At Last

Rain In The Afternoon is ready to print! It has a gray cloth hard cover and a beautiful dust jacket. Just wait till you see it.

The sun has emerged and the snow has begun to melt. It's MARCH:

Another March, ambivalent,
Winter, summer, sun or wind,
Rain or snow.
Just six of one
Or of the other,
Never really warming, never freezing cold,
Like the Marches of our lives,
Never merely child nor fully grown.
Life's so easy in October
When we know what's coming next.

What a Wnter Olympics

I was held in awe as I watched the final game. One was impressed, I think that the Cannadien were a slightly better team. Still I pulled for the American guys to come through. But alas, it's their game. They invented it--well, actually, it was Brittish sailors stranded for the winter in Nova Scota that invented it and played with a ball rather than a puck. The college kids in Montreal took up the game, and gradually a puck replaced the ball. It was a while before professionals took over the game that today we share with our friends to the north.

And aren't they friends! I'm so fond of them. They're honest, trustworthy and peaceful. They are also very good at winter sports--14 gold medals--the most gold for the games. Good for them.

Our folks did very well too, a source of pride, a good feeling. There's still something about the Star Spangled Banner that sends me. Makes me forget the cabbage heads in Washington for whom the Insurance industry money is more important than the people who are going to suffer and die for lack of health coverage. They're mostly poor, they don't vote for them. Who the hell cares! There's trial lawyers' money too, but nobody's going to die on account of it.

Republicans say that we have the best healthcare in the world--out of touch, maybe--we are number 37 just ahead of CUBA and just behind Costa Rica. Our system costs the most, but it's the results that count. At least the GOP has given up tax cuts for the unemployed as a solution to healthcare.

Rain In The Afternoon is getting a dust cover as we speak.

At Last!

RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON only needs a cover, and we're raring to go. Wendy will design a dust jacket, and I've given her some suggestions about that. Then all systems should be GO!

Feedback

Bill Crotty from the St. Louis area called to ask where I did my research for THE FERRY TO AMERICA. Dr. Hal Sadin called from Washington. Mr. Sadin in the story is based on Hal. He said he didn't mind that his character wasn't called Doctor, but he hated the idea that he never got any sex. Great feedback from readers.

A word from Thomas Merton

Thanks to son Kevin, a word from Thomas Merton.
"The ultimate perfection of the contemplative life is not a heaven of separate individuals, each one viewing his own private intuition of God; it is a sea of love which flows through the One Body of all the elect, all the angels and saints, and their contemplation would be incomplete if it were not shared, or if it were shared with fewer souls, or with spirits capable of less vision and less joy."

I'm reminded that I've failed to write my Cistercian friend, Padre Lorenzo. I had wanted to discuss Cluny, France with him, but now it's too late. Lent is upon us. I'll have to wait for Easter when he will be able to receive mail again.

No word about RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON yet. It's like waiting for a baby to arrive!

Catching Up

As promised: "My clock has parts left over
And I don't know where they go,
But it never ticks and it seldome tocks,
And it's running kind of slow...

I'm reading THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Can't put it down. (Experienced little difficulty putting DAEMON by a guy named Suarez--I think--down) Feeling misery from our 10-20 degree weather, the DRAGON TATTOO story is set in Sweeden where it's 45 below. The protagonist is working on a cold case (literally!) of a missing girl.
The author is a guy named Stieg Larsson.

RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON WILL BE OUT WITHIN THE NEXT TWO MONTHS!!!

Freezing January didn't make it last!

The Ferry To America is a story about two people growing up on Pawquillet Island in Nantucket Sound. They age physically and emotionally, and as they grow, so grows their love for each other.

Readers are saying they enjoy the read. One said that it's like falling in love again.

The book is available at Amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble. You can purchase it direct from the Strategic Publishing Group at: http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/TheFerryBoatToAmerica.html

Tomorrow, a little bit about PARTS LEFT OVER.