When we came here to California I got more involved with the church. I became a teacher of CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine). I did that for two years until I had a run – in with a priest.

He and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on the resurrection or much of anything else. This was in the sixties and everything was going crazy. Hippies were running around everywhere. We had gone from a very modern priest to a very old – world priest. This priest told me they didn’t need people like me!

So the priest started taking it out on our kids. My two boys were altar boys. I quit the church and my boys quit the church.

But we’ve stayed very good friends with one priest. Every once in while he comes by and gives us a jab and says: “when are you coming back to the church?”

In the early nineteen nineties we started going back to the church. It’s a different church for me now. I don’t believe the things those nuns taught me and I’m not afraid of hell. If anything, my faith has deepened. I figure that my faith is between god and me. The Pope doesn’t have anything to do with it. He doesn’t know me or how I live, or anything I do.

I live a good life but I don’t know what’s going to happen. I got out of the future business; I’ve just figured I would turn my future over to god. That’s also part of the alcoholics anonymous philosophy as well. “You’re not a fortune-teller, so stay out of business!”

We go to church. We love the rituals. We love the mass. It’s a very secure. I love the tradition of the mass. If they went back to the Latin mass I would like that even better.

My sobriety depends on my faith. I give my drinking problem to god and let him take care of it. Meanwhile I’m down here doing the best I can to take care of things that are in front of me. But the future takes care of itself; the bad part is the past. I try to forget the past and not make that too much of an influence on my life. It’s difficult.

I wasn’t the best father during that drinking time. But I am a good grandfather!

My sons and daughters and I have good relationships, so I can’t ask for anything more.


Half Moon Bay

The best part about living in this town is not having to worry about where you kids were, or them getting in trouble. Everyone knows everyone. The cops haven’t been bad except for one guy who used to give us a lot of trouble. That guy used to take kids to jail before he would take them home.

Now, we’ve got good cops will drop the kid off at home before taking them to jail. They let parents handle the problems.