As Long As One Can Suffer, One

Serene Was A Word You Could Put To Brooklyn New York. Especially In The Summer Of 1912. Somber As A Word Was Better. But It Did Not Apply To Williamsburg Brooklyn. Prairie Was Lovely And Shenandoah Had A Beautiful Sound But You Couldn't Fit Those Words Into Brooklyn. Serene Was The Only Word For It Especially On A Saturday Afternoon In Summer.

Oh, Magic Hour, When A Child First Knows She Can Read Printed Words.

It Was So Simple That A Flash Of Astonishment That Felt Like Pain Shot Through Her Head. Education! That Was It! It Was Education That Made The Difference! Education Would Pull Them Ut Of The Grame And Dirt.

It's A Beautiful Religion And I Wish I Understood It More. No, I Don't Want To Understand It All. It's Beautiful Because It's Always A Mystery. Sometimes I Say I Don't Believe In God And Jesus And Mary. I'm A Bad Catholic Because I Miss Mass Once In A While And I Grumble When, At Confession, I Get A Heavy Penance For Something I Couldn't Help Doing. But Good Or Bad, I Am A Catholic And I'll Never Be Anything Else. Of Course, I Didn't Ask To Be Born Catholic, No More Than I Asked To Be Born American. But I'm Glad It Turned Out That I'm Both These Things.

There Is Here, What Is Not In The Old Country. In Spite Of Hard, Unfamiliar Things, There Is Here - Hope. In The Old Country, A Man Can Be No More Than His Father, Providing He Works Hard. If His Father Was A Carpenter, He May Be A Carpenter. He Many Not Be A Teacher Or A Priest. He May Rise - But Only To His Father's State. In The Old Country, A Man Is Given To The Past. Here He Belongs To The Future. In This Land, He May Be What He Will, If He Has The Good Heart And The Way Of Working Honestly At The Right Things.