SCANDAL AT ST.VINCENT'S PART TWO

[In re-reading Part One of this- I notice I used the wrong word. Father Webster announced his intention to take a vow of celibacy, not a vow of chastity. It doesn't make a great deal of difference, but I'll bet the whole thing made the diocese take notice, since it was followed not long after by Father Webster's marriage. He might have received a message from the powers that be that he was not to proceed with publicizing this vow.]

At any rate, the real trouble was soon to begin. The members of the parish received a letter from the parents of a teenaged boy, saying that their son had been molested and seduced by the rector, had left home because of this, and that this perversion was an ongoing thing at St. Vincent's. They also said the Bishop had been notified but had not appropriately responded. As events began to unfold it seemed that the rector had been involved with other boys on an ongoing basis, and had even acted as a procurer for a group of several businessmen in town who shared Father Webster's predilection!! There was more to come, and to me this was the worst. The parish had a young priest, just out of seminary, as a helper over the summer. He had found out what was happening, and had done nothing about it. I thought this was despicable - in my somewhat clouded thinking at the time, Father Webster had a sickness that he couldn't help, but the young priest had a terrible character.

In their reaction to the scandal, the Diocese and the Bishop acted just as the Catholic church did in present time. No one was arrested, no public fuss was made,
and Father Webster was hustled off to an Episcopalian contemplative order somewhere in another state. I wonder whatever happened to him? Or to the cowardly young priest?

The St. Vincent's survived - parishioners did not leave en masse. It was a nice church in a pleasant middle-class neighborhood,and it still is. No one thinks about the scandal any more -after all it was almost 50 years ago and the lack of publicity was beneficial. Perhaps the Bishop was right to keep it a secret. I was glad we had left when we did, and I was glad that our boys were too young to be acolytes. So I can view this as a bystander, but I am not so trusting any more. Are you?

SCANDAL AT ST. VINCENT'S PART ONE

I haven't been writing my blog lately- laziness, and not feeling inspired. I made a vow to myself not to write anything about politics. I love it, but there is a plethora of political postings already and I wouldn't add anything new to that. I just like to talk to my friends (and we all share the same thoughts) since you really can't have a sensible political conversation with someone on the other side- I gave that up long ago.

But this week some old old friends came to visit and we had so much fun doing politics, and remebering the days when we were all together (some 48 years ago, to be exact.) And it brought back memories of the scandal at St. Vincent's - how could anyone ever forget that? We went over our mutual memories of the event. It was so bizarre that I had almost begun to believe it had never happened. How naive we all were then.

First let me make it clear that the name of our little church was not St. Vincent's. (I just made that name up.) We all met as newcomers to a small western towm, just beginning to boom with the advent of central air-conditioning, and the return of servicemen from World War Two. There were about thirty couples at the start, all Episcopalians with small children and small incomes to match. The church was a Mission in the beginning. We met in a local mortuary and when the Bishop came for Confirmation we had our coffee on the blacktop in the mortuary parking lot. The rector was a tall and thin blond young man, very serious and very "high church" a type of service which appealed to everyone. Rumor had it that Father Webster (not his name, I made that up) came from a wealthy social family in California and his manner confirmed that.

The new little mission flourished. We volunteered for everything- there was never any difficulty finding Sunday School teachers, or choir members. We shopped for property to buy, found an old adobe house in the desert and expanded it to make it our own. Members built pews, and the women made beatiful needlepoint covers for the kneelers. The church services grew to be higher and higher, incense filled the sanctuary. There was even Confession, a rarity in Episcopal churches then. One Sunday Father Webster announced that he was seriously thinking of taking a vow of chastity. This struck us a bit odd, since Episcopal rectors are usually very mainstream and tend not to deny themselves anything, but I thought it was because he was so obviously in tune with the Catholic church - and we all understood that. Soon after that, Father Webster got married. Now, I wonder if he had been pushed a little bit by the Diocese after they heard about the chastity vow.

I remember the congregation had a hard time finding just the right wedding gift. His tastes were very urbane and artistic- we took it for granted that the gift would have to be something very special, from a high-priced antique shop in town. No one criticized him for this, we were proud of Father Webster and his elegant ways. Soon after this, my husband and I slacked off as parishoners. There was no known reason for this: the children were getting older and it was a hassle to get them up and dressed every Sunday. Now that I look back, I think I had an instinct for self-preservation and something told me to go while the going was good. I've had that happen before - leaving before the roof falls in.

Can you guess what was wrong at St. Vincent's? It is a long story, and I'll leave it for the next post "Scandal at St. Vincent's, Part II". Stay with me.

A HAPPY EXPERIENCE WITH THE DENTIST

Can you believe I have had a happy time at the dentist? You know, if you have been reading this blog, that I have virtual panic at the dentist, and have suffered from this since childhood experiences at the hands of one Dr. Fetter (may he roast in hell). I am now 80 years old, and the high anxiety lingers on. My dentist had brought me a long way out of this, and I only had to take one valium instead of two when getting major work done. To my horror, my dentist sent out a postcard announcing that she was leaving her practice. I went to see her and tried to persuade her to abandon this idea, but she said that she was getting a divorce and her life was being turned upside down. (Another man who was interfering with my dental improvement through no fault of mine).

Then I tried a new dentist and had a terrible terrible experience with a root canal gone awry. During this ordeal I felt I was being tortured by Mr. Cheney, and slipped backward from the progress I had made. I think I was in shock, because I was shaking uncontrolably and had a little accident in the chair. I got out grateful to be alive.

And wouldn't you know it, several weeks later I was innocently eating a slice of cold pizza for breakfast, when I happened upon an unusually hard bite of pepperoni. Of course it wasn't a piece of pepperoni, but a piece of one of my front teeth. This made it obvious that I had to try a new dentist (I couldn't go back to the last one) Seeking a referral from a very sensible friend, today was my first experience with this delightful, soft spoken man. And it worked! This morning on my way to the appointment for the crown, I felt like Marie Antoinette in the tumbril. I was really low and all valiumed up - don't worry, I didn't drive. But he, and his assistant, were so competent, so informative, so deft with the gooey stuff that makes the mold, that I survived without a trauma of any sort. I have found the answer! Find the best dentist you can.

Now I am home and the valium is wearing off. My sadness is gone- the Arizona sun is shining bright. I am singing and dancing around the house and playing my Abba record very loud, getting ready to switch to Beethoven's Choral Fantasy which seems like an appropriate end to the day. Goodbye and Good Luck.

THE GM BONDHOLDER AND TOUGH LOVE

I might as well say it- I'm an old person and I live on what my father always called "a limited income". I'm a saver and don't like gambling, and some years ago gave up any experimenting with the stock market because it made me nervous to read about it in the morning paper. So all of my money is invested in a collection of very conservative bonds and it made me happy to read the list of those solid substantial corporations I was investing my life savings to. They don't look so good now in our financial debris. There's Citicorp, Bank of America, Wachovia, Credit Suisse, and my heavy hitter, GENERAL MOTORS. God save me, I am a GM bondholder and have been for many years.

The company which in my naivite I never considered would ever fail - how could Chevvies and Buicks and Cadillacs ever go away? It is inconceivable. Now we hear that GM is in the process of being given "tough love". The bondholders, I read, are given the choice of negotiating down the face value of the bonds or dying. No one has asked me if I want to negotiate - I suppose only the Wall Street types are good enough to take part in this death march. I haven't even been notified of it. I don't want to negotiate. I thought a bond was a contract between the corporation and the innocent buyer - You paid the face value and some ten years down the line the corporation paid you back. Aren't contracts not to be broken? Look at those jokers at AIG with their gross bonuses. Weren't we told that they were contracts and had to be paid even if AIG was on the verge of bankruptcy? Why doesn't that apply to me? I don't need tough love. I need for them to live up to the promise they made me.

n

AMERICAN INGENUITY AND THE CAT GENIE

I don't think we should give up on good old American ingenuity, even though every job we have ever had has been shipped out to China. I was heartened to see a wonderful new invention on TV, and I sincerely hope it is being made in the USA. You know, I believe that we invented the toilet, and now we are following it up with an incredible thing called a "Cat Genie".

This is for cat owners only. You know how hard it is to care for a cat's necessities. Either you let the cat out, which you cannot do where I live because the cat would be eaten by coyotes or bobcats, or you maintain a litter box, cannily placed in the bathroom. This box is filled with expensive cat litter which the cat kicks aside happily. Then you search through the cat litter with a plastic scoop, separating the solid waste and placing that in a plastic Safeway bag, which then must be deposited in the dumpster. If you have two cats, multiply this by two.

But, on a TV show in the middle of the night, I saw this miracle. It is a completely self-contained toilet for the cat. "Never touch cat litter again" said the announcer. The box was an architecturally attractive semi-circle (sort of a Hollywood Bowl in miniature. There was a water supply hooked up. After the cat uses the facilities (which the cat in the ad seemed happy to do) a burst of water pours out and rinses the litter. Apparently something equally sanitary happens to the solid waste - this is the tricky part. It, too, washes away and the original litter remains in the box, ready for the cats next foray. The owner of the cat need not go near this miracle box.

The bad part is that "Cat Genie" costs $360, but isn't it worth it? Has anyone tried this that you know? I don'y have a cat anymore, since Portia went to cat heaven at the age of sixteen, but if she were still with us I would buy her one. Isn't it great to be an American?

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

I can't get ENRON off my mind. I think it symbolizes this mess we are all in now. It's so Texas. The brazenness of it all, the gigantic sums involved, the imaginary profits carried on the books and the mesmerized accounting firms. Apparently every business guru believed in ENRON. I am happy to say that I suspected a scam from the first I ever heard about it - based not on economic brilliance, because I don't know a thing about their business, but based on that old fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes".

Well, actually I first heard the name when my sweet bright granddaughter got her first job as an accountant with Arthur Anderson (remember them?) and was sent to ENRON. I asked her what ENRON did, and she was uncharacteristically vague -"Lots of things" she said. She was right. But soon after I read a very long article, maybe two or three pages, in the New York Times about some genius at ENRON who was transforming the world. I read it very carefully, several times and I could not comprehend a word of it. This Enron genius had made up a concept that he was going to monopolize and market all over the world. I cannot describe the product, it was some kind of non-existent wave in the atmosphere that ENRON would own and market (and carry on their books as an asset.) I thought and thought about it - it was essentially air!! My son tells me now that it was something called atmospheric band width, which didn't actually exist at the time. The Times writer took this all very seriously, you would have thought it was the greatest innovation since the discovery of penicillin. I knew then that something was terribly wrong. Like the Emperor's new clothes, there was nothing there.

There is another thing I always thought was a phony, and I think events have proved me right. It is that economic master, Alan Greenspan. I know nothing about interest rates or the Federal Reserve system, God knows. But the weird pronouncements issuing from this little gnome-like man always struck me as a huge joke. Remember how people used to hang on every word of his totally obscure "reports" ? It was as if the Delphic Oracle were still around, when the ancient Greeks burned incense, and tried to decipher the prophecies the Oracle reluctantly spoke. Now we know that a lot of Greenspanese had no meaning - he has even obscurely said so himself. What a joke- just like the Emperor's new clothes again.

INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I've been dreaming a lot lately. Usually early in the morning, just before it is time to get up. I am glad to awake, because the dream is not a happy one. It always has a common theme, and that is LOST. I wish I knew what that meant. I have a copy of Freud on that subject (if I could find it) but I no longer have much faith in Freud. He seems like a charlatan to me now.

In my dreams I am lost in Cincinnati, where I was born and raised. I want to find my way downtown, where presumably I would be able to find friends or find my way to where I belong. At first I find myself in some ubiquitous neighborhood and I ask the way "downtown" from people on the street, village idiots all. They have never heard of Fountain Square, which to me is the heart of Cincinnati. It was a huge square, with a bronze fountain of vaguely Grecian style- arms spread out and water flowing down from both of the statue's hands. Parked in the square are tens of city buses, each in their cubby, showing their routes. It is the city's transportation hub. How could these people not know of it? Could it be gone?

But I know another Cincinnati landmark, which I can see in the distance--the Carew Tower. This art deco building was the heart of sophistication in the Queen City. I try to walk in that direction, but I never seem to get any closer. All the streets I choose to walk on seem to peter out, or go into the country. In the last dream I was in some cavernous unfinished basements, round and round. I don't think I will ever get to Fountain Square, or the Netherland Plaza, or that happy little hamburger restaurant, quaintly named the "Purple Cow". When I wake I am very unhappy. Why do I want to go there in the first place?

Is Cincinnati still there? Someone please tell me.