Montreal - San Antonio

October 11, 2021 Peace and Good, I finished the extraordinary chapter in Canada where things went very, very well. Then on Saturday I went to visit a summer camp which the friars run about 200 km outside of Ottawa. They open it up for Polish people, and it is well used. It is about four hours each from Montreal and Toronto. Yesterday I flew into San Antonio. Travel is tough, but I was very glad I was not flying Southwest this time due to all of the cancellations. I went from 60 to 90 degrees. The center at which we are meeting this week is beautiful, about a 20 minute walk from our friary. After this meeting I will head back to Rome. That will be this coming Tuesday. I finished some books: Lexington and Concord by Hourly History This is a short account of the battles of Lexington and Concord. It gives a sufficient amount of background information about what led to this battles. There is not a lot of depth in the account, but that is not the intend of books by this publisher. Heart of a Dog by Mikail Bulgakov This is a strange account of two doctors in 1924 in Moscow, which had only shortly before become Communist, who are working with animal parts transplanted into human beings to treat various illnesses. They are considered to be brilliant. One day they find a stray dog whom they take home, and shortly afterward transplant the testes and adrenal glands of a criminal who died shortly before into the dog. It becomes more and more human, but it also shares in many of the tendencies toward dishonesty and criminality of the human donor. To save matters, they eventually take out the human parts and transplant the dogs original organs back in it. It returns to a state of happiness as it lives a contented life in their house. The story is almost a cross between The Island of Doctor Moreau and Young Frankenstein. Trade in the Ancient World by Charles River Editors This short book deals with the growth and extent of trade in the ancient world (especially the Mediterranean world). It speaks of trade in copper and tin, oil and wine, wheat, precious metals, spices and amber. It deals with shifts in the currents of trade due to political circumstances. It is not an exhaustive treatment, but a good first look at the topic. The Miami by Charles River Editors The Miami were a tribe of native Americans living in the Ohio and Kentucky area. They were caught up in the various Anglo wars (French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War) and suffered as a result. Most of them were deported to reservations to the west of the Mississippi during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker This is a rending account of the slave trade as seen from the slave ship itself. It speaks of the misery of the slave trade as well as the time that slaves spent on what was called the middle passage. Many of them died of disease and mistreatment. All of them were horrified at their dislocation and dehumanization. The author also treats of the horrible treatment of the crews of those ships. The end of the book also speaks of the campaign to end the slave trade in Great Britain (which then served as a bastion to effect an end to the trade in the Atlantic). The Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty This is an interesting novel set in Northern Ireland during the days of the hunger strikers (Catholics in prison who starved themselves to death to fight for the right to be treated as combatants and not as criminals). There has been a couple of murders of homosexual men by what appears to be a serial murderer. A Catholic constable in the province’s police force investigates the crimes and others, eventually discovering a rather unpleasant surprise. Drunken Fireworks by Stephen King This is a very comical novella on a dissolute family who live their summers at a resort lake in Maine. Their cottage is across the lake from a wealthy Italian family from Providence, Rhode Island. Almost by accident, they start a contest as to who can explode the better fireworks for the celebration of the Fourth of July. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude