Category: Dittmeier

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.

68 Years Later

In May, 1958 the eighth-grade class of St. Columba School in Louisville’s West End graduated and we all moved on to high school and the rest of our lives. That didn’t end all contact, though, and some of those classmates have continued to meet through the ensuing 68 years. Today 12 classmates and their spouses got together at an Italian restaurant, continuing bi-monthly lunches together. Because I just came back from Cambodia, it was the first time I had seen some of them since graduation. It was great! [Notice the restaurant ambiance! It is quite exotic with all sorts of Italian memorabilia and photos. Of special notice: a bust of Pope John XXIII on the table and his picture on the wall.]

Bike Recall

When my brothers and sisters and cousins decided to buy me an e-bike for commuting around Louisville, they chose a brand-name, high-end model for me. I became more aware of that when I received a recall notice from the manufacturer about a defective part, just like what happens for cars. The notice said that a bolt holding the back wheel can fracture because of a faulty casting process for the bolt and that I need to bring in the bike for a replacement bolt. It turns out they have to order the replacement bolt but won’t do it until I bring in the bike and leave it for the three days required for the bolt to arrive. I asked them to order the bolt and let me know when it arrives but they said they had to have the bike first. For legal liability reasons, they don’t want to appear to be supporting my continuing riding of the bike while there is risk of the back wheel falling off.

Rip Van Winkle?

Rip Van Winkle, in Washington Irving’s short story, is a Dutch American in the pre-Revolutionary War period who falls asleep after drinking with some shadowy figures in the Catskill Mountains. He sleeps for twenty years and wakes up in a setting that is vaguely familiar but radically different from what he knew before.

I don’t drink and didn’t sleep away my 40+ years in Asia, but I can relate to the feelings of confusion and wonder that must have accompanied Rip Van Winkle upon his awakening. When I left Cambodia, I was returning home but it’s not the home I left in 1983!

So much has changed:
• communications are so different,
• politics are chaotic and without the civility and care for the common good of another era,
• landmarks and establishments on the streets have disappeared,
• even in the church, parishes have been merged and closed and 1/3 of the priests are from other countries.

And those are just some of the changes I’ve encountered. It’s going to take a bit more time to adjust to the American way of life today.

Maryknoll visitors

I had a wonderful visit today with Judy and Dave Saumweber who stopped by in Louisville for a few hours on a trip to visit another friend on the East Coast. The Saumwebers, from Minnesota, were Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Cambodia when I arrived and are a wonderful couple and wonderful missioners and wonderful friends. I was honored and so happy that they adjusted their route to come through Louisville!