This week, we announce two summer projects to which we invite your participation.
First, it has been our custom to take the pulse of Tablet readers as to what they will be reading for the summer months. In spite of the onslaught of social media, people still do read books. We prove that each year when we take this survey.
We already have mailed out inquiries to a small segment of our readers. Now, we invite you to submit the titles and authors of the books you hope to read during the leisure months. The results will be printed in our special beginning-of-summer double edition on July 5.
Just as a reminder, The Tablet will not print an issue on July 12. So, we will add extra pages on July 5 as a way to welcome the summer.
Also, throughout the summer, we plan to celebrate in a special way the 50th anniversary of the World’s Fair that was held in Flushing Meadows from 1964 to 1965. We invite you to send us your photos from the World’s Fair. We especially are interested in photos from the Vatican Pavilion, kids in school uniforms on class trips and anything else that shows the presence of the Church at the Fair.
However, our photo spread will not be exclusively ecclesiastical. We want to see any pictures from the Fair, and we will print the most interesting among the crop. We urge you to send those shots to us by email because original photos will not be able to be returned because of the large volume expected. Send your submissions to ewilkinson@desalesmedia.org.
To entice you, we will offer some prizes. Everyone who has a photo printed will be entered into a drawing for original World’s Fair memorabilia that we have been collecting.
Earlier this spring, we went out to the fairgrounds and visited the site of the Vatican Pavilion, which is marked with a stone bench engraved with words that proclaim that Pope Paul VI visited the Fair on Oct. 4, 1965.We invited Father Frank Mann along, and he told us how he had a very personal encounter with the Holy Father on the evening of his visit. I’m holding back on the details because Father Mann has written a piece about that meeting, which will be printed as part of the remembrance of the World’s Fair.
We have commissioned other pieces as we remember the Fair. A sneak preview – one is by a former Cathedral Prep student (one of the first at Elmhurst) who recalls his summer job of being a Swiss Guard at the Vatican Pavilion. Best job he has ever had, he says.
The 1960s was a decade to remember. They do not want to go away. So many historic events took place. Among them was the World’s Fair and the first visit by a pope to our diocese.
Next week, I’ll tell you a little more about how we found all the memorabilia that is piling up here in my office. You won’t be surprised to learn that Father Mann was also in the middle of that.