Deserves an Entry

What a log entry to develop, look at all the 9’s. On second thought, I’ll save it for the track. I should, but I won’t call Tim and beg him and his family join me at the track. Monty loves it there. He actually picks a numbered horse and is able to ride it free until others take it from him. Boy! Don’t he look great in that saddle. I’d bet on him any day. Let’s see, he is 4 now and tells you that’s a turning point when a kid knows a lot about a lot of things. However, those delicate but strong hands and arms just don’t make it. No bet. Another day, another track, but I’ll always be willing to bet on him. Then there is that huge slide which exhausts him as he goes and goes and goes in order to come down and down and down. He loves it so much that the screams are at fever pitch. Those rides and a few others have his attention for all of the day. Our minds are on the fourth and that #8 along with the long shot $9, The bet requires a trip to the teller’s window, but the results save you a trip back. We don’t bet big nor do we win big. We have no need of ever going to the IRA window to fill out forms and spend our mony. Their instructions are so precise, you’d be proud of their public service. They seldom get it wrong. Enough of this track stuff or now, I’ll have to reread it to understand how I got here.

What I thought was maybe I’d take a shot at those pictures. You see them throughout my walls. You just can’t miss them. They jump right off the wall at you in every picture. They’re all mine with very few exceptions. In one way or another I’ve brought them to some kind of completion that has brought me, if only me to a calm and enjoyable venture into the unknown until finished. Don’t laugh, they all have meaning for me. Some deep and some not at all, but they touch me. I wish I could catch your eyes or hear your words as you see or don’t see them at home or somewhere else. Here, in my room and not the other rooms throughout the house. I greet you with hugs, handshakes and a myriad of other warmths that almost moisten the air in my room. It comes to me even now, how many greetings I have had within the restrictions of this room, my prison and place of reflection these past almost four years . Family, friends, strangers, new faces, friends of him and her. Some I’ve never met before and a whole bunch I hope would come back again and again. Oh, for heaven’s sake, lets get back to why we are here. Yes it’s the pictures and other things No it’s not the pictures, its your critique of the pictures or my meaning in the drawings, the water colors, portraits or sea sides. One of the richest for me is the one of Mike by the side of the Gulf in Jamaica. It has taken me so long but maybe not so long to see what I see. Mike has his baseball hat askew on top of his head. Who would believe that’s his arm on his hip as he looks out past the water to the opposite shroe if the bay which we visited just a short while ago. Mike in his water color is transparent as he is transparent. Not in the original picture but in my version of it on the textured board which I enjoy beneath the brush. His armless raged t-shirt yells out at the poverty of the island as he contemplates his place in this place. He doesn’t verbalize it. He contemplates it. He was late getting there that morning. I forget now why we were in two separate places at different parts of the island. He was late and I was angry and be both came via different transportation, I to be thrown off by myself trying to figure out if I were at the right place and with more than a few doubts as to if he would ever come. The thought went on and on. Never making much sense, but by the time showed I was real angry that he wasn’t. Worth mentioning, but unable to catch in film was one

Break time – I need a snooze.

I’m back many days later – let me pick up with crucifix you see either or the table next to my bed. A crucifix is the wooden cross with the body affixed to it. The body is dramatic in showing the wounds, lashes and piercing with spear, It can allude if you meditate upon it to all it bore witness to. You can remember the Mary’s kneling before it. Recalling the soldiers rolling dice for his garments is’t hard to do, The shoulders are bruised and crushed from the long final journey with upon his shoulders, Others picked it up as it brought him to the ground. There is nothing of beauty in it. It is merely dramatic. And early in live may have been used to scare and dramatize. Now, it is a remembering. You stop in your busyness and take an appraisal of prices paid, enemies identified and friends who went the distance. It is critical in identifying those who didn’t go the distance. Most especially Peter and the others he cherished and whom you would have found proud to have withstood the pressure right up to the end.

It Is very significant to me because it was gift from Sr. Dorothea prior to my departure for the seminary. My fist 8 years of grammar school were spent under the tutelege of the Sisters of Mercy. Dorothea, was one of those Sisters at Sacre Heart, which was that school. In those days they wore a long black habit that reached out to the ground. They wore a white coif around their head and extended below their bosom. A picture may help depict it better. I think the habit in its totality had some hurt connected with it. They wore a black belt, about 2-3 inches high with the crucifix tied to a string was inserted within the belt. It has been with me and upon my walls and before my face since 1957 and my first trip to the seminary. That is almost 50 years. I have not always been aware of its presence nor have I allowed it to lead me to prayer as frewuently as one would hope.
It’s there on my wall now, and I would hope it would be there until the end.

Jerry Seinfeld

Directly above my head my favorite clown. Jerry Seinsfeld. Perhaps it was Time Magazine that provided the original for me. I entered the printing with zeal and just ot all that saddened by the outcome. As you might guess, I love the red. It jumps off the art paper and depticts for me an individual just alive with some deep thinking, colorful laughter and a real grasp on the issues of our time. How many times have I seen ALL episodes? It's hard to tell but I bet more than one was a good answer. I never got through one without laughter. I always wished I was still preaching because I would have stolen most of them and intertwined them into every homily I delivered. I always that it such a shame because I thought I would have done a great job in rewriting and delivery.

My son in law, Jim Munholland was kind enough once to buy tickets upfront at the Paramount. It was his standup at its very best. I didn’t want anyone to cough because I couldn’t stand to miss a word or a line. He was at his best and it was terribly bad for me to keep my pants dry. The tears flowed without ceasing and it turned out to be wonderful evening. Those moments I’ll never forget and I am able to have done many times, relive the night. I still go bck to the reruns and never see the same thing Each times it’s a level or two below the last. Incredible. He of course, reminds me of the others. All of them came together each week into the one Seinfeld. The other cast have not risen to the same level. Together, they were one and their feeding off each other allowed to identify taboos or problems and bring meaning for me. I think that’s why I think I did a fair enough job that it always relives for me, the greatness of the man. It’s my most immediate prayer that he’ll continue in life some levl of achievement reached in the show. I really just don’t want to hear of a marriage broken up, a child gone astray, a wife who can’t take it any longer. I just want to hear he’s happy or that he’s making a contribution or perhaps even, their coming together again and that coming together is nothing like the ones before.

Some pictures:
On My Wall
Each Containing a Piece of Me

Sister Mary with me after my orination in Richmond, Virginia
One of the most important person in my life.