Beachcombing

I have sinned and have a confession to make. Admittedly it follows all the news coverage given to the new pope, Leo XIV, when we learned that there are 1.4 billion baptized Catholics globally, representing 17.7% of the world’s total population, making the Roman Catholic Church the largest Christian denomination.

Although I am not Catholic, it was mesmerizing to witness the pomp and circumstance associated with Leo’s elevation to head the church and learn that he was focused on the priesthood at an early age, when his name was Bob.

Now for my non-Catholic confession: Unlike Bob, in my teen years I was focused more on having fun, like setting off cherry bombs near Waynesboro (Penna.) High School to see how long it took for the local police to investigate the noise complaint calls. Cherry bombs, also known as M-80s, are banned now, but they were popular around July 4 in the late 1950s, when firecrackers were prevalent.

To avoid getting caught, we would insert the cherry bomb stem perpendicularly near the end of a lit cigarette. It would take at least five minutes before the combination produced an explosion, providing time to witness it from afar. If a tin can was part of the mix, it was fun to watch it fly a few feet skyward.

Reminiscing about the “good old days” was prevalent this past week with a passing of yet another friend and member of the Waynesboro High School Class of 1962, Tom Wynkoop. Following graduation, Tom enlisted in the Navy and became a radioman on two destroyers. I enlisted in the Air Force and learned how to target a few hundred Minuteman nuclear warheads toward Moscow.

Afterward I came to California to attend LBCC and Long Beach State on the GI Bill; Tom returned to Waynesboro and worked at several nearby manufacturing facilities. We both got married in 1968. Class reunions every five years were one way to keep in touch with those 190 classmates, which has dwindled to just over half still living today.

Then came the pandemic and Zoom. About a dozen of us now get together on the second Thursday of each month for a one-hour session. It’s a great way to stay in touch with classmates living in different states and catch up on the news. Tom was a pioneer in setting up our Zoom sessions, which frequently led to discussions about the medical aspects of getting older.

The one thing that surprises me about these classmates is that most are conservative. We tend to like the actions of the current administration: stop the illegal border crossings, curb the wasteful government spending, use more common sense, etc.

Tom was one of my sources for common sense items sometimes posted in this column. Some examples:

Somehow, it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.

Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.

People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.

If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.

Tom would say that “We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.”

Rest in peace, my friend. Some day we’ll get this country back on the right track.

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