Finding My Religion

A recent 88 Rewound on WMBR featured a playlist from May, 1971. I hadn’t heard this song in many years.

Honestly, I’d forgotten how much of an effect the song had on me. Life was changing fast, and I felt extremely unsettled. Six months later, entirely on my own, I started attending a Lutheran church I passed on the way home from my after-school job.

church

So began my religious period. It lasted until I was in my senior year of college.

Some years ago I attended my nephew’s wedding in the Midwest. My sister mentioned to her mother-in-law that she never knew how she and her husband were given permission to marry in the Lutheran church near our parents’ house. They lived out of state, and their church was in a different Synod. My sister’s mother-in-law smirked and said, “I know how.” My sister seemed surprised that, after so many years, this was the first she’d heard of it. “You do? How?” Her mother-in-law looked at me and said, “You were dating the minister’s daughter.” My mother must have told her. The minister’s daughter was Lori, and she got her dad to perform the ceremony.

Lori

Burn, Bills, Burn!

In Arizona, my late parents had boxes of old papers stored in their garage. With some help from my sisters, we went through them to find the things worth saving. The rest went to Staples and, for $1 per pound, sent to Iron Mountain for shredding. At least that’s what I was told would happen.

Here at home the nights have been unseasonably cold. With oil for the furnace now costing $5.40/gal., I’ve been heating the living room with old bills and papers.