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Michael McLeod
I'll use a pop-culture, movie-buff reference to opine on this issue, Dave.
All I can say is: "We WANT him on that carrier. We NEED him on that carrier."
Now, for an entry in the "random personal occurances that remind me of our shared Catholic upbringing" category:
I remember how useless I thought certain things that we learned at Watterson were. High on that list was Latin.
What an ungrateful little shit I was.
Understanding the Latin roots of so many of the words in the dictionary wasn't just a practical advantage for me as a writer. Having a sense of that cultural heritage is a part of who I am. Was that what they had in mind when they made us learn that language? Was it a religious thing, or an educational thing, or both?
All I know is I'm all the richer for it.
What prompts me to say this now is that I just wrote a story about an exhibit about Pompeii - the city that was buried and uncannily preserved when Vesuvius blew its top - that may or may not turn up in Orlando this summer depending on how things go with the virus. When I did my research I was struck by how sophisticated and modern Pompeii was, two thousand years ago. So I took that angle with the story. Here is a stretch of it:
"The traveling exhibit, on display from June 6 to Sept.7, uses a wide-screen, window-rattling re-creation to dramatize the catastrophe. But its chief focus is to create a picture of the luxuries, lifestyles, and day-to-day living experiences of its inhabitants.
"Orlando residents have grown accustomed to the sight of construction cranes on their day-to-day freeway commutes. So did the workaday citizens of Pompeii as they made their way through the crowded, stone-paved thoroughfares of their city. Because of the damage done by an earthquake 17 years prior, many buildings in the thriving port city and bayside resort community were still being rebuilt on the day Vesuvius exploded. A model of one of the reconstruction cranes, called a calcatoria, is included in the exhibit, along with other examples of ingenious Roman-made devices, tools, and instruments.
Chances are you stop by a convenience store as part of your nine to five routine. Pompeii’s commuters patronized snack bars called thermopolia. None of those customers would get the chance to sample the freshly-baked loaf of bread, shaped like a pizza and pre-sliced in triangular wedges, preserved in the ashes and destined to become an artifact in the exhibit."
Notice the two Latin words? As I wrote them I thought of that poor nun who taught us Latin -- I can't remember her name. Anyway whatever it is, she is obviously in heaven, if there is a heaven. Because surely all nuns get an automatic pass through the turnstyle out front, plus various upgrades.
All I know for sure is that when I thought of her I wished I had been more appreciative, way back when.
So what was her name? I have a vague memory that she was one of the nice ones, but I can't trust anything in my memory banks anymore.
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