This morning I celebrated the 8:30 a.m. Mass at the parish. Afterwards, I jumped into my car and drove to Michigan City to celebrate a funeral at Queen of All Saints for Jacob Pizarek. He was 99 years old. I remembered him and his wife from my time there as a pastor and the family asked me to come and do his funeral Mass. It was a privilege doing so.
On my way back to the parish, though, I kept thinking about that line from Apocalypse Now: “The horror. The horror.” The traffic . . . what a horror! With all the construction taking place on 80/94, I ended up taking side streets from Portage to Munster. That definitely increased the travel time but decreased the anxiety of driving and/or parking on the expressway. “Express” needs to be taken out of the name for a while until the work is finished.