Circular No 935

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 5 October 2019 No. 935

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Dear Friends,

I have included an email chat with Fr. Christopher Theunissen, and Fr. Francis Friesen of the MSB Choir, 1950s and 1960s.

I am sorry that I have not received any news from the 500+ Oldboys whose email addresses are in the list kept by George Mickiewicz.

So, here is news from 2003.

Some of this chat is regarding the 1^st EVENT or reunion of MSB alumni.

You can check out more information in our Blog.

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I am sorry to inform you that Br. Camilus Culley is no longer with us, he was the Honey and Soft drink brother!

Can anyone remember the name of the soft drink that was manufactured at the apiary, and that replaced SOLO at the afternoon 3 o´clock break???

Is there someone that can recall the bun with a sausage in its centre surrounded with curry sauce?

All kids got one at 3pm, a soft drink and bun, handed out by Baby Joe and company at the canteen, next to the Volleyball court.

Next, run to the dormitories where we could change to sports clothes and then down to the fields.

On Mondays Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays you could choose between staying at the school or go down to the sports field.

My choice was to go down, run a mile in warm up and then throw Javelin or Discus.

Bathe in the shower next to the Sports Field House and walk up slowly back to the school by the short cut.

I managed to avoid the express shower service at the School, which I found too hasty to my liking.

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Now to the emails.

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From: Henry Theunissen

Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 11:56 AM

Subject: Re: Fw: reunion 2003

Dear Ladislao,

Thanks for your message. Here are the names of the monks who attended the reunion:

Abbot Francis Alleyne;

Fr. Cuthbert van de Sande;

Fr. Benedict Simons;

Br. Camillus Culley;

Fr. Odo van der Heijdt;

Br. Gerard (Rupert) Alexis;

Fr. Christopher Theunissen,

Br. Marius Williams.

The circular I was interested in was nr. 91.

I was surprised to hear that no one from the Mount ever sent you anything.

It must be some years now since you started to send out your circulars.

I myself have only been at Abbey school for short periods and I know very few of the boys.

I was there from 65 to 66 and again for some months in 1970.

Michael De Verteuil, now Msgr, and Rector of the Regional Seminary, was there at that time.

Unfortunately he never knew about the reunion until I spoke to him about it the morning of the same day (15 Aug.).

He would have loved to go, but was unable to at that late point.

The only one present at the Reunion who I know very well was Michael D'Ornellas and his wife, also Joe Berment and Robert O'Connell.

I'd have to see the list of all present to remember other known ones.

Best wishes and God bless,

Fr. Christopher

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Caracas, 29 of August 2003.

Dear Fr. Christopher

Thank you for the email and the lines on the event.

Please give my apology to Fr. Abbot.

My worry from the first place was that there would be not enough propaganda for the EVENT.

I had been in contact with Gonzalez since I received his email address in March.

First, I thought it was a hoax, and after I sent out Circular No.87, I got a reply.

Too late to make a decent propaganda to the Circulars readers.

With No. 91 I did get a lot of replies.

I always thought that there must have been interaction with the priests of the Mount, but no answer from there, so this was may complain.

This is the first email I got after 93 Circulars from MSB, so you might gauge my worry.

Well, the important part is that the EVENT was successful and there is a hope for 2nd EVENT. God Willing.

Also, I ask you to have the circular passed to Fr. Benedict, Fr. Augustine, Fr. Cuthbert and all the others that have made these circulars possible, thanks to our participation at MSB and the Abbey School.

Please inform me if you require old Circulars and send me the number of the one that was deleted, so that it can be replaced.

Can you send me the name of the Oldboys that you recognized at the EVENT.

Also, the 8 priests that assisted, were there brothers also??

God Bless

Ladislao

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On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 12:11:11 -0700, "the-mount" wrote:

Dear Ladislao,

As you know the 1st Reunion and Dinner of the old Abbey Boys Association took place yesterday, 15th August 2003, at the Centre of Excellence.

About 100 hundred people attended, including about 8 monks and some of the former teaching staff, among whom most prominent Miss Kitty Marcus (88).

It was a most enjoyable evening.

Several of those present commended the work you have been doing in sending out Newsletters.

Some of us, including myself, feel your work and tireless efforts are not being appreciated enough, thus this little note of encouragement.

Keep it up.

Even if we do not respond as often as we should, many, I can assure you, do enjoy your regular newsletters, even the abbot who you took to task in your last one.

By the way this same last one was inadvertently deleted from this computer before I had a chance to print it.

Kindly mail it to us again.

Many thanks, very best wishes and hope to meet you in the living flesh at the 2nd Reunion (or before).

God bless.

Fr. Christopher

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I HAVE INCLUDED THIS OLD ARTICLE BECAUSE THERE IS A POSSIBILITY OF AN IN-BETWEEN REUNION TO TAKE PLACE AFTER XMAS. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The in-between is because the 2nd EVENT should be taking place in 2005, can you confirm this??? Miguel Gonzalez (President of the 1^st EVENT)?

This reunion would gather the alumni and those that knew Bro. Vincent (Deacon Lionel Roberts), Bursar and our Sports Director if that title would have existed in the 1950s and 1960s.

I would like to hear from you (ALUMNI) about this possibility as there needs to be an organizer in Trinidad for, let’s say a lunch, dinner or whatever you may suggest thru this forum.

I am in touch with several alumni but no plans have been set.

I have asked Roger Henderson to look into this, but I know he needs help as time is short. 

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Now an exchange with Fr. Francis, our music teacher.

Caracas, 9 of September 2003.

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Dear Fr. Francis Friesen

Thank you for the email, it is a surprise that I managed to contact you.

I only have a question, can you receive email??? like the one you received???

Since I mail these newsletters once a week, I would prefer to email you, with the photos, but if you cannot receive the email, then I can post mail you the newsletter.

I believe that you are the only teacher of my time that is alive, of the multiple ones that we had in 1955 to 1960, my graduation year.

Please ratify your address.

God Bless and much health

Ladislao Kertesz

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From: Berchmanianum <Berchmanianum@wxs.nl>

Date: 9 Sep 01:20 (PDT)

Dear Ladislao,

Thanks for your email.

It is a splendid idea to keep contact with former co-students by means of weekly exchanges.

I do remember your name and that you belonged to the "gang from Venezuela".

I would be happy to get your publication occasionally, so as to refresh my memory about those happy days with you and the other guys, on that mountain top in Trinidad, so many years ago!

My address, as you have it, is correct, email included.

Let me know your own ordinary address as well, for I am not able to reach you regularly unless by ordinary letter.

Kind regards to all,

Sincerely,

Fr Francis Friesen

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Date:14 Sep 10:57 (PDT)

Cc: Berchmanianum@wxs.nl>

Subject: Message from Father Friesen/Netherlands

Dear Ladislao,

Thanks for sending me your address.

To answer your question:

Yes, I can receive email, like the one you used to contact me, which is the email address for this house; Berchmanianum.

No problem, as for receiving goes, and I look forward to receive your newsletters on this way.

I spoke with Father Paul on the phone.

He was your teacher mathematics and physics, left the Abbey in 1963, and is now 87 years old.

He, too, remembers you, although vaguely, and sends you his kind regards.

He does not have an email and is not in good health at all.

Both of us have had no access to the computer world, and for myself, at the age of 82, and being almost blind, it will remain so.

This message reaches you through the kindness of one of my cousins in Holland, for the use the house email is not open to us, except for receiving messages.

I ask you please to keep using the "Berchmanianum@wxs.nl email address.

All the best and God bless,

Father Francis.

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Dancing nuns by David Bratt

On the screen, the airplane is 500 miles long. Whilst the nose touches Trinidad, the tail is still at Antigua. It’s reassuring to know that the computer on board the plane knows where we are, even if it looks funny.

The same computer system or global positioning system (GPS) is now in many hired cars in the USA.  Mine was called “Never Lost” but we immediately gave her a nickname and since “it” talked with a female voice, we called her “Maggie.”

Maggie was our guide from Long Island to Rhode Island, which is not an island.  No one seems to know why it’s called an island.  Probably the usual pigheadedness of the Europeans in not listening to the locals.

Maggie is what is called “white man magic.”  Her face is a little black box that shows you where you are in the American road system and where you are going and how far it is and so on.  She also speaks and tells you where to go and warns you about approaching turn-offs.

She never got lost, until the intricacies of the Kennedy Airport road system overwhelmed her in the dank, early hours of Sunday morning and that is not a pleasant experience in a semi-deserted international airport with lots of empty dark corners.

We finally found the rental car agency, the old way, by following signs and finally saying, “Look it over there.”

Prior to that she faithfully took us from hotel to family to hotel to hospital to mall and back with the greatest of ease.  All you did was plug in the address of the place you wanted to go to, and she took you there by freeway or by the quickest way.

If you didn’t know the address, she looked it up for you in the Yellow Pages.  And that’s the Yellow Pages of America.

Back on the plane, just 40 minutes out of Piarco, the young woman sitting in front has awakened me to complain that my foot was preventing her from reclining her seat.

Before I can say anything, she sits down but still cannot get the seat to recline.  My foot is safely tucked away under me.  The seat bad, lady!

We begin our descent to Piarco and a small child in the seat nearby, who was snoring as she slept, starts crying.  She probably has earache from the change in middle ear pressure.

Her parents don’t know about this and think that, like them, she is scared and try to reassure her.  She screams more.  It’s annoying, even to a paediatrician.

Adults get anxious when planes are about to land but not children.  How we experience life events may depend on how happy or sad or anxious we are feeling at that particular moment.

If you are in a good mood and something bad happens to you, you tend to recover quickly.  If you are in a bad mood and something bad happens, you take it on more.

Is this why anxious adults on plane flights always overreact when they hear a child cry?

The child’s doctor obviously has not warned them about snoring, “sinus” and earache on board a plane.  Like the Port-of-Spain Hospital, Panadol comes to the rescue too late.

BWIA 425 from New York is filled with Guyanese returning home.  So are we, after attending a dinner/dance, as Community Chest’s representatives, in honour of Sister D.

Sister D’s real name is Sister Dorothy Ammon and there are about a thousand Trinidadians and Tobagonians who know her well.  Three hundred children and their parents and family.

Sister D is a nun, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Amityville.  She was the director of the Heart to Heart Programme at North Shore University Hospital from 1982 to last year.

She is the person Community Chest used to call whenever we had a child who needed open heart surgery and Sister D would arrange everything for us: pick up the child and mother at the airport; check them into the hospital; explain everything about hospital procedures, the surgery, where to eat and where to have clothes laundered.

She would be with the mother during the operation, hold her hand in the Intensive Care Unit, move them to her own apartment to recuperate and put them back on the plane for T&T.

Sometimes she even cried when we lost a child.

Sister D loves her work and she loves her children.  She exemplifies the best of the USA.  Kind and generous. Hardworking and competent.

At the dinner, one of the nuns described her as an ideal representative of her order, the Amytiville Dominicans:  “We love to pray and we love to play.”

Those nuns and Sister D certainly captured that spirit after the dinner.  First time I ever saw nuns dancing the limbo.

Pray and play.  A good way to live your life.  Thanks D.  Live long and vote wisely.

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EDITED by Ladislao Kertesz,  kertesz11@yahoo.com,  if you would like to be in the circular’s mailing list or any old boy that you would like to include.

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Photos:

01DM0002FCTFCU, Fr, Christopher Theunissen and Fr. Cuthbert

04LK0002FFR, Fr. Francis

03UN0035MGO, Miguel Gonzalez

19AO0001AOB, Anthony Obrien