Panepinto Jewelers
Ron Panepinto Karen Panepinto-Minarcik 702 Sansom St. • Phila., PA 19106 Tel: 215-923-1980 email: info@panepintojewelers.com www.PanepintoJewelers.com
Vol. Vol. VIIVIII No.No. 3 (Issue 22 (Issue 328)399)
Jim Stevenson 9371 ROOSEVELT BLVD. PHILA., PA 19114
215-698-7000 PhillyRecord.com
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JStevenson@ChapmanAutoGroup.com
The The Only Only Union Union Newspaper Newspaper Reporting Reporting South/Southwest South/Southwest Philly Philly The The Way Way It Deserves It Deserves
January May 28, 2015 16, 2014
St. Rita’s Rescue Rose
In Full Bloom
by Maria Merlino I remember when I was in kindergarten at Jenks School, a long time ago, before color TV. Mrs. Sherr would take us to Marconi Park. At the time, the playground had monkey bars and a sandbox. We thought it was a lot of fun to bury the teacher’s purse in the sand. She would say “Oh! Where is my pocketbook?” and we would look around and finally a kid would dig it up and she would open it and sand would fall out everywhere. I realize now that it was a decoy purse because there were never any contents in it. But it was a lot of fun! It was also a simpler time. Walking back to school at 13th & Porter Streets, we had to pass by an old house with a beautiful rosebush outside. Our outings were in May and that’s when the roses were in bloom, pink ones with a perfume scent. The roses did not want to get picked because the stems came with some mighty thorns and would leave you bloody if you tried. Now fast forward to 2004. I’ve been living in the neighborhood for a few years. The old house has been aban-
St. Maron’s Church Lebanese Festival Pg. 17
doned but the roses bloomed every year and I would visit them when I saw them. They are my equivalent to Proust’s madeleines. I was horrified one afternoon when I saw a contractor working on the outside of the house and breaking up the concrete. I just knew that rosebush didn’t stand a chance, so in the middle of the night I grabbed my Cutco shears and took a few cuttings. I had absolutely no experience with propagating roses, but I remember my grandmother put a cut cane in the dirt under a Mason jar and a plant grew from that. That’s just what I did. And the next spring, I was jumping for joy when I saw one long cane sprouting out of the
soil. And there were two buds on it! I was totally relieved because the contractor had indeed pulled up the original bush and cemented over it. I had rescued the rose. It still lived in the same neighborhood, only now I was its caretaker. It’s been 10 years and now I get hundreds of buds and blooms. The thorns are still stiffly pointed and protective. Every year on May 22, the first rose blooms. May 22 is also the feast day of St. Rita of Cascia, the patron saint of impossible causes, sickness, wounds, marital problems, abuse and mothers. Rita was a medieval woman whose (Cont. Page 2)
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