Jesuits are a mixed bag. I've been roasting one over at my place over his endorsement of Barack Obama, Servant of Moloch, and on the ever popular issue of women's ordination. (There's nothing like roast Jesuit -- ask the Hurons). But then you encounter the Edward Oakes and the Avery Cardinal Dulles variety of Jesuit -- old school -- and you begin to think "the Jesuits -- they ain't so bad."

My dad was Jesuit-educated by the old school type at Fairfield, back in the 1950s. He used to wax profound on the subject of the demise of the Jesuit order.

Personally, I think the order has been too badly penetrated/ compromised by liberation-theologian and "we-are-church" types and I think it probably needs to be suppressed. They say Paul VI and JP II came close on a couple of occasions.

For all his flaws, Malachi Martin's book on the Jesuits is excellent, and gives a good summary of the order's history and subsequent slide into apostasy.

As for helping you, Robbo, my understanding is that I won't receive any payment now, but on my deathbed, I'll receive total consciousness.

So I got that going for me.

I am, of course, referencing this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RnHaTlI1p7o

Bring. It. On.

Abbot, Fairfield in the 1950's? Then he was fortunate not only to go to a good school, he got to watch Frank Gifford practice with the Giants. Fairfield was their practice field back in those days. Now that was an education.

By the way Robbo, thanks but I really, honestly, haven't a clue what for...

I believe my Dad graduated in 1953, so he may have been too early to see Gifford. I know he and my uncle (his younger brother was a year or two behind him at Fairfield) used to go down to New York on the train quite often.

Both my Dad and my uncle played basketball (they both ran about 6'4"/240, which was big enough in those days) though I don't know if they made varsity. I will attest my father could set a pick with the best of them, and had a pretty good set shot.

Fairfield was known for fielding excellent basketball teams. I think I may have even gone to watch games there. I know the Jesuits there were once old school because they invited me to cotillions. I recently came across an invitation in a box of old things. But my true affiliation with Fairfield was that I was a mother's helper all through high school for two little girls who lived in one of those huge old clapboard colonials on Round Hill Road (near the old school theater) with those terrific ancient stone walls surrounding it. I used to take the girls across the street to play on the fold football field and roll down the hills in to leaf piles. Fun, fun memories.

As for hoping the train, that would have been a piece of cake as the station is within walking distance.

The Dumb Ox. What a wonderful little book. Chesterton's bio of St. Francis of Assisi is also a gem.