Personal

Some information about the five years I spent zu Deutschland can be found in the Easter 1992 letter I wrote for friends and my cv. My high school, West Phila. Catholic, now located only one block from the original American Bandstand studio, maintains a website. West Catholic is one of only 266 schools to be included among the nation's "Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence."

In tribute to my fellow La Salle alumnus, the professional protocolist, James-Charles Noonan Jr.'s, The Church Visible: the ceremonial life and protocol of the Roman Catholic Church (Penguin/Viking, 1996), here is a photo of me taken at the archdiocesan Collegium Borromaeum, Freiburg im Breisgau. James-Charles would surely approve as appropriate my attire for a solemnly professed, non-ordained member of a mixed religious institute and resident alien mit gultiger Aufenthaltserlaubnis (selbständige Erwerbstätigkeit nicht gestattet)¹ attending a civic celebration (Fasnet², 1988) after sunset in the former "West" Germany: Narri! Narro!

Contents

Pax tecum!

Notes

¹ The words stamped on my Aufenthaltserlaubnis ("Permission to Linger") pasted in my U.S. passport mean "with valid residency permit (autonomous gainful employment forbidden)."

²Fastnet is Black Forest dialect for Fastnacht or Mardi Gras, the Vigil of Ash Wednesday. Freiburg's celebration is tamer, more "hausgemacht," honoring village traditions, unlike the larger, commercialized and televised urban extravaganzas in Palatinate Mainz (noted for its biting, political satire and the participation of Vicars General), Köln (polished), and Dortmund (energetic).

I asked my mature, Catholic hostess about proper attire for the numerous, municipal Fastnet activities. She assured me that Frack (tails) or Kostum (black tie) were universally appropriate in Freiburg. I wore some form or other of costume for three nights! -- much to the bemused chagrin of Herr Karl-Heinz B., my German colleague and microphotographer from the north. "Narro!" (rooted in the word for "fool") was the expected response to a reveler's cheery "Narri" in Freiburg. In Mainz both exchanged "Helau!" North of the Moselle, I think it's the same.

Brother Richard OSB