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From the Pastor: One Last (?) Vacation Article
Yes, this is the third week you have to read about my vacation. I wasn’t even gone two weeks, yet I am managing to drag it out at least on paper for longer than it lasted. Anyway, here goes. Last week I left off by saying goodbye to Kentucky and hello to Ohio. I have some friends there whom I have known since before I was a priest but I haven’t seen them in many years. How many years, you ask? This time I got a chance to meet their grandson who, now that school has started, just entered into the third grade. It is the first time I have met him, for I haven’t seen his mother (who I knew from her birth) or grandparents (the friends I mentioned) since before he was conceived! Fortunately, old friends, even when they are distant, are still good friends, and we simply met as if we had never been apart. One notable thing we did, which shows how much of an old geezer I am that I think it is a notable part of my vacation, is take the boy to the local library. Not to read books, for libraries have evolved past that quaint purpose, but to create things with Legos. This was a very child-friendly library and one of its regular activities is a Lego hour for the youngsters. They all piled into a room where they had access to tons of Legos and could not only create anything their imaginations could conjure but also then leave them on display with their names and descriptions of the creation for the whole library world to admire. The descriptions were absolutely necessary, for I would have never known what most of them were even once they were “completed.” Of course, there were some general trends. Boys made machines and robots. Girls made houses, trees, and flowers. Or so the descriptions stated. Unlike when I was growing up and the only things we could check out of libraries were books, over the years libraries started offering videos and then other non-readable things. At the local Seminole Heights library wifi hotspots seem to be the most popular non-book item and there is a waiting list a mile long to borrow one. At this particular Ohio library, along with wifi hotspots (all of which were already checked out—it must be a trend), they had a whole wall full of musical instruments, camping gear, science lab tools (microscopes, telescopes, and related items), sports equipment, and more, all available to be checked out. But in a separate spot, there was the largest collection of all: bakeware. Muffin tins, bundt cake pans, cheesecake pans, and other things that you may not need regularly were all lined up for patrons to take home, use, clean (I hope), and return. But the most amazing sight was the row after row of specialty cake pan molds. You could take home a mold for baking a cake in the shape of Batman, Wonder Woman, a rabbit, a castle, a flower, and probably a hundred other things! Does your library have such a collection of items to be borrowed? This one also had tables set up for chess with an invitation to find a partner and play a game, an arts and crafts section complete with scissors, glue, glitter, and “projects” packages. Children, mothers, grandmothers, and a few fathers (and one Father) were all over the place. It was like a theme park without the exorbitant cost. Alas, I had to head back south, so off I went, setting the GPS once again to take the backroads to North Carolina. In that section of Ohio, the backroads were pretty straight, flat, and boring. Farmland, mostly with corn and beans, as far as I could tell, went on for mile after mile after mile. One road threw the GPS off with the unexpected sign saying, “Road closed six miles ahead. Use detour.” The next road was miles away and it, too, as well as the next two isolated roads, had the same sign. It took me so far out of the way that, instead of getting there through Kentucky and Tennessee I wound up traveling through West Virginia and Virginia, an unexpected but happily beautiful change to my route. But at one point I was on a four-lane road when I passed by an electric company truck stopped in the middle with a large pole lifting the overhead wires crossing the road. Then I passed another one and another. Every electric wire stretched across the road for miles was being lifted. Dozens more electric trucks kept driving past to lift the next successive line on the road behind me. Something BIG was coming and they were clearing the way. And then I saw the police cars. Everywhere. Blocking the road and the crossroads. And traffic came to a stop. A massive “thing” was being trucked up the mountain in front of me and just as the top of it came into sight over the hill it stopped. For the next hour or more only cars with lift buckets or flashing blue lights moved in either direction. But finally, they let the traffic that had piled up behind this thing use “my” lanes to go around it. For a full hour, the traffic kept coming. Then, for whatever reason, they started moving the Big Thing again and I was allowed to drive toward and then past it. Even seeing it didn’t help me figure out what it was. But it was massive. And the traffic behind it was still backed up for many more miles. I wound up in a hotel that night, not wanting to drive mountain roads in the dark. And, boy, was that a good call... With prayers for your holiness, Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka From the Pastor: Sanders Kentucky At Last!
Following up on last week’s tale of adventure, my driving days continued through the mountains heading mostly northward. When I was finally getting close to the Hernandez’ house, I had just turned onto their road when Kevin called. “Great timing! I just turned onto Snort Wallow Road (or something equally strange),” I answered through the speaker as the phone automatically picked up for me. “Then you should be only a few minutes away. I’ll stay on the phone to guide you through,” came his reply. We chatted a bit and then he asked, “When you got to the fork in the road, did you stay to the left?” I didn’t recall coming to a fork in the road. “You should have seen it by now,” he said,“Are you sure you are on the right road?” Heck, I’ve never been there before. How would I know if I’m on the right road? I’m just blindly following the GPS. “I’m on Snort Wallow Road,” I replied, “How many of them could there be?” Of course, I was in Kentucky, so there could be a couple of dozen, for all I knew. “Have you seen the old cars sitting in front of a house up on the left?” or something like that, the conversation continued. But I wasn’t seeing anything of what he was describing, so he asked me to tell him what I was currently passing. Note that I was on a very narrow, twisty road winding through the wooded hills, not on a highway or anything like that, and it is supposed to be the road he lives on, so it would seem like he would know it pretty well after living there 8 months, but he was stumped as to where I was as I described a huge red barn on the left, followed by a shack on the right, and so forth. “You should be seeing thus and so,” he said, confused as to where I was, “and we don’t live that far off the road from where you turned. This isn’t making sense. I’m outside watching for you but you should have been here by now.” That wasn’t too comforting. After the GPS fiasco earlier in the trip, where it wouldn’t take me by the back roads, maybe it was now playing a joke on me by having me on the wrong little country road. When I told him I saw Punxsutawney Phil run across the road, the thought went through my mind that maybe I wasn’t even in Kentucky, for he replied, “I’ve never seen a groundhog out here,” Fortunately, at least that one woodchuck actually does live there, for soon afterward I saw Kevin by the road, his back to me, staring intently in the other direction. I was coming, not from the highway that any normal person would be coming from, but from the long way from nowhere! I got to see parts of his road that he had only been on a few times himself, for there was no reason for him to travel in the “wrong” direction to get anywhere! It was a good thing that he was standing out there, too, for the GPS pointed to the house next to the drive that actually took me to his house. And, even once on the proper drive, I would have stopped at his garage thinking that it was his house! You wouldn’t believe that garage/barn of his. The man who built it made it look like a little cottage rather than a garage and the disguise worked quite well. That building and the actual house stood at the top of a series of rolling hills, a beautiful sight to behold. Cheryl, of course, had a garden growing and the folks they bought the property from had planted apple, pear, and peach trees as well. Those, plus some hazelnut trees (I have never seen any of those before!) were all showing forth the great soil of the land. Of course, I was there to see Kevin and Cheryl, not the greenery, so I didn’t really pay much attention to all of that until later when they took me on a tour and showed me the various things growing right in front of the house. Later still we would walk their property. Down the hill. And over the next one. And around the bend. And past the creek. And through the woods. Oh, what a spectacular place! Over the next several days I did a lot of nothing with them. Cheryl wanted Kevin to take me out to do things, to entertain me. But I was content to go nowhere. In the morning I would sleep in (what a great thing all by itself!), celebrate Mass and pray the Breviary, then spend the rest of the day putting together a puzzle, talking, watching the deer consume their fruit and rabbits destroy their vegetables, and sitting on the cool, mosquito-less porch watching the sunset. I did go out to Salvator’s boarding school when they had an open house and I saw and blessed the Rosendale’s new fixer-upper house which is (coincidentally?) within sight of that same boarding school, although they would not arrive until a few days after I left. We also visited the Castle and Key distillery near Frankfort (there are a lot of distilleries in the area including Buffalo Trace, Woodford Reserve, Whiskey Thief, Heaven’s Door, Bulleit, Old Crow, Jim Beam Old Granddad, Four Roses, Wild Turkey, and too many others to list. Holy League field trip, anyone?). After a few days of much-needed rest at their place (and they said to tell everyone here they said “hello”) it was time to visit some friends I’ve known since before ordination. Northern Ohio, here I come! With prayers for your holiness, Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka From the Pastor: Some Time Away
Some time ago I wrote that Fr. Vincent generously offered to come and take my place for a while so that I could get a short vacation. I asked for suggestions as to where to go. The first suggestion I received was a great one: Blairsville, Georgia. It has been many, many years since I visited that small town but I thoroughly enjoyed myself when I was there. One time was in autumn and I was able to attend their Sorghum Festival. The days were cool, the nights were cold, and the festival was typical small-town fun. Good memories. But this time, before I had even looked for a place to stay, I got an email from some former parishioners who moved to Kentucky last year, the Hernandez family. “When we left we told you that you are always welcome to come and stay with us. The invitation is still open. We have plenty of space and a beautiful view of the hills.” So, although I was already dreaming of the hills of Georgia, Kentucky won out. I started planning my trip on Google Maps on the computer. I decided to take a leisurely route, staying off all interstate highways and traveling through the backroads into the Smokey Mountains. I told Kevin that, if he didn’t mind my lack of definite plans, I would just drive until I wanted to stop along the way and wouldn’t set a particular day to arrive. He was fine with that, so off I went. My first stop was in Lake Wales just outside of Orlando. Fr. Marshall was back in Florida visiting his mother and taking care of her for a while as her husband had died and she needed some assistance. We had a great chat and caught up on all sorts of things. He said to tell everyone that he misses you and prays for you daily. Toward late afternoon I said farewell to them and resumed my trip. Instead of using Google Maps I entered my destination into Waze, set it to “avoid highways and tolls,” and trusted that it would do what I programmed it to do. I was wrong. After driving for more than an hour it told me to get on Interstate 75 heading north. Strange. I knew I had told it to avoid highways. But Waze is pretty good at recognizing closed roads and detours, so I reasoned that maybe this was just a temporary thing. Sure enough, as soon as I got on the interstate it told me to exit at the next exit. I exited but at the bottom of the ramp it told me to get back on the interstate. Nope. I pulled over to check out the planned route. I should have done that earlier. It showed me taking I-75 all the way to Kentucky and getting off each exit and then immediately getting back on. Only a computer can be so moronic as to think that that is the proper way of following the “avoid highways” command. I unclicked the “avoid” boxes. It took me on I-75 all the way, with no exiting. I clicked the “avoid highways” box again and it took me all the way on I-75 but exiting and re-entering every off- and on-ramp. Nothing I did could get it to change. So I went back to Google Maps (both are owned by Google, by the way) and, sure enough, found that app working properly. I also concluded that I had gone quite a long distance out of my way to get to that stupid interstate that I was trying to avoid in the first place. I would have been better off with a real map! Maybe next time... By now it was time to eat and get a hotel and I was still in Florida. I sure am glad I didn’t plan my route step by step and make hotel reservations in advance, for I was quite content to just call it a day and be happy about being wherever I found myself. I slept for about 10 hours that night and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep too well the next night. I shouldn’t have worried about that, either, for I slept for 9-10 hours each night for the first five or six days of my trip! In the morning I checked Waze and it still wanted to direct me to interstate highways getting on and off and on again. I still haven’t figured that out but haven’t bothered checking it since. Most of the time I took back roads that led from one tiny town to another and every once in a while the navigation system would take me down tiny roads within the tiny towns, roads that I never would have traversed if I was following a paper map. Some of them were delightful. Some were downright scary. But all were part of the adventure. As I said, I wanted to drive through the Great Smokey Mountains so I had to change the destination on the GPS so that Maps wouldn’t bypass that area. I took my time and many times had no clue as to where I was or where I was going to end up, and that was exactly the way I wanted it. It was a very relaxing few days of driving and sightseeing. I didn’t listen to much news (someone told me that Joe Biden was not running again, but that is about the extent of my keeping up with current propaganda). I didn’t respond to emails. I prayed a lot of rosaries. I loved every minute of the journey. Next week I will probably write about actually getting somewhere. With prayers for your holiness, Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka |
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