My Back Door

Posted on January 7, 2017 by michaelgcasey

https://michaelcaseyfrombirminghamengland.blogspot.co.uk

will be my back door, coloured red for all hackers to find.

Just for any readers worldwide in nearly 20 nations.

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Traces of Our Lives

Traces of Our Lives ©

By Michael Casey

It’s a miserable day here in Birmingham, drizzly and cold, I snuck out to Aldi to get some stuff ready for when the girls come home from school, Totoro our cat is gorging herself having been out in the cold marking her territory. So I was wondering what to talk about today. As I looked about the room I saw the last traces of Christmas, today is 6^th Jan 2017, the feast Epiphany. So I had a think before diving out into the cold on my daily trip to Aldi. Now I’m back and I have a mug of tea in front of me and Heather Small of M People is singing, the album is 20 years old now. So I’m ready to talk to you.

Heather is a trace of my life as is my album collection, nowadays people have Spotify, there are less physical things as everything is in cyber space. I’m sure somebody will invent a way of putting mother-in-laws into cyber space, as well as nasty little brothers. So what traces are there of our lives?

There are the dirty trainers scattered around the house, Camembert the family hound suffers the most as a dog’s nose is 1,000,000 times better than a human nose. We suffer too, so the patio door is opened and the trainers are flung to the bottom of the garden. Camembert thinks this is a new game so retrieves them, seventeen times until Camembert gets bored, but the trainers still smell worse than 7 year old camembert, the cheese I mean.

Girls are just as bad with tights littering bedrooms, with smelly washing accumulating, until Camembert drags it to the laundry room. School bags tossed into a corner behind a sofa and next to poor dad’s bookcase, these too are traces of our lives. Mugs and plates litter the coffee table as laughing girls retire to their eyrie, Totoro the cat volunteers to wash the dishes, leaping up to get any scraps before dad can tidy up. Totoro looks at dad thinking he’s a fool, she has already licked the plates clean.

Objects remind us of our past selves of our past lives, behind me is the painted watercolour copy of a Burne-Jones angel, it’s in the photo of me at work, that’s if you call writing stories, talking to you, as work.  The picture was a leaving present after my two decades at the same company. It wasn’t that they wanted me to sleep with the angels. If you ever get to Birmingham you can see the Burne-Jones windows in Saint Phillips Anglican cathedral, and the art gallery has some of his stuff too. So this one painting represents a large chunk of my working life, it also represents the start of another part of my life, the Shanghai adventure. 

There is a huge pot of shamrock in the corner under the other bookcase, this reminds me of my mum and my old aunty Mary from Ballyheigh in Kerry. Aunty Mary used to send us shamrock and harp badges each Saint Patrick’s day, so when I glance over there I think of her, she was such fun. Did you bring me the ham, no,  you didn’t ask me to bring any ham, but you should have known I wanted ham to give to the visitors from England, so you forgot to remember that I’d forget. Henry her husband was a great man too, so if I’ve forgotten to remember exactly that specific conversation, I hope they’ll remember that I the writer forgot to remember the words. But I will never forget their love.

I have another painting of the wall, it’s a picture a girl in red walking her dog in the woods. Our local library had an exhibition a few years ago and I got it as a Birthday present from my sister. So the painting represents sisterly love, she never reads my stuff so I can use that word. The painting also represents the Future for I want to see my daughter grow up and walk our dog in the woods just up the road from the house. Then I’d take a photo and have it underneath the painting. The painter M. Melia sadly died of cancer around the time I bought the painting, so he and his art live on in my home.

Many things are traces of our lives, the scratches on the back door made by the dog or cat. My ballet shoes which we hang on the Christmas  every year,  you cannot imagine me, a 245pound or 110kilo ballet dancer, I was just seeing just how good your imagination is. Though when I visited Shanghai for the first time what was on the bedroom wall, only a picture of a ballerina, my future wife. 

And there’s more, I really was vetted by a ballerina from the Birmingham Royal Ballet. So fact and fiction merge to form the traces of our lives.  The best trace to leave from our lives is laughter, so if when people think of you or speak of you they smile as soon as your name is spoken, then you have lived a good life, laughter cannot be seen but it is like starlight, it brings hope into the world, as does the Epiphany.

So You Wanna Be a Writer

So You Wanna Be a Writer? ©

By Michael Casey

Well I’ve been out to Aldi, which is my daily pilgrimage, I have to exercise every day and I have to eat so I combine the two, see a man multitasking, I hope any female readers out there blow the screen a kiss, ok you’ll just groan. I went to the pharmacy to collect my next 2 month supply of meds. Over here its 8.40 an item, so 10 x 8.40 is 84 quid. Luckily for 110 quid I think, you can get a prepayment card which covers the year. I mention this because over where you are in USA you have to pay through the nose. You should get Trump to sort this out, now if he did I’d vote for him.

I’m waiting for the parcel man to arrive to collect a parcel, some fashion item my wife ordered did not match her wardrobe so she is returning it. While I’m waiting I’m listening to a Vangelis album, and I’m wearing shades so my eyes don’t burn out in front of the screen. So I’ve painted a picture for you, not forgetting the blue sky outside with a seagull flying by high in the sky with roof tops twinkling in the bright winter’s sunshine.

Now some writers write very descriptively, blue skies and so on, it depends on what the writer likes to write. For school  exams teachers like alliteration, and as I’ve joked to my small daughter who is the writer in the family, alliteration  is for people who cannot write, but very small children do appreciate it. Crash, I just fell off my chair, though Thud would have been more accurate, but I’m telling lies, for that’s what writers do, so they’ll be the usual Thursday Night Confession for lying writers down our local pub. If the priest is to be bored by all these writers’ lies then they can at least buy him a pint of Stella Artois and a packet of cheese and onion crisps to take home to his housekeeper.

See you have another picture now, firmly printed in your mind, and printed is the right word after all, as words are printed in books. And if you’re not quick with the confession then Fr.Brown will slap you with the back of his prayer book. He has to be back in time for the dinner or the housekeeper will sulk, so he only has time for 17 pints of Stella Artois. Then he’ll watch Mrs Brown’s Boys on tv.

Again I’ve given you another picture, if I’m doing my job right then you can see my priest, and I have several, there in the Trader in Old Forge and Singing Anvil which is a real pub, it’s in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker         after all.

So you wanna be a writer? Were you interested in what I’ve just written, the prologue as Frankie Howerd used to call it in Up Pompeii. If you were interested then I’ve shown you the first step of the dance. Engage your reader, your audience, your girlfriend, give her a ring, get engaged, then make love to her. Writing is a courtship, a gentle kiss, a laugh, food together, then bed and making love.

In the morning if you have no regrets, no guilt, then you have chosen a good book from the library, and you’ll want to read it again or read more books by the same writer. Either that or you and the librarian have knocked all the shelves over during a night of passion in the library.

Now if I’ve done my job right you are smiling and you may have even decided to visit the library or go to a book store or just the kiosk in the street.  Words can capture your imagination, and lead you astray, words have power that’s why the printing press was the greatest invention ever. Just make sure if you do fall in love with the book seller that you take precautions, lock the door, but most of all have a book marker ready so you won’t lose your place. And that could be a metaphor, it’s all up to you, if you wanna be a writer, just leave a few clues, and don’t be front page news.

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New Year's Special Offers

New Year’s Special Offers ©

By Michael Casey

On my way back from the bathroom, and cKd dictates a fair few visits, I was thinking about Resolutions as today’s topic. I thought it was the obvious one which is being used the world over, it is still only 4th Jan 2017. Then the postman arrived and I had some junk mail, so I was derailed into writing about that. If by then end of the piece you think I should have talked just about Resolutions then cast your vote, by buying all12 of my books on Amazon. If you want Logic, go talk to Dr Spock or is it the other Spock?

So where I live the Amazonian rain forest comes straight though my letterbox, no not a scene from Jumanji, but we DO have a swirl of paper coming through the letter box. Letters and junk mail, not to mention fliers for fast food and taxis, you would need a taxi because you could not walk if you ate all the fast food on offer. Does the pizza place have a brother who owns a taxi firm, because some of the pizza places are 3 miles away, you would need a map just to find them.

Buy one regular pizza and get a free can of fizzy pop, buy a family sized pizza and  get a 3 litre monster bottle of  your choice, cola or lemonade, that’s the choice, 2. There is a 3rd brother, who is a dentist, he just loves his big brothers to bits, without them adding to the tooth decay in the city he wouldn’t be living in such a big house. It’s him who bought the 3 new taxis for his big brother’s taxi company, and gave his other brother cash to buy a third pizza parlour. Brotherly love and tooth decay go hand in hand. He is rewarded for his kindness, his wife has tanning studios about the pizza parlours, why waste the spare upper room.

Wood burning stoves are very popular where I live, they weren’t but a 4th brother discovering the amount of junk post he was getting and knew it was perfect fire starter material. So after he got his own wood burning stove he had a brainwave, or rather as his wife was doing her nails she joked you should go into business like your brothers. Tell everybody that a wood burning stove as well as being very trendy was perfect for burning all the rubbish post. Kill two birds with one stone if you like.

So a 4th business was born, and brother number 4 and his wife soon moved into a house near his dentist brother, this proves just how much junk special offer post there is where I live.

So everything goes along swimmingly, but there are two certainties in Life, and they are Death and Taxis, sorry I mean Taxes.  So the brothers got over confident, and “forgot” to pay all their taxis, sorry I mean taxes. Suddenly the pizza and taxi companies  were under new ownership, the tanning business too. As for the 4 brothers they moved to avoid the taxman, they say they went to Spain, anyway someplace hot, where Arthritis doesn’t raise its ugly head.

The Four Brothers became a big brand, it was cosmetic surgery on the cheap, the very cheap. There is lots and lots of money in Vanity after all, and no leaflets needed to be delivered. The pizza parlour brother retrained on the computer, he became a whiz at marketing, no longer scattering ingredients on a pizza base, words on a page was all he needed. The taxi brother set up spam servers, delivering the message everywhere, no need to drive about in the dark.

The only dark he used was the Dark Web to hide their money from all the taxmen the world over. The four brothers did think of moving to Ireland because of the low taxis, sorry I mean taxes but their wives overruled them. Sunshine was their priority, Cromane beach was great but not as hot hot hot as where they were hiding from the Revenue.

So this New Year 2017 as you sit in the damp and cold think about the four brothers and be jealous. Though it did all end in tears, a retired Revenue worker was drinking a pint of Mild in a bar in some place hot and guess what. He overheard the lot, and texted his son who worked for some place, ok I’ll tell you, his son worked for the cops, the Police. His son had always loved computers and aged 14 he had hacked the Police computer they had given him a job on the spot at twice his dad’s salary.

You can guess the rest. Death and Taxes are dependable, even if pizza and taxis stick to your teeth, no matter what the fliers say.

Padre Pio and Me

 Padre Pio and Me ©                    
  By
  Michael Casey

It’s a contradiction in terms immediately , how can I copyright  a Saint . A brand new saint at that . I first heard of him through some Religious reading I did . I feel embarrassed to admit it , but I am a practising Catholic , its not fashionable to have any Faith but its mine so I admit it . Immediately the prejudice begins , but if I WERE A Jew or a Muslim , it would be the same . I do feel that my catholic tastes have given me a broader outlook on life , as has my  eclectic tastes and rubbing shoulders with a wide variety of people . But I want to talk about Padre Pio . I had a crisis and was reading about him at the time , so I said my prayers to him and the way forward was revealed . Though Padre Pio always says go Higher , he is just a stepping stone on the way to a better place .

What is so hard to understand about Padre Pio  is how he suffered . He had the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune . Condemned by his own superiors , made to be quiet for a decade and so forth . Science Fiction teaches or rather amuses us about Time Travel , but with Padre Pio it really happened , he wanted to share in Christ’s agony so he thought , what if he too could have and suffer the wounds on that day of Crucifiction . So it came to pass that he suffered for 50years . He had the indignity of medical examinations and of being thought just to be a mental patient , but his work and life proved his holiness . So it’s nearly 1990 and I hear about him and read a few books , its hard to understand the value of suffering in this age of quick fix pain killers and the lets have a fix , whatever the fix might be , sex, drugs and rock and roll or whatever . Its like suddenly studying again after years of lying fallow , the learning curve is enormous . So too is it with Padre Pio , the idea behind his life is enormous , but so too is the capacity for love and help .

My favourite story is how Padre Pio explains that The Wedding Feast at Cena happened because Jesus could not refuse his mother . Very Italian , or Irish or Spanish and so on , but could any of us refuse our mothers? So I thought more about what Padre Pio said , and his motto of Pray Hope Don’t Worry became my own . Carpe Diem is another good motto but perhaps this can be used by any Hedonist , or other kind of selfish person .Padre Pio reminds us to pray and that pray is not wasted , its perfume that is never wasted is a phrase I like . My mother always used to say that if you couldn’t sleep you should say the Rosary , and she was right . Though in today's world an hour on the Internet or with MTV might do the trick . So why the devotion to Padre Pio , I’ll cut to the chase. My mother died suddenly but peacefully in her sleep , my brother tried CPR , but she was gone . Imagine the angusih amongst her 6 children and her husband of nearly 50 years .

All except me , my mother had said no tears when she go ,so I never cried , I was the odd one out .I know how prayerful she was , so I had no need of tears . Eight bare weeks later my brother , the same brother heard our dad fall out of bed , so he ran to his bedroom . My brother was facing the exact same situation , he tried CPR , the ambulance was called , an injection was given straight to the heart . On weekends there is a doctor in the ambulance , so Luck , if that’s the word was with us . The next day 4 of my brothers and sisters came around to tell me the news .

When my sister had come around 8 weeks previously I knew somebody was dead but I assumed it was my dad , he’s die first we all thought . So now 8 weeks later it was his turn to die . At the hospital dad was given 1 week to live , I cried like a baby , worse than a baby , but I loved him , so I told he he should go to our mother and not hang on if he didn’t want to . The next day I was in my sister’s house crying , we picked hymns for his funeral .Yet my father survived , 19 patients on a heart ward , 18 died my dad survived . Padre Pio was beseiged by my prayers , I put Padre Pio’s photo under his pillow . Dad lost his mind , he was in Dudley Rd for 3months , 12 weeks , more than half of them all tubed up . His life hanging in the balance . At the same time somewhere in Florida another man was at deaths door , he was a totally stranger to me , I didn’t even know his name , I’d never met him , he was give 24hours to live , a Chinese man from Shanghai was at deaths door . The Chinaman survived .
My dad’s memory was totally wiped , he did not know who I was, I’m your son was greeted with , am I married . I was the favourite son , he did not even know me . But still we prayed , it’s a feeling in your guts , just like when you are nearly killed as you cross the road , its in your guts and in your heart , Jesus save my dad , Jesus save my dad , Padre Pio help !!! This goes around your head like a merry go around or a kaleidascope . Finally dad awoke .

He said that he can remember hearing the doctor say to wheel him down to the end of the ward , because he’d be dead soon . At that moment my dad awoke, and the doctor dropped  his cup of tea in shock . No not an instanteous miracle , but as Dr Singh had said if he were 30years younger he’d have a heart transplant because dad’s heart was rubbish . Now , when I told my brother that dad was reading a newspaper he was shocked . His memory had come back . He knew who we all were .Every day for three months I walked the corridor at Dudley Rd , the longest hospital corridor in Europe , 1 kilometre long .

Finally he left the hospital , my sister had found a good home for him to live in , he was far too weak to live in the family house . For 3 years dad survived , like a Godfather with all his children making constant visits . Finally I met my future wife . It was her uncle who had miraclously survived at the same time as my father . It was her uncle who encouraged us in our love . From Shanghai to Birmingham .These great men , her uncle and my father never met , but I know Padre Pio must have  helped both of them . Further prayer was needed to bring me and my wife permanenetly together . A Chinese miracle happened .

 Now we are wed , we have a 2year old and please God a healthy second baby in the Autumn . The improbability of our meeting , plus the fact that both men HAD to live for us to be married and have a family , this may be a coincidence to some but I know a miracle when I see one. A miracle is something that makes you feel humble , it makes you know that God has whispered your name . When I look at my wife , I feel humble . Seeing our daughter laugh and play also makes me humble as will our new baby. Then you can look back and know that prayer is like perfume that can never be wasted  , your life has led you to where you are now , yes at times sad and terrible , but be humble in the sight of God means something , not just for me , but for all Believers .

I once stood by the fridge and said to Padre Pio , I give up , you take over , all I want is to be married , and perhaps have a family , and do something useful with my life . That was just before my eyes were opened to my wife . I used to say that I got 2 out of my 3 wishes . Perhaps my current occupation is my 3rd wish , or a more outstanding miracle is waiting in the wings , but as Padre Pio  said ,always ask for the big Grace .Perhaps we have to be humble enough to deserve it , because I believe it to be a fact that , truly great people are humble because they know just how little they really know

Pain and Prayer

Pain and Prayer ©

By Michael Casey

Let my Pain be my Prayer

Let my Screams be the Chorus

Let my Pills be the Verse

Let my Winces be my Supplication

Let my Pain bitten lips be my Hope

Let Sleepless Eyes be my Testament

Let my Aching Limbs be my Mantra

Let the Ringing in my ears be my Peel of Prayer

Let the stabs of pain in my heart reach high heaven

Let the fog of pain in my brain be lifted by God’s Grace

Let me down from my cross because you have already been on yours.