I graduated from college thirty years ago. For 34 years I have known a man, my advisor and department head and inspirational professor. Out of the blue, today he called to wish me a happy thanksgiving. No he didn’t ask for a gift to the annual fund! Fr. Cap is definitely my favorite priest. I wanted him to marry us but the whole Catholic thing (my husband is not Catholic) got in the way. Plus we eloped, with four days notice and he was 3,000 miles away.
He’s been ill of late but is in good spirits and doing much better, helping out in the campus church and elsewhere. It is so good to hear from old friends and mentors over the holidays. I don’t go back for reunions, I just told him I’m not much for seeing who aged better, who got a tummy tuck, whatever. I’d rather just go quietly and see the people who meant something to me during those formative years. I nearly forgot that my desire for internal “beauty” is much stronger than that for a pretty external shell and that is probably a direct result of his teachings. Yes, the infamous “Barbie” lecture that mesmerized students for decades. It was his trademark and rightly so.
After teaching us dumb kids all year, he’d go out west and help at the Hopi reservation. Atop a room full of bookshelves was an array of papooses, a funny thing for a Catholic priest to have on display.
There are so many people I am thankful to have in my life this Thanksgiving, and I just got a call from one of them. God bless you, Fr. Cap. Cheers, Dee
Cooking with Dee 