John Beagle

People ask me about the Ghinggis Khaan banner on my office wall.

That banner is a gift from Ankhaa and Dembee two little 16 year old boys who stayed in our home while they were performing at Middfest International, an annual festivity celebrating various countries in the world. Ankhaa and Dembee are from Mongolia and their talent was the Horsehead Fiddle.

Now I’m not famous, but I was adopted like millions of others.

It’s good to know I share the experience of being adopted by so many great people. It’s also good to know that abortion wasn’t always used so frequently as now. Adoption kept many important hearts beating. And I might add… to the benefit of society.

Here is a partial list of people who share a common adoption thread with me:

Art Linkletter – Linkletter was born Gordon Arthur Kelly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Happy Man (1960), he revealed that he had no contact with his natural parents or his sister or two brothers since he was abandoned when only a few weeks old. He was adopted by Mary (née Metzler) and Fulton John Linkletter, an evangelical preacher.

Dave Thomas – Dave Thomas was born on July 2, 1932 in Atlantic City, New Jersey to a young unmarried woman he never knew. He was adopted at 6 weeks by Rex and Auleva Thomas, and as an adult would become a well-known advocate for adoption, founding the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

Debbie Harry – Harry was born in Miami, Florida and adopted by Catherine Harry and Richard Smith, gift shop proprietors in Hawthorne, New Jersey.

Faith Hill – Hill was born in Ridgeland, Mississippi, north of Jackson, Mississippi. She was adopted as an infant, and named Audrey Faith Perry. She was raised in the nearby town of Star, 25 miles outside of Jackson, Mississippi. Her adoptive parents raised their two biological sons along with Hill in a devout Christian environment.

George Washington Carver – Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove, Newton County, near Crystal Place, now known as Diamond, Missouri, possibly in 1864 or 1865, though the exact date is not known. His master, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant who had purchased George’s parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700.

Jesus – Adopted by Joseph the carpenter, Jesus was miraculously conceived in his mother’s womb by the Holy Spirit, when his mother Mary was still a virgin.

Michael Reagan – He was born in Los Angeles, California, to Irene Flaugher, an unwed woman from Kentucky who became pregnant through an affair with an army corporal named John Bourgholtzer. He was adopted by Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman shortly after his birth.

Moses – in the Exodus account, the birth of Moses occurred at a time when an unnamed Egyptian Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born be killed by drowning in the river Nile. Jochebed, the wife of the Levite Amram, bore a son and kept him concealed for three months. When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed, she set him adrift on the Nile River in a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch. Moses’ sister Miriam observed the progress of the tiny boat until it reached a place where Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing with her handmaidens. It is said that she spotted the baby in the basket and had her handmaiden fetch it for her. Miriam came forward and asked Pharaoh’s daughter if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. Thereafter, Jochebed was employed as the child’s nurse. He grew up and was brought to Pharaoh’s daughter and became her son and a younger brother to the future Pharaoh of Egypt.

Nancy Reagan – Anne Frances Robbins was born on July 6, 1921 as the only child of car salesman Kenneth Seymour Robbins and his actress wife, Edith Luckett. In 1929, her mother married Loyal Davis, a prominent, politically conservative neurosurgeon who moved the family to Chicago. Nancy and her stepfather got along very well; she would later write that he was “a man of great integrity who exemplified old-fashioned values”. He formally adopted her in 1935, and she would always refer to him as her father.

President Gerald Ford – Dorothy married Grand Rapids businessman Gerald Rudolff Ford on February 1, 1917. They then called her first son Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr., although he was not formally adopted by Ford. Gerald Ford, Jr. formally changed his name in 1935, in honor of his stepfather, the only father he really had. Ford’s mother and stepfather did not tell him of his biological father until shortly before he turned fifteen in 1928. Ford described his biological father as “a carefree, well-to-do man who didn’t really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son”.

President William Jefferson Clinton – Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe, III. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born. His mother Virginia Dell Cassidy traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after he was born. She left Bill in Hope with grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. In 1950, Bill’s mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton, Sr., who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas with his brother.

Steve Jobs – Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on 24 February 1955, to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian born Abdulfattah “John” Jandali (Arabic: عبدالفتاح جندلي‎), who were both unmarried at the time. He was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs and Clara Jobs. When asked about his “adoptive parents,” Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs “were my parents.” He later stated in his authorized biography that they “were my parents 1,000%.

I made my way to the holy land last weekend. The trip to Notre Dame  included a pep rally, prayer, a tailgate party, hailstorm and a football game against Navy.

My friend Steve calls the journey “The Trip to the Holy land.” And I might agree after all we did, felt and saw. It was truly and inspirational venture with three of the best guys in the world.

Touchdown Jesus
We started out Friday with a trip to the Notre Dame campus where we saw the famous mosaic of Jesus. Touchdown Jesus as Steve calls it. From the photo you can see why.

Notre Dame Dome
Regarding the dome, Rev. J. W. Cavanaugh in 1925 had this to say, “Whoever looks at the beautiful campus now and considers how different the whole thing would appear without the dome will not hesitate to entertain any other suggestion. The truth is that the dome upon the Administration Building assembles all the other buildings on the campus around it and contributes to each a dignity which, otherwise, it would not possess.”

The Gipper Steps
In 1920, returning late to campus and having been locked out of his dorm, George Gipp, Notre Dame’s legendary gridiron All-American, allegedly slept on the front steps of Washington Hall, contracting the pneumonia that would take his life on December 14, 1920. On his death bed, he made this famous plea to Coach Knute Rockne: “Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go in there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.”

Concert On the Steps
We were at the “Concert On the Steps’ as the band marched to the Stadium, parading in front of 20,000 Irish fans. In the Stadium tunnel, they say you can hear the echoes of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian, Holtz, and the Four Horsemen.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart
We visited the Sacred Heart Church. The history of the Basilica dates to the last quarter of the 17th century when the French were attempting to establish both a colonial and a Catholic presence in the St. Joseph River Valley in northern Indiana.

The Grotto
Immediately behind the basilica sits the famous, yet intimate Grotto – a Marian place of prayer and reflection. It is a replica of the grotto at Lourdes, France where Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858. I lit a candle in remembrance of my Mom and Dad who passed in 1985 and 1993. Dad raised us as Catholics. I miss them both. This trip was a nice reminder of them.

The TailGate
We were very close to the stadium. Surrounded by throngs of Notre Dame football fans, tailgating has taken on a life of its own on game day. We sure had a great time with people we just met. Notre Dame fans were allot of fun.

The Hail Story
Like a scene from God’s playbook, the bible, a hail storm appeared from nowhere and was gone just as quickly. It was an amazing storm but the tailgaters didn’t seem to mind. Everyone just huddled under tents and continued God’s work of making new friends and building old friendships.

The Notre Dame Navy Game
Probably the biggest reason we visited Notre Dame was the football game. Navy got sunk 56-14, on what was left of a beautiful sunny day. Here is a view from our seats.

It’s a family tradition, eating Maryland Chesapeake Bay Blue Point Crabs cooked with lots of Old Bay Seasoning. Old Bay is a staple ingredient for steamed Chesapeake Bay crabs, crab cakes, and other seafood recipes.

Blue Point Crab is the Maryland State Crustacean and the subject of an extensive fishery.

How to Pick a Blue Crab

Flip the crab over
Flip open the apron
Flip off the top shell
Pull out the gills and innards that are hanging out.
The yellow stuff is called the “mustard.” It’s actually the crab’s fat and many people enjoy eating it.
Break the body in half, leaving the legs and claws on.
Squish down the flipper end (backfin) and twist it to produce a big piece of backfin meat.
Pull off the swimming legs and claws one by one. Suck out the little piece of meat at the end of each. Save the claws.
Take a paring knife and split each half of the crab through horizontally, exposing chambers of crabmeat. Use the knife to pick out the meat.
Take a claw and break it apart at the joint. Break the claw with a mallet and pick out the crabmeat.