About Damn Time.

No. Today I am not writing about the Tangerine Wankmaggot, Donald Trump. Nor am I going to discuss the student of whom I am most ashamed in my 35 year teaching career, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Robin Vos.

No. I’m putting down these words about the church I was raised in and, though I now regularly attend a small Episcopal church in Illinois, still holds some of my allegiance and some good memories.

Sister Mary Delores taught us about sin. She was a tiny woman. In today’s world, I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: ”Though she be but little she is fierce.” That was sister Delores. 

She valiantly taught us everything that we supposedly needed to know in grade school. Bad behavior brought out her ruler of justice and punishment, but she seldom needed to resort to it. When it came to teaching us morals and right and wrong, she excelled with visual learning.

Sister Delores wore the traditional Franciscan habit: the long black tunic and veil, the stark white coif, cap and wimple, the sash, and rosary. One day in class, she pointed to her wimple and said, “This is your soul.” Then she reached behind her and picked up an open bottle of ink from her desk and poured it on her wimple. She then said, “This is your soul when you sin.”

Where Sister Delores taught us visually, Father Andy Kloska the associate pastor of the parish preferred a more logical approach to sin. Some priests lectured when I went to confession, the “you are so going to hell if you do that again” approach. One priest, regardless of the sin, always asked, “Are you married, my child?” It didn’t matter what I told him for my sins that week.

Father Kloska was different in a way that still makes sense to me. After hearing whatever sins I had supposedly committed and thereby wronged all humanity in the eyes of God, Father Kloska simply said, “Don’t do that. You’re not supposed to.” Logic that today is still applicable to almost all my daily actions. 

So, my primary school education had a lot to do with who I became and who I am today. The church has always been slow to change. So have I sometimes. Like the church, I was, for a long time, opposed to gay marriage. Then I met John and Lou.

My sister lived in Greenwich Village, a home for many in the LGTB community. She belonged to the Episcopal parish, “St. John’s in the Village.” It’s pastor was a gay man and the parish community helped the spiritual needs of many in the community.

I met John because he was a coworker of my sister. I got to know his partner Lou later during a visit to my sister. Lou was an old Navy man, complete with sailor language and an anchor tattoo. John was more business like. Neither was the stereotype of a gay man.

They were together in a monogamous relationship for more than thirty years. They were committed to each other. They loved each other. I was committed to my first wife for that same time. We loved each other. The difference was only that my union was recognized by church and state.

I had to ask myself, “Isn’t love and commitment what a marriage is supposed to be about?” I came to the obvious conclusion and knew that, according to Catholicism and most religions, black ink was damaging my personal wimple.

Change may be slow, but sometimes it’s just time. The Church took 400 years to forgive Galileo for saying that the Earth spins and moves around the Sun. It only took 100 years to forgive Oscar Wilde for his homosexuality. There is improvement.

Today Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church,  endorsed same sex marriage, at least through civil unions.

It’s a baby step. In the right direction. It’s about damn time

Yes, the Post Office IS Worth It.

No. I am not getting a ballot in the mail. This is the application to get one to vote in Presidential Election in November. It is going out to every registered voter in Illinois. My wife and step-daughter also received one. Good. This makes it easier to vote. It should be easy to vote. For everyone.

Damn right, the Postal System should be helped, saved, rescued, bailed out, or whatever it takes to keep the 200 hundred plus years of Benjamin Franklin’s brainchild up and running.

It’s long been the dream of the wrong-headed GOP and brain-fogged others to privatize a lot of things including the Social Security, Medicare and the United State Postal Service.

The guy in the Oval Office doesn’t like that Amazon cut a deal with the Postal Service. The current Postmaster General (appointed by the same guy in the Oval Office) has no experience in the system and has ordered sorting machines shut down, overtime stopped, and a whole bunch of other measures that seem intent on slowing services down. Given the pandemic and that more people will want to vote by mail rather than risk congregating in voting lines, it is not unreasonable to assume that that guy in the Oval Office would like very much for the Postal Service to fold up its tents.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but my experience with USPS has always been a good one.

As a kid I wrote a lot to my two oldest cousins, Whitey and Greg. Both of them were in the Navy. I loved that their replies always came via Air Mail. It got me started on a short-lived attempt at collecting stamps. I had a couple of stamp books, never filled them, but did learn how to steam a postmarked stamp off an envelope. I never had anything valuable, and they went the same way as old baseball cards. I always looked forward to writing them and their letters back.







I also looked forward to watching Elmer work. He was our letter carrier on Latrobe Avenue. He was a large jolly man who always had a friendly word for everyone on his route. This was a time when, at least in Chicago, the mail was delivered door to door by the carrier pushing a cart, and Elmer was a magician at it. He would start at one end of the block, with a handful of letters meant for the first house.

He’d give the cart a shove, walk quickly to the mailbox on the house, place the handful of mail in the box and walk to the next house before the cart stopped rolling, grab the next batch of letters, give the cart another shove, and continue this for the entire block. To this day, I don’t understand how he did it every day. Whenever he was on vacation, the mail always arrived a little later.

I used the mail service to file for my conscientious objector status with the draft board. I used the mail service to file my first taxes, and still do that today. One of my nieces works for the Postal Service. And one of America’s greatest songwriters, John Prine, started writing songs on his route, and for some time was known as the singing mailman thanks to an article by Roger Ebert. https://www.rogerebert.com/features/john-prine-american-legend

Prine released an album that alluded to his background.



The other day, I ordered something from Target. Unfortunately, I didn't change my address on my Target account when I moved two years ago. The item was headed for my old address, so I was dutifully tracking it, thining I could head to my old address and get it. This morning, the tracking information said that because my forwarding information was expired, the package was going to be returned to the sender.

I called the local post office where I used to live. The very nice worker there said I might be able to call the courier center and gave me the phone number. There I was connected to another very nice worker who simply asked if I had a tracking number. I did. He looked on his machine. He told me that if it was still at the center, he could forward it to me. He put me on hold, went and checked to find the package. It was. He took my new address information and I should get the item tomorrow.

My favorite experience with the postal system occured with my first wife. I wish I had saved it, but it is the stuff of family lore. I know it will sound impossible, but believe me, it happened.

Her family lived, as they say in Wisconsin, "Up Nort." Grandpa Ed and Grandma Josie lived in a small house in Mishicot, Wisconsin. We lived in was our third apartment in Racine. Grandma Josie was not one to mince words, and was concise at all times. She used to make wine and her specialty was made with her home grown rasberries. She labeled it, "Rasp Drink."

She send us a card to congratulate us on the birth of our daughter. She put a stamp on the envelope. The return address said, Grandman Puta, Mishicot. She addressed it to us as, and I told you'd think it impossible. as this: Tim and Cathie. Racine. We got it two days after it was postmarked. Maybe they had a whole crew of people like Elmer working that day.

So, yes, the Postal Service may have some problems, not entirely of their own making, thanks to the negligence or intent of the current people in charge. It doesn't help that Congress requires the postal system to prefund its pension plan. Yes, there are some problems right now. Yes, it's the first time in forty years that USPS has asked Congress, and taxpayers, for assistance.

But it's not a source of voting fraud despite the claims of the guy in the Oval Office. You can still put a stamp on a piece of mail and it will get there in a relatively short time. UPS and FedEx will never be geared to  send Christmas cards or cards from Grandma Josie. In the trillions of dollars the government has spent on coronavirus aide and tax relief for the rich, the amount they need is piddling.

That absentee ballot? I'll probably request one, and then decide what to do with it. Either I'll take it to the voting site or still go in person. But if I do mail it in, I know it will get there and be counted.