They all turned out all right, those three boys, but the youngest, Freddy, impressed me the other day. He invited one of my brothers and us to a dinner at his house, and his wife, Paula, prepared the reception. He’s now a multiple employer: He just hired Amos, an Amish man from his supplier, and Amos is learning how to handle the electronically based clientele that deals with Freddy.

As we ate our dinner, I choked on an unchewed piece, and my son said, “That does it. Dad, you have to get your teeth looked at. Every time we have dinner, you choke. I’ll pay the dentist bill.” I looked at him. He was a real Pater Familiae (I still remember some of my high school Latin), the role I once had. I have to get used to these changes.

I thank God.

I’m currently reading a book, “Something Deeply Hidden,” by Sean Carroll.   He explains quantum mechanics, and the fact that there are different explanations of it.  One of the explanations, which he favors, is that there are multiple worlds, or universes, accessible from this one, which provide a place for the multiple outcomes demanded by quantum mechanics.  I wonder how I’m doing in that other universe?

What I really care about is how I’m doing in this universe.  I’ve worked at it, and made some wonderful friends, and I want everything to turn out OK for them.  Quantum has taught me that this world in not just the material, and experience has taught me that such things as prayers are answered (at least for me).  I’ve tried to convince others of this, including Loretta, and I can’t wait to find out if I’m right.  How about you?

My second son, Paul, was an English major in college. Would that he were alive today, when people such as Nobel Prize winning author Robert Shiller (Narrative Economics) are calling for more storytellers and saying things like “Compartmentalization of intellectual life is bad.” Shiller deplores the drop in the number of English majors.

Paul had already developed other skills. He would leave his Fairfield dorm on a warm fall day and walk in the nearby woods. All he needed was one scratch-all match and he’d have a safe blaze going to counter the evening’s chill. As a matter of fact, he didn’t need the match at all — given the right dry wood and tinder, he could start a fire from a quartz stone and his Swiss Army knife. He could utilize solitude like we profit from socialization. He was an Eagle Scout.

But he took after his father. He was a good storyteller, and I have told many of his stories in my books. I’ll remember him at St. Edward’s on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the day he died.

I was feeling in the dumps. It’s amazing how we become dependent on our appliances. The dishwasher had failed, and the warranty company had said a repairman would be there next Monday, between eleven and three. I waited all that time, and at 2:45 I got an email that the repairman would be there. I called up, and a receptionist told me he had been at my home and found nobody there! “Well, he didn’t ring the doorbell,” I said.

“He did,” she replied.

“Then he’s a liar.” I was angry. She said he had found no car in my parking space, and then rang the doorbell. I knew what had happened. He saw no car in my parking space and took off.

I was depressed for yelling at the receptionist, and causing her to defend a lazy technician, and losing my cool. As I sat in my study, I saw a cricket going diagonally northwest across the patio door screen. I marveled at this insect who had learned to use his hind legs alternately over some thousands of years. Soon he was out of sight.

A little later, and twenty-four inches lower, he came back, with his left hind leg missing. I snapped out of my depression. Here was a creature who had lost his left leg on an afternoon’s stroll, going about his way, and I, who had merely missed the use of our dishwasher, was depressed. I had to straighten that discrepancy out!

(P.S. The afternoon light came over the screen at such an angle that I didn’t see his left hind leg. He hadn’t really lost it. But I gained something.)

Growing up, I have always admired what we still call “the Indians,” those of cowboy movies and real ones like Chief Joseph, Chief Seattle, Chief Massasoit, and so many others lost to history. But now, after forty-one years of teaching Long Islanders, my pension does not quite include the Navajo children of St. Bonaventure Mission and School. (Remember the WWII code talkers? You can reach them and the Mission kids on the internet.) That’s why I’m writing this.

Not only were their people decimated by foreign diseases like smallpox (What did we know? Pasteur didn’t discover germs until the 1800’s) but now their parents are extra susceptible to alcoholism and depression. I want those kids to have school stuff to fill their backpacks and plenty for breakfast and lunch.

I had all that for my kids, and they made good use of it. I could give them most of the benefits of Western Civilization, and Loretta helped me. I’m not saying I should have been a millionaire instead of a teacher. If I hadn’t become a teacher, I probably would not have seen the needs of St. Bonaventure Indian School and Mission.