Hi, from New Rochelle. New Yawk. Westchester county, richest in the U.S., according to a rumor being spread by my daughter. The county includes Chappaqua, where Billary purchased a home in the 3-5 mil range.
The foliage is pretty. The golf course is pretty. The houses are cute. The brooks babble at your feet. There's an Ursuline school for girls, very impressive looking, nicely landscaped. Thomas Paine lived here at some point in his life. Keep all that in mind as you pay $3.83 for a gallon of regular gas, $4.50 for a pack of cigs (and that's below average), fight traffic all day long, and pay $120 a night for your motel room, cheapest we could find. A friend of my daughter's, who caddies for his sister, was shouted at six times his first day in town, each shout punctuated by the word 'asshole,' and at no time had he any idea what offense he might have committed.
To top it all off, you can putt from the back of the ninth green and watch your ball travel the entire length and breadth of it until it rolls off the front and 50 feet back down the hill into the fairway, from where you can wedge it back on to the green to a flag you can't see and watch the whole thing over again.
I don't want to live here, either, even though Peony is in some way connected to it.
However, there is some good news. I made Spanning the Globe twice in the same week. So you see, dreams can come true.
I was also going to say something about St. Ignatius, but I'm too tired.
13 comments:
Wow- you are half an hour away from me.
How long are you going to be in and around Chappaqua?
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I certainly wouldn't want to live there. Almost all my relatives from New Rochelle have moved away -- they didn't want to live there either. Only a few are still there, and they're not leaving until the Second Coming.
My great-grandfather came from a family of stonecutters. Some of the churches they helped build are still standing (I don't know which they are.)
Michael, at least until Saturday. She had a bad day today, so might be leaving Saturday instead of Monday. If you want to see me you'll have to come to the golf course. I'm too tired to travel anymore.
Peony, yes, there's some nice stonework around here. Thomas Paine, for example, appears to be made of stone. So do some of he people I saw walking down main street. Are the Ursulines an order of nuns?
Yes. They run a high school and the College of New Rochelle.
I wonder if they're any good. You know, as in 'real Catholic.'
I was thinking the same thing, so I looked 'em up. The Ursulines in New Rochelle are part of the Eastern Province. They have a very interesting history. While you're in town you might want to look up Blessed Sacrament Parish -- the Ursulines taught there for a long time, and it seems to be some kind of "mother parish". (It's also my father's childhood parish.)
But as for the modern-day Uruslines... I looked at their photo albums and unfortunately, I saw no habits (except on one sister who is 90). I did see plenty of gray hair, lots of talk about being "prophetic witnesses", and a snapshot taken at an SOA rally. But I didn't see many pictures of vocations.
STG? Pshaw! What is that compared to this? Now there's dreams come true.
Those 90 year old sisters, you've gotta love'em. Isn't it generally true that people who like "prophetic witnesses" don't like real prophets? What's an SOA rally?
TS, you've put me in the postition of choosing which is the greater honor. (I notice Micki hasn't updated the adage section in a while, but then she's busy with real life.) You've got me twixt a rock and a hard place, and I think that's just where I'm going to stay.
SOA = School of the Americas, a favorite villian of the Social Justice and Peace types.
So what does the School of the Americas do?
A wise move Bill!
SOA -- a military school the Army used to run at Fort Benning, offering combat instruction for Latin American officers and soldiers. Its detractors call it the "School of Assasins" and say it's The CIA School for Evil Dictators and Death Squads. Or something like that.
I think the school's been reorganized under a new name, so either the good sisters haven't updated their webpage in a while or they're still calling the School by the old name. Which to me smacks of traditionalism and living in the past, but they didn't ask me.
Well, they probably have to beat the horse until they're sure it's dead.
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