As promised, more about the Flahertys. After some research my mother found the family crest complete with the family's Celtic warning to all trespassers, O Lord deliver us from the wrath of the ferocious O'Flahertys." Seated in the front row are dimunitive Ellen and the bearded Edward, my great grandparents.

Ellen and Edwin immigrated from Ireland around 1860. Edwin's family was named O'Flaherty, but somehow the O'Flaherty became Flaherty at Ellis Island. Unknown to one another, Ellen's family and Edward's family headed west for Cleveland. Ellen and Edward met and married in Cleveland. Once married, Ellen and Edward headed to Eaton Rapids, Michigan to build a family and a farm. The lasting memory of the Cleveland days was that Ellen and Edward stood by the side of the rails as Lincoln's funeral train passed through Cleveland enroute to Illinois.

Ellen and Edward raised 8 children on the working pre-modern farm. They workd the farm from the 1870s to 1910 when the family moved to Lansing and the burgeoning industrial age.

More soon. 

Lansing's West Side has always been a tough place, and here's the proof. Here I am standing keeping the watch outside our house on 925 N Jenison. It wasn't fancy, but it was ours, and I was periodically entrusted to safegaurd the family fortress. It wouldn't be long before we headed farther west to Delta Township--you can see I am ready for the move West--and later we moved to East Lansing. 

My dad, Phil Mongeau, is front row, far left. He was about a year out of high school and came to Lansing when FDR and democrats swept Michigan in 1936. These were the days before civil service and the "spoils" system allocated many state jobs. My dad and brother Izzy benefited from older brother Lloyd's party work and were sent to Lansing. My dad started as a mail clerk for the Highway department. The intramural competition between state departments was fierce back then. A championship, such as the one the boys in the picture are celebrating, was worth major bragging rights around the capitol. My dad was a player, though lore has it that brother Izzy had a little more game. We have a Muskegon Chronicle story that has my dad scoring 19 of Muskegon St.Mary's 21 points in a 21-13 victory over Ravenna.  

Happy is as happy does. I am enjoying a rare day of Lansing sun with my sister and long-time family friend Anne Shewell. Celeste, my sister on the far left, is showing her maternal skills, which are still in fine tune all these many years since. 

My dad, Phil Mongeau, is second from the left in the first row. This is the 3rd grade from St. Mary's School, Muskegon, Michigan. My guess is that were looking at 1927 or 1928. A good looking bunch of kids, right? (Be sure and doubleclick on the photo to enlarge) 

My grandmother, Martha Jane Flaherty Keaveny and her two daughters, Martha Jane (my mother) on the left and Mary Ellen on the right. This picture dates from the early 1920s, my guess is that it dates from 1922-23. My grandmother passed away a short time later leaving her little girls and husband Thomas. Martha Jane and Mary Ellen spent their motherless years attending Marywood Academy, now a part of Aquinas College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

Il Colore Ritrovato

The world has changed beyond measure. When I was young you could find musicians everywhere, and because all around the world there so many there many great ones. Now the music is faithfully reproducible, musicians are not needed as once were. And music itself has changed. Though small cadres of classicists kept the sacred and ineffible the are under siege by coarse generations who music is hardly as musical as a bus engine or a chain saw. Something must have occured during their mother's pregnancies. How else is it possible to explain that playing Bach keeps them away from public spaces the way iron spikes drive pigeons from cathedral ledges?

A sample from Mark Halpern's Il Colore Ritrovato, a story in The Pacific and Other Stories , wonderful collection of short stories that are full of texture and light and the mature themes of existence, meaning, and belief.

The meme that recorded music changes the cultural role for musicians is fascinating. His comments on the devolution of modern music is well taken. Consider the narrow, constricted offerings released by the movie industry, and you have the same scenario, right? Replace Bach with any of the classics of Hollywood's byone era and compare those classics with the works nominated for best picture this year. Bus engines and chain saws compare comfortably with the films so highly regarded by the petulant, evangelical movie industry.

Lurking herein is relevant, important criticism of PostModernism, deconstructionism, and the barren, cacaphony that is social, cultural relativism.

Martha Jane Mongeau, my mother, 1948. She's closing in on 30 and like her generation, she's been through the Great Depresession and World War II. There's no notation about where the photo was taken, but you won't be wrong if you were to guess Lansing, Detroit, or Muskegon. Any guess on the color of the dress? I'll guess kelly green or navy blue.