Monday Morning Musings

Posted on April 9, 2018 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

“We are stardust, we are golden..”

 

“Hey. What’s with the white dress?”

Last week I took a drive down to Sydney to visit an old university friend. She’s my age so she’s not technically old! We hadn’t seen each other in over 40 years since we completed our Bachelor of Education from St.F.X. After getting caught up on four decades of news, she took me to meet a friend.

Last winter when I was in India, I was asked to do a book review for Daniel Doucet, a well-known figure in Cape Breton literary circles. The book, “Felicity” is laced with local humour so you knew I was going to like it. He describes fisticuffs at a church picnic as “a fearful good time.” If you get a chance, grab a copy.

We had a great chat about writing. I brought him copies of my three books and he responded in kind by swapping four of his own. The discussion was lively and I was asked to read one of my stories. As Daniel is a Roman Catholic priest, I thought something with religious overtones would be appropriate. I chose, “Mass Appeal.” https://www.week45.com/mass-appeal/.

Well, one thing led to another and I confessed (!) that I had always thought about writing a book about growing up Catholic but decided I wasn’t quite ready for excommunication. The more we chatted, the more he convinced me that my fifth book should tackle a subject fraught with many mixed feelings.

On the drive home, I started to think about growing up in “The Little Vatican.”

I’m certain that this happens to you too. Something that’s interesting gets stuck in your head before you go to bed and all through the night, your overactive brain keeps crowding out sleep. I kept replaying my childhood over and over again. I finally staggered out of bed at 5:00 a.m. feeling like I’d done hand to hand combat with a bottle of tequila and some lemons… and lost. I poured a cup of black, dark roasted courage and quickly jotted down about 30 bullets in my writing scribbler… the combined efforts of a sleepless night.

Once I get to Arizona on Tuesday, I plan to write the first chapter of the book… about my baptism, hence the reference to a white dress! I will publish this story to whet your appetite but 90% of the stories in book #5 will be originals.

Along the way, I hope to have a workshop to discuss all things Catholic and will be inviting you to join me. Surely you have a story or two, and some of them may be even fit to print!

Passings. Iggy, Bernie Vosman and Joe White. Three of my old buddies from my days as administrator at CACL, have passed in recent months and we are all the poorer. Rest in peace my friends.

Grab your mobile device or an old wall calendar and mark down this date: Saturday, July 7^th. at 8:00 p.m. This is the Saturday of Highland Games week and we’re having a tribute concert at St.Ninian’s Cathedral to honor the life of James MacPherson. All of the proceeds from ticket sales will go towards the art restoration of the saints in the cathedral, a project that James MacPherson believed in passionately. I have no doubt that the show will be a sellout so I’ll let you know when the tickets are printed. They will be available for pre-sale at the St.Ninian’s Cathedral office.

I dusted off my tie dyed shirt and grabbed the old bell bottoms and made my way to the Bauer Theatre this Friday past to catch the “Woodstock” concert in aid of Festival Antigonish. So many memories and so many great musicians.

About 90 minutes before Saturday’s performance, I received a message asking me to Emcee the show. I agreed and had a lot of fun chatting between acts.

My next report will be from Arizona. “I’ve been to the desert on a horse with no name….”

Have a great week.