What kind of friend? in These titles mean nothing.

I wonder what kind of friend I want to be? What kind of friend I want to have?

I can get my feelings hurt - what an old time expression that is - hurt feelings? But still feelings exist, and they can be hurt.

I like to be left alone. But still I feel left out sometimes. Here sometimes. In real life sometimes.

Son John’s been home for the last few days. He came down Sunday I believe, Easter in fact. He comes down to help farm seasonally. And I suppose he’s been looking out for me, to some degree.

Sometimes when he comes in the house, he will look to see what’s in the frying pan on the stove. He is a more adventurous eater than Jim and of course he has the benefit of eating away from my frying pan on my stove more than his brother does.

I’ve been making vegan-ish mixtures of rice and beans and veggies and he is willing to try something like that. This time there wasn’t any… well a little rice and some sausages = not vegan but who’s perfect.

Today is his last day here and I have a frying pan full of chili and potatoes - I like the combination. Mash the potatoes put butter on them to melt and cover with chili. Soul food for the disaffected.

By the way the Pope has died. I wonder how many Popes there have been in my life time. Pius XII was the first. He was Pope during WWII and had to share Europe with Hitler which I’m not sure anyone has figured out. Blame and shame, and much suffering and death. I add the Pope to the Lindberghs and the D and D of Windsor. Life is never simple. Wasn’t then. Isn’t now.

Pope John XXIII came next… when I was in high school. He was popular, he had siblings farming in the hills… like us? Not like us. He called a conference called Vatican II which ‘modernized’ the church. Mass was said in the vernacular - in the language the attendees understood. Gradually things liberalized = back before the term liberal was a condemnation. He or maybe just life allowed me and others like me to give up the chuch. We lost our fear of hell and of being different. The 60’s had a lot to do with that too. It was a mutual change, a loosening, a hopeful time in which we wanted things to be better for all people. It didn’t really happen.

After him came Paul VI and then John Paul Ii and perhaps II and then I lost track. There was the Polish Pope and the former Nazi Pope and then we got the South American Jesuit Pope who called himself Francis after Assissi and Xavier. He died on Easter. Fitting.

It’s been raining… which is good. The oats are in. The calves have been castrated. Things are looking semi-up.

Last night the three of us went to town for supper. We went to the Uptown Grill a nicely done update of the City Club a very old bar. One of the things that happens when a town looses businesses along its main streets is that there can be room for existing businesses to expand into where the former ones used to be. God that’s a sentence and a half. But anyway. This place is a going concern. As we walked in the old main area was full of people, mostly kind of noisy women playing bingo. They and I realized we knew each other. It was a group mainly from my old old old place of employment - the factory that closed in 2008 when times were tough - you remember? People are surprised to see me - for good reason I suppose. I talked to two of the people I remembered and liked best. I remember leaving someone else who I could not recognize and now I wish I’d stayed long enough to figure out who she was. Marli had just won $104 at bingo which seemed pretty good to me. She was at the factory in 1975 when I started. Gosh what a lot of years to spend with the same people under the metal roof… making whatever it was we made. The other woman whose name I NOW struggle remembering had a long history there too. I’d just had a talk with her a couple summers ago when she was moving gravel around her very nice yard near the libarry.

The meeting was bittersweet because a woman we all knew and who knew us all very well just died a week or so ago. Her obituary said she was a ‘social butterfly and always had a kind word and a conversation ready for anyone who would listen’. I had availed myself of many of those kind words and conversations over the last few decades we had together. I met her niece last summer who told me I should go see her, and of course I didn’t do it. I didn’t go to her funeral either. I’ve been to none of the funerals of the people from the factory. There have been quite a few ince 2008. I always figure I don’t go to funerals. Hardly ever. Funerals are like bingo games in the bar.

Did I say already that the calves got worked this morning. The vet and his wife are both good and charming people, with a million connections like the people I worked with ......

I washed dishes and opened the window above the sink in hopes that some of the million lady bugs would seek freedom.

Blessings on you all. And the dead Pope and the future Pope and the social butterfly, the lady bugs and me too.