Louis Roney: The Pope and other folks

• A dear lady whom I do not know phoned me the other day asked me please to keep writing “PLAY ON!” into the future. I reminded that I have been writing it for some 35 years and have no plans to stop although my eyes are gone and I can no longer read or type my own column. However b.w. does all the writing as I dictate to her. My life proves to me over and over again that I was very wise in picking b.w., and that she finds what I am doing to be worthy of her attentive help. I brought her to Winter Park on our honeymoon and for the first time since WWII I visited the place where I grew up. We stayed at my old Orlando friend Sally Pace Townes’ home. Now it happens that Sally was in real estate and guess what? — she showed us a lakeshore house in Winter Park she thought we might like. B.w. and I walked through the front door of the house, nodded to each other and sealed the deal — no dickering about anything! We wanted to be assured that we owned that house then and there. Then b.w. and I drove back to New York where the weather was miserable. On one particularly cold and rainy day we laughed and said to each other, “We don’t need to put up with this anymore, we have a home in Florida!” — and moved south quickly thereafter!

• Hillary seems a bit addled when she is recollecting the tidy sums that she and her sergeant-at-arms Bill were rounding up in the days before they almost had enough to issue their own currency (peruse the book “Clinton Cash”). This charmless woman who so ardently desires to be loved by the respected folks who sit in the first pews must remember that when you lie down with dogs you’ll get up with fleas. Our imperfections are part of the currency we collect and spend without much further thought. A nail-biter is seldom convincing and a nervously careful speaker is equally stagnant. Better a touch of reckless abandon than fear of speaking one’s own mind. Why, oh why can’t Hillary “tell it like it is” instead of telling it like she wants it to be — and then getting caught in outright lies? An August Quinnipiac University poll found 57 percent of voters say she cannot be trusted! (And you can’t continue to blame her problems on the press, Bill!)

• He came, he saw, and he conquered everything and everyone in sight! The tumultuous visit of Pope Francis made us all wonder at the attention that one person can generate if he carries a powerful enough message. The Pope brought us the ringing voice of Christianity, which proved once again to have held its unending inspiration. The Pope was a fine speaker in the several languages that he commands, talking to many diverse groups from the Bishops of the Church to prisoners in jail. His uplifting voice was seemingly without limits and he gave some 18 speeches in five magical days! His energies were almost boundless and he gave of them freely wherever he went. He was, of course, most interested in the state of mind of his hearers. He chose to visit Congress and was the first Pope to address that body in person. In New York the United Nations, the World Trade Center Memorial, and Mass in Madison Square Garden were among the highlights. Most interestingly he then went to where our country began, Independence Hall, Philadelphia — a magnificent and meaningful choice. Record crowds greeted him wherever his little “Pope-mobile” went — even along the circuitous byways through Central Park in New York. The Pope’s television coverage seemed limitless and the whole world saw and heard him wherever he went! His activities seemed to flow effortlessly ending with a million-person mass in Philadelphia — and a final wave goodbye from his plane’s window.

The Pope brought us welcome release from the world’s overwhelming problems with his calm message of family and understanding. He seems to be directing his message at those Americans who slight the family’s importance — and without family, what have you got?