Confirmation

"The Committee will come to order this July 25th the year of our Lord 1789. We are gathered together to establish the Department of Foreign Affairs. Chairman Oliver Ellsworth of the Great State of Connecticut presiding.?
"Thank you Sargent of Arms. Today we are here in our Constitution role of advise and consent to the nomination to the first Secretary of State the Honorable Thomas Jefferson. He is someone who needs no introduction. Statesman, Diplomat, Governor and the author of our beloved Declaration of Independence the Honorable gentleman has been nominated by President Washington to be first among equals. Today we begin the process. Welcome Mr. Jefferson."
"Thank you very much Senator I am pleased to be here. The practices and precedents we establish today will inform our descendants as long as our republic stands. I hope we can be worthy of that heavy responsibility."
"Quite. We will begin our interrogatories with the Honorable Senator from Massachusetts Tristam Dalton."
"Welcome Mr Jefferson. Your exploits and contributions to young nation have long been know and celebrated. A delegate to the Continental Congress. Author of the Declaration of Independence. Ambassador to France. All most estimable achievements. However I must query you as to another achievement. Is it true that you fathered a brace of pickinnies on your slave one Sally Hemmings."

Give me the Old Time Religion.......

So I spent all day yesterday at a religious observance. It was one of my favorite niece's confirmation and we had to trek out to Staten Island. It was an all day thing so I was off the grid. Away from the store and all the other day to day stuff we are always dealing with. No politics only religion.

Now it is always interesting to me to go to another Church in a different parish. I have been in this one  many times. St. Clare's is one of the bigger congregations on Staten Island.  In fact in New York City. Many of the families who went over the Guinea Gangplank to Staten Island are parishioners. All of my cousins go there. I have buried cousins out of it. It is sort of half  way between the old school churches in Brooklyn with statues of St Lucy with her eyeballs on a plate and the quasi-Protestant churches with the tambourines and the circle and squares on the wall instead of Jesus on the cross. It was packed as over a hundred and fifty people were getting confirmed by Bishop O'Hara of the New York Archdiocese. That was were I drifted off into reverie as candidate after candidate went up to be confirmed.