Comments | mbcrui: Name Dropping in odd places.

mbcrui

Name Dropping in odd places.

Jun 17, 2009 14:16

So I was talking to one of the nice old ladies who volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul store. I mentioned that they have the wrong pope on the wall (they still have John Paul II) and the lady says "Yeah, we don't have a new picture yet. That's ok, St. John Paul was my favorite. Oh, wait, he's not officially a saint yet." I said "I have a friend ( Read more... )

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Comments 7

marsgov June 17 2009, 18:26:07 UTC

If Bill and Kelline show up with you, don't forget to mention casually that JPII wrote them a personal letter that was read out at their wedding ceremony...

anonymous June 17 2009, 19:07:27 UTC

Does it count that I was about 50 feet away from him when he came to visit Chicago in 1979? Granted, he was on the roof of the school & I was out in front of the school (along with about a million other people). Mom took us out of school & we ended up just a few feet behind where they had the people with handicaps section roped off.

reanastormblade June 17 2009, 19:10:06 UTC

Sorry - that last post was me. Damn IE 8 keeps crashing.

mbcrui June 17 2009, 20:36:41 UTC

I was pretty close when I saw him in Seville, too. Not as cool as talking to him :)

brotherguy June 17 2009, 19:56:00 UTC

That's only fair turn-about. I have a scientist friend named Cruikshank to whom I have dropped your name, and one of my best friends from high school has family in Calumet. The fact is, there are only 500 people in the world and we keep running into each other.

Actually, after the "bless your comets" conversation (when we gave him a photo of Shoemaker-Levy 9) I had a much more in-depth conversation with JPII. At the end of each summer, the staff at Castel Gandolfo, everyone from us to the gardeners, has a regular hand-shake-and-get-a-rosary reception line audience with the Pope. In 2001, I realized that I might be one of the first Americans he would have talked to after 9/11 and so, in my rotten Italian, I thanked him personally for his support. He told me of his love and admiration for America; emotions that were very much the norm in those weeks before we started that shock-and-awe-ful war. That was a real conversation; probably the only one I had with him, in spite of collecting a lot of rosaries over the years.

mbcrui June 17 2009, 20:32:54 UTC

A cousin brought my great-grandmother a rosary that had been "blessed by the pope" (Pope John the XXIII, I think) (She'd been in the square when the Pope blessed the crowd and had bought the rosary already). My grandmother used to fall asleep with that rosary in her hands when she got older. We spent more time hunting for that rosary because it was *special*, it had been *blessed* *by* *the* *pope*. And it would slide down between the headboard and the matteress, or down between the arm and the cushion of the chair...

Those of us who spent the most time with her near the end were VERY INSISTENT that she be buried with THAT ROSARY (her daughter wanted to bury her with a 'prettier' one). She'd have spent the afterlife hunting thru the furniture for it, if we hadn't. :)

And the Bless your comets conversation impressed them enough... If I tell them about the 9/11 conversation, they'll faint.

icyfeetofdeath June 17 2009, 20:02:17 UTC

Phhttt. They are easily impressed. I knew a Polish monsignor (haven't seen him in years, don't know if he's still alive) who had known JPII since he was a young priest. Went skiing with him even. :)

Isn't it fun to name drop?