One afternoon in 1994 I, a Roman Catholic priest, said to my bishop that I planned to marry.

I think it was a Supreme Court Justice who once said, “I know that in eleven months I can do twelve months work; but I also know that in twelve months I can’t do twelve months work.”

Before going to bed last night, I was informed that Gerry Sullivan died yesterday (13 September). Gerry was a priest in Wyoming.

Our minds play games with us during the night and as I awake this morning, I realize that his death affected the strange dancing of my mind during the past eight hours. I would like to talk to someone, but I am thousands of miles from Wyoming right now and, while the sun is already shining in Venezuela, it is four o’clock in the morning in Wyoming. Thus the keyboard becomes my solitary friend for the moment.

Bill Ryan died a few weeks ago. I’m sure his death didn’t make the New York Times. I doubt that it was chosen by USA Today to be among the few lines they publish each day about Wyoming.

But I am told that Saint Mary's Cathedral in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was full; that the fire department had many of its units outside the church; and, that the police department stopped all the traffic en route to the cemetery from the church.

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” --Stephen King.

I have only read one book by Stephen King. I may never read another. It is not that I have anything against Mr. King. I actually consider him a friend, although we have never met. It is simply that I don’t like horror stories.

That dislike probably goes back to my childhood. My older sisters used to listen to a weekly radio program, Inner Sanctum Mysteries. It was on the air in the early evening and began with the sound of a screechy door. I would cover my ears and ask them to shut it off. They laughed and never did. And I? I continued to hear that damn door until the next morning when I awoke.

I would recommend starting with the bottom article first. That is the order they appeared on the website.

I have just read Five Great Short Stories by Jack London (A Dover Publication) and have recently finished Flip-flop by Bill Conroy, a writer I met in Bolivia at the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism. My fingers are on the keys of my computer but my body is standing in awe at the work of these two gentlemen. (I do most of my writing standing).

With London I traveled from the Arctic to Mexico to the South Seas. With Conroy I went from Wisconsin to Texas. With both I explored worlds that I have never known.

If I had a better memory, I could write a book about my experiences trying to speak like a Venezuelan--something that I have never accomplished and never will. But let me share with you two interesting events.

I was just a child when I heard my mother say to my father one afternoon: “Frank, who is that man coming to our door?” It was the laundry man, Steve, a friend of my father. My mother had a message for him--a message that she prepared more than twenty years before.

I have just finished reading for the first time James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I liked the beginning and the end of the book. The middle, where he shows all his philosophical knowledge and spills out words in Latin from time to time, could have been left out in my opinion.