When some great men pass little alarmism due - when some great men pass eternally they may be better at pushing up thorn bushes than daisies. I know a man now near his 85 year that is being laid down today near Concord as a Marine as well from Korean conflicts. He son did starting in the mid 1980s commence travels around the world with a suitcase of mine.
R.I.P. Bill Lee Sr. who raised his large family in Concord Massachusetts.
As per my “suitcase” that traveled the globe - the world as we know it - then enough without me to have quite thickened a passport of another to near a thickness of a good book - it did have my name on it though carried by another Lee.
I seem to recall in its first year of travels after my sister and her then just boyfriend found it in our family attic that it spent most of its first year on loan from me in Cairo. I seem to recall at least one story of my “suitcase” as told by my now brother in law who after his semester abroad with U.S. Embassy and so from before it became a medical device salesman’s “duffle” — I seem to remember that when of Cairo semester abroad and with a Nicholas Burns essentially his boss at Embassy by brother in law, now, was of hearing from such Nicholas Burns a thought of “suitcase envy”.
I am one of those few in America that can claim to have spent a week sailing around Cape Cod and the Islands of Cutty Hunk and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket as a “camper” aboard a 36 foot all wood Dauntless, in my early teens. For such “camping” there were instructions to pack in a “duffle” for better aboard stowage. For me that meant a trip to nearest Eastern Mountain Sports for a “duffle” and to me finding a royal blue nylon bag with I think 7 separate zippered sections (maybe just five) that was soft like a duffle but more like a suitcase when full. It also had a great shoulder strap. It was for such “camping” that I wrote “Hogan” on side of bag about EMS label.
By the time my “suitcase” was found in family attic years later I was myself also in college and also like my brother in law to studies in Modern Standard Arabic. I got my twelve credits from an Egyptian professor at Villanova University in the first year that VU had a Middle East Studies Department and an offering of such. My brother in law, now, took a semester away from Holy Cross College where my sisters were, both, to study in California before his “suitcase” borrowing request.
Yes, I have a suitcase that fit a “duffle” stipulation for Dauntless stowage when a teenager. Yes I have my suitcase back now and after it was so favored for so many years that when I saw it again after so many years and with its seams frayed I reclaimed it finally and took to some simple repairs to seams to restore it at least partly so far. I will have to make a new strap - I have the two inch nylon webbing but will be looking for new strap hardware casually for a while.
Yes it is remembered that the Nicholas Burns that was my sister’s boyfriend’s boss in that semester abroad in Cairo in the 80s was supposedly of “suitcase” envy for this Eastern Mountain Sports royal blue soft nylon “duffle” bag that could roll up when empty to about the size of one shoe - that had a Lee traveling with a bag suggesting he was a Hogan.
My brother in law comes from good stock - R.I.P. Mr. Bill Lee Sr. I see you maybe pushing up beautiful thorn bushes now more than just Holy daisies.
The 80s were not quite the days of today’s airport security alertness - but maybe those many places my “Hogan” bag passed with a Lee as an international salesman honoring his mother and his father, and at least my sister. Yes the Nicholas Burns of such story so remembered is the one I eventually met in DC before we both were to “get out of Dodge” of DC - he is the one then reportedly the highest ranking career bureaucrat - non-political appointee - in all of State - who is now teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Yes I did take twelve credits in Modern Standard Arabic in the school year of my Freshman year at Villanova University in the years of 1983-84. I did fulfill my language requirement so and respected such though with a decision not to study more of that particular region of the world and be more to being a generalist more fit to my BA in Economics and undeclared Philosophy minor and course about International Organizations and another “math” course in Pascal Computer Programming.
I hardly know where my suitcase has been to - I hardly know but a few places it got to so without me. I do know I stayed vigilant many years as it traveled without me yet with my name on its side. I used it just the other day to move a box of fly tying supplies and equipment I have since I shopped around DC for my first winter in DC back during Monica, Monica, Monica earlier days to then be a winter hobby for myself. I have yet to fly fish with any of the many ties I tied but by tying them then I did learn to relate better to my late grandfather Arthur M. Menadier - to my memories and his own stories of a life time spent with fly fishing one of his greatest of hobbies. (I started a Wikipedia article for Arthur Munroe Menadier years ago - I think most of it is still available.)
Rest in peace Mr. Bill Lee Sr.
My “duffle” near a “suitcase” is now closer to a sewing machine for next few minor restitchings - I don’t know when I will find the strap clips I hope to find or maybe if I might some day also recover the original parts that may have survived longer independently as of a great strap as the bag became so worn it stopped being fit for such Lee travels.
I would like to find a replacement EMS label for the side of this bag too - I have already recoated the fabric for water repelling.
I do have a suitcase that has traveled the world - my jphogan.org primary site is an international site now and yet I have been to no other countries other than my own but for a brief visit to Mexico in mid 70s and a couple trips into and about Canada.
I do know some days I have over a couple hundred visits from Russian “.ru” among other noted domain origination markings so twained with simple web stats that do not record individual users or addresses. I am pretty sure my suitcase must have been to Russia at least once as the son of the late Bill Lee Sr. traveled Hospitals of the world selling and servicing medical equipment accounts.
I was going to write about today’s politics and the economy and related to my current reading of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS but today seemed better and more proper for recollections of Mr. Bill Lee Sr. on this day that he is being laid to rest.
Hello Nicholas Burns, again, seems at least those currently near you professionally are visiting and reading my blogging about federalism and global affairs. I don’t know if you remember my “suitcase” - I have made it difficult as a blogger you could say for Condoleezza Rice to forget I installed new closet doors for her in months before 9/11 in her condo when she then was our nations National Security Adviser.
I may myself be thinking that to honor the late Mr. Bill Lee Sr. I might be to giving my brother in law a thorn bush.