obitcheries

(from The Heelers emails)

Yowsa Marie.

You mentioned the passing of Dolly Parton and I forgot to comment. I was never crazy about her films. I liked the images of her you raised in your email though, particularly the large family.

This reminded me of Celine Dion whose mother (as Celine tells it) had thirteen children and went to a local priest to enquire about contraceptive options. The priest told her not to dare. And the next child was Celine. I take that as a sanctity of life story.

I saw British chat host Michael Parkinson remark when she told the tale decades ago: "What would a priest know about it," and I was quite disappointed that Celine laughed along and didn't point out to him that if the priest hadn't said it, she wouldn't exist.

Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker was also lucky condom culture didn't kick in in America a decade or two earlier. He was the fourth of seven children.

Our Aunty Teresa was the tenth child in her family. When she was organising Doctor Donna Kelly, my old unrequited love from childhood, to give a Women's Group lecture in Kilcullen about preventing pregnancy back in the 1990s, I said to her: "Aren't you lucky Donna Kelly wasn't wandering around the West of Ireland eighty years ago, advising Granny Moran after baby number nine to stop having children and focus on her career!"

I ask you Marie.

Think of the unravelled futures.

Imagine what we've contrareceived. 

Never mind aborted.

But I digress.

I am almost completely unaware of Dolly Parton's songs except for Jolene which I consider a work of art.

I think I'll listen to it right now.

Toodlepip.

James