Black Friday

Friday may have been the most productive day of my life -- although I have been sworn to secrecy. To balance that Black Friday, I needed spirituality for the rest of the weekend. What I needed was a little spirituality. I took action and mounted a charge onto Warner and Bolsa Chica. The Chabad service was waiting for me.
  I enjoyed the Hebrew songs of yesteryear. Time flew out the door. My nose stopped running and I engaged myself in the Hebrew songs of many years ago. From nine thirty until three hours later, I involved myself in my own being. It's all about me anyway.
   The Rabbi invited us for a Kiddish or lunch.  A congregation member's donation made for the Sukkot feast-celebrating the harvest for the year's end. The feast comes just after the Day of Atonement.  Like a black bird waiting its turn after a sea of people picked figs from its tree, I waded in and quietly grabbed a plate.
    Olives, herring, salad, beans, pickles adorned my little plate for thirty minutes along with a small cup of wine. I took seconds and thirds, always a small portion not to seem too greedy. Nobody would know that I was pigging out. Now I had been brought up on herring and my Mom Edith had always placed a small plate of  this delicacy for dinner each night for years.  I picked a few dill's out and made my way back to my car parked a block down the street.
    Still I had saved a few gas dollars for my return to Carlsbad on Sunday. I needed to  pick up my state check at the city's post office. Still what the owners of the Five Points Apartment apartments did to me vexed me some -- hell I could have died.  . Too bad the owners had disconnected the AC in the upstairs library, and I can still hear the manager's words when she told me that old people "forgot to turn it off".  Of course I knew better and that they wished to save money....Well hell it almost cost me my life when they finally changed to lock-set on my door that did not open during the freakish heat wave.  
    The next day I woke up early for my drive to North County San Diego and Carlsbad. Huntington Beach offers no mass-transit. Beach Blvd is the sole artery into Surf City and the only way out is by car -- Firestone, Goodrich and other companies related to gas and oil could have given the city a mass transit plan but again Big Bucks spoke again.
Tickled pink my check arrived at the post office, I trucked the Five Freeway down south to Old Town. It was going on eight o'clock and parked a block from the Immaculate Conception Church. I walked inside and took a place in the back.
   And then I heard the organ and peace came over me. I was home. Dr. Marsha Long also plays the organ and harp. She adds a world to the spiritual setting at this church. And then Father Ecker.  showed. I was in luck. His sermon was about life and specifically how we should run ours. If I may let me summarize his main points.
   "When God made Adam and Eve. he took a rib one and gave it to the other. They were one -- and so it is with the Art of Matrimony. We are one and equal in the eyes of God. Unlike Moses who could grab another, to bed down with him, we could take  one and become one."
   "Let me explain. A kid named Joey came home exhilarated. He told his Mom that he met the girl for him...The next day he returned home and told his Mom he no longer loved her...After hundreds of women had made his choice, and remember in Catholicism you get one, and only one."
     "Well when Joey learned to love himself and became intimate with himself, he became ready for matrimony. He had met somebody mush like him and his ideals. But Joey asked her to become part of the act of matrimony -- which is God's Law and not the state of California's."
 My day was not over since coffee and bagels were offered in the Rectory. I met Mrs. Brooke who told me her Husband of 32 years took that infamous walk on Bataan and died starved to death by the Japanese. I told her I would write her story with copies of the New York Times.


Nuts and Bolts for Today:  To heighten you spirituality, enjoy the sounds of Dr. Marsh Long at the Immaculate Conception Church in Old Town. It  will be a free harp mediation on October 31, at 7 P.M. and also one November 1 at 2 p.m. and November 2, at 2 and 4 pm.
   The Nuts in Encinitas have downgraded the computer at the Senior Center and removed many of its  tools. Those who made that decision will pay the price later for our misery. Again, it is all about saving pennies at the expense of seniors.