Father Charles Latus presides over the first Wedding Mass celebrated at the new opened St. Catherine’s Church in the hamlet of Mendon, NY on September 28, 1991.
My father and brother erected the family estate with their own hands. After a long search my parents found a perfect parcel on which to build. While I toiled away deskbound in some distant cubicle, the other men in the family conveyed materials in a beat-up Ford pick-up to the site. Reminiscent of “Carosa and Son” (the masonry business started by my grandfather with my father riding shotgun), the two constructed a home of their dreams.
Oddly, it wasn’t their dream home. That would come decades later.
Coincidentally, they located both homes in the Town of Mendon. The first was the ideal family home. The second was the ideal home for retirement.
That first home was more than the “ideal” family home, it was the last home that housed the entire family – Mother, Father, two adult sons, a high school daughter and an elementary school daughter. We were all there. Until the company my father worked for decided to shut down the Rochester office and transfer him to Albany.
But that’s another story. This is a story about melding into a community.
We quickly adopted Mendon as our home. There are three things that make a community a Continue Reading “Remembering Father Latus”
I’ve Seen My Lifetime Disintegrate Before My Eyes
Do you have a recurring dream that you just can’t understand? No, I’m not talking about the one where you realize the final exam is today and you haven’t cracked open the textbook. Nor am I talking about the one where the giant ape is slowly chasing you, but try as you might, you just can’t run.
Those are typical anxiety dreams. They have nothing to do with final exams or giant apes. They’re more likely related to something in your daily life (usually work or some other stress-inducing environment).
Here’s the kind of dream I’m talking about: it involves a familiar landscape, maybe current, maybe from your past. It’s “familiar” in the sense that it evokes the real thing except it’sContinue Reading “I’ve Seen My Lifetime Disintegrate Before My Eyes”