Bill and me

Bill Berry (not the former drummer for R.E.M.) but the other one who went to Seminary with me and I were in Prague in the Chec Republic. He wanted me to spend an hour with some clery there who might benefit from my experiences leading the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel and Union Mission. So we planned a two week trip around the one hour meeting. If you've never been to Prague, it is the most beautiful city I've ever seen. Cathedrals, a Palace, walking bridges across the Vltava River, cobblestone streets, great beer and an excellent Subway system. In fact, at most Subway shops you can buy porn. Tables are set up selling the stuff everywhere and many satisfied customers read it while they ride home or to work. I'd never seen that before. Prague also has a Sex Tour. We didn't take it but I got a brouchure and brought it home to my son Jeremy. As far as I know, he hasn't taken it either though he and my brilliant daughter-in-law Marie have spent a lot of time in Amsterdam which has the largest "Brothel" section in the world. They brought me a magent of a Brothel with topless women hanging out of it which hangs on the refrigerator. There is also a picture of Bill and I hanging on it too standing in Prague's Old Town, with our arms around each other under the statue of Good King Wenceslas. I recall that we'd spent a great deal of time consuming Pilsner Urquell Beer. This was because we'd spent the morning in the Old Jewish Cemetery with thousands of tombstones leaning on top of each other and being consumed by trees. Virtually all of the Jews were killed by the Nazis during the war. There is also a Synagoge with the names of every Jewish person killed during the Holocaust painted on the wall. That's all that's inside. Overwhelmed by all of this, we got drunk that day and ended up bounching around the city long after the Subways had stopped running. Making our way through one of the Plaza, I was accousted by a bunch of Turkish Whores reaching for me. Bill was laughing his ass off until I yelled, "He's the one with the money" and they rushed after him. He took off in full stride and disappeared in the darkness. An hour later we hooked back up. He was out of breath from running so much but he'd lost them. We made our way back to the small hotel we were staying in. We'd already been to Auschwitz, the concentration camp in Poland, the jail in Berlin where Detrich Bonhoeffer had been jailed for trying to kill Hitler because it was his duty as a Christian, to a Gypsy camp in Krakow and the blacked stoned St. Peter and Paul Church there. It had been a sobering ... and life changing trip for us. We reached a point where we could no longer talk but completely understood what the other was feeling. We've had many adventures together but this was the pennacle. Bill tried to call me on my birthday but we missed each other. I tried to call him back but to no avail. His son Micah and his wife Mary Catherine, whose wedding I performed, will be here in a few weeks and though it will be brief, I really looking forward to that. I think about all of the things that we've done. Chec Republic, Poland, Germany, Cuba, New York, D.C., New Orleans, Southern Baptists and Gethsemane Monastary in Bardstown, Kentucky ... we've done it all. We can go a year without seeing each other but when we do, it's like we've haven't missed a beat. The thing I love about Bill is he's always always looking for what's next. Though he's now in the used body parts business and lives on a farm miles away from anybody else, he always thinking about we might do next. "Figi," he told me now to long ago. "We need to go to Figi," he explained and there was other need for additional words. It's good to have friends who, in spite of anything and everything, will always be your friend.