Postcard from Milan, Part II

Secondo Giorno (Second Day)

          Today, John spent his day at the conference center in Milan attending the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) meeting. That’s the whole reason we are visiting Milan. 

          I spent my day with Amy, the wife of a University of Washington-Tacoma professor who was also at the conference. She is a scientist too, but wasn’t attending the conference.

          I walked over to meet her at The Enterprise hotel on the other side of the Piazza Fierenze. Yesterday, she and her husband Joel had gone to the Duomo, but hadn’t gone inside. Last night, I skimmed through the book I bought there, and found out that you can go up on the roof. Amy and I agreed to go back to the Duomo.

          She had ridden the tram yesterday, and knew where to get tickets. I had seen ATM signs, but thought “Automatic Teller Machine,” not “Azienda Transporti Milanesi.” We walked over to a diner, and bought one-way tickets because that’s all they sold.

          When the first tram came along, we hopped on. Fifteen minutes later, the streets didn’t look familiar at all. The tram had veered off west of the Duomo so we jumped off, and consulted our map. It looked like the Duomo was fairly close by.

          In the meantime, there was a big brick church in front of us, and a sign with a picture of Leonardo da Vinci out front, so we headed in. We had accidentally found the Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of The Last Supper and the largest collection of Leonardo’s drawings. We approached a counter decorated with many signs in many different languages, stating that this was an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, NOT The Last Supper, which was around the corner somewhere. John and I had tried to get an appointment to see The Last Supper, but it didn’t work out.

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy

The drawings were just fine with Amy and me. We happily plunked down 10 euros each. Inside a darkened chapel, we studied each sheet of parchment paper filled to the edges with Leonardo’s drawings of inventions and figures, doodles of people’s heads, and notes. One page had a list of what he packed when he moved to Milan. I’m guessing that paper was a lot harder to come by back then, so he used up all the space he could on each sheet, no margins.

          There were also paintings hanging on the walls behind the drawings. The wall behind the altar and the ceiling were covered with frescoes of angels. I wondered out loud, “who painted those?” On the way out, Amy asked at the front desk. They replied, “Leonardo da Vinci.”

          We u-turned right back inside to admire the paintings and frescoes paying more attention this time. What a precious exhibit to stumble upon!

          Then we were off in the general direction of the Duomo. We cut in back of some buildings on a service road. A guy in a small truck started backing up and almost hit Amy. She dodged and slapped the back of his truck at the same time. He leaned out the window, and spewed irritated Italian. She answered in irritated English. Hands were thrown up in the air—the universal sign of exasperation, followed by exaggerated Chip ‘n Dale motions of “You go first!” “No, you go first!”

          We kept expecting to see the Duomo as we came around each corner. It reminded me of the way Mt. Rainier hides in cloud cover for most of the winter in Washington. Eventually, about a crooked mile later, the Duomo did appear.

          At the entrance, I turned around and Amy was gone! I thought she was right behind me. She’d been waylaid by street vendors hawking 6” pieces of string as “bracelets.” Back at the entrance, I started through, but the “gatekeeper,” told Amy she couldn’t go in because she was wearing shorts.

          We left, and went to eat lunch nearby, planning to shop for a skirt or pants for her afterwards. At a sidewalk café, she had pizza and I ordered lasagna. The waiter got annoyed with Amy for ordering “sparkling water” instead of “acquata gassata.” Extremely slow service followed. We decided to take off the string “bracelets” thinking they could be tourist markers.

Amy sitting behind our bottle of acquata gassata.

          After lunch we went in search of clothes to get her into the Duomo, but we were in the high fashion district. We found a pair of Adidas running pants, but they cost 80 Euros or $114 U.S. Could we tie a scarf around her to look like a skirt? Maybe she could wear my skirt, then come back out and give it back to me to wear in. In the end, she said she’d wait outside for me, and tour the Duomo a few days later. She was staying in Milan longer than I am.

          I went in and looked all over for the elevator up to the roof. No luck. At an exit that I hadn’t noticed before, I pantomimed my quest for the roof to a cathedral guide. He pantomimed back to go around the corner to a separate building to buy a ticket for the elevator.

          I went in the opposite direction to get Amy. Maybe they’d let her on the roof in shorts. At the ticket office, they told us that shorts weren’t allowed up there either.

  I took my 8 euro ticket for the lift to a little area at the back of the Duomo, (Yay! No line!) and walked through a metal detector. Security guards directed me to a ticket scanner. I put the ticket in, and got the red buzzer NO! sound. Turned it around—NO! Then the young soldier who was part of the security force came over, took the ticket out of my hand, flipped it around, and re-inserted it correctly. His sigh and eye-roll was exactly like my kids’ reaction whenever I’m in this kind of situation. Ah, the international language of la gap generazionale. But, he did have to cross the hallway to help me. His mama raised him well.  I thanked him, “Grazie!”

          “Prego.” (You’re welcome.)

All roads lead to Il Duomo.

Looking down on a lower level of the Duomo roof.

   The view from up on the roof was worth the hassle of getting up there. I could see the street spokes of Milan leading toward the Duomo. The maze of sloping walkways and terraces above the city made the spires, statues, and gargoyles seem within reach. It was not clear enough for me to see the Alps, but I trusted that they were out there.

It’s mind boggling to think that the all the architectural engineering, heavy marble, and intricate carving that went into creating this magnificent cathedral happened centuries ago, without today’s technology. How could that be possible? Yet my feet were standing on it.

To inspect the outside of the Duomo, two construction workers rode a coffee table-sized platform raised on a hydraulic lift. They pointed to me and waved. They were totally comfortable, but it’s not a job I’d want.  Being from Washington, and therefore, being used to doing everything in the rain, I imagined being up on the Duomo’s roof sliding around on rain-slick marble, or worse snow!  I was extremely grateful for the sunny weather.

Back down on earth, I met Amy and showed her around the fashion district. We darted into a fancy bakery. She ordered a cappuccino while at another counter, I got a chocolate gelato cone. Then we made the mistake of trying to sit down. After being denied three times, a waiter finally gave up, and seated us at a booth. Apparently, you’re supposed to stand at the counter with your cup and saucer to drink cappuccino. We were doing the American Starbucks thing--if it’s not in a disposable cup, you get to sit down.

We’d had a busy day. Time to buy a return ticket for the tram. Amy spotted a little convenience store that she thought would sell tickets. When she asked the man at the counter in English, he was short and to the point, “No.” When she followed up by asking if he knew where we could buy tickets, he gave another terse “No,” and waved us off.

We wandered around some more until I saw a place with lottery ticket signs. Inside, people were gathered around a TV, waiting for them to pull the winning numbers. I stepped up to the man behind the counter, said, “Bon Giorno,” then pulled my old tram ticket out, and gave him a questioning look.

He answered, “Si. Quanto?”

“Due.” I paid for two tickets, and out we went. Amy was impressed. 

I don't speak Italian other than a few phrases I learned from a "Learn to Speak Italian" CD that stopped working about 10 minutes into the lessons. I did take Spanish through junior high school and high school, then a couple of semesters of college French. Ultimately though, I'm pretty sure that I got away with a lot in Milan because I think the Italians thought I was Italian until I had to have a real conversation. But by then, they’d already opened up to me.

We looked for a tram stop. I reasoned that we needed to cross the street, so that we could catch a tram going toward the Piazza Fierenze. Amy knew that we had to catch the #1 tram. We scrambled aboard one.

Then Amy’s ticket wouldn’t work in the scanner. I took it from her, and turned it around every possible way. A man took it from me, just like the soldier at the Duomo, and tried. He told me in Italian that it had expired. I told him in English that that was impossible, we’d just bought it. He told me in English, “OK, just sit down.” So we did.

We sat down anticipating a 20-minute ride. We got more than an hour’s ride. My bright idea of crossing the street to catch the tram was a mistake. We made room for elderly ladies carrying shopping bags with designer names on them so they could sit down. Office workers rode standing holding onto the bars above us. We sat with mothers and their elementary school children riding home from school. We saw the city center, nice neighborhoods, the Asian section, and areas where there were lots of massage parlors.

We waited, with only one other passenger, for fifteen minutes through the changing of drivers. We watched the new driver ring the bell, and tell a car to get off the tracks. We eyeballed the signs at each stop and made sure that “Corso Sempione” was listed on the sign. I looked in my purse for the address of the hotel, so we could catch a cab home if this went on much longer. And then, we saw the castle. The streets looked familiar again. It was 6:30 when we got off a block away from Amy’s hotel, exhausted and relieved.

               I planned to take a shower and put my feet up when I got back to my room, done for the day. Amy had the same plan. However, when I got back to the room, I found out that only part of my plan was going to happen. The shower part.

Dinner at La Bufala restaurant with scientists from the SETAC meeting.

          John told me the real plan included more walking to meet about 50 other scientists and graduate students, from around the world, for dinner. At the restaurant I sat beside a student from Finland. Across the table were a professor from Poland, a student from China, and a professor from England. On the other side of John, that professor was from Germany. There was one other American there. The discussions were lively, and thankfully not political, and for the most part in English, so I didn’t have to use my pantomiming skills too much. I was finally meeting people that John had worked with, and told me about for years.

          It was a long day filled with adventures in Milan. I slept well my third night in Italy.

Ciao,

Laura

The next “Postcard from Milan” will be from The Lakes of Northern Italy. Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Postcard from Milan

Primo Giorno (First Day)

               Buon giorno!  John and I are here in Milan, Italy and the weather is perfect—sunny with temperatures in the upper 60s, low 70s. 

Courtyard at The Regency Hotel, Milan, Italy.

              Our hotel, The Regency, is a restored noble residence from the 1800s with a Spanish feel to it. Located a few blocks from the Piazza Firenze, it is quiet although we can hear the trams going by every once in awhile. They look like the streetcars in San Francisco and New Orleans. Most of the apartment buildings around us are less than 10 stories high. All of them have balconies overflowing with lush plants, red blooming azaleas and maybe bougainvillea.

               It was late afternoon when we got settled. Our first meal in Italy was a prociutto e funghi (ham and mushroom) pizza with due birra (two beers) in a little mom and pop style café/convenience store a few blocks from the hotel. We were a little skeptical about how authentic the pizza would be because the waiter/cook was Asian, but he spoke Italian, and all the customers were Italian. The thin crusted pizza was delicious and perfect after our long trip.

John at The Duomo, Milan, Italy.

               This morning we caught a taxi to the Duomo Cathedral, the historic center of Milan. On the way we spotted a castle with a huge fountain spouting water high in the air, and watched Italians going about their Monday morning. We entered another Piazza (traffic circle) and there was the massive white marble Duomo reaching up into a clear blue sky. It looked like something that should top a wedding cake: intricate, lacy, and sparkling in the sun as if it was made of sugar.

“What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate , so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems ...a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!”--Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

The Duomo, Milan, Italy.

               I pulled a gauzy scarf up over my head as we entered the cool, dark, spectacular interior of the third largest cathedral in the world. From the outside, the Duomo with its flying buttresses is massive. I’ve seen other buildings that may be even bigger, but the difference is that the insides of those buildings are divided up into smaller rooms. 

          The interior of the Duomo is soaring open space held up by gigantic carved pillars with statues of Saints perched in niches near the tops of the columns. The marble floors with an elegant design in pink, white, black, and red are smooth from centuries of people coming to worship and visit. The stained glass windows tell stories from the Bible, the life of the Virgin Mary, and the Saints.

               Although you aren’t supposed to take pictures, everybody was snapping away with their cameras. We stopped at the bookstore on the way out and bought a book about the Duomo filled with pictures taken by professionals, and the history of the cathedral that took over 400 years to build.

               Back out in the sunlit square, we passed through an arch into the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a mall of ancient buildings covered by an iron and glass roof.  Prada, Louis Vuitton, and other famous designer storefronts lined the walkways that led out to the fashion district streets hosting Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino, and Giorgio Armani among other famous designers.

Laura in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II, Milan, Italy.

               The styles in the windows were clean and tailored, except for the shoes—minimum four inch stiletto heels with straps all over, guaranteed to make me fall and break an ankle if I wore them. Don’t know how they do it,  but there were women walking all over the cobblestones of Milan in those shoes. It was fun window shopping, but way too impractical and rich, hundreds or thousands of Euros (1 euro = $1.4069) to coax me into opening my wallet.

               Instead, I spent my money on creamy chocolate gelato and museums. One of the things I loved about Italy is that there were places to eat everywhere. Whenever we got hungry, we’d look up and there’d be a café or two to choose from.  We stopped at a little store/restaurant to eat lunch: orecchiette con I funghi (little ear-shaped or bowl-shaped pasta with a mushroom sauce) for me and spaghetti pomodoro (spaghetti with fresh tomatoes) for John. The Italians eat later than we do, so it was rarely crowded for us.

Afterwards, we wandered around some more and chanced upon the Museo Poldi Pezzoli. I’d seen it listed in my tour book and loved the symbol of the museum: Portrait of a Young Lady (15^th Century) by Antonio Pollaiolo.

We crossed the courtyard and bought our tickets. At first, we thought the whole museum was on the first floor: armour, tapestries, and lace, but no sign of the Portrait of a Young Lady. She was upstairs along with 16-18^th century clocks, Murano glass, precious ancient jewelry, and room after room filled with paintings by the masters including Botticelli’s The Virgin and Child and his Pieta. This fine collection was gathered by nobleman Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzolli and housed in his 19^th century aristocratic Milanese residence, a peaceful oasis in the middle of a busy city.

Mary's reading to Jesus in Botticelli's The Virgin and Child.

We strolled back down the Via Manzoni, past the Teatro Alla Scala opera house and the statue of Leonardo da Vinci, and decided to try to find the castle we’d seen from the cab.  Castello Sforzesco was easy to find with our map. We rested awhile beside the spectacular fountain.

There wasn’t much in the castle because the museums were closed, so we just walked through the courtyards out to the Parco Sempione. John, ever the biologist, spotted some turtles sunning themselves by a pond in the park. We exchanged picture taking with another couple, and dodged the locals kicking a soccer ball around. The Arco della Pace (Arc of Peace) was even more impressive close-up than when we’d viewed it from a distance.

This was where Corso Sempione began. We knew that it went straight to Piazza de Fierenze near our hotel. Trams kept running along the tracks parallel to the sidewalk we were on, but we hadn’t figured out how to get tickets to ride them.

Tree-lined Corso Sempione was beautiful, but it had been a long day with lots of walking. John could feel blisters forming. We didn’t want to call a cab because it seemed like Piazza de Fierenze should appear any minute. Funny how different map/cab-distance is from walking-distance. It was a long 3-mile walk “home,” on top of the other touring walking we’d done.

Back at the hotel, we changed shoes then left to eat dinner at a family restaurant that we could see from the window of our room: Stefano’s. This was our best meal in Italy. We started with Salata per Antipasta—a bed of spinach, butter lettuce and another lettuce with big, warm shrimp (gamberetti) served on top. For Il Primo (first course) we had lobster gnocchi. We were supposed to have Il secondo (the main course), but had to sacrifice that so we’d have enough room for Il Dolce (dessert). They had an unbelievable dessert cart, so it was hard to make up our minds. John had almond cake, and I had crème brulee. Both were the perfect ending to our molto bene meal and first full day in Italy!

Arrivederci,

Laura.

Secondo giorno en Milano will be coming up soon. Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Happy Mother's Day

            On Mother’s Day I woke up to sun streaming through the windows of Sarah’s apartment in Pullman.  We were all still glowing from Johnny’s graduation the day before, but it was time to shift gears. Sarah put her hair up and slipped into a pair of flat shoes.  She gathered up her music while John and I packed our bags. Then we pointed our car north toward Spokane.

                Sarah, a Junior, is majoring in piano performance.  She was competing in Music Fest at Gonzaga University.  Her boyfriend Andy, a Senior who is also a piano performance major, was also playing three pieces. He’s the top piano performance major in WSU’s music department.

Andy Romanick and Sarah Stark

                On the hour and a half car ride over, we talked about how the competition had gone last year, and how the semester had gone for Sarah. We also talked about the advantages and pitfalls of dating another piano performance major. Nobody but another piano performance major could understand the stress, or the nuances in different pieces. But, people would naturally compare them, so they’d have to guard against becoming overly competitive with each other.

                When we arrived at Gonzaga, Sarah signed in. She had a horrible cold so we came armed with cough drops, tissues, hand sanitizer, and water bottles. There were several other musicians from WSU there and if they had any jitters, they hid them well.

                Sarah was the first to play in her class, and her performance of Prokofiev’s Suggestion Diabolique was solid. The judge, who had an impressive musical pedigree, gave her some advice after she finished playing. She painted a background for the piece. Sarah already knew that the piece was about the devil being diabolical. The judge told Sarah that she was a beautiful, young lady, and she didn’t think that Sarah had the devil in her, but she thought the audience should be terrified when they heard this piece.

Sarah got a glimmer in her eyes. The judge asked her to play a few measures, and see if she could make it sound more terrifying, more devilish. Sarah nodded that she’d try. Then, she aggressively dug into the piano. The judge looked startled, but pleased. 

                We listened to a few more pianists in Sarah’s class. Then we had to go downstairs into another room for her to play her Bach. That judge also offered some good advice. Again we had to leave for Sarah to warm up for the next class.

On the way, Sarah checked back with her first group. She was excited that she’d been called back. The judge had chosen her to play Suggestion Diabolique again. She had to have chosen at least one other person to play again in the “play-off.”

In the practice room, Sarah asked me to see if she had a fever. Her head felt a little warm, but I’ve always tested for a fever by feeling my kids’ hands. Hers were cooler than her head, but her hands are always cold before a piano performance.

                We rushed back upstairs for the play-off. Sarah popped a cough drop in her mouth and we entered the room. That’s when we saw who she’d be playing against---Andy!

                Two sets of parents acknowledged each other across a quiet room.  The judge and several others sat behind the grand piano, poised to listen. Andy adjusted the bench, and settled in. He played the opening notes of Scriabin’s Etude in C Sharp minor, op. 42, no. 5, and continued playing flawlessly. His piece is extremely complex, but he made it sound effortless. We all applauded, Sarah smiled at him as he picked up his music, and scrambled out of the room to get to his next performance.

                Now it was Sarah’s turn. She was all business. She adjusted the bench, and looked for the judge to nod signaling her to begin. That’s when she attacked the piano. The difference between this performance and her first one was staggering! This time, it truly was terrifying! The audience was stunned, yet couldn’t look away. It seemed like all of our hair should have been blowing straight back from the sound of the piano. The judge had a huge smile on her face. Her body rocked in time with Sarah’s playing. When she finished, there was a slight pause of silence, then loud applause. We were glad that we weren’t the judge because she had a tough decision to make.

                The attendant sitting outside the room had an amazed look on her face as we headed down the hallway to a practice room. Once she got inside the room, our elegant, slender daughter with her eggplant colored lace top, and black slacks, jumped up high in the air and clicked her heels. It had been one of her top performances (the piano playing, not the heel clicking, although that was pretty good too).

                When she entered the class to play her Schumann piece, the attendant  made Sarah sit right behind the judge, in the front row with the rest of the piano players. John and I were relegated to desks across the room.

                A Chinese girl played Chopin. Then the door opened and a lady asked if Sarah Stark was in the room. Sarah raised her hand. The woman handed her the Prokofiev music. John and I could see that there was a certificate on top of the book, but couldn’t tell what it said.

                Sarah looked over at us with even bigger eyes than her usual huge eyes. She tried to mouth something to us, but we’re horrible lip readers. The only sound in the room was the judge writing excruciatingly long notes about the Chinese girl’s performance. Sarah sneaked her cell phone out of her pocket and gave John a pointed look. (Cell phones are supposed to be off when you enter the performance rooms.)

                John slid his cell phone out of his pocket. I was sitting behind him leaning over his shoulder. Sarah’s hands were texting almost as fast as she can play piano. She stopped and looked at us. It was today’s version of passing notes in class. We waited and waited for her text to beam up to a satellite and back down to us four rows across the room.  The judge kept scratching away at the comments page. Finally, her text lit up the screen on John’s phone. ALL CAPS, “I WON!!!!!!”

                I’m surprised that we weren’t kicked out of the room for thunderous heart beats and silly grins. Once we broke out of that room, we were free to celebrate. Almost instantly, Sarah thought of Andy. Before she could say anything, I told her that I was sure Andy would be happy for her and that if he had to win silver, I was sure he’d rather she was the one who got the gold, than someone else. When both of them made it into the play-off, it was a win-win situation.

                To celebrate, we went to Red Robin. While she was playing, Johnny and his girlfriend Sarah were driving over to Spokane from Pullman to give our Sarah a ride back to campus because John and I were leaving for Puyallup directly from Spokane. They called when they were close, and we ordered for them.

                When they arrived, Sarah announced that she’d won gold and Johnny high fived her across the table. Sarah had been calling Andy to see if he and his family could meet us at Red Robin, but he wasn’t answering. She guessed that he’d been called back for his Beethoven piece. Mid-way through our burgers, he called. He’d won gold on the Beethoven, and in an unprecedented move, the judge at their play-off had gotten an exception and awarded both Andy and Sarah gold!

                Sitting at that table with two freshly graduated college kids, and my daughter holding her gold medal made my Mother’s Day the best ever!

                Follow up: On the following Tuesday, Sarah and Andy were invited to play piano and be interviewed on Spokane’s public radio station. Her grandparents in New York and Hawaii got to hear the broadcast along with many family friends and their piano teachers.

Laura Keolanui Stark is still enjoying her irreplaceable Mother’s Day gifts: Johnny and Sarah. If you want to hear the broadcast, you may be able to access in on KCPQ’s website as a podcast under Music Fest 2011. You can also hear both of the pieces Sarah and Andy played on YouTube. My apologies that this blog  was posted late. I am posting it from Milan, Italy—a blog about that is coming. Laura can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

WSU Graduation

Five years ago, we were sitting in the same place, Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum at Washington State University. Back then we were listening to administrators, campus police, and students talk about the college experience as a WSU Cougar at the Alive orientation. 

Now, in the second of three ceremonies, the band played Pomp and Circumstance as more than 900 (out of 2,350) men and women filed in. They were dressed in the customary black gowns and square mortarboards, some decorated, sitting atop their knowledge-filled heads.

         Life had been so hectic leading up to Johnny’s graduation, I hadn’t had time to reflect. Our relatives who had planned to come, had medical problems that made traveling risky. My seasonal job continued on much longer than expected, right up to the day we had to drive over to Pullman. I squeezed in a Zumba, Cinco de Mayo, night out with the girls celebration after work.

The next morning as I was packing, I realized that the leis my parents sent, hadn’t arrived. Phone calls with tracking numbers were flying across the ocean to parents, from the florist in Hawaii, and to Fed Ex. An hour and a half later, our doorbell rang. The box of leis was placed in my relieved hands, and Suzy didn’t get to bite the delivery man, although she tried hard.

           Meanwhile in Pullman, Johnny was taking finals, turning in papers, and playing piano for a jury of music professors the day before graduation. Johnny’s roommates were finishing up in the College of Education and the English department. His girlfriend Sarah, and other roommate Marissa were planning the graduation festivities, and coordinating with their families coming to town.

We were part of the caravan of U-Haul trucks, RV’s, vans, and pickups driving into the heart of WSU. After we arrived, John and I managed to “kidnap” Johnny so we could have him all to ourselves for an hour in the calm eye of the graduation hurricane. The three of us found a table in Rico’s.

We clinked our beer glasses together congratulating Johnny for a job well done, and listening to him talk about his post-graduation plans. No matter how bad the economy is, or what’s going on around the globe, when you’re 22 with a fresh college diploma in your hand, the world beckons.

               Saturday morning, graduation day, Johnny donned his cap and gown, and we roamed around campus taking pictures of him by WSU landmarks. Another family trailed us with their graduate. We took turns climbing a ladder by the gigantic Washington State University at the entrance of Pullman to snap pictures, then we met up with them again in the center of Cougar Plaza downtown.

It was time to go back to his apartment where I opened the precious box of leis. I draped the fragrant maile leaves and orange ilima lei, and a ti leaf and he’e lei around Johnny’s neck. Sarah had a sweetly scented tuberose and orchid lei, along with an intricately braided orchid lei.  Marissa’s lei was made of orchids too. My parents had also included an extra orchid lei for Johnny to give to another friend.

He had that extra lei in his one hand, and his other hand was holding onto his mortarboard hat when he jumped out of the car to run the last three blocks to Beasley Coliseum while we sat stuck in traffic. As he ran down the sidewalk, Marissa jumped out of her parents’ car to join him. Their gowns flapped in the wind as they ran/walked. They looked very competent weaving between the crowds, conditioned from 8-10 semesters of running late for class. (Sarah’s commencement was later that afternoon at 3:00, but she’d have a chance for one last run too.)

So there we were, sitting up high in Section 10, EE, our eyes searching for Johnny, looking for the leis, spotting lots of other graduates wearing leis.  Now I had time to reflect on his years at WSU. He’d switched majors once. He’d lived in one dorm, and three apartments. He’d had five roommates including one who taught him how to skateboard, and one who he “nursed” through a broken leg. He’d eaten in the dining halls, cooked his own meals, and put out a kitchen fire.

He’d become an expert at driving a stick shift in the snow on hilly terrain. He’d successfully appealed a parking ticket issued for parking in front of a fire hydrant that he hadn’t seen because it was buried under 6 feet of snow. He’d collected gas money for driving other students home on breaks.

He’d mastered music composition, sight-sang do-re-me-fa solfeggio, and learned how to play the harpsichord. He’d survived calculus, discussed theories about the workings of society today with the TA in Sociology, and talked at length with his Physics professor after his favorite course, Life in the Universe. He’d worked part time in an Entomology lab, and had a foot stomping, Indiana Jones spider infestation experience there.

He’d run onto the field in Martin Stadium and jumped up high enough behind a reporter for us to spot him on TV when WSU beat the Huskies 16-13 in the ’08 Apple Cup. He’d partied in a Jack Sparrow costume at a frat house for Halloween. He’d figured out how to do laundry—and that throwing it off his balcony was easier than walking it down stairs and around the building to the laundry room.

He’d sprained his wrist goofing off on campus, and dodged the largest concentrated outbreak of swine flu in the US.

He’d befriended several international students, and did his own research inquiring into why they cursed in English instead of their native languages when they locked themselves out of their rooms.

He had truly lived the college experience.

We strained our eyes and zoomed our cameras to make sure we’d see him entering Beasley Coliseum. There he was, walking in the processional behind the man carrying the Music banner. After everyone was seated, the ceremony began. The United States Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates gave an outstanding, inspiring Commencement Address. He brought the audience to their feet several times.

It was diploma time. When they called, “John Stark,” he stepped up, paused, and looked into the camera. Up on the big screen, he flashed a smile and the Hawaiian shaka sign. President Floyd shook his hand, and gave him his diploma. It was official. Johnny had earned a Bachelor of Music, Cum Laude.

Walking back toward his seat, smiling confidently, he looked very comfortable in his new place in life, a college graduate!

Laura Keolanui Stark is the proud mom of Johnny Stark. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

              

              

Dates We Won't Forget in History

On September 11, 2001, my family was getting ready to start our day. 13-year-old Johnny came into our bedroom to tell us that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. We thought it was a news report on the anniversary of the 1993 bombing, but he insisted we come out and watch the news.

               That was the morning that our world changed. Not as much as the families who lost loved ones. Not as much as the rescuers and their families. We were lucky. We didn’t have any direct connection. But it still affected us.

               My husband is from New York. His sister worked in Manhattan then. She also traveled a lot. Had she been flying that day? She was fine. All of John’s family was safe.

Two summers before, John’s parents had treated us to a stay in the Marriott World Trade Center when the kids were 7- and 10-years old.  They remembered grabbing some pizza in the underground shopping mall along with Wall Street executives who ate slices of cheese pizza with their silk ties thrown over their shoulders. We stood on the Top of the World Observation Deck, 1310 feet above the Big Apple. Back down on the ground, near “The Sphere” sculpture, John’s mom had scolded a city worker for cursing in front of her grandchildren.

On the other side of America, on 9/11/01, my parents checked in from Hawaii. One of the last places my father had worked before retiring from the Army was in the Pentagon. The plane that crashed into the Pentagon, hit fairly close to where his office had been.

My parents agreed with our decision to keep the kids home from school. Nobody knew what was going on, who the attackers were, or whether they were done. My mom and dad had been through something similar before. They were both 8-years-old on December 7, 1941. My father lived in Pearl City and watched the Japanese bomb our navy while he played hooky from Sunday school. His father was a civilian worker at Pearl Harbor. A stray bomb hit the back of my mother’s house, near Waikiki. Her father was a fire fighter who spent the next week rescuing sailors and fighting the fires on the bombed out ships in Pearl Harbor.

As September 11 passed, we spent the day watching the news.  The kids’ friends stopped by our house after school to watch with us, and talk about the horrible scenes that were unfolding. Latch-key kids, they didn’t want to go home to an empty house. There weren’t any words to adequately describe what had happened, but being together was better than being alone.

Each generation has a defining moment in history. For my parents it was December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.” For my generation, it was November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated. For my children, it was September 11, 2001.

Johnny was the first in our family to hear about the tragedy on 9/11. Sarah was the one who called us last night May 1, 2011, to ask if it was true that Osama Bin Laden was dead. She’d seen it on Facebook.  We turned off the movie we’d been watching, and turned on the news. It was true! The mastermind who thought he could bring America to its knees had finally been found, and killed.

On our TV screen, newscasters informed us about how intelligence found Bin Laden, and how the Navy Seals launched the attack with professional precision. Outside the White House, and in streets across America, people of all races, males and females, celebrated, chanting “USA,” singing “The Star Spangled Banner,” and waving our flag.

The pundits warn us against letting our guard down. They caution that this is not the end of terrorism. Do they really think anyone has any illusions of Islamic radicals suddenly embracing America, or security being dismantled at airports?

Osama bin Laden was the leader of the enemy group that killed 2,977 innocent people one fall morning in American. Al-Queda is still actively trying to kill anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe. Bin Laden has paid the price for his actions. That’s a victory for our side.

There has been an ocean of tears shed in sorrow for mass killings set in motion by bin Laden. There will probably be more sadness and pain at the hands of terrorists in the future. When we’ve done something to stop that or slow it down, when there’s something to be proud of, I refuse to deny or squash those feelings. The world felt a little lighter today.

Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.