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Posted on 05/03/2008 8:48:06 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
Well... I went back to check on my seat. They’re still dealing with earlier flights. They told everybody else to just sit down.
So... here I am. Sitting down.
Trail ride should be good. Nice day out there.
It is a nice day... hopefully not to hot, since we’re starting out so late. But we’re going to take the shadier trail.
Well... staking out the desk and getting in line first seems to have paid off. I got an aisle seat in the exit row. Major score. Had to buy my way in, but it’s so much better than it could have been.
[whew]
OK, that was a little weird.
Just went to the later-in-the-day Mass here. We had a missionary priest this week — a Maryknoll priest, who also served as an Air Force chaplain for eighteen years.
He was my chaplain for half the time I was in Germany.
Small world.
I feel like someone just poured a big ol’ bucket of memories over top o’ my haid.
Wow! That is amazing, of all the places for him to show up!
Yeah. I’m not great with faces (or somewhat generic names, for that matter), so I didn’t instantly recognize him, but as soon as he started talking I thought, “Whoa...wait a minute, that voice sure is familiar...” And afterwards I asked him, just briefly, if he was in Germany and we got the years figured out. Sure ‘nough, I was right! He was officially stationed at Ramstein, but his office was up at Sembach where I was stationed, and he was our chaplain until mid ‘97.
Kinda cool.
Heh. Small world syndrome strikes again.
Very cool.
Well... I’m arrived. So far so good. Flight was good. Even got a free upgrade on the rental car. Instead of the usual compact japmerican blandmobile I ended up with a Volvo S60.
Niice. Dang... this ain’t yer Dad’s Volvo anymore. This thing is a little rocket. Leather and electric everything. Schweet. Takes the sting out of a soon-to-be-intense week. :-)
[sip]
So there’s that.
nevermind...
Well good! We got back fairly late from our trail ride and then went to dinner.
We’re beat. I imagine the horses are too. :~)
Well that’s really cool! Small world indeed! Did he recognize you too?
I mean, would it kill ya to pop a couple o' those into the mail?
I'm just askin'...
Dang... somebody ought to send that boy a fish. Note that UPS Ground is maybe not the best way.
But it’d be awfully expensive to mail two grills...
I’m not sure! A little, I think...one of those “I know you from somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where” kind of moments.
Being as how Sembach was Ramstein’s red-headed step-child at the time, even though his office was up there, we tended to have a lot of different priests on Sundays — whoever they could send up. So he didn’t get to know us quite as well as might have been, even if he was officially our chaplain. The chaplain right after him made a fuss about that arrangement, so he was there more of the time. But I still remember homilies and such that the priest that was there tonight gave. Surprised me, that’s for sure.
It all brings back a lot of memories of that time!
Way back when I was a kid (pre-1960) the Maryknoll order was known for being very anti-Communist, but 20 years after that they were among the furthest left of all the Religious orders, revolutionary theology and all! Haven't heard much of them lately, do you know anything about this priests positions?
Well yes, if you put a monetary value on friendship...
What else can you use to quantify it?
Honestly, I don’t know. He didn’t get into a lot of detail, fo all his talkin’. ;-) They tend to talk more about the more secular of the projects they’re working on, for whatever that means. More about getting wells to people, that sort of thing. It was the same when they had another Maryknoll priest come last year.
We posted some pictures of our trail ride yesterday here:
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