February 3, 1958
I won first prize in Latin class at La Salle Academy that day for the highest half-year average, 99.5. Veni, vidi, vici! Father Hogan offered me first choice from among the books he was giving the three top winners: the collected works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, of Robert Louis Stevenson, or a book in the Giovanni Guareschi Don Camillo series. I went for the Hawthorne, and I still have it today, half a century later.
I brought Father John, my parish priest at Saint Rocco's, my copy of the book The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain. He had wanted to borrow it for a friend. I served as an altar boy at the evening throat-blessing services in honor of St. Blaise, patron saint of throat ailments. It was his feast day. For the individual blessings, parishioners would come up to the sanctuary railing, and the priest would bless your throat, reciting an incantation while holding a sort of biforcated candle around your throat for a few moments. Voilà! You were instantly protected for a year, as with a Norton virus-protection renewal.
I couldn't help wondering, as I re-read my diary entry, whether Linda Lovelace ever had her throat blessed on Saint Blaise's Day, before or after her famed film performance.
I brought Father John, my parish priest at Saint Rocco's, my copy of the book The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain. He had wanted to borrow it for a friend. I served as an altar boy at the evening throat-blessing services in honor of St. Blaise, patron saint of throat ailments. It was his feast day. For the individual blessings, parishioners would come up to the sanctuary railing, and the priest would bless your throat, reciting an incantation while holding a sort of biforcated candle around your throat for a few moments. Voilà! You were instantly protected for a year, as with a Norton virus-protection renewal.
I couldn't help wondering, as I re-read my diary entry, whether Linda Lovelace ever had her throat blessed on Saint Blaise's Day, before or after her famed film performance.