Two weekends ago, Henry and I were having a conversation about the new Pope and I got super in my feelings about my Catholic past. I was VERY into it (not like, in culty way) and I actually enjoyed going to CCD every Sunday because to me, learning the Bible stories felt like history. It was entertaining, and also there were donuts in the basement afterward. When we got to the level of Sunday School where tests became a thing, I fucking aced them all. I’m telling you, I ate that shit up like Eve with apple juice dripping down her chin.

And even as a TEENAGER, I looked forward to going to church on Saturday evenings with my Pappap. I mean, 1. I was with my favorite person in the whole world, and 2. we would always go out to dinner afterward haha. My BFF (& Chooch’s godmother) Christy’s family also went to the same church so sometimes Christy would join us for dinner afterward and then sleep over my house and we’d completely unravel all of the church’ing by watching R RATED MOVIES OMG. My favorite was when we would go this Italian restaurant that was called ‘something di Napoli” but we all affectionally called it Naples and my Pappap of course was friends with the owner and the best servers so we got special treatment but the reason I liked it was because I had a HUGE CRUSH on one of the bus boys lol.

ANYWAY! This trip down a dirt lane in my mind’s Jerusalem resulted in me fondly telling Henry about my favorite priest at that Church – Father Salberg. He was AMAZING. He made church interesting and fun, and his sense of humor was incredible. Like a toned-down Robin Williams, if Robin Williams looked like GOD because he is totally how I pictured God to look – barrel-chested, an avuncularly booming voice, huuuuuge beard. This guy was a life-sized hug standing on the altar every week and I looked forward to Communion and then standing in line to shake his hand after mass.

I was surprised to find myself tearing up while I was telling Henry my Father Salberg mems. I started to Google him and, sadly, found his Obituary from 2018. I started to cry (???) but also was kind of shocked to see that my church wasn’t even referenced in any of the bios I found online about him. I remember vividly that he was also a priest at a state pen, and the years he did that overlapped the years he would have been a priest at my church. I think that he must have been doing both at once, and now that I realllly think about it, he may have actually just been an interim priest at my church because I do remember having other priests there and none of them came even close to matching his charisma. This actually is even more telling now that I realize he wasn’t there for more than a year or two, but still had such an impact on me. I will tell you right now, had he still been the acting priest at Nativity when my Pappap died, maybe things would have been different for me. Maybe I’d have actually had someone to talk to. Maybe I wouldn’t have found myself going down a very dark path.

When I saw that Father Salberg is buried in a cemetery about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, I wanted to go. So that is what we did on Sunday, drove to Butler and had actually a nice afternoon at a brewery (more on that later!) and then a walk through Father Salberg’s cemetery.

“This is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Henry said when we got out of the car. I was just about to say that I didn’t necessarily need to find his grave, just wanted to be there, when Henry said, “Wait—-is that it??” Literally 15 seconds into our walk, Henry spotted it! We actually kept walking through because a man was tending to a nearby grave, but then on the way back he was still there, planting flowers. So, I figured I’d just snap a quick photo for my memories and right as I did so, the man’s dog started barking so then it looked like I was taking a picture of him and his dog and I mean, I typically always feel like a creep, but even more so in this moment, haha.

This man was top notch. Remembering all of this almost made me feel inspired to go back to church but I don’t feel like trying them all on to find the one that fits. I have shit to do, etc.

We had a nice little stroll. I made Henry take pictures of me in my new Johnnie Guilbert shirt to send to Chooch who was like, “What.” And then “Ugh.”

I got new Vans! My therapist suggested buying myself something new, like cute shoes or something, to make myself feel better because my self-esteem and vanity have been taking blows lately. I was like immediately *buying shoes, doctor’s orders, it’s prescribed*

It was a beautiful cemetery (Calvary/Northside Cem in Butler) and an even more beautiful day.

We also listened to Johnnie Guilbert and Pierce the Veil exclusively on this day trip and it was crazy nostalgic. I will say that the day didn’t start off great, I was being me (read: difficult/pouty/volatile) but everything turned out ok in the end.  It did make me miss my Pappap an awful lot though.