The Natural, Unnatural and Supernatural

Aug 27, 2010 | Latest

Natural, Unnatural and Supernatural

   In the world of the natural, I have seen a couple things this past week that I have never seen before.

   I was up a little before sunrise and saw a great horned owl sitting on the roof of our car.  I think that an owl on a car’s roof is much better than a rabbit under the hood.  I know that it is better than owls on the roof of the house which we have frequently at night.  They sound like a thundering herd as they run from one side to the other.

   We have had deer around the house all spring and summer.  A doe and a fawn frequently graze on the great variety of weeds we have carefully cultivated.  What I saw for the first time was the doe suckling her fawn.  It was a little awkward looking since the fawn is pretty good-sized by now, probably about ready to leave his mother, but there was something very good about the scene. 

   Last year our locust were right on the nose in predicting that our first frost would be October 1^st.  (Folklore has it that the first frost will be six weeks after one hears the first locust.)  Well, this year the first locust sang or buzzed or chirped or whatever locust do very early and so the first frost should be September 11^th.  Given that this entire last week of August will have highs in the 90’s, it seems unlikely.  However, our low a couple nights ago was 51, so I guess it is possible.

   Now to the unnatural and the supernatural.     I think it would be worth your time to go to www.catholiconline.com.  to read a couple things there.  The one is entitled “Is the Grinch Living in Loudon County, VA?” .  The story involves two Seton dads,  Delegate Bob Marshall and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  The second is an opinion piece entitled “AG Cuccinelli’s Ruling on Abortion Clinics”.  Both show what good people in the right places can achieve, and Marshall and Cuccinelli are great people in the right places.  God bless them.

   School starts August 31^st at Seton.  A big, early event is the dedication of the court in the John Paul II Center to Mr. Vander Woude on September 8^th.

Jezu, ufam Tobie.

GONE OUT OF BUSINESS

Aug 16, 2010 | Latest

GONE OUT OF BUSINESS

   There once was the Pete and Bobbie Show.  This was a great production that took place on the front steps of our house with my sister Barb and me as  the pre-school co-hosts and co-stars.  The show was not produced regularly, and it did not have a long run, but the few editions were classics.  Barb and I would grab some old badminton rackets, go outside and begin jamming.  I have no idea what we sang – I think we made up songs – but the imagined crowds went wild.  We were basically superstars and we knew it.

   Fast forward a little less than 50 years to yesterday to find Pete and Bobbie reunited.  We couldn’t find any badminton rackets, so we launched a new venture:  Pete and Bobbie’s Beauty Shop.

   Our parlor’s dimensions were 3½ feet  by 4½ feet in a quaint part of our house.  The little cubicle is bounded by the bathroom door straight ahead; a bedroom door to the right and a four-door linen closet to the left.  The entrance to it is an open arch.  It has a wood floor and an old fashioned round light fixture off-centered above.

   By doctor’s orders, Mom was to have her hair washed 10 straight days.  Five of these had been completed using a four shampoo rotation:  an imported Italian shampoo, an all-natural organic shampoo with tea tree oil, Selsun Blue and another all-natural shampoo also with tea tree oil and mint.  So, at Pete and Bobbie’s Beauty Shop Mom was going to get her 6^th  shampoo with the organic in its second use.

   The beauty shop was prepared.  The floor was covered with an old shower curtain, the portable shower head extended and easily reached into the cubicle. a rain coat carefully placed to put on Mom when she arrived and a plastic funnel cap readied to put around Mom’s head so the water would be channeled into a plastic storage bin behind her.  We had thought of everything. An additional feature of our shop was its handicap accessible quality – Mom could roll right into it in her wheelchair and stay in the wheelchair for the whole shampoo.  Convenience to the max.

   Mom was rolled in; the funnel cap put in place; the water warmed up and sprayed on her hair. Another successful show begun by Pete and Bobbie.  Then Mom gave a little shout as water began running down her back.  We had forgotten the raincoat! But why was water running down her back anyway? 

   Operation halted to throw raincoat around Mom.

   Shampoo applied by Bobbie.

   Rinsing begun by Pete.

   Water flooding into bathroom.

   Water flooding onto shower curtain.

   Water flooding Mom.

   Some water running into storage bin but not much.

   Bobbie declares that no water or shampoo has gotten into Mom’s eyes.   Success!

   Shampooing completed.  Water turned off.

   Pete begins mopping bathroom floor with six big bath towels including one Goliath would have appreciated.

    Bobbie begins surveying damage done to Mom.  She finds only her eyes and somehow her shoes and socks did not get drenched. 

    Pete and Bobbie go from running a beauty shop to running a clothier as we find some dry summer smart casuals for Mom.

   An “Out of Business” sign is hung on the archway.

Jezu, ufam Tobie.   

TRANSFIGURATION

Aug 6, 2010 | Latest

                                    TRANSFIGURATION

   This past week I read  Ditch Digger’s Daughters and  The Shadow of His Wings.  Both books show what absolute commitment to a goal can achieve. 

    DDD is written by Yvonne Thorton, one of five daughters of Donald and Tass Thorton.  Donald began his life with his bride to be when he was only 16 and she was 26.  After the 5^th  child was born, a fellow ditch digger’s unseemly comment about their future led the father to declare that they were all going to be medical doctors.

    This lofty goal became the driving force of his life.  He would raise five doctors whom all would respect.  No amount of work, no amount of sacrifice was too much to attain this end.  And work and sacrifice Donald did, enough to put us all to shame.  In many ways it seems impossible what he did, but his drive toward the goal pushed him onward. 

    The parents had decided that education was what the daughters needed most.  Even when the girls with their mother began to get recognition as a musical group and record offers and almost certain fame and fortune were close at hand, Donald did not let it happen because music was only a means to and end – it paid the tuition for their education. Their talent, for the most part, was not known beyond college campuses on weekends.

     Through his push to get his daughters educated, Donald guided them toward many virtues.  

      No one, however, can control someone’s will.  And the two oldest daughters after several years of college decided to go their own way.  One dropped out to become a secretary and the other changed her major.

     Donald’s reaction to this and a line in the epilogue, show the fundamental flaw in his quest.

     After the two girls back to back told their father that they were not going to be doctors, he became despondent, feeling like a complete failure, and he took out his frustration by becoming abusive to his wife and unfatherly to his three other daughters.   Eventually he  rebounded from this through Yvonne’s pursuit of her MD. 

    In reality, four of the daughters ended up as doctors: of medicine, dentistry and a PhD..  In an ironic passage in the epilogue, Yvonne, who was the first to become a medical doctor and one of great achievement, is writing about the legacy of her father including how his drive and determination lives on in his grandchildren.  In the midst of this she says of one of her married sisters that she remained childless by choice.

     A very sad statement in a tribute to her father.

    DDD is a book worth reading for many reasons, but I think primarily to show us that there is so much more that we could be doing.  It is a book like The Shadow of His Wings, though, that shows us what it is exactly that we should be investing our efforts in.

    SOHW is the autobiography of Father Gereon Goldman whose life story borders on the unbelievable.  It is, however, five women that make the story most amazing, and it is the five women who show us what drive, determination and sacrifice properly applied can achieve.

    Father Goldman’s mother opened her kitchen to the women of the countryside who came to pour out their troubles and to be consoled and refreshed.  Father learned from her to defend the little and the weak.  His mother died before he reached his teens, but she was his first great teacher of the Faith.

   Sister Solona May, the sacristan at the convent where Father regularly served as an altar boy, told him that she would take his mother’s place.  She did this by secretly praying faithfully that he would become a priest in 20 years.  His induction into Hitler’s army was not seen by her as an obstacle to this plan because God did not say that prayers are answered except in cases of war.  When the 20 years were up, Father’s assignment to the Russian front and lack of the last four years of seminary training were still not seen as an obstacle.  She told Father that he needed to go to Lourdes to pray to the Blessed Mother and then to Rome to get permission from the Holy Father to be ordained. Father thought all this ridiculous because he was off to Russia, that was, until his orders were changed as he was boarding the Russia bound train.

    The last three women are Sister Jeanne, Mere Monique and Sister Veronika who are also most remarkable in their dedication to prayer and sacrifice that they offered for Christ, His Church and Father’s vocation, but I will not tell their stories here.   

     DDD  and SOHW both extol hard work, sacrifice and worthy goals.  Nonetheless,  SOHW soars above DDD because it shows only when these three are subservient to faithful prayer and absolute trust in God, will one know life in its intended abundance. Where Donald tried to control and direct his five daughters’ lives through sheer will power, the five women of Father Goldman’s life entrusted their efforts to the Almighty because they knew He would do great things for them.

Jezu, ufam Tobie. 

WAIT! That Can’t Be True

Jul 27, 2010 | Latest

WAIT!  That Can’t Be True.

   What I am about to tell you is true.  I don’t expect you to believe it.  It is very unusual.  And I am sorry that I cannot tell you everything I know about it, but I have promised some of those involved that aspects are to remain secret.

   Really, it is just a simple fact.  I do not know how long this simple fact has been true, and I don’t know if it is still true now.  What I do know is that there was a moment in time when it was true, and I was a witness to this time along with four others – the three others directly involved and an indirectly involved eyewitness.

  You will need some background information to appreciate the fact, and then you will be given the events leading up to the remarkable discovery.

   There are eight children in the Westhoff family.  The oldest four, Anne (Mrs. Carroll), Jim, John and Dave, grew up together.  They shared in childhood such things as going to Kiowa (which rhymes with Iowa) School, a two room schoolhouse, and played 4-H softball. They are not very important to the story.

  The next three in the family, Kath, Barb and I, grew up together and were always known as the “Three Little Kids”.  We did such things as go “Walking and Talking”.  This consisted in walking along the Kiowa (which rhymes with Iowa) Creek bed that divides our farm and talking about very important things, most significantly our yearly Christmas play which we would start planning in mid-summer.  Most of our growing up consisted in playing.  Kath was the transition from the older four to the Three Little Kids because she did go to first grade at Kiowa (which rhymes with Iowa) School where, as she remembers, she spent the entire year playing with a plastic set of farm animals.

   Wendy, the youngest, is in the subset which consists of one member. She is eight years younger than I.  She survived all the attention that the Three Little Kids gave her, but more importantly she survived the lack of attention we were once guilty of.  The Three Little Kids were supposed to be watching Wendy.  We decided to do this while rolling on top of barrels that we would crash into each other, trying to knock the others off.  It was intense demolition derby type action, and in the fray we somehow forgot about Wendy until Mom came out and asked how she was.  Terrified looks were exchanged as we jumped off our barrels and began running around wildly looking for our two-going-on-three year old sister.  She was discovered a quarter mile from the house, right at the edge of the Kiowa (which rhymes with Iowa) Creek.  The Creek is usually dry, but there had been water running through it recently, and Wendy was crouched down looking over the edge into water that had pooled, inches from falling and drowning.  The Three Little Kids were asleep on their duty, but fortunately Guardian Angels never sleep.

   The Three Little Kids and Wendy are the ones the unusual fact concerns.

    Before we get to the bizarre and to further its bizarreness,  here’s an update on the last four Westhoff children.  Kath describes herself in adulthood as sitting all the time.  Wendy is the opposite, never having learned to drive, she walks between 10 and 12 miles most days, but I do not know how much of that time she also spends talking.  Barb’s activity level is somewhere between those two.  I, who am never busy, spend most of my days between sleeping and eating and then every ten days or so posting on this blog. 

   The day in question was Sunday, the 17^th Week of Ordinary Time (July 25^th) . Mom, Dr. and Mrs. Carroll, Kath and Joe, Barb, Wendy and I were at the farm with our friends the Bucholz family and one mysterious visitor who mispronounced “Kiowa” not realizing it rhymes with Iowa. (He gave the “I” a long “E” sound.)  We had a wonderful afternoon chatting and eating the food that Kath had risen from a chair to make.

  The Bucholz family left, then the mysterious visitor left, but not until my brother Dave called to talk to him about the geologic origin of the Great High Plains, something the mysterious visitor seemed obsessed with — very unfortunate they were not on speaker phone.

   Now there was just our family.  Earlier in the day I had brought a new electronic digital scale out to the sunporch  to try to get Mom’s weight.  She refused.  I just left the scale sitting in the room.  As I was walking through the sunporch into a back bedroom (neither eating nor planning to lie down), I saw that Kath was weighing herself.  From the bedroom, though I couldn’t see, I could tell that Wendy was next to try the scale.  There was amazement between sitting Kath and walking Wendy that their weights were the same.  Barb was then being encouraged to weigh in.  When the reading was displayed, there was the exclamation, “We all weigh ABC!”  (Giving the weight is part of the secret.)  Hearing the weight, I came out and said, “That’s what I weigh.”  And to prove it, I got on the scale and sure enough, ABC showed up a fourth time.  Always the doubting Thomas, I said that the scale must not be working.  So Mrs. Carroll got on, and a different reading came up and each person said that ABC was in fact about what they thought they weighed. 

   Three girls, one boy (after all we are the Three Little Kids and Wendy, and could hardly think of ourselves as women and a man); from 57 to 45 years of age; differing in height by as much as 10 inches; of widely different activity levels; the last four children of a family of eight, and all weighing the same.  That is unbelievable.

   I wish the mysterious visitor had stayed a little longer.  Earlier in the day when he wasn’t talking about the Great High Plains he had said he weighed ABC – C pounds.  Of course, he was just rounding off and may well in fact weigh exactly ABC too. 

   The Three Little Kids and Wendy are now one group.  We have formed the “ABC Club”, not to be confused with the “Hate Bee Club”, but that’s another childhood story.

Jezu, ufam Tobie. 

Hardly Stand-able

Jul 16, 2010 | Latest

·         HARDLY STAND-ABLE  

Last night I think I hit rock bottom in surveys.  This was easily the longest and most tedious set of questions I have ever been asked.  Our telephone number, I was told, was randomly selected for the survey,  but I  think that our # has somehow been earmarked as one where the answerer will participate in the survey no matter what.

   The topic this time was the Colorado Supreme Court.  The particular justices in question, as we should all know, were Nancy Rice, Michael Bender and Alex Martinez because they are up for reappointment.

    Through the survey I learned that CSC justices are first appointed for two years and then come up for vote for a 10 year reappointment.   This seems like a pretty good system, except I don’t know how to get the information I want to know about them so that I can make an informed vote.

    In the 2008 election of mostly unhappy memory, I called the Archdiocese and Colorado Right to Life to try to find out the position of justices and other judges up for reappointment, but no one seemed to know anything about any of them.  So, for the most part, I skipped over the justices on the mail-in ballot.  I remember voting for one of them because he or she had clerked for one of the good US Supreme Court Justices, so I figured he or she must be good. 

   The survey had the usual “Rate 1 to 10” questions; the “Highly favorable, slightly favorable, slightly unfavorable, highly unfavorable or don’t know enough to have an opinion” questions; and the always popular “More likely, less likely or makes no difference” questions.   This is how part of the survey went: 

   Surveyor: lajjsdfjlsfljfjfkdlajsdlfjljfj aldkljldflsfljaslfjlajsflsjfjlfjjfjalfjllsadkffjafljalflfallsdfjljf

   Me:  I have no idea what you are talking about, so it makes no difference.

   Surveyor:  Understandable.  Would you like me to repeat the question?

   Me:  Anything but that, please. 

   Surveyor:  Understandable.

   There was a set of questions that I was told would be asked about each of the justices.  In an effort to speed things up I told the surveyor that since I didn’t know anything about any of them my answers for each of them would be the same.  This was “understandable” but he was obliged to ask the questions about each judge.  This was not “understandable” to me, but I dutifully listened to the same questions three times and always answered, “Don’t know enough to have an opinion”.

   Three times in the course of the questioning I told Mr. Surveyor that the Right-to-Life issues were the ones that really mattered to me.  This was “understandable” but didn’t help to speed things up either.

   After more than half an hour when the end of the survey was reached, Mr. Surveyor said, “Thank you for taking the time to take this survey.  I want you to know that I am greatly……..thanks.”  (I think even he had been put into a comatose state by the questioning.)   I said, “You are welcome.  I know this isn’t an easy job for you.”  He laughed and said, “Thanks.” 

   I decided today, the day after the long survey, that I was going to use this experience to make me pro-active.  So I just e-mailed the editor of the Denver Catholic Register (the Archdiocesan paper) to say that I thought it would be a great service to the Catholics of Colorado to have pertinent information about the justices and judges up for reappointment given and to ask if the Register might be able to give that information.  I will let you know what I hear in response.

   Above all else, let us be understandable. 

Jezu, ufam Tobie.

Talk about fast:  the editor for the Register e-mailed me back in less than two hours.  She thanked me for my “great suggestion” and is forwarding it to the Colorado Catholic Conference to get their input.  Maybe that survey will end up being one of the best I have taken.  And just so that you won’t have to ask, when the next surveyor calls I will be highly likely to answer all his questions.   

INBETWEEN YEARS

Jul 6, 2010 | Latest

                                                INBETWEEN YEARS

   The Year for the Priest has ended, but here is another Year for the Priest story that just took place.  So, though this is a semi-retro post, the news it contains is hot off the press – as in I just got off the phone with the good Padre having gotten this information.

   Many of you know Father Riley, long-time priest friend of Seton, a Notre Dame grad and for a time assigned as an associate at All Saints Parish.   During the June shuffling of priests for the Arlington Diocese, Father Riley was reassigned to the Denver Archdiocese, specifically to teach at the St. Augustine Institute.

   The St. Augustine Institute is housed in a part of what used to be Loretto Heights College.  This is the college where Mrs. Carroll did her undergraduate studies and became known to many at Seton because Boomtown, Seton’s 2009 Spring Musical, was produced and first preformed there.  Therefore, Father Riley will be teaching in a classroom that Mrs. Carroll sat in as a student 50 years ago.

   It sounds as if Father Riley will be saying Mass in various parishes on Sundays.  As it happened, this past Sunday, the 4^th of July, he said Mass at St. Augustine’s Parish in Brighton.  (I think his saying Mass there and his teaching at the St. Augustine Institute was just coincidental.)  His sermon centered on Confession, and he told the congregations at the three consecutive Masses he offered that he would hear confessions between the 1^st and 2^nd Masses and after the 3^rd. 

   Now, many people probably have the impression that people from Colorado are perfect, or very nearly so.  However, Father Riley found out differently.   After the 3^rd Mass, which started at 11:00, Father heard confessions for three hours.  That is phenomenal.   Consider that it was the 4^th of July and confessions were not scheduled for that time, so no one coming to Mass could have been planning to stay for confessions.  Yet, people waited as long as three hours, from noon to three, which are the hours that Our Lord hung on the cross, to be shriven probably giving up the chance to have the first hot dog hot off the Independence Day grill.  Coloradoans may not be perfect, but sacrificial we are!  Also, we tend to like to confess to priests recently relocated here who have no idea who we are.

   Father Riley, a true fisher of men, refers to people who come to confession after a long absence from the sacrament as “big fish”.  I imagine he might have caught a good sized Colorado fish or two.

   I am somewhat lost right now because we are not in the Year of Anything.  I like Years of Something. I hope Pope Benedict soon announces another Year of Whatever.  I do not know if His Holiness is a regular reader of this blog (he has never commented), but let me suggest the Year of Married Couples. 

   In anticipation of the Pope adopting my idea, here is some more info you might be interested in.  Dr. and Mrs. Carroll, on July 6^th, celebrated their 43^rd  wedding anniversary.  I was the ring bearer at their wedding at the old Our Lady of Lourdes in Wiggins previously talked about in “Off Ramp”.  I carried their rings on Mom’s heirloom silver plate.  If you get a chance to see either or both of the Carrolls, you might want to take an inconspicuous glance at their ring finger(s) and imagine me at nine years of age carrying the ring(s) on that plate.  This should be an uplifting experience.

   Another interesting bit of information is that the Carrolls to celebrate their wedding anniversary have always gone to an ethnic restaurant – a different nation’s each year.  Mrs. Carroll, of course, can name all 43 of the countries and probably tell you what she ate at each of them.  I suggested Outback Steakhouse for Australia, but the people at Outback said it was just a name and not authentic Australian cuisine.  Glad they were honest – it could have broken the string.

    This year the Carrolls went to a Filipino restaurant.  The Fili Cheese Steak comes highly recommended, but Mrs. Carroll said she was tending toward the fili mignon.

Jezu, ufam Tobie.