Pat Hillis, a former Palisades High School librarian and computer lab teacher, passed away on March 31. She was 74. ”Born in Chicago on June 30, 1930, Hillis grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a predominantly Irish neighborhood and developed a love for all things Irish. ”She taught English in Chicago until she moved with her family to California, where she began teaching for the Los Angeles city schools, first at Airport Junior High and then at Palisades High School. ”In 1978, she married Miles Hillis, and around the same time earned a second master’s degree in library science from USC and became the librarian at Palisades High School. ”She remained at Pali for 26 years until her retirement. After retiring, she worked part-time as a medical librarian, cared for her aunt Vicky and took frequent trips, often to Europe. She and Miles especially enjoyed cruises, where they loved the hours of relaxed reading time and evenings spent dancing. ”She is survived by her husband.
After a long and rich life, Olive Hewitt Thomas died peacefully on April 4, comforted by her family. She was 97. Born on April 20, 1907, she was raised in Richmond, Virginia, and attended the University of Richmond. She married John W. Thomas, a graduate of the Naval Academy and Caltech. The newlyweds departed for California in 1940. Olive earned her secondary teaching credential at UCLA, but she soon sacrificed her passion as an educator to raise three children. A longtime resident, she took a keen interest in the community and devoted much of her time to the Children’s Recreation Service (where she served as chairman and president), Palisades Woman’s Club, the United Way, Community Chest (receiving the Distinguished Leadership award) and various election boards. She was also an avid bridge player. When her husband passed away in 1995, she became the matriarch of the family, greatly enriching the lives of her children, grandchildren and great-grand children. She is survived by her children Sandy (husband Eugene) of Lancaster, Suzanne of La Jolla and Nick (wife Kako) of Pacific Palisades; six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A radiant beacon of life, beauty and positive energy, she lived her life by one abiding principle’never say an unkind word about anyone. She will be sorely missed. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 23, 2 p.m. at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, 1218 Glendon Ave. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the charity of one’s choice.
Renaissance mom Linzi Glass-Katz with her daughter, Jordan, a sophomore at the school. Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
As the school year winds down, Renaissance Academy remains engaged in a legal battle with the Los Angeles Unified School District in an attempt to secure a new campus. Meanwhile, parents and students have to weigh their options for the fall semester. School is scheduled to end on June 24. ‘We have not yet finalized our location for next year,’ Scott Adler, Renaissance board member and parent, said in an e-mail to the Palisadian-Post last Friday. ‘However, we continue to move forward on a couple of prospects and hopefully will be in mediation with LAUSD next month regarding a possible settlement. I am hopeful that we will obtain at least one Letter of Intent from a landlord next week.’ Renaissance filed a lawsuit against LAUSD last June when the District refused the charter’s request for space on an existing campus. Six months later, after moving into the 881 Alma Real building, the school filed suit against Village Real Estate (owner of the building) in an attempt to gain more use of its renovated 13,600 sq. ft. space. The battle between the school and building owners began last September, after Renaissance had been in session for only three days. Greg Schem, managing partner of the building, gave Renaissance a notice of termination of the lease effective June 2005. The two parties reached a settlement in February and dropped their lawsuits against each other, agreeing that Renaissance could remain in the building until the end of June. As part of the agreement, Renaissance, which has an enrollment of 320 students in grades 9 through 12, had the option to give back about half of its space on the first [ground-level] floor and to complete the build-out of about 1,000 sq. ft. on the terrace level (suite T-9), which was originally part of its premises. The school currently uses the completed T-9 space, which it divided into two rooms (production studios A and B), in addition to another terrace-level space (T-24). Renaissance also subleases certain blocks of time from the adjoining Kumon School. ‘With these four spaces we have been able to give back about half our space on the street [ground] level and no longer sublease rooms from Aldersgate [on Haverford],’ Adler said. According to Adler, Renaissance has at least three options for the fall. It has offers pending on two properties, including Glabman’s furniture building on Barrington, between Pico and Olympic, and another space on Bundy with about 20,000 square feet available. ‘Both locations are subject to conditional use permits so we’d have to get permission from the City,’ Adler said. ‘The third location has to remain confidential at this time.’ In an interview with the Post last Saturday, Renaissance parent Linzi Glass-Katz reflected on her daughter Jordan’s first year at the new school. ‘It’s been chaotic, a true test of strength for parents, teachers and [executive director] Paul [McGlothlin],’ she said. ‘The curve ball that we were thrown with the building threw us in the wrong direction, but there’s been a remarkable boomerang.’ Glass-Katz is referring to the turnaround in the last four months, during which a security guard was installed outside the Alma Real building, the school enforced the dress code and created enough space at the building so that students no longer have to attend classes off campus. ‘They’ve created somewhat of a sense of calm out of the chaos,’ said Glass-Katz, whose daughter is a sophomore. ‘I think the chaos got to some of the kids and parents’some students have left, parents have taken their kids out’but now it feels much more settled.’ She cited the ‘incredibly dedicated group of teachers’ as one of the reasons Jordan will be returning to Renaissance in the fall, and said she’s not worried that the school has not yet announced a location for next year since she believes that ‘the core of the school isn’t made up by the walls that hold it but the people inside it.’ Jordan added that the school feels ‘way more stable and way more comfortable’ since the students stopped attending classes at Aldersgate and have more set schedules. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday she will be performing in Renaissance’s first theatrical production, Neil Simon’s ‘The Odd Couple,’ at the Santa Monica Playhouse. She said she’s ‘not nervous really’ about where classes will be held in September ‘because we have such a dedicated staff. They trust us and give us freedom. They treat us like adults.’ However, Jordan did lose three teachers this year who her mother says have been replaced by ‘a younger group of talented teachers.’ Jordan explained that the students attend weekly Friday meetings with their advisors to discuss current events and what’s going on with the school. ‘The school’s really come a long way since the beginning,’ she said. ‘I had faith and confidence.’
New West Charter School’s year-long effort to convert the former Santa Ynez Inn into a second campus came to a halt on Monday night when chairman David Eagle was informed by the Self-Realization Fellowship, which owns the property, that they are proceeding with another school to develop the 1.5-acre site. ‘We waited as long as we could before deciding that we would proceed with this other school,’ church spokesman Hank Shaeffer told the Palisadian-Post. While Shaeffer, a real estate attorney, would not name the school involved, he did confirm that it is a private elementary school and that ‘we did not go to them. They came to us.’ Eagle told the Post on Tuesday that New West’s agreement with the landlord began to unravel early in the new year when the charter school could not formally extend its Letter of Intent to lease because it had not been able to raise the estimated $750,000 needed to renovate the dilapidated property at 17310 Sunset. After Eagle informed SRF of the school’s financial predicament, the landlord ‘agreed to continue to work with us, even though we both knew there was a possibility they would lease to someone else,’ Eagle said. ‘The sad thing is, in the last month we were able to come up with more than the funds needed, but they said it was too late.’ While New West has received dozens of small donations in the past year from individuals, adding up to some $20,000, it wasn’t until three weeks ago that the school received its first serious financial commitment’from the William C. Bannerman Foundation, a small, family-owned trust. A week after that, Renaissance Academy, the new charter high school which is moving out of the 881 Alma Real business building at the end of June (see story below), agreed to commit $650,000 to improve the coveted Santa Ynez site, in a joint venture with New West. ‘Now we have $1 million and no site, ‘Eagle said. It was exactly a year ago that Eagle announced the school’s coup in securing a potential 10-year lease on the property, contingent on being able to come up with the improvement funds needed to bring the 14,000 sq. ft. structure up to code. The former Santa Ynez Inn was built in 1946 as a motel with 24 guest rooms. It had a swimming pool, a dining room (‘Fireside Grill’), and one of the two liquor licenses in town. Its simple ranch-style design is reflected in the dated beamed ceilings, brick floors and motel rooms which all open out to a central courtyard. After 30 years in operation, the inn was sold in 1976 to the World Plan Executive Council, better known as TM (Transcendental Meditation), which used the facility for meetings and retreats. In 1989 it was sold to its current owners, SRF, which owns a total of 15 acres on Sunset, including the nearby Lake Shrine. With the inn vacant for over a decade, the church has received many offers to develop the site, mainly for commercial use, ‘but we always told people we weren’t interested,’ Shaeffer told the Post in an interview last year. ‘While we have occasionally used the building for gathering purposes, we knew it was underutilized and in need of repair.’ Shaeffer said that while Self-Realization was not interested in selling the property, nor actively looking for a tenant, ‘when the opportunity came to lease to New West we felt their use was compatible with ours,’ which included SRF using the classrooms for Sunday school. New West’s plans for the new campus called for a full-size basketball court, a dozen classrooms, a science laboratory, and parking for 60 cars. Today, a wobbly chain-link fence surrounds the property. Eagle, a Highlands resident, said he underestimated how difficult it would be to raise funds for the Santa Ynez site. He proceeded based on his experience raising the $500,000 that was needed to renovate New West’s main campus on Pico, where a former furniture warehouse was converted into a modern, urban middle school in a record 3-1/2 months to meet its September 2003 opening deadline. New West’s Pico location currently has 280 students in grades 6 to 8. According to Eagle, about 20 percent are from the Palisades. The Sunset campus was expected to enroll 300 students and would either be an expansion of the middle school or a high school that could accommodate New West graduates. While Eagle was banking on private funds to pay for the Santa Ynez renovations, he was confident that the per-student allocation the public charter school would receive from the state would be sufficient to keep the proposed Sunset campus going after the startup. While Eagle would not discuss the details of New West’s proposed joint venture with Renaissance, RA’s executive director Paul McGlothlin told the Post on Tuesday that even with the loss of the Santa Ynez site, ‘we still have several possibilities for next year. We will be meeting with parents and students next Wednesday to discuss exactly what our options are at this point.’ Eagle, who has been working with a group of parents on developing New West for almost six years now, is ‘saddened’ by the turn of events and hopes the landlord, SRF, ‘will come back to us should the other offer fall through. Yes, I am hoping for a miracle here.’ (Editor’s note: Anyone who would like to contribute to New West’s ongoing fundraising campaign or who would like a refund for donations they made to the proposed Sunset campus can contact David Eagle at NewWestCharter@aol.com, or at 454-4348.)
By JOE NAPOLITANO Special to the Palisadian-Post I’m now feeling fine. I can still pass the DMV tests for driving. No glasses needed. Late last year, however, a tumor developed near my appendix and colon. It grew to the size of a tennis ball. The question was whether I should leave it to chance or undertake a dangerous operation. My general practice doctor, Roberta Smith, called in surgeon Dr. William Hutchinson, who lives here in the Palisades. He sent me to St. John’s Hospital for several tests. The three of us consulted and I personally opted for the expected major operation. The Christmas holiday interfered, so on January 5, my belly was opened with the doctor’s promise that he would cut only the parts with cancer. Both the tumor and my appendix were taken out. I’ve been convalescing and collecting the numerous bills. You’d be surprised how many! Thank goodness for Medicare and my savings. I am writing this by hand because I don’t know how to use the wonderful equipment available now. Since the surgery my appetite has been great. I even tend to overeat sometimes. My favorite foods are lamb chops, fresh frozen vegetables and pastas of all shapes. I love pork but don’t use it because it’s loaded with water so that the flavor is gone. No beef, no chicken. Incidentally, I’ve had an ill-fitted lower set of teeth that was making my mouth sore. Should I have a new set made at $1,000 or more or could I have the bad set fixed for less? I went to see a good friend, Ronald Wormser (a dentist of long experience) and he said, ‘Give it to me.’ In no time at all he fixed the whole set and it works fine. A couple of dollars? ‘No,’ he said. ‘You owe me nothing.’ Now I’ll put down my pipe and look over my Iliff neighborhood and friends. I’ve been surprised at how many friends I have with great appreciation. My friends the Bartons are back next door by an unusual coincidence. They were scheduled to stay in Marin County until this June. However, the company Roger was working for moved its operation to Los Angeles six months early, so the Bartons were stranded. No job, and their house here had been leased out for six more months to a very nice couple, Mark and Zeita Jones, who were looking to buy a home in the Palisades. Well, the Jones family found a house on Embury ready to be occupied. But they had six months remaining on their lease of the Bartons’ home. What a dilemma for them, too. They turned to the Bartons, who were hoping for just such a solution. So the Jones family moved into their new home on Embury while the Bartons came happily home where they are now, next door to me. Everyone is happy, especially me.
Heal the Bay is leading April’s Earth Month festivities with cleanups and family activities this weekend at Venice Beach, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, Malibu Creek and Compton Creek. ‘With the recent heavy rains in Southern California, this year’s Earth Day events are even more important than normal,’ said Heal the Bay Executive Director Dr. Mark Gold. ‘The intense downpours have left massive amounts of pollution and debris and we’re seeking community volunteers to help clean inland and beach waterways.’ Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay will kick off its Earth Month agenda with a cleanup at Venice Beach from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 16. Just a few miles north, Heal the Bay will present a special family-oriented Earth Month program at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium from 12:30 to 6 p.m. on April 16, 17, 23 and 24. Also on Saturday, April 23, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Heal the Bay’s volunteers at Malibu Creek State Park will help restore the native plant life that keeps creek beds from being destroyed by rain and erosion. The final Earth Month event is an inland cleanup at Compton Creek on Saturday, April 30, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Located behind the Crystal Park Casino in Compton, the notoriously polluted Compton Creek flows alongside the 110 and 105 freeways and pours into the L.A. River. Cleaning up the creek is part of a $13 million Compton restoration project. The cleanup site is located behind the casino at 123 E. Artesia Blvd. (near the 91 freeway). For details on volunteering for the Compton Creek Cleanup or any of Heal the Bay’s Earth Month activities, call (800) HEAL-BAY, ext. 122.
Moments after his birth, the first child born in Aberfan after the disaster is held tenderly in his mother
In a photojournalistic career spanning the tumultuous ’60s, covering many big stories for Life magazine, one in particular has always stood out in Chuck Rapoport’s memory. The one he can never forget is the aftermath of the October 1966 tragedy in Aberfan. In the small mining town in Wales, one of the seven ‘tips”piles of coal mining waste that formed man-made hills around the town’collapsed, causing an avalanche that killed 144 people, 116 of them children. ”The young photojournalist, the father of a 4-month old son, watched with the rest of the world the TV coverage of the Aberfan disaster. ‘My first instinct was, ‘I wish I was there to photograph what was going on,” Rapoport recently recalled. ”When the tip collapsed, it also hit a water main, right above the town school, and the water mixed with earth crushed the school. Many children, mostly ages 9 to 11, died at the start of their school day. Other people in homes and stores nearby were also buried by the avalanche. ”Life magazine was already publishing a story on the disaster. But Rapoport, 68, pitched another story idea to his editor. He wanted to go to Aberfan after all the other photographers had left. ‘I wanted to photograph a town without children,’ he told the Palisadian-Post. ”His editor agreed, and Rapoport left for Wales 10 days after the tragedy, after the rest of the world’s media had left, and stayed for seven weeks. Although the surviving town members, in deep mourning, did not immediately extend their trust to the visiting ‘Yank,’ he slowly made inroads with them, allowing him to take haunting images in their homes, at the cemetery, at the pub, and of surviving children playing by themselves, which formed a Life 10-page article and photo essay, ‘Aberfan: Stirrings of New Life’ in January 1967. ”The people of Aberfan ‘came off a whole week, hundreds of newsmen sticking microphones in their faces. They hated the press,’ Rapoport recalls. ‘I had to convince them I was more of a poet with a camera.’ ”Two years before the tragedy, Rapoport says, scientists and geologists had issued a report that one of the tips was built on a running spring, and they didn’t know what effect it would have. When it rained heavily prior to the slide, the tip became unstable because it didn’t have a solid foundation, and went down. ”Almost 40 years after the tragedy, Rapoport’s black-and-white photos are now being displayed in Aberfan, and concurrently printed in a book, ‘Aberfan: The Days After: A Journey in Pictures.’ Rapoport, a Palisadian since 1978, will speak on his book Thursday, April 21, at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore. ”November and December in Wales in 1966 were cold and rainy. The slide kept collapsing more, creating a filthy river down the street, Rapoport says. The stark landscape, with hills denuded of trees, created a backdrop for his photos of the townspeople. ”Over the time he was there, Rapoport found various emotional reactions among the survivors. ‘Women dealt with what had to be done,’ he says. After cleaning up the accident, ‘the men had a hard time facing their grief.’ They spent a lot of time in the pub. ‘People had to overcome a tremendous amount of grief under difficult circumstances. They were all poor. There was a lot of alcoholism, and it doubled after that.’ ”But Rapoport was especially interested in the reactions of the surviving kids. ‘They hid out,’ he says. ‘They felt they could not be seen on the streets playing. For the parents who lost their kids, it was too much for them to see.’ ”Rapoport stayed in a room above the pub for most of his time there and, although never a drinker, started drinking as a way to bond with the men, and also to deal with the emotional effects of the tragedy. ‘People used me, an outsider, as a kind of counselor. Something they couldn’t tell friends, they would tell me.’ He was alone until his wife Mary and son Benjamin joined him for the last two weeks. ”He also photographed images of hope, such as laughing schoolchildren, or the first baby born in Aberfan after the tragedy, whom he captured moments after the birth. ”Five years later, Rapoport, by then a father of two sons and tired of the constant traveling required by photojournalism, shifted to a screenwriting and television writing career, eventually relocating to Los Angeles. ”Currently, he is combining his love of writing and photography and working on an autobiography about his life as a photojournalist from 1959 to 1971. ”This week he is back in Wales for the exhibit of his photos at the National Library of Wales. His first visit back there since the tragedy was in June 2003 when he started setting up the exhibition, working with some of the people he had photographed as children. At the close of the exhibition in June, Rapoport will donate his photos to the library.
Sometimes only a good farce can remind us to laugh at ourselves and at all the shame, pride and awkwardness that comes with humanity. ”I found myself laughing out loud at Friday night’s performance of ‘Moon Over Buffalo’ by Ken Ludwig, playing at Pierson Playhouse through May 8. The Theatre Palisades production, directed by Sherman Wayne and produced by Pat Perkins, not only makes for an entertaining evening but addresses underlying issues concerning family, relationships and identity that apply to a universal audience. ”At the heart of the play, set in 1953, is the Hay family’kooky parents George and Charlotte Hay, who are fading theater actors, and their more serious daughter, Rosalind (no doubt she was purposely named after the Shakespearean heroine since her father ‘quotes the man from Stratford’ profusely throughout the performance). ”In rebellion against her parents and their theatrical lifestyle, Rosalind (Meredith Dinneen) has left Buffalo, New York, but returns home to break the news that she’s getting married’to someone outside the theater, of course. Ironically, her fianc’e is a nerdy weatherman named Howard (Laurence Sutton), whose admiration of her parents’ work is almost more annoying than if he were in the business. ”Rosalind tries to introduce Howard to her family, including hearing-impaired grandma Ethel (Julia Whitcombe), but they are busy staging two shows”Private Lives’ and ‘Cyrano de Bergerac”in repertory at the Erlanger Theatre. ”Rehearsals spill backstage, which temporarily scares off the nervous Howard and also reveals the passion for theater shared by George (Jack Coppock) and Charlotte (Martha Hunter). However, Charlotte’s hunch that George has cheated on her with another actress in their company, Eileen (Holly Sidell), unveils the tension in their marriage as well as their individual insecurities about instability and growing older. ”Charlotte has already decided to run off with their wealthy lawyer, Richard (Warren Steinman), when George gets word that renowned director Frank Capra is coming to Buffalo to possibly cast the Hays in his latest Hollywood film, ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel.’ (Apparently leading man Ronald Colman had an accident and, to George’s delight, ‘is crippled!’). ”Despite Rosalind’s resistance to acting and the fact that her ex-beau Paul (Matt Landig) is also an actor in the company, she is sucked back into her parents’ drama backstage as well as the one that ultimately unravels on stage. ”In one of the more moving scenes, Rosalind unwillingly rehearses with Paul for ‘Private Lives,’ sarcastically reciting her lines in a monotonous British accent until Paul reads their direction to kiss. The chemistry between actors Dinneen and Landig is most apparent here, as they stand awkwardly side by side, transformed into boy and girl bursting with apparent sexual tension. ”’I’m here for less than three hours and I’m already acting like a lunatic!’ Rosalind exclaims as she chases her parents and Howard on and off stage. The five-door set keeps the comedy flowing, as different characters enter and exit simultaneously, just missing each other. ”At the center of the chaos is Ethel, who appears the most sane even though her inability to clearly hear what’s being spoken causes absurd confusion. In this comical role, Julia Whitcombe is a constant and more subtle source of humor in the loud, fast-paced play. ”The other character at the root of many ridiculous misunderstandings is Howard, who is mistaken for both Frank Capra and Eileen’s angry militaristic brother. Sutton is best as the na’ve but well-intentioned Howard when he shocks the family dressed in George’s old General Patton costume and playfully shows off his gun. ”Needless to say, Howard doesn’t make the cut for the climactic show that the Hays put on for Capra towards the end of ‘Moon Over Buffalo.’ Will it be ‘Private Lives’ or ‘Cyrano’? Will George be sober enough to play the leading part? These are some the last-minute details that have to be sorted before the lights go up. ”As George, Coppock shines in the second half of the play, quoting Shakespeare with a drunken slur and performing all of his own ‘stunts.’ Hunter also gives a strong performance as the bossy but lovable Charlotte with every swish of her starlet wardrobe (costume design by Diana Mann). ”In the end, the Hays must set aside their egotistical desires and believe that neither fame nor stability compares with the excitement of their life together. After all, for every missed opportunity, there are plenty of second and third chances in ‘Moon Over Buffalo.”’ ”Performances run Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd. Tickets range from $9 to $15. Contact: 454-1970.
Somewhere, anywhere, the call to prayer in Turkey is a marvelous, murmured song. Born aloft five times a day, the music of Islam’s call to the faithful, cast from loudspeakers over busy streets of Istanbul or rising with the sun in tiny Anatolian villages, leads me directly into the mystery of Islam. Every mosque has at least one minaret and a balcony where the muezzin cries out ‘Allahhhh …u Akbar,’ God is great, the same Arabic phrase Muslims have used for nearly 1,400 years. Muslims believe that by offering prayers five times a day they are strengthened and enlivened in their beliefs in Allah, and that they are inspired to a higher morality. Perhaps my first visit to a country sculpted by over 600 years of devotion to Islam caused me to focus on the potential for peaceful awareness that these intermittent time-outs allow. While for Muslims, the prayer is one of the five practices required by their faith, imagine the effect upon us all if we were to take 10 minutes out five times a day to make a quiet interruption to our hectic pace. Breathing deeply, stretching, looking up at the flowering trees or listening to the birds’ spring tizzy adds up to almost an hour of rest. Imagine being reminded of the call to prayer on the car radio, much like a civil defense drill. You’d turn off your radio or cell phone and come back to yourself. Islam is very simple. For Westerners, the religion, evangelized by the prophet Mohammed in the 600’s A. D., has grown from mythology to menace. Not immune from the distortions all religions suffer, Islam has served the purposes of craven despots and crazies. But to approach a philosophy at first blush as I have is to see the fundamental strength of the faith. Istanbul, strategically located on the Bosphorus, straddles Europe and Asia, symbolically reflecting its historical prominence as both the center of early Christianity in the Byzantine period, and Islam under Mohammed. The Ottoman Empire reached its zenith in the 16th century, solidifying the conservative influence of Islam. Today, mosques silhouetted against the open sky, dazzle the Western eye. Like Rome, this city is built upon seven hills, each crowned by a mosque with its wide classical dome and towering minarets pointing upward. Much like the churches and steeples that dot a New England landscape, these reverential institutions attest to the ecclesiastical foundation of the city. Turkey is a decidedly secular country, but 98 percent of the population profess to be devout followers of Islam. Not wanting to sound na’ve or doctrinaire, I nevertheless am drawn to the idea that prayer plays an important role in the day and the life of every pious Muslim. No matter how you define ‘prayer,’ taking a breather seems like a healthy retreat.
By LEN R. SMALL Special to the Palisadian-Post It’s 1982, and I’m standing in an anteroom at the Vatican, waiting for a private audience with Pope John Paul II. I remember what was going through my mind: Life is not fair. I have many Catholic friends, but I’m the one who gets to meet the pope. The event was unexpected. I was visiting Rome as the chairman of United Press International, a large news agency, when the phone rang in my hotel room the night before. Our bureau chief had wangled a meeting in honor of the 75th anniversary of the agency, which had a close relationship with L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper. Our bureau chief advised me to have comments ready, and to offer an appropriate gift to the Church. After some head-scratching, my colleagues and I decided to offer a wireless radio for a priest serving in a remote location, playing on the theme of communications. The next day, we met at the newspaper, and suddenly an ambulance appeared and stopped next door at the Vatican. We learned that the patient was a key aide to the pope, who had just collapsed following an exhausting tour of Spain. (The pope was fine, notwithstanding his being shot not long before.) That crisis cut short our meeting. While waiting in the anteroom, we learned that the cherubic ceiling paintings by Raphael had subtle distortions to please the eye in terms of perspective, as the ceiling was curved, and that the gold leaf came from Columbus’ treasure from the New World, by way of Queen Isabella. Suddenly a large door to our left opened and the pope came in. He greeted my associates and me quickly, with a thank you in English, giving us a rosary, while his official photographer, with lightning reflexes, got a good shot of each handshake. I was used to Italian popes, and was struck by his white-blond hair and blue eyes: Goodness, he looks Nordic, I thought. Then he was gone, and from the right-hand side came a large group of excited African priests, colorful in their splendid tunics, who were awaiting their visit with the pope. I also recall another pope, John XXIII, who fell mortally ill in 1963 when I was a young journalist in UPI’s London bureau, through which all communication flowed from Europe to the U.S., via a direct cable to New York. That pope was a down-to-earth, much-loved character who was supposed to be a caretaker, but changed the Church profoundly by calling an Ecumenical Council to reexamine doctrine and procedures. Several veteran journalists there had covered the Vatican for years, and regaled me with inside stories and political gossip. I can remember only one story. At one point in John XXIII’s career, an intoxicated priest came to him to give confession. ‘Remember who you are,’ John told him, changing the man’s life forever. I think John Paul II also remembered who he was, always. (Len Small is president of the Illinois-based Small Newspaper Group, which owns the Palisadian-Post.)
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