BITS AND PIECES OF…

things our kids probably never knew…

When I was a little kid way back in Montreal, between ages of 8 and 12, I was an altar boy …Favorite time was sneaking sips of altar wine every chance we had…I never mentioned this ‘sin’ in the confessional for fear of having to say a bunch of rosaries for penance and alerting the priests of our behavior…at the time I thought tasting the wine was a cool thing to do and it was delicious even though it was probably made near Montreal by monks in the hills who had vowed an oath of silence…

Another favorite pastime, cheap thrills for me started at a young age, was ringing bells by hand at communion time waking up the dozing Catholics…the Mass was said in Latin in those days and we had to memorize responses to the priest…we had small cheat sheets and pretended not to look at them…our backs were to the parishioners who never said a word but followed the Mass in English or French in their missals...

 HAD A CAR REPOSSESSED…

• In 1963 we lived in Anaheim while I worked for an architect my father knew,only not that well…I’d invested in his company to discover he left town one day and left us moneyless and jobless…
  

Unfortunately we had just bought a new car, couldn’t make the payments and had it repossessed right out of our garage…About the same time JFK was assassinated…Julie was six months old at the time…

·        Left with no wheels was unreal…but God in his mysterious ways sent us a phone call from old friends who were looking for a babysitter for their kids…when we told them of our wheeless situation they offered us the use of an old Ford they even had and a room we could stay in…

·        We were loaned a 1958 Ford with only two gears…stick shift on the column…I bet some of you don’t even know what that means…the car made screaming noises in both gears but was otherwise OK…

·        I found a job working in Santa Ana for an architect and parked the screaming car a few blocks away from the office…embarrassing as hell to be caught driving it…

·        Soon bought next car, a old Opel station wagon…cheapest and oddest car, barely adequate for our family…we went everywhere in it…even up north to visit grandparents near Sacramento…one time, driving  back, hiway 99 was closed for whatever reason…we took a two lane bypass West to the 101…passed thru a huge gathering of Hell’s Angels on the way…loads of them piled in staked trucks and zillions of motorcycles…

·         I was ready to die protecting wife and daughter if they stopped us…but nothing happened… none of the men and ladies? even glanced at us as we passed by… this was in the 60’s hippie era and I hoped and prayed our family looked way too nerdy to fuss with…

·        Short hair, dorky glasses and a dumb-ass Opel…nothing happened with the Angels…or the priests!