Toadies

“Are you somebody?” 

This asked of me by a guy near my age at the pub a few weeks ago.

I told him who I was and he stared off into space for a minute. “Nope, never heard of you. But you look like you're somebody though. You've got the look of a banker or a politician...ever run for office anywhere?”

I've been compared to Peter Noone of Hermans Hermits and Joe Piscapo when I was much younger. Nowadays a Kennedy (If I comb my brilliant white hair a certain way). I guess I can have a look when I iron my clothes and shave closely for once.

So, I started peppering this guy with questions about who he is. By the end of our talk, I still didn't know, or rather kept everything he said in the possible “complete bullshit file.”

He claimed to be a one time town manager of Central Falls, a current restauranteur, an investor of local night clubs, past and present, an associate of Rich Lupo of Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel and a member of the Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket, a sort of factory district revitalization trying to ape Providence's artistic renaissance.

He was a the kind of guy who rattled off his resume as you sat there, barely letting you get a word in edgewise. He didn't name drop but he made sure I knew how much he invested in certain enterprises. He had the talent of self promotion down pat and I really suspected he was complete horseshit when he said he lived in one of the Mansions down on Bellvue Ave in Newport at one time.

“Oh c'mon” I'm thinking to myself.

But here's the problem. Half of the things he said were true as I knew them to be. I guess that's the mark of a self promoter, you mix in lies with the truth. Always selling. Always trying to persuade.

Half his conversation to me involved bitching about various mayors, councilmen and little business tyrants who have managed to carve out a fiefdom here in Pawtucket or Seekonk. You could smell the competition and jealousy from him as he told various stories of his past successful “kills” and how he was thwarted by some up and coming politico at times and that was the reason a business venture failed. I do believe this part about him was true as he had the names and places down pat. When I mentioned the name of Lorenzo Tetreault, another local politician, all he could say was, ”Oh....Larry...yeah...I know him” and his voice trailed off with a sarcastic curl of his lip. Guess Larry wasn't on his nice list at all.

You know when you meet someone for the first time, peg them as a BS artist and wonder why they're going through such lengths and time to build a story? I felt a real sense of distrust coming over me while he was going on and on about himself. I felt that in any moment, he was going to ask for money, which many times, is what these guys lead to in the end. Oddly enough he didn't try. It was that creepy feeling that some one was “putting the touch” on. Perhaps he was just honing his craft...or better yet, he can't act in any other way because he was a natural born snake to begin with.

He reminded me of a kind of people we've all met, usually starting in high school where it's really apparent. You have people in the top clique schmoozing one another, each piling on the lies to one another in order to jockey for position. They act like their each other's best friend and wait for that moment to sink the knife in in order to move up a notch. It's blatant self aggrandizement and you can smell it forty feet away.

He finishes off his beer, gets up and pat's me on the back. “Well, Ron, I have to go...but we ought to talk further...you really have that face where you could sell something...have that look of a Kennedy if you wore a suit...and if you strutted around a bit like you owned everything.”

Great...I'm being groomed to be one of his buddies. I have no desire to be part of his circle, to be raw material for whatever financial dream he may have up his sleeve with promises of sure success and “It can't fail!”

He leaves. I then lean over to say to the doorman and ask, “Who the hell was that?”

K. who had been listening in replies, “Oh Jack? He's really was part of Central Falls all those years ago but...” He then traces a circle on the side of his head with his finger.

A quickie story about politicians.

Years ago, in the eighth grade in Goff Jr High, I had an English teacher by the name of Lorenzo Tetreault. I found him to be a general “nice guy” and a decent enough teacher. When I got out of Goff, I never saw him again and I figured I never was remarkable enough to him to remember at all.

Let's move forward thirty years.

Due to where I live, my polling station is at Goff Jr High. The 2008 election was here and I was walking towards the school and as usual, you see various people milling about ready to thrust into your hands some brochure, a last ditch attempt to persuade you to vote for this one or that one. As I walk by this one guy, he comes forward with his hand out and I shake it. He tilts his head back, closes his eyes and thinks for a moment.

“Uh...Ron...Ron M.!” It's good to see you! Hope your vote goes my way on the Council today!

I stood there, in amazement, when I finally figured out this guy was my English teacher from thirty years ago and remembered me. How the hell could he have remembered me? I was in no way outstanding in either a positive or negative light.

Later on, people have told me some of these guys have an incredible capacity to remember every single damn person they've ever met. I find that one hell of a skill though.  

Plausible Deniability

From a conversation over the summer.

“Did you know how much of this nation's intel is now farmed out to private, for-profit companies? These guys who once worked in Naval intel, the CIA, NSA and State were lured away with three times the salary by private companies...they jumped at that chance. Did you also know how insecure these companies are too? They're security is like a busted, torn screen door flapping in the wind.”

I then reminded him of an episode I was witness to years earlier of lax security.

Years ago, we returned to our friend’s tiny apartment just off Atwell's Ave. We had just come from bar hopping around downtown and were good and buzzed. As I walked into his living room, I noticed a weird translucent book binder on the floor. He then came into the room and without much tact, kicked the binder under his couch, sort of hoping none of us saw this.

So, of course, we drink further and an hour or two later I reach under the couch and yank it back out. He weakly says through his Pilsner Urquel haze...”Uh...you really shouldn't look at that.”

“Uh-huh” I say.

It was large translucent binder that had a huge lock on it. Inside was a book that slid around. The lock was not locked. So I opened it up and shook the book loose and it flopped onto the floor, the title read: “Norfolk Base, Second Fleet, 6/22/89, NATO Action/Briefing Report”

I open it up and in it are a bunch of maps, of the North Atlantic, with little symbols showing where the US Navy was, where the Soviet (Archangel base) fleet was and every other commercial ship was at during the day of June 22^nd.

“They track every single ship out there? No matter the size?” I ask.

“Yep..every single one...and PUT that down! He demands.

I don't. Then I see this on another page. “Aegis Key Command. Good Until Revoked or 22:20. Upgrade via Ryolite at 22:21. Key: 430020-;'al3e0002003..002037y0a.=230a00e7ur....and it goes on for three sentences, complete gibberish.

“Aegis! You worked on Aegis? You never have yet told me what Aegis does..C'mon...tell me!”

He groans, “Look, all I'll say it can make one of our task forces look like it's 60 miles off target on the other guy's radar...Put that back!”

I sense he's getting pissed so I put it back.

“I thought were you weren't in the Navy anymore?” I say.

“I ain't. But my retired status doesn't mean I don't get these reports when I ask for them. I still write up analysis of Soviet economic, political, agricultural and other things...they still pay me.”

He leans back, chewing on an idea.

“Did I tell you the story of when I was in Archangel? It's one of the three main Soviet naval bases, the other two are Odessa and Vladivostok.”

He goes on.

“I was a retired civilian on board a US cruiser that was to do a “good will” tour of Archangel. The captain and others were in the ward room,were trying to figure out how to explain my presence to the Russians, as they would have an entire list of personnel of this ship in their hands in a matter of hours...and I ain't part of the usual complement. Don't be fooled, the Russians are very good at getting our info as well and personnel reports of various ships are easy to to get.”

“The captain suggests that I'm a reporter...with say...Mother Jones.”

I tell him that'll never work. The Russians are far too paranoid and suspicious. They'll spot that as a lie in an instant. It would be better to tell them the absolute truth..as they won't believe that either but it's more plausible than the other story. It'll cool their jets some to know we are sort of lying to them as they expect it. But wild lies will really get their brains cooking...”Vat is ze Americans really trying to obscure?”

“Archangel is a dump, typical Soviet architecture of block after block of the same concrete Communist designed apartment buildings..and there's little to do. I was allowed to walk around the entire city. I wasn't molested by anyone. Though through the entire walk I took, a black sedan was trailing me the entire time. They weren't really making an effort to conceal themselves at all!”

“I find a bar, go in and notice the sedan pulls up along side the curb right outside the bar. They don't come in though.”

“I order four shots of vodka, using sign language and bad Russian and the bar tender gets it, and gives me the four glasses. I chuck one down and motion to the bar tender to bring the other three out to the gentlemen in the sedan outside. He does it.”

“I drink some more, spend about twenty minutes in there and leave. As I go out the door, I wave to the three men in the sedan. They completely ignore me but I see three empty shot glasses on the dashboard of their car!"

Spy vs. Spy.

I say, “You know Barn, you've been to every country except Nepal...I've only been to Canada..which doesn't count. Man, do you miss those international travels?”

“Yep...full retirement from everything isn't as fun as I thought it was. I just can't up and leave for Berlin anymore like I used to.”

“You ain't really retired yet.” I say.

“Well, I still write up reports...it keeps my mind active.”

My Dog Won't Run and the Truck Ran Away

At one time WGNG, 55 AM once was a country station I used to listen to. It broadcast from an antenna about two miles from my house and it was the only station I could tune in without fine tuning the dial with my fingernail.

I found that station due to a Christmas gift i received at seven years old. I thought it lavish due to it being something an adult would own. But my Dad handed it over to me w/o any warnings to “take care of it.” I guess Japan flooded the market in '72 with millions of them, making them dirt cheap.

This, in part, was the start of my interest in stereo equipment. Hey, at least is wasn't ham radio equipment, that made you really look like a dweeb.

That first radio eventually turned into this, or something comparable in my living room. Notice the focus is on the stereo, not a hearth, TV or family portrait.

WGNG, as I said, played country music and being seven I didn’t' know better. Waylon Jennings, Roy Clark and Donna Fargo and other names long since forgotten I knew. I wasn't a hick kid nor a member in the 4-H, it was just that station came in so clear that it was my default station.

I quickly got over that music as my brother purchased a Radio Shack Realistic stereo. Actually, coming from Radio Shack it was a decent piece of equipment that could bring in other radio stations I knew nothing about. Being a kid, I graduated from WGNG to WPRO. I look back on that as growing pains. Today Top 40 Contemporary kinda makes me puke. Well, you grow, you learn. I now detest most country, but there is one exception.

My brother would harangue me about leaving the selector switch on AM instead of FM which he was convinced had better music. I tried it a few times and not having an ear at all at nine years of age, saw no benefit in FM.

That was till I stumbled across a station out of Worcester, late one night, called WAAF hosted by a DJ named Harvey Warfield. I was too lazy to switch it back to WPRO AM and I let it run. That's when I heard the oddest music coming from the speakers. Warfield, around midnight, would have WAAF's “Six Pack” which was six full albums, back to back without commercial interruption between the songs. Try and get away with that today.

“Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-9 were played and I sat there listening to this ethereal stuff, wondering and not even knowing it was Pink Floyd till Warfield came back on to announce what he had played. With this, I started to develop an ear as I weaned from AM to FM.

Years later, and many $ later I built my system and compiled a huge collection of CD's and music I lifted off the internet. The funny thing is I do have some country music, five CD's worth and it's all Johnny Cash. Cash I find good enough when it comes to country.

WGNG is now a Catholic radio talk.  

Harmony 'n' Me

Hello, baby hello

Haven't seen your face for a while

Have you quit doing time for me

Or are you still the same spoiled child?

Hello, I said, hello

Is this the only place you thought to go

Am I the only man you ever had

Or am I just the last surviving friend that you know?

“Ronnnnnn!” It's been years but I knew that voice. I turn to look and see a memory, a tiny Guidette I knew full well on my first job. Her name? Not exact but here goes a close to the bow shot. Diane Chieti Trivento Marco de Cavorti. She was the daughter of a minor thug connected to a certain family on Atwells. Her younger brother was no better as I remember it. Her Mom looked exactly like she should've lived somewhere in New Jersey. A total Italian American Princess with the fake blond hair, gold chains, 80's Spandex and holding a glass of Soave Bola in her hand.

I turn to look and even after the years, I felt it. That old twinge of “I like you!” You probably never forget old flames from the past. She was still 4 foot 11, still weighed 99lbs and still wore denim. Though her, like me, have added crow's feet and gray hairs, though I've gone full white. She still tans apparently, even in March. Well, Guidettes never cash in on their tried and true styles. She would lather up in Hawaiian Tropic frying oil to get that Sicilian tan she always could get.

“God..you're still soo damn tall....and WHITE!” she says. I smile, knowing that mop on my head could be used for a lighthouse.

“Remember all those times we spent at Christy's Landing down in Newport? Remember how I used too grab your *&*^ in the street?” And she giggles. Still the lil' tart at 49. No one changes.

I ask about the guy she married, another Spacone from her breed. “Ah, well, we're still married, sort of...” She trails off. That was enough for me to fill in the rest. “I guess he was pissed I cheated so much, but so did he!” I stood there, knowing what libertine she was then. Probably still is if she can pull it off. She could in a way, still had that body and same teasing personality.

A quick story. She would carouse the nicer bars in North Providence and made it known, for a goodly high price, she'd be the weekend girlfriend for the right guy. I can remember her coming to work one Monday morning, disheveled as hell and dumps her purse onto the table and a a bunch of $100 bills came out. Eight of them.

“He had a real yacht, a 33 footer, in Jamestown! He lives in the Hamptons but his brother runs a waste disposal business in Esmond, up the street from Mineral Spring.”

She didn't care who knew this. I sat there, looking at those fat bills and I said, “You whore yourself out?”

“NO! I'm better than that! I'm an escort!” She had said this with conviction! “Oh, I guessthat makes it alright then.” I say to myself.

Here's another story I have to heavily redact. It happened, in a way, but I'm changing a shitload of facts, to protect the very guilty.

Back in the 80s Rhode Island was the jewelry capital of the world. Shipments of gold, silver, precious gems would come out New York via couriers to here, mostly to the better jewelry shops in Providence. Then these talented men would fashion them into higher priced goods instead of the junk jewelry we pumped out by the ton.

So...one day I go into work, Diane is sitting there, with the phone to her head and a shoe box full of gold bracelets, rings, earrings and loose stones. From what I can hear she's selling them over the phone. I look into the box and pick some of this stuff up, it's heavy. I'm no jeweler but I guess this was the real stuff.

She hangs up. “Do you want to buy some? It's really, really cheap, like 25% cheap!”

“Where did you get it? I ask.

“Paulio and John shoved a shotgun out the window of their car at another one on Rt 4, made the guy pull over. They took it all...made the guy walk blindfolded into the woods and they took off.”

I heard many stories from Diane and she was the type who didn't care if you knew the details. Why should she? She was protected by some heavies. All I could think was of the story I saw on WJAR three days earlier of a courier being ripped off when he was run off the road with a gun. And here she was, putting on and taking off jewelry like she was dressing up a doll, herself that doll.

Colorful chick she was...

Anyways...

There's a pause in our conversation. Of course, my eyes are easily read. I'm looking at her as I did when I was 22. Damn fool I am.

The pause breaks when she says,

“You know...you were probably the only real guy I knew....I mean straight...not crooked as hell”

I then repeated a phrase I have told her and everyone over the years, I take everything literally and am boringly literal myself, to my advantage and detriment.

“Diane you always ran withthatcrowd...there was no way I could fit in.”

“Yeah..in fact I still do run with them...I got better at spotting the liars though.”

Pregnant pause...I see as she was when she was 22. Twenty-two and a thrill seeking, immature, bratty, pouty, hot little number.

“MOMMMYYY! I then hear yelled out. A kid, about 12 I guess, comes running up, carrying three bags of Snickers, “Can I get it? Huh? Puhleezzee!”

All of a sudden, 2014 came back. I say goodbye with the usual half-assed promises of “We should meet up agains” and I walk out of the store, thinking that I may have learned a thing or two over the decades.  

Click the Pic and See the Song

Vladimir

The Ukraine and Crimea have you confused? Read on then.  The article is not mine but an opinion from an old friend. 

We must consider the future of Eurasia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, the region has fragmented and decayed. The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, is emerging from this period with renewed self-confidence. Yet Russia is also in an untenable geopolitical position. Unless Russia exerts itself to create a sphere of influence, the Russian Federation could itself fragment.

For most of the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union controlled Eurasia -- from central Germany to the Pacific, as far south as the Caucasus and the Hindu Kush. When the Soviet Union collapsed, its western frontier moved east nearly 1,000 miles, from the West German border to the Russian border with Belarus. Russian power has now retreated farther east than it has been in centuries. During the Cold War it had moved farther west than ever before. In the coming decades, Russian power will settle somewhere between those two lines.

After the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of the 20th century, foreign powers moved in to take advantage of Russia's economy, creating an era of chaos and poverty. Most significantly, Ukraine moved into an alignment with the United States and away from Russia -- this was a breaking point in Russian history.

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, from December 2004 to January 2005, was the moment when the post-Cold War world genuinely ended for Russia. The Russians saw the events in Ukraine as an attempt by the United States to draw Ukraine into NATO and thereby set the stage for Russian disintegration. Quite frankly, there was some truth to the Russian perception.

If the West had succeeded in dominating Ukraine, Russia would have become indefensible. The southern border with Belarus, as well as the southwestern frontier of Russia, would have been wide open.

Russia's Resurgence

After what Russia regarded as an American attempt to further damage it, Moscow reverted to a strategy of reasserting its sphere of influence in the areas of the former Soviet Union. The great retreat of Russian power ended in Ukraine. For the next generation, until roughly 2020, Russia's primary concern will be reconstructing the Russian state and reasserting Russian power in the region.

Interestingly, the geopolitical shift is aligning with an economic shift. Vladimir Putin sees Russia less as an industrial power than as an exporter of raw materials, the most important of which is energy (particularly natural gas). He is transforming Russia from an impoverished disaster into a poor but more productive country. Putin also is giving Russia the tool with which to intimidate Europe: the valve on a natural gas pipeline.

But the real flash point, in all likelihood, will be on Russia's western frontier. Belarus will align itself with Russia. Of all the countries in the former Soviet Union, Belarus has had the fewest economic and political reforms and has been the most interested in recreating some successor to the Soviet Union. Linked in some way to Russia, Belarus will bring Russian power back to the borders of the former Soviet Union.

From the Baltics south to the Romanian border there is a region where borders have historically been uncertain and conflict frequent. In the north, there is a long, narrow plain, stretching from the Pyrenees to St. Petersburg. This is where Europe's greatest wars were fought. This is the path that Napoleon and Hitler took to invade Russia. There are few natural barriers. Therefore, the Russians must push their border west as far as possible to create a buffer. After World War II, they drove into the center of Germany on this plain. Today, they have retreated to the east. They have to return, and move as far west as possible. That means the Baltic states and Poland are, as before, problems Russia has to solve.

Defining the limits of Russian influence will be controversial. The United States -- and the countries within the old Soviet sphere -- will not want Russia to go too far.

Russia will not become a global power in the next decade, but it has no choice but to become a major regional power. And that means it will clash with Europe. The Russian-European frontier remains a fault line.

It is unreasonable to talk of Europe as if it were one entity. It is not, in spite of the existence of the European Union. Europe consists of a series of sovereign and contentious nation-states.

In short, post-Cold War Europe is in benign chaos. Russia is the immediate strategic threat to Europe. Russia is interested not in conquering Europe, but in reasserting its control over the former Soviet Union. From the Russian point of view, this is both a reasonable attempt to establish some minimal sphere of influence and essentially a defensive measure.

Obviously the Eastern Europeans want to prevent a Russian resurgence. The real question is what the rest of Europe might do -- and especially, what Germany might do. The Germans are now in a comfortable position with a buffer between them and the Russians, free to focus on their internal economic and social problems. In addition, the heritage of World War II weighs heavily on the Germans. They will not want to act alone, but as part of a unified Europe.

Russia is the eastern portion of Europe and has clashed with the rest of Europe on multiple occasions. Historically, though, Europeans who have invaded Russia have come to a disastrous end. If they are not beaten by the Russians, they are so exhausted from fighting them that someone else defeats them. Russia occasionally pushes its power westward, threatening Europe with the Russian masses. At other times passive and ignored, Russia is often taken advantage of. But, in due course, others pay for underestimating it.

Geographic Handicaps, Energy Assets

If we are going to understand Russia's behavior and intentions, we have to begin with Russia's fundamental weakness -- its borders, particularly in the northwest. On the North European Plain, no matter where Russia's borders are drawn, it is open to attack. There are few significant natural barriers anywhere on this plain. Pushing its western border all the way into Germany, as it did in 1945, still leaves Russia's frontiers without a physical anchor. The only physical advantage Russia can have is depth. The farther west into Europe its borders extend, the farther conquerors have to travel to reach Moscow. Therefore, Russia is always pressing westward on the North European Plain and Europe is always pressing eastward.

Europe is hungry for energy. Russia, constructing pipelines to feed natural gas to Europe, takes care of Europe's energy needs and its own economic problems, and puts Europe in a position of dependency on Russia. In an energy-hungry world, Russia's energy exports are like heroin. It addicts countries once they start using it. Russia has already used its natural gas resources to force neighboring countries to bend to its will. That power reaches into the heart of Europe, where the Germans and the former Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe all depend on Russian natural gas. Add to this its other resources, and Russia can apply significant pressure on Europe.

Dependency can be a double-edged sword. A militarily weak Russia cannot pressure its neighbors, because its neighbors might decide to make a grab for its wealth. So Russia must recover its military strength. Rich and weak is a bad position for nations to be in. If Russia is to be rich in natural resources and export them to Europe, it must be in a position to protect what it has and to shape the international environment in which it lives.

In the next decade, Russia will become increasingly wealthy (relative to its past, at least) but geographically insecure. It will therefore use some of its wealth to create a military force appropriate to protect its interests, buffer zones to protect it from the rest of the world -- and then buffer zones for the buffer zones. Russia's grand strategy involves the creation of deep buffers along the North European Plain, while it divides and manipulates its neighbors, creating a new regional balance of power in Europe. What Russia cannot tolerate are tight borders without buffer zones, and its neighbors united against it. This is why Russia's future actions will appear to be aggressive but will actually be defensive.

Russia's actions will unfold in three phases. In the first phase, Russia will be concerned with recovering influence and effective control in the former Soviet Union, re-creating the system of buffers that the Soviet Union provided it. In the second phase, Russia will seek to create a second tier of buffers beyond the boundaries of the former Soviet Union. It will try to do this without creating a solid wall of opposition, of the kind that choked it during the Cold War. In the third phase -- really something that will have been going on from the beginning -- Russia will try to prevent anti-Russian coalitions from forming.

If we think of the Soviet Union as a natural grouping of geographically isolated and economically handicapped countries, we can see what held it together. The countries that made up the Soviet Union were bound together of necessity. The former Soviet Union consisted of members who really had nowhere else to go. These old economic ties still dominate the region, except that Russia's new model, exporting energy, has made these countries even more dependent than they were previously. Attracted as Ukraine was to the rest of Europe, it could not compete or participate with Europe. Its natural economic relationship is with Russia; it relies on Russia for energy, and ultimately it tends to be militarily dominated by Russia as well.

These are the dynamics that Russia will take advantage of in order to reassert its sphere of influence. It will not necessarily recreate a formal political structure run from Moscow -- although that is not inconceivable. Far more important will be Russian influence in the region over the next five to 10 years.

The Russians will pull the Ukrainians into their alliance with Belarus and will have Russian forces all along the Polish border, and as far south as the Black Sea. This, I believe, will all take place by the mid-2010s.

There has been a great deal of talk in recent years about the weakness of the Russian army, talk that in the decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union was accurate. But here is the new reality -- that weakness started to reverse itself in 2000, and by 2015 it will be a thing of the past. The coming confrontation in northeastern Europe will not take place suddenly, but will be an extended confrontation. Russian military strength will have time to develop. The one area in which Russia continued research and development in the 1990s was in advanced military technologies. By 2010, it will certainly have the most effective army in the region. By 2015-2020, it will have a military that will pose a challenge to any power trying to project force into the region, even the United States.

I'm Good for Making a Heel Out of Myself!

I was holding back on this story. I can tell it now because I sort of got confirmation I wasn't a complete jerk.

This relates to the a few stories back about my toothache and how I figured out dog antibiotics are really just fine enough for people to take as well.

For those of you that have had toothaches, you understand the exquisite pain they can cause and how nearly breathing on a “hot” tooth can make it scream. For those of you who never had the experience, slam your thumb in a car door, you'll understand then.

I attended a funeral a week or so ago for Robert Thurber Sr, a one time Chief of the Pawtucket Fire Department. I had met him years earlier as he was a regular at a pub I have visited a thousand times. Chief and I weren't close friends but more of acquaintances. Even so, after numerous meetings and conversations, I came to like the guy as he was genuine. I use “genuine” as that he was very upfront in his opinions, not a BS artist and actually interested in other people's life stories. He told me great tales of major fires I remember that hit Pawtucket that he had to command. Also some comedic stories about various calls he went on I won't repeat here. Well, I may tell of the Andy Panda story one day.

So, I got to like the guy as he was open, full of great stories and understood that 90 minute one on one conversations are the norm in an Irish pub. Believe me, the major reason for Irish pubs are the conversations, either they be about fuel injectors or astrophysics. Plus some beer.

**

Chief lived out his life and died. I attended his funeral. I haven't stepped inside a Catholic church in fourteen years since I managed my brother’s funeral in 2003. The morning of Chief's funeral, I was in the parking lot across the street, popping Cephalexin tablets and Ibuprophen before I went in, figuring that by the time the event was done, the pain killers would still be working on my teeth. I would be OK.

So, I sat in the pews, going through the motions of sit, stand, kneel, sit routine when it came to the Holy Communion part. I got up and got in line to receive it. When in social situations like this, you go through all the motions as it's expected.

“The Body of Christ.” the priest intones. I held out my hand and he placed a triangular wafer into it.

As I was walking back to my spot on the pew, I thought, “God, I ain't chewing anything today. I can't even eat overcooked pasta.” So I popped the wafer into my pocket.

As the Mass went on, I noticed this red haired priest was shooting looks at me. My paranoid self thought, ”Oh God...another gay priest..the same type I ran into at St. Raphaels who would ogle at the teen boys.”

That wasn't the reason he was looking at me though. As I came to find out.

So the Mass comes to an end and we follow the casket out. As I was just about to exit the main doors, this same priest darts at me and says, rather a bit too loud.

“I don't want to make a scene.”

I was half awake as I was walking out so I became alert real fast, but kind of confused about what was going on, as he said this to me.

I lean over kind of far, nearly tete to tete so the conversation is softer and he asks.

“Did you eat the Host?”

“No.” I say kind of nonchalantly.

“Can I have it back?” he demands.

I reach into my pocket and deftly place it into his hands, trying not to alert EVERYONE else there what had just happened.

I quickly slip out the main doors onto the steps and moved on like nothing had happened.

**

Later on in the day, I tell this story to my friend in Plymouth. He's guffawing as he hears it. He was once an altar boy and knew all about these rituals.

“You IDIOT...don't you know that that host, the wafer...is CONSECRATED?”

“What does that mean?” I ask

“Shit” he says. “I can't believe you went to a Catholic DeLassalian school and don't know this!”

“That wafer, that Host is the Body of Jesus! It's gone through transubstantiation. It has literally become the flesh of Christ himself!”

“No it hasn't!” I shoot back.

“Look” he says, “You and I know that it ain't, but to that priest it IS...and he wasn't about to let you just walk out of the church with it in your pocket, to sit there for three weeks.”

“Did you know...if the church was burning down, the priests have to eat every consecrated wafer from the Tabernacle? Not to let them burn up if they can help it? Those priests have to account for every host they consecrate!”

“No wonder that priest was eying me the whole time.” I say.

My friend goes on, “He probably was at dinner that night, with the other parish priests when he chimes in with a 'Hey, you wouldn't believe what some guy tried to do today..walk out with a Communion host!'”

Sigh...I not kidding, my first thought was to NOT eat the thing because both rows of teeth were SCREAMING that morning. Ah well...no matter. It's not like I'm going back to explain myself. The priest is probably setting up an Excommunication Mass right now...aimed at me.