I live in NEPA.

Northeastern Pennsylvania, or NEPA, as we call it now, is truly the birthplace of Anthracite Coal mining, and was once a real swell place.  My parents came over on a boat from Slovakia in 1890's, and this corner of Pennsylvania wasn't far from Ellis Island, so they landed here when they got tired from walking. That's the way my parents were.  But good heavens.  By the time the 1950’s came around, coal mining had trickled out of the region, and left a disasterous mine fire in Centralia burning to this day, unextinguished.

Some of the boys got jobs out at Tobyhanna, some factories out in Dallas, still others moved to Allentown.   My own two brothers got jobs as truck drivers.  I toyed with the idea of beauticianism and cosmetology, but once I snagged my Walter, I didn’t need to worry about anything.  I decided against a career outside of the home and even though a few of my ladyfriends had jobs, we were all very poor. 

In the 1950’s,  I was still a demure bride, but our Wyoming Valley had really changed.  The coal breakers and mine shafts were long sealed up and forgotten, and the trees had grown high.  The industry left behind mountains of black coal mining waste, and tons of inferior anthracite that was piled everywhere.  It wasn't hauled away to toxic waste dumps.  It was heaped onto our chiaroscuro, and subsequently, the blood of all who live  and work in NePa. 

Birch trees gracefully grow alongside our Pennsylvania highways in this black soil.  Culm is what they call it, and what's piled too high to wash away when the Susquehanna overflows her banks,  grows pretty trees that make a delicious carbonated beverage we call Birch Beer.  Some of the hearts and minds here in the Wyoming Valley, well.  They are just as black--especially down at our Courthouse.  Tut tut, there is coal dust smeared on all of our faces, and we cannot scrub it off.

My Holy Stupor of Ecstasy

Walter was very sick from Arsine gas runoff which had been collecting for years in our Valley’s birdbaths and sewers and bore holes; all remnants from a previous era when Northeastern Pennsylvania was a flourishing and prosperous spot on the map with happy children giggling everywhere.  Parents ate bleenies and wiped coal dust from their shoes and their faces, singing, ""My gown stays white / From morn till night / Upon the road of Anthracite".

We weren’t encouraged to go to school in our family, and although I knew that I was extraordinarily gifted in some areas, I was very happy to find a devout life of connubial bliss.   That night at the General Hospital Center, the sanctity of Walter’s and my marital bond was blessed by my vow to The Almighty that I nurse him back to health. When Walter's condition took a turn for the worse, I was stricken with thoughts about the arsenic, a possible trial and prison sentence to pluck me out of the lifestyle to which I was accustomed.  I was also worried about the woman I had become.  How could I have poisoned my Walter?  I was glad I wore my MaryJanes and jumpsuit, which flattered my slender figure that had not an ounce of pregnancy weight left behind.  I had piled my raven hair high into an elaborate chignon and put on rouge and shiny red lipstick.  A strand of very convincing fake pearls was around my neck, and as the doctor explained Walter's condition to me, I fingered them nervously if I wasn't busy dabbing my eyes.

Naturally! I worried about getting caught trying to poison my husband; a woman of my esteem.  Getting caught doing that simply isn’t done. Still, my heart was in the right place, as it saved our marriage.  God endorsed all of this.  Keep reading, you'll see what I mean.  Because of the emotional rollercoaster his cheating caused me, and because of this terrible stew of emotions I was boiling in,  my veins pulsed with an adrenaline I hadn’t felt before or since, and I slipped into a holy stupor of ecstacy where Dear God came to me in a vision. 

He appeared on the chrome surface of the coffee machine in the Hospital Lounge. He touched my hair and told me that the arsenic poisoning Wanda Stavish dreamed up was endorsed by the Holy Ghost as payback for Walter’s sin of oogling our Maid as I was did the supper dishes.  (Oogling is a second-tier sin in line with coveting thy neighbor’s wife, you see.)  God looked just like Jeffrey Hunter and He went on to explain that a story was about to break in the local media about arsine gas from the abandoned strip mines out in Duryea, which leeched into the topsoil of several townships in the region.  That week, three other locals had been admitted to the Hospital with the self-same symptoms as my Walter.

This chrome apparition of Holy God, dazzling and shiny, came to me when I was at my lowest hour, and it renewed my faith. I knew in my heart that my Walter was never really in any grave danger, due to the small amount of poison I used nightly.  In fact, he recovered completely and, except for a few nights of fever and dementia unrelated to the arsenic, lived a long and healthy life, never to have roving eyes again.

Though the local Detective Sholtis insisted on further investigation, he eventually dropped the matter when I showed him photographs I had obtained of his wife doing despicable things in the Ladie's Dressing Room at Pomeroy’s down town.

This visitation from God in the hospital is one of several instances where the Holy Ghost has taken use of my facility for the greater good. It truly is my exstacy, and I question HIM not.

Yours in the Love of Christ,

Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas

Children should be seen and not heard!!

Last week, I finally got back at that 10 year old stinker Marvin Yadurnyak for his ongoing awful behavior each Sunday at Mass.  Now I know he is mildly retarded, but everyone must sit still and behave in the House of the Lord! Now mind you I've occupied the same pew, 3 rows back from the altar, every day for several years. I will not change what I'm doing on account of this little boy's needs, because  I am a respected pillar of courage and esteem at Holy Godhead and Black Madonna Parish of Swoyersville, PA, newly merged this year.

Nowthen.  I always keep hard tack candies in a ziplock baggie in my purse to combat dry mouth, or to offer to the girl Lurana at the Bank when we stand there chatting  after I deposit my check each month. Her breath is so bad, I had to begin toting extra mints for her.  As a matter of record, I now offer mints to anyone I encounter who may have offensive breath as a sort of courtesy.  Anyhow, four days ago, Marvin reached into MY purse and helped himself to a peach blossom and pinwheel mint.  His mother watched, I suppose?  She is totally unfit, so much so that I was forced to approach her about this matter of theft using my cane for protection, in case things got ugly.  And believe you me, things got ugly. 

The consecration is the holiest part of our worship service where God turns into bread and water for us, and a time when I am generally consumed with my meditations. Imagine then, how violated it made me feel to learn the candy was stolen while I was occupied with prayer.   A woman’s purse was violated!

It would have been unacceptable behavior for me to break my Sacred concentration, so I didn’t actually see Marvin steal my candy, I just know that he did.  I was so mad after church, I had to give his unfit mother of his a piece of my mind, and I could not believe it when she laughed it off. This is when I waved my cane at her and screetched at her not to mess with Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.!  I raised my voice for effect, which caused some stragglers on the church steps to also look at the young girl and her hoolegan with a stinkeye disdain similar to my own.

She allowed her son Marvin to open a ladie's private purse and examine the contents and steal? No way Dear Miss Yadurnyak.  She mumbled that he was a little boy and that I shouldn't be so worried, and that I needed to chillout! Once my next door explained to me what ‘chillout’ meant, I knew that I had to act as moral compass, and issue swift justice.

Well, Miss Yadurnyak.  The Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways, and I know that all kids love chocolate, especially retarded kids.  Yesterday, I unwrapped some Ex Lax and purposely left my pocketbook open, so little Marvin was again able to find the treasures.  He was just as rambunctious as ever, getting up and down and fidgeting. And after mass, as I was gathering my things, I noticed the Ex-Lax had been removed from my purse.  Amen.

Mr. High Powered Laywer

Well, dear readers in Christ, you'll notice that I've gone back in time on my journal entries and adjusted some of the character's names to fictitious names to retain as much authenticity as possible with respect to my recorded journals. It seems that some of the morally bankrupt individuals who figure prominently in my memoirs are afraid of scandal and can afford to hire lawyers to help them hide their dirty laundry and shameful actions I report to you here.

So from here on in, when I talk about neighbors and other scoundrels in my past and use them as examples of good and bad taste in the eyes of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the individual's name will be changed slightly. Yes, I must alter living history in order to be a scribe to it. I know my mission in life is to be good, holdy, and true to Him. Father Rorchit mentioned that this was a catch-all for any sort of dishonesty I might need forgiveness on. It is either that, or risk legal action, as one greedy lawyer so eloquently put it.

Listen here, Mr. Layer!! I am an old lady! I will comply but you cannot scare me! I half have a mind to press charges against a slut neighbor who've I've documented numerous times over the last few months! She took a key and went all the way down the side of my (USA Made) Ford Taurus with a big scratch! I just know it was her.  Now tell me that someone like that can get into Heaven?

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas

In Memory of Walter

Divorce has ripped asunder nearly half of all homes in the USofA, but I'll tell you nothing keeps a husband and wife together like the bond of holy matrimony doled out by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.  Believe what you will, but for many couples of my generation, the Holy Spirit was the only glue keeping us together through toil and strife.

Now mind you, I am old.  The cars had cranks on them, and the good Catholic Al Smith was running for President when I was in kindergarten.  We went without underwear for the first half of the Great Depression. I’ve buried one husband, survived the mean old Agnes Flood, and that 1936 flood everyone forgets to mention, and also Irene and Lee of 2011.  Bless our hearts.   I waved my bra when Gloria Steinem came to town.  Along the way the way I had me two perfect little babies who both turned into mean old stinkpots:  a boy and a girl.  Very little of what I just listed is in chronological order.  

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a Rose Garden (just like the song) was true in the case of my dearly departed husband Walter and me. I’ll never forget one night when I observed him oogling our maid through the key hole during her toilette in the evening hours.  When I saw my Walter crouching down at her bathroom doorknob with his hand on his crotch, I remained calm even though my heart had already sunk to my knees.  I examined my conscience, then slipped away silently, before he noticed my pain.  I ran to the upstairs room, and I sobbed and gasped into my closetful of clothes.  After several minutes, a presence came over me.  In the silence only devout Catholic women like myself utilize, I began to teach Walter a lesson.

Three weeks after I fired the maid, my Walter didn't know what hit him. It surprised and frightened me too when I later learned that arsenic in small doses often has that effect. A nightly sprinkle on those powdered doughnuts he loved so much landed him right in the ICU, but at least I got him to apologize to me for cheating in his heart with our naughty maid named Kaye.  Also for Christmas that year, he gifted me a beautiful string of pearls that I wear to this day.

My favorite story at the time was Valiant Lady and I was distraught by Walter’s betrayal, so I let my girlfriend Wanda Sholtis talk me into a plan of garnishing doughnuts and other baked goods with a mixture of 3 parts confectioner’s sugar and one part Arsenic.  She’d never been a particularly good influence on me, as I fed this to my Walter for 3 weeks. 

Scratch cakes only! Nothing from a box.  Oh the delicious meals I prepared for my dear husband on a daily basis were not simply for the joy of cooking!  A right and proper woman must never accept the roving eyes of husbandly betrayal.

Additionally, getting a divorce while Catholic resulted in everlasting Hellfire, so I had to make the best of my situation. By that same token, my scorn was not to become grist for the rumor mill at the next Altar and Rosary Society Spaghetti Dinner, so I found myself acting quickly, and in a whirwind of tears.

Was it really Wanda Sholtis’s plan?  Or was it all mine?   Who can remember now?  It all went awry and I was so deeply sorry for it.   I truly believe a twist of events that preserved my innocence was the Grace of the Holy Spirit as well.

Due to the runoff from some bore holes at the abandoned strip mines out in Eynon, everyone in the entire region drank quite a bit of arsenic by accident that year anyway. God twisted this chain of events to diffuse any suspicion pointed in my direction. Amen.

I am a silly lady.

Goodness Gracious I deleted it all by accident!