Homesick (1988)

Ah, Homesick. For a long time, I hated this project. Not so much that it's all that bad, but that it's so much less than what I had envisioned it to be.

I had been in the theater department at the University of Florida for four years and had been surrounded by plays. So, when I wrote this script, it wasn't so much a movie, but a play on video. A little too wordy, not too interesting visually... and that means the acting had to be solid and the story had to be excellent.

The acting, for the most part, is competent. However, the story is average. It was my first real script... my first attempt at trying to convey a real plot and it suffers from a lack of focus. The story, about a son who comes home after a long absence, had one major flaw: the conflict was between a father and son and the impact of alcoholism on their relationship. But, instead of writing a story about the son confronting the father, it's about the son sharing this long-burning conflict with his mother while the father is not there... an inherently weak dramatic choice. But, you learn by doing.

The reason behind the visual cinematic weakness of Homesick was due to the fact that this was the first project that I didn't storyboard completely. I tried to use a shot list instead of storyboards. What I learned is that I am much more visually creative when I have time to flesh out the storyboards than I am while on the set.

We shot the project in a friend's house over a single 36-hour period. It was exhausting and I'm surprised how well the performances held up, considering how exhausted we were. I used my acting friends from college. Most of them came prepared. One didn't know his lines. Another did it in spite of the fact that she was recovering from having her wisdom teeth removed... what a trooper! I was able to convince a local cable producer, Amy Laakman, to get involved in the project. She was aching to do something creative and we shot it on 3/4" video. In the end, the project suffers from lacking of preparation (no storyboards) and lack of sleep (missing shots which are not noticeable to anyone but me).

Personal Note: During the same weekend of the shoot I was also running the light board at the Constans Theater for UF's summer show Something's Afoot (I think that was the name). After shooting for 36 hours straight I had to go to the theater and run the light board. I was so tired, I laid across the chair with my hand up on the light board. The girl handling audio would wake me when a light queue was coming up and I'd bolt up, hit the queue and then lay back down.

THE TERM PAPER (1986)

This is a personal favorite of mine. My short film The Term Paper is about a college student who realizes, at midnight, that a major term paper is due the next morning.

This was based on a true story. My girlfriend at the time, Sue AmRhein, had to write a term paper. She started by using her electric typewriter (personal computers were available, but expensive... poor college kids didn't have them as they do today... boy I sound old!). The typewriter broke and she ended up having to finish it by handwriting it on lined paper. I took that experience, added about 10 more obstacles and story boarded the whole thing.


We actually shot this film on film! Super-8 silent to be exact. My brother, Paul, and his wife bought me a Super-8 camera as a present for getting accepted into the College of Fine Arts at UF. So, I story boarded out the story and bought the film. We shot it over a single weekend in June of 1986. I rented a couple of lights, but really had no idea what I was doing. Ended up we could have used only one of the lights, because it was so strong you couldn't see the effects of the other two lights on the film. Again, another lesson learned.

The end result is a 30-ish minute film, costing about $400.00, that still holds up today. Digitizing this project is a lot more lengthy, because the transfer to video has caused some color distortion. There's a company out there that does flicker-free digitization of films. I'm going to have this gem transferred to DVD soon.

Personal Note: At one point in the story, the Student kills a cockroach crawling across his dining room table by dousing the creature in an immense, non-stop shower of bug spray. Moments later, his cigarette falls out of the ashtray and onto the trail of bug spray, causing it to ignite, travel across the table and lighting his incomplete term paper on fire. Paul was working as a Chemist in Shands Hospital and got a hold of pure alcohol.

Did you know that when pure alcohol burns, it's invisible? I didn't either. Paul did. But, that's why he ended up an Analytical Chemist. Anyway, it's the impurities that cause the flame. So, we added a WHOLE bunch of salt to the alcohol and set up a trough out of aluminum foil on the top of the outer edge of the table. Since the camera would be below the table, looking up, you wouldn't see this aluminum trough traveling around the table top.

So, we roll camera, pour the alcohol and light it. It works great! The flame slowly travels from one part of the table to the other. In the end, I believed that I could simply blow this flame out. Bad assumption on my part. In the film, you can actually see me try to blow the flame out, see it still raging and mouth to myself the word "Shoot" (but not "Shoot"). The flame ended up being MUCH larger than we anticipated.

Fortunately, we were prepared. Mike Beckett, a friend and fellow actor in the short, was standing by with a fire extinguisher. He sprayed the fine powder all along the trough, reaching the end. However, a small flame still survived, and the entire trough went up in flames again. Mike hit the flames again with the sputtering remains of the extinguisher and it, luckily, put the fire out.

The room was a total disaster. We had to take all of the furniture out of the house, wipe off the extinguisher powder and vacuum the entire apartment. In the end, though, it's a pretty cool effect!

And, after all, isn't that the point?

Slow Updates Apology

Sorry for the snail's pace of updates here on the blog. Life has been very busy.

Recently our air-conditioner needed complete replacing. As mentioned earlier, our bathroom needed complete replacing. Dea then hurt her back (she's better now). Gabe has started travel ball again (that's 5 nights a week). DC has started college (loves it) and Gabe has started 7th grade home school (likes it).

I have been blogging a bit, over at the Sonlight Pictures Blog, where we've shared our first podcast of Basking in the Son as well as entries about faith struggles, script writing and capturing moments of inspiration.

We're finally near the very end of the negotiating process for distribution of Purgatory, USA. We hope to have the paperwork finalized in the next week or so.

This weekend some of us will be traveling down to Cocoa Beach for a baseball tournament. Being so busy has left little time for screenwriting, which is frustrating, but I hope to get back into the swing of things as soon as I hand off all of the deliverables to the distribution company.

So, I apologize for the slow blog entries.

And, finally, please pray for us for a special intention. There are some really strong, difficult moral challenges occurring in my extended family and it is taking its toll. Any divine assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Allegiances

My son, Gabe, really wants to play baseball for the Florida Gators. He's got five years to make that dream a reality, but, for whatever reason, his collegiate allegiance has always been to the Gators. Probably has something to do with the fact that I graduated from there and, in his lifetime, they've won three national championships.

In any event, last night we were talking about checking out colleges for our daughter, Dorothea, and that one of those stops would be to Florida State University. My son hopped into the conversation "I'm not going."

"Yes you are" I replied.

"I'm never going to FSU!" he retorted back at me.

"If a school offers to pay for your education by playing baseball, you'll go anywhere" I challenged.

He looked at me, a knowing half-smirk on his face. He finally succumbed, "Well, if I go, I'll be a SemiGator."

That was the best he could offer. 1/2 Seminole, 1/2 Gator = SemiGator.

I guess that's better than being a GaNole.

DC Turns 16

Ahh, childhood.

As we move from being a child to being an adult it seems that every year or two there is some major event tied to your birthday.

13 - now officially a teenager.
15 - can get a driver's permit.
16 - can drive on your own.
17 - can see R rated movies
18 - can vote
21 - can legally drink

A short time ago my daughter turned 16. Since my daughter's 16th birthday coincided with the same year of my wife's 40th birthday, about a month ago we spent a day at Discovery Cove swimming with the dolphins.

It was a wonderful and relaxing time. We snorkled with enough schools of fish to create a large aquatic college, lazed around in a warm relaxing river and spent 1/2 hour with a dolphin name Tyler, who presented Dorothea with a Sweet 16 buoy.

Yesterday, however, was the actual anniversary date of my daughter's birth, so we, along with some of her close friends and relatives, went to Arigato's for dinner. We all had a wonderful time, despite the fact that our waitress had the personality of a doormat.

Afterwards we went home and devoured another of Dea's fine cake creations.

Dea has a knack for making wonderfully creative cakes. Over the years she has made a Frankenstein cake, a piano cake, a movie popcorn and drink cake, and a baseball cake.

This year she made a three layered, colorful, yet elegant cake with home made chocolate hearts attached around the bottom... 16 of them.

We finished off the evening by watching a very funny film called Noises Off. The 1992 movie is based on a play and stars Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve, Nicollete Sheridan, Mary Lou Henner and Deholm Elliot, among others. The film is about a play being put on and traveling around the country.

The first act shows the dress rehearsal and how the play is supposed to happen.

The second act is entirely behind the set and shows how the play and the relationships between the cast and crew has deteriorated over the months.

The third act again shows the play from the front and how complete anarchy has enveloped the performance.

It's one of D.C.'s favorite films and we've loved the it for a long time. There are two bad words that we always conveniently mute keeping it excessively tame by today's PG-13 rating. D.C. and I were concerned that it was more funny to us than others because of our love of movies and our experiences in theater.

Our fears quickly subsided as the group of D.C.'s friends laughed hysterically from beginning to end. We laughed so often and so loudly that Dea's parents took the movie home with them so they could see what the fun was all about.

Afterward the girls hunkered down around the dining room table for an extensive and humorous bout of girl talk.

The evening finally ended around 10:00 PM.

As I went to bed I could not believe my little girl was 16 years old. I remembered her birth, holding her in my arms, feeling her baby breath against my cheek. It all seems like it happened yesterday.

Amazing how time flies.

I'm just happy she had a memorable birthday to remember.

DC Gets Into College

Dorothea has qualified and been accepted into SPC starting next year in a unique program where high-school sophomores with high grades can by-pass their junior and senior years in high-school and, instead, complete their 1st and 2nd year in college.

In two years she will receive a high-school diploma AND an AA degree. This is not dual enrollment, it's straight-up college. And it's free.

WooHoo!

We're very proud of our girl. She's extremely excited to get a jump start on her college career.

We'll have more info on it later.

America the Lost

There was a time in our country, about two generations ago, where there was a universal understanding that it was our responsibility to sacrifice, if necessary, so that the next generation would have a better life than our own.

For years I've been bemoaning on this blog about the increasing lack of understanding for the need of sacrifice. We've lost that. We've moved from "short term pain for long term gain" to a sense of entitlement.

We have lost our soul as a country. We have lost our identity.

Once, we were the hardest workers. The smartest minds. The land of great and real opportunity. The place where we were promised life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness.

We have now turned into the land of outsources workers, imported minds and a land of growing and expected entitlement. We have twisted the pursuit of happiness into a guaranteed, albeit lower, quality of life.

Worst of all, we, for the first time, have turned into a country where we are willing to sacrifice the quality of the future generations for the comforts of our own.

Case and point, the ominous "stimulus package."

First, you could easily argue that it's 1% stimulus and 99% other government spending, but be that as it may, the reality is this. To spend $900 billion, we have to do two things... we need to print more money and we need people to loan us the money.

Problem 1: The primary countries providing our loans are China and Russia.

Read that again. China and Russia.

China, the communist country which has mandated a family has one child and has one of the worst human rights records in the world. Russia, which is quickly returning to its Stalinist past with fewer freedoms and growing governmental control over their people. They are not democracies. They do not share our values. For the past century they have been our enemies.

Now, however, thanks to our own selfishness, these two countries, figuratively and literally, OWN US!

Problem 2: In these rough economic times, if China and Russia stop buying our money, then we'll have to borrow against ourselves. Which will raise inflation and/or interest rates. Which means, in very quick order a $900 billion debt turns into a $2 trillion debt.

We are basically taking out a massive national loan with a variable interest rate. That's the SAME approach that got us in the economic mess IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Sadly, these two problems are not the biggest issue at hand. No, the worst of it is this... we have become so selfish, so adverse to sacrifice, that we are willing to borrow our children, grand children and great-grand children's future. We are willing take out of their mouths, their wallets, and their quality of life to prop up our own padded lifestyle.

America the Great is quickly turning into America the Lost.

What will America look like when Russia and China demand we pay them back? What influence will that afford them in our policies, in our trade agreements, in our ability to defend ourselves?

What will America look like when our government is unable to provide quality anything to our great grandchildren because they're still paying down the debt we gave them so we could keep our two cars, our large homes, our 400 channels of cable, our broadband internet, our meals out, etc.?

Fortunately, I will not be around to see it.

When America falls or is morphed into something unrecognizable, it will not be by some great military attack. Instead, like the Grand Canyon, it will be because of the slow and steady erosion of morals and principles to the bedrock of this nation.

America will die from within because our generation, soon to be known as the Selfish Generation, was the first to think of themselves before their children.

SISS Vol 3 Available

For those collectors of all books rare, pick up your limited copy of Surviving in Safety Harbor, Volume 3 which covers from June to December of 2006.

Mom, I'll have your copy when you return on Monday.

Thank you!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their positive feedback and support for Purgatory, USA. Everyone involved in the project is so touched by the reaction. It's a blessing.

When we were shooting these, people kept saying "The Lord has big plans for this." I hope that ends up being true.

It's gratifying to know that all of those hours involved in creating the project has not been done in vain. As I said to the cast and crew just this morning, we can only go down from here! :)

I've been in contact with a couple of youth group leaders locally, Paul is checking with people in Houston and I sent the link to Matt S. at Lifeteen, so we'll see what happens. I think they could be used as a great way to introduce ideas for further discussion as part of the youth ministry. We'll have to wait and see.

Please keep forwarding the PurgatoryUSA.com link to everyone you feel would enjoy the show. We're prepping to begin shooting our fifth episode. We hope to get better at this with each episode. The lessons we learned in the first four will definitely be used in the remaining shows.

Also keep an eye out as we'll be posting interviews online soon in between each episode release.

So, thanks again! Please keep us in your prayers. And keep spreading the word.

Purgatory, USA: Episode 1 - Now Online!

You can check out the first episode of Purgatory, USA online for free at: www.purgatoryusa.com.

Check it out! Let me know what you think.

UPDATE: You can now see this in HIGH DEFINITION by clicking HERE.

Purgatory, USA - Premiere Canceled.

Due to logistics and space limitations, we’ve had to cancel the idea of throwing a premiere party. Too bad, as it would have been a lot of fun, but too many hurdles were in the way.

The good news is that we shot some interviews with Dorothea and Tiffany this weekend. So, we’ll be posting the episodes and the interviews online soon.

Busy, Busy...

First, thank you Lord for the safety of Paul, Jean and Jonathan during Hurricane Ike! What a blessing. And congrats to Matt and Candyce on the birth of their new baby girl Eleanor Grace and also to Paul and Michelle on tying the knot. What wonderful news!

Things have been busy in the Bauer household recently. Dea and DC have been hit with a flu bug making the rounds. Gabe's Fall Ball season is about to start, so we've been down at the field quite a bit. I've been trying to prepare for a Purgatory, USA premiere for cast/crew and their families as well as working DVD menus for the eventual release of Volume 1.

This past week I finished writing the next two episodes of PUSA, one dealing with Envy and another dealing with the battle between God's Will and Our Will.

In researching a short script idea Paul had sent me about Angels, I finished reading a book called Angels & Devils by Joan Carroll Cruz... she takes all of the references in the Bible as well as from the Saints of any experiences with Angels and/or Devils and puts them into similar groupings, such as what Angels look like, Angels and the Eucharist, etc. It was a very interesting read.

Right now I'm in the middle of another one of Cruz' books called Eucharistic Miracles, which details all of the Eucharistic miracles from Christ through to the mid-1980's, when the book was written. Some of the stories are amazing.

After that I'm going to read another one of Cruz' books called The Incorruptables, about saints who have died and their bodies have remained incorrutable. I have to thank our friend, Darryll Miller, for loaning me the books, as he used to live next door to Mrs. Cruz in Louisiana and has all of her books.

So, things are busy... not exciting, just busy. Hopefully I'll have more interesting stuff later in the week :)

Purgatory, USA: 4 + 8 = 12

It appears the Lord wants us to make 12 episodes of Purgatory, USA. We have eight more to go. You can read more over at Sonlight Pictures Blog.

That means I have a lot of writing to do. Time to get started.

I'm Tired... Again

The collective sigh you heard from Safety Harbor was due to the beginning of school.

And waking up around 5 a.m.

And driving my daughter to school at 6 a.m.

And struggling to stay awake at work all day long.

Fortunately, I love the drives to her school with my daughter. We get to pray and talk and laugh and spend time together. An awesome time.

But, I'm old... or feel old... or am just plain tired. I'm genetically a night person, so this transition to being an early morning riser will be a painful few weeks. But, it's worth it.

Our Day in the National Spotlight (Updated)

So, sleep didn't come easy last night. We were all kinda freaked about being on national television on Fox News. We knew our actual time would be short, but instead of comforting us, that made things a little more intense because you have no time to elaborate or to fix it if you misspoke.

Pressure.

So, we got up early and were expected to be picked up around 11:15 a.m. It was funny, because when Dea was on the phone talking with the Fox News producer, Michael, he asked if we wanted a car to pick us up. Dea's response, "Gas at $4 a gallon? You bet!"

We got a call around ten a.m. from Michael telling us that we were being pushed back to 2:40 p.m. and that the driver would pick us up around 1:00 p.m. He would drive us to WEDU in Tampa where we would do our interview remotely.

We also found out, at that time, that they wanted the kids on the show too. So, we prepped them about what to expect and to keep their answers short and positive.

On our way to WEDU.

The driver arrived, a very nice man who also plays the bass for the Florida Symphony, and we headed over to WEDU. After arriving we all had our turn in the make-up chair and we were told we were moving up from 2:40 to 2:20.

Dea looking pretty.

The room got really quiet. We all silently entered freaked out mode. All moisture from my mouth evaporated in an instant and all coherent thoughts dissipated into the ether.

DC getting some make-up applied.

We were rushed into the studio and put into our seats. We were given an ear plug to hear the hosts from Fox and lav mics attached to our shirts. And we waited.

The time was 2:10 and were to be on in ten minutes. We all said a quick prayer, asking the Lord to keep us calm and that we would make Him proud. And we waited.

Gabe and I await our turn
to get made all pretty.

Over our head phones we could hear the broadcast up in New York. The show, Live Desk, is a "breaking news" show, very informal and as action packed as a news show can get. So, while we're waiting there, praying that we weren't going to spontaneously combust on national television and become a you tube viral video, in our ears we kept hearing...

"Breaking news! Parts of LAX have been evacuated! A man claiming to be a terrorist and having a bomb has been arrested!"

"Breaking news! An affidavit has been disclosed showing that it appears a young teen actually assisted the Uncle in luring missing 12 year old Brooke Bennett to set up a rendezvous with Uncle with the intent of having sex."

"Breaking news! Video is now coming in of a Palestinian man who used an earth mover to create havoc and terror in Israel!"

"Breaking news! The divorce of Christie Brinkley is heating up with claims about her husband, a mistress and internet porn!"

And this went on and on and on. The entire time I kept thinking about that poor Bennett family having to deal with the horrendous events unfolding in regards to their missing daughter. How horrid. And how unnecessary our little interview had suddenly become.

We continued to wait, ready to speak, expecting our three minute interview to begin at any moment. We got pushed back to 2:40. Then to 2:50. The show ends at 3:00 p.m., so we thought we may even get bumped. Finally the producer came over the headset and said that we were coming up next and that they didn't have a lot of time left.

We said we understood and promised to keep our answers short.

The funniest thing is that, during the commercial breaks, the audio from Fox goes silent. So, after all of these 'breaking news' events and the promise that we were up next, the next thing we heard was silence.

And it was unnerving. I said "I never thought silence could be so fear inducing!" Everyone laughed and then we heard the promo with our family start.

We all propped up and the interview began. The hostess, Martha MacCallum, began the interview asking Dea (pronouncing her name Day-ah, not Dee-ah... but that's okay) about homeschooling. She then asked me about something about keeping kids positive and I said the first thing that came to my mind. Then she asked DC about home schooling and performing arts high school. DC did her best, trying very hard not to say anything that would offend the home schoolers or the public schoolers.

On the WEDU set. Just before we
were supposed to get on the air.

Martha said a joke about Mom (Dea) apparently not being able to teach performing arts because DC was in school for that and we all had a good laugh.

And then it was over.

Gabe didn't get a question, as was intended, because they just ran out of time.

And that was it. Our moment on national television was over.

We had it on DVR at home. We got a copy from WEDU. And we all got into the car feeling we just made complete arses of ourselves.

As we were driven home, the adrenaline rush finally collapsed and we all sunk into our seats, suddenly exhausted. Cell phones began to ring. Text messages were flooding in. Everyone was excited. We were cautious. We didn't know if people thought we really did well or they just said that because we were their family and friends.

DC gets her name all by herself!

When we got home we plopped the DVD into the player and watched with half-closed eyes, sure we had made complete fools of ourselves.

Fortunately, it turned out we did pretty well, all things considered. It was intimidating and completely surreal, but we all took it as a big adventure.

Who would have thought that a simple vacation to NY would evolve into this promo and this interview. Now, we find ourselves on numerous Fox News promos.

It's all pretty cool. And it will end this weekend, as the entire Real American Stories promo is focused on the fourth of July.

The interview ended on a good note.

So, the entire event has been memorable and exciting. And we're glad and blessed to have been able to speak highly of home schooling on national television. What a great time!

It just goes to show you that you never, ever REALLY know which path your life will take. We enjoyed this little excursion off the main road on the rarely used path of national exposure.

It is something we'll never forget, that's for certain!

We're On National Television... Seriously

As most of you remember, when on vacation in NY we were interviewed by Fox News about America.

The end result is that we are part of their Real American Stories initiative. We're in the intro video on the Introduction page. If you click the My Story link and scroll down a bit, you can watch our entire piece.

It's really pretty cool. You'll also see us in promos on Fox News leading up to July 4th.

What's even cooler is they want to interview us on Fox News live tomorrow afternoon sometime between 1 - 3 p.m.! National television. If I can keep from soiling myself from fear, it should be a pretty cool experience.

I'll either be brilliant or in a fetal position under my chair. Turn in tomorrow to find out which one!

Old Vids

I spent Memorial Day going through my computer and storing a lot of files on DVD so I could free up the space for future projects (Messenger Doc, Purgatory USA, etc.). While purging I came across these stills of projects I was in a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Pete & Leslie in The Tempest... awful.

In A Common Fate Trailer... unimpressive.

Divorce Court... embarrassing.

Hungry Howies... low point.

With Patrick Wilson in Chase Bank's
Sherlock Holmes Spoof... not bad.

Unfortunately, almost NONE of them are any close to being respectable. Sad, sad, sad. It's amazing what we do as actors starting out... just about anything.

Ugh... some of my past I wish I could delete, like the computer files I purged today.

Local Friends Get Holy Publicity

Well, it is a small world. Some of my daughter's best home-school friends were lucky enough to make it up to New York to see the Pope offer Mass at Yankee Stadium. One of the teen leaders from our parish, Karen Underwood, along with her daughter Kelli and friend Mary McCook, scored tickets to the Mass and traveled up to participate in the blessed event.


We were all praying for their safety during their journey. Funny that, when we woke up this morning, Kelli and Mary's pictures were on the TBO website (which is part of the Tampa Tribune). Kelli and Mary are like daughters to me and are wonderful, loving friends to my daughter. It was wonderful to see them be able to express their faith and spread the gospel through their example.

You can read the article at the TBO website.

Can't wait to see them when they return!

California to Outlaw Homeschooling?

You can read more here:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=69177

and here

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58137

It appears that the California Court ruled that homeschooling may be illegal. This will get to the Supreme Court, guaranteed.

I have too many thoughts on this to put here now, but the ruling is ridiculous for so many reasons. The simplest of which is that, if that were true, it would be illegal for parents to assist in helping their kids with their homework. If I don't have the training to teach my children math during the day, then I certainly lack the same training at night.

The reason we started homeschooling was because we were teaching our kids five hours a night with their homework. We decided to save money and time and get their school work done in fewer hours. We're provided complete curriculum, texts, lesson plans and tests.

The kids can work at their own pace, have become completely self sufficient and are grades above their counterparts in government required standardized testing. Plus there are so many homeschoolers in the area that their social life is full.

California needs to be consumed by a hellish fire.

Today, preferably.

Advanced Catholicism 410 and the Future of Our Country

I go to mass every Sunday and I sincerely wonder how many of the people there really understand their faith. Most appear to have an historic, working knowledge of it, but so few "get it." I was one of the ignorant Catholic masses (no pun intended) about a decade ago, so I'm not casting stones. But our biggest failing as a faith is our ability to teach it effectively to the next generation.

That is huge! That allows for misinterpretation and ignorant and harmful dissidence within the faithful. And it's completely inexcusable.

At mass about a week ago our pastor, Father Bob, was mentioning how hard it used to be to get confirmed. It was more difficult because you actually had to know a lot more about the Catholic faith.

Having been trying to get my head around my faith for over 40 years now, I can tell you the bullet-point overview we get now for confirmation does absolutely nothing in preparing our youth to live their faith in high school and in college. The confirmation training offered now is a joke. We have lowered our standards so far that just having a workable knowledge of basic church concepts garners an okie-dokie from the church.

As I listened to Father's homily something occurred to me that could realistically change our nation.

If I were someone with the means, like Tom Monaghan, for example, I would offer a free college education for any confirmed Catholic high school student who could complete an intensive Catholic course that included volunteer hours, essays, a lot of reading and a lot of prayer. This course would be hard. I mean, really hard.

But if you completed it, on top of of your current school work, and you were able to get a B or higher on the final exam, you would get a college education for free.

What would this do? It would offer a college education to any confirmed Catholic with enough drive and passion to get it. That drive and passion would allow them to learn and deeply understand our Catholic faith. They would then take that understanding and faith into college and later, into the workforce.

Within a few decades these people would end up in positions of influence in society. Think of that. A society where many of the leaders of industry and politics would be well trained and, hopefully, extremely faithful Catholics. People who are proud of their faith and able to articulate it effectively to those who oppose anything even hinting at "religion."

In a few short decades it could effectively change the heart of our nation... and our faith community of the American Catholic Church as a whole.