Growing older

[da]

In somebody's journal, I just referred to a book I read as an undergrad. And then I realized I read it a dozen years ago. Over a dozen years. Fall of 1992. Good heavens, but that makes me feel old. Mostly because a bit of my brain still feels like it was just yesterday. I certainly remember the joy of my first year at university like it was yesterday, as I hope that I always will.

I've been thinking about the last half of my life, as I approach my 31st birthday. Perhaps I'll have more to share about that later.

But for now, a short story.

In the fall of 1994, four friends and I went on a road trip from Ithaca to Quebec City. It was roughly 8 hours by car. We were pretty loopy by the time we stopped for dinner at a Hardees on the highway. One friend and I started telling puns, and the topic somehow turned to the Pope. The following punchline got uttered, and I won't say by whom:

"That's no Pope, that's my wife."

Unfortunately, we couldn't find a joke to precede the punchline. Even if we started, "A guy walks into a bar." We agreed it made a damn good punchline, but eventually gave up on it. It was simply absurd, and fun.

This week, after the Pope's death, I was thinking about how messed up the Catholic Church is about many things, including their opinions regarding women. And then, with Andrea Dworkin passing away, I was thinking about the progress of Feminism over since the 1950s to today, and how far society still has to go.

And finally, it struck me- some year, maybe another millennium from now, if Catholicism still exists, who knows what changes it will have taken. Maybe, even then, there might be a female Pope. Heck, maybe she might even be married. Or, at least, somebody's wife could be mistaken for a Pope.

And that was a comforting thought, this week.

Comments

[poeticalpanther.livejournal.com]

Well, of course there already has been a female Pope. :) Somehow, with the College of Cardinals stacked as it is, it'll be a while before we see much of a shift from "very conservative" in the Papacy.

I had the same problem recently with a punchline in search of a joke: "It's better than a Pope on the Eye with a sharp stick!"

Couldn't make the joke to run up to it, though.