Frank is Emptiness

May 15th, 2017

Tiffin

“Then Sister Aquinata abandoned the nonviolent methods and produced a rolling pin from somewhere.” – Mary Robinette Kowal

Karin and spent two nights with the nuns. We had a soothing, peaceful experience at their retreat house. We needed it.

The retreat center was in Tiffin, Ohio. Tiffin is a tranquil, rural community. It is altogether pleasant. The problem is that, in order to get from Milwaukee to Tiffin, a person must drive through Chicago. There is no other path. It cannot be avoided.

Driving through Chicago is much like diving off of a high platform into a swimming pool. You take a deep breath as soon as you hit the Wisconsin-Illinois border, and you don’t exhale until you break the surface somewhere in western Indiana. Over the years, Karin and I have tried many different ways to navigate through Chicagoland, and they all suck. Every one of them. You start the journey knowing that you are screwed. Somehow, that makes it a bit more bearable.

The scenery in northern Indiana and Ohio is not significantly different from the landscape in Wisconsin. Things are perhaps a bit flatter, but otherwise it all looks familiar. Rolling fields of corn, herds of cows, forests of maple and hickory. It’s all the upper Midwest. It’s like home.

The St. Francis Spirituality Center is where we stayed. It is a large red brick building on the grounds of the Sisters of St. Francis of Tiffin, Ohio. This religious order was founded in 1869 to care for orphans and the elderly. There aren’t any  orphans left on the property, but there are quite a few people who would qualify as elderly. Most of them are nuns.

Karin and I met a number of the sisters. I don’t think we met any women who were younger than ourselves. This is a problem. The nuns are in a community that does not seem to have any young recruits. This is a clear sign of mortality for their order. Their members are literally dying off.

This problem is not limited to the Sisters of St. Francis. Karin and I stayed with several monastic communities in the course of our travels, and almost all of them are struggling with the same issue. Unless the sisters are able to attract some young women, and do that soon, they will not be able to continue their ministry.  Or they will have to eventually turn their work and their property over to lay people. In any case, the old patterns of life are coming to an end. This religious order will have to be transformed into something new, and it is uncertain what that will be.

I read once that the last radicals in America are Catholic nuns. This I believe. Some of the sisters are very active politically. For example, Sister Paulette frequently goes to Palestine to advocate for the people living there. The nuns are deeply concerned with environmental issues. They have classes about ecology. That is in line with their Franciscan spirituality. They work with people coming out of the prison system. They help the poor. They teach yoga. All of that is also connected with the Franciscan worldview. It is a paradox that these women, who have given themselves entirely to lives of chastity, poverty, and obedience, are also incredibly free. They have given up most of the usual attachments in life, so they can do all sorts of things that most people can’t or won’t do.

Most of the energy at the convent is focused on caring for the elderly sisters. Many are quite old and in failing health. The nuns take care of their own. They also do whatever they can to help the local community and the world at large. As part of their concern for the environment, the sisters have built a straw bale house, a cottage completely insulated with straw bales (hence the name). The structure serves as a home, and as an example of how humans can be energy self-sufficient. The sisters look both inward and outward.

Very few of the sisters wear the traditional garb. Most of them wear shirts and slacks. They still have a strong nun vibe. Maybe it’s the haircuts (short and simple), or the lack of any jewelry, other than a cross. They remind me of military people when they are in civilian clothes. Soldiers always look like soldiers, no matter how they are dressed. Nuns always look like nuns.

The retreat center itself is comfortable and inviting. It’s a place to relax and recharge. I think that Catholic retreat houses operate under the basic assumption that those who come to stay there are walking wounded. The guests have had their asses kicked by life. People come to the retreat house wounded, and they need to heal.  The retreat house provides good food, good books, and good beds. Most of all, it provides a place where a person can be still and hear God’s voice.

This essay isn’t very exciting. Tiffin isn’t very exciting. It doesn’t need to be. The convent isn’t an amusement park. It is a refuge.

Thank God for that.

June 11th, 2017

“As I grew up, one of my strongest allies has been my sister.” – Patti Smith

Karin and I made every effort to avoid staying in hotels during the course of our journey. I despise hotels. When necessary, we spent a night in one of them, but with great reluctance. A few of them have a unique style, but most hotels and motels have a soul-deadening uniformity. They try to please everyone and offend no one. A room is a room is a room. In addition to the bland sterility of a typical hotel, there is a sense of isolation. Nobody talks to anybody else. The desk clerk is usually pleasant and helpful, but everyone else acts like they are residents of a Soviet-style republic. People don’t even look at each other. Making eye contact is apparently dangerous. Each guest goes to his or her room, and waits there for the opportunity to leave the place and move on to the next antiseptic port in the storm.

Karin and I usually stayed at retreat houses. Generally, these houses were religious in nature, sometimes attached to a monastery. With one exception, these places were all run by Catholic organizations. The one exception was “Simply Sisters” in Richmond, Minnesota. It was definitely different.

A woman at Terra Sancta, our previous base of operations in Rapid City, South Dakota, was aware that Karin and I intended to travel to the east and she provided us with a list of retreat centers in Minnesota. There were five centers on the list, and I received no response to my phone inquiries at four of them. It was only when I called Simply Sisters that somebody answered the phone. That somebody was Holly Roush, the owner of the retreat house. Holly was thrilled when I asked her about getting a room at her place for the next night. She indicated that we could certainly stay overnight, or even for two nights if we wanted. She told me that we would be the only guests in the entire house. I told Holly that Karin and I would showing up later the following evening, and that we would send her a text as we got close to the retreat center.

Karin and I drove for over ten hours the next day. We were dog tired when we finally arrived at Simply Sisters. Holly was there to greet us. The house was of sturdy brick construction, and it had been a convent years ago. SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church was just down the street, and it was built in a similar style. Holly showed us to our room on the first floor. We were going to sleep in what used to be the chapel. There was a bathroom with a shower down the hall, and there was fully operational kitchen available for our use.

We had been on the road for five days straight, so I asked Holly if we could stay for two nights. Karin and I needed a break. Holly was fine with that. She needed the income. As Holly explained it, she makes most of her revenue during the fall and winter months. She has very few guests come to stay with her during the summer. Most of her clients were quilters. There are very few religious retreats held at the center, but Holly hosts numerous quilting retreats in this old house. I guess quilting qualifies as a religion, or at least a cult. Holly also has an occasional family reunion book her center for a weekend.

Holly showed Karin and me the code for locking the front door, and then she left us to our own devices. We had the whole house for ourselves. Holly’s operation does not provide meals for the guests. That is one reason she chooses to call the place a retreat center. It’s not a “bed and breakfast”, and “retreat center” sounds better than saying “bed without breakfast”. In any case, Karin and I were on our own with regards to finding food.

Richmond is in Garrison Keillor country. There is even a “Lake Wobegon Bike Trail” nearby. If a person walked a few blocks in any direction, he or she would be standing in somebody’s farm field. The town looks like it was settled by Germans and Swedes, and it has that sort of Teutonic tidiness about it. It’s the kind of place where the church festivals (at least the Catholic ones) rival rock concerts in their scope. The Sauk River flows quietly through the town.

Karin and I had supper at Jerry’s Firehouse, a respectable Upper Midwest bar and grill. I had a glass of a blonde ale from the Beaver Island Brewery in nearby St. Cloud. I like to support local brewers. The food was good, and the tavern was quiet for a Saturday night.

Sunday morning was dark with the sound of thunder in the distance. I got up, made some coffee, and walked out on the veranda. Low grey clouds swept across the sky. There were flashes of lightning in the west. It was a good day not to be driving. The wind picked up and the rain poured down.

Later Karin and I went to Mass at SS. Peter and Paul. The parishioners recited the rosary before Mass started. The church is beautiful inside and out. There are clocks on each side of the steeple. None of them keep the correct time, or even the same time. There are also bells that toll promptly at eight minutes after the hour. I’m not sure how anybody makes it to the service.

Sunday was a good day to explore the house. Simply Sisters has twelve bedrooms with eighteen beds. I was tempted, like Goldilocks, to try out each bed to fins the one that was just right. Instead, I looked at everything and tried to get a sense of the place. I noticed a few things.

Simply Sisters is in many ways still a convent. The house has a totally feminine vibe to it. Just the name indicates that. The décor also sends a subtle message. There are still a few stain glass windows in the house. There is one lone crucifix in the side hallway. Other things say clearly that this is a woman’s home: the lace curtains, the doilies on the overstuffed chairs, the flower arrangements, the embroidered pillows, the scented candles, the bowl of mints, the displayed book titled “Kinship of Women”, the carpeting with the floral pattern, the wallpaper with a floral pattern, and antique tea cups. I have to admire Holly’s attention to detail. This is a place where a woman would feel comfortable and safe.

There are many pictures hanging in the various rooms. Most of them show serene rural scenes, places that probably only existed in the artist’s imagination. There are numerous drawings of cherubic children, or of mothers with their infants. There is not one single image of an adult male in the entire building, unless you count the corpus on the crucifix.

The quilting theme is very strong too. There are numerous tables set up for sewing machines. Ironing boards wait in a corner to be used. In the main room there are two large quilts hanging on the wall like medieval tapestries. There is also a picture on the wall of a quilt, with a floral pattern no less.

Simply Sisters reminds me of going to my grandma’s house, or even of the home of my childhood. There is a lot of wood in the building, mostly stained in a warm maple color. Massive doorframes hold up sold wood doors. Inlaid cabinetry testifies to the skill and labor of the artisans. The double hung windows are absurdly large, just like the ones in the house where I grew up. There are sliding wood doors that hide inside the walls of the dining room. We had doors like that when I was a little boy. My wife mentioned that the tea cups in the kitchen had the same pattern as her mother’s did, so the house made her remember things too.

On the second floor is an old school light switch, the kind with two buttons to turn on and off the electricity. It is warmer on the second and third floors of the house, and these floors have a smell from the old wood finish. It’s kind of a monastic smell. I remember it from a Franciscan friary. There are transom windows above the doors on the second floor. I remember those too from the friary.

Holly made mention that she hoped to expand her clientele. She wants to attract more than just the quilters. I’m not sure how she can do that. The retreat center is geared toward attracting a certain population. It is gender specific. Simply Sisters is primarily there for women, especially older women. Unless Holly decides to build an addition and fill it with power tools, firearms, and craft beer, I don’t see how she will guys to come to the house.

I liked the house. I am glad that we visited there. I became aware of its beauty and history. I am also aware that I don’t belong there.

June 10th, 2017

“Our life is full of empty space.” – Umberto Eco

We left Terra Sancta Retreat Center early on the morning of Saturday, June 10^th.  Terra Sancta is on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota. Our goal was to make it to the next retreat house, called “Simply Sisters”, by the early evening. Simply Sisters is located in Richmond, Minnesota, so we had at least nine hours of driving ahead of us. We planned on stopping in the Badlands National Park for a while, and that would break up the ride a bit. It was still going to be a long road.

We warmed up the GPS, put in our destination, and read the results: 347 miles just to Sioux Falls. For the love of God…that would be nearly five hours on I-90 driving through some of the most boring terrain on the planet.  It is terrible to have your spirit crushed at 7:30 AM, knowing that, no matter how fast you drive, you will never really believe that the journey will end.

Between the Badlands and Sioux Falls is a lot of nothing. It is not that the land is so desolate. It is not nearly as nasty as the area around I-40 between Kingman and Barstow. Nor is it as wasted as the stretch on I-10 through western Texas before you get to El Paso. However, the fact is that the Mojave is rugged and scarred and interesting. The desert is full of surprises. A person notices odd things. Sometimes it is like finding wild flowers growing on the surface of Mars. The plains of South Dakota hold no such charm. Like the oceans, they are seemingly endless, and without distinguishing features.

The speed limit on I-90 is 80 MPH. That is about twenty miles too slow. We drove a little over the speed limit, and we were passed by other cars. This did not happen often because there weren’t many other vehicles on the highway. Driving on a lonely freeway prompts troubling questions like: “What if we break down?” The answer to that question is: “You’re screwed.” There no cops out there, and cell phone coverage is sketchy. I-90 is a bad place to experience mechanical problems. It is also a bad place to run low on fuel.

Sensory deprivation is cruel and relentless. Desperation takes hold. As a person drives past scenery that looks exactly like what he passed an hour ago, he tries to seek out something on which to focus. Anything. Anything at all.

“Look, Karin! There’s a cow! And over there, I think I see a tree! I haven’t seen a tree for half an hour!”

Without bothering to look up, Karin said, “Don’t bother me now. I’m counting stitches”, and she continued to knit.

Pathetic. Just pathetic.

The South Dakota landscape is enough to break the spirit of the most seasoned traveler. It is a prairie purgatory. Generally, it is unwise to drive long distances under the influence of drugs, but something has be done to stay alert. Music helps to make the time pass. I have found that the Hindu chants of Krishna Das work well in this situation. The cadence and the rhythm of the songs put me into an altered state of consciousness. I found a groove.

Karin told me, “Only drive, Frank. Only drive.”

Very Zen.

It would be unfair to say that the entire journey was mind-numbingly monotonous. It wasn’t. We had a brief period of excitement. Karin and I had eaten lunch in Mitchell, home of the Corn Palace. Karin drove as we left town. She noticed about ten miles from Mitchell that she had forgotten her purse in the booth at the deli. She immediately found an exit and spun the car around. Shifting gears like a pro, and weaving in and out of traffic, Karin got us back to the eatery in no time. She found her purse.

I now know for a fact that a Toyota Corolla six-speed handles well at speeds over 100 miles an hour.

May 18th, 2017

“Country music is three chords and the truth.” – Harlan Howard

Kent took Karin and me to the Loveless Café in Nashville. It’s on the western end of Nashville, and it is apparently a very popular restaurant. Kent was surprised that we got in so quickly. Usually there is a long wait. Kent told us that country musicians often show up there. I wouldn’t recognize any of them if I saw them, but that sounded good.

I’ve never been a big fan of country music myself, but Hans likes it. He only likes the old country music. Hans told me once,

“Dad, I don’t like that new stuff that kind of sounds like rock or rap. I like the old songs. They remind me of my life.”

“How so?”

“Well, the songs are all about losing your friends or your home or your truck. In the end, the only thing left is your Harley.”

So true.

The Loveless has a motel attached to it. I’m not sure that I understand that, but it is so. Inside the restaurant the walls are covered with pictures of famous people, most of which I couldn’t identify. We were already sitting at a table when Kent walked to the other side of the restaurant and met up with some his wife’s relations. So, we all moved to a big, round table near the front window. Karin and I got to meet Darryl and Maggie, and I don’t remember exactly how they are connected with Kent’s wife, Deanna. Darryl was former military, an aviator. Deanna was running late, so we decided to order. Maggie and Darryl had their food coming.

Just reading the menu was enough to induce a coronary. The list for supper was filled with choices like fried chicken liver and/or gizzards, country ham dinner, fried pork chop dinner, southern-fried catfish, and country-fried steak. Everything came with creamed corn and biscuits. There was something called “chicken-fried chicken”. Somehow that sounded completely redundant. A person could also get a side of fried okra. Somehow, Karin found a garden salad. I went for the fried chicken, which rocked. Kent had the ham. The food was excellent. It’s just not a place to eat healthy. The selection of local beers was pretty lean. I had a Gerst Amber Ale. That worked.

I guess I should introduce Kent. Kent is a classmate of mine from West Point. I last saw him in October of 1982. It had been a while. Since Karin and I were heading down to Texas via Ohio, I figured we had an opportunity to meet with Kent. Our visit with him was brief. He had to be in eastern Tennessee early the next morning to meet with a politician about veteran benefits. Kent works with veterans, especially people who are struggling with PTSD. Kent’s wife, Deanna, is involved with helping people with addictions. In some ways their vocations dovetail.

Kent knows Hans. More accurately, Kent knows of Hans. Kent and Hans have spoken on the phone, but they have never met. It’s strange, but Hans’ problems as a vet caused me to reconnect with Kent. Kent and I were close years ago, and now we are close again because of Hans’ experiences in the Iraq War. I hope that Kent and Hans meet up someday. They are both Harley guys. Getting to know Kent probably would be good for Hans, and it might not be a bad thing for Kent either.

When Deanna showed up, we ate and talked at the table. The conversation mostly revolved around the Army, and veterans, and Hans. I told some Hans stories. Hans came back from the war comfortable with violence, and he got involved with some interesting people. Kent and Deanna weren’t in the least surprised or shocked. None of this stuff was new to them. They deal with vets and their issues all the time. In a way it was comforting to know that Hans isn’t alone with his struggles, but it is also profoundly sad.

Kent took Karin and me back our motel after supper. We sat in the lobby and talked some more. It’s impossible to catch up on a generation’s worth of events. It’s good that we got together again, but so many things had happened over time. Where does a person begin?

When Kent left us, he said, ”Let’s not wait another thirty-five years to do this again.”

Good idea.

June 6th, 2017

“The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it.” – Hunter S. Thompson

We were driving north on US 97 toward Bend, Oregon. Karin and I had spent the afternoon at Crater Lake National Park, gazing at water so blue that it made my eyes hurt. Some of the roads leading into the park were still blocked by drifts of snow, and this was in the middle of June. Now we were going through hilly country, dry and studded with tall pines. We had a hotel room waiting for us in Bend, but we needed to stop for gas and a poddy break.

I pulled into a tiny filling station on the left side of the road. As I stiffly got out of the driver’s seat, I noticed some guy with a baseball cap trying to pry open my gas cap. I was at the brink of screaming, “Get the FUCK away from my car, Bitch!”, when the man smiled broadly at me and asked, “Can I fill it up for you today?”

“Say what?”

The man’s smile wilted a bit, and he said, “Would you like me to put some gas in the car, Sir?” I suspect he was starting to think that I was not an English-speaker.

“Uh, yeah…sure. Go ahead. Where’s your bathroom?”

He smiled again, and said cheerily, “Right around back!”

I noticed a woman in front of the car, busily scraping insect corpses off of the windshield. I walked toward the restroom unsteadily. It was all somehow unnerving.

I was having a flashback to my childhood, sitting in the back of my dad’s white Ford station wagon. It was sometime before 1970, at a gas station in Milwaukee where the sign advertised fuel at 29.9 cents a gallon, and they gave you dishes just to buy the stuff. People pumped your gas for you and checked your oil. They cleaned your windshield. I hadn’t experienced this sort of thing in nearly fifty years.

Upon my return, the man was explaining to Karin how no other service station in Oregon had service like theirs. We later found out that this was an out and out lie. People pumped gas for us throughout Oregon and Idaho. I don’t know why they do that, but they do. Actually, it’s more of an inconvenience than anything else. These guys just get in the way.

August 2nd, 2015

September 25th, 2015

June 8th, 2017

Cody, Wyoming, is a small city surrounded by hills about sixty miles to the east of Yellowstone National Park. The Shoshone River flows through a deep canyon in Cody. Karin and I had once visited Cody in 1985 on our way to my Army assignment in California. It was smaller and more compact back then. This time it looked spread out, with miles of hotels lining the main highway through town. One of the founders of the city was Buffalo Bill, hence the name of this community. The history and legend of Buffalo Bill Cody permeate all aspects of this place. The locals promote the Wild West theme as much as they possibly can. Their patron saint was a Civil War veteran, Indian scout, buffalo hunter, and all around savvy self-promoter. Buffalo Bill’s influence still shows up everywhere in Cody.

Cody is a tourist magnet, but I don’t believe that anybody actually comes to Cody because they want to come to Cody. No, they come to Cody because of its proximity to Yellowstone. People want to go to Yellowstone. After all, Yellowstone has geysers, a beautiful lake, scenic mountains, excellent fishing, and occasional sightings of bison and elk. The problem is that Yellowstone has very limited accommodations. We went to Yellowstone during this trip, and one of the first signs we saw said: “All Campgrounds Full”. This translates to: “You’re screwed, if you are looking for a place to stay.”  This explains the attraction of Cody. Your options are limited. Even Buffalo Bill knew this over a one hundred years ago.

Karin and I had spent the previous night at the Monastery of the Ascension near Boise. We had not set up a place to stay prior to leaving the retreat house there. That proved to be a mistake. Our plan was to drive east along the Snake River Valley on I-84, and then venture into Yellowstone. We had been there three decades ago, and we were due for another visit.

We entered through the west entrance in Montana. The journey through Yellowstone, even if a person doesn’t stop to see anything, takes hours. Of course, nobody just drives through Yellowstone. That’s not real. By God, you are going to at least visit the geysers. You do that, along with the throngs of Japanese, Swedes, Frenchmen, Indians (from India), Brits, Chinese, and other tourists from all over the globe. Oddly enough, I met only one German during our visit, and that was Karin.

In any case, Yellowstone is an all-day kind of gig. Traffic slows to a crawl so people can take pictures of bison, or elk, or geysers, or some damn thing. Also, the roads are not designed for speed. Many year ago, the road to the eastern entrance used to include a stretch called “Corkscrew Bridge”. They have since straightened out the corkscrew, but the road consists almost entirely of hairpin turns and steep grades. We crossed the Continental Divide (8391 feet above sea level) twice. This is not a drive for the unwary. There is nothing like constantly shifting gears on a narrow, winding road to keep a person in the moment. “Focus, Grasshopper.”

Once out of the park, there is another scenic drive going east. A person drives past towering mountains and a roaring river. There is a long tunnel and a lake produced by the Buffalo Bill Dam on the Shoshone. There is an occasional hunting lodge along the road, and a few camp grounds. However, there are no services until a person gets to Cody. Nothing. Nada. It is also an interesting fact that there are no services beyond Cody, at least until you get to Greybull, which is a solid hour’s drive to the east.

We pulled into Cody around 6:00 PM. Karin and I were hungry, tired, and irritable. We stopped at the first hotel in sight, which was aptly named “Cody Hotel”. It seemed kind of upscale, but I figured we would give it a try. We walked into the expansive lobby, and I asked if they had a room for us. The woman at the counter checked, and told me that they had a room available for a mere $200.

I was aghast. This woman actually wanted me to fork out $200 to stay overnight in this cowboy ghetto that barely had enough people to support a Walmart. Naw, I don’t think so.

We got back in the car and drove a bit. We saw a Best Western and drove into their lot. We entered the lobby and immediately noticed the “No Vacancy” sign. There were two young women standing behind the counter. They looked bored.

I sensed some really bad energy. It was all starting to click. Karin and I were in Cody at the height of the tourist season with no hotel reservation. I asked a clearly unnecessary question:

“So, uh, you folks haven’t had any cancellations, have you?”

One girl looked at me stone-faced and shook her head slowly.

“Okay, uh, you wouldn’t maybe have any phone numbers for your competitors?”

The other girl sighed and said to her partner, “Well, I guess he could try to call AmericInn. They might have something.”

The severe-looking girl stared at us like we had cholera, and then gave me a phone number. I called AmericInn. A lady answered, and I asked hopefully, “Do you have any rooms available?”

The lady asked me, “You mean for tonight?!”

“Yeah, for tonight.”

The woman at the other end of the call apparently checked her computer and said, “Well, I have one room here with two queen size beds. It also has a refrigerator and, of course, WIFI and cable. It goes for…let’s see…$176 per night.”

I rapidly assessed our situation as the woman rambled on about nothing. The fact was that Karin and I were utterly screwed on this deal. These backwoods yokels were going to bleed us white no matter what we did. If I didn’t take this room, it was likely that we would be sleeping in the Toyota. I tuned back in.

The woman said, “So, if this works for you, I could book the room for you.”

“Yes! Please! It sounds great! Just what we were looking for!”

The woman was quite pleased. “Let me just get some information from you…”

At that point, Karin asked quietly, “Where are we staying?”

“The AmericInn. The room has two queen-size beds.”

“But we don’t need two queen-size beds.”

“Oh, yes, we do!”

Karin let it go.

I completed the phone arrangements, and then Karin and I drove a mile back to the AmericInn.  The building looked like a three-story log cabin. The hotel had that rough-hewn, faux Western look. It stank of tourist money. Our money.

We staggered into the lobby of the hotel. There was a middle-aged woman standing behind the desk. She had a round face with rounder glasses. A young woman with perfectly applied make up worked next to the lady. I explained who we were. The woman’s face beamed.

She said breezily, “We just have some paperwork for you to sign…initial here and here and here… and sign here.”

I mumbled, “I’ll sign the confession.”

“What was that?”

“Never mind. Uh, my wife and I need to find a place to eat supper, within walking distance.”

The woman’s face brightened. “Well, Bubba’s Bar-B-Cue is right in front of the hotel. It’s quite popular. They have an extensive menu…”

I cut to the chase: ”Do they have beer?”

The young woman burst out laughing. She looked at me slyly and asked, “Long drive?”

“No…not really. I was just curious.”

The girl snorted, “Yeah, mmmhmmm.”

Karin and I dumped our belongings into the room. It was a really nice room. It was just too big and too expensive. We decided to sleep separately. If we were paying for two queen-size beds, then, damn it, we were going to use them.

Bubba’s wasn’t bad at all. Sure, it had all the cowboy crap that it required to look properly Western, but otherwise it was a good place to eat. They actually offered an extensive, all-you-can-eat salad bar. Karin liked that. I was going for the pulled pork sandwich.

A young waitress with a red shirt that had “Bubba’s” embroidered on it came to serve us.

“Would you all like something to drink?”

Karin smiled and said, “I’ll have a water.”

I asked, ”Do you have any local craft beers?”

The waitress smiled and replied, “Oh yes. We have Buffalo Bill Cody Beer.”

Of course, they would have that. Is there anything in this fucking town that isn’t named after that guy?

I said, “Yes. I would love to have a Buffalo Bill Cody Beer.”

The waitress smiled again and said, “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

The food was good. The beer was gone long before I finished the sandwich. The waitress hovered near me and asked,

“Would you care for another Buffalo Bill?”

I spoke through a mouth full of pork, ”No thanks. Could you bring me a glass of Moose Drool instead?”

“Sure. You know that is a dark beer?”

“Yeah. Sounds good to me.”

Karin and I crashed shortly after supper. It was probably good that we had a room with queen-size beds. I sometimes get night terrors. I don’t know why and I don’t know how. All I know is that I scream and thrash about in my sleep. That used to freak out Karin. I had night terrors that night. It was worthwhile for me to have a bed to myself.

Breakfast we in the lobby. I hadn’t really checked out the lobby closely prior to that time. It had a vaulted ceiling and a grand staircase leading to the second floor. It also had a total of twenty-four stuffed animals (I counted them). These weren’t the plush, cuddly animals that you give to a little kid at bedtime. No, these had been real, live bear and sheep and deer at one time. Now they looked down on us dolefully as we ate our scrambled eggs and bacon. The perfect end to our stay.

May 21st, 2017

“Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that’s what.” – Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Karin and I left Hans’ travel trailer one fine morning and we drove to College Station. College Station is the home of Texas A&M. The university is like the sun; everything in the city revolves around it. A person either works for A&M, or they work for somebody else who works for Texas A&M.

We went for coffee at Sweet Eugene’s. Sweet Eugene’s is a café near the university. It has an artsy feel to it. It’s always had that, ever since it opened in 1993. The café has little niches and side rooms with sofas and comfy chairs. Some of the décor is silly, as if the coffee shop has a sense of humor and doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s a place that attracts young people, and it provides an antidote to the relentlessly conservative energy of the university. The place tries to be hip and trendy in a way that Texas A&M is totally not.

Karin and I have a history at Sweet Eugene’s. Actually, we have a long history at College Station, a history that goes back to 1989 or so. Karin and I have had coffee at Sweet Eugene’s more times than we can remember. We used to sit together with family and friends, but this time we shared our table with ghosts.

Our ghosts were polite and unobtrusive. They didn’t try to sip Karin’s cappuccino or nibble on my bagel. They just sat nearby, silent, but unmistakably there.  Karin and I talked about them, as they hovered close to us. People from our past who still make an impact upon our present. People like Marc Blaze, Tom, Bob, Delphia, and Shawn’s brother, Mark.

I got up from our table to get a refill on my coffee. There was a young man behind the counter. He wore a baseball cap and t-shirt that showed the Seattle skyline on it.

I asked him, “Have you been to Seattle?”

The young guy worked on my refill and said, “No. A friend went there, and he brought this back for me.”

As he brought me my cup, I noticed an absurdly large class ring on his hand.

I asked, ”Aggie?”

He smiled and replied, “Yeah, I graduated from there last year.”

I thought to myself, “And you’re working here as a barista? Ow.”

Instead of that, I said to him, “I was just noticing the class ring.”

“Oh yeah. The rings are a big deal at A&M.”

I told him, “I went to West Point. Class rings were a big deal there too.”

He replied, “A&M does a lot of things that they do there.”

“I always thought A&M was a southern-fried West Point.”

The guy looked at me for moment. Then he said, “Yeah, that sounds about right”, and he returned to his work.

My younger brother, Marc Blaze, went to Texas A&M. During his freshman year, he was part of the school’s Corps of Cadets. He was as gung ho as anybody could possibly be. He got to be the guide on bearer, which was a major deal in that organization. Marc was an over-achiever with a severe case of OCD. The guy was ruthlessly competitive. He had to be number one, all the time.

Then he met Shawn, his future wife. This rigid, driven, military man fell in love with a punk/hippie hybrid who had an affinity for black berets and Chinese slippers. The agnostic, free-spirited girl fell for the hardcore Catholic cadet. Marc quit school and got a job in town. The two of them married in 1990. They had two daughters, Maire and Roise. Karin and I, along with our kids, drove down nearly every year to Texas to visit Marc and Shawn. We often took Hans, Hannah, and Stefan to meet up with Shawn and Marc at Sweet Eugene’s.

Marc Blaze died in February of 1998. It was a fatal car accident. The crash that tore out his seatbelt also tore the heart out of his family. Now, almost twenty years later, his wife and daughters still wrestle with the effects of that crash. The sound of Marc’s voice echoed in my mind as I sat with Karin at Sweet Eugene’s. I could hear him that morning. I can hear him now.

Marc started a chain of events continues to this day. When Hans got to be a teenager, he spent nearly every summer with Shawn in Texas. Hans eventually found his home there because Marc had found a home there. Marc was Stefan’s godfather. Stefan spent almost two years in College Station, working with people who remembered his uncle. Hannah made connections with her cousin, Maire. Over the years, the web between our families grew more intimate and more tangled. Visits to Sweet Eugene’s were usually part of the process.

Marc Blaze was the first one to leave. In recent years others have followed. Shawn’s mother, Delphia, died from dementia. Shawn’s second husband, Bob, was stricken with cancer. Hans was living with Shawn’s step-father, Tom, when Tom died in a house fire. Shawn’s brother, Mark, killed himself. Karin and I knew all of these people. They were all parts of a family mosaic. They were integral to our lives. They are gone.

Karin and I finished our conversation. We finished our coffee and our bagels. Marc smiled at me. Tom did too, as he held up his hand like he was still smoking a cigarette. Delphia gave me a funny look, as if she was still wondering if I was just some damn Yankee. Bob grinned, amused by the practical joke we call life. Mark, I don’t how he looked. Remorseful? Relieved? Finally at peace?  Maybe all of those things.

Karin and I left the café. The ghosts followed us out.

May 24th, 2017

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do.” – Ann Lamott

“Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse.” – Sting

St. Stanislaus Catholic Church is in Anderson, Texas. It’s an old church. It’s old enough that you have to walk across the parking lot to get to the bathrooms. The building itself is beautiful, and it is surrounded by huge oak trees. Inside the church there are stain glass windows showing various saints. The names of the saints are written in Polish. For instance, the window holding the image of St. Paul says, “St. Pawel” underneath. The window with St. Andrew says, “St. Andrej”. It’s an old school parish founded generations ago by pious Poles, who somehow thought that Texas resembled the Old Country.

Karin and I try to go to daily Mass. Whenever possible, we did so on the endless road trip. Since we often stayed at retreat houses or at monasteries, this was not usually an issue. When we were staying with Hans, we had to look around for a local Mass. St. Stanislaus had one on this particular day at noon. We got there when it was already hot and sunny.

I should have picked up on the weird energy. When Karin and I arrived at the church, we noticed a family whose members were all dressed the same. The kids all seemed to be in uniform. I figured that they were from a local parochial school. It turned out that they were from overseas, Venezuela or maybe Colombia. This isn’t a big deal. Hell, Karin and I came from Wisconsin, which is damn near as far away from Texas as South America is.

Most Catholics do not go to Mass on a daily basis. Most American Catholics don’t even go to Mass on Sundays. Daily Mass attracts a strange breed. That includes Karin and myself. Most people who go to Mass each day simply have made it part of their core practice. It is like when a Muslim prays five times a day, or when a Buddhist sits zazen each morning. The Mass becomes part of the rhythm of a person’s spiritual life.

Daily Mass also attracts a certain portion of the Catholic fundamentalist population. That’s a tiny slice of the Church, but it exists. Often these are the people who long for the return of a religious golden age, a time when the Mass was celebrated in Latin and the priest faced away from the people. They are convinced that Vatican II was a hideous mistake, and that nothing has been right in the Church since the 1950’s. These folks are not necessarily old. I have met young fanatics. There is a quiet ferocity about these people, and a rigidity. They can be very friendly, at least until the moment arrives when they realize that you don’t agree with them. Then things get a little tense.

People were reciting the rosary when Karin and I entered the church. The rosary is a beautiful prayer. The first time I met the abbot of the Zen Center, he remarked on what a good meditative practice the rosary was. That’s an interesting comment coming from a Buddhist. Even just listening to people praying the rosary helps put a person into a more open frame of mind.

After the rosary, I noticed that there were quite a few people in the church, more than I had expected. One family was there with young girls. The mother and her daughters were all wearing veils. I’m betting that the kids were being home-schooled, seeing as it was still May and these children were not in a classroom. Just before the service starting a couple men carried in a rather large statue of Mary, and placed it near the altar. This particular service was in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima.

It would take too long to explain what is all involved with Our Lady of Fatima. Suffice it to say that in 1917 three small children in Portugal had a vision of Mary, and they received instructions and prophecies from the woman in the vision. After that, things get very complicated.

The priest welcomed everyone to the church. Karin and I had been with him before at his church in Navasota. He was a short, stocky man. He was originally from the Philippines. After the reading of the Gospel, the priest gave his sermon.

The homily started off well. The priest spoke about God’s love and the amazing story of three children being visited by the Mother of God. He gradually grew more agitated in sermon, speaking more loudly and more quickly. Then he kept talking about the evil in the world, and about human sinfulness. Things started to get intense when the priest began talking about the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Apparently, the woman in the apparition had ordered the Pope at the time to perform this consecration in order to usher in an age of peace on earth. After one hundred years, we aren’t quite there yet.

The priest just went off. The sermon turned into a full-on rant.

“Why hasn’t Russia been consecrated to Our Lady after one hundred years!? Why the delay? Why do the bishops and the Pope not obey the Blessed Mother? Do you know what apostasy is? It is the denial of the faith! Even popes and bishops can be apostates!”

Wow. That sounded a lot like this priest had just accused Pope Francis of apostasy. That’s pushing the envelope. I didn’t think the priest could go much further, but he did:

“And you! Do you and your families pray the rosary together every day as Our Lady told us to do? We have all this evil in our world because families are not praying the rosary! Why do you ignore the words of Our Mother?!”

Well, Karin and I don’t pray the rosary together. Maybe we should. However, I can’t imagine getting our children together with us to do that. I can’t even imagine getting our kids together in the same room without the possibility of a fratricide. That’s just not going to work.

The priest went on, ”There will be an accounting! We cannot ignore the will of God without eternal consequences! And I must speak out about these things! If I do not, God will hold me accountable!”

I was ready to bolt for the door. Karin was nervous. I glanced at the other people in the pews. I didn’t notice anybody else appearing to be uneasy. They all seemed to be totally into it. I had the impression that this is exactly what they wanted to hear, and what they had expected to hear.  I had the feeling that everyone besides Karin and myself was looking forward to the Apocalypse. This was an End Times kind of crowd.

The priest ran out of steam. Moral outrage requires enormous amounts of energy, and the man looked worn out. Fortunately, the rest of the Mass followed a specific formula, and there was no room for editorial comments. That’s the beauty of ritual.

Karin and I left the Mass drained. A few people greeted us and hoped that they would see us at next service. Yeah, for sure. We got into the Toyota and drove to Yankee’s, where chicken-fried steak, large salads, and cold beer awaited us. Karin and I spent a great deal of time discussing that liturgy. The whole episode was kind of scary.

It’s strange. During the course of our journeys, Karin and I stayed at four monasteries, a convent, and three retreat houses. We spent time with monks and nuns, and with other people who have given their entire lives to God. Never, not once, did we hear any of those folks talk like the priest in Anderson. None of the monks and nuns showed any anger or bitterness. They never judged us. They were consistently friendly and hospitable. They showed us love.

On our last day in Texas, my sister-in-law, Shawn, wanted us all to get together at the Babylon Café in College Station for supper and hookah. I had never smoked a hookah before. I have never smoked much, period. Shawn was excited about it, so Karin, Hans, and I met Shawn at the café.

“Ahlan wa sahlan” (Welcome) was written on the window of the café. I was pleased that I recognized at least that much Arabic. We went inside and sat on cushions around a low table. Shawn ordered a hookah for us all to share. She decided to try a flavored tobacco called “Sex Goddess”. Why not?

Shawn’s daughter, Roise, was with us too. We ate and talked and smoked. I can see how a hookah could be addictive. Its smoke is smooth and water-cooled. I told Shawn that I would feel more natural if I was wearing a fez, like Sidney Greenstreet is Casablanca. Oh well, I made due without it.

Shawn and I discussed the incident at St. Stanislaus. She told me something interesting. Shawn said that the Catholic churches in Texas seemed to be gradually getting more conservative and traditional. It’s like the Catholics are following the lead of the local Protestant fundamentalists. Since Catholics are notorious for being biblically illiterate, we can’t get hung up on Scripture. However, we can obsess about prayers and ritual and all the other things that really don’t matter. Apparently, that is what is occurring among some of the southern Catholics. It’s like we have to prove to the Protestants that we can be hardcore too.

Shawn and I agreed that it is strange that this should be so. “Catholic”, by definition, means “universal”. The Church is supposed to be open to all sorts of diverse ways of finding God. Unity through diversity. It is good that some people are devoted to Our Lady of Fatima. It is good that other people actively pursue social justice for the poor and oppressed. There should be a place for everyone and every talent. The Church is at its best when welcomes all the varied gifts and traditions of humanity.

I bet Our Lady would smoke a hookah.