Freddogg Off The Chain

Father Louie was a tough assed Marine who had held the hand of too many dying men in Korea. He was a brawny, commanding personality, very likeable and authentic for a Spiritual person many of whom are transparent mind stalkers.
Father Louie, who was in charge of Vocations at Saint Francis College in Loretto, Pennsylvania, had been sent to Bishop Egan High School to recruit me. He told me the Vocation business was bad that mostly the recruits he landed were little sissy misfits who enjoyed praying seven hours a day.
It was March, our team was heading towards the Palestra and the Catholic League basketball playoffs and for a complete hour of practice Coach John Clark allowed me to sit in a folding chair in the gym talking to Father Louie about going to Saint Francis.
Father Louie was astute and knew enough not to even hint at a marriage between the priesthood and me, as I was most certainly better suited for the gayety of the laity. We talked strictly basketball and I later learned that Coach Clark himself would be the new Saint Francis Coach.
Down in the dungeon locker room after practice point guard Johnny Kerr looked at me and said, ”Well it looks like Fred is going to be a priest.”
Everyone laughed like donkeys on hashish otherwise known as my cousin Janet. I took umbrage to the perceptions of my idiot friends who clearly saw the heathen hidden in me and so I seized an opportunity to turn the picnic table on its edge.
“You think that is funny! What do any of you understand about the spiritual essence of another person? Why don’t you go find Father Louie and laugh in his face while you’re at it?”
No one could ever figure out how a straight “70 is a gift from god” student and relentless smartass who was never seen reading a book came up with words like spiritual essence, in fact, my grandmother believed I was possessed by the ghost of Homer or was that Homo she used to call me?
Everything changed for me those last months of high school. Friends looked upon me somewhat askance which really worried them because they didn’t know what that meant. Priests who had learned to hate me felt that a miracle walked in their midst. I would neither confirm nor deny what anyone thought. I had them all running the hamster wheel of uncertainty.
Father “Tree Trunk” Wildred gave me an authentic teak rosary handcrafted by a Thai teenager and as I walked out of graduation tears filled his eyes because for four years I had tested his faith and patience and now true to his mysterious ways god had chosen me to sail the sea of the celebrants of celibacy.
I didn’t go to Saint Francis but instead accepted a basketball scholarship to Temple University because I thought it was Jewish.

Father Freddogg