So, I am looking out the window of the office at the canyon below with the whizzing traffic on North Glebe and NPR broke the news out of Terry Gross’s show “Fresh Air” “White Smoke, White Smoke!”

It reminded me of the 1MC call on the loudspeaker back on the ship. I kept working on clearing the email queue as the story unfolded. You probably heard about it in near real time. Fourty minutes or so after the initial reports, the traditional words “Habemus Papam” were uttered- “We have a Pope!”

There were 150,000 people in St. Peter’s Square. It must have been electric when the crowd was aware that the ballots had been burned and the deal was done.  Francis the First is the not the first non-European Holy Father, but you have to go back to the later part of the first milenium to find the other one, a former Cardinal from what we know now as Syria.

Interesting to have all that tradition dredged up, and Francis started breaking them immediately. He is from Argentina, of course, and failed to step up to place himself about the Cardinals who elected him, and later slipped out a side door.

That is what we had to do at Willow last night. The place was rented out in its entirity to the Computer Emergency Response Team from Carniegie Mellon University.

I was there because a shipmate was passing through town and I was busy enough that I completely forgot to check that there was any reason not to rendezvous at the Amen Corner.

I read the sign on the door and went in and saw Tracy O’Grady and the staff getting ready. They kindly allowed me to sit in the usual place and wait, and when Marlow showed up we had time to down a couple glasses of happy hour white. I admired his graying goatee and motorcycle jacket- since departing the Navy he has done some amazing things and had some adventures I envy.

The one I most admired was a four-corner trip around America from his home plate in Key West, all on two wheels. Florida to Maine, Maine to Washington State, down the Pacific Coast Higway to the San Ysidro Border crossing and then back east across Texas to Florida again. To see America like that, in helmet and on steel steed like a knight errant is something for the ages.

He wrote a soaring account of it that I think should be published in its own right, and maybe he will, if there is world enough, and time. I hope I get to help him on that.

The choices of where to go, now that we were exiled from Willow were varied. We could have gone to Uncle Julio’s next door, or down to the dive bar across from the Metro Station, but we had started on wine, so I suggested Gran Cru, a wine-and-fern bar in the courtyard behind The Madison where our pal used to live.

I think he occasisionally ventured out there while he was still ambulatory. Despite the short ditance, it was easier for him to take the elevator down to the underground garage and drive his champagne colored Jag across the street to Willow.

The closing of our usual watering hole increased the crowd at Gran Cru and the place was jammed. The wait staff is all Hispanic, and they seemed to be sharing in the general merriment over the selection of the Pontiff. What was even more surprising was that Old Jim and Chanteuse Mary were at the bar. Jim was conducting a meeting with a prospective author, a chipper young lady who apparently is interested in writing the great American Woman’s Novel.

We chatted it up with Mary, and moved over to a tall table in the corner to aoivd the crush at the bar.

“Hey, I heard Francis is a Jesuit,” I said. “First time one was selected for Pope. Aren’t they like the Marines?”

My pal nodded sagely. He was a superb analyst on active duty, and his mind is finely honed. “Yep. The Jesuits are considered the Special Operations Forces of the Catholic Church.”

“Amazing. We have the first Special Operator as the leader of more than a billion Catholics.”

“All true. He is a conservative, but extremely pious and modest in his ways, from what I can tell. Not at all like the rest of the Curia.”

“Sounds like Chuck Hagel confronting the Pentagon,” I said.

“You have been in Washington too long, Shipmate.”

“I think they need to adapt,” said Mary. “He is inheriting a mess.”

“I am glad they didn’t pick the American guy. That would have been too much to handle with everything else going on.”

“Why would you care?” asked Mary. “You are not a Catholic, are you?”

“No,” I said. “But it would be nice if at least one Western Institution was able to stand up to the relentless pressure of Islam,” I said. “I just hope things get better for the institution. Every day there seemed to be another scandal.”

“It appears that the Catholics are going to have a gung-ho Pontiff. Wait till the media starts dragging him over the coals about the politics of Argentina. Francis was definitely not one of the Liberation Theology guys.”

“The media is what it is. I don’t think Francis cares. He used to cook his own food when he was a Cardinal, and didn’t live in the church palace in Buenos Aires. This is going to be interesting.”

I took a sip of Gran Cru white. “He might not be my Pope, but God bless him.”

My pal nodded. “Vos Hebere Papam,” he said. “I wish him the best of luck.”

Some other stuff happened after that, including more wine and a fine repast of cheese fondue, ripe olives and roasted nuts. It seemed like a time to celebrate, even if he wasn’t ours.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com Renee Lasche Colorado springs