As I was trolling the cybersphere, I stumbled onto the antibloggies awards. Seems this is a series of awards for the worst weblogs; there's a number of categories — worst written, most redesigns, etc. The category which caught my eye was "most unfinished projects." Considering the status of the second half of that Bud Welch essay, or the essays for the April 19 side site, or my epic poem on the Challenger tragedy, or ... well, you get the idea. Think I could be a contender.

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Fr. Pat and I have a nice ritual we go through each Sunday. Each time as I pass him, Pat makes some gesture to acknowledge me. This past Sunday, he made the peace sign. Last Sunday, we exchanged an oriental-style bow.

Fr. Pat has been retired from the active priesthood for several years. To my mind, his claim to fame is in founding a local crisis line back in the early 70s. My father went through one of the early trainings, and as I recall he and Fr. Pat were on good terms. I got to know Pat several years later, when he served as interim priest at the mission church I was attending at the time. We got to be pretty good friends at the time. And we have maintained a sporadic e-mail correspondence the past several years.

Pat is the roughly the same generation as my dad. Pat actually landed with the troups on D-Day. Padre was not able to enlist until shortly before V-J day, which may have been a disappointment to him. Pat & my dad also share politics — which is to say, very liberal. One thing that is currently troubling to Pat is the impression that our nation is becoming the type of tyranny he fought against in WWII. I have no doubt that dad would have similar mis-givings.

So, there are ways in which Pat is sort of a surrogate father for me, in ways beyond the sense most priests are. I am pleased to call him friend.