Addicted to sports

In the 1840s, Karl Marx famously wrote that “religion is the opium of the masses.” That’s no longer true; now it’s sports and I’m addicted. I’m a Cleveland Indians, Browns, Cavaliers fan; I root for the Ohio State football team unless they’re playing my alma mater Notre Dame, and then I root for the Fighting Irish; I root for the U.S. in World Cup soccer; I root for Ukraine in the Euro Cup. No doubt most of you reading this have your own favorites – religious affiliation notwithstanding.

Octogenarians

As a volunteer at the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland, I often come across some curious items. Consider, for example, a 1950s membership application to join the “Organization of Elderly Ukrainians” in Detroit, Mich.; “eligibility beginning at age 40…”

A giant leap for mankind

Time flies and memory fails, but I remember precisely where I was 50 years ago on July 20 at 10:56 p.m. – in the sweltering attic above the kitchen and dining hall at the “Pysany Kamin” (Painted Rock) Ukrainian Plast Scout camp sitting in front of a TV, along with more than 200 campers – all of us on edge, waiting for live images from the moon, not knowing from minute to minute, second to second, whether the landing would end in success, failure or tragedy. And then, Neil Armstrong stepped out from the Eagle to proclaim a small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind, his grainy image sent back to Earth for us at PK and for billions around the world.

Reflecting

My wife, Chrystia, and I watched live television as the Notre Dame Cathedral burned.  I couldn’t help but cry.  For me and millions of others, the cathedral is special.  I was a college sophomore in 1966 when I disembarked with 39 classmates from a trans-Atlantic voyage on the SS United States, arriving in Paris soon after for lunch, awaiting another train to Innsbruck for a year abroad at the university there. 

“With rue my heart is laden for golden friends I had…”

Our family moved to Cleveland on Labor Day in 1954, my seventh birthday. A week later I was enrolled in a Ridna Shkola Saturday heritage class in a dismal upstairs room lighted by bare bulbs in a fading commercial building in the old Ukrainian neighborhood. It was all the immigrant community could afford, having come off the boat from DP camps four-five years before. 

Current yet eternal

After more than a decade of weekend liturgies at a transit garage in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood, Ss. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Parish opened its doors to an actual church in 1910 to serve immigrants who had come for jobs in the industrial valley just down the street and in businesses which sprouted within walking distance:  stores, restaurants, bakeries, saloons, agencies sending money to relatives in the village back home.  

On the struggle with Russia

In 1920, Lviv-based poet Stepan Charnetsky published a collection, “Сумні Ідем” (Sorrowfully We Go). Sorrow? Of course. The world had just emerged from “The Great War,” which claimed millions of lives. Everyone lost family and friends. Beginning almost by accident, the war engaged half a dozen European empires, four of which were gone by the Armistice on the Western Front in November 1918. 

“Lystopad” – November 1, 1918

November was the ninth month in the ancient Roman calendar, taking its name from the Latin, “novem,” the number nine. Ukrainians have a much more descriptive name: “Lystopad” – falling leaves, a month that has political/historical significance stemming from age-old aspirations for national self-determination. A thousand-plus years ago, Kyiv was the capital of a vast empire called Rus’. Three separate peoples – Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians – trace their origin to that era. Over the centuries, Rus’ glory faded in the wake of invasions, changing political rule and borders being moved.

A Ukrainian vacation in Brazil

How do I write about Brazil without it sounding like a grade school essay about my summer vacation? Well, I can’t because that’s where my wife and I traveled to visit our daughter in Apucarana in Parana State. 

Brazil always loomed large for me. Just a boy in the 1950s, I saw photos of our Uncle Genyo (Evhen) clad only in a loin cloth, surrounded by dark-skinned, naked people adorned by feathers and carrying spears. 

I’ve since learned more about Genyo. He was one of five brothers from Lviv who were scattered across four continents in the wake of World War II. My father, Alexander, and older brother, Yuriy, ended up in North America.