In an ironic twist of fate, Detroit’s Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick joined forces with a prominent local businessman, Roger Penske, to promote our area’s many positives to the Super Bowl visitors . . . What an interesting pair! Kilpatrick is known as the nation’s hip-hop mayor, and recently won re-election by infusing the campaign with a “city versus suburbs” dimension. Penske is a white suburbanite who runs a multi-billion dollar enterprise. He led the Metro Detroit (Super Bowl) Host Committee.

Kilpatrick and Penske collaborated to ensure a successful Super Bowl, by galvanizing business and civic leaders and thousands of volunteers to work together. It seemed like a monumental task, but both leaders did the job. As much as I personally dislike Kilpatrick, I must give him credit for representing our community well. Penske worked tirelessly, and I was impressed with his commitment, energy and effort.

Enough about the Super Bowl, as football really isn’t my “cup of tea” . . . Quite frankly, I was more excited when Detroit’s Comerica Park hosted the 2005 Baseball All-Star Game this past July.

At one time, Detroit used to have a small Chinatown located near Wayne State University. The area has disappeared, but there are plenty of Chinese restaurants, language schools and grocery markets in the Detroit metropolitan area.

On January 28, 2006 I had the pleasure of attending a Chinese New Year’s Eve Party at Stevenson High School in Livonia (a Detroit suburb). I was invited by my sister-in-law, Julia, who immigrated to the U.S. ten years ago and became an American citizen in 2005.

I had never been to a Chinese New Year’s celebration before. The 2006 Chinese New Year – the Year of the Dog – officially began on January 29th.

The affair started off with an extravagant buffet dinner in the school’s cafeteria, with food items representative of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. There was an abundance of meat, vegetables and rice. A bountiful feast! I learned that the Chinese not only enjoy eating, but believe that eating good food brings harmony and closeness to relationships. I also discovered that they place a great deal of importance on a food’s texture, flavor, color and aroma . . . I ate black moss seaweed and dried bean curd for the first time in my life.

The dessert table consisted of Chinese pastries, red bean soup, and tangerines. My taste buds did not like the soup. The baked goods were either overly sweet or bland and tasteless. The tangerines were quite sweet, and I was told that tangerines are considered to be a symbol of abundant happiness.

After the buffet, there was over two hours of continuous entertainment consisting of 17 separate parts or programs featuring Chinese music, song and dance. Most performers were young, and wore bright and colorful costumes . . . Red and yellow were the predominate colors. I especially enjoyed watching the Chinese dragon dance and the juggling act, and listening to the haunting sounds coming from large barrel-type drums.

There were about 300 people in attendance. The great majority were of Chinese extraction, and very little English was spoken . . . As a result, I definitely was an observer rather than a participant. I became acutely aware of everything around me . . .

Towards the end of the evening, I went outside of the auditorium to look at the various food and craft items that were available for purchase. After buying a few things, I strolled around for about 30 minutes.

I listened intently as a group of high school seniors talked about their hopes and dreams for the new year. There was a common thread. All were hoping to get accepted to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Some expressed concern that they might not get in because of the university’s continued reliance on subjective, non-academic criteria in their admissions policy. To compound this strange reality, historical data has shown that the university had turned away qualified “over-represented” Asians (to include the Chinese) to make room for “under-represented minorities.”

Happy Chinese New Year!

Grandpa was quite an unusual character in our working class neighborhood on Detroit’s West Side, just a few miles from the city’s central core. Ours was a lower middle class haven inhabited by white urban ethnics and blacks who’d migrated from the South. It was a hodgepodge of cultures, typical of most big cities in America, but there were no Jews. The Jewish people lived in their own ethnic enclaves and were basically an unknown quantity.

What made Mr. O’Brien (as the neighbors affectionately called him) different? Grandpa had a soft brogue that sounded laced with music. He wasn’t the usual “rough and tumble” sort of guy that lived in the area. He did not curse or drink. He was quite cultured even though his formal education consisted of only six years at a Christian Brothers school. He didn’t carry a lunch pail or work in a factory. He ate lunch from a brown paper bag and was plumber who carried a toolbox with great pride.

Grandpa also had a small, thriving vegetable garden in a well-worn city block with more concrete than grass. He walked five miles each day, so he knew more people than most in our rather insular community. When young thugs bothered him, he’d hit them with his sturdy wooden cane. He was a man of few words, but his actions spoke volumes. He rarely got mad or excited, except when he was listening to a Tigers game on the radio or watching a boxing match on the television.

Surprisingly enough, Grandpa’s daily treks through the bustling Detroit streets allowed him to speak to God. He could block out the sounds of the city as he walked, finding food and solace for his soul. Grandpa fully understood Henry David Thoreau’s words, “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” Detroit was just another big city to Grandpa, as his journey from Ireland to America had seen him living and working in Cardiff, London and Toronto.

Grandpa’s innate spirituality was at the very core of his being and made him very special. He was a man of intense prayer and deep inner peace. He lived a simple life, and he wasn’t the least bit enthralled with the things of this world. He was a gentle person, but strong in spirit. He taught us that the hectic pace of the world distracted us from God. He was a devout man. He lived and breathed the Good News.

Grandpa wasn’t tortured by feelings of regret, doubt or defiance. If he were alive today , he’d be the first to shrug his shoulders and laugh at the writings of the bitter and angry John Patrick Shanley. He would’ve quietly scolded Shanley for failing to recognize that institutions like the Catholic Church and the US Marines are made up of all types of people, both good and bad…

When Grandpa died at the ripe old age of 92, the streets of Detroit lost a weary but contented traveler… He died a happy man who’d led a full life.

In 1997, I journeyed with three of my six sisters to Ireland. It was our way of paying tribute to the land of our ancestors, and especially to Grandpa O’Brien.

We felt closest to our beloved grandfather when we visited Croagh Patrick in County Mayo. En route to Croagh Patrick, we visited Grandpa’s birthplace – Cork city in County Cork.

Cork is a lot like San Francisco, its sister city. It is an old port city with rolling hills and Victorian houses. The River Lee divides Cork into two sections, and as a result, an astounding array of bridges and quays form trails throughout the city.

Grandpa’s family home was located in a tough, impoverished part of Cork A dark and dreary neighborhood filled with people hardened by life. We were glad that Grandpa had escaped the mean streets of Cork.

Croagh Patrick is where we felt Grandpa’s ghost the most… It is where St. Patrick prayed, did penance and fasted for the people of Ireland. It’s a wondrous place! Croagh Patrick was known as Crochan Aigh, the mount of the eagle, before it became associated with St. Patrick. The legend is that St. Patrick retired to the summit of the mountain for contemplation, fasting, penance and prayer. He remained there alone for 40 days and nights, following the example of Jesus Christ and the great Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah.

As pilgrims, we climbed Croagh Patrick and followed St. Patrick’s footsteps. There are three levels to the peak or summit, which is called St. Patrick’s bed. As we made our journey, we felt humbled by God’s powerful presence and the awesome beauty of His creations.

When we came down the mountain, we crossed a small road and visited the National Famine Memorial of Ireland. It’s worth the stop, to see the sculpted coffin ship embedded with stark depictions of human skeletons.

On the plane back to America, four sisters discussed how their grandfather probably daydreamed of the land of his birth on his daily walks…

At the last minute, a decision was made to go to my place for a quick restroom stop. As fate would have it, I elected to check my answering machine. A friend, who I had met in 1995 on a religious pilgrimage, had left a message. She had decided that she did not want to be home alone for Christmas, so she figured that I would open my home to her. What an unexpected surprise! Her message simply stated that she was scheduled to arrive at 11:15 p.m. She left an arrival time and flight number, but no airline information.

I was frantic! My sisters said to act like I never received the message, but I knew that I could not do that. I frantically called the airport, trying to determine what airline had a flight leaving from Miami and arriving at Detroit Metro Airport at the designated time.

After some time, I discovered the essential information and then drove to the airport. I live about 35 miles from the airport. It was very cold and snowy night, and the airport was a zoo! The plane was delayed about a half-hour. My dear friend was so excited when she saw me. She had one grocery bag with her belongings in it. She was like a kid in a candy store. Seeing her reaction made me happy. She has bad legs, so the airline loaned me a wheelchair to get her my car. She was so tired and frail. I turned on a Christmas tape, and she slept most of the way to my place –about an hour’s journey because of the snow.

When we arrived, she asked me to turn on EWTN (Mother Angelica’s station), to turn on my tree lights, and to let her sleep in my living room. She was too fatigued to go upstairs to the room I had ready for her, so I fixed her up on my pullout sofa. She talked about 20 minutes, mainly about how happy she was to be spending Christmas with me. After I told her about my sister’s traditional Christmas gathering, she fell fast asleep.

When I went downstairs to wake her up for 10 a.m. mass, she was laying on her back with her eyes open. Her face and hands were cold. I called 911, and the fire truck came almost immediately. The firemen pronounced her dead, and told me that she had been dead about four hours. The police came. Then, the men from the morgue came and removed her body. It was an unbelievable experience! My dear friend had died during the night of cardiac arrest. She was 78 years young. Thank God she died in a nice warm home, and not at home by herself.

Be kind to one another!