ACTIVISM

I was supposed to go to Middletown, N.Y. this past Sunday for a lay Carmelite day of recollection.  It didn't work out well though.  Originally I planned to meet Rita at the Perkins in Pittston Township, on Rte. 315.  I got a telephone message from Barbara, though, on Saturday afternoon.  When I called her back to see what she wanted she explained that Rita has been having trouble with her health & would not be available for a while.  I don't know how to get to the exact place in Scranton where we always meet for things like this so I was forced to back out of the trip.  It's fairly easy to get there but I don't have the directions memorized.  Lent is soon to end.  Last night at O.L. Sorrows there was a penance service with individual confessions available.  I made sure I went to  confession.   The men's meetings at O.L. Sorrows' rectory, twice a month, have been working out really well.  Tomorrow night there will be another meeting at St. Anthony's in Exeter.   Spring has been going well so far but yesterday & today have both been too cold.  I like, though, that there has been no ice on my car windows in the morning.  Yesterday was a national day of epilepsy research.  Everyone was supposed to wear purple.  To my chagrin the only purple article of clothing I have is a short sleeved t~shirt.  I was quite cold.  Lately I've been reading a lot of poetry, as well as Thomas Mallory's "Morte D'Arthur", Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" & Samuel Beckett's trilogy, "Malloy", "Malone Dies" & "The Unnameable".  Because this is a presidential election year people really have to take the HSS Mandate quite seriously & to do all we possibly can to rid the world of Obamacare.  Our First Amendment right to freedom of conscience is literally at stake.  All my activist friends & connections are working to make things happen.  Unfortunately entirely too many of them are liberals so they are working to the detriment of the common good.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY

My parents held their St. Patrick's Day party early this year. It was this past Saturday. Mary Anne came in on the bus on Friday night. Steve & the kids couldn't come. They were too busy. The relatives from West Wyoming showed up, as always. Fran, because she has so far to travel, stayed with Uncle Frankie overnight. I made sure I put some Irish whiskey & whipped cream into my coffee so I could have it Irish style. The parade from Scranton was on. I've never been to that one but I went to the one in Manhattan quite a few times when I was young. I even met Robert F. Kennedy at the last one he attended right before he was assassinated. As always we watched a few movies on cable TV while they were here. Yesterday I saw a DVD of Woody Allen's first movie, "What's Up, Tiger Lily?". A couple of weeks ago I saw a DVD of his "Hannah & Her Sisters". He's always been quite a favorite of mine. I've been playing my guitar quite regularly lately & I read every day too. I'm almost finished with Sir Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte D'Arthur". When I first added Mr. Di Noto, my tenth grade theology teacher, to my friend list on Facebook, he asked if I had any pictures of me from my school days that I could show him. Yesterday I made sure I dug up one of him & me from my last day at school. I asked him if he'd be willing to let me take a picture of him & he nudged me into getting one of both of us. I asked Mary Anne if she'd be willing to scan it onto her computer so I could show it to him. Looking through the old albums gave me all the inevitable nostalgic flashbacks to my days as a young hep cat. To my chagrin my violent cough persists. Although all the other symptoms of my recent bouts with the flu are gone my throat continues to drive me crazy. Linnae asked me to switch with her this weekend. We lectored at each other's Masses. It's especially aggravating when I start coughing in front of a lot of people. Daylight savings time began this Saturday night. It's my favorite time of the year. The weather though is still too cold & it's even been snowing for the past two days. The temperatures are somewhat warmer than recently though.