RIP Bishop Morlino

I completely forgot to mention that on Friday Travalon and I went out to the Shoe Box in Black Earth because way back in August we had gone to the Mallards playoff game, and someone handed him a gift certificate for Wolverine boots from there. Now the guy who owns the Mallards also owns the Shoe Box (and has partial ownership of several other Northwoods League teams), so I wasn’t surprised that he would give out gift certificates to his own store at the game. What did surprise me was that he was working at the store, on a holiday weekend, and he even waited on Travalon! This guy must be a millionaire, but here he was putting boots on Travalon’s feet. Usually I notice these things, but Travalon pointed out something later that I hadn’t noticed at the time – he was wearing his Mallards hat. No wonder he got such great service! Plus very nice free boots.

Another thing I forgot to mention was that our bishop died on Saturday. Was it unexpected? That is a hard question to answer; he had been suffering from heart problems for years, and the way I understand it, he went in on Wednesday to have a heart function test, and then during the test he had an actual heart attack and never regained consciousness. Some people I know are devastated, and some are gloating, but I have mixed feelings. He was an orthodox bishop in many ways, but he seemed way too enamored of one particular political party for my taste. Our salvation comes from Jesus Christ, not the Republican Party. Also, I tend to have more leftist views, and it might surprise some of my Catholic readers to learn where I got them: from the Franciscan ssisters who taught me in the early grades. They got me to see that I need to think of those who have less than I do, no mean feat when children in general are selfish and I was especially oblivious to the needs of others. But by the end of first grade, I used to get a glass of water to drink and then pour half of it back down the sink, not realizing that was wasteful, because I believed I should pass half on to someone further down the line. So it was because of Catholics that I care about the poor and the oppressed workers, and so it always seems odd to me that so many Catholics seem to consider those concerns too “liberal” for their taste.

Famous Hat