Category: Dittmeier

Still settling in…

I moved to Nazareth Home at the end of August but I’m still not fully moved in. I still have papers to separate, some boxes to unload, and places that I need to find for various items. One on-going problem has been the bright afternoon sunlight coming into the living room/mostly office I’ve tried to create. Looking at computer monitors with a bright window beside them was tedious. Earlier I put up some curtains in my bedroom to block an extremely bright security light outside, and then today my sister Mary and her husband Mike helped me put up another set of curtains in the office. What a difference that makes!

It finally happened….

This afternoon I took my bicycle out for a short ride to Kroger’s and had my first flat tire. I’ve been anticipating it and wondering about the timing and where I would be. Fortunately it was only two or three miles from my home. I called my super biker brother-in-law who also has a truck and he picked me up and we took the bike to the shop where I bought it because I have never changed a tire on a bike with a motor in the hub. It’s going to be expensive to let them fix the flat but I’ll learn what needs to be done. Mike’s wife, my sister, has a twin bike like mine and Mike called her and she agreed I could borrow her bike till mine is fixed so we went to their house in the truck and picked it up and brought it to Nazareth Home. That’s it above, some funny shade of pink–or is it purple? Or is it….? Whatever the color, it rolls so I’m fixed for a few days. Thanks, Mary!

Gethsemani Retreat

The section of Kentucky is noted for what we call “knobs,” small hills 300 to 900 feet tall that dot the undulating countryside. The farms and fields and knobs are a beautiful part of the state.
Bardstown, Kentucky is the nearest small city to Gethsemani and is the bourbon capital of the world. Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark–all the big whisky names come from here. And throughout the county are these large whisky-ageing warehouses where barrels of whisky are kept for three to fifteen years before being bottled. Kentucky has more barrels of ageing whisky than it does people.
We had two conferences today and we often stay together to talk afterwards.
Fr. George Otuma is the pastor of St. Boniface Church where I help out with Sunday masses so he’s my new boss.

Gethsemani Retreat

Today was our second full day of retreat and Bishop Price spoke about knowing yourself, being aware of your good points and your weaknesses, and how they influence how people will perceive you.
Gethsemani Abbey has hundreds of acres of farmland and forests. Today in the afternoon break I rode my bike along miles of often really rough dirt roads in a forested area. It felt good. The forests told me I am home.
A view of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani.
A view of Gethsemani from the west.

Birthday 2026

My sister Mary noted I had not been home for a family birthday for 40+ years and invited us to a gathering today for my 82nd birthday. It was a super family gathering.

We have a really neat family. We really love each other.
There was also opportunity for some special time with grandpa.
All the brothers and sisters were able to come except for Dennis in Florida.

Around Louisville

Part of my transition back to Louisville is getting acclimated to Cherokee Park. Through extremely visionary planning on the part of Louisville’s early leaders, a series of large urban parks was created here by Frederick Olmsted, the designer of Central Park in New York City. One of these is the 400-acre Cherokee Park on the east side of downtown. All of my early years were in the West End of Louisville and my years as a priest in the South End so I’m very unfamiliar with the maze of trails and paths in Cherokee Park which is near my home now. Today I took an exploratory bike ride to the park and ended up at the Daniel Boone statue, one of the park’s landmarks.