On August 3, 1977, we set out from Brussels to Ostend, Belgium, where I had spent the summers of 1964 and 1965. The beach coast of Flemish Belgium is like Ireland, very beautiful, but with few people on the beaches because the water is cold and the temperature is not that hot. Thus, I decided to simply travel along the beaches instead of going to them. The first town was Bredene, with a total population of 15,000. Most of their income comes from tourism in July through August, when the population doubles, since Bredene has Belgium’s only nude beach. Next up was De Haan with a population of 12,000, with many buildings in the belle epoque style, and an 18-hole golf course situated in its dunes, founded by King Leopold II in 1903. Its most famous resident was Albert Einstein, who lived there in 1933 after leaving Nazi Germany. Wenduine was another seaside resort with a population of 4,000. The first hotel was built there in 1888 and then in 1895. The character of this seaside resort changed in the late 1930s, from a fashionable seaside resort to become more of a holiday destination for wider sections of the population. In 1977, the year we were there, Wenduine was included in the merged municipality of De Haan. Blankenberge was another seaside city in West Flanders with a population around 20,000, a national and international seaside resort, attracting visitors from across northern Europe with its unique Belgium Pier, constructed in 1933. Historically, it had been a fishing town, but the French came to this seaside resort in the 18th century. By the end of the 19th century, the seawall was filled with luxury hotels and holiday villas as Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Habsburg Empire, regularly visited. With the increasing prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s, mass tourism also made its appearance in Blankenberge. The tenor Enrico Caruso gave a performance here in 1910. Many films have used Blankenberge as a background. Today, the World’s Largest Sand Sculpture Festival, takes place on the beach in June. The next town, Zeebrugge, with a 4,000 population, means “Bruges-on-the Sea,” as it serves as the modern port for Bruges, along with a seafront resort with hotels, cafes, a marina, and a beach. Due to its central location on the Belgian coast, a short distance to Great Britain, and close vicinity to densely populated industrialized cities, it became a crossroads for traffic from all directions. Aside from being a passenger terminal with ferries to the United Kingdom, the harbor serves as the central port for Europe’s automotive industry. In 1987, there was a ferry disaster that killed 193 people. We ate lunch in Knokke, another town in the province of West Flanders with about 15,000 people. Knokke is the most northeastern seaside resort on the Belgian coast, adjacent to the Dutch border. Knokke came into existence because of the construction of dikes that were to protect the area. Originally a vacation haven for the people of Brussels in the early 19th century, artists started to frequent the small hamlet to paint its beautiful vistas, as they formed a circle of artists in 1880. It gradually became a resort town with upscale clientele, restaurants, and shops. Nowadays Knokke is well known for its beaches and for the dike system to which it owes its origins, with a casino located on a seaside promenade. Knokke was immortalized in the Jacques Brel song, “Jacky (Le Chanson de Jacky).” What do you know about the Flemish eastern resort towns along the North Sea?
On to Louvain and Brussels
After our ski lift trip to the Citadel in Dinant, it was time to move on to the more familiar Louvain and Brussels. We stopped in Louvain. I showed Margaret where I lived and where I went to classes at the University of Louvain that is now called Lowen. The Flemish had taken the old part of the University and its buildings, while the French speaking Wallon section had built a new French University of Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve, which was expressly built to house the university. The original university dated back to 1425. Thus, the afternoon of our second day, we visited the old university town with its distinctive architecture for its library and city hall. Then, it was a short ride to Brussels to spend the night at the Residence Botanique, that still exists today. Before we had supper, we visited City Hall at the grand place in the middle of Brussels. Of course we went to see the Manneken Pis, a two-foot-tall bronze fountain sculpture in central Brussels, depicting a two-foot naked little boy urinating into the fountain’s basin, approximately a five-minute walk from the Grand Place of Brussels’ main square. This “Little Pissing Man’” was named in Dutch or Flemish as the Manneken Pis. There have been many attempts to steal this statue since it is very small with several legends behind the meaning of this Manneken Pis. We also walked around the Royal Gardens and the Botanical Gardens that were right beside our hotel. We had dinner at the Place du Marche. It had been a busy day. We were just two days into our journey. Perhaps, I had over planned. Joy would take naps in her car seat, every time we were driving. She seemed wide-eyed about everything. Margaret seemed interested in the stuff in Louvain. Did you ever hear of the Manneken Pis?
A night at Dinant, Belgium
We traveled east that August afternoon of 1977 to Dinant, Belgium, to spend the night at the Grand Hotel Des Postes, built in 1924, but it is now an apartment building, right on the Meuse River. Dinant is a city of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium, on the shores of Meuse River, in the Ardennes, about 56 miles south-east of Brussels and 12 miles north of the French border. Dinant has been enriched by the agricultural opportunities presented by the fertile land on the plateau that overlooks it. Another traditional source of wealth was provided by the limestone cliffs overlooking the town, which supported a high-end quarrying industry, producing black marble and bluestone. The name Dinant comes from the Celtic “Divo-Nanto,” meaning “Sacred or Divine Valley.” The first mention of Dinant as a settlement comes from the 7th century, when the Bishop of Tongeren, moved his principal residence from Maastricht to Dinant and founded the church of Saint Vincent. In 870, Charles the Bald gave part of Dinant to be administered by the Count of Namur, the other part by the Bishopric of Tongeren, which was by that time based in Liège. It became part of the Charlemagne route from Cologne to Paris. In the 11th century, the emperor Henry IV granted several rights over Dinant to the Bishop of Liège. The first stone bridge on the Meuse River dates from the end of the 11th century. Henri Pirenne (1862-1935), the famous Wallonia Belgium Medieval historian gained his doctorate in 1883 with a thesis on medieval Dinant. Dinant suffered destruction, famine, and epidemics, despite its neutrality in the 16th and 17th centuries wars between France and Spain. The whole Bishopric of Liège was ceded to France in 1795. Dinant suffered devastation again at the beginning of the First World War. In August, 1914, French and German troops fought for the town in the Battle of Dinant where a young Charles de Gaulle was wounded. Within a month, some five thousand Belgian and French civilians were killed by the Germans. The city’s landmark is the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame de Dinant. Another important fact is that Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), the inventor of the saxophone, lived on Sax Street in Dinant. He got a patent on his saxophone invention in 1846. He also invented the bass clarinet, the saxotromba, the saxhorn, and the saxtuba. There was a little museum at his house, but we did not go there. Instead, we went to the Citadel, a fortress, high above the Meuse River. A cable car from the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame to the top of the Citadel took us there. That is what we did the next morning, after spending a night at the rustic Grand Hotel, where we had dinner at the Hostellerie Thermidor. The current fort was built in 1815 on a site which was originally fortified in 1051 when the region was ruled by the Bishop of Liège. The citadel overlooks the city of Dinant and the strategic Meuse River which runs through the town. Have you ever been in a citadel that overlooks a river?
Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge
For the afternoon, we headed into Belgium to Bastogne, traveling across central Luxembourg. I had been here when I spent a summer in Spa, Belgium in 1963. Bastogne is a city of Wallonia located in the province of Luxembourg in the Ardennes, Belgium, about 7 miles from the Luxembourg border. Today it is the halfway point of the Liège–Bastogne–Liège classic bicycle race. There was a famous American battle that took place at Bastogne in World War II. The 19th century Belgium independence was very favorable to Bastogne. However, the German occupation during World War I and World War II took place. The big story there was about World War II. The American allies had liberated Bastogne on September 10, 1944. However, the Germans attacked it a few months later. Hitler’s plan was to regain control of the Ardennes, splitting the British from the American forces. This became the famous WW II Battle of the Bulge in the cold wintery December of 1944. A few days later, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe and the 101st Airborne Division along with elements of the 10th Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division, arrived to counter-attack, but after heavy fighting, they became surrounded within the town of Bastogne. On December 22, German emissaries asked for the Americans to surrender, to which the General answered tersely, “Nuts to you!” The next day the skies cleared, allowing Allied air forces to retaliate and drop much needed food, medicine, and weaponry to the ground forces. On December 26, the Third U.S. Army, under the command of General George Patton, arrived and broke the siege. The official end of the Battle of Bastogne occurred three weeks later, when all fighting in the area ceased. Thus, Bastogne was the end of the Liberty Road, the commemorative way that marks the path of liberating Allied forces. Today there is the 5-star shaped Mardasson Memorial Museum erected there in 1950 to commemorate the soldiers who fought and died in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 with the famous saying “Nuts to You”. The 101st Airborne Museum includes dioramas and more about the experiences of soldiers and civilians during the siege of the city during World War II. This was the first time that Margaret ran into the problem of having to pay to go to a washroom in the Mardasson Memorial. There was no Common Market “Euro” in 1977, so that I had Belgium Franc and Dutch Guilder coins for our trip. What do you know about the Battle of the Bulge?
Vianden Castle in Luxembourg
Our trip to Benelux countries was like old home week for me. I had spent 1962-1966, over ten years earlier, living in Belgium at Louvain, but traveling to Brussels, Spa, and Ostend a lot. This trip, I was going to hit all the places that I had heard of but not gone there. Thus, on August 1, 1977, Margaret, Joy, and I took off in our Green Volkswagen Polo to explore the Low Countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Our first stop of the day was not in Belgium, but in Luxembourg at the castle of Vianden. This was the first of many visits to old European castles. Vianden Castle was in the north of Luxembourg, one of the largest fortified castles west of the Rhine, dating from a fourth century Roman outpost. From the 10th century to the 14th century, the original castle with its Romanesque style was transformed into a medieval Gothic style castle. A Renaissance mansion was added in the 17th century, but thereafter the castle was allowed to fall into ruins. However, it has been fully restored and is open to visitors, as one the best castles to visit in Luxembourg. This Vianden castle was about 1,000 feet over the town of Vianden on the River Our. The original structure was built in 275 on a path of the Reims-Cologne Roman road. Historically, the first count of Vianden was mentioned in 1090. The decagonal Chapel floor plan dates from 1170. The counts of Vianden sought to rival the House of Luxembourg. During the 16th century, the castle was abandoned by the counts of Vianden. During the Second World War, in the Battle of Vianden which took place on November 19, 1944, the castle was ably defended against the Waffen-SS by members of the Luxembourg Resistance against the Nazi occupation, and proved to have some military value even under conditions of modern warfare. It was not until 1962 that consideration was again given to restoration, resulting in reconstruction of the Armory. When we were there, the restoration was still going on. Have you ever been to an old castle?
The start of our trip to Europe in 1977
I made all the arrangements for our trip to Bitburg at the Lincoln Mall Travel Agency on July 11, 1977. The round-trip tickets were $555.00 each for Margaret and I, with Joy at half price for $282.00, for a total of $1,392.00 for all three of us. We had three seats in row 14, B, C, and D on a direct flight LL 800 that left O’Hare Airport at 8:00 PM on a DC-8, with a stop in Reykjavik, Iceland. We were scheduled to arrive in Luxembourg Airport at 2 PM on July 29. Tom and Rosie Frost were going to meet us at the airport. Bitburg, the town, is in the south Eifel area of the Rhineland. Of course, the biggest local employer was the American Air Force Base in Bitburg. Tom and Rosie met us at the airport and brought us back to Bitburg AFB housing, where we met their two-and half year-old daughter Charity. Joy was happy to see another young girl about her age. We had dinner at the NCO club at Bitburg AFB. I was not as familiar with this club, since I had mostly had dinner at the Officer’s Club, since the NCO club was for non-commissioned officers. As a chaplain, I was always considered an officer, since all the chaplains start out as captains. The next day, I made the arrangements to rent a car, a green Volkswagen Polo. I took everyone to Trier, where I showed them the sights of my four years at the old Roman town of Trier along the Mosel River, which was about a half an hour away from the Air Force base. We saw the Roman museum, as well as the ruins of the old Roman Amphitheatre, the Roman basilica that had become a Christian church, the Roman baths, and of course the old Roman gate, the Porta Nigra. Besides that, there was the place where I lived on Maximin Platz, where I went to school at the University of Trier, and the Cathedral of Our Lady, as well as St. Matthias Church. We had dinner at Marco’s in Trier. On Sunday, we took it easy, went to Church, and played cards, as Rosie prepared a meal. Have you ever been to a military base?
Margaret and Joy get their first passports
Before you travel anywhere, you need to have your paperwork in order. We had traveled to Montreal and Canada in 1976, but we did not need a passport. We only had to show our driver’s license. Actually, that was a problem for me, but not in Canada. On one of my trips to Carteret to help my mom move out of Carteret, NJ, I flew to Newark, NJ, airport. When I went to rent the car there, they said that I could not rent a car because I had an expired New Jersey license. It was all my fault. I had to call my brother Jerry to give me a ride to Carteret. I really did not help my mother that much, since neither she or I could drive. Since I graduated from high school in 1957, the state of New Jersey always sent the renewal notices to my parents in Carteret, NJ, at their address, 6 Railroad Avenue. They would send the renewal to me to sign. Somehow, since my father died in 1972, my mother did not keep up on things. She may have assumed that I had gotten an Illinois license. In fact, I should have. That was the first thing I did when I returned to Chicago. Margaret had to pick me up at the airport. I quickly got my Illinois driver’s license. Back in those days, you did not need any ID to get on an airplane. As long as you had a ticket, you were good to go. This time in 1977, we were heading to Europe, where the Common Market was not as strong as it is today with the common currency of the Euro. However, Margaret, Joy, and I all needed passports. I had to get another passport since my passport had expired in 1971. Thus, I got another five-year passport that would expire on June 16, 1982, number H 1677244. The date of issue was June 17, 1977. What is more interesting is the passport number H 1677245 that was issued to Margaret Finnegan with the same issue date. However, Margaret’s passport includes her daughter Joy as they had their pictures taken together, since she was mentioned as a minor on her passport. Both passports only have two stamps, one on July 29 at Luxembourg airport, and one at Chicago on August 24. We did not have to have those yellow small pox vaccination statements that they used to require in the late 1950s and 1960s. When we traveled from one country to another, all we had to do was show our passports and they would wave us on. Thus, we had no stamps on our passports. All our paperwork was in order. We were ready to go. Do you have a passport?
Margaret’s sister Rosie was assigned to Bitburg AFB in Germany
Margaret’s sister Rosie, who was eleven years younger than Margaret, had joined the US Air Force, after she graduated from St. Mary’s HS in Dell Rapids, SD, as the valedictorian of her class of 1973. While in basic training, she met and married another Air Force person named Tom Frost. They had one daughter Charity Frost, who was born in 1975. Then they were both assigned to Bitburg AFB in Germany. I knew exactly where it was, since I had said Mass at Bitburg AFB some 7-10 years earlier. The housing unit at Trier, Germany, where I was the auxiliary chaplain had Air Force personnel that worked at Bitburg AFB. I asked Margaret if she wanted to go visit her sister. She said yes and I began to make plans. I knew the area very well from my four years in Trier. I was going to plan a car tour of Europe from our base in Bitburg. Our daughter Joy, who was three and a half would get to see Europe as a toddler. We were going to visit Rosie and Tom and then do some sight-seeing. The travel rates for Icelandic Air were still relatively cheap. We would have to stop in Reykjavik, Iceland, and land in Luxembourg. Margaret was excited to see her sister and go to Europe at the same time. She knew that I was familiar with a lot of the places there, so that it would not be a problem. I then planned the trip, telling her that we would stay at nice places every other night. On the other nights, we would stay in rustic local hotels. That was my downfall. The nice hotels were fine, but the rustic ones were sometimes a little bit too rustic. I planned to visit the Benelux countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland, plus Germany, Austria, and Paris. I have a real good scrapbook from this visit, so that there will a lot of details over the next few blogs. We left on July, 28, 1977, and returned on August 23, 1977. Have you ever gone on a tour of Europe?
The first Star Wars movie
George Lucas (1944-) released the first Star Wars on my birthday, May 25, 1977, but I have not watched any of them. I tried to watch them on TV but they never kept my interest. However, I do know that they have become an American and worldwide cultural phenomenon. Star Wars has become an epic space opera media franchise, with various films, television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and other themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe. Star Wars is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The original 1977 film, retroactively subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope, was followed by the sequels Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), forming the original Star Wars trilogy. Lucas later returned to the series to write and direct a prequel trilogy, consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). In 2012, Lucas sold his production company to Disney, relinquishing his ownership of the franchise. This led to a sequel trilogy, consisting of Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), and Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). All nine films, collectively referred to as the “Skywalker Saga,” were nominated for Academy Awards, with wins going to the first two releases. Together with the theatrical live action “anthology” films Rogue One (2016) and Solo (2018), the combined box office revenue of the films equated to over $10 billion, making Star Wars the third-highest-grossing film franchise of all time. The premise of these movies depicts the adventures of characters “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” across multiple fictional eras, in which humans and many species of aliens co-exist with robots. Space travel between planets is common due to lightspeed hyperspace technology. The planets range from wealthy, planet-wide cities to deserts scarcely populated by primitive tribes. Spacecraft range from small starfighters to large capital ships, such as the Star Destroyers, as well as space stations such as the moon-sized Death Stars. Telecommunication includes two-way audio and audiovisual screens, holographic projections, and hyperspace transmission. The universe of Star Wars is generally like the real universe but its laws of physics are less strict allowing for more imaginative stories. One result of that is a mystical power known as the Force which is described in the original film as “an energy field created by all living things that binds the galaxy together,” a kind of pantheistic god. Through training and meditation, those whom “the Force is strong with” exhibit various superpowers. This franchise is set against a backdrop of galactic conflict involving republics and empires, such as the evil Galactic Empire. The Jedi and Sith prefer the use of a weapon called the lightsaber, a blade of plasma that can cut through virtually any surface and deflect energy bolts. The combination of science fiction and fantasy elements makes Star Wars a very universal franchise, capable of telling stories of various genres. I know that the original Stark Wars made Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), and James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader) stars. In 1971, George Lucas wanted to film an adaptation of the “Flash Gordon” serial, but could not obtain the rights, so he began developing his own space opera. After directing American Graffiti (1973), he wrote a two-page synopsis, which 20th Century Fox decided to invest in. By 1974, he had expanded the story into the first draft of a screenplay. Fox expected the film would be of limited financial success, and so it was given a relatively low budget. Little did they know. Do you like Star Wars?
Mayor Michael Bilandic (1923-2002)
After the death of Mayor Michael J. Daley in December of 1976, Michael A. Bilandic, the councilman from the 11th ward, that Mayor Daley was from, became the new mayor from 1977-1979, as the 49th mayor of Chicago. Bilandic practiced law in Chicago for several years, after having graduated from the DePaul University Law School in 1951. After he was mayor, Bilandic served as chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court from 1994 to 1997. He had Croatian parents, who had immigrated to Chicago. He graduated from De La Salle High School in 1940, and joined the United States Marine Corps during World War II in 1943. He got his bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in 1947. Bilandic was elected an alderman in 1969. When Mayor Richard J. Daley died on December 20, 1976, the President Pro Tempore of the City Council, Wilson Frost, declared himself acting mayor. However, much of the city council disputed Frost’s claim. After nearly a week of closed-door negotiations, the city council selected Bilandic to serve as the acting mayor for approximately six months until a special election could be held to choose a mayor filling out the remaining two years in Mayor Daley’s term. However, Bilandic chose to run in 1977 and received a popular mandate to assume Daley’s mantle. He defeated five other Democratic candidates in the April 1977 primary election. On June 7, 1977, Bilandic was elected the mayor of Chicago in the general election. He took office on June 22, 1977. However popular he was at this time, his term as mayor would prove to be short and difficult. Bilandic had to face several labor disputes while in the mayor’s office and social unrest among the Chicago Puerto Rican community. Bilandic oversaw the creation of Chicago Fest, a food and music festival held on Navy Pier, as well as the first Chicago Marathon, in which he ran with a time of 4 hours. He also converted some area along the lakefront into running paths. Chicago’s Archbishop John Cardinal Cody married Bilandic to Chicago socialite Heather Morgan on June 1, 1977, and they had a son, Michael M. Bilandic Jr., in 1978. His downfall was the blizzard of 1979, and Jane Byrne who defeated him for mayor in 1979. Do you remember Mayor Bilandic?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 