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And you thought sandpaper for toilet paper was rough.
http://www.rock103.com/crew/pics/?pow=042704
The new kiddie ride at Six Flags, "Extreme Training Wheels"
http://www.rock103.com/crew/pics/?pow=092004
I have to give kudos to the Shiner High football team. Something that people don't see much anymore during funeral processions is people pulling over on the side of the road in reverence for the deceased and the family. The other day I helped father with a funeral for a parishioner whose family is from out of town. They promptly sent a thank you to the rectory which informed me of how the Shinerites have taken it a step further. The funeral procession from the church to the cemetery goes right by the football practice field, where upon seeing the procession, the football team stopped practice and took a knee until all cars passed by. This impressed me much, which is why I share it with you.
This morning I did something I never in a million years thought I, Michael John Rother of Palacios, would ever be doing. If you had told me back at the end of my high school years, as I was receiving the coveted "John Philip Sousa Award," I would not have believed you. Yet, I was asked, with no coersion on my part, to play band director for a morning for the two junior high and one high school band. I had the power, not the ear, but the power none the less. It was interesting being up on the conductors podium listening to the WHOLE band, something I had never done as a member. It was amazing the things you could hear. They would drag in spots or play the wrong thing and I could acutually pick it out. I even had the lingo of a band director, talking about breathing properly, warming up the instrument, watching the conductor. I even tried my hand at imagery to help the kids better picture what they were doing, or should be doing. I had a ball and think the kids may have learned something...there is an off chance that I was able to teach them something. The last thing that surprised me was that my nerves were calm overall will a slight sense of nervousness even once in a while. I guess the next venue for me to conduct in is Carnegie Hall.
I had only one item of my weekend in College Station "set in stone" as they say. I was going to the 100th year celebration gala for St. Mary's Catholic Center. The place that deepened my faith and further opened my ears to God's call. I also had the esteemed pleasure of digging through the archives earlier this year to research St. Mary's rich history for an American Catholicism history paper. It was an enjoyable and educational 6 hours of digging. I was happy this weekend to be attending the gala in celebration of a place that had given me so much. An added bonus would be to see a "sister" of mine that I hadn't seen in almost the 5 years since I graduated, especially since she join the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia (a.k.a the Nashville Dominicans since that is where the mother house is). The evening turned out to be very enjoyable as the great Msgr. Elmer (the first resident priest), a married couple, and Sis. Mary Rebecca (known previously as Grace) each gave a talk of their perception of St. Mary's and what it has meant to them.
The second thing I wanted to do was attend the game, but was unsure of how I was going to do it. I didn't have a ticket. However, like they say, trust in the Lord and he will provide. Low and behold, Saturday morning as Troy, Blaise, and I were returning from bike riding (the same trail as last time) my friend's parents called me to inform me of an extra ticket. The conversation went something like this...
"Howdy!" "Hello, Michael? This is Janet Piwonka. I don't know where you are right now, but we will have an extra ticket to the A&M game tonight." (At first, I was thinking she was going to say that the ticket was for the show in Houston, because I have been to the theater with them before. When she said A&M game, my heart leaped for joy. I WAS GOING TO THE GAME!) "As a matter of fact Mrs. Piwonka, I am in College Station as we speak, and would love to go to the game. I had actually hoped to."...
For those that didn't see the game on the channel famous for its football coverage, TBS, it was AWESOME. It was a great win for the Aggies and the defense is looking more like Wrecking Crew material, but will have to prove themselves further before I start calling them the Wrecking Crew again. The team looked good and we will see how they looked when the conference games start up, minus the Baylor game for obvious reasons.
P.S. If you want to see the promised pictures of my trip to College Station at the end of my CPE, the pictures are now posted with the story. Monday, 23 August.
I arrived on Saturday to the rectory where the faucets plentifully run with Shiner beer. I geared up for my introduction to the parish at all the Masses (three) this weekend and prepared myself for the expected comments, "You look like Fr. Bryan," of which I got many. The famous Sts. Cyril & Methodius Picnic (a.k.a. The Shiner Picnic) went well and I enjoyed myself receiving many SPIRIT-ual gifts of different types.
Today I woke up to an accidental "Razz-the-New-Guy Day" for 6:30am Mass, which on holidays such as Labor Day (today) and Memorial Day isn't until 8am. Today, my pastor left for his parents up in Fort Worth leaving me to the whole rectory. I decided to wash the species of bug that I am helping to annihilate with my truck...the Love-Bugs that like to hang out over the country highways of Texas. The one car wash in town was hiding from me so my next course of action was to travel the 18 miles to the next town (Gonzalez) for Wal-Mart and possible better luck finding a car wash. Just as I was setting out for Gonzalez, a police car started following me. Since I was doing nothing wrong, I stayed the course until Mr. Policeman settled on officially welcoming me to Shiner.
We had a good conversation, during which he reminded me of how country folk aren't really much in a hurry and that I was no longer in the rat-race we call Houston...and thankfully so. After he was done greeting me to this nice little farming/ranching community, he sent me on my way with many blessings. It was only after this event did I feel fully welcomed to the town.
Today, Tuesday, I move my stuff up to Shiner. If you notice it is a day early. There was a big mix up that confused me and I thought today was tomorrow and pack my truck up and drove to Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church in Shiner. It wasn't until Yoakum, 1.5 hours away from Palacios and 10 minutes from Shiner. Not about to turn around and drive all the way home to make the same trip in less than 24 hours, I continued on to the parish to move in and get acquainted with some of the parish staff. I guess I, subconsciously wanted some time alone to rest. I don't know.
FRIDAY WAS MY LAST DAY OF CPE! Can you tell I am a little excited? Right after the appreciation lunch, Michael Earthman and I set out for the long trip to College Station, arriving there at 9:30 pm with one stop for gas along the way. We both were ready to get back down south for good and wet our gills in the humid air. This weekend was planned to be a relaxing weekend with my nephew...oh, and Troy and Shannon. 
Blaise remembered me from the trip down here the previous week and immediately became my shadow. I couldn't go anywhere without Blaise right there. He also wanted to be like his Parrain, so he wanted to do everything I did even lying on the pillow in the living room. I was his new play buddy. He had worn out the old models...not that the old models are old as in age but the ones that he has had longer. :-) It was a great weekend, where I showed Blaise some great things like how to clean the table after dinner. We (Blaise, Troy, and I) even went on a trail south of town on bikes. The weekend was great but ended to quick. Today I will be driving home and getting ready to move some of my stuff on Wednesday to Shiner, where I will be for the next year in the parish.
cheeky
I just wanted to share a fortune I got at a Chinese restaurant earlier this summer but had forgotten about. I was cleaning up my room and packing, on the eve of my departure home after a grueling summer...yeah, whatever...and this fortune surfaced and I remembered how apropos it is to my philosophy of life. So I will share it with you.
The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come again.
Last night had an interesting experience walking the halls going to a visit on the other side of the hospital. It all started when I was suddenly stirred from watching my movie by the phone ringing at 11:30pm. I don't think I was dozing. The primary chaplain on call needed me to go check on a patient. I quickly sprang into action at a moderate pace got dressed and headed down the elevator you walk across the hospital on the 2nd floor to the elevators for the East and South Towers. I get to the 2nd floor and begin making the football length trek to the other elevators down an empty hallway, which is surprising because normally there are people in and around the SICU waiting room (see Thurs. July 29). I think this is weird, but it wasn't until I saw a wheelchair sitting in the middle of the hall that I began to remember a similar scene in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. My thought went something like this: "Isn't that weird, but I am awake so it can't be Freddie...but in the movie the people think they are awake but they aren't." At this moment a chill ran down my spine and the nest of hair on the back of my neck struggled to stand on end. I began to quicken my pace hoping to find anybody, a nurse, a lost visitor, a hobo...anybody. I could suppress the urge to continually look over my shoulder as I was frightened a man with a blade glove maybe standing at the end of the hallway following me. Luckily, I wasn't sleeping and Freddie is just in the movies. I made it to the floor and saw the patient without incident. I am just overjoyed that I didn't see a little girl jumping rope singing "1,2 Freddie's coming for you. 3,4 better lock the door. 5,6 get your crucifix. 7,8 better stay up late. 9,10 never sleep again." I would have freaked had this happened. (I bet you can't believe I actually remember that song from Nightmare 1.)
This weekend I was virtually homeless...well okay for Friday night, anyway, I went and saw two movies that had just come out and still had no home to go to. The bishop was throwing a party that I was not invited to, well truth be known, it was actually a dinner at the bishop's that he auctioned off. I decided to make myself scarce for the evening...but I digress. Anyway after the movies and going by to see that the dinner hadn't broken up yet, I decided to just drive and let the spirit guide me.--I know you are probably freaking that I would do something like this with the gas prices as they are, but I don't wanna hear it.--I ended up on a fast highway headed out of Lubbock. I figured hey let's see where this goes. I found a hidden treasure of Lubbock that I hadn't seen or heard of all summer. Down the highway just past the TDCJ prison was a place of entertainment called the Bunny Run/Bunny Ranch. I will let you figure out what kind of place it was, but this was not the treasure. The treasure was just past that down a Farm to Market road. I happened upon a canyon/lake park, but being that it was late and I didn't want to pay money to look at darkness I decided to come back when the sun was up. Sunday came and I decided to make my way back out to the Bunny Run...I mean the canyon/lake park. I used my southern charm on the cute young booth attendant to get in free under the guise of just looking around. Once in, I let the spirit guide me around just for a quick look, to see if it was worth come back with friends and paying. As I drove in, my jaw dropped and I wondered why I hadn't heard about or seen this place before. It was beautiful. There was a lake dammed up within this canyon with two beach/swim areas that I found and plenty of picnicking areas.--I know mom, you would have gone absolute bonkers with a picnic.--Luckily I had my digital camera so that I could take some pictures of the people of Lubbock's response to the city wide declaration that Lubbock was dry. The city may be dry of sellers, but they just line up on the outskirts like Vegas call girls flashing their signs of liquor sales enticing anybody and everybody in for a taste. But I digress again...The scenery was beautiful and the water was so inviting that I almost went home and got my swimming trunks to swim, but decided not to. Here is a picture of one of the views from the other side of the lake.
After this breathtaking drive around the canyon/lake park where I did a little off-roading on some dirt roads, I made my way on a Sunday afternoon carefree drive and ended up on the Texas Tech campus. I thought I would include a picture of a sign that gives the indication that soccer at Tech is the red-headed step child. I will let you figure out why.
