I will be visiting my birthplace and where I spent my childhood this weekend.

After a Friday, December 13 dinner at Say Boy Restaurant in Fairmont with my sister, Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, my daughter – a teacher in Aurora, Ohio at the quality level of Miss Turkovich of Monongah High fame – and her her husband and I will visit the pearl in a seashell Christmas street light that I purchased. It’s on Church Street, across from my childhood home, which is empty these days.

We should be standing under the pearl in a seashell, which represents Christ emerging from His tomb and the Resurrection, about 9 p.m. Friday.

On Saturday we will begin our Monongah visits with a stop at the home of the grande dame of Monongah, Amelia Shenasky Zentz, the cute blonde behind the counter who let me dip my hand into the candy corn bowl when I went to her parents’ P.P. Shenasky Store with my mother.

Monongah Councilman Susan Staron Sanders, the Thomas Street angel most responsible for the 26 Christmas street lights in Monongah, will join us at Amelia’s hangout.

The schedule (feel free to stop by and say “Hey!” anywhere along the way):

10 a.m. -- Visit Amelia Shenasky Zentz on Shenasky Lae.

11 a.m. – Visit Ann and Joe Eates, godparents of my son, John Larry, on Bridge Street.

Noon -- Visit Ramona Michalski, widow of Frank Michalski, my Sts. Peter and Paul playground defender when bullies made fun of my cleft palate speech, on Bridge Street Extension up the hill just outside Monongah's town limits.

1 p.m. -- Visit Miss Turkovich’s grave in Mount Calvary Cemetery. As everyone who reads this blog knows I credit Mary Turkovich and Sister Agnes at Sts. Peter and Paul School for helping catapult me into a joyous life and successful 42-year career as a newspaper editor.

2 p.m. -- Visit the mosaic of Sts. Peter and Paul that once was on the front of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School that I attended. It has been restored with tiles from Italy, where it was created originally, and attached to Holy Spirit Catholic Church.

Drive to Oglebay Park in Wheeling to see Festival of Lights before driving to Cambridge, Ohio for lodging. I've seen the Festival of Lights many times, but I hope a deer doesn't T-bone my car the way it did the last time that Paula and I were there. $3,200 damage and the deer scrambled away. The 2012 Honda Accord, however, limped home to Ohio for serious repairs to the both driver-side doors and driver-side rearview mirror!

 

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15

Visit my 4^th great-grandchild and her father, a pediatrician, in Columbus.