The great educators of American youth may not be the pastors or principals, not the parents or the teachers, but with all due respect to these important individuals – the real educators may just be the school janitors.
I remember the janitor from my elementary school, Ss. Joseph and Paul, although I honestly don’t remember his name. I’m not really sure I ever knew his real name. I always called him Yogi Bear and he always called me Booboo. All the other kids called him Yogi Bear, too; and all the other kids had the same name I did. However, I knew in my heart and in fact that Yogi knew me personally, and that my name meant something very different from all the other Booboos.
So what about the education I received from the school janitor? Volumes could not hold these treasures.
Yogi Bear had a watch, a beautiful gold pocket watch with delicately detailed black hands. It was more than a watch, however. It was a tool. The school ran on it. Mass began by it. Important people may have set the times when things would happen, but they nevertheless happened by Yogi’s watch. He set the classroom clocks and the one in the principal’s office, too. The principal’s important timepiece determined many grave events, but its importance depended on a higher source. Sister Dorothy Marie may have taught me to tell time (or was it my mother?), but Yogi Bear, the school janitor, taught me about time itself, and the sway it held in people’s lives. I learned about time from the timekeeper.
Many privileges and responsibilities came my way in my education; patrol boy, president of the C.S.M.C., student receptionist. There was no task I approached with more awe, however, than those reverent occasions when Yogi Bear handed me the rope (me! imagine!) to pull the Angelus bell. As we awaited the famous watch to tell us just the right moment, Yogi gave me my instructions: the right tension, not too hard, let the rope slide for the second ring before pulling again. Wait. Rhythm is important. I, Booboo, made mistakes, but Yogi Bear had confidence in me. I learned from him that I could have confidence in myself. It might be odd, but I grieve for the boys and girls of today whose churches’ electric chimes deny them the opportunity to learn the mystical lesson of ringing the church bell. Honestly, I still feel its weight and response.
Yogi was a quiet man. He had his own niche in the boiler room, and I suppose I envied him that spot. Niches in boiler rooms are fertile ground for the seeds of contemplation. Yogi moved at his own pace, but always seemed to be working. He was kind to me, always ready to share his knowledge, but perhaps more importantly, his experience. Yogi didn’t necessarily teach the lesson, he was the lesson. He was nobility of character; he was humility – humility in touch with his own intrinsic worth. He was patience and calm.
Yogi shared important, lasting things. He knew about boys and pocket watches, boys and church bells. Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach; but he wasn’t the teacher. He was the school janitor. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 8, 1987
Showing posts with label Owensboro Kentucky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Owensboro Kentucky. Show all posts
Saturday, March 21, 2009
What happened to courtesy?
Courtesy does not come to us naturally. It’s artificial, learned. It’s a lubricant in society that eases our relationships with one another. It’s artificial, but it isn’t phony. I believe it’s a necessity in an ever shorter supply.
Having been brought up in Kentucky, one might say I have been influenced by the southern traditions of high congeniality. Huck Finn’s “Yes, ma’ams” come to mind; and I do indeed still say yes, ma’am. The night they drove old Dixie down was a night no doubt duly accounted for in Divine Providence, but good manners began to die, too; and I’ll call that a shame.
Courtesy is right and important. St. Paul says in Philippians, “…Let all parties think humbly of others as superior to themselves, each of you looking to other’s interests rather than to his own.” If I push in ahead of you, grunt when you speak, in general fail in civility, much less pay deference to you dignity, I have done more than abrogate courtesy, I have harmed you. That makes it a moral matter.
I’m not talking about knowing which fork to pick out of a line of forks at a state dinner, but the common greeting, the consideration and respect we as individuals owe to one another.
Something grates against my bones when I hear a youngster respond to a teacher with “yeah.” Something goes to war inside me what a failure to hear is rejoined with “what?” Something wrinkles my brow when overfamiliarity occurs where unfamiliarity exists.
Words are, too, important. It does matter that people say please, that people say excuse me, that people beg people’s pardon. Addresses like Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. and Father and Sister and Brother and Bishop all matter. Children do need to learn to say thank you, and not just grab the candy and run. Courtesy is tightly linked with words – they are tools of respect; they erect it where it did not stand.
There are times of course, when words are obnoxious. Someone obstreperously butting into a conversation would do well to keep silence. There’s a time for reverent quiet; there’s a time to make noise.
It’s true, manners can be carried to ridiculous extremes. The French, in their précieux period, were loath to refer to teeth, for example, considering the word too earthy. They preferred “the furnishings of the mouth.” They disliked “feet,” preferring “les petites souffrantes,” the little sufferers. Sometimes discourtesy can be disguised in preciosity. A friend one filing through the college cafeteria line told one of the cooks: “Madame, this fare is a gastronomical felony!” To which she replied, “Why thank you!”
Courtesy, for all its sometimes culturally affected oddities, nevertheless has a certain core value, an intrinsic place in any time period. For all the funny distortions that can occur, we need cultural mechanisms for getting along. For sure, the gentility of the South is gone. Going, too, I’m afraid are the sentient good manners of the North, East and West.
Lord, thank you for giving us one another. Lord, please guide us in our ways. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 1st, 1987
Having been brought up in Kentucky, one might say I have been influenced by the southern traditions of high congeniality. Huck Finn’s “Yes, ma’ams” come to mind; and I do indeed still say yes, ma’am. The night they drove old Dixie down was a night no doubt duly accounted for in Divine Providence, but good manners began to die, too; and I’ll call that a shame.
Courtesy is right and important. St. Paul says in Philippians, “…Let all parties think humbly of others as superior to themselves, each of you looking to other’s interests rather than to his own.” If I push in ahead of you, grunt when you speak, in general fail in civility, much less pay deference to you dignity, I have done more than abrogate courtesy, I have harmed you. That makes it a moral matter.
I’m not talking about knowing which fork to pick out of a line of forks at a state dinner, but the common greeting, the consideration and respect we as individuals owe to one another.
Something grates against my bones when I hear a youngster respond to a teacher with “yeah.” Something goes to war inside me what a failure to hear is rejoined with “what?” Something wrinkles my brow when overfamiliarity occurs where unfamiliarity exists.
Words are, too, important. It does matter that people say please, that people say excuse me, that people beg people’s pardon. Addresses like Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. and Father and Sister and Brother and Bishop all matter. Children do need to learn to say thank you, and not just grab the candy and run. Courtesy is tightly linked with words – they are tools of respect; they erect it where it did not stand.
There are times of course, when words are obnoxious. Someone obstreperously butting into a conversation would do well to keep silence. There’s a time for reverent quiet; there’s a time to make noise.
It’s true, manners can be carried to ridiculous extremes. The French, in their précieux period, were loath to refer to teeth, for example, considering the word too earthy. They preferred “the furnishings of the mouth.” They disliked “feet,” preferring “les petites souffrantes,” the little sufferers. Sometimes discourtesy can be disguised in preciosity. A friend one filing through the college cafeteria line told one of the cooks: “Madame, this fare is a gastronomical felony!” To which she replied, “Why thank you!”
Courtesy, for all its sometimes culturally affected oddities, nevertheless has a certain core value, an intrinsic place in any time period. For all the funny distortions that can occur, we need cultural mechanisms for getting along. For sure, the gentility of the South is gone. Going, too, I’m afraid are the sentient good manners of the North, East and West.
Lord, thank you for giving us one another. Lord, please guide us in our ways. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 1st, 1987
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Msgr. Braun, r.i.p.
The last time I saw him was Memorial Day 1985 at Resurrection Cemetery near Whitesville, Ky. A gang of priests was moving about the grounds praying for the dead. Msgr. Peter J. Braun was there but standing by himself in the parking lot: too old, too feeble, I figured, to join the others. He prayed the Rosary with them. He was the only one wearing a biretta.
Msgr. Braun was always Monsignor to his face, but he was Father Brown elsewhere in Ss. Joseph and Paul parish, where his was a name which brought quick change in tone to any querulous state in the life of faith. The Josephinum Newsletter tells me he died in November. Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
I did not greet Msgr. Braun that day in the cemetery. It would not have been proper to interrupt his Rosary. Woe betide me if I had. The feelings are familiar in the human condition: approach-avoidance. In the bustle of the aftermath, I thought no, he wouldn’t remember me.
Oh, but I remember him; indeed have kept up with the news of the whereabouts and well being of my former pastor during the years. Now, my inquiries are at an end.
I suppose I should be ashamed of myself for not making the effort to be personal in my attachment to Msgr. Braun. He was a human being with feelings. But there was no particular reason for him to have an interest in me. “I think you have a vocation,” he told me once. But he was wrong. I was just another kid in the parish.
It was a Sunday morning in the late 1950s. I was one of the servers for the Mass that morning. Father Brown was late and Father Brown was never even slightly late. I recall the news hitting the sacristy in the businesslike tension of the substitute priest. I looked out the sacristy door toward the rectory where no one stirred outside, but where inside I suspected Father Brown lay dying.
He had been overweight and a smoker. The post-heart-attack man emerged an exemplary model of health. If he had slowed, his pace belied it. He became a brisk walker and came to be joined later by a small pet dog.
I knew him to be a genial man but with bearing and reserve. That did not mean he did not speak his mind plainly. His self-discipline was the butt of jokes; but no joke could pierce his essential trait. Msgr. Braun had dignity.
His love for each one made each one know there were others to love, too. His love meant very specific, deep and uncompromising things – not things fuzzy, superficial and maudlin. His notion of repentance had to do with unequivocal effort to change.
Let’s face it, Monsignor. Some people thought you were mean. Word was you sent more than one away from the confessional with his sins retained until you could discern some semblance of sorrow. Tongues wagged about that, and even more tongues would wag today, I suppose. They say Padre Pio sent some away, too.
You were one of a kind, even though you did have a twin brother. I ached for your loneliness, but I know you were every fiber the man God called you to be. Being one of the kids in your crowd, I was never intimidated by you. I never misunderstood where you were coming from. My fear was respect for you, even reverence.
I think of the example of your life only with gratitude. I am still blessed by your blessings. They went past the sign to the mystery of the truth. You were a man of God. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 13th, 1987
Msgr. Braun was always Monsignor to his face, but he was Father Brown elsewhere in Ss. Joseph and Paul parish, where his was a name which brought quick change in tone to any querulous state in the life of faith. The Josephinum Newsletter tells me he died in November. Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
I did not greet Msgr. Braun that day in the cemetery. It would not have been proper to interrupt his Rosary. Woe betide me if I had. The feelings are familiar in the human condition: approach-avoidance. In the bustle of the aftermath, I thought no, he wouldn’t remember me.
Oh, but I remember him; indeed have kept up with the news of the whereabouts and well being of my former pastor during the years. Now, my inquiries are at an end.
I suppose I should be ashamed of myself for not making the effort to be personal in my attachment to Msgr. Braun. He was a human being with feelings. But there was no particular reason for him to have an interest in me. “I think you have a vocation,” he told me once. But he was wrong. I was just another kid in the parish.
It was a Sunday morning in the late 1950s. I was one of the servers for the Mass that morning. Father Brown was late and Father Brown was never even slightly late. I recall the news hitting the sacristy in the businesslike tension of the substitute priest. I looked out the sacristy door toward the rectory where no one stirred outside, but where inside I suspected Father Brown lay dying.
He had been overweight and a smoker. The post-heart-attack man emerged an exemplary model of health. If he had slowed, his pace belied it. He became a brisk walker and came to be joined later by a small pet dog.
I knew him to be a genial man but with bearing and reserve. That did not mean he did not speak his mind plainly. His self-discipline was the butt of jokes; but no joke could pierce his essential trait. Msgr. Braun had dignity.
His love for each one made each one know there were others to love, too. His love meant very specific, deep and uncompromising things – not things fuzzy, superficial and maudlin. His notion of repentance had to do with unequivocal effort to change.
Let’s face it, Monsignor. Some people thought you were mean. Word was you sent more than one away from the confessional with his sins retained until you could discern some semblance of sorrow. Tongues wagged about that, and even more tongues would wag today, I suppose. They say Padre Pio sent some away, too.
You were one of a kind, even though you did have a twin brother. I ached for your loneliness, but I know you were every fiber the man God called you to be. Being one of the kids in your crowd, I was never intimidated by you. I never misunderstood where you were coming from. My fear was respect for you, even reverence.
I think of the example of your life only with gratitude. I am still blessed by your blessings. They went past the sign to the mystery of the truth. You were a man of God. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 13th, 1987
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Hot summer days
Memories of summer days flash like heat lightning at twilight – showing vague outlines, gently brightening, quickly fading.
Charley Pfiester and I crouched in the fine dust at the corner of his house, in the shade of a giant maple, peering intently at the conical indentation the size of a dime in the light brown powdery soil.
“Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire! Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire!” we chanted in unison, first one, then the other – persistently, not giving up. Slowly, slowly the silt at the base of the cone began to shift, push up in the middle, A tiny mound in the tiny cone formed in starts, stops, starts – each push of the duped doodle bug escaping his burning house creating wonder for two bored lads on a summer day.
Charley and I did our share of doodlebug calling. Charley claims to have called one all the way out one time, but I was never that bored. There were apricots to beckon. They were big and fat.
They hung on the limbs of the forked tree in the side yard, the one Mrs. Pfiester was forever telling kids to stay out of until she gave up. It sat too good. God made that tree to sit in.
A pan of apricots went across the fence for an apricot cobbler. A bowl of apricots went down the hill for an apricot pie. For all the warnings: “Stop eatin’ those apricots!” and “Ya’ll are goin’ to get sick eatin’ all those apricots!” and “You’re goin’ to run into a worm!” – apricot eating continued on until the tree was bare those summer days.
Moms would send kids over to Mr. Winkler’s or down to Bess Hazel’s Blue Plate Grocery Store for a quart of Purex or a gallon of Ideal milk or a loaf of Bunny bread. (A rabbit rode a horse, played a guitar and sang a jingle: “That’s what I said, Bunny bread.” We sang it, too).
The drink box at Mr. Winkler’s was a pleasant trysting place for the weary traveler from home. Always plenty of Barq’s root beer, Nehi grapes and strawberries, RC’s and Chocolas. Sometimes a big orange would be just what you wanted and Mr. Winkler’s box would have one cold and waiting. Tony Payne won two dollars once under the cork on his Dr. Pepper cap.
Of course lots of Milky Ways and Hershey bars were available in the ice cream box with the Popsicles, the Push-ups and the Cho-chos; but you’d better get what you wanted and get out of it.
Miss Hazel had a spool of string rigged on a coat hanger wire with the end of the string dangling through a fashioned eyelet. She tied up purchases of side meat and baloney wrapped in brown paper.
A few in the crowd decided to see how deep a hole they could dig in the railroad field. It became a fair-sized neighborhood project before it was over. The talk predictably centered on digging to China before it turned to the great dangers inherent in a project of this magnitude, particularly after a ladder was needed to descend the great depth.
Certain advantages became apparent. Stifling and muggy vapors lifted from the thick weeds of the field, but it was cool in the hole. At an admirable depth there was much discussion of heading the excavations sideways. Main diggers could have their place to go be alone. They could put cardboard on the floor, take a candle down there, maybe mix vile poisons from milkweed and pokeberries and squeezings from unknown species.
But nah, that wasn’t any fun. Better to go watch Mr. Weber turn on the streetlight in the back alley. Let’s play hide and go seek, kick the can, wave out, or hum-bum runway. (“Ink, ink a bottle of ink, what color do you choose?” “One potato, two potato, three potato, four…”) Let’s hook our feet in Buck’s fence railing and lean back in the lawn chairs, pretend this is an airplane – not just any plane, but a big plane.
Then the calls came. “Tooonnnyyyyy!” “Toooommmmyyy!” “Charles Lewis, you git in the house! It’s dark as the dickens out here!”
True, nostalgia brings memories likely not as true as they seem. Carried to extremes, it can cause heartache. But a taste now and then has a sweetness, a goodness, a serenity. It can soothe a troubled soul on a hot summer day. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on August 2nd, 1987
Charley Pfiester and I crouched in the fine dust at the corner of his house, in the shade of a giant maple, peering intently at the conical indentation the size of a dime in the light brown powdery soil.
“Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire! Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire!” we chanted in unison, first one, then the other – persistently, not giving up. Slowly, slowly the silt at the base of the cone began to shift, push up in the middle, A tiny mound in the tiny cone formed in starts, stops, starts – each push of the duped doodle bug escaping his burning house creating wonder for two bored lads on a summer day.
Charley and I did our share of doodlebug calling. Charley claims to have called one all the way out one time, but I was never that bored. There were apricots to beckon. They were big and fat.
They hung on the limbs of the forked tree in the side yard, the one Mrs. Pfiester was forever telling kids to stay out of until she gave up. It sat too good. God made that tree to sit in.
A pan of apricots went across the fence for an apricot cobbler. A bowl of apricots went down the hill for an apricot pie. For all the warnings: “Stop eatin’ those apricots!” and “Ya’ll are goin’ to get sick eatin’ all those apricots!” and “You’re goin’ to run into a worm!” – apricot eating continued on until the tree was bare those summer days.
Moms would send kids over to Mr. Winkler’s or down to Bess Hazel’s Blue Plate Grocery Store for a quart of Purex or a gallon of Ideal milk or a loaf of Bunny bread. (A rabbit rode a horse, played a guitar and sang a jingle: “That’s what I said, Bunny bread.” We sang it, too).
The drink box at Mr. Winkler’s was a pleasant trysting place for the weary traveler from home. Always plenty of Barq’s root beer, Nehi grapes and strawberries, RC’s and Chocolas. Sometimes a big orange would be just what you wanted and Mr. Winkler’s box would have one cold and waiting. Tony Payne won two dollars once under the cork on his Dr. Pepper cap.
Of course lots of Milky Ways and Hershey bars were available in the ice cream box with the Popsicles, the Push-ups and the Cho-chos; but you’d better get what you wanted and get out of it.
Miss Hazel had a spool of string rigged on a coat hanger wire with the end of the string dangling through a fashioned eyelet. She tied up purchases of side meat and baloney wrapped in brown paper.
A few in the crowd decided to see how deep a hole they could dig in the railroad field. It became a fair-sized neighborhood project before it was over. The talk predictably centered on digging to China before it turned to the great dangers inherent in a project of this magnitude, particularly after a ladder was needed to descend the great depth.
Certain advantages became apparent. Stifling and muggy vapors lifted from the thick weeds of the field, but it was cool in the hole. At an admirable depth there was much discussion of heading the excavations sideways. Main diggers could have their place to go be alone. They could put cardboard on the floor, take a candle down there, maybe mix vile poisons from milkweed and pokeberries and squeezings from unknown species.
But nah, that wasn’t any fun. Better to go watch Mr. Weber turn on the streetlight in the back alley. Let’s play hide and go seek, kick the can, wave out, or hum-bum runway. (“Ink, ink a bottle of ink, what color do you choose?” “One potato, two potato, three potato, four…”) Let’s hook our feet in Buck’s fence railing and lean back in the lawn chairs, pretend this is an airplane – not just any plane, but a big plane.
Then the calls came. “Tooonnnyyyyy!” “Toooommmmyyy!” “Charles Lewis, you git in the house! It’s dark as the dickens out here!”
True, nostalgia brings memories likely not as true as they seem. Carried to extremes, it can cause heartache. But a taste now and then has a sweetness, a goodness, a serenity. It can soothe a troubled soul on a hot summer day. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on August 2nd, 1987
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
A change in plans
I’ve changed my funeral plans. It used to be that I wanted to be buried in a Catholic cemetery near Dermont, Kentucky.
Bishop Francis Cotton, the first Bishop of Owensboro (my hometown), was the first person buried in that cemetery. Both my parents are buried there along with several relatives.
Thank goodness I didn’t go ahead and buy a plot, though. I want to find another place.
The reason I’ve changed my mind about the Owensboro cemetery is because it’s one of those places where everybody has to have the same kind of tombstone.
These cemeteries came into vogue several years ago. They seemed to make sense. Everything was nice and even and Romanesque and easy to mow. Then I visited an old-fashioned, cluttered cemetery over Memorial Day weekend, and something snapped inside me.
This was the old kind of cemetery where there are a million different tombstones. No ugly, forbidding signs said: No artificial flowers allowed! There was no list of rules at the entrance telling all the things you couldn’t do. In fact, at this cemetery, you could do whatever you wanted. People had planted every kind of flower there, and marvelous trees of every description. Graves were adorned with shrubs.
The place was busy, owing to the holiday of course. But here were people expending tender loving care upon the final place for those they loved, instead of being forbidden to touch a thing.
As we visited, I became touched with the idea that graveyards are very much for the living. To visit a gravesite and to plant a rose bush, or trim a hedge or put in perennials – these things are purgative and helpful for those who so dearly miss the ones they have lost. These activities help the living spend time with the dead in a way somehow deeper than just putting down a bouquet.
I’ll not soon forget seeing one heavy-set man in his T-shirt as he stepped back from his gardening at the grave of his loved one. He had just stepped back and looked, his hands out from his sides and covered with dirt, like all people do when they have just planted something. The look on his face, however, went way beyond the flowers. His eyes were full of great love and great sorrow. He was an ordinary man, a simple man; but he was at a point of contact with all the meaning any life ever holds: the point at which one person loves another.
So give me one of those kinds of cemeteries, please, when I die – one construed for the benefit of the bereaved and not for the convenience of the caretakers.
Also, I’ve decided I don’t want the Dies Irae sung at my funeral. You remember that, don’t you? “O Day of Wrath, that dreadful day. The sins of man before the Maker lay – As David and the Sybil say.” I thought I wanted that, but now I’ve decided differently.
I don’t want to offend anybody, but now I want a funeral procession headed up by a New Orleans street band playing a little Dixieland jazz. I just pray I’ve made enough black friends by then to join the procession and help my stiff white friends let go a little and dance. Nothing puts me in a happier frame of mind than Dixieland, and I plan to be one happy dude the day I die.
What more glorious, happy, joyous, exciting thing could ever happen to a person than to go be with Jesus? –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on June 14th, 1987
Bishop Francis Cotton, the first Bishop of Owensboro (my hometown), was the first person buried in that cemetery. Both my parents are buried there along with several relatives.
Thank goodness I didn’t go ahead and buy a plot, though. I want to find another place.
The reason I’ve changed my mind about the Owensboro cemetery is because it’s one of those places where everybody has to have the same kind of tombstone.
These cemeteries came into vogue several years ago. They seemed to make sense. Everything was nice and even and Romanesque and easy to mow. Then I visited an old-fashioned, cluttered cemetery over Memorial Day weekend, and something snapped inside me.
This was the old kind of cemetery where there are a million different tombstones. No ugly, forbidding signs said: No artificial flowers allowed! There was no list of rules at the entrance telling all the things you couldn’t do. In fact, at this cemetery, you could do whatever you wanted. People had planted every kind of flower there, and marvelous trees of every description. Graves were adorned with shrubs.
The place was busy, owing to the holiday of course. But here were people expending tender loving care upon the final place for those they loved, instead of being forbidden to touch a thing.
As we visited, I became touched with the idea that graveyards are very much for the living. To visit a gravesite and to plant a rose bush, or trim a hedge or put in perennials – these things are purgative and helpful for those who so dearly miss the ones they have lost. These activities help the living spend time with the dead in a way somehow deeper than just putting down a bouquet.
I’ll not soon forget seeing one heavy-set man in his T-shirt as he stepped back from his gardening at the grave of his loved one. He had just stepped back and looked, his hands out from his sides and covered with dirt, like all people do when they have just planted something. The look on his face, however, went way beyond the flowers. His eyes were full of great love and great sorrow. He was an ordinary man, a simple man; but he was at a point of contact with all the meaning any life ever holds: the point at which one person loves another.
So give me one of those kinds of cemeteries, please, when I die – one construed for the benefit of the bereaved and not for the convenience of the caretakers.
Also, I’ve decided I don’t want the Dies Irae sung at my funeral. You remember that, don’t you? “O Day of Wrath, that dreadful day. The sins of man before the Maker lay – As David and the Sybil say.” I thought I wanted that, but now I’ve decided differently.
I don’t want to offend anybody, but now I want a funeral procession headed up by a New Orleans street band playing a little Dixieland jazz. I just pray I’ve made enough black friends by then to join the procession and help my stiff white friends let go a little and dance. Nothing puts me in a happier frame of mind than Dixieland, and I plan to be one happy dude the day I die.
What more glorious, happy, joyous, exciting thing could ever happen to a person than to go be with Jesus? –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on June 14th, 1987
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Hanley
When I was a boy I had a neighbor whose name was Hanley. I liked Hanley, and I still think of him often even though he’s been dead more than 25 years. He fell asleep with a cigarette and burnt up in bed. He was a good man, though many in the world may not have considered him such. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice. Sometimes he called me Tommy, but mostly he simply called me boy.
The reason the world may have looked askance at Hanley was because he was addicted to alcohol. We’d sleep out in the tent under the apple tree in the summer, and we’d wait for Hanley to come up the back alley from the First and Last Chance. We’d greet him, but at those times he often didn’t speak. He’d be drunk and staggering.
On many occasions I went to his house in the morning. He lived with his elderly mother who would pour Hanley his cups of strong coffee before he went to work at the light plant. His mother would smile broadly at me with her teeth out. Hanley would be unshaven and groggy, but it would be obvious that he was pleased that I had come in. Somehow I found their company warm and pleasant.
I know that alcoholism is a dreadful thing, and I don’t dismiss it in Hanley’s case. He died because he was an alcoholic. Being just a neighbor kid, I was spared the probable terrible ramifications of Hanley’s malady. As it was, I liked Hanley, and he liked me. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and I remember the tar stains on his fingertips. He was a raw-boned fellow and tall, with a weathered face and long hands.
My friendship with Hanley was by no means deep. There was enough distance between us that I took the news of his death with shock, but not with grief. I don’t want to sound cold, but the shock I felt was not disbelief, more the quality one experiences when stark reality sets in. Hanley’s end was not unexpected in our environs. Folks said well, they were shocked but not surprised, seeing how he was, seeing how he drank.
Sometimes I wonder how I ever had any kind of relationship with Hanley. Perhaps it was because I was a child. A child will go in where adults fear to tread. I never saw an adult neighbor at Hanley’s house at 7:30 in the morning, people who just stopped in early for no particular reason. Kids do that, but adults don’t. Trusting children take people as they come, without preconditions.
I read the 13th chapter of First Corinthians today, St. Paul’s great teaching about love; and I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love. After I read the Scripture, I was a bit apprehensive, wondering if I would ever understand love in my time. In my mind, I saw Jesus on the cross and I knew that was love, but I don’t pretend to fully comprehend it.
I ask myself if I loved Hanley, and I think maybe I did. I don’t know what else to call it. Now that I’m old and crotchety, I don’t have relationships with people like I had with him. I have a tendency to judge. I’m forever imputing motives, second-guessing, suspecting, finding fault, making sure I find a shortcoming or two. In Hanley’s case, I never did do those things. I didn’t condemn him, didn’t think to condemn him. Even when he staggered up the back alley, I actually looked forward to seeing him. In my child’s mind, I’m sure I chuckled and probably said, boy he’s really staggering tonight. But I didn’t think that was good or bad or what an awful man Hanley was for being so drunk. He was just Hanley. I accepted him with no reservations, no expectations that he should change. He did not, in fact, ever change.
For sure, love is more complicated than the love I had for Hanley. Jesus’ love for me and Hanley is indeed infinite compared to the simple, detached friendship a man and a neighbor kid shared so long ago. Nevertheless, there was something there, a beginning perhaps, a place for greater love to begin.
It would be easy for me to take my adult perceptions back to those mornings in Hanley’s kitchen and recast them with all kinds of judgments. Rather, I prefer to bring those mornings into now and again smell the strong coffee on the gas burner, hear Hanley’s gentle bass voice say how you doin’, boy. There is no ego in the air, no condemnation – just acceptance. Maybe it takes a child’s eyes to see the beauty and good and sweetness in a broken man. Love is more than the love I had for Hanley; but simple as it was, it was greater than prophecies and tongues and knowledge… and has endured. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 3rd, 1987
The reason the world may have looked askance at Hanley was because he was addicted to alcohol. We’d sleep out in the tent under the apple tree in the summer, and we’d wait for Hanley to come up the back alley from the First and Last Chance. We’d greet him, but at those times he often didn’t speak. He’d be drunk and staggering.
On many occasions I went to his house in the morning. He lived with his elderly mother who would pour Hanley his cups of strong coffee before he went to work at the light plant. His mother would smile broadly at me with her teeth out. Hanley would be unshaven and groggy, but it would be obvious that he was pleased that I had come in. Somehow I found their company warm and pleasant.
I know that alcoholism is a dreadful thing, and I don’t dismiss it in Hanley’s case. He died because he was an alcoholic. Being just a neighbor kid, I was spared the probable terrible ramifications of Hanley’s malady. As it was, I liked Hanley, and he liked me. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and I remember the tar stains on his fingertips. He was a raw-boned fellow and tall, with a weathered face and long hands.
My friendship with Hanley was by no means deep. There was enough distance between us that I took the news of his death with shock, but not with grief. I don’t want to sound cold, but the shock I felt was not disbelief, more the quality one experiences when stark reality sets in. Hanley’s end was not unexpected in our environs. Folks said well, they were shocked but not surprised, seeing how he was, seeing how he drank.
Sometimes I wonder how I ever had any kind of relationship with Hanley. Perhaps it was because I was a child. A child will go in where adults fear to tread. I never saw an adult neighbor at Hanley’s house at 7:30 in the morning, people who just stopped in early for no particular reason. Kids do that, but adults don’t. Trusting children take people as they come, without preconditions.
I read the 13th chapter of First Corinthians today, St. Paul’s great teaching about love; and I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love. After I read the Scripture, I was a bit apprehensive, wondering if I would ever understand love in my time. In my mind, I saw Jesus on the cross and I knew that was love, but I don’t pretend to fully comprehend it.
I ask myself if I loved Hanley, and I think maybe I did. I don’t know what else to call it. Now that I’m old and crotchety, I don’t have relationships with people like I had with him. I have a tendency to judge. I’m forever imputing motives, second-guessing, suspecting, finding fault, making sure I find a shortcoming or two. In Hanley’s case, I never did do those things. I didn’t condemn him, didn’t think to condemn him. Even when he staggered up the back alley, I actually looked forward to seeing him. In my child’s mind, I’m sure I chuckled and probably said, boy he’s really staggering tonight. But I didn’t think that was good or bad or what an awful man Hanley was for being so drunk. He was just Hanley. I accepted him with no reservations, no expectations that he should change. He did not, in fact, ever change.
For sure, love is more complicated than the love I had for Hanley. Jesus’ love for me and Hanley is indeed infinite compared to the simple, detached friendship a man and a neighbor kid shared so long ago. Nevertheless, there was something there, a beginning perhaps, a place for greater love to begin.
It would be easy for me to take my adult perceptions back to those mornings in Hanley’s kitchen and recast them with all kinds of judgments. Rather, I prefer to bring those mornings into now and again smell the strong coffee on the gas burner, hear Hanley’s gentle bass voice say how you doin’, boy. There is no ego in the air, no condemnation – just acceptance. Maybe it takes a child’s eyes to see the beauty and good and sweetness in a broken man. Love is more than the love I had for Hanley; but simple as it was, it was greater than prophecies and tongues and knowledge… and has endured. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 3rd, 1987
Monday, October 29, 2007
‘St. Joe and Paul’
They’ve torn down my old school, Sts. Joseph and Paul Grade School in Owensboro, Kentucky. I’m reminded that our children have been growing up but don’t quite realize it. They don’t discern the memories they’re accumulating.
St. Joe and Paul we called it. It’s funny the things that come flooding back from this place that is no more.
I remember wonderful red apples in a book in the first grade. Sister Dorothy Marie’s face shown so pleasantly from her Ursuline bonnet.
I was Sister George Ann’s “little messenger boy” in the second grade. Sister George Ann became president of Brescia College in Owensboro where I also went to school. She died a while back of cancer.
Sister Angelica was indeed an angel, such a kind person. Sister Mary Mercy was very strict and disciplined, but I knew her gentleness, too. Sister Sylvia Mary kept us nailed in our desks and our desks nailed to the floor. But I also remember taking a keen interest in “Voyages in English” that year.
I got my comeuppance as Sister Mary Rose told me one day, “You think you’re pretty smart, Tommy Russell, but you’re just average, boy, just average.”
Sister Mary Rose gave me an “H” on my Kentucky scrapbook. My family had gone on a trip around the state and I included silly things in my scrapbook: bark from a tree at the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial and a rock from the entrance to Mammoth cave. Our grades were S-, S, S+, H, and E in those days, with the more familiar D and F on the other end. Sister Mary Ruth succeeded Sister George Ann as president of Brescia.
Sister Rosita, my eighth grade teacher, got bopped on the head with a ball on the playground, knocking her bonnet off. You can believe there were wide eyes on the playground at that noon recess.
School days, what days they were! I recall tracing an outline of the National Cathedral on a stencil for the school paper. Every class put on a play. I recall dancing a minuet in knickers. I was City Mouse one year and had to eat real crackers on stage!
I so well remember serving Mass. “Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.” That was pretty easy. The “Suscipiat” was another matter. I recall laying out vestments, making neat designs with the cincture.
Every year we’d be surprised with fried chicken at lunch and we’d ask Sister what was the special occasion. It was a golden opportunity to tell us about the Feast of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.
I remember the day I learned to spell “Immaculate Conception” and I ran to tell Sister Mary Rose. Sister Mary Mercy told us how important it was to have clean hands and fingernails, “It’s the first thing people notice about you.”
Sister Rosita said never begin a letter with the word “I.” Always think of a way to say something about your reader first, that way you’ll get their attention, she said. It’s also a good way to think about humility.
Sister Aloise, our principal, would play classical music during lunch, and a student would walk around with the name of the piece on a sign. Such odd words! I never entered the contest Sister Aloise conducted to see who could name the most classical melodies.
My school was all education, whether I was warming my hands on the chimney at back of church or having Sister Mary Rose show me how to put depth perspective in a picture of a lane. I learned the meaning of the word “uniform” by aligning all the slats in the Venetian blinds in the cafeteria. Sister Rosita taught me.
I value my Catholic education as one of the great treasures of my life. Those Ursuline nuns gave me gifts of love and friendship and knowledge and faith. My heart is full of fondness for them, and gratitude.
Our children are receiving their education now. It warms my heart to think of the richness of the thing that is happening. We’ll never know all about it. It will be something that belongs to them.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 28th, 1986
St. Joe and Paul we called it. It’s funny the things that come flooding back from this place that is no more.
I remember wonderful red apples in a book in the first grade. Sister Dorothy Marie’s face shown so pleasantly from her Ursuline bonnet.
I was Sister George Ann’s “little messenger boy” in the second grade. Sister George Ann became president of Brescia College in Owensboro where I also went to school. She died a while back of cancer.
Sister Angelica was indeed an angel, such a kind person. Sister Mary Mercy was very strict and disciplined, but I knew her gentleness, too. Sister Sylvia Mary kept us nailed in our desks and our desks nailed to the floor. But I also remember taking a keen interest in “Voyages in English” that year.
I got my comeuppance as Sister Mary Rose told me one day, “You think you’re pretty smart, Tommy Russell, but you’re just average, boy, just average.”
Sister Mary Rose gave me an “H” on my Kentucky scrapbook. My family had gone on a trip around the state and I included silly things in my scrapbook: bark from a tree at the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial and a rock from the entrance to Mammoth cave. Our grades were S-, S, S+, H, and E in those days, with the more familiar D and F on the other end. Sister Mary Ruth succeeded Sister George Ann as president of Brescia.
Sister Rosita, my eighth grade teacher, got bopped on the head with a ball on the playground, knocking her bonnet off. You can believe there were wide eyes on the playground at that noon recess.
School days, what days they were! I recall tracing an outline of the National Cathedral on a stencil for the school paper. Every class put on a play. I recall dancing a minuet in knickers. I was City Mouse one year and had to eat real crackers on stage!
I so well remember serving Mass. “Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.” That was pretty easy. The “Suscipiat” was another matter. I recall laying out vestments, making neat designs with the cincture.
Every year we’d be surprised with fried chicken at lunch and we’d ask Sister what was the special occasion. It was a golden opportunity to tell us about the Feast of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.
I remember the day I learned to spell “Immaculate Conception” and I ran to tell Sister Mary Rose. Sister Mary Mercy told us how important it was to have clean hands and fingernails, “It’s the first thing people notice about you.”
Sister Rosita said never begin a letter with the word “I.” Always think of a way to say something about your reader first, that way you’ll get their attention, she said. It’s also a good way to think about humility.
Sister Aloise, our principal, would play classical music during lunch, and a student would walk around with the name of the piece on a sign. Such odd words! I never entered the contest Sister Aloise conducted to see who could name the most classical melodies.
My school was all education, whether I was warming my hands on the chimney at back of church or having Sister Mary Rose show me how to put depth perspective in a picture of a lane. I learned the meaning of the word “uniform” by aligning all the slats in the Venetian blinds in the cafeteria. Sister Rosita taught me.
I value my Catholic education as one of the great treasures of my life. Those Ursuline nuns gave me gifts of love and friendship and knowledge and faith. My heart is full of fondness for them, and gratitude.
Our children are receiving their education now. It warms my heart to think of the richness of the thing that is happening. We’ll never know all about it. It will be something that belongs to them.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 28th, 1986
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Lucy Alice
My mother died when I was 15 years old, almost 25 years ago. She was a friendly woman, hard working, deeply faithful.
Mothers are always special. It takes a long time into adulthood sometimes to believe they have any faults – any at all.
My mother was born near a place called Dermont, Kentucky. Actually, where she was born doesn’t have a name. It’s just the country. We had a blue plate in our home when I was growing up that testified about where my mother’s family used to trade. On the underneath side it said: “Sog Hinton’s Grocery Store, Dermont, Kentucky.”
Her name was Lucy Alice. I came in from playing one day and she was standing at the kitchen sink with her friend, Snooks Kluck. I said, “You’re name is Lucy? Maybe we ought to get a screwdriver and tighten you up!” She roared with laughter. I remember her laugh more than a lot of other things about her. It was so full and so ready and so uninhibited.
She was a strict disciplinarian. There was none of this sitting in the corner business. We got what she called a “thrashin’.” It came swiftly and without hesitation, with a belt or a hairbrush or a willow branch, whatever was handy. I loved her so awfully much.
She’d clean house every day, but Friday was housecleaning day in a big way. She’d dust the baseboards and the tops of pictures and wipe the bottoms of the kitchen chair legs. Lunch was most often leftovers, except on Saturday when there’d be Spanish bar cake and lunch meat from the A&P.
During the week, she lie on the couch at the noon hour in the T.V. room and watch “As the World Turns” on the Lowboy. She’d put her feet in my lap and I would rub them, and her legs. They hurt her from being on them so much.
Every night at 9 o’clock, we’d kneel down in the living room and say the Rosary. Dad would give and we would answer. My mother had a special devotion to Mary. Mother would have coffee many a late morning with her friend Madge who lived up the way. As often as not, it was a faith sharing.
We had a cloister of Passionist nuns near where we used to live. Madge would say, “Now, Lucy, how in the world can them women live in there like that? Seems like they’d go crazy. I would, I know.” And they’d both laugh, and my mother would explain. My mother would talk about Mary. She knew her as a protectress, an intercessor, a friend. To this day, Madge has a statue of our Blessed Mother in her living room. “She’ll keep me safe,” Madge says. She is a Baptist.
When the Rosary was ended, Mother would stand up and I would hold her because she was dizzy. I would hold my arms around her waist and look into her face. Her eyes would be closed and her head would sway gently to the right and left. Then she’d open her eyes and smile, and I would kiss her good night, as would my brothers and my sister.
My mother’s first two babies were miscarried. The doctors told her she would never have any more children. I was her ninth and last pregnancy. She died of cancer when she was 54.
When I was born, my mother named me “Alan,” after Blessed Alan, a Dominican who spent his days encouraging devotion to the Rosary. On my birth certificate, they put “Allen,” and that made my mother mad. She sent it back and made them change it. My birth certificate has “Allen” scratched through and “Alan” handprinted on it. A lot of people called me “Tom” or “Tommy.” My mother was wont to call me “T. Alan.”
My mother knew a lot of pain in her life. She wore a back brace for a long time because of surgery for a slipped disc in her back. I’ve never witnessed anyone have such pain for such a long time as she had with that.
But she also had joy. I remember her dressing up for a party in our home as a Chinese woman, just acting silly. There was so much happiness that night. Her friends were good friends, and many, and life-long. We were a home of extremes, I guess. Our pain was intense. Our laughter was abundant.
On Mother’s Day, all of us think of our mothers. It’s a simple observance, really. We remember that they gave us life. We reflect on how much we love them. For those of us whose mother’s are gone, the day is no less meaningful.
Sometimes in my mind’s eye, when I’ve done things I’ve had no business doing, I became aware that my mother knows everything about me now. I have no secrets from her.
Sometimes, too, I see myself coming into heaven and Momma’s there to greet me. She runs up to me and hugs me hard and says to me, “Honey, come look!”
Mothers are always special. It takes a long time into adulthood sometimes to believe they have any faults – any at all.
My mother was born near a place called Dermont, Kentucky. Actually, where she was born doesn’t have a name. It’s just the country. We had a blue plate in our home when I was growing up that testified about where my mother’s family used to trade. On the underneath side it said: “Sog Hinton’s Grocery Store, Dermont, Kentucky.”
Her name was Lucy Alice. I came in from playing one day and she was standing at the kitchen sink with her friend, Snooks Kluck. I said, “You’re name is Lucy? Maybe we ought to get a screwdriver and tighten you up!” She roared with laughter. I remember her laugh more than a lot of other things about her. It was so full and so ready and so uninhibited.
She was a strict disciplinarian. There was none of this sitting in the corner business. We got what she called a “thrashin’.” It came swiftly and without hesitation, with a belt or a hairbrush or a willow branch, whatever was handy. I loved her so awfully much.
She’d clean house every day, but Friday was housecleaning day in a big way. She’d dust the baseboards and the tops of pictures and wipe the bottoms of the kitchen chair legs. Lunch was most often leftovers, except on Saturday when there’d be Spanish bar cake and lunch meat from the A&P.
During the week, she lie on the couch at the noon hour in the T.V. room and watch “As the World Turns” on the Lowboy. She’d put her feet in my lap and I would rub them, and her legs. They hurt her from being on them so much.
Every night at 9 o’clock, we’d kneel down in the living room and say the Rosary. Dad would give and we would answer. My mother had a special devotion to Mary. Mother would have coffee many a late morning with her friend Madge who lived up the way. As often as not, it was a faith sharing.
We had a cloister of Passionist nuns near where we used to live. Madge would say, “Now, Lucy, how in the world can them women live in there like that? Seems like they’d go crazy. I would, I know.” And they’d both laugh, and my mother would explain. My mother would talk about Mary. She knew her as a protectress, an intercessor, a friend. To this day, Madge has a statue of our Blessed Mother in her living room. “She’ll keep me safe,” Madge says. She is a Baptist.
When the Rosary was ended, Mother would stand up and I would hold her because she was dizzy. I would hold my arms around her waist and look into her face. Her eyes would be closed and her head would sway gently to the right and left. Then she’d open her eyes and smile, and I would kiss her good night, as would my brothers and my sister.
My mother’s first two babies were miscarried. The doctors told her she would never have any more children. I was her ninth and last pregnancy. She died of cancer when she was 54.
When I was born, my mother named me “Alan,” after Blessed Alan, a Dominican who spent his days encouraging devotion to the Rosary. On my birth certificate, they put “Allen,” and that made my mother mad. She sent it back and made them change it. My birth certificate has “Allen” scratched through and “Alan” handprinted on it. A lot of people called me “Tom” or “Tommy.” My mother was wont to call me “T. Alan.”
My mother knew a lot of pain in her life. She wore a back brace for a long time because of surgery for a slipped disc in her back. I’ve never witnessed anyone have such pain for such a long time as she had with that.
But she also had joy. I remember her dressing up for a party in our home as a Chinese woman, just acting silly. There was so much happiness that night. Her friends were good friends, and many, and life-long. We were a home of extremes, I guess. Our pain was intense. Our laughter was abundant.
On Mother’s Day, all of us think of our mothers. It’s a simple observance, really. We remember that they gave us life. We reflect on how much we love them. For those of us whose mother’s are gone, the day is no less meaningful.
Sometimes in my mind’s eye, when I’ve done things I’ve had no business doing, I became aware that my mother knows everything about me now. I have no secrets from her.
Sometimes, too, I see myself coming into heaven and Momma’s there to greet me. She runs up to me and hugs me hard and says to me, “Honey, come look!”
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor in May of 1986
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