UNCLE FRANKIE HOME

Sometime yesterday, Uncle Frankie arrived home after his visit to Fran. He, of course, got us all candy. He got taffy for my parents & Reese's peanut butter cups & Kit Kats for me. He stuck around for a few hours once he got back & told my parents all about whatever he & Fran did over the course of his visit. I practiced my guitar as usual yesterday. Lately I've really been getting the hang of "Two Of Us". I heard from Barbara from the Carmelites yesterday too. She called about a book that Judy is going to make us start reading from now on. She wanted to know if I had a copy of it & whether I'd like to buy one or to borrow they one they already have in their supply of books anyway. I decided to go for the one that's already there anyway. Nothing interesting was on TV yesterday. Besides "I Love Lucy" I didn't even bother with anything else. Only very rarely does anything worth bothering with come on. Lately I've been losing track of my eyeglasses entirely too frequently for my taste, so I've simply got to wise up & figure out a way to put them inevitably where I can find them very easily.

FESTIVAL OVER

It all went well at the latest Tomato Festival. Unlike the churches' feasts, though, I didn't end up winning a basket this time around. Everybody says Sizzle Pie has the only decent pizza here but I enjoyed the pizza I got from the other places that showed up. On Saturday I got a set of guitar strings from the music store on Main Street. They had a stand set up outside their store. There was good music there all throughout the festival. On Saturday they didn't have a band but they played a lot of Beatle music. Yesterday there was a German_style oom_pah band & a guy was playing an acoustic guitar by the beer stand, where I ended up getting a Yuengling. The sun was very hot all through the festival. On top of that I didn't know a single one of the people who showed up, which is pretty much about typical for me around here anyway. My nephew Michael's birthday was on Saturday too so we made sure we gave him a call. I hope he doesn't miss his teens too much. I lectored yesterday at 10:00 Mass. All went well. Early this morning there was a bit of a rainstorm & the last time I looked outside it was still awfully seriously cloudy. On Saturday night I watched a few old Laurel & Hardy shorts on TCM. Oliver Hardy is my fellow New Yorker. He's from Harlem.

WEEKEND

Friday went reasonably well. I went back over to the Pittston Tomato Festival for a while late yesterday afternoon. While I was over there I made sure I took some chances from their local KofC council & for some baskets that were being advertised by other organizations. I won a few from churches this year. I also found out about the San Cataldo Society, that's on Main Street in town. The guy I spoke to explained that it's a Sicilian society but they accept non_Sicilians as members. The membership fee is $5.00 per year. I have no Sicilian in me. I took a chance on a really nice basket of cheer they were raffling off. It was so hot I ended up being forced to wear a cap to deflect all the heat. I only ended up bothering to stick around for slightly over an hour. That's because the whole thing revolved around food with very little of anything else. There were souvenirs like T shirts & even a tomato cookbook but it was pretty much an excuse to pig out. There was a really good local band there. They even sang a really good version of a Lennon/McCartney favorite of mine, "A Hard Day's Night". I've been trying to learn to play that lately. It's relatively easy compared to a lot of their other songs.

PITTSTON TOMATO FESTIVAL

The weekend is now upon us so it's time for the Friday dance. Yesterday some woman called on the phone & asked for cousin Gino. There must have been confusion about his phone number. Yesterday I made sure I took a drive over to Pittston to check out the latest annual tomato festival. It's supposed to be well known far & wide according to what I've been told. The local KofC council was there. It's not my council. All the local businesses were represented selling food, merchandise, etc. I've been there before & one year I even got a T. shirt advertising it. Rose called my mother yesterday. They exchanged all the latest gossip & news in general about the kinfolk. Yesterday I also watched on of the sequels to "The Fly". This one was "The Curse of the Fly" from 1965. It struck me as a perfect commentary on liberalism's Promethean complex. The sons try to stop their father's desperate quest for what he calls progress. He, of course, insists on excusing it all by rambling on about the usual greatest-good-for-the-greates-number-of-people excuse. Meanwhile, of course, he has absolutely no compassion whatsoever for the trail of deaths & destroyed lives he leaves in his wake in order to do so. Oh well, it's all in a day's work, don't you know?

QUIET TIME

Uncle Frankie's not available lately so things are more than a little different these days without him. As a general rule, he shows up quite frequently & it makes quite a difference when he's gone. I practiced my guitar yesterday. I have no idea where my other, non_Beatle sheet music could possibly have ended up by now so I'm more than kind of restricted in what I get to play. It's still quite interesting for me though. At least I've been playing reasonably well lately. My parents went shopping yesterday to get a present for Anne, a very old friend of theirs in Lindenhurst, who's been ill lately. I made sure I got my usual ten dollars worth of gas over at Turkey Hill in Exeter this morning. It's odd that the prices have managed to stay down so far long but I'm most certainly not about to complain about that. The weather's been very nice so far these days except that there was a bit too much of a chill this morning for my taste. Yesterday, yet again, I ate entirely too much junk food. To my chagrin, it's quite an absolutely disgusting habit I have.

BRONZE FONZE

Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. This morning he left early to visit Fran for a while. Yesterday I read fifty more pages of that book about Marxism. I now have even fewer than eight hundred pages to go before I'm finished with it. It's full of references to all sorts of characters, historical milestones, concepts & circumstances I've literally never even heard of before. I also practiced my guitar quite fervently yesterday. It helps that there's never anything even the least bit interesting on TV to distract me. I shall have to lector at 10:00 Mass on Sunday morning but other than that, the weekend, so far, holds nothing interesting in store for me. There are no plans I know of. Fortunately, I haven't gotten any headaches lately, except for a very slight one one day a couple of weeks ago. I'm on quite a lucky streak right now. There's interesting news from one of my Netpotion connections. I found this out from a woman who lives in Wisconsin. Yes, it appears there really are people in Wisconsin. In Milwaukee, there was recently an unveiling of a statue of Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli from "Happy Days". On top of that, there is even a new play over there that is based on the famed 1970's TV show. To that news, I hereby give a resounding: "sit on it, bucko!"

STILL WARM

Uncle Frankie came over for a visit yesterday. There doesn't seem to be much of anything going on with him lately. I just found out from my goddaughter, Kristy Nicole, over in North Tonawanda, that she's just gotten engaged. She's all of twenty years old. Time flies. Old age is really beginning to settle in onto me. This morning, I started reading a bit more of the insanely big book about Marxism. It's extremely seriously difficult & time consuming but it's very well worth the effort. I really like to make sure I read as much of it as possible each time because it's quite interesting. I made sure I played the guitar for a while yesterday. Even if I practice for less than an hour each day it's still something worthwhile. The Citgo station on Wyoming Avenue in Wyoming is open for business again as of yesterday. The owner was on vacation for a while. I sometimes go there so I have to keep track of things like that. It's the closest one but others are less expensive.

NICE WEEKEND

I went to 4:30 Mass on Saturday at St. John the Evangelist in Pittston. That's the church I was baptized in. Other than that, my weekend was thoroughly uneventful. Uncle Frankie showed up for a little while each day. Bridget called up once. My mother said Aunt Lauren came over for a while on Saturday. That was a really interesting surprise because she pert near never visits. Once again, I pigged out on entirely too much junk food last night. At least the peanuts are all gone. I've never been able to handle too much interesting junk food. I practiced my guitar a lot over the weekend. For the past few days, I've been shaving with an electric razor instead of my usual habit of a hand razor. It's nice for a change of pace every once in a while. As always I consistently practice my guitar. I have no electric guitar though. I only have acoustic guitars. That seriously limits the kinds of songs I get to play, unfortunately. The weather's been very nice lately. Surprisingly, we haven't been surprised by any sudden thunderstorms for the past few days.

CARMELITE MEETING

This morning's Carmelite meeting went quite well. Amazingly, ten people showed up, including Theresa who's just moved into town from Middletown, N.Y. She showed up at a meeting a few months ago. Little did we know she'd ever be back. We now have a new name, Our Lady of the Mountain, for our fraternity. I'm having more than a slightly difficult time of things, of course, being our new formation director. I lectored at 5:00 Mass yesterday but they couldn't find anyone to help me. Uncle Frankie & my parents went to Mass at noon yesterday for Aunt Mary Theresa over at St. John the Evangelist in Pittston. Yesterday I practiced my guitar for a while. By now it's not even the least bit hard to keep up the habit anymore. I just take it entirely for granted at this rate. Happy twentieth birthday to my goddaughter Kristy Nicole in North Tonawanda, N.Y. She's cousin Mary Ellen's daughter. She & my nephew Michael, who's her age, are both my godchildren. His birthday will be next week. Unfortunately I ate yet more junk food yesterday & last night. Pop Tarts & nuts aren't really all that good for me but they can both be quite annoyingly addicting when they're around.

HAPPY FRIDAY

The week ended in just about its usual droll manner. Uncle Frankie came over yesterday. He made sure we ate yet another batch of his pasta. After a while he & my parents went shopping. Because it's the Feast of the Assumption I have to lector at 5:00 Mass later today. I went to confession at the Oblates' seminary this morning. When I went to Turkey Hill this morning to get gas & the paper, they hadn't gotten the Citizens' Voice. A woman on line said it wasn't delivered to her either. There was none at the Unimart either. I ended up having to get the Times Leader. Gas has gotten substantially less expensive lately. That's a bit of a surprise considering how far in the opposite direction things were a while ago. Tomorrow is yet another Carmelite meeting. Yesterday I made sure I did some more of the required reading. It always pays to show up well prepared for things like that. My guitar practice goes on. A little bit each day seems to be going quite a long way lately. To this very day, I have no idea how to tune the thing but that's most certainly never stopped me before. August is half over. September bugs me because the weather's still really nice but it's the beginning of the bad part of the year.