Trip Home for Easter (4 of 4): Local Catholic Politics.

I got a ride to and from my hometown with a friend from high school.

Her dad is a freethinking, often syncretistic (liberal) Catholic, and she was telling me that on Saturday night of Easter weekend when the whole family was sitting around drinking and playing board games he was going ballistic about how the priest at the local cathedral had put in the church bulletin a suggested dress code and the statement that if people couldn't meet it, he would rather that they not come to mass... He already attends church at a liberal haven in small town north of my hometown, but he heard about this and was still pissed.

Later that night, after more drinking, he was saying how the priest was trying to go after the finances of the small church, and was saying they needed to give more money to the cathedral.

"Yeah, because he needs more jewels for his robes, and the silver cups aren't good enough, they want gold," my friend's brother was like.

As it turns out, my one friend's uncle and cousin were in town and were there, and they're "ritualistic" Catholics, as she describes them; they were drinking and watching the clock all night, and as soon as the clock hit midnight, they both went to make ham sandwiches and get desserts and other stuff they had been giving up.

"I wonder what they thought," she was like, but she said she didn't remember their reactions.

She then said that by the end of the night her and her brother and other people were really drunk, and somehow all the talk about jewels for the priest's robes ended up with them calling him the "Rhinestone Pastor" and everyone singing together a song made up Neil Diamond's "Rhinestone Cowboy", only it was "Rhinestone Pastor".

Trip Home for Easter (3 of 4): Library Cart.

Months ago I passed by a communist demonstration downtown during the whole Rush Limbaugh birth control comment outcry, and this (older) (white) woman asked me if I wanted to volunteer to help protect the rights of women.

I told her I was too busy with other causes, but I had gotten together a list of Limbaugh sponsors to send to my mother, who was going to call them up and complain.

"That's great!", she was like, and then asked if my mother would be interested.

I said she lived in Michigan, and so she started showing me her newspaper she was selling, and she suggested I buy it, either for me or for my mother.

"No thanks," I was like.

She gave me the newspaper anyway, and a sticker saying something like "EMANCIPATE ALL WOMEN NOW", and said to send it to my mother.

She then told me that she grew up near Detroit, and when she became a hippie, she moved to some family property near St. Ignace in the U.P. with her mother, though their cousin who lived nearby wasn't happy and even killed their dog.

"And you should see him now!", she was like. "Long hair and everything. He would have never predicted that, years ago."

She also said that her mother got into free love through her.

Anyhow, when I went home, I did take that newspaper and give it to my mom, since I had told her about it over the phone, and I apologized for misplacing the sticker, which I had been using as a bookmark.

"Darn!", she was like. "I would put that on my library cart at work!"

Trip Home for Easter (2 of 4): Como Mi Madre.

My Mom has French and Spanish books she's gotten from the library.

She has the French book since she had French in college and would like to review, and she has "Spanish for Dummies" because she wants to learn Spanish.

"Why would you want to learn Spanish?", I asked her.

"I think it would be fun!", she was like. "That was if I go to the grocery store and it says press Spanish, I want to press Spanish and be able to do everything in Spanish."

Then she added, "Wouldn't that be cool?".

I asked her more, and she said that her ultimate goal was to press two when you get call that says 'Press one for English', and then do everything in Spanish for the rest of the call.

Trip Home for Easter (1 of 4): Train ride.

On the train ride home for Easter, this (large) (mid-40s) (black) couple across the aisle from me had a Monopoly board sitting out on their trays pulled down when I went to sleep.

When I woke up, they were playing dominoes on it.

I leaned over and said to the woman, "I am so happy to see you guys playing dominoes, I was worried with that Monopoly board that I had some Republicans next to me! First they try to take away my healthcare, and now they're disturbing my vacation?"

She laughed.

Interaction w/Slavic women (2 of 2): Wonderful bartender.

At this one bar I went to, up in the Irish and Irish-American and Italian-American neighborhood toward the major airport in the city, there was this bar that was a few doors down from an Italian restaurant (which also had a small lounge in it), and had the same name as the restaurant.

I went it, and it was all these old (white) men sitting there drinking $1.25 drafts, and a History Channel show about collecting motorcycle memorabilia was on tv.

The bartender, though, was this (slavic) woman in her 40s, with a worn, wise-looking, soft, very pale face, and these dark curls wrapping down around it, and this sweeping gray sweater that had a billowing waist and sleeves, and she would go up and down the bar being very open and emotionally sympathetic with everyone, and making sure to greet everyone who came in the door and say bye to everyone who went out, even if she was right in the middle of something.

I didn’t talk with her much, but I just watched her, and I caught bits of a conversation she had with this old man about destiny and the nature of love, and how if he loves a woman and pursues her and it works out, that is destiny, but if he pursues her and it doesn’t work out, that too is destiny.

At some point, a young (white) man came in the bar to talk to her, and after he left, she told the guy that he had been a worker at the restaurant and fallen in love, but both parents opposed to the match and the girl ended everything, but now he finally has found someone new, and married her, and would be bringing her in the bar.

At some point in some context she also mentioned someone trying to commit suicide, but I don’t remember what that was about.

She called out this very genuine farewell to me as I left the bathroom and went to slip out of the bar.

Interaction w/Slavic women (1 of 2): Drinking fountain.

All over school there are these new drinking fountains they’ve installed, that have a place where you can refill water bottles, and an electronic counter that shows how many plastic water bottles have been saved from a landfill just by people recounting their water bottles.

This one (female) (dishevelled) (extrememly pessimistic) (Russian) ph.d. student and I were by the fountain and I was filling up the thermos I have with me, and she said something slightly positive, about how she liked how the drinking fountain counted up, and said how many water bottles people didn’t throw out because of it.

“Yes,” I was like, “But because my thermos is slightly less than a water bottle, the counter never increases when I fill it.”

Then, I was like, “You know your life is nothing, when even inanimate objects don’t recognize you.”

At that she started to smile, so I turned to the fountain and said in a mock-theatrical voice, “Please, what do I have to do be recognized, to count as a human being...?!?!?”, and that got a good honest laugh out of her.

I think she liked the black humor.

Drug store interaction w/a (hispanic-American) lady.

When I went to the drugstore to get some allergy meds, there was a sale tag out, saying I’d save $4 off the listed price, but when I went to the register in cosmetics (the line in front was full, and the [young] [slightly heavy] [hispanic-American] lady in cosmetics called out over the intercom for people to come back to her), for some reason that price was coming off the allergy meds, no matter what the (young) (slightly heavy) (hispanic-American) lady did.

“Let’s go talk to the manager,” she was like, “Say you’re my cousin,” and she winked.

Then we talked, and she got me the help I needed, and that money came off the listed price, and I thanked her.

“No problem,” she was like, “Say hi to your mom for me,” and she winked at me again.