Random Stuff, Part 3

How often did I stare at this crucifix during Masses at OLSH when I was a kid? A hell of a lot! Everyone gets bored easily as a child, and the Catholic service is an incredible yawn to a little boy. Repetitive as hell. Stand up. Sit down. Kneel. So I studied the crucifix intently. It was either do that or try to make my brother laugh, or dig my nails into his arm deep enough to nearly draw blood and prompt him to elbow me in the gut.

Or I could read the poem again on the giving envelope: “Must I be giving again and again forever?’

‘Oh no,’ said the angel; his glance pierced me through. ‘Just keep on giving until the Master stops giving to you.’” 

I memorized this little poem then—other kids I knew did this too—and it’s still burned into my brain.

I’d look up at the crucifix again—wow, how MELLOW Jesus looks. And stiff. Not pained and slumped down and dying like the other crucifixes I’ve seen. Just a normal emotionless expression on Jesus, despite nails going through his hands and feet.

I came to learn sometime in the last few decades that the OLSH crucifix was a “resurrectifix”— the risen Jesus on the cross. I have no idea when OLSH installed this cross, or when they got rid of it, because there is a different one there now—not that I’ve seen the new one. I haven’t been in the building since my mother’s funeral in 1985. I simply went on the OLSH Facebook page and checked out photos of the interior: pretty much the same as I remember it.

There are mixed feelings among some Catholics about resurrectifixes: some don’t like them and think that a generation ago the church started getting soft—that pastors felt image of the suffering Jesus was too gruesome for people (especially children) to handle. Defenders argue that we should focus on the resurrection—on hope and life, not death.

I can live with both versions of the cross. I would love to have a clear photo of the old OLSH resurrectifix. I wonder what they did with it? Here is the present-day one:

It looks like Jesus is only semi-crucified in this version—suffering, but not quite as tortured. Some kind of compromise, I guess. 

“THIS PARISH IS GOING BROKE!!!!”

Wow, all this reminiscing about Mass reminded me about the time that Pastor Leo Shea chewed out the congregation for evidently not putting enough money in the gift envelopes. It was in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I don’t remember the particulars of the homily—just the oft-repeated refrain every few sentences:

“Blah blah blah THIS PARISH IS GOING BROKE!!!!”

“Blah blah, heating oil, blah blah, roof repairs, blah blah THIS PARISH IS GOING BROKE!!!!”

Very sermonic. My friends and I talked for weeks about that homily. “Did you see how red his face got? I thought he was gonna have a heart attack!”

I never thought to ask my parents if Father Shea’s chastising prompted them to put an extra dollar or two in the envelope. I knew that I certainly wouldn’t have. The idea of giving money to a church as if we were paying movie admission was comical to me.

“Must I be giving again and again forever?”

Oh no. Just stop giving until the pastor stops yelling at you.

I was driving with my family to a Sunday afternoon Springfield Thunderbirds game back on April 3 when on State Street we had to get into the left lane down the hill going past the Springfield Armory because police had blocked off the right lane.

And there was the cop picking up yellow numbered markers. He picked up marker number 8, so there had to be AT LEAST eight gunshots. “That’s a shooting crime scene,” I announced to my wife and kids. “Those mark where the shell casings fell.”

“Maybe it’s an accident reconstruction,” said my wife.

“Nope. Bullet markers.”

Sure enough, on Monday, I read about an incident that took place around 12:40 p.m.—about 25 minutes before we had driven through. There had been a minor accident, a case of road rage, and the guy—with his four-year-old son in the car—started shooting at the other car, hitting it at least once.

I would love to plaster his photo on the blog and humiliate the guy, like the blog Turtleboy Sports would, but hell, the guy could find me and kill me. So I’ll just leave it at that—without his name, etc.

You’d think on a Sunday afternoon people wouldn’t be shooting on State Street. But you would be wrong. What if we had been driving though 25 minutes earlier?

I told myself I wasn’t going to let this stop me from going to Thunderbirds games—or anything downtown—but Jeez.

I told myself the same thing about 10 years ago, when we were going to a Springfield Falcons game, and further down State Street, at the corner of State and Spring, we were in the right lane, going through a green light, but the car in front of me had stop short before turning because a drugged out pedestrian started crossing Spring right in front of him. I swerved a little to avoid the back of the car—not even going into the left lane—but an asshole in the left lane blared his horn, shook his fist, and swore at us all the way down State Street.

It was around 10 years ago when in this blog I bemoaned how dangerous downtown Springfield had become, but I refused to give up on this city. And I still do. But it is home to the kind of person who will take at least eight shots at another car with his own kid in the back seat. That is horrifying.

The other weird thing was that the police were wrapping up the crime scene just 25 minutes after the ShotSpotter was activated, and it received scant media attention. MassLive didn’t even bother reporting on it. “That would have been big news when I was a kid,” I said. 

“It isn’t now,” said my 16-year-old son laconically.

*  *  *  *

Speaking of the Thunderbirds, my friend Stan Janek and I went to different game this season, and thanks to me knowing someone in the front office, we go a mini-tour of the MassMutual Center. Here are the T-Birds administrative offices:

In the bowels of the building, mascot Boomer gets ready to take the ice:

These are the views of the VIP suites:

The building was renovated to the tune of $71 million in 2005, and although the VIP suites meant a smaller capacity for hockey games—6,693 seats instead of its prior 7,452—the venue needed some luxury seats for sure. They installed a new $1.6 million center ice scoreboard back then. The monstrosity 28 feet long and 17 feet high, and although it’s a little big for the small building, we’ll take it.

And they’re finally going to replace that crumbling piece of crap Civic Center garage. My only request—could you replace the skyway bridge that connected the garage with the arena? It came in handy on cold nights. You can see it on the left in the first two images below, before they replaced the outdoor “plaza” (the pre-concert drug dealing open market) with convention center space.

Ah, the Civic Center memories—yes I was at the 1973 event below!

So I was telling Stan during the Thunderbirds game that I was writing a blog post on the great 1980s drinking spot The Bar Association, but I guess he forgot that he had a classic BA bar glass hiding in his house:

The blog post evidently jogged his memory. He has owned this glass for nearly 40 years—it sat in the back of a hutch for decades. 

The glass was free with a $5 Long Island iced tea. Cheers, and I’ll see you in September!