***Of This And That In The Old North Adamsville Neighborhood-In Search Of….. Good Works    

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

I have spent not a little time lately touting the virtues of the Internet in allowing me and the members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964, or what is left of it, the remnant that has survived and is findable with the new technologies to communicate with each other some fifty years and many miles later on a class website recently set up to gather in classmates for our 50^th anniversary reunion.  (Some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the “information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate.) Interestingly those who have joined the site have, more or less, felt free to send me private e-mails telling me stories about what happened back in the day in school or what has happened to them since their jailbreak from the confines of the old town.

Some stuff is interesting to a point, you know, those endless tales about the doings and not doings of the grandchildren, odd hobbies and other ventures taken up in retirement and so on although not worthy of me making a little off-hand commentary on. Some stuff is either too sensitive or too risqué to publish on a family-friendly site. Some stuff, some stuff about the old days and what did, or did not, happened to, or between, fellow classmates, you know the boy-girl thing (other now acceptable relationships were below the radar then) has naturally perked my interest.

But there have been other more solemn, or better, thought-provoking e-mails that have come my way or some information has been presented on personal profiles that warrant attention. That was the case when I read fellow classmate Brother Ronald Collins’ profile page. Now that brother is not some old time left-wing political solidarity honorific that I frequently have used in speeches or articles over the years nor is it being used here in the sense of brother, can you spare a dime that I have, unfortunately, had to use on more than one occasion in my life but to signify that he is a real live Brother in the Xavierian Order. That is a Roman Catholic grouping of missionaries and the like who while, for those not in the know, are not as high in the Catholic church hierarchy as priests and bishops do their work under that same standards.  Brother Ronald has spent his time since high school graduation, after a period of training, doing good in the world for the past fifty years, doing good works like he did in his last posting down in some southern hellhole jail where he ministered to the inmates, the “forgotten” ones.

Now I long ago gave up the ghost when it came to religion, organized religion anyway, that very same Catholic upbringing that drove Ronald to do his good works. We attended the same parish church, Saint Rose’s where things said rubbed off on him but left me unaffected. That giving up the ghost of religion by the way broke my old Irish grandmother’s heart, a grandmother, who like many Catholic  grandmothers in the old days, maybe now too, secretly, or maybe not so secretly, hoped that I had the “calling.”  Ronald obviously did, and although he and I have gone about trying to do good works in this wicked old world in our own fashions  I felt compelled  to write a little something in his honor and place it on the Message Forum page of the class website, a place to be used for just such  purposes. The gist of that message was to commend him for his steadfastness in the face of massive indifference to the fate of the forgotten ones noting our difference paths but showing utter respect for his work.

Brother Ronald responded to my message with a modest thanks. I in turn asked him in a separate private e-mail to give us some details about his work which he eventually also placed on the Message Forum. In case you did not know Brother Ronald was not just a member of the class of 1964 but a person whom had a number of classes with in high school, including English, so I was intrigued about what, or who,  influenced him back then and whether those influenced helped later in his work. I had written a small appreciation of our senior year English teacher, Miss (now Ms.) Sonos, so I wondered if she had been an influence on him too. I will finish up here with a private e-mail I sent to Brother Ronald after he responded to my queries:                  

"Brother Ronald - thanks for the excellent story about your school experiences and how they helped propel you toward your career of doing good works in this wicked old world. As you know since I had Miss Sonos’ class with you senior year I thought very highly of her and wrote a sketch in praise of her here on the Message Forum a few weeks ago. That recounted my own relationship with her but I had other information about the help that she had given to other students that I did not present there because it did not fit into my story.

Of course, as you noted in your reply, who could forget those weekly quizzes that we all sweated-I will never forget words like fauna and flora, flotsam and jetsam as a result. And the appreciation of literature, especially Shakespeare, just by the way she talked about books with such reverence (a reverence that I freely admit now I share and attribute to her wisdom although being a corner boy then I was hesitant to broadcast for fear I would be labeled a wonk). She also freely helped me to write that joint Problems in Democracy/ English senior paper when I got bogged down on it.     

 

The point you made about Miss Sonos giving you a recommendation that clinched your acceptance in your organization rings so true about her. I knew, for instance, of other cases besides yours where she gave recommendations to students that helped them get into colleges. I think you have it just about right that Miss Sonos’ teaching prepared you to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Catholic school- trained boys in your order. Miss Sonos, more importantly, and this belies the stern look that she used to give in class personally helped a number of students, women students mainly, who had trouble at home, or just plain trouble. Yeah, so once again Miss Enos wherever you are, thanks.

******

On a separate note I agree with you that everybody in the school should have been required to take typing. Mickey Smith from our class, now a detective fiction writer down in Florida, made that same point. Of course now in the age of computers and the Internet even four- year old are typing like crazy- and unlike us, fast too-Later-friendly regards-Frank Jackman

 

P.S. I believe that I am not alone in thinking that it would be nice if you wrote  a little piece about your ministry to those in jail-the forgotten ones- which I noted in a message to you that I considered your finest achievement in a long list of good works. Consider it please."