Sunday, November 22. The Whole 22. Homecoming. On this date, often part of our retreat, Father Hacker Fagot always used to mention the anniversary of the murder of John F. Kennedy, and the birthday of Father Joe Bogue. I'll never forget either one. Father Bogue gave the first retreat I ever attended, when I was a student at Jesuit High School. Meanwhile, Father Fagot--who I always liked talking with in private sessions--has retired. He's due: he's been a Jesuit for sixty-five years. (He also co-authored a cookbook!) Father Edward Romagosa, another longtime retreat master, died in his eighties in April. Not a single one of Manresa's Jesuits was here last year. First time that ever happened to me. Time keeps tearing everything down.
On the other hand, it's not raining, even though it's still overcast. Too wet to take the walks back in the woods as I ordinarily would. I sat around thinking all morning, in a mellow mood, if not a joyous one of the kind I've felt here often in the past. We attended Mass (I in jacket and my stained-glass tie), the silence ended, we ate our lunch of roast chicken and dirty rice, and by two in the afternoon we dispersed back into the real world.
I always drive west upon leaving Manresa. During the many years when nobody was waiting for me at home, I'd stay on the River Road all the way to Baton Rouge. Now I go only about ten miles, past the plantations and the nasty-looking refineries between them, to where LA 22 begins at the river. Its other end is at Causeway Boulevard in Mandeville. It's not the most direct path home, but it's a nice one, winding along the bayous west of Lake Maurepas and along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. And then, suddenly, I emerge in my everyday world. Highway 22? Today is the twenty-second, isn't it? How perfect.
At home, nobody wanted to go out to dinner. We ate nothing at home, either. The Marys said they ate enough wherever they went for lunch. And Mary Ann had another obsession. She was working on refinishing the floors in the kitchen and living room when I left, and she's still at it. I feel as if we ought to talk, but I don't know what to say. So we will fall into the approach to Thanksgiving.
