| St
Mark's Episcopal Church - Coleman, Texas
From Bishop Bill and Jenny Brockie's Diary (On February 4, 2001, a retired Bishop of Edinburgh, Scotland, Bill Brockie and his wife, Jenny, came to visit St. Mark's. Bill and Jenny have sent emails back since leaving, letting us know of their progess. Following are emails I have received.)
Subject:
Bulletin from Texas
This bulletin could take as long to write as it took to do. We wasted time before Christmas having colds but were fine again for a lovely time in the Wolcott snow which is still there while we're cycling around in t shirts and shorts in the 70s here in Texas. Jenny enjoyed joining in the All Saints choir's Messiah excerpts, but finds she can't sightread the tenor line up an octave as a descant which is par for the course as a member of that choir! With Anne and her tribe we all went by train to New York, and then by subway and ferry to the Statue of Liberty, on a stunningly beautiful, sunny, freezing cold day, and we all stayed up to see in the 21st Century. Nick and Yvette joined us for the Ruby Wedding celebration meal and a wonderful day at Mystic Seaport, scrambling over old sailing ships in the ice. Igloo building, tobogganing, strawberries dipped in chocolate, singing/dancing Mr and Mrs Santas, lit-up reindeer on house roofs, snow-ploughs roaring around. Marvelous all to be together and somewhat improbable that it should be in Connecticut USA. A wealth of memories: Calum absorbing every detail of the 3 Arthur Ransome stories Bill read him by the hour, Mollie writing her great stories, Iona playing Amazing Grace in church and Ode to Joy with the Waterbury Youth Syumphony Debut Orchestra, Caitlin determinedly hunting down the special American beany baby bear she so much prized for her collection, and Matthew determined to learn all about baseball and take the sport to Scotland. Then off to San Antonio, Texas, which was cold and wet on our arrival and got warmer and warmer. Cycling was fine on the quiet back roads of the City grid system, and lovely on the Mission Trail: Franciscans and Spanish soldiers had dragooned the local tribes into being good Spanish Christians (cf Robert Bolt's 'Mission'). The locals then helped guard the place and were taught to ride, becoming the first cowboys....Now the little chapels are lovingly used by their mixed race descendants. Saw the Alamo and Davy Crockett's grave. Enjoyed the River Walk, a loop of water through the middle of town and very pretty, the Institute of Texas Cultures - not an oxymoron but a fascinating history of the peoples of the state, a wonderful piano recital by William Wellborn, soon to be leading a 'Chopin in Europe' party including Edinburgh: strongly recommended as he is great (and a nephew of the Brattons of Heavenly Rest, Abilene). We stayed in the Hostelling International, a beautiful mixture of a standard hostel building and a stately colonial mansion run by a delightful group of people and supposed to have the ghost of Geronimo. Down the road, the Episcopal church of St Paul welcomed us on the Sunday. We had coffee with Henry Hare, at Keble in 1960 and a great friend of Roy Lee and family, while the Rector, Doug Earle, is a friend of Philip and Alison Newall of St Giles in Edinburgh, and a guy whose grandmother had emigrated from Dalry, Edinburgh! Small world. Next day, 22 January, bikes on Greyhound Bus to Marble Falls, on the edge of the Texas Hill Country, and breakfast in the Blue Bonnet Cafe. From Monday to Saturday we cycled north through rolling hills, red earth, mesquite and juniper trees, prickly pears, lots of people who stopped and chatted, little village stores that had coffee on the go, and more chat and sometimes a blt. We met armadillos (live not squashed), ostriches, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, llamas, Texas longhorns, goats galore, a roadrunner, buffalos, and reached Albany, pop 1962, cycling on Farm, Ranch and dirt roads, all with very little or no traffic. We stopped at 2 delightful b&bs and three comfy, clean little motels (names and addresses supplied happily if anyone needs them!) In Comanche, Bill bought a bolo and Jenny resisted buying cowboy boots at $500 in the sale! The Friday was shirts and shorts, then on Saturday icicles formed and hung from the road signs as we cycled in the freezing rain into Albany where we met ranchers with Princeton degrees. This is an amazing town of people who have a tradition of valuing their history, their ecology and the widest possible interest in the arts. We sat in on a rehearsal of a Texan re-write of 12 Angry Men making it inclusive, spent far too little time in the Old Jail, now the art gallery, (ancient Chinese and modern American and a lot in between), were taken by the local judge through and onto the roof of the courthouse, undergoing fine restoration, admired Arab and American Quarter Horse stallions on a working ranch, saw a publishing house involved in a major book on world hunger, stayed in a guest house which we discovered in Texas means a separate house in the grounds of your host for his guests, full of beautiful pictures as the garden was of sculptures, and very comfortable. Wonderful meals there and at the local gourmet restaurant in the remains of Fort Griffin (vide any cowboy film you have ever seen). All the men do wear the beautiful hats and boots and the women dress beautifully. The reason for being in Albany was for Bill to preach and preside in the charming little Episcopal church and we enjoyed their hospitality. On 30 January we struggled against the wind past nodding donkey oil-wells and cattle, through the prairie to Abilene where we were thrilled to see the tower of Heavenly Rest Episcopal Church in all its gothic glory, so familiar from the apron design, having cycled nearly 300 miles since Marble Falls! And the rest was heavenly with cookies and coffee. We were soon comfortably installed by Conrad in the Buffalo Gap b&b, a charming little cabin, all antiques and bric-a-brac, past which the buffalo herds used to run and now the Santa Fe railroad still runs, 14m south of Abilene with a great historic village museum. Since then, based at another charming guesthouse in Abilene itself, we have eaten several beef cattle and sampled Mexican food in restaurants that no ordinary tourist would discover. We have sat in the cockpit of a Hercules transport aircraft and a B1 bomber at Dyess Air Force Base, been with the Junior Handbell Choir of the Heavenly Rest to St Mark’s, Coleman, where Bill presided and preached and just missed a Burns Supper. The priest is a much-loved, local school teacher, ordained under Canon IX (non-stipendiary and only for that parish). That was another fine pot-luck!. It has been wonderful to share with little Texas congregations. We cycled out of Abilene to the ruins of Fort Phantom Hill and round the nearby lake, and enjoyed the inevitable local store/petrol station/café with chat. Bill was very happy to go to St John’s Episcopal Primary School in Abilene for their school assembly and hopes to set up an email link with one of the Edinburgh schools he so much enjoyed. In Abilene wherever we go we meet members of Heavenly Rest which seems to run the community! We went to a local candy factory, enjoyed the Grace Museum, a restored 1900s railway hotel, with children’s hands on museum, local history and changing exhibitions all under one roof, currently Rodin maquettes, Constance Hunter primitives, Termes’ spheres, and Benini paintings. Our hosts here were dining Benini and his wife and we were invited to join them – a great evening which finished up in the church, showing it off, beautifully floodlit on a balmy evening. Jenny has enjoyed a superb performance of the Messaien Quartet for the end of Time, and had her hands on a troubadour harp, playing duets with the Heavenly Rest harpist. We both enjoyed ‘Let My People Go’, a concert as part of an Afro-American Heritage programme in the First Baptist Church, a huge Spanish-style (TexMex) basilica. This Sunday Bill will preach at the Heavenly Rest, three times!, and during the week we'll go to the Episcopal Church Women's Lunch, and Just People, a programme for young people, and visit old friends who came to Edinburgh in 1981. Then we go to the Panhandle to see a canyon and on to Houston to baptise Katy Lebman Brown and to Chicago to meet up with Margaret Neale, a school-friend of Jenny's who just happens to be on a visit to her son there. Wait for the next instalment from Cincinnatti. Love from Jenny and Bill PS This bald and unconvincing narrative barely represents the joy and fun we are having here. We pinch ourselves, saying is this really happening to us.
Subject:
Bye-bye Texas
Here we are in Cincinnati with a temperature of 32o and a couple of flurries of snow. Three weeks ago we had a wonderful time cycling in the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle: incredible colours and contours, and an ice-storm on the way back to Abilene. Last week the weather was over 80 degrees. Our final 10 days were in Houston with the Browns and Lebmans. We brought up our mileage in Texas to 688 by cycling to Galveston on the Gulf of Mexico, and exploring 50 miles of sand-dune, ferries to Bolivar, the bridge over the San Luis Pass, houses on stilts waiting for the next hurricane. With the Browns we met alligators and the Chinese Warriors (Texas style), and ate Cajun food. Katy Lebman is now safely baptized and Texas maintains its reputation for friendship and hospitality. We came here via Chicago where we stayed with the family of Jenny’s schoolfriend, Margaret Neale who also happened to be visiting. We were downtown in a beautiful house with a stunning view from its roof garden of the Chicago city sky, travelled on the Wabash Loop, and sorted out a glitch in our programme and finalized our plans for the rest of the trip round the world. We are here until Easter, living in at Appt 501,
One Lytle Place, 621 Mehring Way, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202, tel 513 621 1602.
This is on the edge of the Ohio River, 5 walk from Christchurch Cathedral
where we have already met with a very warm welcome and lots of interesting
things are planned.
Then we hope to get home to Scotland by a mixture of bike, train and bus. August and September, we are hoping to see Geneva, Rome, Bezier, Courniou, Pierrefitte/Saudre. Once back in UK, perhaps at the beginning of October, we MAY try and cycle home, but our legs may give out or the weather be too cold! Love from Jenny and Bill
Subject:
Bulletin from Cincinnati
This was meant to be a short letter! As we leave Cincinnati, we are just wondering what the next stage of travel with the bikes is going to bring. Some of the hazards have been a mini van cab with a fixed plastic divider that reduced space awkwardly, inaccurate advice on what terminal to go to for info, awkward transits and no good transport off the airport, nor a cycle route. Or we could find, like San Antonio, a cheap, efficient minibus with a wheelchair space ideal for bikes, and door to door service, or more like Glasgow and Auckland Airports with their cycle routes. We hugely enjoyed a surprise addition to the itinerary – Chicago, and the home of Roger and Monica Neale, and their children, Arpad and Ilona. Jenny’s schoolfriend, Margaret Neale, with son, Tim, and grandson, Jack, were visiting son No 2, Roger and family just at the time we were due to pass through. We only had a glimpse of the city but traveled the Wabash loop, heard about the shore and park and zoo, and were bowled over by the downtown city skyline viewed from their beautiful town house roof – just like the first backdrop for Guys and Dolls, only more so! Now we feel so settled in Cincinnati we can’t imagine uprooting ourselves from the comforts of our downtown flat by the river Ohio and the car so generously provided for us. This is a very attractive city which makes the recent outbreak of violence even more tragic. There is an execution of a black schizophrenic man tonight. Motorways cut strait through the city, right by our block, but we can hop on a bike and go over a peaceful bridge to Kentucky on the south shore of the river to do the shopping. As easily we can walk 5” to the Taft Museum, a beautiful house full of fine furniture and pictures plus special exhibitions, and on to Christchurch Cathedral where Bill has done a bit of preaching, leading the Lent Bible study on Sundays, taking midweek services, and being on duty for 3 days to let the team have time away together. It has been a totally new experience for him to be part of a large team, multi-racial and both sexes, with a large office complex plus staff, backed of course by a huge number of lay people as welcomers, readers, volunteers for any number of things. ‘Plumbline’ is one resource for practical help for the homeless, the library is a marvelous asset, there’s a gym on the top floor, and plans for modernizing the 2 flats to house people who need to be with sick children attending the hospitals from out of town. Then there’s the music. Easter Day with a brass ensemble for the noisy bits and strings to accompany the Mozart Gloria and Sanctus, as well as the splendid organ, was celebration with a capital C. Jenny has had the great good fortune to sing with this ‘serious’ choir, immersed one moment in Gibbons Mag and Nunc, the next in a most beautiful Malcolm Archer Requiem, which is both scrunchy and tuneful. A wonderful Lenten diet that also included Margaret Guenther on prayer, mid-week bible study attended by local city workers and congregation, with lunch, at which Bill met his match and more in Lorentho Wooden, both verbally and in the matter of hats: the sin of covetousness was only avoided when Margaret and Lo, who were neighbours of ours across Lytle Park, now full of tulips and blossom trees, came to supper with a yarmulke for Bill! Jenny was taken to Hebrew Union College for a memorial service with music by Bonia Shur performed by the students of the Conservatoire here, went to a Friday morning concert of Cincinnati Symphony and a lunch-time recital in the chapel here, all very good indeed. The most amazing thing is that she has been to the ballet 3 times! What a treat! Cincinnati Ballet did a Balanchine, a set of dances to Paul Simon’s Graceland, and another to the accompaniment of the orchestra and a gospel choir with a fiery lead singer. Then there was the Harlem Dance Theatre which is very gracefully athletic but does not travel with an orchestra: piped music just isn’t the same. Finally, a marvelously funny Coppelia was an ideal first ballet for granddaughter, Iona. For theatre we have seen ‘Art’, plus a discussion of it afterwards with the actors and director which was fun – especially when it came to singing the silences in the anthem the following Sunday! Bill enjoyed ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’ and Jenny got to a two-man ‘Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe’ and had fun helping people to their seats, just like the old days at work! For cycling we have done 4 sections of the beautiful Little Miami River Trail, including walking up to Fort Ancient, a cross between a hilltop dun and Stonehenge, which was another piece of the Native American jigsaw that was fascinating to put in place. We have had excellent company on our rides, with Will Black and Ted Jaroscewicz, and the loan of a bike rack that fitted our car and bikes as if purpose-designed for trips to state parks and just to say we’d cycled in Indiana. We’ve woven our way through factories and rail yards east along the Ohio to Anderson’s Ferry, where you cross on little more than a baking tray with a tug hinged by the nose half way along the downriver side which then nudges the ferry across very neatly. Then we cycled back along the Kentucky side, found an excellent café, and home via the grocery shopping. Bill has done a trip round Lunken Airport, some hospital visiting and general pottering on the bike. We have been down with our old friends, the Diamonds, to the Old Kentucky Dinner Train, for a lunch on a vintage diesel. We had an overnight stay at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill: the peace of the place is tangible. We saw the old Shaker crafts still being carried on by volunteers and saw round the family house (all that lovely furniture and general inventiveness), heard a talk on the theology and another demonstration of the song and dance, after which we went to see the attic above where the beams are so arranged as to give a lovely big, clear space below in the meeting room. It was so sad to lose that ‘true simplicity’ in the hurly burly of the traffic home. Bill has been shown the delights of local trainspotting and introduced to Tower A in the magnificent Union Terminal, the last Cathedral of the Railroad Stations in US built in 1930s. The tower, now a railway clubhouse, is the former control tower with a wonderful view of the still busy shunting years, though the passenger traffic is almost gone. Jenny had a wonderful early spring walk in the Cincinnati Nature Conservancy park. Weather has varied from 29oF at night to a sudden 86o and today back to 35o with a skim of snow! We should be spherical with the amount of good food we have eaten, thanks to the hospitality of so many people here, from pub crawls for Bill, to lovely homes and country club. I even got to a book club lunch discussing Rohanton Mistri’s ‘Fine Balance’, an awesome preparation for visiting Bombay. On the family side, we have had the sadness of Cousin Elinor Thomson’s death: it’s difficult to imagine family gatherings without her there. She has been such an encouraging part of our life in Scotland. Then last week was a whirlwind visit from Justin, Mishy, Iona and Calum. We drove east to Hocking Hills State Park in Eastern Ohio, and they met us there after a drive of 680 miles! We explored a wonderful gorge and caves, and managed to get back to Cincinnati in time to take them up Tower A, qv. Then, punctuated by regular visits to the swimming pool in the basement of the apartment block, they found themselves waving banners at the Palm Sunday service, Iona and Mishy came to ‘Coppelia’, we ate with Barbara and Jim Diamond and their dogs were pleased to meet our grandchildren, we spent all day at the museums in Union Terminal. Captain Wade, aka Will Black, told us all about the steam engine and life on and off his riverboat, the Queen of the West. We saw the mastodons and mammoths found locally, we went to the Imax film on caving, and had a happy time in the children’s museum till they threw us out: I’ve never seen so many smiling parents splashing themselves in the water play, fooling around with rubber balls and airstreams, and climbing about in a ‘jungle’! The children could get on free of interference! We went to Big Bone Lick State Park to see where the mammoths had been found, were threatened with thunder which cleared away when we went for cookies and ice-ream at the Leists in Kentucky, which included children driving mini-tractors and decorating leather key ring tags in Joe Leist’s saddle restoration workshop. We were taken by our very kind friend, Addison Lanier, to the zoo with its lovely trees and greenery, a miniature train and a spectacular demonstration of swimming by the polar bear, in a well-designed pool with a deep glass wall like the Edinburgh penguin pool. Then we went up the highest building in the city with spectacular views of the river, surrounding hills, downtown – and the police presence waiting for more trouble. The strip of Riverside Park outside the flat was ideal for rollerblading and catch, and then we walked to the historic suspension bridge, and over it for lunch on the oldest sternwheeler still afloat, though static. The river had risen considerably and some cars were now parked in it while huge logs floated by, as well as the usual traffic of vast barges and their tugs. Then we called in on Ernie Hoffman, the cathedral organist who gave Calum a grand tour of the 2 organs in the cathedral and chapel, encouraged him to play both and climb about in the pipes of the main one! What a treat! The family left at 4.30am (having cleared it with the police that they would not be in trouble with the curfew that only ended at 6am) for an overnight near the New York Mets baseball stadium and the Saturday open day, only to see their team beaten by the Cincinnati Reds! Now we’re almost ready for the road again, an suv loaded with the bikes to Chicago on 18 and flight to Los Angeles on 19 April. We’ll miss our city skyline at night and the people who are like old friends, much more than mere acquaintances of 6 weeks. It’s been wonderful to be around the Diamonds, whom we first met in ’76 when we did the exchange with them in the Twin Cities, seeing where they are and how they are, catching a welcome glimpse of Chris and feeling the loss of Jeff. We are more grateful than we can possibly say for all we have been given here. We’ll stop rather than finish and send you all our love and thanks for keeping in touch – Jenny and Bill Itinerary remains much the same. After that it is in the lap of the gods!
[Home Page of St. Mark's] [Photo Index Page of Brockie's Visit] [Events of St. Mark's] Copyright © 2001 - Ralph Terry Page updated 29 March 2001 |
