Merrily We Roll Along, part three

by Thomas A. Droleskey

All right. Where we were? Oh, yes, I remember. We were just leaving the tire store in Kingman, Arizona, after having gotten the tires that we needed to save our lives--or the tires that Our Lord knew from all eternity would be snookered into buying in order to give Him an offering through His Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. That's where we were when part two of these chapter in our recent adventures come to a close.

Well, the rest of the trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Monday, February 13, 2006, can be described in one word: exhausting. Arizona is a miserable state to drive through. One needs a seventy-five miles-per-hour speed limit just to get out out of the arid, desolate state, whose topography is a simile for the state of the Church in her human elements. We have been robbed of the ability to get to that which is our absolute birthright, the Mass of our fathers, without having to drive hundreds upon hundreds of miles, which is what we had to do while continuing our trip, interrupted in Kingman, Arizona, from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, just to get to Holy Mass. All to you Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

We arrived back at the KOA Kampground in Albuquerque around 8:00 p.m. on Monday February 13. I had to circle around the campground twice to find our space, which was in a different part of the campground than the one where we stayed on January 25 and 26. Sharon and Lucy got to sleep shortly after we arrived. I had to stay up to answer e-mails, finally getting to sleep around 11:00 p.m.

The alarm rang much earlier than I would have liked it to have sounded. However, we were there to get to Mass. Up out of bed we had to get for the eleven mile drive, made in the Trail Blazer, to Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Albuquerque. It was good to see Father Ronald Bibeau again. He offers the Immemorial Mass of Tradition very well.

Our stay in Albuquerque was brief. We got back into the motor home following a visit with Father Bibeau at breakfast and took off for the 550 mile drive to the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, area. Tuesday, February 14, 2006, was the first time we had driven through any part of Texas since July of last year without having had something happen to the motor home. Thank you, Blessed Mother! Indeed, the entire drive was uneventful, save for the fact that I was very, very tired and had to pray a great deal to Our Lady for the strength to keep going so that we could get to Holy Mass on Wednesday morning at Queen of Angels Church in Oklahoma City. Thus, we kept going and going and going. We stopped short of Oklahoma City by about thirty miles or so that Tuesday evening, parking at a campground adjacent to a motel.

Another adventure awaited us early the next morning, Wednesday, February 15, 2006. Although I found the street on which Queen of Angels Church is located, I stopped about an eighth of a mile north of the chapel, thinking that a house that had what look like a chapel on its property was Queen of Angels. I even walked up to the door of the place to see if it was open. It wasn't. I returned to the motor home to check the address, discovering that I had proceed a bit further to the south. Upon arriving at the real Queen of Angels Church, however, we had another surprise: Father Graham Walters, the devoted priest who offers the Mass of the ages there, wasn't saying Mass that day. I guess I should have realized that when I didn't see any other vehicles in the parking lot. God had known from all eternity that we would not get to Holy Mass that day. Another offering to give to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. We weren't through with such offerings, however.

The parking lot at Queen of Angels Church was not large enough for the motor home to turn around while the Trail Blazer was attached to it. I tried to turn as sharply as I could, even curbing a bit with the motor home's right wheel on the abutment between the lawn and the parking lot. We just could not complete turn, which meant that I had to, most unexpectedly, detach the Trail Blazer so that Sharon could drive in tandem as we went to breakfast and then put down at a campground in Edmond, Oklahoma. Detaching the car took a lot longer than usual. The angle at which the two vehicles found themselves as a result of the sharp turn made detaching some of the pins very difficult on a blustery day. All to you, Blessed Mother. All to you Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you, save souls.

I finally got the Trail Blazer detached from the motor home and we then drove off in tandem to get some breakfast prior to parking at a campground in a public park in Edmond, Oklahoma. The campground was very rustic. A large playground was located directly in front of the space in which we had parked the motor home. Lucy said, "A playground for me! I hope you have a good talk, Dada." Ah, yes, nothing like a little sentimentality. Actually, I was very happy that Lucy would stay behind with Sharon to get some time on the playground. She had had two straight days of being confined to the motor home. We had done about 1150 miles of driving from the time we left Las Vegas on Monday, February 13, 2006, to the time we pulled into the campground in Edmond, Oklahoma, less than forty-eight hours later. And, I thought at the time, it would just as well for Lucy to say behind as I did not know what epithets might be hurled my way when I gave my address to the "conservative" group about the necessity of restoring the Social Reign of Christ the King at the Golden Corral in Edmond.

Bidding my dear family a farewell and begging for their prayers, I drove the seven miles from the campground to the Golden Corral restaurant in Edmond for my luncheon talk, which started shortly after high noon. I knew that my work was cut out for me. I just prayed to Our Lady to give me all of the graces that I would need to present the truths of her Divine Son and to defend her rightful place as the Queen of all men and of their nations.

As I reported on February 16, 2006, the day after my talk:

My presentation which centered on the Social Reign of Christ the King and the necessity of all people returning to the Catholic Church, generated a lot of heated questions, each of which was thoughtful and well-considered. I had stressed themes familiar to readers of this site, that the proximate cause of the problems of Modernity are the result of the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Freemasonry (present at the time, I was told after the fact by the host, was the "oldest living past Grand Master of the Siloam Lodge in Oklahoma"), that the revolution wrought by Father Martin Luther had resulted in the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen.

Upon hearing this, one man asked why the Catholic Church had not disciplined the likes of Edward Moore Kennedy and John F. Kerrey and other pro-abortion politicians. "Where is your 'true' Church when it will not discipline such men?" A very good question, obviously.

I told the man that the Church had been infected in her human elements with many of the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity and that most of her shepherds today were wolves in shepherds' clothing. Immediately thereafter, however, I noted that the devil is seeking to dissuade non-Catholics from converting to the true Church because of the bad example--and the lack of zeal for the conversion of souls--being exhibited by Catholic popes and cardinals and bishops and priests. The bad examples, as tragic and as inexcusable as they are, are actually negative proofs of the divine foundation of the Church: nothing humanly organized could survive nearly two millennia despite the bad examples of her baptized and confirmed members. I told him that the Archbishop of Oklahoma City, the Most Reverend Eusebius Beltran, should be addressing them and seeking their conversion, not me. Alas, men steeped in the errors of ecumenism and religious liberty do not see it as their obligation to seek the conversion of non-Catholics, who are the victims of both Protestantism and ecumenism, thereby depriving them of access to the worthy reception of Our Lord in Holy Communion and the sacramental absolution of their mortal sins committed after baptism in the Sacrament of Penance, depriving them also of the fullness of the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for their safekeeping and infallible explication.

Another thoughtful question came from a Baptist minister, who wanted to know why Pope John Paul II had said that evolution was "more than a theory." Imagine the scene, will you? I have just given a presentation about how the Catholic Church is the repository of the Deposit of Faith and a Baptist minister wants to know how this can be so when the one we know to be the visible head of the true Church on earth endorses an ideology that even secular science has disproved. I tried to explain that not everything that comes out of the mouth of a pope is the received teaching of Our Lord, that what he says only comes under the ordinary infallibility of the Church if it agrees with that which has been taught always, everywhere and believed by everyone. Clearly, I said, the private opinions of Pope John Paul II are at odds with the truth of the matter, that God did indeed create the world as stated in the Book of Genesis (which creation account is equated to myths in Greek literature by Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est). Why should a Baptist minister take seriously the words of a lay Catholic man about the truths of the Catholic Faith when the Supreme Pontiff puts those truths into question repeatedly?

The people I addressed in Edmond, Oklahoma, on February 15, 2006, are loved by Our Lord. He wants them to save their souls as Catholics. However, no one--and I mean no one--in the hierarchy and almost no one in the priesthood is seeking their conversion, content to surrender to the false teachings of ecumenism and to the spirit of religious indifferentism that is at the heart of the pluralism of the modern State. Thus, these good people are left to spend their entire lives searching for something (conservatism, libertarianism, Americanism) to guide their lives and to resolve social problems that can be ameliorated only by a daily cooperation with the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood and administered to us by the working of the Holy Ghost in the sacraments. The good people in Edmond whom I addressed on February 15, 2006, are the victims of both the Protestant Revolution and of the Second Vatican Council's novelty of ecumenism. It is truly shameful that our shepherds see no need at all to evangelize these people, who are being kept out of the Church by the words and actions of recent popes and bishops and priests.

I noted above that almost no one in the priesthood is seeking the conversion of non-Catholics. There are some in the Ecclesia Dei communities who might want to do so, some who may even do so now and again. However, they are hamstrung by the unjust and illicit conditions under which they offer the Mass of all ages. With some very rare and courageous exceptions, most of these priests cannot oppose openly ecumenism even if they know it to be wrong lest they lose the favor of their local ordinary, who might arbitrarily remove his "permission" for the offering of what is the absolute birthright of all Latin Rite Catholics: the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. This is why the resistance provided by the Society of Saint Pius X and by priests such as Fathers Patrick Perez, Paul Sretenovic, Lawrence Smith, and Ronald Ringrose, among others, is so very important as they give voice to the perennial teaching of the Church without fear of any of the unjust and illicit penalties that might be imposed upon them for doing so.

Well, to put it mildly, I was not well received there. Oh, the Catholics who had recommended that I speak to the group were fairly pleased. However, everyone else was pretty miffed, especially the Freemasons, whose demonic cult came in for criticism during my talk. Indeed, I was told by the man who hosted the event that his father was in attendance. "My father is the oldest living past Grand Master of the Siloam Lodge in Oklahoma."  One of the Catholics in the audience is a student at Christ the King College. He said he saw a man mockingly sharpening his knife during my talk and aiming it at me! Suffice it to say, though, that few people were interested in speaking to me afterward, save for one man who appeared to be a genuine seeker of truth. I gave him a copy of Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations. I was dismissed as a crazy man. All to you Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

Gathering my unsold books from the table where I had placed them, I exited the Golden Corral restaurant to the dirty looks of the those who had heard my talk. I got into the Trail Blazer to return back to the motor home, where Sharon had put Lucy to sleep after her time on the playground. I filled in my wonderful wife on what had happened at the restaurant, thankful that I had been given a wife who is willing to suffer the loss of friends and prestige and the assurance of regular, predictable income as a result of my work. She supports my work completely, offering the many sacrifices that she has embraced as my wife as a totally consecrated slave of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. God knew from all eternity that I had to wait until I was in my fiftieth year of life to find a completely traditional Catholic who was so attached to God that she would be ready to eschew the things of this passing life to support my work. I am blessed beyond all telling.

Although very tired from the long drives, we had agreed to visit with the family who had arranged my speaking appearance before the conservative group--and who had secured the meeting room for my talk the following night, February 16. We had a most enjoyable time with our new friends. Lucy Mary Norma had an opportunity to make a new friend while we were there, one of the young daughters of this particular family. It was good for Lucy to have a chance to play with other children, something this is a rarity as we travel across the country.

One of the folks with whom we visited that late-afternoon February 15 suggested that we travel to monastery at Clear Creek, Oklahoma. I was disinclined for two reasons, the first having to do with the amount of distance between Edmond and Clear Creek. I was about "driven out," so to speak. The second reasons, though, had to do with wanting to avoiding exposing ourselves, but especially Lucy, to any liturgical monkey business. Bearing malice for no one, I had heard that some kind of liturgical experimentation was being conducted there. As it turned out, the information about the type of experimentation I had been given was inaccurate. As I discovered on March 13, 2006, when placing a phone call to the monastery to find out the true story: that High Mass in Clear Creek on Sundays features four elements from the 1965 Missal: the vocal oration of the Secret prayer by the priest, the vocation oration of the Per Ipsum at the end of the Canon of the Mass, the singing of the Pater Noster by the choir (but not by the faithful), and the elimination of the Last Gospel. The monk with whom I spoke, though cordial, was a bit defensive, saying that the changes had been requested by the monastery and approved by Paul Augustin Cardinal Mayer, O.S.B., when he was the President of Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. I did not want to get into a polemic exchange with the monk, indicating that I simply wanted to clarify the record of what was happening at Clear Creek and when. Other than the High Mass, I was told, the Low Masses at Clear Creek are offered according to the 1961 Missale Romanum issued by Pope John XXIII.

Thus, although I did not have the precise information about what was happening at Clear Creek, I did not want to find out in person. I have had enough of liturgical experimentation to last the rest of my life. It as though we have learned nothing from the impermanence bred by the unstable, ever fungible nature of the Novus Ordo Missae, thinking there are ways to "improve" what has come from God Himself: the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. Another sad aspect of the belief that we must "see where the Traditional Mass would have gone without the polemics of the 1960s" is the highly emotionally-charged nature of those who defend such change as desirable. It is the exact same reaction as one gets from many priests in the Novus Ordo Missae when challenged to review the false, Protestant foundations upon which it rests.

That is, many priests in the Novus Ordo Missae, under siege from the revolutionaries, take pride in the belief that they offer the new Mass as well as they can. Any criticism of the Novus Ordo Missae, no matter how well founded in fact, is seen as a direct, personal attack on them. The priest to whom I made my first Confession in 1958, Father Robert Mason, who will celebrate his fiftieth anniversary of priestly ordination this year-and who is a zealous pastor of souls, concluded in a long telephone conversation I had with him in 2002 that I must be criticizing him when criticizing the new Mass. He even uses his sermons frequently to rail against traditional Catholics as somehow disloyal and disobedient, failing to remember that it was the Mass of Tradition that produced most of the canonized saints of the Catholic Church. The issue is just too highly fraught for him, and he is not an enemy of Christ! He loves Our Lady and will hear a confession any time of the day or night. Father Mason suffered mightily at the hands of the late Bishop John R. McGann because of his "conservatism," attempting to remove him as pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in 1983, only to be thwarted by the intervention of the late Silvio Cardinal Oddi, then the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy. He just believes that any criticism of the Novus Ordo Missae is directed at him, which is the case with many priests in Father Mason's situation.

Well, Father Mason's visceral reaction against Tradition is pretty much similar to how some traditional priests respond when questions are raised about the liturgical changes planned by the revolutionaries in the 1950s and approved by Pope Pius XII. Never mind the fact that scholarship has revealed that false representations were made to Pope Pius XII about the "restored" Holy Week that went into effect in 1956, a precursor of the false representations that were made by Annibale Bugnini and the Consilium about the origins of the constituent elements of the Novus Ordo Missae. Anyone who raises questions about the nature of the pre-conciliar liturgical changes must be denounced in highly emotionally-charged terms even before their scholarly evidence is assessed. It is exactly the same sort of emotional screed that one gets from priests in the diocesan structure who do not want to look uncritically and dispassionately at the reality of the Novus Ordo Missae.

Father Patrick Perez, for example, is under savage attack at present from various and sundry sources for pointing out the harmful nature of the changes that took place in the 1950s. He has not called upon people to boycott what is called colloquially the "1962 Missal." He has not denounced priests who offer Mass according to the Missale Romanum promulgated by Pope John XXIII. Priests who have not even heard his talk (which is available in audio form from Catholic Family News and in DVD format from Our Lady Help of Christians Church, 9621 Bixby Avenue, Garden Grove, California; I highly recommend your obtaining copies of this masterful talk), though, have jumped to all kinds of rash judgments. It is an amazing phenomenon to witness. It is as though no one is supposed to pay attention to the nasty little fact that Pope Paul VI himself said the following when promulgating the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969:

The beginning of this renewal was the work of our predecessor, this same Pius XII, in the restoration of the Paschal Vigil and of the Holy Week Rite,3 (Cf. Sacred Congregation of Rites Decree Dominicae Resurrectionis, February 9, 1951; A.A. S. 43 (1951) 138 ff: Decree Maxima Redemptionis nostrae mysteria, November 16, 1955: A.A.S. 47 (1955) 838ff.), which formed the first stage of updating the Roman Missal for the present-day mentality.

Present-day mentality? No, we have seen where the "present-day" mentality leads: to unstoppable chaos. And those who think that the 1965 Ordo Missae is "the answer" as it represents what they believe to be the "true intentions" of the Second Vatican Council's Sacrosanctum Consilium have yet to come to grips with the fact that that document was premised upon the now disproved antiquarian theses of Pius Parsch and others of the Liturgical Movement, chronicled so well by Father Didier Bonneterre in The Liturgical Movement: Roots, Radicals, Results (Angelus Press). There is no need to tamper with the closest thing to Heaven we can ever experience: the Traditional Latin Mass. So, ladies and gentlemen, there you have the reason why we did not go to Clear Creek, Oklahoma, during our visit to Edmond, Oklahoma, four weeks ago!

Oh, yes, where was I in the travelogue? Hmmmm. This is a travelogue, right? Well, yes and no. Even a travelogue is supposed to contain some catechetical reflections now and again.

All right. Anyhow, we had a delightful time with the family who had arranged my talks in Oklahoma, agreeing to meet them at the Oklahoma City Zoo the next morning after we went to Mass. They went to Saint Michael's Church in Bethany, Oklahoma. We finally had the privilege of assisting at Holy Mass offered at the hands of Father Graham Walters, who had been away the day before. Sharon commented to me after Mass was over, "It was as though the Gates of Heaven were opened when Father Walters was offering Mass." Indeed. Father Walters is another brave priest who was given the graces from Our Lady to see the harm of the Novus Ordo Missae and to refuse to participate in anything that could be deemed offensive to god and thus harmful to souls. What a privilege to meet all of these brave, courageous, faithful priests.

The temperature, which had been very unseasonably mild in the Oklahoma City area, plummeted by about twenty degrees between the time we stopped for breakfast and the time we left the restaurant on Thursday, February 16, 2006. Wending our way down to the Oklahoma City Zoo, we had a fine time with our friends at the zoo, being careful to point out to passers-by that there is no such thing as evolution, that God created all of the animals in the first week of Creation exactly as we see them before us. Lucy has become very good at answering my rhetorical questions as we walk along or stand in front of some exhibit. She had fun playing with our friends' young daughter.

My right arm, however, could not be lifted up at all without great pain that day. One of our friends, who has some medical experience, said that I might be suffering from a rotator cuff injury (perhaps all those years leading cheers at Shea Stadium?). He proposed surgery at a place locally, saying that the repair would be done gratis. This would have meant staying in the area for a time. As it turned out, though, the arm was better by the next day. There's been no trace of the problem since.

A nice turnout of people showed up for my talk at the Sleep Inn and Suites in Edmond, Oklahoma, that evening. Among those in attendance was Father Howard Remski of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. As I have noted in a number of essays over the last few years, there are some exemplary priests in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. Father Remski is one of them, having overcome some severe physical disabilities, including deafness, to become a priest. Even though I have come to understand that that the "indult" serves as a strait-jacket upon right-minded priests and a possible trap for the faithful, once again, as I noted in my reflection about the late Monsignor John Sweeny, one would sin against Charity if he did not admit that there are some very good priests in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter who did indeed see the full extent of the problems in the Church and who do their best within the limitations imposed upon them to lead souls to Heaven. I was very honored that Father Remski came my talk, especially since I have been very critical of the leadership of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter under Father Arnaud Devillers and very supportive of the stands taken by the Society of Saint Pius X in defense of the fullness of the Catholic Faith by resisting the novelties of ecumenism and religious liberty, to say nothing of my support for priests such as Monsignor Raymond Ruscitto and Fathers Patrick Perez, Paul Sretenovic, Lawrence Smith, Paul Petko, Ronald Ringrose, Graham Walters and Paul Petko.

The talk, "Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations," went a little longer than usual. It was a long day for Lucy, who had napped between the zoo and our having dinner with our friends prior to the talk. We had to get her some Chicken McNuggets after the talk to tide her over until we got back to the motor home very late at night. And our return to the motor home was delayed even further by the fact that a cashier at a gasoline station did not know how to operate a gasoline pump via remote control. I had gone into the store to pay cash for gasoline when my debit card did not work. I dutifully plunked down fifty dollars for gasoline in the Trail Blazer (did any of us ever think back in the 1950s that we'd be paying fifty dollars for tank of gasoline?). I filled up the gasoline tank and then went back into the store for change. The woman said, "Oh, you came back for change. Your card worked. I didn't think you'd come back for your money." Well, madam, you could have let me know. A world where people do not live and work for the honor and glory of God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church descends into sloth.

We got back to the motor home so late that Lucy did not get to sleep until 11:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 16, way past her bedtime. I realized then and there that I would probably have to represent the family alone a few hours later at Father Walters's offering of Holy Mass at Queen of Angels in Oklahoma City, which is what happened. It's tough enough for Lucy to get up early in the morning during the week for a 6:45 a.m. Mass (even when she gets to bed around 7:00 p.m.). I couldn't expect her to get up with just six or seven hours of sleep. Thus, for the first time since July 15, 2005, when I assisted at Father Michel Morel's Mass at Our Lady of Grace in Kenner, Louisiana, by myself because of similar circumstances (a talk ending late at night), I went to Mass without my family. Very strange. However, I did get an opportunity to visit for a little bit with Father Walters after Holy Mass. It was my great pleasure to have met him after Mass.

Sharon and Lucy visited at the home of our friends in Edmond, Oklahoma, while I did some errands, including getting an oil change for the Trail Blazer. It was our intention to leave for Des Moines, Iowa, the next morning, Saturday, February 18, 2006, after going to Mass at Queen of Angels, a nice, friendly 10:00 a.m. Mass on Saturday morning. While I was at Jiffy Lube in Edmond, however, I heard people talking about "the" ice storm that was coming into the area.

"Ice storm?" I said to myself. "We have to get out of here. Now." All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

Oh, I was tired. I was really looking forward to getting some sleep that Friday night. That was not in God's Providence. He knew from all eternity that we would have to leave that evening. Thus, I got a haircut, sent off some books at the Edmond Post Office and then drove to the home of our friends to collect my family to pack up the motor home for our earlier-than-expected departure from the campground in Edmond. I hooked up the Trail Blazer to the motor home fifth time since leaving Orangeland R. V. Park six days before. And it was just in time. We got out of the Oklahoma City just about twenty minutes before the fast-moving ice-storm raged into the area.

Although I was a bit undecided whether to go northeast on Interstate 44 or due north on Interstate 35, I opted to go north on Interstate 35, which becomes the Kansas Turnpike in Kansas after telephoning the turnpike authority's information line, learning that the entire turnpike was clear. That was good enough for me. Up north we went on Interstate 35 after getting gasoline in Edmond, Oklahoma.

The winds really were whipping up quite a bit as we drove into Kansas, shades of the 70 mph wind gusts we experienced on Monday, December 5, 2005, as we drove from Watkins, Colorado, to Lincoln, Nebraska. Indeed, when I considered putting down in Sterling, Colorado, to "wait out" the wind storm I asked a gasoline station attendant how long it would take for the winds to die down. "Never," I was told. "These winds are normal around here." Although eighteen wheelers were being blown off of Interstate 76 that day we drove on, encountering the additional penance of heavy snow once we had gotten onto Interstate 80 in western Nebraska. The winds on Friday, February 17, 2006, were not quite that bad. However, they were pretty fierce at times.

The worst part of our five and one-half hour trip from Edmond, Oklahoma, to a campground in Bonner Springs, Kansas, was the cold weather, which had returned with a vengeance as we drove north up I-35 and then continued on the Kansas Turnpike route to I-70. We still haven't fixed the problem, which first developed when fuses were taken out in a furtive attempt to fix our slides in San Antonio, Texas, on September 7, 2005, of the blower not blowing out cool air or heat. The blower in the dashboard area where I sit when I am driving only works faintly as a result of it being jury-rigged. I sweated like a piggy-wiggy in September. My feet were on the verge of frostbite even though I was wearing thermal socks guaranteed, supposedly, to keep one's toesy-woesies warm in minus forty degree temperatures. All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

Lucy was asleep by the time I got gasoline at around 10:00 p.m. at a service area on Interstate 70 some fifteen miles west of Bonner Springs. It was about zero degrees outside when I stepped out of the motor home, which was nearly out of gasoline (and filling up an eighty-two gallon tank can take a spell to complete). We got terrible mileage from Edmond to that service area. I don't know whether it was the gasoline or the resistance caused by the wind. I had expected to get into the campground without stopping for gasoline at all.

Well, my ears were throbbing and throbbing because of the cold and the wind once I went outside. I had gloves but no hat. Sharon finally gave me a pink knit hat of Lucy's to put on, which kept me a bit warmer (we recreated the scene of that knit hat in the motor home two days later, as pictured below; hey, I used to wear a hat and mask in public at Shea Stadium. Do you think I am too proud to be pictured in a pink knit hat? Hardly). However, it was all I could do to put seventeen gallons of gasoline into the tank, enough to get us to the campground that night and thence to Saint Vincent de Paul Church in Kansas City, Missouri, for 8:00 a.m. Mass the next morning. I was frozen from head to toe. All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

We got into the campground around 10:30 p.m. on Friday, February 17, 2006. I filled out the registration form in the bitter cold, left the money for the night's stay in the registration envelope and then returned to the motor home to find our space. I only had to do one thing upon pulling into the space: plugging in our electrical cord. Our water hose was frozen solid. I knew when we left Edmond that we would not be able to get any water back into the motor home until Spring.

I got up early the next morning to get us to Holy Mass, encountering a huge chocolate Labrador Retriever as I tried to start up the generator, which powers our electricity when we are on the road, by pressing its central switch (our inside switch doesn't work all of the time). Well, the dog just wanted to get warm. He wanted to cuddle up next to me and to jump on me. "Look" I said to the bowser. "My late father was a veterinarian. I have great affection for dogs. You can't come with us!" Well, he wouldn't budge, and the generator wouldn't start. I just had to unplug the motor home from the electrical outlet and hope that the generator would get going again after Mass at Saint Vincent de Paul Church.

Undeterred, the dog nearly jumped into the motor home as I opened the main cabin door. I had to jump up myself rather quickly, closing the door just before the dog was able to become an uninvited passenger. Looking at Sharon as we faced yet another offering, that of no electricity, including no heat, I started up the motor home and drove off on Interstate 70 for Mass at Saint Vincent de Paul Church. The dog sat disconsolately alongside our space as we drove off.

Usually attentive to road signs, I deceived myself into thinking that a sign that indicated that Interstate 670, the most direct route to the highway that leads to Saint Vincent de Paul from downtown Kansas City, Missouri, my late mother's birthplace, was closed only until 6:00 a.m. on February 18, 2006. Oh, no! The road closed for the entire weekend. It dumped me out onto Interstate 35 southbound. Not what I wanted. I had to pray to Saint Anthony and my Guardian Angel to make the right choice of an exit to work my over to the general direction of Saint Vincent de Paul Church. The minutes ticked by. It became evident that we would be late for Holy Mass. We kept on praying. I found an exit for Southeast Trafficway, finding, though, that there was no way to turn left or to make a U-turn until I had gone several miles. Well, turned around, working my over to a cross street that I thought would work. It did. We were on our way to Saint Vincent de Paul after an unexpected detour.

As God would have it in His ineffable Mercy, Father Kenneth Dean was late starting Holy Mass. He was just beginning the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar as we walked in! Deo gratias. I don't like being late for Holy Mass. Our Lady was very good to us on her day, Saturday. And it was nice to have Mass with Father Dean again nearly four weeks after we had been to Springfield, Missouri.

We still had a little problem facing us after Mass: no electricity or heat in the motor home. It was bitterly cold, and getting really cold in the motor home. The general rule of thumb is this about the motor home: the temperature outside is the temperature inside unless there is air conditioning or heat in the motor home. We've had it as hot as 100 degrees inside of the motor home and as cold as minus eleven degrees. The only thing that I think was wrong was that the coach batteries, located under the steps of the motor home, needed a boost in the cold weather. Perhaps the problem could be rectified if I found a mechanic who could give us a battery boost. That would have to wait, though, until we got Lucy (and ourselves) fed.

Nourishment having been provided to all hands on deck, we continued on our way after getting a full tank of gasoline. I came upon a sign about forty miles north of Kansas City on Interstate 35 for a repair shop that worked on motor homes. Thus, I exited to search for the shop. It was getting pretty cold inside of the motor home. Sharon, who never complains about anything, was saying that it was getting cold. Something had to be done. Fast.

Although it took a few minutes to find the right shop (I stopped at a shop that did not work on motor homes first), I pulled into a parking lot, intent on finding help. As I was about to exit the motor home I saw the "Battery Disconnect" switch staring right at me. "Could it be?" I said to myself, "that this switch got hit accidentally." I pushed the switch. Heat started to come back on. The generator started again. It was that simple. Thank you, Blessed Mother! We didn't have to spend money for a battery boost that wouldn't have worked.

However, there was another, albeit temporary problem: the motor home could not make the turn to clear two parked cars as I attempted to exit. The last thing in the world I wanted to do in that cold weather was to have to detach once again. Sharon suggested that I back up. So, report me to Blue Ox towbar company, I backed up, giving us just enough space to turn around and to exit the parking lot of the repair shop we did not need to use. We were on our way to Altoona, Iowa.

Why Altoona? Simple. Altoona, Iowa, features one of the very few campgrounds that is open year-round in that part of the Midwest. There is nothing open in Minnesota or Wisconsin. We had stayed at Adventureland R. V. Park in Altoona on December 30-31, 2001, at a time when we had lost heat in cold weather as Sharon was expecting Lucy. A fellow who worked for a recreational vehicle repair shop came out on his own time on December 30, 2001, to fix the problem, for us, although we stayed there in vain, humanly speaking, in the hope that our generator, which had broken down, could get fixed at a place there. Thus, I knew that we could bed down there for the night of Saturday, February 18, 2006, prior to the three hour drive to Guckeen, Minnesota. That's why Altoona, Iowa.

We had to get liquefied propane gas once we got to the campground just to make sure that we did not run out of that particular heating agent overnight. That took a while as the fellow who was filling up our tank had some difficulties. All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

Using the bath house to get ourselves refreshed, shall we say, after not having water in the motor home for about a day, we got a bite to eat and then decided against doing food shopping because it was so bitterly cold. I discovered upon our return to the motor home, though, that there were some necessities that we really needed. Thus, it was out into the cold by myself to find a store and get some supplies for the rest of the trip.

We left early the next morning for the three hour trip to Guckeen, Minnesota, and my talk on the beauty of the Mass of Tradition and the horror of the Novus Ordo Missae after Holy Mass at Our Lady of Ransom Oratory. It was nice to see the good people whom we had met in Alpha, Minnesota, about ten weeks before. Our five week speaking tour was over. My speaking after that would be confined, at least through April 30, 2006, to Saint Michael's Church in DePere, Wisconsin.

The speaking was over. The adventures were not over. Far from it.

Not wanting the motor home to get cold or the batteries to die in the cold as we went to Mass and as I gave my lectures, I left the generator on so as to keep the heat running without draining the coach's batteries. I was a little concerned about a build-up of carbon monoxide inside of the motor home as it sad. However, as we had left the generator running on the trip without a problem in the preceding five weeks, I figured that we would be safe. Wrong. We weren't.

Sure enough, I heard the loud beeping of the carbon monoxide detector as soon as I got out onto the street in tiny Guckeen. We would have to wait until the carbon monoxide cleared. So, I opened all of the windows in the motor home and turned off the generator, ushering Sharon and Lucy into the Trail Blazer, which was attached to the motor home, to wait it out. After a few moments, though, I said out loud, "What are we doing? We'll die of frostbite out here in the Trail Blazer if we don't have the engine running. We might as well get back into the motor home and let the thing air out as we drive." Thus, back into the motor home the Droleskey family went, and back on the road to wherever it was we were going to stop that night, Sunday, February 19, 2006, Sexagesima Sunday.

I told Sharon that we would keep the windows open for five minutes on the road after we got back onto Interstate 90, heading eastbound to Wisconsin. It was a very long five minutes. It was a very cold day. Sharon kept asking, "Has it been five minutes yet?" No sooner than five minutes had passed, however, the carbon monoxide detector went off and we could batten down the hatches again. All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls.

The distance between Guckeen, Minnesota, and where we live in northern Marinette County, Wisconsin, is about 440 miles. We left Guckeen at around 3:00 p.m., Central Standard Time, on February 19. As about 105 miles of the trip involves driving on a two-lane highway in south central Wisconsin, we could not expect to be back in our rental house until around 10:00 p.m. that night, much too late to get Lucy to bed and to unpack the motor home and to get enough sleep for Lucy prior our twenty minute drive to Father Lawrence Smith's 6:45 a.m. Mass in Silver Cliff, Wisconsin. I asked Sharon to see if there was an campground open in Rochester, Minnesota, about fifty miles from Winona, where we could get to Holy Mass at Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary. There was such a campground. I decided, therefore, to drive to Rochester and thence to stay the night there before leaving early the next morning.

It was as bitterly cold in the Rochester, Minnesota, area, as it had been the night before in Des Moines. I had to detach the car to get the family a bite to eat in downtown Rochester and then re-attach the car after we returned.

Upon returning to the motor home, though, I discovered that Mapquest could not direct me to Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary. I had never been there before. I did not have a clue as to where it might be located in Winona, which prompted me to send an e-mail to the seminary's rector, who did not get back to me. I e-mailed Michael Matt at The Remnant, who gave me a general set of directions but without too many specifics insofar as street names. His general directions, coupled with the Society of Saint Pius X's website's statement that the seminary was located off of U.S. Route 14, were good enough for me to have a rough idea that I had to go through Winona on US-61 as though I was heading north for the Twin Cities and then turn left onto U.S. 14. Although I got a little nervous as I started to go up a huge hill on U.S. 14, I was relieved to find that I had found the seminary right at the base of the hill. Thank you, Saint Anthony. Thank you, Guardian Angel. Thank you, Saint Thomas Aquinas.

As Our dear Lord would have it for my humiliation and, thus, for my sanctification, the motor home could not quite make the turn around a flagpole near the entrance to the seminary's chapel. In an effort to straighten out the motor home's wheels so as to make the turn successfully, though, our assembly of a motor home and tow vehicle was propelled right into a snowbank on the lawn of the seminary. We were stuck. We were stuck real good. The motor home would not budge. We were deep in the snows on the grounds of Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary.

There was nothing we could do at the time but to get ourselves out into the deep snow and assist at 7:15 a.m. Holy Mass before we could get assistance thereafter. I telephoned the insurance company that provides coverage for the motor home, going through all of the extensive bureaucratic red tape and endless transfers from one agent to another that is involved in arranging for a tow. Once again, obviously, I had to unexpectedly detach the Trail Blazer. I told Sharon, "Yes, God has known from all eternity this would happen. All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus,  Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls."

Some seminarians happened by about an hour after Mass. They were most helpful and were determined to help us. It was a matter of minutes thereafter that a maintenance truck appeared with some tow chains to pull the motor home out of the snowbank. I gave the seminarians copies of G.I.R.M. Warfare and Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations. The owner of the tow truck firm that would have pulled us out of the snowbank had not the seminarians intervened called just as the motor home was being liberated. I canceled the call. Even he, who was located in Winona, did not know where the seminary was situated!

We got back on the road, grateful to the assistance provided by the seminarians, and crossed over the Mississippi River into Wisconsin. It was another 275 miles from the Wisconsin-Minnesota border to our rental house, to which we returned after a bit of food shopping at the Piggly Wiggly in Crivitz, Wisconsin. We had stopped there on Monday, January 16, 2006, on the way to Mukwonago, Wisconsin. We stopped there on our way back to the rental house. Our adventurous trip ended at around 3:20 p.m. on Monday, February 20, 2006.

Those of you who visit this site regularly know that nineteen articles have been published on this site prior to this one. That work quotient should remain the same for the next few weeks, although I can pretty much guarantee that Monday postings will be pretty much an impossibility because of my speaking in DePere, Wisconsin, eighty miles south of where we live, on Sundays through April 30. After that point, though, we are going to have to get back onto the road, at least for a little bit. Although I am always tired of the driving after we complete a speaking tour, I know that there are some people who do profit from the lectures. And, to be honest, the only time we make any income is when we're on the road. Yes, we have to spend money to keep the motor home going while on the road. We did had enough left over after the road trip to see us through to the end of this month, March, 2006.

Unfortunately, the mailman did not bring us good news upon our return. We have received less than one hundred responses to my December 18, 2005, fund-raising appeal letter. Some of those responses were indeed very generous. One alone got us through the entire month of January, 2006. Others send regular donations each month, for which we are very grateful. Aggregately, though, there aren't enough donations to support our work. As I told Sharon after reviewing the mail on February 20, 2006, and assessing our fixed expenses, "Barring a miracle, for which we pray to our beloved Saint Joseph, we will be broke by the end of March." That has not changed.

It was my hope that about a fifth of those who view this website regularly would have responded to my December 18, 2005, appeal letter. If only a fifth had done so, sending two dollars a month or twenty-four dollars a year, we would have been able to stabilize our situation. As I state repeatedly, no one who disagrees with my work is at all obliged to support it. No one who lacks the means to support my work financially is obliged to do so. I was hoping that there were enough people who valued the work to support it with regular pledges. This has not proved to be the case.

Thus, although I have gone back and forth on the matter for the past few months, there is really no other option than to turn this website into a subscription-based site. This will become effective on April 3, 2006. I will announce the details as soon as the company that hosts this site finalizes them. Those who have donated in recent months (and those who have been good to us in the past few years) will be given usernames and passwords to enter the system without any further donations. Those have have not made pledges, however, will have to subscribe, paying around $2.50 a month, which takes into consideration the fee that will have to be paid to PayPal for the subscription service.

I sincerely regret that this has become a necessity. Many readers write to me to say how much they enjoy the articles, which is why this work continues. There is just no other alternative, once again, barring a miraculous grant of assistance, that can forestall something that probably should have been done months ago.

It is important for this site to become self-supporting, especially in light of the fact that we could be within two weeks of announcing a major fund-raising drive to turn Christ the King College into a brick-and-mortar institution. We are not at liberty at present to disclose the plans that have been developing for about three months. Our formal fund-raising efforts, though, are going to be focused on the long-term future of the College, which I hope and pray will outlive me and provide a means of educating Catholics in the authentic Tradition of the Church for many generations, please God and His Most Blessed Mother.

Announcements will be made about the transitioning of this site to a subscription-based service within the next week to ten days or so.

Well, I hope that the travelogues describing our recent five week, 6,000 mile journey have been interesting to read. Each of us experiences similar sorts of things. The purpose of writing all of this up is to try to share with those who are interested how we can offer up every single moment of our lives in perfect equanimity to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slaves.

All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!

Viva Cristo Rey!

A Few Remembrances of the Last Part of Our Journey

 

Five hours after being liberated from Kingman, Arizona, Monday, February 13, 2006.

 

 

Queen of Angels Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Thursday, February 16, 2006:

 

One of the dissatisfied people at my talk in Oklahoma City on February 15, 2006:

The "recreation" of the scene with the pink knit hat, Saturday, February 18, 2006:

 

The carbon monoxide detector is going off, Guckeen, Minnesota, Sunday, February 19, 2006:

A seminarian to the rescue, Winona, Minnesota, Monday, February 20, 2006 (the detached Trail Blazer is in the rear):

The rescue truck, Winona, Minnesota, Monday, February 20, 2006: