Bruce Wilson, an old friend, has just posted a new chapter in his autobiographical novel Justin's Foggy Night of the Soul. http://foggynightofthesoul.wordpress.com/ This novel is a work-in-progress, but I find it tremendously good and very interesting, partly because it's my own story and the story of every Catholic of my generation (let's say it will ring a familiar note to those born around 1960 and before).
Who is Bruce Wilson? Bruce is an older brother of one of my college roommates and friends, Brian Wilson. Brian studied with me at the University of Notre Dame between 1966 and 1970. I along with Brian, Chris Cotter, Mike Gerrity, Tim Forward, Tom Heinen, Mike Celizic, and about about 29 other Notre Damers studied together in Salzburg and Innsbruck, Austria during academic year 1967-68.
In the 1970's Chris Cotter and I de-tassled corn with Brian and Bruce Wilson (and the rest of his family) around Perry and Jamaica, Iowa. Also in the 1970's, Bruce Wilson was involved with Chris and me with Peacemaker and Catholic Worker (Dorothy Day et al.) activities. And there was one other hilarious (in retrospect) enterprise. These rocket-scientists, Bruce, Chris, Kenny Przybylski, Jack Shereda, and possibly Timmy Jenkins, decided to go into business cutting down dead elm trees (trees stricken by the Dutch Elm Disease blight).The plan was to underbid for the jobs of cutting down and removing trees, beginning in the Iowa City area. Ask any of the above how that went!
Back in the 1970's I would have guessed that Bruce would end up a priest or monk, an artist, or an inmate of an insane asylum (possibly all three of these choices!).
I hadn't heard from or about Bruce until about a year or two ago. He was living in Oakland, California, and working as a massage therapist and holistic healer. And he was writing a novel, chapter by chapter, and publishing it on a blog and a website.
The novel is very funny and very good, and it evokes that peculiar and fascinating time in the 1950's and early 1960's--a time in that for American Catholics will never come again.
Here again is the link to Bruce Wilson's novel in progress: http://foggynightofthesoul.wordpress.com/
I hope a publisher picks up this wonderful work!
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Hey Bob,
Thanks again for the praise of my novel and the...?
"Back in the 1970's I would have guessed that Bruce would end up a priest or monk, an artist, or an inmate of an insane asylum (possibly all three of these choices!)."
Well actually, I have to say that I was entertaining all of those possibilities at one time or another.
In fact I used to tell people that if I ever suffered the pain of insanity, I prayed it would be as a catatonic.
I still feel badly about talking you guys into my get-rich-quick-start-a-commune-diseaseed-tree-elimination plan. I think I have missed my calling though. I could have done well selling all kinds of ephemeral dreams. And that wouldn't have required chain saws.
I remember we almost killed Chris with our rope slinging method of lowering cutoff branches to the ground while we all hung on (unharnessed) for dear life. We were like monkeys up there in those trees, and with about as much intelligence. I remember it was great entertainment for the U. of Iowa students passing by below. We're lucky we didn't kill one of them too.
But as a monument to our efforts we can now drive through Iowa City knowing that it is two less diseased trees only because of our visionary endeavor.
Bruce
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