surplice & 1937 Cadillacs
While it was happening the thought in my mind was that always before it was an anxiety dream, but this time it was real. The bishop had asked me to preach at a special diocesan gathering at the cathedral on Christmas Eve, all the clergy and a packed congregation in the nave. My sermon notes were laid on the pulpit table waiting. I'm going to omit all the many details and cut to the point.
During the sequence hymn I realized that I was dressed in suit, black shirt, clergy collar and coronation stole, but not vested. Realizing that as the gospel procession headed down the aisle I had time to go to the vesting room, change into cassock and long white thing (not cotta, wth is it called?), get back into the church and be in the pulpit as the gospel reading was finished and gospel procession headed back up to the sanctuary. I stood up, but was seated behind the Christmas tree, which I bumped and it tipped over and fell crashing to the floor, ornaments scattering widely. The sequence hymn paused and I tried jokingly to blame it on Father Hood seated next to me as acolytes scrambled to right the tree, gather up ornaments, and put them back on the tree, the crowded congregation watching and waiting. As the sequence hymn resumed from mid-verse, I slipped out the side door hoping the bishop wouldn't notice I was leaving.
As I walked into the outside it turned out that the vesting room was in a different building some blocks away. When I got there I saw that my black cassock was tangled up in cords and wires, mostly from the microphone transmitter, so I had to untangle that mess. I considered putting on the white vestment that I call my "sheet" instead, but decided not, because it's a dual alb and chasuble and I was not the celebrant, the bishop was, so I finished untangling the wires from my black cassock and put it on. Deciding to start my sermon by saying that it really had been Father Hood's fault the Christmas tree falling over, I reached for my white surplice, finding that it was so tangled up in its coathanger that I couldn't separate them, so I just put it on with the coathanger sticking out the back of my neck, put the coronation stole back on, and headed back for the church. As I neared the church I saw that the congregation was filing out, assumed this was for an intermission, asked someone, who said that no, the service was over and that the bishop seemed upset that I wasn't there to preach my sermon. Again the thought, that every time before this had been an anxiety dream but this time it was really happening.
Going back inside the church I stepped into the pulpit to preach my sermon anyway, when someone came up and told me the bishop wanted to see me in his office right away, so I headed that way, coathanger sticking out of the back of my surplice as it occurred to me that it was like the drapery hardware in the long green curtain Carol Burnett wore in the "Gone With The Wind" skit and, when complimented on her gown had said, "It's just something I saw in a window," sermon notes in hand, cursing that it was real this time and not a dream.
When I awoke it was five o'clock, Father Nature jumping up and down on my bladder. My first thought: OMG it WAS a dream after all, thank God.
Still raining lightly, water on the porch floor and rail. Navy diver tenders heading out for another day at sea. They'll be back well in time for Happy Hour. Bit later two
dredging rigs
passing 7H heading east.
Linda's schedule today: make chili for supper at church this evening.
Yesterday a friend send me a link to a WSJ article about a magnificent machine built on a 1937 Cadillac chassis
such that the only positive ID was the front grill, a true 1937 Cadillac grill
with the V-16 emblem right of center.
It so intrigued me that I rounded up a passel of regular manufacture cars of that year,
make
and
model,
to compare. The custom coachwork design was somewhat typical of the "futuristic" cars
that custom shops were turning out in that day. The synopsis below (scroll down) tells a bit about this particular car and one other customization of the 1937 Cadillac V-16 chassis. Depression era, Cadillac nevertheless offered a wide range long list of cars and body styles with V8, V12, and V16 engines. That was also about when they shifted the V16 from flat head to OHV, two straight eight engines set at an angle, turning the same driveshaft.
Today my ambition for my next life is to be either a tugboat captain plying the Florida intracoastal waterway or a wealthy playboy.
Wealthy young playboys die, but their custom Cadillac convertibles live after them. So let it be with Phillippe.
T