Here’s how you disappear from the world. There is a tiny picture on the wall between two mirrors in our bathroom. It is nondescript. It was put there by my late wife.

There were three women in my life as a child. My mother. My father’s mother, and her mother.

Something occurred to me yesterday. I never heard my parents complain or talk about current events. When the Mass went to English. Not a word from my mother. When the schools integrated, or Emmett Till was killed. Not a word from either parent.

I’m back to talk about my past and we’re still on the subject of religion. As mentioned previously, I was raised Catholic. And there were big changes in the church during my youth. One of the biggest of all was that we finally got to say the Mass in English.

Got out and about yesterday. Drank some wine. Ate some cake. Sang happy birthday. Played a new tune I wrote. Made some new friends, well acquaintances. We exchanged names and made small talk.

It’s a cool May morning. We had a good rain yesterday. The ground is well wet. The rain gauge shows nearly 1.25 inches, but I have no idea when last it was emptied. So, that could be several days worth of precipitation.

I had a talk with the machine yesterday. Here’s how it went. I took the cowling off the gas tank. Disconnected the two fuel lines. Blew into one of them to clear any debris. Reconnected the lines. Turned the starter. Fuel flowed into the filter.

Here’s to the mysterious ways of the universe. We find love, unexpectedly. Children come into our lives. The mower that worked fine four days ago is now a sputtering pile of metal.

I’ve been on a break. And like any program, it pays to start off slow when you’re getting back into the routine. So, no reminiscing today.

Here’s something else I noticed in my youth. We weren’t really bible people. Sure, we had readings from it in church, and we had one at home. But my mother never sat around reading it. And it hardly ever came up in school.

Over the last several days, I’ve written about the gospels most affecting my life. But there’s also an important epistle, First Corinthians, chapter 13 1:13.

Since we’re talking about the poor, see yesterday’s words, here’s the bit that cemented the idea for me. It showed up in the gospel of Luke 19, 31-46, the gospel of the Sheep and the Goats…

The liturgy of the Catholic Church runs on a three year cycle. Readings and gospels are designed to follow a grand plan. Of course, no one explains this to a young boy sitting there with his mother and his brothers.

The post war civil rights movement was well on its way before it swam into my consciousness.

I am a child of the Catholic church courtesy of my mother who took us to mass every Sunday and on holy days. I still have my St. Joseph’s missal…

This is as good a time as any to start talking about religion, the second leg of my youth.

Once again, I’m no social scientist. This is an anecdotal view of our history through the lens of my experience and the family into which I was born.

I have a spreadsheet called John’s Timeline. It runs from the year I was born to the present. It has schools I attended, places I’ve lived, jobs I’ve held and that sort of thing. To help me delve into my past, I’ve also included data about world events.

After Russia, the other post war enemy of note was China. When Mao defeated Chiang Kai-shek, with the help of Russia, there was a big row in the states about who lost China? As if China was ours to lose.

The reunion is over and I’m back to my journey through the history of my world and my life. We left off with World War II. We won. Defeated our enemies. Started rehabilitating them. This allowed us to get back to fighting an old enemy, communism and in particular, the Soviet Union or Russia.