Welcome Home

 United States Navy Memorial - The Lone Sailor

I spent a few more days than usual at my mother's. We got a lot done: fixed the legs on a kitchen chair, cleaned up some of the basement (about 2% of it), banking, shopping, and repaired my father's statue of The Lone Sailor.

Now this statue is located in Washington D.C. at The United States Navy Memorial. Sometime back in the 90's I remember we sought it out and spent some time there. I remember a number of people made a number of cracks about what the Lone Sailor was actually looking for on that street in Washington. It was like On The Town, with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin all rolled up into one, lone sailor.
I assume my father made some donations to US Navy events or projects, and this replica of the statue was sent to him. One day in 2011 or 2012 my mother picked it up to dust, and the base broke off at the ankles of the statue.
I recall talking to my father in 2012 about how to go about repairing such a statue; since it was irregular is shape, it could not simply be laid down on a table and glued together. We had to come up with some way to hold the base and the rest of the statue together.
I thought about placing it in a bed of small styrofoam balls. Why I was thinking of styrofoam balls, I have no idea, but such a bed would conform to the irregular shape of the statue, and possibly allow the two pieces to rest alongside each other and be joined and let rest while the glue worked.

Early 2013 my father passed, and I have thought about the statue since then. At some time in 2013, I read a post in a blog about using pie weights, then dried peas, or beans, or lentils for the same purpose.
So I had a bag of dried lentils, and bought a bag of white rice for $1.67 while my mother and I were at the drug store. Tuesday morning, I took a look plastic cake cover - my mother has an extensive collection of designer cake covers, cardboard boxes, and packing items - turned it upside down and placed the bag of lentils in it. I opened the rice and filled in the space between the lentil bag and the perimeter of the cover.
The statue I put on the lentil bag, and pressed it down, getting it flat. I worked the base into the pile of rice until it was lined up with the statue.

At that point, I saw it was almost perfect. I removed the base, fluffed the rice up a bit, applied glue to the statue breaks, then re-worked the base into the rice, and joined them.

By the time I left, The Lone Sailor was back upstairs next to my father's easy chair.

Good work.

My mother and I had only one argument, and it lasted about 3 minutes. Politics as usual. She wants to elect Republican Senators, as she is under the impression that the Senate is the primary bottleneck in the governmental process.

How does one argue these points? And I do not mean with my mother, because unless she thinks of something, it does not actually exist.

For example, Andrew Napatitano in his article cited last week (http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/pray-for-my-ignorant-pope/) says:

...Thank God, so to speak, that his teaching authority is limited to faith and morals, because in matters of economics, he is wide of the mark...

...The pope seems to prefer common ownership of the means of production, which is Marxist, or private ownership and government control, which is fascist, or government ownership and government control, which is socialist. All of those failed systems lead to ashes, not wealth. Pope Francis must know this. He must also know that when Europe was in turmoil in 1931, his predecessor Pius XI wrote in one of his encyclicals: “(N)o one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist.”

...Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, recently discovered serious structural problems with St. Patrick’s Cathedral that will cost $200 million to repair. He will soon have that bill paid. Where did that money come from? It came from the disposable income of rich Catholic capitalists. Who will benefit from this? The blue-collar workers whom the restoration project is employing now have jobs, and everyone – rich and poor – who attends Mass at the refurbished St. Patrick’s will do so in comfort and beauty.
What shall we do about the pope and economics? We should pray for his faith and understanding and for a return to orthodoxy. That means Holy Mother Church under the Vicar of Christ – saving souls, not pocketbooks.

Mr. Napolitano cannot make up his mind as to which questions are matters of faith and morals. He seems to quote Pius XI describing the possibility of a Catholic being a Socialist as if Pius spoke ex cathedra, but he did not.

Mr. Napolitano reads into the Pope's remarks sinister implications as to ownership of property, but I have missed it, if the Pope actually said something like that.

The paragraph about the repairs to St. Patrick's is a veiled threat to withhold funds, contributions, or tithes. It does not make much sense otherwise. If all the Catholics who have contributed to their parishes since World War II, building churches and schools, repairing churches and schools, were to read this article, they would realize that they were classified as "rich Catholic capitalists".
Mr. Napolitano's construction is such that he seems to contrast the rich capitalists alongside the blue-collar workers, and those workers have jobs, but surprisingly enough, those blue-collar guys do not contribute to church repairs. Only the rich Catholic capitalists do.

I know. I make no sense to criticize something obviously written on the fly, or by the seat of Mr. Napolitano's pants.
He just doesn't like all that talk about poor folks.

--