BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)
“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” — Joni Mitchell
When I was in second grade, the ancient monsignor who ran our parish died. He was a player, having managed the seat of the bishopric for decades, the former Papal Chamberlain and right reverend from “Baaahstun,” Monsignor William L. Mulloney. When he kicked, the nuns of the parish draped the cathedral in black crepe. A Requiem High Mass was celebrated by the bishop, a special service performed exclusively for the students of St. Joseph’s Cathedral grade and high school. The wee ones were required to processional up to the open casket at the foot of the high altar in the heavily incensed, darkly lit cathedral as funereal dirges droned from the formidable pipes and organ donated by the good monsignor’s Brahmin family.
We circled around the casket enabling a 200x zoom-shot of the body—a breath-catching moment as smothering as Aunt Betty burying my face in her considerable bosom on