THE BIRDER "A FEW" YEARS AGO

Next January I will continue being the HUDSON RIVER BIRDER, but I will have to change the introduction above.  Because I will no longer live in THE MOUNT.  I will live in a gatehouse at the entrance to this place which from 1907 until 1987 was the Theological Seminary for the Redemptorist Fathers and Brothers of what we call our Baltimore Province.  For many reasons into which I will not enter our governing chapter has decided to cease ministry in what we called from 1987 until this present year, Mount St. Alphonsus Retreat Center.   Right now I am preparing a 10 minute video for our August Century of Blessings celebration.  I will try to describe with old and new images how God's work has been prepared for and done here at "The Mount" during what will actually be 104 years...I was ordained a priest in our chapel here 46 years ago.  I am the third one from the left. I have never forgotten the exact tile upon which I knelt with that candle waiting for Cardinal Spellman's hands to bless and annoint me for this mission which has brought me back to this great castle on the Hudson River which I left in August of 1966.  (You know I was really not much of a birder then. I do remember, of course, the Northern Mockingbirds.  Who wouldn't...in as much as they are the most "in your face, joyful bird around.)