On the South Side

We had a good Easter here at the Hudson home. It was a busy, but nice weekend. Emily's been working most weekends, but she likes her job. Friday night Annette and I went to the Good Friday service at our sister church. Saturday morning we drove out to beautiful Dittmer, Missouri to help a friend move back to St. Louis. She's separating/divorcing so a bunch of us from church went out to help her. Saturday night I spent at church preparing the breakfast for Sunday morning. Sunday morning after the Sunrise Service at Bellerive Park folks always come by for breakfast. It's not big, just about twenty-five or so. Easter Service was very nice. A packed church as usual for Easter. My Cousin Ken's niece Tara and her fiancé came and later they told us they'd decided to get married here at Kingshighway. Her grandmother, Ken's mother, my aunt Beth would be very glad to hear this. I can't help but to think of her each Easter as she's the one who always arranged for t...

Sorry for not writing in a while... Let's see...my Dad is doing well. He's still on the oxygen, but is improving each day and should make a "full" recovery. "Full" meaning 72 years old, smoked cigarettes for 50 of those years, so what do you think his lungs are telling him? "We can't, (cough, cough) do it, (cough, cough) any - (cough, cough) - more!" So, he's given up the cigarettes. He says he'll be ready to go to Steak N Shake maybe next week. It's going to be strange, sitting there after we eat and him not lighting up. Maybe I'll start smoking. I can't believe it Holy Week already. Man, where does the year go? I always remember my old friend Scott Doss on Maundy Thursday. He died on Holy Thursday 5 years ago. He and I were childhood friends since 4th grade or so. He moved out of Carondelet before we went to high-school, but we remained friends. When we were kids, he lived down here on Dover, and another kid by the name ...

While roaming through the Baseball Reference site (I added a permanent link to it on the Trivia Night Blog ) I remembered a story my dad told me about Pete Reiser. Turns out, he's the 2nd cousin of Leo Reiser, who attends our church. Leo's upwards of 85 years old now and was quite the musician in his day. He still composes (piano) and plays during Communion once a month. He's also a regular at our Coffee Houses. He loves Rogers & Hart/Hammerstein as much as I do and we've more than a few times blessed the crowd with his not-so-exact fingerings and my not-so-Howard-Keel-like voice. Each time he performs, I think to myself, "Boy, I hope I'm still doing that when I'm 85." Whenever my dad and Leo see each other, Leo says to him, "'morning Son," to which my dad replies, "'evening Star." I guess it's some kind of secret code they made up when they were both in Choir years ago. But, back to Pete Reiser. Poor Pete is the ...

"I won't run," she told ABC's "This Week." "I won't. How's that? Is that categorical enough?" Read more...

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of Condoleeza Rice. She made the news the other day when she wouldn't rule out a bid for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 and when she described herself as "mildy pro-choice." Here's an excerpt from the interview: Miss Rice said abortion should be "as rare a circumstance as possible," although without excessive government intervention. "We should not have the federal government in a position where it is forcing its views on one side or the other. So, for instance, I've tended to agree with those who do not favor federal funding for abortion, because I believe that those who hold a strong moral view on the other side should not be forced to fund it." Describing pro-lifers as "the other side" is one of the ways Miss Rice articulates her position as a "mildly pro-choice" Republican. She explained that she is "in effect kind of libertarian on this issue,...

I'd like to flesh out my feelings on the Supreme Court's hearing the Ten Commandments issue. It struck me that my friend Kurt would be very confused if he were to read my blog post and comments from a few days ago. You see, in the context of a Sunday School class that he was teaching I defended the civil liberties side of the argument quite convincingly. I did this mainly because he was coming off a little heavy handed and I knew there to be some liberal folks in the class that were not likely to speak up. I wanted to say what I knew they were thinking. Now, Kurt knows me pretty well, and was a bit confused by my stance, so we talked about it at some length. He sympathized with my nod toward our shy liberal friends, but, as he's done many times while talking to me, he pinned me down and asked, "Rich, what do you think?" I hate when that happens. After chatting for a while we both agreed that God was probably not much impressed with our monuments. And, like our t...

What's that you say? You didn't know he was in the hospital? Neither did I. Turns out he almost died from respitory failure. Turns out he's got emphasema on top of the bronchitis. Who was buying cigarettes for him, you ask? Yeah, that was me. Was buying cigarettes for him; not any more. He's quit smoking; that's the good news. Finally, after, I'm guessing, over 50 years of smoking he says he's quitting. I think he will. He's probably scared to death now. I'm thinking he's had a life changing experience. I gotta get over there before it wears off.

I don't know how she did it, but Annette got all 4 Beatles together at the Pageant last Saturday night to perform for my birthday. And, just so you know, apparently the Paul is Dead rumor is true. I overheard the T-shirt lady say that Paul (she called him Gary to try to cover it up) went home sick. She then said that they had to call in another Paul and he would be playing tonight. However, I saw a mini-van parked outside with the license plate MCRTNY so I'm quite sure he was there. Or was he? Seriously though, we went to see 1964 - The Tribute down at the Pageant in the Loop last Saturday. Emily went with us and she just had a blast. I was thinking about it: I could do without the costumes etc.; the music as it was played by the Beatles, i.e. on the original instruments stands on its own. I was very impressed with "George" and his Carl Perkins guitar. It was turned up loud and it carried the songs. The power of the pop-song came through; guitar, bass and drums - tha...

Make no mistake, folks who want to see the Ten Commandments taken out of every civil building in the country are not non-religious ; they are anti-religious . And, there's a big difference between the two. Non-religious people do not believe in God. God doesn't exist, He/She/It didn't create the world, nor do they, or have they, ever interceded in history. Obviously not, if they don't exist. But, if people really believe this, then they can be said to have a belief system. We call these belief systems Religion. So, really, they are religious, just not in the way that I am. That's great. Then there are the anti-religious people. These are folks who think that religion is bad and should be destroyed; wiped away from history once and for all. These people, I believe, are, in fact, very religious. We might call them fundamentalist. They believe so strongly in their system that all other systems need to be done away with. Like a Crusade or a Jihad you might say. Well I...

I've started another Blog. This one is completely dedicated to Trivia. I love playing trivia almost as much as I hate bad trivia. So, in an effort to rid the world of stinky trivia, I'm devoting myself to preaching and teaching the difference between good and bad. I've toyed with the idea of writing some software to help me expedite matters if I were to offer my services as Trivia Master for hire, and I've begun work on that. This new blog will be a place for all things Trivia. I'll be asking questions for fun, I'll be looking for questions from readers, both for fun and possible additions to my software. If you haven't noticed, I've dropped away from writing here at this blog. Never fear, I will continue here, but it'll likely be in the online journal mode more often than not. If something strikes in the area of politics etc., you can be sure I'll comment. But, I like to read the news each night, and that usually takes me about an hour, and afte...