But Mr. Adams

leave me alone! Saw 1776 twice on Thurs-
day. It's quite a fine performance lead by the riveting James Brennan, wonderful as ever as the "obnoxious and disliked" John Adams. John Schuck is endearing as Ben Franklin. Matthew Ashford plays a full-blooded, in every sense of the word, Jefferson. John Scherer is a self-possessed and ever confident Richard Henry Lee, and Mark Zimmerman does a masterful turn as John Dickenson.

James Barbour renders Molasses to Rum to Slaves in as fine a fashion as you'd ever want to hear. Just wish his acting in the role had a more aristocratic bent to it than it has. Somehow he's managed to imbue the stately Mr. Rutledge with a cross between Wiley Coyote and a sleazy imitation of Clark Gable playing Rhett Butler. Oh well, his singing was superb.

Teri Bibb presents a most authentic Abigail Adams and comes across as a high spirited and supportive wife, and is a feisty complement to John's fiery temperment. Bets Malone is the best Martha Jefferson I've seen. Too often the role is played by someone who seems air-headed. This Martha was elegant, graceful and witty with just the right amount of flirtatiousness which made you understand Thomas Jefferson's slightly melancholic attitude. It's only after Adams sends for Martha that Jefferson can complete writing the Declaration of Independence.

The Sacramento audiences are some of the best audiences you'll find. It's fun to listen to the preshow and intermission chatter. Both men and women will say to one and other things like "Isn't that so and so we saw in...?" and they will be right! Music Circus has been around for over 50 years and the audiences really know their theatre. In contrast to some places, the men seem to enjoy it as much as their wives.

This show resonates because it depicts events that directly affect all Americans to this day. It manages to convey the seriousness of purpose which our founding fathers had, and yet maintains a sense of balance by its vivid characterizations. The score is excellent and the dialogue engagingly witty.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Please Mr. Dickinson, but must you start banging? How is a man to sleep?
[laughter from Congress]
John Dickinson: Forgive me, Dr. Franklin, but must YOU start speaking? How is a man to stay awake?
[More laughter]
John Dickinson: We'll promise to be quiet - I'm sure everyone prefers that you remained asleep.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: If I'm to hear myself called an Englishman, sir, I assure you I prefer I'd remained asleep.
John Dickinson: What's so terrible about being called an Englishman? The English don't seem to mind.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Nor would I, were I given the full rights of an Englishman. But to call me one without those rights is like calling an ox a bull. He's thankful for the honor, but he'd much rather have restored what's rightfully his.
[laughter]
John Dickinson: When did you first notice they were missing, sir?
[laughter]

(Click here for more photos and photo credits.)

Murray Family Farms Fudge Rules!

Dis be da place if ya gotta sweet tooth, or if you like tradi-
tional fresh farm produce. Their homemade fudge rocks. Grab some, especially because the next 200 miles to travel will induce as trance like a state you'd ever be in without being on drugs. Made it up to Sacto in 9 hours even, which was pretty darn good considering I stopped 3 times. For ONCE LA traffic was a breeze, only 2 minor slow and goes for a few minutes. Unheard of. Apparently no-one stuck their head up their backside in consideration of my trip.

1st break in Lebec about 200 miles from my house, just after I got over the Tejon Pass north of LA. Denny's meal and gassed up in Lebec. Next HAD to stop at Murray Family Farms, in Mettler just 12 miles up the road. I stopped there last year, and knew the fudge was dynamite. Will pick up some produce on the way back.

(Orange and Vanilla Cream and Maple Chocolate - friend Christine is darned lucky I'm disciplined and didn't scarf all of it - as it was we ate a bit before I remember to take even this picture)

Once I got north of LA and over the mountains the next 200 miles gave no excitement except for a 10 second cheap thrill. It's only two lanes at that point each way on the Interstate 5 [the main drag between Hell-Lay and Sacto & San Fran .] About 100 yards ahead of me, a car swerved into the right lane and I instantly knew why. There was huge hunk of blown tire tread right in front of me, right in the middle of the lane. I had about 5 seconds to decide my option. Car behind me was a good 200-300 yards behind me...BUT there were TWO bigass(TM) trucks to my immediate right. Some space between them - but did I want to cut over there? Stop? OR do what I did which was drive half on the left shoulder and half in the lane without breaking stride.

My heart raced for about 5 seconds as I came around it and just prayed there was no loose debris on the shoulder. St. Anthony "found" me some good passing room. Naturally, I looked in the rear view mirror to check out traffic behind me....duh...did the guy behind me also change lanes once he saw what I did? Hell no...he was almost on top of it too, and dodged right last second. Did he think I was doing a stunt car move for his entertainment benefit? Whatever dude. Pay 'tention closer next time. I think "they" put blown out tires in that stretch of road just to keep you alert! (Truth be told, that area must be a "bitch" to police, because it is HARD to pinpoint to highway patrol just where that stuff is - it can be a good 20-30 miles on that stretch of road before you come to the "next exit.")

Took lots of "I am Camera" video clips with one arm straight and steady. Will try to put some up later this a.m. after I get some sleep. Made another stop at the cute town of Santa Nella, just about 120 miles south of Sacramento...and it was just about dark around 8 p.m. -- Coasted the rest of the way in to Sacto. Staying across from the old Governor's mansion the next block over from the theatre. Lincoln Steffens family also owned the house before it was a the governor's mansion. Ronald Reagan and Nancy were the last Ca. 1st family to live there. [It is a total fire trap!]

If you go to Sacramento, you'll find it's VERY annoying that in the center city section it's a real pain in the rear not be be able to readily find either a convenience store or a gas station. The politicos must have taken a lot of money from the restauranteurs not to have fast food outlets or 7/11s in that part of town. It's surreal. Managed to score my twelve pack of Cokes though - I'm not spending a buck plus a can for that stuff. It's like valet parking. I don't use it "on general principle" - unless under major duress. The patron in front of me was a real load-and-a-half - he managed to turn what should have been a 1 minute transaction into 5 minutes of street theatre. Thus making EVERYONE in line want to kill him. ("NO, you MORON, she doesn't have a pink cigarette lighter, take the damn red one and get out." - we all thought, but were too gutless to say.) When I am empress, I will make a rule that you get to kill ONE person every decade. NO questions asked. (JUST kidding "angels" and Father Blake.)

I'll see 1776 Thursday night and will be all fired up to answer that "bloodlust" thang we Americans are supposedly all het up about. [Hint: ponder the fact that most of us are descended from people who got the wrong end of the stick in some way in the "old country."]

Psych, psych, baby...

yeah, that's it... just pretend you're going to Disney-
land up and back 2.5 times. Piece of cake. As soon as my wash dries I can hop in the car and take off to Sacramento. 505 miles. I left about 11:30 last year, and got there at 9:30 with two generous stops. I'm just hoping no maniac in Hell-Lay will be sitting on top of a bridge threatening to jump, tying up traffic. Do that on your own time buddy. Sunglasses? check Contact Lens cleaner and case? Check. Toothbrush & Paste? check. Clean undies? Check. Battery charger and extra batteries? Check. Electronic gear? check Snack table? Check. Plenty of shirts? Check.

All the way up I can think of how best to formulate the response to Fr. Ray Blake's question regards U.S. "bloodlust." How little he realizes that it's precisely the opposite that impels a fierce protection of the right to keep and bear arms. I know the answer. But how to explain to the european mindset? Perhaps they "don't get it" - because they are not descended from people who were impelled to leave.

I will be once again seeing James Brennan perform in 1776 in the role of John Adams. Musical theatre doesn't get any better.

True Confessions

I just can't get through this thing I've had a copy kicking around for years, the topic is of interest to me...and I just can't stick it. Confessions? No problem. City of God? Sorry, Auggie. Maybe it's just too real. Someday, maybe just once I'll get through you. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.

Gun Grabbing Hissy Fit in Progress

You want fries with that?

Fr. Jim Tucker merely points out on his blog dappled things that since the handgun ban was enacted in the UK, gun crime rates have gone up. Onthesideofangels goes all weepy comparing gun violence between the US and UK ... thereby ENTIRELY missing the point, that societies should logically compare themselves TO themselves before and after a gun grabbing law has been enacted. Otherwise, OTHER variables are too diverse to allow for any semblance of comparison. Capisce? Has gun violence gone up in the UK since the gun grabbing draconian laws were enacted? Yes. That's all he was saying.

Why on the side of angels suggests that Fr. Tucker "get thee to a confessional" for merely stating the truth is a puzzlement. One I'm not going to particularly worry about, as I've found hoplophobes fairly irrational when discussing gun grabbing.

Also see Fr. Ray Blake's recent post. Although Fr. Blake is calmer, for some reason has decided to post Fr. Erik Richsteig's photo without mention that it's Fr. Erik, rather than Fr. Jim Tucker. This is the post which triggered our British brothers (and I expect a few sisters) to faint dead away. If I was attending Fr. Erik's church, I don't think I'd try changing out a $10 for a $20 when the collection plate rolls around.

As it should be intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers, criminals tend to not follow the law. When John and Suzie Sheeple turn in their guns "Wanting to do the right thing" it is axiomatic that Bob the Criminal now has two people who are less likely to be able to defend themselves. Easy marks.

In the US, where liberal loon gun grabbers have cowed the populace into bending over and grabbing their ankles, crime rates are higher. You'd have to be an idiot to think Washington DC is safer because there is a handgun ban. Where guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns is a general truism.

See this Death of Gun Control graphic to see an interesting graphic as gun control laws apply to the U.S.

By contrast states and localities with the MOST easy access to guns have a lower crime rate, after they've loosened them. Where states have LOOSENED the gun laws, crime rates have fallen.

For the criminal element "gun free zones" are "target rich environments." In Vermont, there is no permit required at all to carry a concealed handgun. Surprise, surprise. Vermont also has the LOWEST rate of gun crime. Kinda keeps the crims on their toes when they don't know who's armed and who isn't.

Put that Steven Colbert's Americone Dream Ice Cream down, and back away slowly.

Ben and Jerry's cows know it too.
.

Esther says I can be it

.
if I want to be it. Esther, the Oahu mom got a meme and she said if you haven't played you can, so I'll be it too. She says you have to give 8 facts/habits about yourself, and post the rules. Well, Esther posted the rules already, and she's just showing "oldest child" true colors by saying you gotta post the rules. I was an "only." I didn't have no stinkin' rules...but I wanna play anyway. Consider yourself "it" if you feel like it. Or don't if you don't need no stinkin' "only" telling you what reindeer games to play.

1. Fact: My FAVORITE drink of all time is an old-fashioned highball. Seagram's 7 with ginger ale. Grammy gave it to me and all my cousins when we were little on the occasions of Easter, New Years, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Because. She. Was. From. The. Old. Country. And. That's. How. You. Raised. Kids. To. Hold. Their. Liquor. So. They. Wouldn't. Feel. Like. Drinking. Like. An. Ass. On. The. Corner. With. Their. Buddies. Because. By. The. Time. We. Were. That. Old. It. Was. No. Big. Deal. Having. Been. Given. A. Half. Finger. of Whiskey. And. A. Lot. OF. Ginger. Ale. At. Age. 4.

2. Habit: If I'm in the office of some really anal retentive person and they leave the room for a minute, I will slightly skew something on their desk. You know the type. The pencil HAS to be to the right of the paper clip jar. The name plate HAS to be centered just so. These are the same people it's fun to goof on by putting your water glass down just SLIGHTLY into their "mental half" of the small table you are sharing for lunch. They will feel uncomfortable. They won't know WHY, generally. Not if you do it with stealth. If I haven't done that to you, it's a compliment. In other words I don't consider you to be anal retentive.

3. Fact: I've studied French, Latin, Italian, German, and Russian. I can't speak any of them especially well ... but annoyingly French is my "best" foreign language. I have come to the conclusion that I hate the sound of French. Just. Because. Too "poncie" sounding to my yankeedoodledandy/germanic/anglo-saxon/ eastern-euro ears. Italian doesn't irk me in the same way. Maybe it's just because they are so fun loving and forgiving to anyone who attempts to speak their language. I REFUSE to have any truck with formally studying Spanish, It's more fun, having had enough Latin, French and Italian to GUESS at what they are saying, than to know for sure. The only two words that they have that I really like is "querencia" (the place in a bullring where the bull feels most comfortable--thank you for that one, Bill Buckley) and "cachingadera." If you don't know, don't ask, because I'll just lie. Oh, and through dad's Pennsylvania Dutch roots, I also know a few phrases/words from that tongue. "Kannst du nicka fauna inna zumma?" "Can you catch flies in the summer?" [classic thing you teach little kids to say] "Spritz" "Rutch" "heevahova" and "middoch" are a few others. The eastern european side contributed "gotchies" [underpants] "edaydu dupa" [said to small children in a kind way, but the literal meaning is more like "take your hiney out of this kitchen I am trying to get dinner on the table and I am tripping over you more than the puppy." ] I know a few nice things too, like "Christos Voskrese, Voistinu Voskrese" at Easter.

4. Habit/Fact - I'm ambidexterous to a point. Until I was about 13 I alternated throwing a baseball either left or right handed as the mood suited me. I finally settled on throwing left handed, because I liked playing 1st base. I bowl right handed, just because I was taught that way. I write right handed, and not because "sister made me." The woman DISTINCTLY said "if you feel comfortable with the pencil in your right hand use it, if you feel comfortable using your left hand, do that." And in the days before "professional educators" said 6 was too young for cursive writing, sister taught us cursive writing. I can't print for squat, and don't want to either. I can ONLY open combination locks left handed - ditto I have a preference for using the left hand to take off the gas cap. When I was MUCH younger and still played racketball, I used to regularly piss off my opponents by switching hands when I got tired of playing with one hand or the other. "Ha-ha...you thought you hit a difficult shot to my backhand? Not so, sparky!"

5. Fact: Had season tickets to the Padre baseball games from 1972 through 2000. Came up with 5 baseballs. All on the bounce. Would have had 6 but some summbitch leaned over just as I was about to catch one in the glove and snared it from the section behind me. I wasn't too mad though. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't already have 5. Mom came up with two. Dad was oh-fer. Mom and dad each got buried with a baseball. If some relative remembers to put one in my casket, or doesn't steal all of the remaining ones, I will have one too. I have an autographed Tony Gwynn baseball bat too.

6. Habit: I always shower and lather "the Gilbreth Way." If you don't know what I'm talking about, read "Cheaper by the Dozen." Once tried, never forgotten.

7. Fact: I've visited 33 states of the 50. Someday I want to say I've been to them all....except I'm thinking that maybe I should leave one out. Because. Maybe I'll leave out Arkansas, because Bill Clinton is from there and I can't stand Bill Clinton.

8. Habit: when I have to get ready for a trip I leave off getting ready until the last possible moment. Like Now. Because I'm taking a road warrior trip up to Sacramento this Wednesday to see Jimmy Brennan play John Adams in 1776. We'll probably hit the state fair too. The cow pic was chosen just for my friend Christine's benefit, in case she logs on to her computer before she leaves Michigan for the airport. [Take your cell Chris, I'll get there, God willing, sometime Wednesday afternoon, if I get up before the crack of crack, or Wed. evening if I don't. I don't think I would dare second act it though, if I get there at 9:30. ] I hope my friend Christine brings extra T-shirts, because I may need to borrow one. Fat chance. I see a trip to the laundromat up there. I wonder if that same panhandler will hold the door open for us!


9. Fact: I like stream of conscious writing. You probably guessed. This fact is here because Esther said "8" and I wanted "9." Because odds are cooler than evens.


10: Habit: Instead of counting sheep, I often run through the list of presidents or British monarchs. I tend to do the British monarchs backwards and the presidents forwards. But I can do either either way.

11: Fact: I am DONE. [I SAID odds were cooler!]

This is all TERRIBLE TRIPE

Let us not offend these good plain people

Fr. Ray Blake has a blog about the questionable design of a new church window, and the new Basingstoke "house of worship." Philip, over at carpe canum, had similar thoughts. It doesn't take much for me to think of a favorite bit from Brideshead Revisited.

In this part, Charles Ryder has been off painting in South America for two years. He is unhappy with his marriage, but on the boat back, runs into Julia, with whom he starts a torrid love affair. He has a requisite art show, and the very light in the loafers, but also sensibly perceptive and aesthete Anthony Blanche, an Oxford contemporary of his, drops in for a look. Here is what ensued:

'My dear, there is a g-g-gorgon here who thinks I am g-g-gate-crashing. I only arrived in London yesterday, and heard quite by chance at luncheon that you were having an exhibition, so, of course I dashed impetuously to the shrine to pay homage. Have I changed? Would you recognize me? Where are, the pictures? Let me explain them to you.'

Anthony Blanche had not changed from when I last saw him; not, indeed, from when I first saw him. He swept lightly across the room to the most prominent canvas - a jungle landscape paused a moment, his head cocked like a knowing terrier, and asked: 'Where, my dear Charles, did you find this sumptuous greenery? The corner of a hothouse at T-t-rent or T-t-tring? What gorgeous usurer nurtured these fronds for your pleasure?'

Then he made a tour of the two rooms; once or twice he sighed deeply, otherwise he kept silence. When he came to the end he sighed once more, more deeply than ever, and said: 'But they tell me, My dear, you are happy in love. That is everything, is it not, or nearly everything?'

'Are they as bad as that?'

Anthony dropped his voice to a piercing whisper: 'My dear, let us not expose your little imposture before these good, plain people' - he gave a conspiratorial glance to the last remnants of the crowd - 'let us not spoil their innocent pleasure. We know, you and I, that this is all t-t-terrible t-t-tripe. Let us go, before we offend the connoisseurs. I know of a louche little bar quite near here. Let us go there and talk of your other c-c-conquests.'

A Yankee is...

.

To anyone outside the US a "Yankee" is someone from the U.S.
To anyone from the U.S. a "Yankee" is someone from a northeastern state.
To anyone from the northeast, a "Yankee" is someone from New England.
To anyone from New England, a "Yankee" is someone from Vermont.
To anyone from Vermont, a "Yankee" is someone who eats apple pie for breakfast.

This post is inspired by Fr. John Boyle's detailed post re: his visit to Vermont. Seems he's having a grand time up there seeing the USA in his Chevrolet... unwittingly following the dictum of a fairly famous ad campaign back in 50s and into the 60s, which you can see here. This clip is about 1:32 and features the lovely, talented, and gracious all-American gal, Dinah Shore.




Father Boyle casually writes the phrase "Ethan Allen, who I believed lived in the 1770s..." Perhaps he is just being tongue in cheek. Ethan Allen, along with his Green Mountain boys and Benedict "Phooey on him" Arnold captured many cannons at Ft. Ticonderoga in May of 1775. In ONE NIGHT in March of 1776 Washington's men put up 59 cannons plus prefabricated breastworks on the Dorchester Heights, south of Boston which overlooked the harbor, thereby breaking the siege and hastening Howe's amskray....giving us colonials our first major victory.

From the summer of '67 until the summer of '69 my family lived in neighboring New Hampshire. We also went up to Lake Champlain in '67, and it was one of the neatest family vacations ever. It was where I got my first chance to ride a horse:




And here I'm holding the "tail trophy" of the first fish I ever caught...the chef cooked up the fish and served it to me that same evening.

Note the "Go to hell" shorts, even then! The hat has Charlie Brown's Snoopy lying on top of it.








In the next picture Lake Champlain is right behind me. We stayed at Marble Head Island, by Colchester, Vt. - not far from Burlington. (I'm standing to the left of a family friend, and I wasn't quite 11 when this was taken.)

Note the spiffy swim caps we were required to wear.

While in Vermont, I saw my first "wholesome trottin' race" rather than the kind "where they sit down right on the horse" - thereby heading off making my parent's blood boil. I still have the race program somewhere around the house, but I'm not going to destroy the house looking for it. But here's a little music to go with the thought. (Serendipity does it again, how does Amazon know the exact 30 second clip I need?! Amazing!)

We later went across to Quebec that week, my first time outside the country, to see Expo '67. My first and only visit to Canada. Saw my first mountie too, no piccie though, 'cuz it was dark by the time we left and we didn't have flash! But I did bring home this nifty program. It's seen better days, but if any historians need to know each and every little detail about where every exhibit hall from every country was situated, I can tell them! Someone's thesis may be riding on it.


Amazingly it was sitting about 15 feet from where I'm blogging. And I almost NEVER can put my hands on anything this obscure that quickly.

I always feel a little sorry for people who "can't remember anything" about their childhood. All it takes is someone to say "Vermont" and all these memories instantly come to mind. Thanks for the triggering the trip down memory lane, Fr. John.

I want that job!

I surfed into a neat new blog by "the mom" called "Shoved to Them." She mentions how Saint Bartholomew is patron Saint of tanners, because he was skinned alive before being crucified upside down. See here.


I've often thought that one of the coolest jobs in the Catholic church is figuring out who gets to be patron saint of various causes. Yes, yes, I know this often develops over time - I mean St. Anthony getting to be patron saint of "lost things" for instance. I always "took it for granted" through custom in the home that that's who you pestered if you lost your car keys or home work or whatever, and then once I decided to look up just WHY he is "assigned" the job. The whole shebang was started because he lent a book out once and DIDN'T get it back. Go figure. But Tony and I are "tight."

I like to get the impression (one I don't want to correct, so don't spoil it for me if you know how this really works) is that there is a real joker of an ageing monseignor in a musty office in the Vatican who gets to select patron saints for relatively new occupations. My own favorite "assignment of whimsy" is having St. Joseph of Cupertino, who was known to levitate, be the patron Saint of Aviators. How cool is that? In theory he's on the calendar for Sept 18th (my birthday) but when those pinheads "simplified" the calendar - they knocked a lot of cool saints off the calendar from getting their own Mass said regularly. I don't care if he is a "minor" saint. He's MY minor saint.

Sistahs with 'tude

1st nun from left looks like Sister Battle- Axe, my 6th grade homeroom teacher. A twenty-one gun salute to orthometer's "anonymous" poster who left a pointer to this fun fisheaters website that looks like a real blast.

Honest, s'tr, the dog really did eat my homework!

Brideshead Revisited - my favorite passage

At the end of the day

" There was one part of the house I had not

yet visited, and I went there now.

The chapel showed no ill-effects of its long neglect; the art-nouveau paint was as fresh and bright as ever; the art-nouveau lamp burned once more before the altar. I said a prayer, an ancient, newly-learned form of words, and left, turning towards the camp; and as I walked back, and the cook-house bugle sounded ahead of me,
I thought: 'The builders did not know the uses to which their work would descend; they made a new house with the stones of the old castle; year by year, generation after generation, they enriched and extended it; year by year the great harvest of timber in the park grew to ripeness; until, in sudden frost, came the age of Hooper; the place was desolate and the work all brought to nothing; Quomodo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

'And yet,' I thought, stepping out more briskly towards the camp, where the bugles after a pause had taken up the second call and were sounding 'Pick-em-up, pick-em-up, hot potatoes', 'and yet that is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.

'Something quite remote from anything the builders intended, has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time; a small red flame - a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.'

I quickened my pace and reached the hut which served us for our ante-room. 'You're looking unusually cheerful today,' said the second-in-command."

You used that to do what?

Artifact of growing older I suppose one of the dubious "fun" parts (one of the few!) is if you are a semi-pack rat, you have "artifacts" from your growing up years. Artifacts that can sometimes bring a pretty penny on ebay. Show one of these babies to anyone under a certain age and they will say: "what the heck is that?"

When I was in high school, we were the last generation of students to learn how to use a slide rule. Four function calculators had just come out. Geeks would ask for them as their main Christmas present, to complement their plastic pocket protector and black glasses which were repaired with adhesive tape. Calculators cost more than the average pony did. So most of us, opting for LPs (those round vinyl things that had one groove a side and music on them) as our gifts, stuck with the slide rules.

I was taught in chemistry class by the venerable "Commander" Kullek - a well-aged (even then) retired Naval officer. I don't remember zip about chemistry, somehow in those heady days of the early 70s we all thought we could learn some nuts and bolts should we decide to take up the Yippy cause and take over the faculty lounge for our very own. When I learned we would be "balancing moles" etc. I was crushed, but realized I still needed the class. One of the few I had in high school to mess up my GPA besides Algebra I. Okay, so I graduated Magna instead of Summa. Mea culpa.

Commander, he was NEVER called anything else, was a true eccentric. You won't see his like around now either. Too Un-PC. He had a riveting way of keeping students awake in class... especially if you had a 7:00 am double lab that day. He had a nifty habit of performing a simple lab experiment with bunsen burner, chemicals, glass do-dads and what not in a reasonably straight forward way...it's what he did EXTRA that fascinated us. Occasionally, he'd smoke a ciggie. In class. During the experiment. At the edge of the lab table, he'd balance the lit ciggie and take the odd drag. Or two. Or three. His "safety net" was an empty metal trash can beneath the ciggie and next to the lab table.

Never blew anything up. Never once did the ciggie fall into the can. We waited. All year. Never happened. Before a test, he'd laugh and stay. "Study hard. Or else you'll get a zero. A DOUBLE zero, if I think you're extra stupid. Ha-ah...those are HOUSE numbers." Unforgettable.


(This blog was inspired by two other blogs: mulier-fortis's post re: the "ology video"
and Fr. Ray Blake's post re: his halcyon Trotskyite days. Both well worth a look!)

A favorite

stained glass window is at The Immaculata in San Diego. I don't get to go see it very often, as normally if I attend a weekday Mass, it's in one of the adjacent parishes I live near. I love the domestic setting in which the Holy Family is depicted. The Immaculata was constructed in the last hurrah of when churches were made to look like churches and not multi-purpose meeting "spaces." My high school baccalaureate Mass was held in this church. It was also one of two venues where the relics of St. Therese came to visit a few years back on their world tour.

Usually dogs get short shrift in Jewish and Arabic culture. Which is why I like this particular window so much, being a dog fancier. The dog itself looks like a cross between two dogs we had when I was a teen and into my early adult years: an Irish setter (the shape of the dog) and a light brown "All-American. " Granted, more than a bit anachronistic on the "setter," but I love it all the more for that. And, of course, the boy Jesus is giving this well cared for dog a bone.

Too often the story the gentile woman in Matthew 15: 21-28 (also Mark 7: 24-30.) is a bit misread. People sometimes think that Jesus had to be cajoled into curing the woman's daughter. But Jesus really intended to help her all along. The apostles (bishops in training then!) had been trying to shoo the woman away, and wanted Jesus to send her away too. The story reminds them that it's not only the Jews he has come to save. He uses the incident as a teaching moment. When she says "even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps" one has to wonder if Jesus didn't have a smile for her and was remembering what His own encounters with dogs were like.

Will: A Catholic?

I've always been intrigued by the thought, and have wanted to learn more about the possible Campion/Shakespeare connection. Who's got the best theory for openers? For my own part, I always thought that the Hamlet scene where he comes across the king praying in the chapel could ONLY be written by someone conscious of how a Catholic intent on revenge would think. Hamlet's worried about the king possibly repenting and dying in a state of grace, so he's afraid to kill him at that moment and send him to heaven when he thinks he deserves hell....and then he'd find himself in hell when his adversary gets sent to heaven. Who could come up with that BUT a Catholic?! And of course, the sweet irony is that far from repenting, the king is relishing it.


Anyway, I've always meant to getting around to reading some books on the theory other than just google people's articles. There seem to be a number of books out advancing the theory....anyone out there got some favorites? Are any of these regarded as *the* master work to read on the subject? Where best to start?