Catholic and Enjoying It!
April 17: Arrived Newark on Alaska Flight 8 at 4:25 PM bearing two extremely heavy bags and one light one. Erin Raymond, a wonderful Army wife and mom (and human dynamo of organization) I met some years back when she invited me out to Leavenworth to speak there promises to meet me at the Newark airport and whisk me away in a chariot of fire to a magical far off land called “West Point”, where lembas and elvish wine will give me heart and joy to face what follows. Traffic turns out to be terrible and I, being a barbarian, have no phone except for skype on my computer.
I wander up and down the sidewalk keeping a look out while pushing a cart with my luggage on it. As I pass a line of people I hear somebody say, “That’s Mark Shea!” I don’t have that happen, like, ever when I travel, so it catches my ear and I turn to the sound of my name. Turns out it’s reader Steve Schloeder and his wife who are fixing to catch a cab somewhere. We shake hands and then he whips out his phone and we do the selfie. Very strange experience to be recognized in Newark. We chat for a bit and I walk on.
An hour passes. So I phone Erin on skype and it turns out she’s nearly there. A few minutes later she arrives and we head off north along the Hudson. I’m sort of surprised at how the land between Jersey and the Manhattan skyline off to the east reminds me of the Dead Marshes. I half expect to look down in to the swampy muck next to the freeway and shout, “There are faces! Dead faces in the water!”
Eventually we get up into nicer, woodsier country about an hour north and near West Point. I never had a mental picture of West Point. I sort of figured it would be more urban somehow. Turns out it is out in the country of gray granite and beautiful northeast deciduous forest (currently all brown but just now touched with new green that is stitched like quilt all across new England). It is a much lighter sort of forest than the brooding dark evergreens of home, yet at the same time, you can completely believe that an H.P. Lovecraft could find eldritch horror out there on a windy New England sort of night.
Eldritch Horror Not Being Seen Picnicking in New York Wood
Once through the gate and into Chez Raymond, conversation fills the evening. I meet Dave, Erin’s husband, who is a Lieutenant Colonel and an expert in cyber-warfare, as well as her kidlets Lucas and Ainsley, who are both great. Ainsley is busy finishing up prep for tomorrow’s base-wide yard sale, where she and her friend are going to make a serious capitalist killing selling cookies and muffins to passers-by.
The Swiss Family Raymond
I’m pretty beat, so I hit the hay about 9 and immediately fall asleep–for three hours. My eyes spring open at midnight and the pain in my neck and head tell me I won’t get to sleep for a good while, so I take a pain pill and sit around for four hours waiting to get sleepy. Fun.
I finally get back to sleep at 4AM and am rousted out of bed at 7 by Erin. First stop: off to pray (7:30 AM) at a cadet retreat and then speak to some 20 something troops about Making Senses out of Scripture at 08:30 hours, for one hour (including Q and A). Strong men and women weep at newfound knowledge. Our nation is made safer by troops who now can handle spiritual as well as physical armor and weaponry. Children sleep in security and contentment. I feel… good.
After that, we head home for a few hours (chatting merrily the whole time cuz Erin is a house afire with tales and stories of military and family life, as well as abundant involvement in all kinds of Catholic apostolates and good work). Among other things, I discover that a turretted house on yonder hill across the Hudson from West Point was built by the guy who did the design for The Wizard of Oz and modeled after the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle. Also, the Flying Monkeys jackets were modeled after the West Point cadet jackets. You’re welcome!
After a bit of lunch and some scribbling here and there, we depart again for a little tour of West Point (where one motto of the school the students often hear is “The history we study was made by the ones who went here”: pretty catchy). West Point was originally part of a series of gun emplacements built to rain fire on British ships attempting to penetrate the colonial interior via the Hudson during the Revolution. It was decided to turn it into a military academy in 1802 under the rather sensible belief that the better educated a soldier was in all fields, the better soldier he will be. We wandered the grounds, saw the gigantic mess hall (which the children call “Hogwarts”), visited the various statues of famous grads (Eisenhower, Patton, MacArthur), and wandered the graveyard where Custer, Ed White (first to walk in space and killed on Apollo 1) and, curiously, the woman who wrote “Jesus Loves Me” are buried (she and her sister used to teach Bible to the students).
George Patton Reading Magnificent Son of a Bitch Erwin Rommel’s Book
Source: Wikipedia
Finally, it was time to go to evening Mass, after which I spoke about Mary, Mother of the Son. Thirst for knowledge aroused but not fully sated, the crowd rushes to the book table and lightens my luggage burden while simultaneously rewarding me with money with which I can purchase food for my children: an equitable exchange. Then back to the house and sweet sleep.
Next morning Erin whisks me away to a curious underground bunker where Sunday school happens, secure from nuclear attack on our sacred coffee and donuts (all of West Point is built out of the granite on which it sits. I speak on This is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers the Real Presence.
After this comes the Trip to the Big City! New York! The Big Apple! The City that Never Sleeps! I figure, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere!” We take the train from Croton-on-Hudson (one of many massively English names in that region. I resent not being able to tell people I was born in “Everett-on-Snohomish”) to Grand Central Station.
Grand Central, it turns out is really really big. I would have been utterly lost and never even made it out on to 42nd St. had not Erin been there to provide solace and guidance. Here is what it looks like (nicely recovered from all the damage wrought by the X Men):
True fact: GCS was almost torn down by some philistines but Jackie Kennedy, whose sense of taste and style no man can deny, led a campaign to save it, thanks be to God.
Our first task was to meet reader Antigon, a long time New Yorker who wanted to get together. He is a colorful character with a bald head and a cochlear implant which made him easy to spot. He immediately regaled us with the news that 10 minutes before our arrival he had LOUDLY heckled Sen Chuck Schumer, who was giving some sort of press conference there at GCS just before we arrived. Cops converged, issued threats, and let him go. He was very pleased, in the grand New York civic tradition, of his having given a politician hell (in this case for his saber rattling at Iran). I’d never met Antigon before, but somehow I had a sense that I should have known something like that was on cards.
Anyway, we found our way out of the station and on to 42nd St., then made our way north to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is gorgeous, at least outside. Inside, it was tons of scaffolding because there is some big renovation going on. It reminded me a lot of Yorkminster. It’s a strange place because it is a functioning parish as well as a huge tourism site. So Mass was being said for the people in the pews while we hundreds of gawkers wandered around taking pictures and yakking. One of those situations where half the people bless themselves with Holy Water while the other half mistake it for some kind of courtesy coolant to rub on your warm brow.
Eventually we wandered back out and grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor–a classic NY bucket list item. Somebody asked me how it tasted. I said, “Like a hot dog. But like a hot dog wrapped in New York City.” We then strolled past Rockefeller Plaza, aka “30 Rock” (about which you can learn everything you need to know from this educational video):
Extra bonus: Radio City Music Hall is across the street.
Then we marched up Broadway to Columbus Circle (named for the statue of Christopher Columbus, director of “The Goonies”) and into Central Park, where the only non-human, non-pet organisms in New York are allowed to live. It was a beautiful spring day and you could barely restrain yourself from whistling “The 59th Street Bridge Song” as you crossed 59th Street into the park. What’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song” you younglings ask? Permit an aging Boomer to temporarily indulge in grooviness:
Alas, we could not stay in Central Park long so we headed down 7th past Carnegie Hall and into Times Square. Antigon regaled me with stories of what a cesspool the place used to be, and how it got cleaned up by Guiliani (whom he grudgingly praised for it). Saw the Big New Year’s Eve Ball and, of course, all the glitzy ads for all the Broadway shows, none of which I could ever dream of affording to see. But it’s nice to know Broadway is still there doing its thing.
I was disappointed that in my whole time there, I had seen neither Spiderman, the Daily Bugle building, the Daily Planet, Superman, nor Batman, not to mention a stunning paucity of giant monsters crawling out of the East River or horrible creatures chucking the head of the Statue of Liberty into Midtown to terrify Generation Tumblr like so:
I didn’t even see Daredevil (which is fair, I suppose, since he wouldn’t have seen me either).
So finally, in my pain and disappointment, I begged to at least be able to visit the scene of the assassination of King Kong. Accordingly, we trooped down 7th to 34th Street and looking left and very high up, was afforded a lovely view of the Empire State Building, now nicely recovered from the damage wrought by the Eighth Wonder of the World. We mosied east a block or so (passing Macy’s along the way if memory serves) and sat down in Herald Square for a quarter hour or so, being quite footsore. Throughout the day, Antigon had been a fine guide to The City, holding forth on architecture, politics, the pro-life movement, the Cathedral, Athanasius, Pope Francis, the Council, Mario Cuomo, and how he wooed his bride, among many other topics. We held our own too and had a delightful time all told. But sadly, the hour to catch the train back north approached and we finally had to part. I have a standing offer for a visit to a six floor walk up in Greenwich Village with a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline if ever I make it back out. Salud, Antigon!
He then headed off for a southbound subway and we trooped toward Grand Central (and, mirabile dictu) past one of the sights that captivated my imagination as a kid: the giant stone lions in front of the New York Public Library. My Not Very Inner Book Nerd thrilled. Plus, as a bonus, we turned a corner (I couldn’t tell you where) and there was the Chrysler Building, beautifully repaired after the terrible damage it sustained from the unfortunate Godzilla incident back in the 90s.
We headed home on the train via Harlem, Yonkers (scene of the tragic defeat of our Armed Forces in the novel World War Z) and finally to Croton-on-Hudson and West Point, tired but happy. My only regret is that I did not have the chance to stand in the middle of Times Square with my arms out and my smiling face upturned while swelling music proclaimed through the voice of Michael Buble that I could own this town if I just follow my heart and work hard.
But you can’t have everything, y’know?
That evening, we again head for the parish, where I speak about “Salvation: Participation in the Divine Nature” at 7ish. More exchange of books/cds/DVD and money occurs, making my luggage still more manageable as two bags with one small bag inside a big one. This done, we headed home for a good night’s sleep.
Next day, Monday, April 20, we decided to observe Hitler’s birthday by visiting the birthplace of one of the architects of his well-earned destruction: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We drove up the Hudson to Hyde Park, FDR’s birthplace and lifelong home. It absolutely poured the whole time we were there, making me really happy we’d done Manhattan the day before. Speaking of Manhattan, I peeked in the little side office where FDR made the decision to authorize the Manattan Project. The tour was fun and interesting, though I knew much of the info from having seen the PBS show on the Roosevelts last fall. But you get a better sense of the people when you see the places that they loved and that formed them. Paid my respects at the graves of Franklin and Eleanor out in the Rose Garden and reflected on the curious irony of the Providence of God picking a man with polio (who would have been gassed by the Third Reich) to bring down Der Fuehrer. I also grew in respect, yet again, for Eleanor, who overcame an awful lot of suffering and refused to be destroyed by it but instead did her best to spend herself for other people. She represents the best of our monied class’ now defunct sense of noblesse oblige. God save us from a future of predatory and parasitic Trumps, Kochs, Hiltons and Kardashians.
After this, it was off to lunch at the CIA. No, not that CIA, the other CIA: the Culinary Institute of America. This is where people go to become Chefs of Awesomeness, so even the most ordinary-sounding meal is oolala. Ordered what turned out to be one of the greatest chicken sandwiches of my life. I don’t remember most of my meals but I will remember that one. Yum!
Finally, it was time to go. Erin took me to Harriman (about an hour north of Seacaucus), we bid each other a fond farewell, and I boarded the train for Bloomfield, NJ (not to be confused with Cloverfield where the bodies of the victims of the Statue of Liberty-destroying Monster were found). There I was met by none other than Tom McDonald, Patheos’ tallest Catholic blogger.
Lugging still-extremely-heavy luggage to his car, we then sped through the streets of this New Jersey town to the home of Steven Greydanus, Film Critic Extraordinaire and old pal, whose wife and family I finally got to meet. Much gripping and grinning for the camera ensued:
Epic Tie, Decent Films T, Gross Sweaty Traveling Shirt: Our Super-Hero Aliases
We then sat down for a sumptuous repast of various Italian yummableness followed by another whisking away–this time to St. John’s in Orange, where I harangued defenseless people on “101 Reasons not to be Catholic”.
“My point, and I do have one, will come to me soon….”
Meanwhile, a Greydanusling Demonstrates the Wisdom of the Children by Scrawling on my Face
More book sales, helpfully reducing my baggage load to less than half its original weight. After that, the Greydani and I bid a fond farewell to Tom McDonald, my old pal Lou Nunez, reader Lori Pieper (who had come to hear the talk) and head back to Rancho del Greydani for drinks and noshing and brief bed.
April 21: Up at the ungodly hour of 5AM to get to Newark International for a 5:30 check-in for my 7AM flight. After five uneventful hours punctuated only by chatting with a nice young lady whose husband is trying to make a go as a vintner out in the Palouse near Walla Walla, I’m back to Seatac and the bosom of my loved ones, there to resume my Hobbitesque existence and compose my There and Back memoirs, which you have just read.
Thanks to all my kind hosts, shepherds, and traveling companions! Hope to see you all again one day. And if you are ever in Seattle, please look me up. I will take you to all the big pilgrimage sites: the Cathedral, Blessed Sacrament parish, Starbuck’s #1, the Science Fiction Museum…
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