I have tried not to talk too much about West Point for each decade, but it was a major part of our lives. We went to several games at the Academy each year as well as the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia. I also got invited to the annual Thayer Award ceremony in October, which was presented to people who did important things for our country.
Sally and I saw President Bush, Clare Booth Luce, Cyrus Vance, Walter Cronkite and several others. We got to go to the cocktail party and the parade. We would then dine with the Cadets and listen to the speech of the invited guest. We always had a few Cadets at our table for dinner, so that was a lot of fun.
In early 2000, we moved my step-mother Jo up to an assisted living place in Darien. The old neighborhood was getting dangerous. We tried to have her mail sent more than once. So near Christmas, I went to her post office that was near the Italian neighborhood of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. I went to pick up a package. The postal lady never looked at me and handed me a mail transfer form. She took my filled-in form and then said I had not filled it out properly.
I did not give her a forwarding address to Puerto Rico. I told her we were not going there. She then noticed I was not one of her usual patrons and smiled at me. It was OK that I was not moving to Puerto Rico. This information was already printed on a government form.
Last Trip to South Bend
Our last trip to Notre Dame was for a game against Army. Army was winning until the Irish booted a field goal in the last second.
Our accommodations were getting worse with every trip. This time, we were on the second floor of a motel. We lucked out since the second-floor water system would leak into the rooms downstairs. When asked, we said we didn’t know anything about it.
In 2000, there was another Consistory to make Cardinals, and I got an invite. This time, Sally went with my cousin Mary Stuart. They had a marvelous time.
We had three Cardinals from the New York metro area. One was Edward Egan, who had been our Bishop. And there was Avery Dulles, who taught me at Fordham. Over the years, we stayed in touch. The third Cardinal was Ted McCarrick, who was my friend at Xavier. We were on the debating team when we won the city championship. I won it the next year with John Countryman. Yeah, I know. I have a big mouth.
One of the stories that came out of this was about the Cardinal from Peru. I will tell you about that in the Trips chapter.
Antonin Scalia
In 2009, I was at the West Point annual dinner in New York at the Union League Club. The speaker was Antonin Scalia and I was asked to give a small introduction since I knew him from high school. The thrill of the evening was that I was seated with Buzz Aldrin. This happened since we were at the Academy at the same time, although we did not know each other. He was a Firstie and I was a Plebe. They try to seat you near people of your time at the Academy. He was great to talk to. We talked about many things and not about his Moon walk, which I am sure by now he was tired of talking about.
When I was a senior at Xavier, Scalia was freshman and I was his platoon officer. One day when I was in D.C., I looked him up and we renewed our acquaintance and we would have dinner at the Cosmos once or twice a year. His wife Maureen was a wonderful Irish lass. They had nine children.
When he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986, one of the first cases was of a man who was jailed for burning the Stars and Stripes on the steps of the Capitol. The vote was 5 to 4 that even though it was a bad thing to do, the man was exercising his right of free speech. Scalia was one of the 5. Maureen did not agree with him and was standing on the steps of their house with the Stars and Stripes on a pole that she was holding proudly in front of her stomach. Dinner was sparse that evening, I am told.
Friends in High Places
We had many important lawyers at Xavier when I was there. One of my friends was Timothy McGoughy, whose father was the first justice to put Communists in jail. Another close friend of mine was Ed Stanton. He rose to be on the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Then there was Charles Schaffer, who was a close friend. We both dated a pair of twins who lived on Park Avenue. We met them at a Marymount College tea dance. As a very new lawyer for the government, he was one of the group that put Jimmy Hoffa away.
Hoffa was the Al Capone of trucking in America. He was sent to the federal prison in Atlanta. This kind of a case could get you a pair of cement boots. Schaeffer's next case was the man who blew the whistle on Richard Nixon in the Watergate investigation. The CIA could have made him disappear.
This is just a few of friends I had at Xavier. John Countryman was an ambassador to Oman who got me a consulting job. Another, Ted McCarrick, became a Cardinal. Another one was Freddie Schumacher who was to inherit a big high-end fabric company at 41st Street and Fifth Avenue.