Critter

Since the badger is the mascot of the University of Wisconsin (well, Bucky Badger), one sees images all over the place. It should be the groundhog, IMHO, because I see lots of them but have never seen nary a badger anywhere up here in the wild.

That might change, however. Peggy reports that her dog Ivy started growling at something outside last night, and when Peg went to check, it turned out to be an honest-to-Wisconsin badger. She says she had never seen one up here, either. We will have to keep our eyes out. Maybe we too will be blessed with a visit.

Not that I am likely to try to get up close and personal. Badgers are not noted for their friendliness.

BTW, I understand that the association of Wisconsin with badgers is not connected to the wildlife at all. The name refers to the lead miners who came to the area in the 1820s and 1830s. They first dug out caves and tunnels into the hillsides for shelter in the winter. Since badgers burrow underground, the locals called the burrowers badgers. So to be historically accurate, Bucky Badger should not look like the animal but like a miner.

I know, I know. Way too much information!

Voices from the past

Yesterday I got an email from one of the guys I went to St. Louis University with back in 1984-85 Edgar Labagala is a Filipino priest who teaches at a seminary over there. He has a sabbatical year coming up and was looking around at various opportunities to study here in the States. He saw that I am one of the instructors for the Carmelite Studies Program in DC, and he wrote to ask me about that. Of course, I don't teach in the program for residential students, but I have lectured there over the years as a guest speaker and was able to tell him some things.

It is amazing to hear from someone after that many years. The summer after we were in St. Louis together, Edgar worked in a parish in Wisconsin and came to visit me at Holy Hill. When I was still living in Chicago, one day in 2004 I walked over to the local market and ran into another classmate from the St. Louis days. It turned out that there were two others in town, and before I left Chicago in 2006, one of them moved into the house across the street from the Carmelite house.

Very small world!

Step by step

I received the second proof of the book today. I knew there would be changes because I have to insert the copyright info and some other things. I was hoping that would be all, but it turned out that the margins somehow managed to get messed up. Something somewhere in the Word-to-Open Office-to-PDF conversions. So I have been tinkering with it some more and hope to get it sent back tomorrow sometime. If they act as promptly as last time, I would hope to have the final version in hand late next week and to be able to approve it. I expect it will then take from one to three weeks before it is actually for sale online.

Meanwhile, despite some frustrations with this, I am readying some other books and even Tom is working on one. The people who do the manufacture, marketing and distribution are not the publishers. They make that very clear. Since Tom and I are planning to keep publishing things this way, after much discussion we have decided to create something called Pileated Press. Tom designed the logo:

On the going nowhere fast

To show you how seriously I am taking my health these days, yesterday I wore out the exercise bike. Admittedly it was several years old, a birthday present from Chicago days. So we went out to Walmart last night and found another one, same brand but a different model. Tom managed to get it put togehter despite my assistance, and it works fine. It takes more effort, which probably just shows how worn out the other one had gotten. And it is undoubtedly better for me to have to work harder.