South Dakota

Full Frontal Affection

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

I summoned Gabe to the top of the stairs yesterday morning in order to wish him a happy birthday before I left for work. He is now nine and is not a morning person, nor does he happily submit to parental scrutiny, discipline, or full frontal affection. So he ascends the stairs with a look of vague trepidation.

I sit on the edge of the coffee table and beckon with both hands. He comes a step closer, then two, then stops. I smile and beckon again. He takes a step, the anxiousness now solidifying in his face.

“Gabe, come here!” I laugh, lean forward, grip his skinny body on either side, right at the ticklish spot below the ribs, so he nearly crumbles to the floor, helplessly squirming. I hug him close and say, “Happy Birthday, son!” He mumbles a sheepish thanks, and on my back I feel the flutter of his hands, patting my back quickly to ward off awkwardness.

Gabe is not generally a head-on hugger. He prefers to sidle under an arm and slip his own around your waist, or back himself into a soft lap and warm embrace. A kiss is an instantly blush-worthy event, and a kiss in the generally vicinity of the lips (cheek, nose, etc.) will turn him inside-out with embarrassment. He simply isn’t an aggressive type, in anger, affection, or otherwise.

But something is changing in Gabe. It started this spring, when we traveled to Michigan to see my cousin Al before he deployed to Iraq. Brendan and a group of Thorp cousins we seldom get to see decided to play baseball, and Gabe, who plays soccer in the spring and rarely puts on a mitt, decided to play, too. Not only that, but to pitch.

After only 10 minutes or so of play, my cousin Mel tossed a pitch back to Gabe, and it sailed just above his mitt and smacked him solidly in the forehead. Gabe fell to the lawn holding his head, his eye welling with tears. I went to him, but as I approached, he got to his feet, hissing air in and out through his teeth, still holding his forehead, walking in rough circles near where he had fallen.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He nodded, eyes wet, jaw set.

“You wanna sit out a minute?”

He shook his head, picked up the ball, and returned to the scuff in the grass from which he had been pitching.

I quietly expressed my amazement to my sister. This was not like Gabriel.

A short while later, he took another baseball to the forehead, this one off a bat, I think. Oh no! I thought, running back out to him. His eyes were glassy again, but he rubbed his head with the heel of his hand and smiled. I moved his hand. You could see the stitches from the baseball imprinted in deep red on his skin. I told him so, and his eyes flashed panic, but only for a second. He went back to pitching.

He talked about both injuries throughout the day, both as points of pride and of sympathy, but never complained and never quit playing.

Fast forward to our trip to South Dakota over the Fourth of July. Gabe has an inexplicable affection for a large goat that perennially appears in the Piedmont (SD) Fourth of July Parade and could not wait to see Jacob this summer. Jodi took him to Jacob’s keeper’s farm a day or so early to visit, and Gabe was invited to march in the parade with the family and the goat.

This should have been a no-brainer, except that Gabe isn’t the most social of our children, especially around people he doesn’t know well, and wouldn’t offer any immediate response about whether he intended to do it.

Ultimately he agreed to do walk with them, and Jodi took him over before the parade to get dressed and ready. He would have to line up with the family, of course, so for the next couple hours he would be without familiar faces, except, of course, Jacob’s.

The results of the parade you can see in the photo above — a joy-filled kid and an alter-ego that still makes frequent appearances at our house: Mr. Patriotic. But the change seems to have gone deeper. Immediately following the parade, Gabe was verbally sparring with his siblings and cousins, keeping pace with their jabs and meeting them with wit and outright hilarity. He was more outspoken about his opinions. And at Brendan’s baseball picnic last weekend, he played pickup baseball with Bren’s team, mostly older boys and strangers, and although he started swimming lessons this year as though last year’s lessons had never happened, he ran into the water at the lake and played and splashed with Bren and his teammates until finally I had to (quietly) remind him that he doesn’t really swim.

How does one do that: admire and encourage the newfound confidence of his son and still protect him from the dunking natures of boys twice his size who don’t know that three months ago, he would barely jump into the water?

I went to soccer practice with him last night. He took a hard-kicked ball right between the eyes; his head jerked backward, and the coach’s wife seated next to me gasped. The coach asked several times if Gabe was okay. He shook his head to clear out the stars, laughed, and said yes.

Then he looked at his coach, smiled wryly, and said, “I got hit in the face … on my BIRTHDAY!” And he laughed again.

Happy birthday, Gabe — we are so proud of you!

"Feed My Sheep"

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

When therefore they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these? He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my lambs. He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? He saith to him: yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my lambs. He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he had said to him the third time: Lovest thou me? And he said to him: Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee. He said to him: Feed my sheep.
— John 21:15-17
* * * * *
The Thorp gang is in western South Dakota this week, where it has been a tremendous honor and blessing to see a dear friend of ours, Tyler Dennis, be ordained a Catholic priest last Friday, June 26, 2009. It is tradition that newly ordained priests give out prayer cards marking their ordination. The front of Father Tyler’s features the image above. The back bears this prayer and explanation:

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me: I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

— St. Ignatius of Loyola
The pelican is an ancient symbol of Christ. It is said that when no other food is available, the pelican will feed its young with the flesh of its own breast, just as Christ feeds his people with his body and blood in the Eucharist.

The significance of the pelican is not unlike the Gospel reading above, which was the Gospel reading from the Ordination. The theme was repeated numerous times: Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.

It’s been an incredibly moving last few days. I thought I’d share a little of the experience, from our perspective.

* * * * *
Many of you know that Jodi and I met while working summer jobs at the world-famous Wall Drug Store, she in hats and western wear; I in boots and moccasins. Jodi worked with Cindy Dennis, whose husband, Robert, works his family’s ranch near Red Owl, more than an hour north and west of Wall. Cindy had a little place in town and as I recall, their oldest son, Tyler, was a cerebral and musical teenager working in the dish room at the Wall Drug Cafe. His younger brothers, Tate and Chance, stayed on the ranch with Robert that first summer, I believe (Tate worked at the drug store as a high-schooler) — and somehow they all stayed close.

Robert would come into town now and again, dressed every bit the cowboy of my boyhood visions: colorful boots pulled up over his jeans, western shirts and vests and silk scarves, big mustache and bigger hat. Sometimes he’d come by the house I lived in, guitar in hand, to share cowboy songs and country humor — but the night he played “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and allowed me to help with the lyrics, a friendship was sealed.

* * * * *
We’ve had more than a few adventures with “Cowboy Bob” (as Robert became known in my newspaper columns), Cindy, and the boys. We’ve been snowed in at their place with no power. We discussed all manners of philosophy, swapped jokes, drank beer and tequila and whiskey, traveled together and fished, shared poetry, you name it. It’s been a great friendship over the years, and since Jodi and I sit just about perfectly in age between Robert and Cindy on one hand, and their boys on the other, we’ve enjoyed being friends with the whole gang.

I’ve written about ol’ Jinglebob any number of times over the years, but probably the best picture of the Dennis family I can offer is this essay I wrote after accompanying my dad and our oldest son, Brendan, to the ranch for a branding.

At that time, Father Tyler was completing his undergraduate work at St. Mary’s in Winona, and I offered this assessment:

Bob’s oldest boy, Tyler, is leaning against Sorley, a stripped down Suzuki Samurai with a homemade plywood roof and four-wheel drive—the name comes from the little rig’s sorrel color. He’s only recently back from Winona, where he’s studying for the priesthood; he’s dressed in a plain t-shirt and sweats, untied duck boots and an old fedora. His little brother’s riding with the men below.

Tyler stands in front of the little 4×4, watching the cowboys work. He’s not like these others—he’s a big kid and prone to discussing philosophy, praying aloud in Latin or singing in Spanish—but he looks at home here and I snap a picture of him, God’s country in his eyes.

* * * * *
The little church in Red Owl, St. Anthony Catholic Church, is unlike any other I’ve ever been to. It’s tiny by Twin Cities standards (though not the tiniest West River Catholic church in South Dakota, I’m told): several short pews and a humble sanctuary, with no place to hide or “go through the motions” during the Mass.

During the ordination, Bishop Cupich remarked that a man raised in one of the smallest parishes in the Rapid City Diocese would now being serving in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, underscoring the unity of the church across all peoples and communities. Small town boy makes good, some may say, but I would suggest Fr. Tyler was good all along, and perhaps better for his rural ranch upbringing. Indeed, Monsignor O’Connell, the homilist during Father Tyler’s First Thanksgiving Mass on Saturday morning, suggested the diocese’s newest priest thank his father for teaching him how to work hard, his mother for showing him how to care about others (a virtue that seems pervasive in ranch country), and his brothers … for teaching him patience.

* * * * *
The weekend before we left for South Dakota, I told a fellow parishioner from our St. Michael Catholic Church that we were attending Fr. Tyler’s ordination, and he insisted there is no more beautiful liturgy in the Church’s traditions. We arrived at Our Lady of Perpetual Help with great anticipation. Deacon Tyler was greeting family, friends and future parishioners at the foot of the front steps to the cathedral, a broad smile on his face. Such joy, I thought. Robert hailed us from the top of the steps, wearing a dark suit, red tie, and his best boots, a grandson on his arm. Cindy descended the steps quickly to greet us, and she seemed joyful and nervous and warm, like a mother at a wedding — and so she was.

We sat midway back on the right. At the opening hymn, the priests processed in pairs, old and young, black and white, tall and short, stout and wiry, dozens of them from across the diocese and from the seminary, with deacons and the bishop, and Tyler, of course, singing with and above the others, the same broad smile in his cheeks as he sang. I grinned the first of several goofy grins that would crease my face all weekend.

The proceedings open with great formality, with Tyler called forth and the bishop asking for verification from his soon-to-be brother priests whether he is known to be worthy. I had been told to expect countless moving moments: the vow of obedience to the bishop and the Church; the laying on of hands upon Tyler’s by each prayerful priest in turn; the kiss of peace, in which each priest in turn greets their new brother with a welcoming embrace. The moment I was most anticipating I was unable to see from the middle of the pew: as those assembled prayer the Litany of the Saints, Tyler lay prostrate on the cold stone floor at the base of the steps before the altar, in the ultimate gesture of humility and submission. Gabe, Emma and Brendan* stretched into the aisle and stared at Tyler’s motionless form; I imagined how he must look lying there, and marveled. (Later I asked the three kids to demonstrate how Tyler was lying, with three very different interpretations. I asked Father Tyler at the Dennis ranch on Sunday, and he explained that he lay flat on his chest with his hands overlapping, palms down, beneath his forehead.)

But the most moving moment in the entire liturgy came at the end, and was entirely unexpected. As the Mass ended, Bishop Cupich announced he would ask Fr. Tyler’s blessing before the bishop himself offered his closing blessing for the congregation. We watched transfixed as the bishop knelt before our friend and humbly bowed his head. My breath caught as Fr. Tyler placed his hands on the bishop’s head and red cap and prayed over him. Incredible.

During the reception that followed, the five of us waited in line to receive our own blessing from Fr. Tyler. We knelt as a family, with Trevor close at heart, and our friend called upon the intercession of the Holy Family and blessing in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

* * * * *
On Saturday morning, all six of us made our way to St. Paul Catholic Church in Belle Fourche for Fr. Tyler’s First Mass of Thanksgiving, a Votive Mass for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Robert and Cindy invited us to the front pew (“You’re family, y’know …”), and I again spent the hour with a goofy grin and a tear at the ready.

Tyler was no longer the dishwashing teen or the seminarian or the deacon. He had walked nearly a decade on the path to priesthood, from Red Owl to Rome to Rapid City, and he looked at home in the sanctuary. When he spoke the Words of Consecration in particular, our friend and our world changed. We believed, and said “Amen.”

* * * * *
Of course, I’m not the only one blogging about Father Tyler these days:
* * * * *
Finally, this weekend has me thinking about the nature of marriage and other lifelong commitments. Priests undertake years of education, preparation, formation, discernment. The call to the priestly vocation is often compared to the call to marriage as way of understanding the complete, lifelong commitment of the less common vocation.

Two observations come to mind: not for the first time, but with great clarity today. The first is that, while few people would agree to several years of preparation and discernment prior to marriage, perhaps this would drive home the magnitude of the commitment couples undertake when they say, “I do.”

The second is that the “marriage” a priest undertakes is far from loveless. I’ve posted before on my middle son’s own priestly aspirations, and these postings have generated lots of conversation, both online and offline. One friend, in particular, voiced the opinion that a marriage to God would be particularly hard and one-sided work, since your spouse has largely been silent for centuries.

The better metaphor is that a priest (like Jesus, the Bridegroom) doesn’t marry God, but the Church (the Bride) — and as we witnessed all this weekend, the Church consists of real people, is full of love for her priests, and is quite expressive. In addition, Fr. Tyler pointed out the sacramentality of his commitment. I took his comments to mean (in much simplified layman’s terms) the real belief in a real commitment between a real person and a real God doing real good in a real world. From this perspective, his relationship with God is hardly one-sided. (Or if it is, the effort is all on the Other Side …)

God bless you, Father Tyler — and all our priests.

*Trevor stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Venjohn for the ordination; it was scheduled for the evening, and his lungs don’t always agree with incense.

Like Cats and Dogs

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

Blogger’s Note: This column originally appeared in The Pioneer daily newspaper, Big Rapids, Mich., March 10, 1998. The “incident” happened in Winter 1996-97. Our friend T at Holy Guacamole asked me to share this story awhile back, and I finally dug it back up …

Last year at this time Jodi and I were finishing up our lease of the second floor of an old town house in Canton, S.D.

Canton was the kind of little town that could charm you out of your boots and hat and make you stay awhile — Norman Rockwell painted pictures of towns like Canton.

We rolled into Canton one evening in September, just as the sun was setting, to take a look at an affordable duplex in town. “Turn left just past the courthouse,” the landlord has told us, and we did. The courthouse was a big stone building three stories tall with a clock tower, and a working, illuminated clock face on all four sides. It sat alone in the middle of a block-square patch of lawn, with green shrubs and plants surrounding.

The next block north was home to the city park and library, and our house was on the next block, kitty-corner from the Lutheran church. The church was another tall, stone building, with bells that rang every hour into the evening.

The apartment was nice enough — two bedrooms, high ceilings and huge, drafty windows. It was newly painted and carpeted, and quickly, by the looks — still it was our first place, and homey enough.

Besides, we had a view of the clock tower, and an ear for bells.

The town was also home to a couple of antique shops, a decent hardware store, and the Black Angus, a bar and restaurant that served good steaks, prime rib and pork chops, and had a good selection of imports and regional brews for a town its size. They served them all capped with olives. (The olives were to kill the “beer taste.” I always ordered sans olive — if you don’t like the taste of hops, save your money and buy domestic.)

It was at this time last year, it that charming little town a stone’s-throw west of Iowa, that I became known as the “new guy with the cat-killin’ dog.”

Boomer lived out back beneath a big black walnut tree — in a doghouse with a carpet-scrap door, a 15-foot chain, two dishes and a rawhide chew bone. The doghouse was tucked neatly beside an old garage used by the landlord for storage and by a few mangy stray cats for shelter. The cats came around less once Boomer arrived.

Boomer’s a big dog, and living in town on the end of a chain was no easy thing. Stray dogs would come and steal his bone, and squirrels would scold him from the neighbors’ yards. His best opportunity for exercise was on the end of a leash; invariably we’d spook a rabbit on the courthouse lawn, and he’d nearly choke himself to give chase.

I was very careful, when I brought Boomer west, to be sure he was properly vaccinated and licensed to avoid any problems should he get in loose in town.

And one night, he did.

I went out after supper to give him some scraps. I called him — “Hey Boomer!” — and got no response.

Usually he’d be lying in the snow until well into the evening, watching the house for signs of table scraps or an evening walk. He didn’t normally retire to his house until late — the flap over the door didn’t offer much of a view.

I stomped a path through the snow until I noticed Boomer’s chain in a tight ball at the base of the tree. The last link was stretched out straight, and Boomer was nowhere in sight.

The chain was bunched up as though it had snapped back after some great and sudden stress, and Boomer’s tracks lead up the driveway, six feet to a bound.

I made my way past the old sedan our downstairs neighbor drove and found a huge orange tomcat lying dead in the drive, smelling strongly musky, and still warm.

I scooped up the cat and spread fresh white snow over the red, then Jodi and I searched for Boomer, she in her car and I on foot.

I followed the sounds of barking dogs and the jingle of dog-tags and chain to him, and led him home. His nose was bitten, scratched and bloodied, and he reeked of tomcat for days afterward.

Two days later, we got a phone call from a little old lady a few doors down. I had told our downstairs neighbor about the cat, so she wouldn’t be alarmed if she uncovered bloody snow on the driveway, and she had told the ladies in her church group, one of whom had been feeding the big stray tom.

I called her, figuring it was the neighborly thing to do, and she explained that while the cat was, in fact, a stray, she had hoped to take him in.

“What about my other cats?” she asked. “I let them out from time to time — they’re bound to roam …”

“What about our children?”

I did not mention the origin of the phrase “fight like cats and dogs.” I did my best, instead, to explain that although Boomer had broken his chain to get to the old tom, and although he did, in fact, kill the cat quicker than it could run up the driveway, he was not a blood-thirsty animal and had never acted aggressively toward adults or children. (Secretly, I was a tiny bit proud — Airedales are known for their hunting prowess, and he’d never acted aggressively toward anything before.)

We finished the conversation cordially enough … after I agreed to her demand that I report the “incident” to the sheriff.

A deputy came by to pick up the cat and meet Boomer, and, satisfied that he was not otherwise dangerous, left, saying only that there were no laws against cats roaming in town, but that there were also no laws against the killing of a cat by a dog on the dog’s own yard.

“Now, if he runs down the street and kills a cat in your neighbor’s yard, then we’ve got a problem,” he said.

We had no further complaints from the neighbors and heard nothing of any other cats killed that night, perhaps because a big dog with tags and chains jingling and reeking of tomcat is not so hard to avoid. At any rate, I figured we were safe.

Even so, as might be expected with old ladies and church groups, the news of Boomer’s ferocity toward felines traveled quickly, and his reputation followed us wherever in town we went. I could almost feel the eyes watching us over a sinkful of dinner dishes. The cats knew, too; they would sit glaring at us from porches and beneath shrubs, but would come no closer.

A week or two ago, the postal service forwarded a postcard from the vet in Canton to our home in Mecosta. Boomer is due for his shots and license again.

And, it seems likely, the old ladies in Canton are still on the lookout for the new guy with the cat-killin’ dog.

What’s Not to Love?

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

I’m a lucky guy. See, I’ve got these friends from here and there – all different sorts, from my Yale days and my Wall Drug days and my Hanley Wood Marketing days and even my Chippewa Hills High School days – and they all drop by here now and again and share cyberspace with me and each other.

You gotta understand: Some of these folks might not ever cross paths. Some of them might not see eye to eye on much of anything. But I love ’em all, and this little corner of the blog-o-sphere is the sort of place (so far) where they can come and have a beer and recognize that they’re all just folks, just trying to get by …

OK, maybe that’s laying it on a little thick. Maybe they just read something now and again, and comment, and never realize who these other folks are. But the point is that I know who they are – and I think it’s so cool they cross paths here!


So this super-cool, ultra-famous children’s author I know – who used to be my RA sort of thing in college – did something heretofore unprecedented: she hearted my blog. Thus the grade-school love-note badge, above.

She comments from time to time, but I didn’t know she liked it well enough to give it an award and stuff and recommend it to her (also ultra-cool) writer friends. Wow.

Of course, I heart the heck out of her blog, too – but I’m obligated to pass the honor on, and not simply reciprocate.

I love a number of blogs – but most of the bloggers were friends first. However, this past year I visited a new blog. A friend of a friend is the author. I have sense become a devoted reader, podcast-listener, frequent commenter, fan, and yeah, I’d say friend, of the blogger.

So if you’re out there and you haven’t already, visit Hubba’s House. Hubba, I heart your blog!