CLASSIC LITERATURE

My fifty first birthday is tomorrow. Hay fever's been getting me crazy for the past quite a few weeks. I haven't had any bad headaches lately except for one a couple of weeks ago. Uncle Frankie & Fran came over for a while one night last weekend. She's been doing quite well with getting settled into her newly purchased house lately. I've been doing a lot of reading these days. Besides classic poetry, I recently re_read Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" & Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" & "Alice In Wonderland". The Beatles & their musical contemporaries were all greatly influenced by Carroll's work, & by classic literature in general. Glenn Yanik showed up last Saturday morning, at O.L. Sorrows for a meeting of his men's group. Fr. Leo was there too. We shall be meeting at the Oblates' seminary on 315, on October 2 for a meeting with Bishop Bambera. Mike Aquilina, a Catholic apologist from EWTN, who was raised in Pittston, will be there. I lectored at 11:00 a.m. Mass last Sunday. The new schedule is now official. Michael called last week. He's home from Costa Rica. All went well for him & his friends over there. Although it was during the time when Hurricane Earl struck nothing bad happened anywhere near them. To my chagrin the summer will very soon be over. The weather lately always seems to be very cold, & frequently foggy, in the mornings. It gets very nice during the main part of the day though. There were a couple of thunderstorms a couple of days ago. We really need the rain so I didn't complain much.

MANY BIRTHDAYS

A few days ago a woman called from a political organization. I know those surveys are unavoidably necessary but she drove me crazy for around ten minutes with all sorts of annoying repetetive questions about my opinions about the Pa. politicians & how they stand on things. Mary Anne, Steve, Sam & Bridget came in on Friday night & left last night. Michael's enjoying his big trip to Costa Rica. This month has many birthdays & we had quite a nice party for them all. All the gang from West Wyoming showed up. All their birthdays are this month. Sam did a lot of work over the weekend. He, Steve & Bridget helped my father with the garage too. Steve, Uncle Frankie, the kids & I went, as always, to Jitty Joe's last night. Sam's favorite singer & musician these days is Jack Johnson. Johnson does a really nice version of Beatle John's "Imagine". Recently I got the new schedule for O.L. Sorrows. Now that Rocco's back I'm not on the schedule that frequently anymore. One individual makes quite a difference. My hay fever has been going crazy lately. I've been doing quite a bit more coughing than sneezing. There's a bit of a drought these days besides the excessive heat. After a brief respite the temperature this week will be back up past ninety degrees.