AUTUMN

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
he chastens and hastens his will to make known;
the wicked oppressing now cease from distressing:
sing praise to his Name, he forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;
so from the beginning the fight we were winning:
thou, Lord, wast at our side: all glory be thine!

We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,
and pray that thou still our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation:
thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

---

Words: Nederlandtsche Gedenckclanck, 1626;
trans. Theodore Baker (1851-1934), 1894.

Whenever Fall arrives: it takes me back to a time when I was in the 5^th grade at Kramer Street School in Bellport, a school that was out of my district where I lived, but for one year I was sent to it. I didn’t particularly like the school: it was in a strange neighborhood that I felt was somewhat unfriendly. Not dangerous by any means, but made me feel like a minority with my own race! I was from the other side of the tracks, “one of them”. It wouldn’t be until years later that I moved and was “one of us”!

There are a number of icons from this experience that delivers me back in time, forfeiting the present for an unhappy childhood memory.

It seems that Mom was Hell bent on my getting a good solid foundation in God fear, and so I was sent to Mary Immaculate Church for my religious education every Thursday afternoon by bus, from The Kramer Street School to the Church. There were a bunch of us, enough to fill a bus that were transported from the world of 5^th grade academia to God’s house of worship and discount house of prayers, and back once again to the school.

As we were learning our readin’ and written’ and ‘ritmatic, there was an old Pilgrim song sung believe it or not by Pilgrims, long before John Wayne could identify one. The song shown above was hammered into our skulls from the beginning of the autumn up until Thanksgiving. As we sung the song, I imagined pilgrims in an austere looking church, void of the kafuffle of the Catholics churches and a somberness to go with the grey skies that always seemed to be painted across the horizon. The cold chill, the song, and the small Protestant church we always saw as we turned the corner onto Kramer Street lent itself to this imaginary scene. To this day, whenever I pass through the old neighborhood, I can’t help the feeling that overcomes me, forcing me to hear the song in my head, to feel the cold chill that penetrated my spine, the smell of burning leaves that permeated my nose from the air. After all, this was all foreign to me, coming from the streets of Brooklyn, adjusting to a life style and new friends, a new order and a new discipline. Having never been exposed by any other religion but Catholicism, and the culture of Judaism, the scrubbed feel of a different world of God, and then shifting back into my own world!

It’s a small patch of Bellport, a distant memory and a traditional little hymn made for one giant impression.

One of the best things in this world is that this country eventually introduces you to a wider and more universal brand, in this case the brand was Protestanism, and you learn one thing: No big deal, we all live and die together. Good for us.

NO, SHE'S NOT A COUGAR, THAT'S HER GRANDSON I THINK.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANOTHER CLASSMATE OF MINE FROM BELLPORT HIGH SCHOOL: JOANNE GAZZOLA TEW!