Community Mourns Dear Friend - Frank Sessa: 1947-2010

“You know, you do way too much of that,” Frank Sessa rebuked me, while we were chatting one day after he entered Hospice.

“Huh?” I asked, suddenly worried about what I might have done to provoke such a remark from my friend.

“Worry! You said you were worried. How does that help? Now cut that out!” he said in his crisp, authoritative way.

Sure enough, I’d been rattling on about some assignment I was working on and had mentioned a detail I’d been worrying about.

This friend never minced words. His comments were typically bold and incisive. So that particular piece of advice is among the most comforting memories I’ll always cherish.

Frank Sessa, 63, of Wyncote, chemist with multiple patents, tutor, guitarist, and 4^th Dan karate instructor, passed away on Saturday, December 18, at Keystone House Hospice after a gritty fight with carcinoid tumor disease of the liver.

“A technicality,” he might have said, while acknowledging that it was a pretty significant one. The scientist with a wry sense of humor, Sessa was employed as an applications specialist with FMC Corporation in Center City at the time of his death.

Frank Sessa was no shrinking violet. His principles were crucial to him, and if pressed, diplomacy less so.

Once in the 1980s, when walking with his wife through London’s Piccadilly Circus, Sessa noticed a gang of kids surrounding a few teen tourists from Germany. Things weren’t right, he sensed, and then realized he was observing a robbery. Recounting the episode, he told me he took off running after the thugs, “thinking ‘I hope someone else gets there first ‘cause that guy has a knife.’” Sessa did get there first, interrupting – but too late to prevent - the crime and calling attention to the need for help. “I was pissed off,” he said later about his split-second response to help strangers in need in a foreign land.

Born August 3, 1947 in Stamford, Connecticut, Sessa grew up in Bridgeport with his twin brother, Lewis, and older sisters Cathy (Hunyadi) and Cynthia (Pound). The non-shrinking violet began to bloom during his years at Trumbull High School, while working part-time at Terrace Pharmacy.

The teen loved sports, playing on whatever teams he could. Although he’d landed a spot on the school football team when he was a freshman, he was cut the next year. Devastated but determined, he tried out again his junior year, and was again disappointed.

“Perseverance,” Sessa later taught his chemistry tutees and students at Glenside Shotokan Karate Club. He tried again senior year and made the team. “After two games, I was the starter. I was both offense and defense. I was not going to be denied. I was like a crazy man,” he said.

By the time he reached Southern Connecticut State University, he was focused. Because he got A’s in his classes, he was offered jobs as biology and chemistry lab assistant. He received his B.S., graduating with department honors in chemistry, after completing the honors program in 1970. His Masters of Science in materials science (1973) followed from a fellowship program from the University of Connecticut.

He met Mary Lou at a dance when she was a freshman in college. They clicked, and after dating for four years, married in the same Connecticut church – Assumption Church Fairfield - which he later selected for his funeral Mass.

In sentimental moments, he called her a “jewel” and said, “I’d never want anyone else.”

He said that watching his daughter, Stephanie, grow into a young lady “has been a delight.” It was when Steph was a young girl that she rekindled her father’s love of music. He’d taken classical guitar lessons in college, and eventually linked up with fathers of her friends.

Mary Lou, a vocalist in bands during her own youth, joined the mature group, Mid-Life Crisis, which performed pro bono for neighborhood gatherings and nonprofit organizations in the region.

Sessa credited his brother for introducing him to karate. He was instrumental in bringing to scale the fledgling karate club at the University of Connecticut. Perhaps his favorite aspects of karate were the tenets it teaches about life. He liked the adage about getting knocked down seven times and getting up eight times. “Karate is about you. You conquering you,” he said.

Those were pieces of the philosophy that also guided his coaching of girls’ softball for six years – along with friends and neighbors Mary Ann Goss and Peg O’Rourke - for the Glenside Athletic Association.

Sessa came to Philadelphia in 1977 as a research scientist with Betz Laboratories, which is where he was involved with the work that earned the patents in corrosion and deposit control. He also worked for a number of years at Stonhard, Inc. prior to arriving at FMC.

Friends remember the many times Sessa would come to their aid – whether on house projects or in times of personal grief.

Our family recalls some years ago when he traveled down to Virginia for a weekend to guide my husband through re-flooring a room in our daughter’s home. There were countless additional examples.

With other friends, he shared their heartaches as his own.

Frank Sessa was very there for his family and friends. Fortunately, his healthy voice will remain strong in our ears and his life will remain vibrant in our hearts and memories.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Fox Chase Cancer Center (333 Cottman Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19111) or to Friends of Frank & Family (c/o 114 E. Waverly Rd., Wyncote, PA 19095).

More Fitness Locally

The hope apparently is that some 9000 folks in and around Abington, Jenkintown and Cheltenham will be drawn to greater fitness. Or maybe away from other gyms?

Without fanfare, the signs were up by December 6 announcing the opening of the new L.A. Fitness at the corner where Wharton Road meets the transition from Rices Mill to Highland, a blink away from Jenkintown Road’s intersection with Baeder Road. This is the ground of the old Williard building, and where residents later opposed development proposals for a supermarket.

An official grand opening is expected to take place sometime around December 15-18, according to Manager Jay Palermo, who comes to the Abington site from the corporation’s Allentown operations.

In the meantime, the gym is open on a modified schedule for preview. On the weekday morning of my visit, the class schedule and phone links to the Healthy Lifestyles program weren’t yet up or running. However, the pool hosted a couple of lap swimmers and the fresh equipment was getting a workout by a steady stream of about 35 bodies. A tiny sampling of those suggested the gym was drawing local L.A. Fitness members who’d been trekking out to the Fort Washington and were delighted to have a facility closer to their residences.

Rasheed Jenkins is Assistant Manager of the Training Department. Among other duties, he helps coordinate assessments to link members with personal trainers. He said he especially enjoys training because of “the response I get when people see themselves getting healthier. It’s great when they see themselves reaching their goals.”

Award-Winning Literary Novelty

“Adorable” isn’t quite the description most people would give to a 38-year-old man and prize-winning author of three books. But that appeared to be the consensus of an audience of about fifty listening to Peter Manseau discussing his novel, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter, recently at Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.

“I’m a bit of a novelty act on the Jewish book circuit,” said the son of a nun and a Catholic priest. Which would actually make him a novelty act on any sort of circuit. He says his stock also includes French Canadian and Irish ingredients. He’s personable and grins even more impishly in three dimensions than the photo on his book jackets would suggest.

His novel – the previous books were non-fiction – is many things, though essentially a love story. It’s also a tale of immigration - out of pre-1917 Russian pogroms and into early 20^th century sweatshops and automats of New York City. Perhaps the loudest theme is the role of Yiddish – or perhaps any at-risk language – in identity and community.

The tale is spun by two narrators, a Catholic youth and a Yiddish poet. The authentic voice of the former sometimes fools the reader into needing periodic reality checks, while the historical fantasy of the latter expertly marinates the main dish.

Manseau was invited to Elkins Park by Ellen Sklaroff, retired instructor at Arcadia and educator in Cheltenham School District. The avid reader had been scouting for books to recommend to her book group, and was funneled to him by Amazon, based on her previous affinity for Junot Diaz and Nathan Englander. Intrigued, she shot him an email. He replied.

Sklaroff’s book group promptly received an early save-the-date and get-the-book notice, along with a dinner invitation to greet the author at her home.

A relatively new member of the Board at Keneseth Israel who serves on their Adult Education and Library Committees, Sklaroff arranged Manseau’s speaking engagement there.

The author subsequently accepted a speaking session with graduate students and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania for earlier in the day. He resides in D.C. with his wife – an international trade attorney – and two young daughters. Manseau occasionally teaches journalism at Georgetown and occasionally takes time from his preferred commercial book life to work on his Ph.D. dissertation in religious studies.

“The novel stirred something in me,” said Sklaroff, who has also read Vows, Manseau’s biography of his parents. “We’re used to thinking of Jews as the outsiders. It’s remarkable to have such a knowledgeable outsider provide such learned perspective.”

Manseau spent a number of years working at the National Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts, where he thinks he was hired not because he’d graduated U Mass as a religion major, but rather because he could drive a diesel truck. “It was never a simple affair collecting Yiddish books from homes,” he explained. “A face would suddenly appear saying, ‘You look hungry. Sit, have some tea and kugel. My granddaughter will be here soon.’ ”

Manseau has studied Hebrew, Yiddish, Latin and Greek. He has read more Yiddish literature than most members of his audiences. When he speaks about tradition and transgression, he observes that the most effective transgressors are those whose actions are derived from and laden with tradition.

He also speaks about the transformative power of translation and the meaning and implications of the concept of bashert (destiny, fate).

Sklaroff was delighted, if a little surprised, that Manseau turned out to be so engaging and entertaining. “We’re lucky to have gotten him at this stage in his career. He has the capacity to become a very important person.”

No Need to Guess

Were you one of hundreds of voters November 2^nd who had no idea what in precinct they belonged?

Knowing this little detail could have saved you annoyance, embarrassment and time.

Here’s how.

You know when you show up at the polls, you sign in. Your name appears in the books of the precinct that includes the residence for which you’re registered.

The complication is that dozens of polling places host more than one precinct. You may walk into a large gymnasium, and wonder which set of tables and voting machines are yours (and why). What distinguishes them?

If you go to the wrong set of tables and books, they won’t have your name, and they may send you across the room to the other precinct.

Granted, not all voting tables have great signage announcing their precinct number. This should be improved. Sometimes they have nice maps to help you identify your residence, and this helps direct you to the correct tables and voting machines. Other times, you just try to remember which set of tables you went to at the last election, and return there.

Here’s how to avoid the guessing game. Your voter registration card has your voting precinct number on it. It’s generally part of two numbers, for example: 4-3, or something like that. The first number indicates your ward in your municipality; the second is your precinct.

If you’ve lost your card, you can get those numbers again by calling your county election board voter registration office (in Montgomery County: 610-278-3280) and asking.

Bottom line: You shouldn’t have to guess which set of tables contains the books with your name. Expect proper signage and know your precinct number.

Nothing Is Awesome!

A college class where students learn about NOTHING? Zero. Zip. Absence. And now they’re holding an exhibition, “A Lot of Nothing.”

Although that seems at first blush to be precisely the sort of fodder upon which certain politicians feast, Arcadia University Professor Peter Appelbaum patiently explains what it's all about. In the process, that seasoned educator makes this seasoned academician want to sign up for the course!

In addition to teaching, Professor Appelbaum also coordinates math education at Arcadia, coordinates the curriculum studies graduate program, and serves as director at large for the undergraduate curriculum steering committee.

Arcadia University has a relatively new set of undergraduate curriculum requirements, in which, among other things, students take two University Seminars (US) before graduating. These seminars are interdisciplinary and some expect students to integrate on- and off-campus learning. Small learning groups are taught and practice intellectual skills and processes through a variety of different subject contents.

For example, there’s a Spanish course that qualifies as a University Seminar in quantitative reasoning. How? Students read Latin American newspapers – in Spanish, of course – and analyze and discuss – also in Spanish - the statistics and implications associated with health, social policy and political news.

Appelbaum’s seminar qualifies as a US in visual literacy, in that students study visual communications. Students learn to analyze the concepts they’re studying and how these ideas are connected with visual representations.

Here’s where nothing comes in.

And this void is filled with new vocabulary and scholarly inspiration.

The formal name of the course is US 222 – Everything and Nothing: Visualizing Mathematics, Philosophy and Culture.

The subject of zero has a long and dignified history. A vacuum is a powerful concept in physics. And consider creation stories, says Appelbaum. Creating something from nothing? (Or at least creating something originally, before anything like it ever existed.)

Questions about creation, forever and infinity have been among the greatest in human history, Dr. Appelbaum notes. Creation stories are fundamental across cultures. The concept is truly awesome.

Then come questions about representing ideas and concepts visually – in written language, in art, in objects.

This takes us into worlds this blog can’t: into semiotics; of famed linguist Ferdinand de Saussure; of mathematician/philosopher Brian Rotman; of Zeno and zeno; of paradoxes and opposites as wholes.

But you can enter into this intellectual discussion without having to register for the course. At the entrance to the Landman Library at Arcadia this week, Appelbaum’s students have installed the first of three projects they’ll be working on this semester.

Go this week to see “interactive provocations” that students created to communicate their explorations of Nothing.

They’re accompanied by a looseleaf notebook of statements about their work. A statement by Professor Appelbaum also appears there, describing a presentation he will have this year at a professional conference. Some exhibits operate only at specified times because of the vulnerability of the technology. All are meant to be stimulating in an intellectual way.

There’s one that invites viewers to take a card from the bowl and add it to the installation on the table titled, “Creation.” There are already cards on the table surrounding the words, “Nothing Is.”

Another installation is called “Fingerprint Galaxy.” See what you think, and then read the student’s statement.

During my visit, I heard one viewer exclaim, “Geez, I wish I were taking this course!”

As did last year’s class, these students will use the commentary you write in the guestbook as part of their learning and discussions.

Don’t blow this off as ivory tower nonsense by an effete elite detached from the real world. Contemplate the questions posed by the students: Isn’t nothing something? Who says nothing is impossible? Is silence nothing, or something? Does our life start with nothing? End with nothing? What is infinity?

While you’re at it, ponder the symbolism of installing these exhibits the entryway to a library. And, as one student’s video urges, “Use your eyes to open your mind.”

[Contact Arcadia University: 215-572-2900; www.arcadia.edu]