BUSY TIME

The weather's been usually pretty hot & frequently rainy around here lately. It's a busy time of year. Sam will be graduating from high school this month. Michael is really keeping active with his girlfriend Erin. Michael & Sam both have jobs that keep them occupied. Father's Day is this Sunday so we shall be going out to a restaurant as always when Fran comes in. I've been keeping in touch & getting back in touch with people from St. Gabriel's lately. We're all so very sad to have to face up to the fact that our beloved school, over in East Elmhurst, N.Y. will have to close this month. Unfortunately I most probably won't be able to go to the big reunion. The more time I spend in northeastern Pa. the more I see that nobody here has to be fit to drive his way out of a brown paper bag, in order to get a license. I've been reading, & watching a lot of movies lately, as always. I've always been interested in things like that. Recently we just got some very bad news over at St. Monica's. I noticed in the Citizen's Voice yesterday that Laura, who was until recently a parishioner & lector of ours, has died, at only forty years old, of cancer. This coming Saturday morning, I shall be going to our monthly Carmelite meeting. We have a meeting every third Saturday morning of the month at 9:00 a.m. at the Little Flower Manor on South Meade Street in Wilkes_Barre. New members are always welcome. Fr. McKernan isn't going to have Mass or Bible meetings on Thursday nights for the summer but we go to his men's meeting on Saturday mornings twice a month now. The Easter Season ended this past weekend on Pentecost Sunday so I've started my new breviary.

BAD WEATHER

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Instead of 7:00 a.m Mass today at O.L. Sorrows I shall be going to 7:00 p.m. Mass at St. Joseph's. I have put away my brown breviary & gotten started on the red one. My mother's eye operation was yesterday morning at 6:55 a.m. My father took her to the hospital at around 6:00 a.m. She has another appointment today & will have to go back for quite a while from now on. Things have changed quite a bit since my eye operation at Brunswick Hospital in Amityville when I was a fourteen year old kid. Mary Anne & family, & a few other relatives & friends, called to see how she's been feeling. Mary Anne's kids have been doing well lately. Michael is quite happy with his girlfriend Erin & his new job. Sam will be graduating from high school in a few months & is looking forward to college. Bridget is a typical kid in her early teens. There was a very bad blizzard this week that lasted from Sunday night into Monday. It started with a very bad rainstorm all day Sunday. Spring is only twelve days away & I have been desperately awaiting it. I'm still practicing my guitar on a regular basis & reading a lot each day. My flu is virtually gone by now except that I still have the slightest bit of a cough left. Dr. Radzwilka has me taking two iron pills each day because my iron count has always been entirely too low.