Times & Places

Although searching online I cannot find the title, in my professional library remnants - - in 1998 before leaving Apalachicola I got rid of two-thirds of it, with half the remaining third to PC home the Old Place and half packed away and eventually to church office at Holy Nativity, then 2014 in process of moving from the Old Place to 7H gave another third to the public library and another third to the parish library and brought another third here to 7H - - there is a volume I was given by a university professor friend and parishioner sometime between 1985 and 1990 that I read and value and still consult from Time to Time, that I thought I "knew" (but evidently only "assumed" because it didn't google for me this morning) was titled "Places of the Heart" (not the 2015 book by Colin Ellard). It isn't here in the tiny remnant at 7H and I wouldn't have tossed it, so in Time I'll go through boxes of the remnant in my once shattered and now restored office at HNEC. The title itself has been meaningful to me over my years here in Time, especially looking back on my various seasons - - perhaps better titled "Places & Times of the Heart" and they go back too far and are too many to typologize now and here. As well as the fact, to be perfectly frank and earnest, that some are none of your business and will later, in somebody else's Time, be spread upon the sea.

Of almost nothing am I certain, but one I am certain of is that one of them is Apalachicola, with Trinity Church, and the Rectory, and Owl Cafe, and Dixie Theater, and The Station, and Up The Creek Raw Bar, a screen porch looking out on Scipio Creek and across beyond the Apalachicola River to Magnolia Bluff of EastPoint, and most everything about the town itself. Went there yesterday, every Time is back in Time, because at this age my heart owns as many Times to recall as Places to go.

In Trinity Church, a place of my heart, with my farthest back Navy buddy 1971-1974 (although Ron 1963-66 is still in California and Gary in Nebraska). I made commander and bolted at twenty; Norm made captain and stayed half as much longer. When I CDR knew him LCDR, I temporarily outranked him; now he CAPT outranks me still CDR permanently. We always have things to talk about.

But there were surprises yesterday. One, a

brick in Trinity's memorial path remembering Fred, whose mother was the dearest of friends and encouragers our years there, and whose funeral homily I'd returned to Trinity and preached only months before the date on Fred's brick. Not until yesterday did I know Fred had died. https://www.apalachtimes.com/news/20181116/fred-robinson?rssfeed=true

The other, when Fr Dudley formerly of StJohn's Episcopal, Tallahassee then of StPeter's "Anglican" Tallahassee resigned in relative disgrace, I thought he obviously had been involved with female staff, not an unheard of clergy failing. As it turns out, I was dead wrong about that but once again dead right about clergy who preach so vehemently and viciously against homosexuality: pathetically fighting with themselves to stay in the closet and not realizing that it is their own words of hate that Out them. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2019/11/26/eric-dudley-st-peters-founder-subjected-men-sexual-misconduct/4290537002/ Sad about this, I saw he had a demon when he left the church, but I thought it was standard XnRt Certainty. It was a condition known, as this morning I found out, as Internalized Homophobia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2678796/ Sadly, society's reaction in publicizing, scandalizing and shaming this, cannot but do harm to and within the gay community.

Last evening Linda baked three pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, too many pies to take out to Breakfast Point, a new Place & Time for family Thanksgiving Dinner. So, one pie I was allowed to cut this morning, a slice for breakfast. Black coffee and pumpkin pie and I'm going back for another slice, back in Hobbiton we call it Second Breakfast. As for tomorrow, another pumpkin pie, The TGiving Dinner Essential. What else is there? Squash casserole. German's chocolate cake. Lane cake that is liquored up too heavy to lift and that Jennifer said won't be ripe until Thursday. Oyster dressing. Oh, and turkey. 

RSF&PTL 

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