Remembering St. Thomas Seminary And Father Bob

I was driving past St. Thomas Seminary on my way to work at the bookstore yesterday afternoon and decided to take a photograph of it for old times sake (the photo on the left). These days it is no longer St. Thomas Seminary, but the Pope John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization.  But back when my now ex-wife Lisa and I used to visit here, it was St. Thomas, where Father Bob was the musical director for the school.  Father Bob was - and probably still is - quite the character.  When my wife Lisa and I would go out for Mexican food at La Plaza, which was located down the street from the seminary, we would often run into Bob and his posse of fellow priests, and we would join them for beers and burritos and a lot of laughs.

Whenever Bob traveled anywhere and people found out he was a priest, they would offer to let him use their cars, vacation homes, etc. anytime he wanted  Whomever he met or where ever he went, people immediately liked him.  Which is how my wife Lisa, sister Susan and brother-in-law George (in the back in the photo on the right), Father Bob (kneeling in the front), parishioner Linda (on the right), a nun named Sister Carla, and a bunch of priests  wound up staying in a large condo in Breckenridge one August weekend.  When I heard a nun would be joining us, I asked my wife Lisa if she though she might be offended if I brought beer.  She thought not, and when I drove up to the front door and saw Sister Carla standing there wearing bib overalls, holding a cigar in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, I didn't either.  In any case, a few years later Bob left the priesthood and eventually married Linda.  Both Lisa and myself tried to contact Bob several times, but never heard back.  I guess he wanted to leave that part of his left behind.  But not me - those were fun times.