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.

 

 

 

Foaming At the Mouth

I’ve always been quite a fool for a hot cup of coffee.  Not counting Sanka and Starbuck’s, I’ll drink any other kind.

 

Most days since I’ve been in Long Beach, I can be counted on to go once a day to the Coffee Nut Cafe’ on Park Avenue, to get a cup of coffee. Occasionally I go to Gentle Brew, also on Park Avenue, but since the former is closer, I much more often go there.

 

Lately I restrict my purchases to the less expensive~it’s only two dollars a cup~plain flavored coffee. Whenever I go to Gentle Brew, though, I cheat and get a latte’ or something equivalently intense. I used, until recently, to get the fancy drinks on a regular basis at the Coffee Nut Cafe’ too.

 

For me a large part of the enjoyment of drinks like latte’ is the froth at the top. Maybe I’m a  smidge or two on the eccentric side, but I’ve always quite enjoyed the foam at the top of soda, beer, coffee, and all sorts of other drinks. I’ve so often noticed that most people appear even to recoil in horror from even the risk of touching those bubbles at the top of a drink.

 

When I was in the Knights of Columbus’ Council 794, in Lindenhurst, I occasionally took a turn as a bartender, mostly on Friday nights.  I used always to get into trouble for putting too much of a head on people’s beers. Alas, in my case, it was inevitably because of incompetence but I still can’t understand why that’s always struck people as such a very bad thing somehow.  Am I the only one who gets a kick out of froth?

 

For today’s daily post the one~word prompt is Froth 

 

Naikanlens

Help From Heaven 

 

Feel Purple

 

Pensitivity

 

 

 

 

 

undeniable and inexplicable order

Today is the ninety ninth anniversary of the birth of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, thirty fifth President of the United States.  His younger brother and attorney general, Robert Francis Kennedy, was fatally shot on June 5, 1968.  J.F.K. was assassinated on November 22, 1963, two days after R.F.K.’s thirty eighth birthday.  

Over the past very many years I have always noticed that death has no respect for special occasions.  People often die on, or close, to times like Christmas, Easter, and other milestones.  My mother died exactly a week after my fifty fourth birthday. neral was on my father’s eightieth birthday.

So many things are like that. Between William Henry Harrison in 1840 and John F. Kennedy in 1963, each president elected at a twenty year interval died, either naturally or by assassination, while an incumbent.  This has been attributed to the curse of Tippecanoe, dating back to Harrison’s  questionable tactics in the Treaty of Fort Wayne with the Indians.

Another example of inexplicable coincidences can be found in the 1917 Our Lady of Fatima apparitions and events that are relevant to them. In 1517 the world was afflicted with the Protestant Revolution,  the first of many evil milestones. In 1689 Luis XIV refused Jesus’ request to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart.  During 1717 the Masons were founded. 1789  was the beginning of the French Revolution.  The Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. There are so many other supposedly coincidental dates that are crucial to the circumstances surrounding Fatima. I’ve only skimmed the surface.  These, and many other dates and milestones, fit a most undeniable pattern that cannot possibly be overlooked.

This kind of order, visible only in retrospect, has to be reckoned with. I have no idea of exactly what’s going on but it has always made me so insatiably curious.

daily post~:orderly

no order..haiku

a place for everything

orderly

ladies, form an orderly queue

orderly

leap at your own risk

I’ve never been a fan of change, especially significant change. The first time I moved from one address to another~of the moves I can remember~was around my twelfth birthday, when we moved from Jackson Heights to Lindenhurst.  That drove me nuts.  It was an unavoidably necessary leap but I still plum stunk at it. I always tell people that that was the incident which forever left me wary of change.  I can handle incremental change, the kind that happens in small degrees.  That kind of change happens incessantly anyway. Any change, however, that can be referred to as a leap, gets me crazy.  Ever since my earliest  days I’ve always been so pathetically physically clumsy, weak and uncoordinated. I was the kind of kid whom no one else ever wanted on his team, in gym class or otherwise.  Physical leaps are yet another kind I tend to shun.  While I can understand that leaping into things can often be unavoidably necessary, I don’t leap well. I should rather saunter as much as possible.

like a boss

a leap altar and more

daily post

daily paws

leap~daily prompt

peeps for leap

a lot of plants grow in brooklyn

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Snapshot Stories.”

 On May 9, Steve, Mary Anne, Sam, Bridget and I all went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Park Slope.  We left right after I got back from 8:00 a.m. Mass at St. Mary of the Isle. Mary Anne and I are originally from Queens so I was quite happy to be right next door in its neighboring borough. As a general rule, I don’t pay very much attention to plants but I’ve always been so smitten with them. They’re significantly more interesting than animals. Unfortunately I don’t know much about plants so I was forced  to pay such a lot of attention to anything I wanted to find out about.  We spent a few hours walking around the grounds enjoying all the sights . My only problem was that I wore a heavy long sleeved dress shirt on what turned out to be a warm day. Besides that I took a hooded sweater with me.  While there we sat down and ate for a while. During the time we were eating we got into a conversation with a guy who came up with an answer to a question one of the kids had asked. From the looks of his age, and the clothes he was wearing, I assume he was a Viet Nam era veteran.  It was such a nice quiet day. I was having  a relaxing enjoyable time. Unfortunately, my memory card in my camera ran out of storage space so I couldn’t take any more than one video. There was no problem with taking pictures though.   To my chagrin, my story isn’t very involved, complicated or interesting. It was just an especially fine spring day in  a most pleasurable environment.

https://toweararainbow.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/2837/

https://insach21site.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/snapshot-stories/

https://ledrakenoir.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/young-romance-and-dating-2/

http://www.rileycentral.net/tasty-weekend-festival-treats/

https://thelonerose.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/a-special-drawing/

https://teachingwanderinglearningwondering.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/snapshot-stories-sorrento-song-e-napule/

i stunk at math and science

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Land of Confusion.”

Over the course of my school days I had always been quite a reasonably good student. Math and science were the two very definite exceptions to that rule, however. As a high school freshman at St. John the Baptist in West Islip, I somehow got put into a biology class, in spite of the fact that freshman biology was intended for students who were good in science. Mr. Richard Morabito, my teacher, frequently called my mother and complained to her that I could never keep up with the work. He wondered if maybe I should start wearing eyeglasses again.  When I was a  senior I took Mrs. Joan McGrath’s probability and statistics class. She, like Mr. Morabito, knew that I was a conscientious student but that I just couldn’t handle the subject matter.  One of the very last things she ever said to me officially as a teacher of mine was that it would be a bad mistake for me to study math from then on. The next year, as a freshman at S.U.N.Y. Farmingdale, I was a liberal arts major. During my first semester I was forced to take another statistics course. During my first week there the professor insisted upon my dropping out of the course because he knew I’d never be able to pass it.  Those are only a few representative examples of the horror story that was my life in math and science classrooms. My late cousin Karen, who was a math teacher, once told me that she could never understand how anyone could possibly be a poor math student, considering that it was so logical. Perhaps that’s my entire problem. I must not be capable of handling courses that are too logically consistent. I appear to require  the twists and turns that go with the humanities and social sciences.

http://geekergosum.com/2015/05/13/oh-the-humanities-or-land-of-confusion/

https://promptlings.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/chemistry-of-fate/

https://casssuselessopinions.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/pure-vexation/

http://www.bukkhead.com/blog/2015/05/13/1251/

https://bkaotic.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/land-of-confusion/

https://halfbakedlog.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/the-boob-tube-ruined-algebra/

the greatest american hero, or hoagie

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “You, the Sandwich.” For many years my cousins, Larry, Gary, Joe, and I were on a bowling league with the Knights of Columbus St. Jane Frances de Chantal Council 6526 in Wantagh, New York.  We bowled every Friday night at Wantagh Lanes. While we were on the league they gave me the name B.L.T.  It only makes sense that were a restaurant to name a meal after me it would have to be a B.L.T. sandwich.  Of course there’s no rule that says its ingredients would have to be restricted to bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. I’ve always been quite smitten with Swiss cheese so it could have quite a healthy helping of that on it too.  In order to be consonant with the way I operate it could, at least occasionally include things like turkey, chicken, ham, fruit and anything else that may remind people of my lopsided antics. Never having been overly fond of spices I could see how anything with an exceptionally intense kick should be kept to a minimum. I’ve never been able to handle anything too sloppy or sticky. The local Lido Kosher Deli has a hamburger that drives me crazy because it’s so hard to handle, being so extremely sticky. My sandwich, by definition, would have to be plain and simple in that respect.  As long as its ingredients include those three primary ones, and it’s reasonably need and easy to handle, it’s quite the perfect edible symbol of me.

http://www.bukkhead.com/blog/2015/05/06/the-bukkhead-comes-with-a-side-of-maui-onion-potato-chips/

http://clipsandsnippets.com/2015/05/06/everyone-should-order-two/

http://parents-are-people-too.com/2015/05/06/three-tips-for-indulgng-but-not-spoiling-a-child/

https://kirstydavies1990.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/you-the-sandwich-daily-prompt-may-6th-the-nom-nom/

https://homemadefigtales.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/the-sampler/

https://unbolt.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/thirst/

the milk man cometh

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Going Obsolete.”  Of all the technologies that have gone extinct within my lifetime, I’m not sure of which one I miss the most. I can remember, though, that when I was a  kid in Jackson Heights, milk men, and other kinds of salesmen, used always to drive through people’s neighborhoods in trucks. Since I’ve never liked traffic or crowds it would be nice if we could go back to those days. Now we have mail order sales and internet sites that do sort of the same thing, so in a certain sense the convenience is available. I used always to enjoy, though, seeing those big silver colored milk boxes on each neighbor’s front stoop each day in anticipation of his regular delivery from the milk man.  Perhaps it would do more harm than good, though, to bring back that specific thing. I’ve never liked traffic and having it unnecessarily obstructed by some character stopping every few feet as he drives down the street would drive me to distraction. We already have that anyway with U.P.S. trucks, school buses and other kinds of vehicles constantly defiantly bringing traffic to a frustrating halt.  In my imagination, of course, it’s quite a fond memory and a nice idea.

https://itchyquill.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/tokens-of-our-time-the-history-of-some-of-our-favourite-symbols/

http://2020hines-sight.com/2014/05/04/2450/

https://alotfromlydia.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/i-can-quit-you/

https://lynan.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/good-old-tape-recorder-days/

the travails of a daily blogger

Over the course of the past full year, I’ve been able to post virtually daily to my blog. It’s only been for about the past week, since I got a case of pinkeye and bronchitis, that I’ve been cheating a little. During  the time I spent writing daily posts on WordPress, I learned that it’s hard for a blogger, no matter how frequently he posts, to build up a significant following. I also found out that a wide variety of people online can be counted on to be just as outspoken about their ideas, however eccentric and controversial they may be, as the people I’ve met in person.  Blogging regularly has given me an insight into how many different points of view there are about religion, politics, history, pop culture and anything else that can possibly be referred to. It’s so difficult to come up with fresh new ideas each day to write about. A daily blog gives me a significant chance to hone my writing skills and to remain as articulate and as well informed as possible about things.  There’s a major danger, though, with all the amateur opinions available, of missing out on a chance to get a legitimate understanding of things. The news media, of course, always tend to distort things anyway. Although blogging can be quite an exceptionally interesting experience it also leads to the risk of predictability. I try to avoid platitudes, repetition and other bad habits. It pays to be articulate.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/winning-streak/

http://unbolt.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/a-doll/

http://tombalistreri.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/one-day-lost/

http://oh3za.com/2014/11/30/winning-streak/

http://trablogger.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/canon-love/

http://parkinkspot.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/happy-one-month/

http://somnivision.com/2014/11/30/photography-wrap-up/