Here and There, Then and Now

After 42 years in Asia, I returned home to Kentucky. But it isn’t the home I left. Things I saw THEN are different NOW. Life HERE is different from life THERE. Here is another sample of the differences.

THERE

In Cambodia certainly but also in Hong Kong, backpacks were a basic element of daily life. Using all the available public transportation (ferries, trams, subways, taxis, buses) required some sort of container for carrying raincoats, umbrellas, books, notes, water, etc.) and so everyone carried a backpack when on the street.

HERE

In the U.S., backpacks are often useful but not required like in Cambodia. Here, when traveling somewhere, people just dump anything they are carrying on the front seat of the car they are driving. It’s easy and simple and convenient.

But riding a bicycle here is like Cambodia deja vu. Some sort of carrier is needed for the items I want to take with me. I have panniers that mount on the rear wheel and they’re very useful, but I don’t attach them unless I know I’m going to use them because when I arrive at my destination they are easily stolen if I don’t take them inside but they’re bulky and awkward.


So I got a couple carabiners to attach my backpack to my rear wheel mount when I’m on the road. I can wear the backpack when it’s cooler but now in the heat it’s hot and sweaty. With the carabiners I can just clip and unclip the backpack relatively easily.

Dittmeier family baby shower

My nephew Samuel and his wife Sierra were the focus of attention today at a baby shower in Cincinnati. Samuel is one of the children of my sister Martha and her husband Mark.
I have been having a lot of “firsts” since I returned, and this is certainly one of them–the first baby shower I ever attended. Being part of family events, though, is one of the major reasons I returned to the U.S.—in addition to just being OLD!
At this table, on the left, were Martha and Mark, Samuel’s parents, then William, Samuel’s brother, and then Hope and her husband, my brother Paul. It was a good gathering of family.

Right to Life

When we speak of the right to life, we need to support positive measures in policies that help disadvantaged mothers care for their children, such as food, housing, childcare credits, and healthcare for both child and mother. We need to work to protect the life found in the biodiversity of our planet as a healthy biodiversity supports healthy lives. Another imperative, is to work to end the “isms” that diminish the dignity of the human person, especially racism. We need to oppose the death penalty and to work for promoting diplomacy over the instruments of war and the military industrial complex. As I stated, we have a lot of work to do.

Barbara Molinari, Director of Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC

Fratelli Tutti

Here is another teaching from the encyclical of Pope Francis, about respecting each other-all the others.

#191 At a time when various forms of fundamentalist intolerance are damaging relationships between individuals, groups and peoples, let us be committed to living and teaching the value of respect for others, a love capable of welcoming differences, and the priority of the dignity of every human being over his or her ideas, opinions, practices and even sins. Even as forms of fanaticism, closedmindedness and social and cultural fragmentation proliferate in present-day society, a good politician will take the first step and insist that different voices be heard. Disagreements may well give rise to conflicts, but uniformity proves stifling and leads to cultural decay. May we not be content with being enclosed in one fragment of reality.

One year later….

Today marks my first anniversary of living at Nazareth Home Clifton. I moved in last year on August 20, 2025 as I returned from Maryknoll, New York where I had participated in the 50th anniversary celebration for the Maryknoll Lay Missioners.
This is Room 110 where I live in Cedar Hall. I have unpacked the two suitcases I brought with me from Cambodia but am still far removed from finally arranging my room. Most pressing is reconfiguring my computer set up, basically transferring everything from a failing laptop to a desktop with two big monitors.

A bike rack and a horse–kudos!

Here’s my ride (the bike, not the horse) at the Frazier Rehabilitation Institute today. I went there to follow up with a man who fell in his room at night and was on the floor there for 3 1/2 days until someone found him. Frazier is part of U of L (University of Louisville) Health, a major hospital system here. All of their centers I have been to have had a bike rack. Good on them! The horse is part of community participation in the Kentucky Derby. Hundreds of schools and businesses and organizations each decorate a full-size horse and display it permanently outside their establishments.

Here and There, Then and Now

After 42 years in Asia, I returned home to Kentucky. But it isn’t the home I left. Things I saw THEN are different NOW. Life HERE is different from life THERE. Here is another sample of the differences.

THEN

177 years ago, the German Catholics who came to Louisville needed an orphanage and St. Joseph’s Orphans Home was born and this statue of its patron was set up along the street.

NOW

Now St. Joseph (left) has been joined by a Shriner from Kosair Charities as orphanages went out of favor—and supporters of the now St. Joseph Children’s Development Center looked for additional funding to continue assisting children.
The Shriner enjoys a prominent place along with St. Joseph but maybe in a nod to the center’s Catholic origins, St. Joseph is lit up at night but not the Shriner!

Here and There, Then and Now

After 42 years in Asia, I returned home to Kentucky. But it isn’t the home I left. Things I saw THEN are different NOW. Life HERE is different from life THERE. Here is another sample of the differences.

THEN

45 years ago, the average parish wouldn’t have had much in the way of medical supplies or equipment available for Sunday mass. Maybe they would have had a simple generic first aid kit in a drawer somewhere.

NOW

Today at St. Augustine Church, a small black parish where I was substituting, I noticed in the back of the church there was an AED, an automated external defibrillator and a list of people trained to use it. Progress!