DEATH AND I -- AND YOU TOO -- AND US ALL

Hey, don't let the title scare you.  We all practice how to do it every single night.  In fact the great oxymoronical question on earth is, "Did you sleep well?"  Huh?  How should I know?  I was out like a light.  Like ya know, I was out like a rock, dude.  Tell ya what, let me check it out tonight and if I remember anything tomorrow I'll beep, beep, blippity-blip you a quick text. Fair 'nuff, dude?
It's rather sure that I am not going to talk to you about my "deceasing" because I haven't done it yet, not for the eternal type stuff, anyway.  Not about yours either because you too are still around, if you're reading this anyway.  So this is our chance to talk about other people.  Especially people who are in absolutely no position to talk back.  Neat-O!
I and you all have noticed that when we get together we talk a lot about who is what age now.  Cousin Maggie wrote the other day and said that because she turned 71 in April she must be second after me, the eldest at 74 as of last March.  I looked it up.  I had to because Elna, the matriarchal guardian of all this valuable information, is no longer around to advise me about the order of birth of everyone we know as relatives.  No, Maggie, at 71 you are behind Denis Dion who was born in '39.  But, don't let that get you.  You could have done worse.  I can tell you that as far as I know, there has not been a person in the Eugene "Big Red" Dion/Ora Bachand family who ever reached 74.  One, that I know of, didn't get to 30. Sadly, it was not her fault.  Even I, who remember the event, do not know the entire story.  If I ever learn it, I'll tell you.  That is because the Dion family of which we are part had a way of keeping a lot of stuff to themselves.  Besides, at about 6 years old, who was going to tell me anything?  Then there is the father himself, the fiery Redhead who didn't make it to 40.  In his tracks, then, there are those, many, who never made it to 50.  There are a few who made it to the 60's, including Ora, but that was the ceiling for that generation.  Now, here we are, living in the shadow of that history.  Even the long lived Thibault and DeGray connections didn't do that much to stretch things out.  But it did help.  I'm going to try to list things down here.  I beg of you to help me if you see that I've missed the boat somewhere along the line.
Eugene Dion, the original Red Head, died at around 37
Cecile Gelinas, nee Dion was 25 -- She was my first experience with death and wakes, etc.  It '42 or '43, I think.
EFR Dion died at 47
Al Dion died at a younger age than that
Norma Dion was perhaps around 45 - 47
Grace DeGray, nee Dion was not yet 50, I don't think
Normand was over 50 but I doubt he made it to 60, maybe he did
Ed also was over 60, he was born before Don and died before Don
Don made it to somewhere in the mid 60's
That's the 8 of them.  I think that I had some wind of a still birth or two, but I am uncertain of that.
Many of these departures are of the here today, gone tomorrow  variety.  And it's not just Dion.  Thibaults and De Grays like that kind of escape.  Matter of fact, I sincerely pray every single day that God grant me that favor too.
Perhaps more than many families, we live our daily lives in the presence of the end.  I don't know how you all deal with this stark reality in our lives.  I personally have a way of looking at it with two eyes, the one making the other sure of the truth of what is seen.  Like the flowers of the fields and the birds of the air, the end of what we can touch and feel is sure to come.  That end though, in my life is the beginning of another, more glorious existence.  I am blessed in that I have no doubts about that.  I know that some are not so sure about what happens when you don't wake up the next morning.  I, for one am absolutely sure of what happens when you don't wake up the next morning -- You don't have to report to work, that's what.  That's enough to make a lot of people happy, isn't it?  Be honest now, how many of you go to bed saying, "Oh Lord, please wake me up so I can rush off to work tomorrow."???  Not me.  But I do go to bed with all kinds of plans to start work early because I have to get so much done every day.  But hey, like I said earlier, it could be that I'll never remember what happened anyway.  Maybe I get to the Pearly Gates and say, "Whoa, some retrofit they put on this place!"  Ol' Peter will say, "This is not that place...and by the way, what are you doing here?  It's too soon for you.  We're not done building the dog house yet."  So that's why I'm still here.  Heaven doesn't have a place for me yet.  Beelzebub doesn't want me because he hates my guts.  He's sure that I'm better at what he does than he is.  He's always after Lucifer not to pull the trigger yet because he's afraid to loose his job as number two coal stoker of the Inferno.  So, at this rate, all you 60 somethings out there, give it up.  As long as I keep getting up off the floor after falling out of bed in the morning, that job in Hell is mine.  At least for the time it's going to take Heaven to get a broom closet cleaned out for me.  
When that happens, you will not Cry at my Funeral because you'll know that I either got the place to stay in Heaven or the job I took away from Beelzbub.

MEMORIAL DAY--2011

Of all the stuff I have been sent over the Internet for this Memorial Day, this is the one that sent a shiver up my spine, so I'm sending it to you.  Here's what it made me think of, not necessarily a logical conclusion of the point being made in the cartoon, but a throwback thought to ...
1. The days when holidays of this importance were celebrated on the date that had been designated for their celebration by law.  So, whether it was Monday or Thursday, if that was May 30, that was the day when normal activity stopped and the "celebration" took place.
2. The days when there was a parade in every hamlet of the nation in honor of those who had fallen in battle.  In our town, this parade started over by the Carew Street School and Public Library area and proceeded down Bridge Street, left on to South Main Street, parallel to the Connecticut River, passed in front of the Honor Roll which stood proudly in front of the combination Town Hall and High school building, by the foot of Spring Street, where we were awaiting it, over to the entry to the Village Cemetery, and into the cemetery where the rites of remembrance would take place.  We would walk alongside the parade to accompany it to the cemetery, some 200 yards down the street.  Our favorite part was the 21 gun salute.  I don't remember all the things that we did after that, but we never did miss the parade.
3. The Honor Roll, I said.  I am going to presume that there are some of you who don't know what I mean.  It was an ornate "wall" of very expensive wood, the face of which carried the engraved names of all the residents of the town who were presently serving in the Great War being waged in Europe and Japan.  Many of the names had stars in front of them.  They had given their life for the country.  We all knew it and we never passed in front of the Honor Roll without offering up a little prayer for their souls and the well-being of their families.  I and my dear wife try to go to this spot during our annual visit to Massachusetts.  It is now marked by three massive granite markers honoring those who served in World War II, Korea and Viet Nam.
4. I try to go back there because a> I thank God that of all the first degree blood relatives of my our family who served in the military, not a one was taken away from us.  b> I do have friends who didn't come back.  One was among the very last, if not the last to die after the bell rang in Korea...I'll never  forget Mike Barney.  The other was among the first to die in Viet Nam.  He had just graduated in the first class to go through the Air Force Academy in Colorado.  His name, Valmore Bourque is on public display, engraved on the Wall in Washington D.C.
I am spending my weekend in a city where the military is an omnipresent influence and where there is an extremely beautiful military cemetery.  There are also many rites taking place in various locations around America's Finest City [San Diego, CA] but I went to church today and prayed with a lot of memories dancing in my head.  The final public prayer after the Holy Mass was a short video with a wonderful rendition of Taps.  You could have heard the crash of a pin dropping.  Now I have celebrated by entering into your lives with my reminiscences.  When you get to be my age, you wonder where they all come from.
After you read and digest what is here, you will have a good idea why I keep saying that there should be No Crying at my Funeral.

Point Loma, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California (SD)

TRUTH, SWORD, FIRE, WATER -- TWO EDGES EACH

Ready, get set, GO!
It's been a long week.  You know the kind.  The ear-worm won't go away.  The gout that awakened you on Monday imposes itself on you for the whole week, no matter what you do. The dear friend who got evicted with a three day notice calls every day.  You make three wrong number calls in the same week, each one for the same number.  You change an important password, write it down, hide it and the day after you can neither remember it nor find it.  Finally, you make a public statement and get called out on it as being false, the moment after you made it.  In the heat of the moment you hesitate and in frustration you say, "I'll look it up."  Three hours later you should be in bed, but you're still thinking, "Yeesh!, I have to be more careful not to get carried away."  To make matters worse, every hour of every day of the week you construct a positive teaching from your mistake in order to give your sincere, yes, sincere,  apology some positive value.  So, that's the kind of week it has been.  This is the end, and you get this thought.
I start by saying that in the middle of the week, a "rock-star", You Tube entertainer who pushes his religious views on the world made a statement that really fell right in line with my Bad Week life.  He talked for four and one-half minutes about why the "Truth" is divisive.  Then, for thirty seconds he ended by saying that it is only in the acceptance of Truth that we can be united.  Here it is:
      "Our job as Catholics is to do everything .. EVERY .. THING we can do to      help people see the truth.  Only by everyone agreeing to the same authentic truth will division come to an end.  And not a split second sooner.  Not on this earth."  
I said to myself,  "I didn't fall off a cliff this high in my mistake."  I happen to believe that the absolute truth is ONE, and that in and of itself it causes unity, not divisiveness.  Human beings cause the division, not the truth itself.  Let's take a moment to consider other parts of the title of today's thought.

SWORD:  A good sword has two edges.  
It has the edge of aggression and and punishment and the edge of protection.  In the Bible we are shown several aspects of the sword.  Michael the Archangel uses  the sword according to God's will and drives the evil dissident into the eternal fire of damnation.  God's people get to claim the Promised Land by the sword.  Saul, the first king, and a bad one, uses the sword against the wishes and the commands of God.  David,  the chosen one of God uses the sword according to the will of God and actually saves Saul's life by not using the sword against Saul, his enemy.  Jesus teaches that He has not come to bring peace but to bring the sword.  The sword of St. Michael, the sword of Joshua, the sword of Aaron, the sword of David, the sword of salvation.  In the teaching of Jesus, Love, Mercy and Reconciliation are the sword that He brings.  It is with this spiritual sword that we are meant to to conquer the Evil one and gain the Kingdom of Heaven, as the Israelites gained the Promised Land.

FIRE: In the tradition, fire is punishment and damnation.  Fire also has two edges.  In our relationship with God, we have a two edged relationship with the reality of fire.  We traditionally hold that fire is bad and that it is the tool of punishment at worst and of purification at a mitigated stage.  In our natural lives we know that fire is a very dangerous ally.  It plays a big role in our struggle for survival and even contributes to our progress as a civilization.  In our Church lives we also have an appreciation of fire as a picture of ardent zeal, and all sacrificing love.  We use the color of fire to celebrate martyrdom as well as the infusion of the Holy Spirit.  

WATER: As we are reminded during the celebration of the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, water too is a dangerous ally. 
We are conceived in water and water remains an essential part of our physical lives at every moment.  We are also around water and its life-giving properties all during our spiritual lives.  Beginning with the story of the punishing deluge being also the very medium that supported those who survived it, we come through the ages and see Moses saved by the waters of the Nile and the Land of Milk and Honey having an abundance of fish and water to support the Chosen People.  That central source of life support provided the water which John used to cleanse the Chosen People of their past and take upon themselves a new life in the Messianic age.  Jesus took it further and bequeathed His Baptism in water and in the fiery love of the Spirit to those who would follow Him in the renewed Kingdom, the renewed Chosen Land, the Church.
St. Paul would give us a deeper appreciation for the mystery of the saving water when he said, 
"are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  4 We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.  5  For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection." [Romans 6:3 - 5]
So it is that we live in a world where we occupy both sides of the coin.  We constantly strive to live on the bright side and shine in the loving sunlight of the God who created us and who guides us through our earthly existence.  It is our call to always choose the life giving qualities of the sword, fire and water for the power of the unifying truth is always to be found in the pureness of our discipleship with God.

You can read what caused my disconcerting week by clicking here.  Put your good humor suit on.  I'm going to approach the subject in a more light-hearted way.

THIS WEEK HAS BEEN HELL! BAD WEEK, PART 2

Hellfire and Brimstone.
NOT.
I have put up this picture of hell because the traditional picture of fire, Lucifer's forked tail and three pronged pitch fork doesn't translate the reality of hell.  Mostly because like heaven, hell is not a place.  it is a mode of being.  Traditionally, fire has been the suffering of choice in descriptions of hell.  This serves us well on the level of our imagination concerning the worst possible way to suffer, but is does nothing to make the reality of hell more understandable to us.  No matter what we say or think, hell remains a mystery of faith.  This does not make it any the less real, it just says that we will not understand its existence fully as long as we exist here on earth.  Last week, in public, during a teaching session on purgatory and limbo, I said that the suffering in hell was caused by the absolute absence of God.  One of the listeners in the audience promptly called my attention to the fact that if what I had just said were true, then hell would not exist, since God is the one who IS existence and who therefore maintains what IS, in existence.  I was caught off guard, was a little  surprised at myself.  So, when you have your grass cut, you have to hope that the sun will shine and help you turn it into hay.  Right?  So that's what I've been trying to all week, all the while living with my mistake.  One day, out of the blue, came the answer.  Believe me, it was out of the blue.  Someone in a room was talking about Beelzebub and someone else said, "Yeah, even he believes in God.  Why isn't he saved?"  Hey, I didn't get distracted by the undertones and overtones of that challenge.  I had just found some consolation to my sadness.  Now I had two proofs that I had made a real error.  Not only was God present in some way in hell itself because of His support of its existence, but He was present there in the minds of those who are condemned to suffer forever.  Let me say that if you ever make an error, it is always a good feeling to discover that you were only half wrong.
Allow me therefore to present you with the catechetical statement of the Catholic Church about the nature of suffering in hell:  " Hell's principal punishment consists of eternal separation from God in whom alone man can have the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs." [1057 Catechsim of the Catholic Church]  So now I know that I was only 1/3 wrong.  God is in hell in some way because He supports its existence, he is known by those being punished and their punishment is caused by the fact that the longing that have for him in their hearts will never be fulfilled.  In any and all events, and all things being equal, wrong is wrong and I stand corrected.  I am now about to catch up on the sleep that I lost before bringing myself to this sincere apology.  It really feels good.

PLASTIC SURGERY -- SILICONE TOO

When I was a little boy, plastic was just breaking into the scene.  The expression "Plastic Surgery" really mystified me.  I could not figure out why or how plastic could find its way into the operating room, let alone how it could be a part of a cure for anything.  It was rather difficult for me and I could not come to an understanding of the reality behind the expression.  That pushed me to do what I usually did in this case, I asked my father what people got done to them when they had plastic surgery.  Was it that they got body parts out of plastic?   My father was not in a humorous mood nor in a very intellectual one.  He just simply said, "It's not that kind of plastic."  Huh?  
So I got older and life went on.  I got very much older, you know, I was in my early 20's and slowly but surely was introduced to some other meanings of "plastic."  It took me a long time to get to the bottom of the mystery.  It was happenstance that taught me the meaning that I was seeking.  I saw a picture of a failed plastic surgery procedure.  It was terrible,  So then I knew, plastic meant "flexible."  It was at about the same time that the slang term,
Plastic" came on the scene as meaning "Phony," "superficial," and "cheap."  Then I came to know just what plastic surgery really is.  It is an oxymoron to get plastic surgery as an enhancer because plastic surgery is just the opposite, it is a diminisher.  That least one is not a real word, but that's OK because you get the point.  If you really want to get the point, refer to the picture at the top of the page.
Notice that I haven't mentioned that other word in the title, "Silicone?"  That is enhancing but it's a matter for another time!

NOW THIS IS SPOOKY -- I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

Did I get this from Outer Space or Inner Space?

I went to the office today because I had to return my completed work to the headquarters of the transportation company.  It is about a 20 minute drive one way.  On the way, I was hit by a couple of thoughts.  The bad part about it is that I don't think that they are related, but they did come at me about 2 minutes apart.
Thought 1.  I was in moderate traffic.  Then, of a sudden, a $75,000.00 car swooped in front of me from the right.  I caught a glimpse of the middle aged male at the wheel.  I also then ran through my philosophy about only being able to take what the road gives you, and being happy with it.  At my age, that's easy to say.  At his age, you steal as much from the road as you can and still live to tell about it.  This happened while I was still 5 miles away from my destination.  I arrived at my destination with the glint of his rear bumper still in my windshield and him still trying to steal more road than the road was willing to cede.  I smiled and asked myself how many more years it would take for him to learn what I know.
Thought 2.  Yesterday I narrated the story of my first experience in a hospital where I underwent surgery to remove my tonsils.  Today, on the heels of the traffic folly it struck me, suddenly and not gently, that there is no one alive who has first-hand experience and objective or relative knowledge of this historical fact. The only other sibling who was alive at the time is my brother, Denis.  He would have been about 4, maybe even only three.  Our first cousin AJ (Tony) Phaneuf would be the only one close enough to our immediate family to have any recollection of it.  I know he gets these daily thoughts because he is on the mailing list, but he is silent on the matter.  So far.  Maybe he figures that silence is the better part of valor in this case. Maybe he really doesn't know.  It's OK to ask him.  See if he really knows or if he is making it up.  Just for kicks.  
Seriously, this is the very fabric of old age.  Tony remembers stuff that no one alive in the family can recall as personally lived fact.  He can relate historical realities, but none of the listeners can relate to them to the marrow except him.  This on the maternal side.  On the paternal side, I am that individual.  No wonder that when something happens with the Dion community, they like to have me around.  I often wonder why.  I think that I have just been enlightened about that.  We take it for granted that our children can't relate to our past like our other relatives can.  But relate to it, they do.  I have true stories, experiences of the degree of relationship that our children have with some of our personal past.  They have come to know our parents who were long deceased before our children were even born.  Just as we who are married have come to know the deceased members of our spouse's family though we never met them.  Strangely enough, we plow ahead without recognizing the treasure that this spiritual knowledge is for us.  We shrug off the occasional thought or "visitation" from these beloved souls as a moment of weakness or insanity.  We hardly ever spend some moments reflecting on the value that these non-historically present-to-us beings bring to making us who we are and who we are becoming.  
I therefore invite you all to join me in my moment of deep introspection and appreciate the true stories that you know about the people who have gone before you and who are connected to you through a first degree relationship, or even more, in some cases.  The lesson for me is to be more sensitive to the treasure that I carry around with me.  I should add more of my cousins to the mailing list, right?  When they get together, I should make a greater effort to be present to them.  Help me with this, and I'll do it.

MY FIRST TIME IN THE HOSPITAL FOR SURGERY

When is the first time that you were committed to a hospital?  If it has never happened to you, let me assure you that in all truth, you don't know what you're missing.  The last time I was in the hospital because I had to be there, was a real thriller.  The first time provides me with some rather interesting memories.
I think I was about six years old.  It was the Providence Hospital in Holyoke.  Dr. Daniels suggested that since I had a tendency to be sick all the time, that I should have my tonsils excised.  The preparations were all done and so we left the house and went to the hospital.  The night went by rather rapidly because I slept through it.  I think I must have been drugged.  I remember the morning came quickly and I was "escorted" into the operating room to get my tonsils removed.  I remember so many unpleasant things.  I remember fighting the ether and I remember that I seemed to be somewhere on the edge of a reality that I really hated because it was so strange and uncomfortable.  I'll never forget it.  I don't remember the act of surgery at all, but the surrounding feelings and emotions are still with me.  I got back to the ward and in my bed.  I don't exactly remember how it happened, but I came to find out that my uncle Donald was in the same hospital recovering from an industrial accident.  He had fallen off a garage roof and broken both his wrists.  He was ambulatory, so he made  the mistake of coming by my bedside as I was coming back into the world.  As I came around, I started to feel the pain in my throat and I started to cry...not good for the tonsils ..., I mean for the  throat that used to have tonsils.  Then I saw my uncle and so I cried all the more and begged him to get me home so I could be with my mother.  He showed me his wrists in casts and I cried the more out of sympathy for him.  I could not figure out how he could be in this weird place and not be crying too.  It was so mysterious to me how he could be in such fine humor.  All this mystery and the pain, made me cry all the more.  He got sick and tired of my lousy attitude, so he left.  Well, that made me cry all the more because now I had an abandonment on top of pain, on top of homesickness on top of frustration.  Somewhere along the stretch of the hours, crying all the time and shouting that I wanted my uncle Donald, I discovered that I was actually hungry.  Ha!  Hungry after tonsillectomy, are you?  Too bad little boy, you can't eat for at least another day or so.   So now I really get down to raising Hell, even in a Catholic hospital.  I really didn't know too much what to expect from the nuns, but I do remember that it was a good thing that I didn't have any preconceived notions about them.  If  I had, I'm quite sure that I would most likely have turned Protestant.  So it got to be afternoon, I think.  I'm still crying and still raucously shouting for my uncle, my mother, my father, anyone.  Then, I started to get nasty because I was hungry.  Sometime during the day, some kind soul, I didn't think that she was so kind. All she brought me was some luke-warm water in a glass from which she allowed me to take a couple of sips through a straw.  I have to admit, I remember that at first I thought she was stingy, but after the couple of sips, my throat actually felt better. That was the good news.  The bad news [95% of all news was bad that day] was that she put the glass out of my reach and said that she would come back in an hour to give me couple more sips.  That set me off again. I think I had stopped crying for about 15 minutes at some point.  But I got back on the angry train and didn't ever get off again.
I think it was about 7:00 PM when my mother and father came to see me at the hospital. You think that made me happy?  Nope.  first words were, "I wanna go home."  Second words were, from EFR Dion, "The sister told us to take you home."  Then I got sober and thought of Donald, the uncle who wasn't there all day when I needed him, but I did think of him and asked is he was going to come with us.  They said no.  He had to stay a couple more days.  That was another downer, but at least I wasn't alone.
All in all it was a bad experience for me.  Through the years I have revisited that experience and it is humorous, sad and technically rewarding.  How so?  I am sure that because of my ugly self the medical community decided to hasten the development of outpatient protocols for tonsillectomy.  They had had enough of PA Dion to last forever.  I would not be surprised to hear that the good sister Superior had to spend some time in purgatory over the nasty thoughts she surely entertained about me during that fateful day.   I have a secret for you... That was well over sixty years ago, and I wasn't done with the medical world yet.  The first time was a little humorous, the second time was rather ugly.  But I'll tell you about it.  Sometimes the funniest stuff comes out of the ugliness of life.  You know, like how nice flowers grow best when there's a lot of manure around them.  So, hold that thought, while pinching your nose, and we'll talk about it a little farther on down the road.  When the wind changes direction.

FENG SHUI APPLIED TO GREGORIAN CALENDAR ...

CLICK HERE FOR $$$

I've had it.  Six times in two weeks I received an email connecting the numerological superstition of the 1111111-111111-11-11-111 and the numbers of the year of my birth adding up to 111.  Monticulum Stercoris Taurorum est! The numbers in the year of my birth add up to 20.  All this is supposed to bring you money if you forward the email with the information because Chinese Feng Shui has it all spelled out.  How can so many people be so ignorant?  The Chinese don't even follow the Gregorian Calendar except to do business with the West.  So what does Feng Shui have to do with the Kabbalistic shenanigans of numerological idiosyncrasies that only happen once in every 550 + years, by the Gregorian calendar, again.  I am sending this to you all so that you can  have some ammunition to stop the flow of this cultural detritus into your private space.  I suggest that you click here to check the truth of what I have dared to write in big, bad, black, bold type.
On a more sober note, I wonder what all the people who believe in the productivity of this kind of behavior will do with all the money that is supposed to flow into their pocket for following the instructions of the ubiquitous email.  I have a suggestion for those who are seeking money ... get a job!  Better still, go to Japan and help with the reconstruction after the tsunami.  They pay good wages too.  Be careful though, the Japanese don't use the Gregorian calendar either for all that is deeply important to them.
On the moral side, don't people know that to induce others to action through false promises based on superstition is immoral?  
I made a promise to myself at the beginning of this 365 Thoughts project that I would not ever be negative.  I would always try to be of good cheer.  That is one of two promises I made to myself.  So much for this one.  The other one is 
safely locked in my heart.  I don't fear that I will cross the line on that one.  After all, a person  has to have at least one secret.
I did respond to most of those who sent me the emails, but not all because I have too much work to do earning a living at a real job.  I now leave you in peace.  Be happy for me, I got it off my chest.  Tomorrow will be a happy-happy day, promise.

INFINITY

THE LAST WALTZ SHOULD LAST FOREVER. [Englebert Humperdink]

I listen to classical music a lot.  I have also lived in other countries and therefore have been exposed to many different sounds, many different beats and many different other things that make up music that I can't begin to name.  Today, all day, when I should have been thinking of something else, I was thinking about all the music that I have heard and the question kept returning with the insistence of incessant waves lapping at the shore.  In its simplest form, it is this:
When will the last piece of completely original music be composed?
Will anyone know that this is it?
Finally, does anyone care?
Are  the possibilities of music composition infinite?  I would think that they are.  Human beings keep coming and going.  What are the odds that the entire gamut of musical possibilities will ever be run?  This question kept me awake all day, until now.  I also brought me to other musings and other nostalgic thoughts.  The one that was the most insistent was the unwavering resolve that a certain group of engineers with whom I was working, from afar, of course, displayed in their desire to make an electronic device called a "chip carrier" that would have 128 legs sticking out of it so that more electrons could course through the computer chip housed inside the "carrier."

They could make carriers with 64 legs, called "leads" with regular and habitual success.  The technological barriers impeding the production of a carrier with twice as much capacity in the same physical size were massively daunting.  I remember the days when they were getting close to succeeding.  Sleepless nights were the norm.  Then, one day, BOOM! it happened.  Not only did it happen where we were working.  It happened in the world because we were the first to succeed.  That was more than 30 years ago.  These days, chip carriers have well over 300 leads and the information that they carry runs over surfaces hundreds of times smaller than when I was watching some of this happen.  Have we reached the finite end of the line in this area?  The scientists and engineers will never admit it.  
Infinity is a challenging concept.  It challenges us in our concept of space, time, mass, art, sport, speed, heat, cold and I don't know how many other areas of reality.  It's no wonder that I spend all day and half this night with this thought.  Now that I have written it down, I have reached my finite limit for the day.  I leave you in peace and I wonder what will keep me away tomorrow.
It looks like we will not find Frank.  One more try with the last lead that I have.  I hope it will work.  If not, I'll tell you the story.  This is a story that has to be told.
Ciao, bambini, un baccio finale, per oggi, poi, sonno.

HEY, I MADE IT! LOOK UP, I'M HERE ON CLOUD NINE

Oh yeah, God made a mistrake.  In fact He made more than one.  First off I'm Catholic, so I was supposed to be left behind to fry in Hell for all eternity.  He apologized to me just about an hour ago.  I told Him it was OK, so so long as He didn't send me back.  He assured me that He would not do that.  During His apology He admitted that he got confused by the Daylight Savings thing.  See, back in the days when He was not quite so busy and could relax a bit doing some fishing in Galilee, life was simpler.  The sun revolved around the earth and there were two time zones...night and day, just the way He made it at the very beginning.  So He got confused.
The other thing that got Him confused and really nearly fried the Archangel Raphael's brain was that the only people who recognized him and vice versa were the Catholics and the Orthodox.  He knew that they weren't eligible for salvation, but he was running out of time because he couldn't find anyone he knew except those who were ineligible.  It's really too bad, but God should never have sent him to do this work in the first place.  Poor guy is the star of a book that Luther burnt some 400 years ago.  I'll bet that Luther threw that book away because it shows the Holy Archangel Raphael telling a white fib, right near the beginning of the story.   Everything works out well in the end, but Ol' Luther didn't cotton to archangels who can can be underhanded, I guess, so he rubbed out poor Archangel Raphael.  So, anyhow, everything is cool.  Here I am and there you are.  I know it's going to be rough for you but I promise that now that God Himself has had to apologize to me, I'm going to work on Him to get the people who know some of His most favorite individuals forever, get raptured too, someday.  Hey, fair is fair; just is just.  Those of you who know and love the Archangel Raphael, the heroine Judith, the brave and courageous Maccabees and the fullness of the life of Daniel have to be brought home too.  I'm really rather happy that Archangel Raphael bumped into me.  We're getting pretty tight together.  Tonight we're going to challenge Archangel Michael and old Buzzard Reverend Camping to a round of Bridge.  See, Camping doesn't know Raphael like I do.  I guarantee that as a team, Archangel Raphael and I can beat anyone at anything.  I mean, hey, anyone who can dissimulate in the Bible and get away with it can't be beaten at anything, can he?  Let me tell you something else, when I run into Marty L, he's going to hear it from me.  Yeah, Catholic me.  He's going to get an earful for insulting some of the best and the bravest of God's own people by burning the books that they star in.  I hope that God will force him to eat them just as He did with Ezechiel.  Only, I hope that he will dip them in Nuc Mam for three days before making the star of Wittenburg eat them.  By the way, the talk around heaven is that we Catholics have to pray and sacrifice more and harder for our brothers and sisters in Purgatory.  Get with it, Y'All.

GARGLING SALT WATER -- BAKING SODA -- HANDKERCHIEFS

You read the title of this post, so you know what these are.  If you put the words of the title together you realize that they all represent something that doesn't get observed much any more.  Most of these three things, as well as many more, do not occupy too much space in our daily, 21st century lives.  There are no doubt many of you reading this who remember their mother ordering them not to forget their handkerchief before running off to school.  Those of you who can remember this may not be able to remember the last time you checked your pocket to assure yourself that you did indeed have a clean handkerchief with you.  I can, it was this morning.  The one thing that I can't remember is when the last time was that I went back to the dresser to  get my second handkerchief, just in case.  I am one of those "throwbacks" who always has a clean cotton, plain white handkerchief on his person.  I never was a user of colored handkerchiefs like the ones pictured here.  I put these up because they show better.  Yep, I'm a media slave too.
While I was thinking of handkerchiefs, a ton of other real stuff that has fallen into desuetude came to mind.  [I used that word on purpose] Like gargling warm salt water in the morning; brushing teeth with baking soda; rubbing paregoric on a baby's gums or taking it to stop diarrhea; Fr. John's morning tonic; taking the cream off the top of the quart of milk so that it could be whipped later in the day; hanging the clothes on the line to dry; choosing to buy one brand of bread over another because the other had a tendency to have air holes in the slices; collecting the fat from the baking pan so that it could later be used as a spread for breakfast bread or toast; carrying a jack-knife in your pocket as a matter of style; dressing up on Sunday; wearing a hat, and never forgetting to remove it when you entered a house... That's all I had on the top of my head.  I could perhaps make the list longer if I decided to spend some time forcing myself to remember other items.  I have, however decided not to put you through the agony of watching me strain at the keyboard only to engender nothing but the proverbial mouse.  [Do I have to explain to which mouse I am referring?]  If I do, let me know and I will.
So, that's my secular thought for the day.  I have to run over to the religious side of my brain because I have a couple of items that I want to express over at No Crying at my Funeral.

NEW YORK, THE SOUL OF THE WORLD

Here is a narration nostalgic in its content and descriptive of the emotions that drove our vision of life as we were growing up.  The whirl of thoughts about the events recalled here were put out on the table during a social breakfast hour with some friends of ours.  After the morning Daily Mass, we invited them to  have coffee and croissant with us [our treat] at our favorite Vietnamese bakery/coffee shoppe.  As we sat around the table sipping coffee and nibbling on the croissants, the conversation turned to the grandchildren that we do not have and the single grandchild that our friends have.  It turns out that she is a very bright person and doing straight-A work in school.  So, it turns out that she qualifies for a study trip to Washington, D.C. and New York.  Imagine, with Los Angeles less than 100 miles away, bright students in Southern California dream of going to New York.  That reminded me of the dreams that we entertained of going to New York someday. [A mere 125 miles away]  New York, after all, is the navel of the world.  Everyone knows that.  EFR Dion used to say "Go to New York and see the world.  If it exists in the world, you can find it in New York."  This was really impressive for us, as children.  We knew that our father knew the City very well.  Therefore, what he was telling us had to be true.  Despite our dreams and the great admiration that our father had for New York, he was not the first to take us there.  We went there as a reward for being reliable and capable Altar Boys.  Just like the little Straight-A lady above.  The priests of the parish chose some ten of us, the cream of the crop among about 35 boys.  We were to go to New York in the morning, get there about 9:30 AM, do some sight seeing, go to watch the Yankees play the Red Sox and return home after the game.  Yes, these were times when day games actually outnumbered night games by a mile.  Going to New York was like going to heaven without dying.  We were dreaming of the Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge, Yankee Stadium, the subway and finally the Automat, "automatic" food serving restaurant.  Actually, in my mind the Automat was the BIG expectation.  No, it did not live up to my expectations, but it was a lot of fun and I never forgot my experience there.  Over coffee this morning I had to tell the story of our ride on the subway.  We had to go from the area where we had lunch and get to Yankee Stadium.  It was engineered  that way by the organizers of the outing.  They wanted us to experience a ride underground.  There we are.  Eyes the size of saucers.  Rank smell, strange noises, running people and suddenly from the left the screeching of wheels in a turn and then the hissing of the air brakes and the precise stop to line the doors up with the painted boarding areas on the dock.  A voice says, "OK, boys."  My brother Denis jumps on to the train just as the same voice says, "Not this one." Swish, bump, too late!  The doors are closed and the train leaves the station.  The priest in charge says to me, "Don't worry, the people will take care of him."  I bravely, but also nervously assured the priest that my brother had been to Fenway Park [Boston] several times and so he would have an idea what to do.  I did mention that he did not have a ticket.  I was told that because we had a group reservation, the security personnel would see to it that he would be seated in the correct place.  Ya know what?  I believed all that.  Why?  I still don't know.  But I did.
As it turns out, the people on the train took care of him too.  They brought him to the ticket booth where the scenario that had been described to me by the priest was actually realized.  When we got to the ticket booth at Yankee Stadium, we were told that Denis was seated in the proper place.  Now was a that an "E-Ticket Ride" or what?  That was our [Denis and me] first trip to New York.  There were many more. EFR Dion made sure that we visited New York often and that he showed us as much of the real world as he could.  He succeeded in making us respect New York.  I am very grateful to him for that.  
I have lived in some great cities, including some rather famous ones, but I still brazenly state that New York is the soul of the world.

THE DRAWING BOARD (see below)

So GOOGLE can't find me.  So what?  Here's the truth:
Deep down in my mind and heart I have had a driving conviction that I had to leave an autobiography to my children.  I knew that I was not going to leave them any more than memories and word pictures of my life according to the way I saw it.  So, about seven or eight years ago I started writing my autobiography.  I have some of it done.  In fact I have the most important thing done...The outline.  I think it is really a break-through concept for an autobiography.  I can tell you that I am not following it one single bit.  I have fallen into the "blog" trap and I like it because it is really me.  The one thing that I have to confess is that I know that my children do not read it.  That, however does not really perturb me.  I know that some day, they too will "leaf" through it.  If it did not exist, they would have nothing to "leaf" through.
Therefore, you are all witnessing an exercise in futility.  You know what? I love it!  I am convinced that I am doing the right thing.  And that, to you all, and to my children for the future, is my thought for today.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

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Paul Dion Biography

Paul Dion

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I GOOGLED "PAUL DION AUTOBIOGRAPHY" 

and got what you see here.  Isn't it 

encouraging?  Looks like I am going to get 

back to the drawing board.  SEE YOU THERE.