Life In The Slow Lane

I almost lost Sissy A. Cat last night and I’m still shaken up by the whole ordeal.

I’m doing battle with fleas, a ritual that seems to crop up damned near every summer, and I decided it was time to give Sissy a flea bath. She’s the one who has the biggest problem with the bugs.

I put her in the sink and lathered her up with water and a special shampoo and, of course, fought tooth and nail with her to keep her still.

I never imagined what would happen next.

I got her dried off pretty well and she went bolting into the bedroom.

And suddenly she couldn’t stand anymore.

I’d seen this happen way too many times with my other cats.

I picked her up and laid her on the bed and she lay there motionless, making strange sounds that you only hear from cats on the verge of death.

I covered her up with a warm, dry towel and held her and, of course, cried.

And I prayed.

And I think it’s my faith in God that brought her back.

I don’t ask God for much. I know that He’s going to provide for me in His own way.

But I asked for His help last night and He came through.

Within a few minutes Sissy was starting to come back around again.

I brought her water. She drank it.

I brought her treats. She ate them.

She was still a little unsteady, but I felt like maybe a miracle was in the works.

I would have fed her a 20-pound bag of treats - her favorite kind - if I would have had them.

Last night for the first time in a long time Sissy slept with me - on my hip when I slept on my side and on my stomach when I slept on my back.

This morning she ate her breakfast with all the other cats.

It’s almost as if nothing happened.

I’ve thanked God for things He’s done in my life in the past - and I’ve cursed Him when he’s taken loved ones like my mother and father and stepfather and other cats out of my life.

But I had to thank Him from the bottom of my heart last night because today Sissy is still with me.

It was a beautiful, festive Sunday afternoon for our church picnic in a little courtyard area next to the St. Mary’s Social Hall.

Apparently some folks didn’t appreciate the serenity and the beauty of the nearby gazebo with a statue of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus.

They took it upon themselves sometime Sunday night or early Monday morning to deface the statue, along with other damage around the church and the neighborhood.

You can read about their despicable acts here.

Yes, it’s really despicable.

The words they painted on a nearby nativity building. Despicable.

The silver and red spray paint they used on the statue of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus, and the other damage they did to the statue. Despicable.

Father Mike said it best when he expressed his belief that it was like the acts of a fifth-grader.

Except these young hoodlums were 18 and 17 years old, well into the age of “should have known better.”

But every society has its punks and Massena is no exception.

A few Hail Marys and Our Fathers aren’t good enough for these guys.

Perhaps a little bit of community service would be in order. Since they’re so handy with the spray paint, we have plenty of buildings that could use some touch-up work.

How about it, judge, or we are going to let them walk away with a slap on the wrist and an order “not to do it again” like we seem to see over and over again with our judicial system?

Oh yes, I’m sure they’ll be good little boys.

At least until they’re out of the courtroom.

I’m beginning to worry about the birds feeding in the back yard because a gentleman from the neighborhood named “Tom Cat” has been keeping a real close watch over them.

There’s even a couple of feathers in the ground - and I hope it’s because the birds lost ‘em while they were dodging Tom’s jaws instead of losing them in Tom’s jaws.

I’m a cat lover, but I won’t tolerate Tom’s antics. I see him anywhere near my bird feeder he’s gonna have a nice cold pail of water dousing him.

I think it’s time for the birds of a feather to flock together and scare the big orange furball out of the neighborhood.

I’d chase Tom away myself, but my muscles are too sore after volunteering to set up for the annual St. Mary’s picnic yesterday. Twenty-six cafeteria-style tables had to be moved from the social hall to the great outdoors, along with a corresponding number of chairs.

Lemme tell ya, I earned my hamburger and potato salad yesterday. I can hardly move my legs or arms and especially my back today.

The crew got lucky though. We didn’t have to move the stuff back into the social hall after the shindig. Father Mike hired some young dudes to do it for a little moolah.

Talk about your Lord Have Mercy.

It was a pretty good time. Good food, food friendship, good dancing to the good music of The Lime Hollow Boys.

They didn’t play any Christmas music though.

That was reserved for Friday night.

And here you think stores push the seasons on us way too early. School was barely out and they were having back-to-school sales.

But I digress.

John Ward owns the Riverside Campgrounds in Brasher Falls, a seasonal camping area on the scenic St. Regis River, and they had a Christmas In July celebration. Dig out the decorations, dress up your trailer and sing a few Christmas carols and you might win a prize.

I was asked to be one of the judges for the decorating contest. Ever try to get into the ho ho ho spirit in July when it’s 80 degrees out and people are dressed in shorts and sitting around a campfire toasting marshmallows?

It ain’t easy.

But they did it, and a good time was had by all.

Especially the mosquitoes.

So I’m driving through downtown Thursday and thought maybe my bifocals were playing havoc with my eyes.

The sign at the local Sunoco gas station had gas at $4.27 a gallon.

It had been $4.33 for, oh, about the last three centuries, no matter how much the price of crude oil dropped on the market.

Could it really be? Or was I simply dreaming? Or were my eyeballs just not reading things right?

Nope, it was true. Every single cent of it was real. The price of gas had gone down.

It made me want to fill up the car’s tank and head home and get all my gas containers and fill those up because it surely won’t last long.

And, at least according to John McCain, we can thank Bush, George W., president, one each, for getting the price down. The article said he made that statement during a town hall meeting, but I don’t know for sure because Mr. McCain’s been focusing his recent efforts on the throngs of people who crowd the tomato display at the local supermarkets and the bratwurst buffet at German restaurants and it’s hard to imagine him actually visiting any place that has significant campaign value.

McCain credits Bush for drop in oil price
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush’s lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign. The cost of oil and gasoline is “on everybody’s mind in this room,” McCain told a town-hall meeting. Bush recently lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling that his father put in place in 1990. He also asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore. “The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel,” said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.

Hmm, maybe you’re right, Johnny Boy. Or maybe it’s just that the bloodsuckers we call oil companies realize they’re not gonna make their regular billions in the next quarter because the average person can’t afford their gas anymore. So maybe, just maybe it’s time to drop the price to make it look like, yes, the price of gas really does fluctuate and doesn’t just hit the stratosphere every time somebody says “boo.”

It’s all part of the “me, myself and I” culture we have in today’s world. The world revolves around me and to hell with everyone else. Let ‘em suffer. I don’t care. As long as I’ve got my money.

Need some more proof?

Take Devin Hester, a two-time Pro Bowler for the Chicago Bears football team who says he’s not reporting to training camp until he gets a new contract.

“I’m not coming,” Hester told the Chicago Tribune in a phone interview. “I have to make a statement. I showed by going to (organized team activities) that I was a team player. But then, I just felt like they weren’t taking it seriously that I wanted to get a new deal.”

It’s all about me, me, me, according to Hester.

“I can’t go out and play this year making $445,000. Come on, man,” he said.

Ahem. Did you say $445,000? As in six figures? As is nearly a half million buckeroos? And you say that’s not enough?

Here’s some food for thought. Screw you, Hester, because a lot of people would love to be in your shoes.

Only $445,000.

Oh, but wait, there’s more.

Andrew Giuliani, the 22-year-old son of New York City’s former famous mayor, is suing Duke University, according to the Associated Press, who says he’s “claiming his golf coach manufactured accusations against him to justify kicking him off the team to whittle the squad.”

Giuliani says he had dreams of becoming a professional golfer and was dismissed without cause from the golf team in February without a chance to defend himself.

Well, Andrew, maybe your golfing prowess had something to do with it.

His best - yes, best - finish last season was a tie for 36th at the Fighting Illini Invitational in Olympia Fields, Ill. His season competition average was 74.5, good for the 12th best on the team.

But Duke’s wrong, wrong, wrong to say he can’t make the cut on their team.

Huh?

Screw you too, Andrew.

I had dreams of becoming a sergeant major in the Army, but I never did because I couldn’t make the cut, so should I be suing the Army?

I have dreams of becoming the next managing editor of our newspaper, but I’m nowhere near that goal. Should I be suing St. Lawrence County Newspapers for derailing my professional growth?

And I have dreams of the price of gas going down.

Oh wait, that happened.

Maybe life isn’t so crappy after all.

It was First Communion for local students Sunday and I’ve never seen the pews of St. Mary’s so packed.

Three-quarters of the church was reserved for the students and their families, and the remainder of the “regular” people were relegated far to the back, stuffed like sardines in what little pew space was left.

Funny thing is, I’ve never seen three-quarters of these people before and I’ll probably never see them again.

Perhaps they attend another Mass or another church - or perhaps they’re part-time Catholics like so many people these days.

But seeing those little kids in their white shirt and black pants and frilly white dresses, some with a veil adorning their head, brought back memories of so long ago when I made my First Communion in that very church.

My, my, my, how times have changed.

Back then there was a Communion rail that everybody kneeled at, and we didn’t dare touch the Communion wafer - it went directly from the priest’s hand into our mouth.

Now that I think about it, ewwww.

St. Mary’s as a whole hasn’t changed much over the years. They have a side room just off the altar - a soundproof room, if you will - where my mother would always take us for Mass instead of letting us go into the main church. Maybe she thought we’d misbehave. We probably would have. Mass back then was far less interactive and far more boring.

That room is still there, with a glass window looking onto the altar, but I haven’t been back inside it in ages. Maybe I should sit in there sometime, just for old time’s sake - especially on First Communion Sunday.

Confession’s changed a lot since those old days too. Gone are the days when a terrified child went into this dark confessional with a mysterious man on the other side of a sliding screen who would say, “Tell me your sins.” You couldn’t see this stranger- but you knew he was the parish priest and you never lied to the parish priest so you told him everything and more.

These days you sit in a nice room with the priest, face-to-face, and say, “Yeah, I hosed up and I’m sorry.”

No more intimidation factor - unless you’re as scared of priests as some people are of clowns.

Some parts of St. Mary’s are history. The white schoolhouse is long gone. That’s where we younger kids got edumacated during our early years before going to the “big school.” The principal was a nun and the teachers were a mix of nuns and civilians and they had a lobby area with a piano where we’d go and sing, “This Land Is Your Land.”

After five years of Catholic schooling, before I got a chance to go to the “big school,” I bailed out. I’d had enough of the nuns and the big science fairs in the social hall when you’d build a lava-spewing volcano only to find out someone had mapped out the DNA of a cat.

And then there was the blackboard washing for being unruly in class and candy bar sales to help pay to keep the school running. Neighbors can only eat so much chocolate before they say, “NO MORE. YOU WERE JUST SELLING THESE THINGS LAST MONTH AND I HAVE ENOUGH TO LAST ME TWO LIFETIMES!”

I guess the real dinger came on a day when I wanted to stay home sick and the principal said, “No you’re not.” She told me they had a funeral going on next door at the church and there was a police escort there and if I didn’t come into school right now she’d send the policeman over to get me as soon as the funeral was over

And she did.

And I walked into the classroom with an armed escort by my side.

Oh yes, those were the days.

We’ve all heard of Boxing Day, the day after Christmas when everybody lines up at the store with the stuff they hoped they’d never get and want to dump as soon as possible.

Chia Pets come to mind.

But might I suggest Hallmark - who we all know controls the holidays anyway - start a new line of Bonding Day merchandise.

You know, it’s the day right before Christmas Eve - or even Christmas Eve itself - when men from all walks of life get together at the mall and aimlessly wander around while wondering what to buy their loved ones.

Today was my Bonding Day, and I’m so pleased to tell you that for two consecutive years I’ve managed to stay far, far, far away from that evil corporation called Wal-Mart.

I did the mall, I did OfficeMax, I did BJs Wholesale Club. But there was no Wal-Mart anywhere in my day. In fact, I never even came close to the parking lot. I took a back route so I could purposely not see what a madhouse Sal Walton’s place would be today.

The mall was bad enough. You’ll usually find about five cars and they all seem to be employees. The parking lot was filled to the brim today. Yes, men are all alike. We wait and we wait and we wait and finally say, “Well, it’s time.” And then we typically head to Bath and Body Works and buy yet another bottle of bubble bath.

Yes, won’t she be surprised? You betcha!

So now the shopping’s done and the presents are under the tree and the cats are in seclusion so we don’t see beady little eyeballs looking at us from the branches.

In other Christmas preparations, I broke down and went to confession today at church. Things sure have changed over the years. When I was young you were crammed into a little dark compartment where this stranger on the other side of a sliding panel was asking you all kinds of questions about what a bad boy you’d been. Now you get to tell him in person, comfortably seated in chairs facing each other.

I think I liked the darkness and anonymity better.

But I confessed and I did my penance and, hey, I actually felt better when I walked out of the church. Now I’m ready for Christmas Midnight Mass and, as part of my New Year’s resolution, to head back to church every Sunday again. I feel a deep sense of guilt every Sunday when I look at the clock and realize Mass is in session and I’m reading Peanuts.

For once this might be a New Year’s resolution I keep.