Fr. Brian P. Barr’s Anniversary Party

Saturday evening, after 5:00 p.m. Mass at St. Mary of the Isle in Long Beach, New York, was Father Brian Patrick Barr’s big party for the twenty fifth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Here is just one of the highlights of the momentous occasion.

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John’s and Fran’s Wedding

I recently went to John’s and Fran’s wedding, where everyone was, like me, Irish and from Queens.

It was an animated night with a wide variety of  loud music, including some songs by the Eagles.

 

 

I was careful about the bar, not wanting to get drunk in the company of their family.

 

 

 

I should suppose I shall have a long wait for the day when I shall be able to keep my anxiety about crowds and noise in check.  Until then, though, I can at least have a good laugh about it. For now I can keep on winning people’s hearts with my distinctive charm.

 

 

 

This is me first attempt at Sunday Whirl . Click the link to find out what it’s all about.  Brenda Warren is in charge.

 

 

 

Nostalgia For New Yorkers

New York City In 1911

Bait and switch

“He never expected to find that at the hardware store.” Have you ever noticed that there are all sorts of circumstances and environments where one often can count on finding things he shouldn’t  expect to find there, or not finding things that should be there.

A perfect example is M.T.V. which,  during my youth, was a groundbreaking music video channel. Now it no longer has any connection whatsoever to music, though it still covers pop culture of other kinds.

 

I’ve always had quite a significant interest in the Catholic Church’s intellectual world. Although I no longer watch television~not counting reruns on Youtube~I’d always enjoyed, in the past, watching Catholic shows on television. When I lived in Lindenhurst, I tried watching Telicare, the Rockville Centre Diocese’s official Catholic network. To my chagrin, they never showed any Catholic shows. All I could find were panel discussions with psychotherapists, case workers, and social workers; old movies; local high school sports; and telethons.

 

To this very day I can still remember an incident, when I was growing up, when my parents, my younger sister, and I were on our  way to northeastern Pennsylvania to visit relatives. Somewhere during the course of the trip we stopped at a diner in which, the very name of the place advertised prominently that they sold chicken. When we asked for chicken, a dumbfounded employee explained that their menu included everything except chicken.

 

In yet another northeastern Pennsylvania moment, one day several years ago, I was trying to get home (which then was the Borough of Wyoming) from someplace in Wilkes~Barre. Because of my having been quite unfamiliar with my location, and lacking a G.P.S., I took it for granted that a sign I noticed, which said that Pittston, my mother’s hometown, was seven miles north of there, by way of that road, I attempted to follow the road.  Within only a few hundred feet, I was confronted with a dead end.

 

If ever I chance to find things like bubble  gum, livestock, and animal balloons, instead of hardware, at a hardware store, I’ll know very much better than to be even so much as the least bit surprised.Today’s Author

hi de hi de hi de ho

It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 1983, At twenty four years old, I’m on a plane home from Western New York, after having visited some relatives.

I can’t shake the feeling that I recognize that old black guy in front of me as a famous musician. “Duke Ellington?” I wonder. “Count Basie?”

At least one of them’s dead.

There’s a middle-aged couple next to him. The wife asks him, “Are you Cab Calloway?”

My anxiety attack is no more. I heave a sigh of relief.

I overhear Calloway say softly, “That handsome young gentleman back there won’t have to go crazy now.”

Each week Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us in Friday Fictioneers, as we write a story based upon a photo prompt.

This week’s photo was supplied by Lucy Fridkin.

st. cecilia as a metaphor and warning

“Henry and Peter made their daily trip to Erika’s House of Music at the South Bay Shopping Center.

The owner and her husband, as always, greeted them in their Austrian and German accents.

“The twenty second’s coming up,” Henry intoned.

“It’s interesting that J.F.K.was killed on the feast day of the patroness of music.”

“Yeah,” Peter reminded him. “So much of the nauseating Sexual and Cultural Revolutions of that era was set to such perfect music. A little charisma can be poisonous.”

“There’s good and bad in every era,” Henry noted as they looked around for Jimmy Page’s sheet music.

This week’s photo prompt was supplied by Bjorn Rudberg. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields guides us weekly in Friday Fictioneers, as each of us writes a hundred~word story based upon a photo prompt.

Michael and Erin

On the weekend of my fifty~seventh birthday my nephew (and Godson) Michael, and Erin, got married. The wedding was at Nostrano Vineyards in Milton, New York.

The scenery was perfect. I got a chance to hobnob with our relatives and Erin’s.

I couldn’t help being smitten by the view. Milton was named after the seventeenth~century Jacobin poet, author of “Paradise Lost”.

 

 

the showers of blessing

daily post

my first 1000 photos

doris bolliger

the view from my window Laura

sue bee and kat

reginald and rachel

While visiting family in northeastern Pennsylvania, Reginald and Rachel took a walk on the local boardwalk.

“Isn’t this such a nice change from Long Beach’s boardwalk, honey?” Rachel pointed out.

“If we were there now,” her husband reminded her,”we’d be surrounded by teenagers with surfboards, Hasidic Jews in traditional black garb, and maniacs on bicycles.”

“It’s the perfect cure for our claustrophobia,”she couldn’t help noticing.

For countless hours they stayed there, enjoying the absolute silence and privacy, occasionally passing comments about the enigmatic triangle on the horizon.

“Too bad we don’t have one of those in New York”, she complained.

Adam Ickes provided our weekly photo prompt. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields is our Friday Fictioneers fearless leader.

his ultimate fantasy fulfilled at last

“Honey,” Leo begged Sylvia, “for my birthday, can we please go to Staten Island?”

“STATEN ISLAND?!?” she screamed. “What in the hell kind of complete LUNATIC begs for STATEN ISLAND?!”

He explained, “Until my twelfth birthday I lived in Queens. I’ve been to the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan a brazilian times. What am I, cursed, I can’t spend one day on Staten Island?!”

Gazing at him dumbfounded she whined, “Wow! If I’d a known I was marrying such a hardship case, I’d a listened to my parents and married Orville Kruger~”

“Never been to Staten Island~such a heartache!!”

Thank you to Jan Wayne Fields for this week’s photo prompt. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields guides us weekly in Friday Fictioneers, an attempt at hundred~word storytelling.

coming down fast but I’m miles above you

look up

dancing in infinite cerulean blue

look up

allison’s written words

the everyday photographer

hopeful boy

I spent a few hours this past weekend at the Long Beach, New York, annual Arts and Crafts Fair on the boardwalk.  Yesterday I wanted to try to take a picture of a plane with either a banner or skywriting. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite fast enough.