Faith & Family | Susan Hines-Brigger

Susan Hines-Brigger

Susan has worked at St. Anthony Messenger for 26 years and is an executive editor. She and her husband, Mark, are the proud parents of four kids—Maddie, Alex, Riley, and Kacey. Aside from her family, her loves are Disney, traveling, and sports.

Susan welcomes your comments and suggestions!

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End of an Era

In life there are so few things that are definite. So it’s nice when you are blessed with something that is. That’s what it was like working with Tom Greene, the illustrator for Pete and Repeat. Ever since I took over this column 20 years ago, I could always count on a phone call from Tom to discuss that month’s illustration.

Each month, I would painstakingly create the four-line poem that accompanied the cartoon. Writing those four lines—with a very distinct rhyme scheme created well before my time— often proved more challenging than writing my actual column. Eventually, the first part of the rhyme disappeared.

Sometimes the theme Tom came up with was associated with what I had written. Most times, though, he would suggest something that tied into a certain season, event, or holiday.

No matter what he chose, though, we always knew that he would come through. Over the years, he introduced us to Pete’s parents, his sister, numerous friends, and his dog, Scruffy. Those characters were based on Tom’s own family—his wife, Shirley, and their three kids—as well as friends. Shirley says the family would often discuss the drawings around the dinner table.

Based on Tom’s illustration, our art director would then make the subtle changes that have stumped readers for years. But it all

started with Tom’s hand-drawn and handpainted illustration, which he would drop off at our office every month. And to think that it all started with a tree. In the second grade, Tom received recognition for a pencil drawing of a tree that he created. From then on, he began to create art and seek to make it his life. Tom attended Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied stage design. He then attended the University of Cincinnati, where he met Shirley. The couple married in 1965. Tom thrived as a commercial artist, using his domestic life, wife, children, cats, and dogs as subjects for many illustrations. He became the art director for the department store Mabley & Carew, then served as an illustrator in many commercial art studios throughout Cincinnati. The last 17 years of his corporate career were spent teachTom Greene sits at his drawing desk, where he created more than 500 ing illustration Pete and Repeat cartoons for over 40 years. and design at the Art Institute of Cincinnati. Tom’s freelance work over the years has included partnerships with not only this magazine, but also Yankee Magazine, Focus on the Family, Standard Publishing, Campbell’s Soup, and many others. That is why, when Tom announced his retirement earlier this year, it hurt so much. Suddenly, we were going to be closing the chapter on a golden era—an era that has brought joy to so many over the years. All thanks to Tom Greene.

JANUARY 1974

AUGUST 2007 JUNE 1987

OCTOBER 2018

“I do this fi rst before reading anything!” “I’ve been enjoying this since I was a child (over 50 years ago).”

“I know it’s for kids (and I was fi rst introduced to it as a kid!), but I enjoy the brief mental challenge.”

“I tear this out and send to my prison pen pal.”

“I’m guessing it was designed for kids, but we’re all called to be kids at heart. And I like it as a way to keep me mentally sharp.”

When we recently asked our readers what they thought of Pete and Repeat, these are just some of the many responses we got. Their responses support what we’ve always known from our surveys—and our own feelings about the column. Pete is loved.

Pete has been around for a long time—since the late 1950s. According to the book Pete and Repeat: Can You Spot the Differences?, the editors of St. Anthony Messenger were inspired by a German Franciscan magazine whose title is lost from memory. The art originally came from that magazine. The editor at that time, Victor Drees, OFM, his assistant, Marie Frohmiller, and young assistant editor Mary Lynne Phillips came up with Pete’s English-language rhyme scheme—a new verse for each month, followed by a standard rhyming challenge. The task of seeing Pete from beginning to end has gone through a few hands—and a few changes, such as being produced digitally. Still, the basic format has remained—and will continue in our next issue with a different artist and some interesting changes. Stay tuned!

PETE&REPEAT

These scenes may seem alike to you, But there are changes in the two. So look and see if you can name Eight ways in which they’re not the same. (Answers below) (Answers below)

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Deacon Art Miller

Deacon Art Miller was ordained in the Archdiocese of Hartford in 2004. He was arrested during the summer of 1963 as he sat in peaceful protest over segregation. He was 10 years old when his schoolmate Emmett Till, 14, was murdered in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman—an incident that energized the nascent civil rights movement. His book, The Journey to Chatham (AuthorHouse), details the events seen through the eyes of Till’s friends.

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Daddy’s Home

An old tune by Shep and the Limelites brought me back to my teenage years as I pulled into my driveway. I sat and listened to the soulful verses: “You’re my love, you’re my angel, you’re the girl of my dreams. I’d like to thank you for waiting patiently. Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home to stay.” I sat for a moment with my eyes closed, captured by the music.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon in the summertime; a long and much-needed weekend welcomed me. I gathered my papers and briefcase while humming the tune “Daddy’s Home.” I walked into the warm home that my wife, Sandy, and I had built just a few years earlier. We were a young family: three children, a dog named Snoopy, and nice neighbors in a neighborhood that we adored.

As I entered, I heard Sandy at the kitchen sink creating something special for dinner. After my hearty hello, she smiled. Looking over her shoulder, with a noticeable exhale, she said, “I don’t like hitting you with this when you just get home, but your daughter tore up that old baseball card of yours. The one your father gave you.” Alarm bells went off.

“She’s upstairs in her room,” Sandy added. “Please don’t overwhelm her.”

The idea of a restful summer evening shriveled into dust as my anger blossomed. I felt an uneasiness in my stomach, as if someone had just punched me. The great joy I felt when I walked into the house instantly became great anger. I was furious, disappointed, and frustrated. It wasn’t just some old baseball card that my daughter, Nikki, had torn up. It was a Jackie Robinson baseball card. My father and I didn’t have a great relationship when I was young. One of the few topics we were able to talk about was the old Negro League baseball and the great players who never got a chance to play in the majors.

I was angry.

FATHER AND CHILD

That anger was fueled by more than just the destruction of a baseball card; it was that my daughter destroyed something I specifically told her to never touch. In some deep and hidden place, I was also reminded of the troubled relationship I had with my father. I

stormed up the stairs. With each thunderous step, I drew closer and closer to Nikki’s room. When I got there, I could hear her muffled sobs through the closed door. She was afraid because Daddy was home, and he was angry.

I opened her bedroom door. I heard Nikki’s sobs and watched the blankets that covered her move up and down with each breath. She was afraid. Undeterred, I crossed her bedroom and threw the blankets off of her. I looked down at my little girl. Her eyes, once a beautiful brown, were swollen and red from crying.

“Daddy, I’m so very sorry. I didn’t mean it.” Through hiccups and tears, Nikki’s voice pleaded with me to not yell at her.

I looked down at my little 8-yearold girl. I was struck by a love that brought me back to the many moments when I needed forgiveness—the times my thoughtlessness brought about hurt and harm. My heart melted, and my anger and disappointment evaporated. I swept my daughter up in my arms. I held her close as her tears dampened the collar of my shirt. I could feel her frightened body shake against my chest. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”

I spoke the words that crashed against my anger with a force that was irrefutably the love of God: “Darling, don’t you know that there is nothing you can do that can stop me from loving you?”

Her little arms encircled my neck. Her sobs eased. A silence extinguished any words of lingering anger I might have said. Father and child were in an embrace of forgiveness and love.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

Many years have passed since I held my little girl on that Friday evening. There have been soccer games, graduations, marriages, and children born. There have been moments of great anger. There have also been moments of deep joy, love, grace, and blessings.

No matter the time and space, I am a father who has learned that the most precious thing I could possibly own is not a thing. It is that remarkable moment when I came to realize what St. Paul said in his first letter: There is nothing that can overcome love.

Love has a twin. It’s called forgiveness.

A SPIRIT UNBOUND

Lord, give me the grace

to uncover and unbind my spirit,

whose very essence relies on your love.

When facing earthly storms, grant that

I do not miss the intricate patterns that comprise your boundless creation.

Give me grace that I might stop and dwell in your presence.

Amen.

PRAYERFUL TIPS QUESTIONING THE RULES 1There will always be moments when we are overtaken by affronts to our authority, our dignity, our status, or our station. All of this is a part of our cultural bindings. Like the Pharisees of old, we concern ourselves more about the rules than the love that might have created the rules. We forget that when love is lost, corruption takes its place.

2Consider the times when you might have defended a rule without embracing the love that underpinned the rule. Or worse—when you did not question why the rule existed but followed it blindly.

Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink in the wild air.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson