Ah, memories! Memory Number One: I remember very well, or at least as well as one can remember an event that took place 65 years ago, the moment. I was a senior in seminary high school. It was the seventh game of the World Series with my beloved Bucs playing the hated Yankees. We were allowed to watch the game during free time after lunch, but at 2:00 we had to go to our scheduled study hall. Fortunately one of my classmates, also an ardent Bucco fan, had a contraband transistor radio and was able to pick up the game in the recesses of the typewriter room. At 3:36 pm on October 13, 1950, that dramatic moment when Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that beat the Yankees to win the 1960 World Series will live on in my memory forever.
Memory Number Two: It was Friday afternoon and I was on my way back from lunch heading to my room to change clothes to do something outside. What it was I no longer remember. What I do remember is walking up the steps and running into two guys on their way down. We stopped. I looked at them and said, “You two look like you just lost your best friend.” They looked at me and asked, “Didn’t you hear? The President has just been shot.” It was November 22, 1963, a day that changed the world – no hyperbole here – forever, and my life as well.
Memory Number Three: It was October 17, 1971, the day of another World Series Game Seven. The Pirates were playing the Baltimore Orioles. I was alone in the Rectory as my boss, the Pastor, was visiting some friends and the house keeper was out playing bingo. Prior to this moment, every time the Bucs lost a game, I would get ticked off, even want to throw something, so wrapped up was I in their every game. It was the bottom of the ninth, the Pirates were leading 2-1, Steve Blass was on the mound and an epiphany moment happened. I said to myself, or something or someone inside of me said this: “Bill, the Pirates are either going to win or their going to lose; but you still have to get up tomorrow morning at 6:00 to say the 7:00 Mass.” Life, real life, came into perspective for me at that moment.
Memory Number Four: The day before I was visiting with my family and complaining to my brother Fran that I was tired being alone. I had been a single parent for six years and so much wanted to find someone to love and be loved by. He said very matter-of-factly, “Don’t worry. She’ll fall out of a tree.” I could only hope he was right.
The next day, August 24, 1986, I was celebrating the 10:30 Eucharist at Trinity Church in Parkersburg, West Virginia. I stepped into the pulpit and looked across the congregation. My eyes spotted a beautiful young woman sitting by herself six pews from the back of the church. Somehow I got through the sermon and through the Eucharist. When she came to Communion and held out her hands to receive the host, I quickly noted that she was not wearing a wedding ring. After church I introduced myself. That was the beginning of a wonderful romance that continues to this day and forever.
Memories of life-changing moments: I have others; we all have them. They stay with us forever. What are yours?
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