First off, here are a couple of photos of the love of my life, my wife Alicia.
By the time she was in her teens, she had already developed into an outstanding singer. Growing up in the Trenton-Princeton, New Jersey area, she had many opportunities to use her voice and quickly demonstrated that she could handle most everything from Gospel to pops to opera. In music circles, her fellow African-American singers dubbed her their “white soul sister!”
Once the mile-long Walkway Over the Hudson, a former railroad bridge dating to the 1880s, opened in 2009, Marlin was anxious to walk it. So, before too long, we headed to Poughkeepsie, where the bridge actually runs right over the city. While there, we also visited the Roosevelt family estate in nearby Hyde Park. Of course, Alicia found a perfect spot to sit … right between Eleanor and Franklin!
Next, looking back to that same period a little over a decade ago and to Louisville, Kentucky … where Southern Gospel’s biggest annual week-long gathering, the National Quartet Convention, was held through 2013. After enLighten was added to the XM satellite service on Easter Sunday night in 2006, and it was evident we’d be a force in the genre, I began to lobby NQC management for permission to broadcast live for a few hours each evening from the large exhibit hall. They had no problem with us doing this, except I had made a condition that we be permitted to air a portion each evening of what was taking place in the performance hall. It took a couple of years before they finally agreed to the latter, but my next challenge was to get our management to approve funding for our costs. Finally getting the OK on both sides, we were off and running with what proved to be a great success.
One of the groups that performed there on the Main Stage and were very happy to come chat with us on the broadcast was Karen Peck and her New River partners. Here they are in 2011, with Karen in the middle talking with our host, Rodney Baucom. The group’s popularity continues to this day, with Karen being inducted into the Southern Gospel Hall of Fame along with yours truly in 2021.
Then, a year later, at our enLighten microphone, here’s Peg McKamey, the matriarch of the McKamey family group, who is now retired. Once I heard Peg sing “God On the Mountain,” it remained planted in my mind. Peg departed for her heavenly home in December 2023.
Also in 2012, the Southern Gospel Music Guild ( Membership – Southern Gospel Music Guild (sgmg.org) ) presented enLighten with their Les Beasley Impact Award.
Next, just up the hill from where I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is located the Polish Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, which looks like this.
I show you this because of a specific event that occurred there on September 9th, 1984 … when then-President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy visited the Shrine during its annual Polish-American Festival––a big event attracting tens of thousands over two weekends.
In commemoration of the Reagan visit, this sculpture was created and stands in the heart of the Czestochowa complex to this day.
Staying in Bucks County and heading about 20 miles south … is the location of the Garden of Reflection–– the official Pennsylvania Memorial to the Victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
It’s been described as “a thoughtful 9/11 memorial using trees, water & a spiraling path to inspire quiet contemplation.”
Eighteen of the victims among the nearly 3,000 people who died in the terrorist attacks that day were residents of Bucks County, Pennsylvania … which lies along the Delaware River just north of Philadelphia.
The widow of one of those 18 played a significant role in spearheading the creation of the Garden … Ellen Saracini, whose late husband, Victor Saracini, was captain of United Flight 175, which was flown into the South Tower of New York City’s World Trade Center on that crystal blue, yet fateful morning of September 11, 2001!
With construction beginning less than a year earlier, the completed Garden was dedicated in September of 2006.
As usual, I solicit and desire to hear from you, to read your thoughts regarding any of what I’ve shared above. Or, what’s your story and/or collection of interesting photographs? Thank you.
