Stories

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40


He was playing the role of aficionado of everything, and he was her cook and bottle washer. He had been a ladies shoe salesman and said so, and thus I assumed he liked the role. I know I would have.

He had a wall of music albums mostly real good jazz and blues and was playing something good when we got there. He was cooking something French and all through dinner we had to listen to music and it was not good, really innocuous stuff. I knew he had good albums and was wondering why he played such crap at dinner. Later he was asking me about wine and was illustrating his expertise. I said I didn't much care for wine. I preferred beer. So he told me that I liked beer because I was from Chicago, and I got a patronizing lecture which amounted to I am where I am from.

Guilt was a big Catholic thing. The Professor was raised Catholic and was Jesuit trained. He liked certain of the Catholic philosophers, Thomas Aquinas or Thomas Merton. He would read them. Personally I would not read anyone who was wedded to any church. The rational was a forgone conclusion. He was big on guilt. But what I noticed with the Professor was that though he was to feel guilty about doing certain things he did those things anyway and then felt guilty afterwards. Now perhaps since I was raised Lutheran the idea here was to avoid the sin in the first place and thus avoid the guilt. Of course the Professor had more fun, was of lighter humor whereas I tended to be overly serious. Of course I did not cause the pain to others that he did, like cheating on lovers.

(33 of 46)       Next Page

hr