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Posts published in “Uncategorized”

The Happy Haunting Ogden Trailer Park

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I will never forget a haunting summer in a trailer park in the early 1980s, when suicide lived just down the road. In the early 1980s,…

Mechanic v. Lawyer

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– On the 1970s Catholic school lawns and the 1980s rooftops of my Ogden, Utah hometown, I proved beyond a reasonable doubt that I was meant to…

Remembering Washington, D.C

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By Gary Topping– I was as appalled as most other Americans at the sight of the assault on our nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021.  Not only is it a…

A Bet on Love

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Anyone who thinks February is defined by presidents, valentines, or groundhogs has never spent any time around a parochial school during Catholic auction season. Just after…

A King’s Church in Salt Lake City

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), visited Utah 35 years ago this week. I was just 24 years…

January Memories

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By Gary Topping– “Hey Eric, what’s the weather going to be”? “The weather will be with us.” Eric Bayles’s concise cowboy wisdom proved to be true: the weather was indeed…

My cover story, co-starring Thomas Merton

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Many folks scour the works of Kentucky Trappist monk/writer Thomas Merton seeking deep insight and inspiration. I am more crass and superficial. I searched his journals…

Of monks and men

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I knew all but two of the nine good men who served as abbots/superiors at the now-closed Holy Trinity Abbey in Huntsville, Utah. What I do…

Craic and Hairy Lemons

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– When trying to create an appealing cookbook, I suspect a writer typically would not include the words “hairy” and “lemon” in the title. Simon Cooper’s 2016…

A Virtual Vacation with my departed Grandparents

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By Michal Patrick O’Brien– Stuck here at home during the now-ended pandemic-plagued year of 2020, I really have not gone anywhere in a long time. Just as cabin fever was…