Westside Story – Family Resemblance

My favorite sister, Margaret Mary Morgan, just retired. Not only has she always been my favorite sister, she is my only sister.

I should mention my sister grew up sleeping in a twin bed, which for many years left us wondering where her twin sister was.

When I am clowning around, which is most of the time, I like calling her Sister Margaret Mary. As you might guess, I sign my e-mails to her, Brother Joseph.

Instead of being insanely jealous of my baby sister, who most people call Peg, I choose to be extremely proud of her. There are a lot of reasons for my being proud of my sister.

For one thing, Peg has never done any hard prison time.

Peg was born as a part of the big celebration following our winning World War II. Although she is 2 1/2 years younger than me, and therefore has had less time to make progress in life, Peg has accomplished much during her time on our planet. Most of Peg’s energy, efforts and accomplishments ended up focused on helping other people, along with righting some of the injustices that plague our world.

If you compare what my sister has done with her life to what I have done with my life, it is amazing I don’t turn blue with envy.

Peg was a member of the Academic Top Ten Students for her graduating high school class. The closest I got to becoming a part of the Academic Top Ten was to marry a classmate who was a member of our high school graduating classes Top Ten.

Peg earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Seattle University. I have an 8th grade education.

Peg went on to earn a Masters in Social Work (MSW) from the University of Washington – Seattle. I completed one of those match book cover promoted correspondence courses in small engine repair.

Armed with two college degrees and three years experience working at Echo Glenn Children’s Center, Peg was selected to serve as Executive Director of a public / private collaborative effort that eventually morphed into the Mercer Island Family and Youth Services.

While she was helping hundreds of kids and families, I was trying to establish my business career by asking people, “Would you like fries with that?”

After Peg completed 25 years service in her social work career, she returned to college to complete five years of part-time study at the Seattle University Interfaith Theological School culminating in her earning a Masters of Divinity degree.

Peg retired from social work after a full 30 year career.

Taking no time off for herself, she immediately launched into her next career as a minister including one year at a East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue, Washington, six years at University Unitarian Church in Seattle, Washington and 13 years at Westside Universal Unitarian Congregation in West Seattle, Washington.

Westside was a small church. Forty people heard Peg’s first sermon. Peg helped grow the congregation to a community of over 400 people. During her 13 years service to her members, she guided them into purchasing their own church building.

While all this progress was being made, my multi-tasking sister proved to be an excellent mother too. She had two sons, one of which was named after me. Actually when I think about it, both of her sons were named after me. After all, I was named in the 1940s and my two nephews were named in the 1970s.

One of her sons decided to settle on the East Coast to make his fortune. Her other son decided to make his fortune on the West Coast. Yes, my nephews are bi-coastal.

At one time they had talked about one of them moving to the North Pole and the other to the South Pole. Had that happened, her sons would have been bi-polar.

While Peg was moving forward, I had made progress too. I am not bragging, but I went from, “Would you like fries with that?” to “Would you like to upsize your meal?”

After 50 years of helping people and making the world a better, kinder and more peaceful place, Peg retired from her current position as minister of Westside Unitarian Congregation.

Many of those in attendance at Peg’s retirement function remarked they could see a strong family resemblance between the two of us.

I am not so sure. I will show you a picture of my sister labeled Photo 1. Following that I will show you a photo of myself, labeled Photo 2.

You, my trusted readers, can study the two photos and help me decide if my sister and I share a family resemblance.

Do you see any family resemblance? Huh, do ya?