The Remains of His Evening
The derelict farm hand approached the dance floor with a folding chair in one hand and a beer in the other. He carefully placed the chair facing the band stand, just inside the open end of the horseshoe created by the bandstand and the tables emanating from it. He was dressed in unionalls over a striped sport shirt, red, white, and blue, suitable to the Memorial Day dance, two large rubber half-boots sticking out the ends of the legs. He wore a five gallon straw hat jauntily atop his head. Oblivious to the strange image he created for the spring holiday evening crowd in the small town bar, he trained his eyes on the performing band as if observing a colony of ants moving their eggs to a new location. His crossed legs occasionally danced to the rhythm of the music, a cigarette protruding from hands folded otherwise appropriately for worship. The front of the union-alls spoke of a long day in the fields, a mixture of dirt and grease crossing the bib on the diagonal. His boots wore traces of brown and dry bits of straw, testimony to the spreading of manure on some recent day.
During a short break in the music, the band leader stepped down from the stage and walked playfully to where the farmer sat, a sort of crooked half-smile on the musician’s face. “Do you know that you don’t have a table?” queried the musician, his walk-about mike carrying his question to the crowd, who laughed heartily at the blank look with which the farmer responded. The seated farmer stared up at the bandleader, his eyes unflinching. He drank deeply from his beer, continued his stare, and set the half empty can behind the heel of his left foot, careful to avoid an accident.
As the course of the evening progressed, the space defined by the four legs of the folding chair became a clutter: several soggy napkins to soak up spilt beer, four cans creased neatly into “V”s at the middle, and an ashtray which had been used more as target than a receptacle.
In the shank of the evening, during a nature call, the derelict’s chair was relocated by a young man joining friends at one of the nearby crowded tables; the detritus remained behind, like smoldering embers of a sacrificial rite. The farmer emerged from the john and walked to where his chair had been, stared briefly at the remains of his evening, looked up and walked out the front door, glancing to neither side. The door of the bar, huge and oak with coiled spring hinges, loudly saluted as he stepped onto the sidewalk into the red, white, and blue spring night.
During a short break in the music, the band leader stepped down from the stage and walked playfully to where the farmer sat, a sort of crooked half-smile on the musician’s face. “Do you know that you don’t have a table?” queried the musician, his walk-about mike carrying his question to the crowd, who laughed heartily at the blank look with which the farmer responded. The seated farmer stared up at the bandleader, his eyes unflinching. He drank deeply from his beer, continued his stare, and set the half empty can behind the heel of his left foot, careful to avoid an accident.
As the course of the evening progressed, the space defined by the four legs of the folding chair became a clutter: several soggy napkins to soak up spilt beer, four cans creased neatly into “V”s at the middle, and an ashtray which had been used more as target than a receptacle.
In the shank of the evening, during a nature call, the derelict’s chair was relocated by a young man joining friends at one of the nearby crowded tables; the detritus remained behind, like smoldering embers of a sacrificial rite. The farmer emerged from the john and walked to where his chair had been, stared briefly at the remains of his evening, looked up and walked out the front door, glancing to neither side. The door of the bar, huge and oak with coiled spring hinges, loudly saluted as he stepped onto the sidewalk into the red, white, and blue spring night.
Chapter 24—The High School Years
One evening during the spring of my eighth-grade year, a knock came at the front door. I opened it and to my great surprise standing there was the Good Monsignor James Dawson, Pastor of St. Catherine Church. While I had spent countless hours kneeling on the hard terrazzo in the sanctuary staring at his back—pre Vatican II—while serving Mass, he had, to my knowledge, never visited our home. I invited him into the living room where he was greeted by our mixed-message furniture and slightly threadbare area carpets, and my parents. I pivoted to escape whatever was going to take place and headed in the general direction of the kitchen.
“Mick, come back in here,” said Monsignor Dawson. I turned on my heel and inched apprehensively into the living room, taking a seat on the couch.
“Mother Albertine and some of your other teachers and I have determined, after careful consideration, that you have a vocation to the priesthood,” the Monsignor began, “and we want to support you in whatever way we can,” he continued.
“Ad Deum qui latificat juventutem meam. Adjutorium nostrae in nominee Domine,” rattled about in my head. I am stunned. While I have been serving Mass since the third grade, and have taken great pleasure in participating in the rituals of Holy Mother Church, I am not prepared for this! The Good Monsignor explains that I should consider seminary high school in the autumn at St. John’s University, Collegeville, MN.
The dumbstruck look on my face must have been instructive for those in the room. This can’t be true. I can’t be a priest and be in love with Michelle and Marlene and Zola and Judy and...I am about to be conscripted, put in chains, hauled to the brig, cast down the hold, given a life sentence.
Conversation about the priesthood and my fitness for it lasted about forty-five minutes, devolved to small talk, and the Monsignor rose to take his leave.
“We want you to think seriously about it. Do not worry about the money...there are forms of support...” a solemn and earnest smile on his face, as he replaced the biretta on his head and exited to the curb and his nice shiny Buick. We are walkers...all about town...no money to buy a car...and they want me to go to St. John’s. In Minnesota.
The living room turned quiet—like a funeral parlor before the mourners begin to arrive. Mom, Dad, and I carefully studying my summer-worn tennis shoes, frayed open at the little toe, both shoes, sat in silence. Dad finally broke it.
“Son, you don’t have to go any damn place you don’t want to go.” My groan of relief must have been heard in Oriska, ten miles down U.S. Highway 10 to the east. Eureka, I just busted out of jail.
Looking back on that evening I can understand why it all happened. I had been the lad who was called to serve Mass when anyone was needed short notice. The mile walk to the church in all kinds of weather had never been an impediment since the age of eight, to serve either the 6:30 A.M. service in the convent celebrated by Fr. Roman Dworshak, or the 8:00 Daily Mass in the church for the daily goers celebrated by Monsignor Dawson or his assistant, Fr. Ferry. It was a privilege known to only one other third grader, my pal Don Sherman. The rest of the lads had to wait until the following year.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
“Amen.”
“Introibo ad altare Dei.”
“Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam."
“Unto God who gives joy to my youth.”
And so it did.
I loved the mystery and majesty of the Mass, the challenge of lighting the six tall candles for High Mass or the two short ones for Low Mass...the timely ringing of bells...getting the wine and water for communion...pouring the water over the priest’s outstretched hands at the Lavabo...holding the patten under the chins of communicants so that no tiny piece of the Precious Body might errantly plummet to the floor, but rather land softly and safely on the gold...(Would my hands glow in the dark if the Sacred Body actually did fall on the patten?)
Holding the tall crucifix high at the head of the casket for funeral Mass...dodging out into the sacristy to quickly light the charcoal in the censer and grab the boat filled with incense for Benediction and Adoration. I kept all of these things close to my heart in those days. It was my church. I wrapped myself in it—and the Baltimore Catechism.
Why did God make me?
God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world.
How many kinds of grace are there?
There are two kinds of grace, sanctifying grace and actual grace.
What is the third purpose of the sacrament of marriage?
The third purpose of marriage is to allay the needs of concupiscence.
As the Catechism addressed increasingly adult issues the content grew in interest. Once I had looked up the meaning of concupiscence I knew there were definitely some things that needed to be allayed. The only unknown was when they would need to be allayed, and with whom?
While I may have had an early devotion to things religious, it would be incorrect to assume that my motives were entirely pure. I had discovered that one could miss many mornings of classes if one’s presence was required in the sanctuary for weekday funeral masses which occurred on a almost once-a-week basis.
“Dies irae dies illa, Solvet saecluum in favilla; Teste David cum Sibylla” goes the Sequence for the Mass of the Dead, the intonation still firmly in my mind sixty-five years later.
It could be further argued that my own attendance at Daily Mass was not strictly a pious act. The nuns, always present, looked kindly upon those students in attendance. That loyalty to Holy Mother Church might just merit the small difference between a B+ and an A-. Also, there were hot chocolate and donuts available in the church basement following Mass. Students who didn’t attend could be found milling about in the schoolyard in minus ten-degree weather in the dead of winter, hands thrust deeply in pockets, waiting for the bell. We guys who were “daily communicants” could be found flirting with girls and sucking up marvelous hot cocoa inside, where if the young lady one fancied at the moment didn’t warm the heart, surely the cocoa would.
That being said, I considered myself a good Catholic, if not pious and devout. Weekly confession on Saturday afternoon was de rigueur before Sunday Mass.
And so, not struggling a whit with my first major decision regarding my future, I became a Cardinal... a St. Kate's High Cardinal, but not on the career path to the red-robed ones in the Vatican....
(From a work in progress entitled A Long Way From Tipperary.)
“Mick, come back in here,” said Monsignor Dawson. I turned on my heel and inched apprehensively into the living room, taking a seat on the couch.
“Mother Albertine and some of your other teachers and I have determined, after careful consideration, that you have a vocation to the priesthood,” the Monsignor began, “and we want to support you in whatever way we can,” he continued.
“Ad Deum qui latificat juventutem meam. Adjutorium nostrae in nominee Domine,” rattled about in my head. I am stunned. While I have been serving Mass since the third grade, and have taken great pleasure in participating in the rituals of Holy Mother Church, I am not prepared for this! The Good Monsignor explains that I should consider seminary high school in the autumn at St. John’s University, Collegeville, MN.
The dumbstruck look on my face must have been instructive for those in the room. This can’t be true. I can’t be a priest and be in love with Michelle and Marlene and Zola and Judy and...I am about to be conscripted, put in chains, hauled to the brig, cast down the hold, given a life sentence.
Conversation about the priesthood and my fitness for it lasted about forty-five minutes, devolved to small talk, and the Monsignor rose to take his leave.
“We want you to think seriously about it. Do not worry about the money...there are forms of support...” a solemn and earnest smile on his face, as he replaced the biretta on his head and exited to the curb and his nice shiny Buick. We are walkers...all about town...no money to buy a car...and they want me to go to St. John’s. In Minnesota.
The living room turned quiet—like a funeral parlor before the mourners begin to arrive. Mom, Dad, and I carefully studying my summer-worn tennis shoes, frayed open at the little toe, both shoes, sat in silence. Dad finally broke it.
“Son, you don’t have to go any damn place you don’t want to go.” My groan of relief must have been heard in Oriska, ten miles down U.S. Highway 10 to the east. Eureka, I just busted out of jail.
Looking back on that evening I can understand why it all happened. I had been the lad who was called to serve Mass when anyone was needed short notice. The mile walk to the church in all kinds of weather had never been an impediment since the age of eight, to serve either the 6:30 A.M. service in the convent celebrated by Fr. Roman Dworshak, or the 8:00 Daily Mass in the church for the daily goers celebrated by Monsignor Dawson or his assistant, Fr. Ferry. It was a privilege known to only one other third grader, my pal Don Sherman. The rest of the lads had to wait until the following year.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
“Amen.”
“Introibo ad altare Dei.”
“Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam."
“Unto God who gives joy to my youth.”
And so it did.
I loved the mystery and majesty of the Mass, the challenge of lighting the six tall candles for High Mass or the two short ones for Low Mass...the timely ringing of bells...getting the wine and water for communion...pouring the water over the priest’s outstretched hands at the Lavabo...holding the patten under the chins of communicants so that no tiny piece of the Precious Body might errantly plummet to the floor, but rather land softly and safely on the gold...(Would my hands glow in the dark if the Sacred Body actually did fall on the patten?)
Holding the tall crucifix high at the head of the casket for funeral Mass...dodging out into the sacristy to quickly light the charcoal in the censer and grab the boat filled with incense for Benediction and Adoration. I kept all of these things close to my heart in those days. It was my church. I wrapped myself in it—and the Baltimore Catechism.
Why did God make me?
God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world.
How many kinds of grace are there?
There are two kinds of grace, sanctifying grace and actual grace.
What is the third purpose of the sacrament of marriage?
The third purpose of marriage is to allay the needs of concupiscence.
As the Catechism addressed increasingly adult issues the content grew in interest. Once I had looked up the meaning of concupiscence I knew there were definitely some things that needed to be allayed. The only unknown was when they would need to be allayed, and with whom?
While I may have had an early devotion to things religious, it would be incorrect to assume that my motives were entirely pure. I had discovered that one could miss many mornings of classes if one’s presence was required in the sanctuary for weekday funeral masses which occurred on a almost once-a-week basis.
“Dies irae dies illa, Solvet saecluum in favilla; Teste David cum Sibylla” goes the Sequence for the Mass of the Dead, the intonation still firmly in my mind sixty-five years later.
It could be further argued that my own attendance at Daily Mass was not strictly a pious act. The nuns, always present, looked kindly upon those students in attendance. That loyalty to Holy Mother Church might just merit the small difference between a B+ and an A-. Also, there were hot chocolate and donuts available in the church basement following Mass. Students who didn’t attend could be found milling about in the schoolyard in minus ten-degree weather in the dead of winter, hands thrust deeply in pockets, waiting for the bell. We guys who were “daily communicants” could be found flirting with girls and sucking up marvelous hot cocoa inside, where if the young lady one fancied at the moment didn’t warm the heart, surely the cocoa would.
That being said, I considered myself a good Catholic, if not pious and devout. Weekly confession on Saturday afternoon was de rigueur before Sunday Mass.
And so, not struggling a whit with my first major decision regarding my future, I became a Cardinal... a St. Kate's High Cardinal, but not on the career path to the red-robed ones in the Vatican....
(From a work in progress entitled A Long Way From Tipperary.)
