitive distance swims upcom- drizzling day — he admitted, “I had ing in Los Angeles and San Diego, but 03 Scott Brittain is a business marketing some doubts.” at the moment he has no aspirations for major at SCU and captain of the lacrosse But off he went, and upon emerg- the English Channel or the Mississippi team. ing on the beach in Brooklyn, he said River. (Another insurance man from Patrick Fitzgibbon will graduate from happily, “It wasn’t as much of a swim Portland is currently involved in the USC in May with a double major in glob- as I thought it would be. The current latter project.) al economics and international studies. started to bother me a bit at the end, Two succinct quotes from the He is captain of the USC lacrosse team. but it wasn’t too bad.” Coghlans: Frank: “I wanted to be the For any who may want to become first to swim under both bridges. Evi- the second person to swim beneath dently, it worked out fine.” Carmel: 04 both bridges in a single day, these sta- “I’m proud of him. After all, it’s never Elaine Harris is a junior at Indiana Uni- tistics may be helpful: Frank is six feet, been done before.” v versity, where she plays on the Hoosiers’ Women’s Golf Team. She was named Big-

spring 2007 GENESIS V 61 Births In Memoriam

keepingINTOUCH

10 Golfer of the Week twice and set a record BIRTHS her husband, Ara, a son, Aram John, born 54-hole score of 209 to win one individual Dec. 20, 2006. championship match in Tucson. Golfweek Mike Morris and his wife, Trang, a son, also named her the College Player of the 76 Joshua Dylan, born Oct. 11, 2006. John Riccio and his wife, Judy, a son, Jo- week in March. Gregory Pignati and his wife, Elissa, a son, seph Giovanni, born Jan. 16, 2007. Matteo Gregory, born Dec. 20, 2006. He joins big sister Bella. 81 Steve Kearney and his wife, Kristel, twins, 00 Anna Rose and James Finbarr, born Jan. Tom Kahle and his wife, Kaity, a son, Thom- 6, 2007. as George, born April 4, 2006. v

86 inMEMORIAM Grazia Salvemini (Gonzaga), Harrison Jeffrey Bennett and his wife, Angie, a Worner (SCU), Katherine Watts (Cal) and daughter, Lucy, born Dec. 12, 2006. She 34 Edward O. Scharetg Elizabeth Harris (Boston University) en- joins big sister Lily, 2. joyed dining with former SI President An- 36 Joseph P. Lacey thony P. Sauer, S.J., in Florence in Febru- 87 39 James F. Phillips ary. Fr. Sauer was traveling on sabbatical Fred Molfino, Jr., and his wife, Michelle, 41 Charles A. Teutschel and met the four, who are all studying in a son, Henry, born Nov. 21, 2006. Henry Italy through Gonzaga University’s Flor- joins big brother Teddy, 2. 41 Francis “Frank” Coghlan Mike Sullivan and his wife, Kristin, a son, ence Program. Harrison’s parents, Rich- 41 Mario G. Paolini, Sr. ard ’68 and his wife, Cathy, who met in Carson Nicholas, born Aug. 25, 2006, in the Gonzaga Program, were also in Flor- Pleasanton. Carson joins big brother Con- 41 Edmund J. “Jerry” Treacy ence with their daughter, Betsy ’96 (for- nor James, 4. 43 John “Jack” Kelly mer SI campus ministry staffer) and their 44 Robert D. Conlan son Richie ’93 and his wife and son. Emily Boyle ’04 missed the dinner because she 88 44 Frank P. Kelly, Jr. Adam Covey and his wife, Valerie But- had a test the next day. 45 Lawrence E. Gercovich ler, a son, Ryder Gibson, born March 19, 2006. 47 Paul L. Vigo 05 Daniel Smith and his wife, Penelope, a 48 Leo T. McCarthy Kat Corkery is an honor student at North- son, Ronan Christopher, born Nov. 24, 49 Charles “Pat” Semple western University majoring in English 2006. He joins big brother Cormac, 6. literature with a concentration in 19th 49 John “Jack” Kyne century literature and a minor in linguis- 49 Robert Menecucci tics. Kat is a member of Alpha Phi (Beta 89 Mazen Salfiti and his wife, Jamie, daugh- 53 Frank P. Ames Chapter) sorority, where she is director ters Danielle Emily and Katherine Elaine, of chapter social events. She teaches cat- 55 Donald R. Heintz born Jan. 25, 2007. They join sisters Isa- echism at the Sheil Center in Evanston, Ill. bella, 4, and Alexandra, 1. 55 Frank G. Guddee She has been accepted by Oxford Univer- 55 Gerald R. Peters sity in England for her junior year of col- lege, where she will be studying literature 92 55 James “Alan” O’Neil at St. Anne’s College this fall. Sean Murphy and 57 Bob B. Author Phillip Donnici is currently a sophomore his wife, Courtney, a 57 Robert L. Rider at SCU studying economics in the Leavey daughter, Reese An- School of Business and playing lacrosse toinette, born March 63 Michael D. Ward for the Broncos. 1, 2007. She joins 64 William Haslam Vanessa Krause is attending Foothill Col- big brother Dylan. lege, where she helped the women’s soccer 65 David D. Roybal team reach the Northern California play- 72 Bernard “Barney” Sheehan offs. In addition, she was honored as Play- 94 73 Michael J. “Duffy” Dwyer er of the Year for the Coast Conference, Jina (Bass) Button and her husband, Rob, First Team Coast Conference, First Team a daughter, Aubrey Sullivan, born Dec. 22, 75 Les Mestas Northern California and Second Team in 2006. She joins big brother Robbie, 4. 81 Kevin Hourigan assists for the state. v Lori (Samurkashian) Jabagchourian and

62 GENESIS V spring 2007 In Memoriam SPORTS WRAP backPAGE

WCAL: Maggie McCarthy, Addie Schi- vo, Erin Grady; Nicole Canepa was the second leading scorer in the league with a 13.71 average per game. Sophomore Addie Schivo set a new WCAL free throw percentage record at 94.3 per- cent.

BOYS’ BASKETBALL Coach: Tim Reardon Assistants: Mike Watters, Rob Mar-

Photo by Mitchell Cde Baca ’08 caletti League Record: 10–4 League Awards: First Team All WCAL: Overall Record: 24–8 Katie Bergstrom, Michela Rizzo; Sec- Highlights: Won the championship in ond Team All WCAL: Danielle Bru- the Leo LaRocca Sand Dune Classic nache, Christina Sangiacomo by defeating Terra Nova, Wallenberg, and St. Mary’s of Stockton. In the CCS GIRLS’ BASKETBALL championship tournament, SI defeated Coach: Michael Mulkerrins North Monterey (61–34), Sobrato (64– Assistant: Mike Thomas 36), Burlingame (52–45) and Archbish- League Record: 10–4 op Riordan (52–49) for the CCS title. Photo by Sam Arabian ’09 Overall Record: 23–9 The Examiner named Tim Reardon Highlights: Won the championship in BOYS’ SOCCER Coach of the Year for San Francisco. the Leo LaRocca Sand Dune Classic Coach: Rob Hickox Team Awards: Dennis Carter Award: by defeating International, Mills and Assistants: John Stiegeler Alex Brown Burlingame. Defeated North Monterey League Record: 7–4–3 (third place) League Awards: First Team All WCAL: (67–36), Prospect (61–47)and Burlin- Overall Record: 13–6–4 Paul Toboni; Second Team All WCAL: game (74–47) before losing to Sacred Highlights: Qualified for CCS Tourna- Victor Bull, Alex Brown v ment and defeated South San Francisco Heart Cathedral in CCS championship 2–0 before losing to St. Francis 1–0. game. Photo by Paul Ghiglieri Max Sander led WCAL in goals scored Team Awards: Wildcat Award: Nicole with 13. Canepa League Awards: First Team All WCAL: League Awards: First Team All WCAL: Pat McDonnell and Max Sander; Sec- Nicole Canepa: Second Team All ond Team All WCAL: Ronan Baynes and Mark Cella Team Awards: Wildcat Award: Pat- rick McDonnell; Fr. Capitolo Award: Ronan Baynes; Brian Cotter Award: Max Proano

GIRLS’ SOCCER Coach: Jan Mullen Assistant: Elise Minvielle League Record: 6–4–4 Overall Record: 11–6–5 Highlights: Qualified for CCS tourna-

ment and defeated Pioneer 4–1 before ’08 Arabian Photo by Sam losing to Presentation 2–0. Team Awards: Coaches’ Awards: Mor- gan Campbell, Paige Scigliano; Senior Wildcat Award: Christina Sangiacomo

spring 2007 GENESIS V 63 That’s Dancing!

The Dance Workshop Company performed “That’s Dancing” in January, directed by Ted Curry with choreography by Curry, Meredith Cecchin Galvin, Lizette Ortega Dolan and students Chris Johnson, Jennifer Lee, Nicki Radovich, Alexandra Pinell and Tess Curet.

Photos by John Enriquez ’09