Pull up a chair and tell me your memory Why does it matter to you?
I want to hear your story, your point of view
Tell me what happened to you
Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that features folks from all walks of life
telling us one true childhood story and how that event, that experience has impacted who they are today
I'm your host Jay Rehak and like all of you out there, I've had my share of childhood experiences that have impacted who I am today
Some of them beautiful, some of them quite painful, a lot of them memorable
but I'd like to think that everything that's ever happened to me has made me a better person
Now that's not necessarily true but that's what I'd like to think
Today I have as my guest a good friend of mine, a man I've known for I don't know I'm going to say almost 40 years
I met him when I moved back to Chicago, I was living in New York at the time, I moved back to Chicago and I was looking for a few good people
and I bumped into Reverend Bob Bossy
Reverend Bossy is a priest of the Order of the Sacred Heart
Welcome to the show, Bob Bossy
Thank you Jay, it's a pleasure to be with you, it's an honor to be with you
Well thanks a lot Bob, you and I go back pretty far actually
I think you told me that we met at a protest or something if that's not true
As a matter of fact you came up to me and said that Liz McAllister had told you to get in touch with the group
and then about a week or two later you came with Susan
and the very first thing she said to me was I'm Susan and we're in love
Nice
That was the very first word she said to me, so I said God these are cool people, I love them already
So that was back in the mid-80s
Wow, well I did marry Susan so it's worked out so far
and I'm honored that Liz McAllister was the woman who introduced us in her way
A great woman and I consider you a spiritual guide
You actually may not remember this but you remarried me on my 10-year anniversary
I'd been married by a rabbi the first time and I needed or wanted to reaffirm my vows
and I did, my children were with me and my wife
and you did the service for us and it was beautiful but that's not part of this story
I'd like to actually get to your story
So Bob are you ready to tell your story?
I will try
All right listen I'm going to mute myself, I'm going to just listen so you won't hear me reacting at all
But when you're done we're going to ask you absolutely one question
and that one question is this, how do you think what you told us has impacted who you are today
but take it away, Bob Bossy
This is Bob Bossy speaking to you from Franklin, Wisconsin
A good friend of Jay and his wife Susan and their family
I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts in a fairly religious family Catholic
My mom I always thought was the spiritual core of the family
She spoke about God and actually Mary, Jesus Mary and Joseph like they were real people
and she knew them, it wasn't like a theoretical thing and I didn't think of that then
But through the years I realized that that's a lot of where I got my
inspiration and intuition about God and what life was about
Your question to me was what is something that happened in my life at an early age
that caused me to have that have an impact for the rest of my life
And I, to be honest with you, the thing that I remember when you first asked me the question
was the first thing that came to my mind was my awareness of God
When I was a young boy there was a few moments in my life when I just knew God's presence
and I knew that I loved God and wanted to be close to God
And at one time it happened while I was singing this song
A Holy Night to Myself and just realized that God was present
Another time it happened when I was with my brother Dave who was an agnostic
This is a little bit later in life and somehow I just said to him
I don't know I just that God is always present
I can I just know God is always present
But what happened to Jay is that I thought that I should be a priest
And I was going to sign up for a to go to high school in Boston
at a place I think it was called Resurrection High School
And it was in the other side of town and two things stopped me from doing so
One was I didn't want to go that far away from home to go to school
seemed like too much of a hassle
And the second thing is that I didn't want to become a priest right away
because I wanted to see the world
I wanted to travel the world
You don't know this but when I was young
I had a very bad case of asthma and I almost died several times
And I remember one time I was in bed for about three months with asthma
And I remember looking outside at the kids who were playing
and I was of course stuck in the hubs
And I remember saying to my mother when I grow up
I don't want to get married
because I don't want my children to have this
And I want to travel all over the world
Little did I know that that would happen
So I didn't join the priesthood at that time
And I decided to become a vagabond if you will
I get about
So what happened is I started bouncing around the country and the world
I went in the military, I was in Japan, Florida, New York
I got out of there and I went to work for Bethlehem Steel
building a nuclear powered ship
And I went on the road at different jobs
working for the military industrial complex
I was into the borrow scene, motorcycles, sports cars, dating, engagements
I was engaged at least once
And I ended up one time with a friend
I bumped around with a guy named Eric Stennis
who was from Wayman's, Massachusetts
We met and became friends up in a job in Vermont
General Electric
We both realized that we wanted to go on the road
So we became traveling buddies
and traveled around
Anyplace we could get a job and still hang out
He taught me to scuba dive
So I became an avid scuba diver
He and I were really close friends
After work we would swim out past the breakers in the ocean
and just gab for a while
I don't know what we talked about
People have asked me, what did you guys talk about?
I have no idea, we were just good friends
One time somebody said to him that they thought we were gay
And I'm not ashamed of being gay
But to be honest with you
I never had any sexual attraction to Eric
He was just a good friend
But anyways, we bumped around and we ended up in Hollywood, California
And believe it or not, Jay, this is the truth, I'm not making this up
There were parties morning, noon, and night, seven days a week
And the people at the parties I think were all looking to be discovered
And they wouldn't talk to you
unless you looked like some famous director, I suppose
And after about two weeks of literally going to a party
three times a day, I said to myself, this is ridiculous
I'm not going to do this anymore
As a matter of fact, I was lying on a couch in a friend's apartment
in Hollywood, California
And I made a decision that I was not going to get off the couch
unless I could figure a reason to do so
And I couldn't think of any reason to get off the couch
And I said to myself, well, I just won't respond to anybody's attempt
to break into my silence, I just won't respond
And I said, well, what would keep you a want, make you a want to continue going on?
And I couldn't think of anything
And I said, well, I said, what about someone in your life?
And I thought about different people, and then I thought of my mom
And I said, I'm sorry, you're not good enough
And then I thought of God
And I remember saying, God, I'm sorry, you're not good enough
But God, that I knew, and I was ready to give up when I said to myself
Well, what about before you were born?
And at that moment, I thought of my conception and got ready to cry now
And at that very moment, I found myself immersed in God
I heard the word God
And at that moment, I was lost in God
I didn't exist, only God existed
I realized a few moments later that I was lovable
And that everybody and everything else was lovable as well
But they were in and of this God that I had met
That they deserve, that I deserve love and respect
And they did too
And I remember saying to myself, I don't know why
I said, you get out of life, what you put into it
So I said, well, I want everything
So I, that moment changed my life
I remember being on the beach in Florida before this incident happened
And I was, there was this young woman there beside me
I think she really liked me
And she was asking me about myself
I remember saying to her, I'm looking for something
I don't know what it is
But if I find it, I'll know it
So that's what happened
And I didn't think about my desire to be a priest earlier in life
As a matter of fact, I remember I was in a nightclub one night
And there was dancing and everything going on
And there was this really pretty woman that she and I were sort of connecting
And she reminded me of a little genital abridged
I don't know if you remember her
She was quite attractive, I was quite flattered
And I remember saying to myself, you know, you should really become a priest
I remember saying to myself
And I remember saying to myself, I'm not ready for that
And so one thing led to another up to that experience in California
And I changed my life
I decided that I wanted to please the God of my life
I wanted to
It's like when you're found in a lot of you, you don't do it because you have to
You don't care, you don't care because you have to
You do it because you love them
And you want to please them to make them happy
And so that was my motive, what pushed me onward
And I decided that I would become a priest
But even though one of my, at this time there was two other guys were hanging around with a auto
And I can't remember the other guys name
But he said that he had just gone to a curseel
Charlie, Charlie Carrot
Charlie had just gone to a curseel, which is a Hispanic Catholic retreat
And he said, Bob, you should go on the next one there with me
And I said to him, Charlie, I said, I had an experience of God
But I don't know if he's Catholic enough
So I, because I wasn't ready to say I was Catholic
But I heard in my mind that if you wanted to be a priest, you had to go to Mass every day
So me and Eric, we were unemployed at the time
So me and Eric headed back to Florida and got a job
And I started going to Mass every day
And it so happened, there was after Vatican II
When things had changed a lot spiritually and, you know, in the church
And I started going to Mass every day
And I found myself, when I would listen to the priest
In those days it was the priest, reading the scriptures
I was sitting there with my jaw slack, because I realized that Jesus as God was my God
And then I realized that I was a Christian, a Catholic Christian
And so I tried to follow that lead and I wrote away to a bunch of religious orders
To ask them if I could join
And most of them wanted to come and visit me and spend six years getting to know me and everything
So I got really discouraged and I just, I remember one of my friends, I forget his name
He was going down to visit his girlfriend in Miami, we were all living in St. Petersburg
And he was going to visit his girlfriend in Miami
And I was laying in my bed and he said, what are you doing?
I said, I'm really discouraged, can you get, no one wants me as a priest
And he said, get your ass out of that bed and right to some other places
Get your ass out of that bed
So he left the room and I get up and I started writing to other congregations
And I wrote to the one that I'm in now, which was catering at the time to so-called second career vocations
And at that time I was 27, he's of age, I thought I was an old man
So I wrote away to all these groups, they all wanted to come and visit me as they mentioned
But this group here said, come ahead, come on up
So I sold my car, I gave up my job and two weeks later I flew to Massachusetts at the seminary
Little did I know that the spirituality of the community is based on
Well, it's from the Psalms, it's, behold, I come to do you will of God
And that's pretty much said, what was in my heart about pleasing God
That I wanted to do God's will
I might not have used those exact words, but that's what I wanted to do
That was which I gave my life
And so I did that and tried to keep going
I say I'm still struggling on trying to be a good guy
Alright, listen, I'm almost out of time on my Zoom, so I gotta just ask you one question
Even though it's sort of self-evident, that decision when you're 27 and even before then and all those events
I love the, even before you were born hearing the voice of God
How do you think it's impacted your life? I mean, to a certain extent, you've been a priest for a little while now, so I assume
How do you think it's impacted who you are today?
Well, I became a priest because I wanted to tell people about God and how much they were loved
Like I found God and felt love
And so I was going to become a brother, if you will, because I just wanted to sort of hide in the woods and know God
But I became a priest because I wanted to at least be able to preach a little bit and tell people about that
And I had an experience in South America a few years later
It helped me to turn to social justice activism
It's a way of expressing God's presence in the world
I don't want to take up too much of your time, I might keep track of the two minutes
Yeah, well, last question for you, because I know you've been a social justice advocate, but I would say for at least 50 years
I don't want to necessarily find out exactly how many years you've been a priest, but it's been, I'd say at least 50 probably, right?
I was born in 1975
Oh, 75, okay
So last question for you, whatever happened to Eric, you know?
Yeah, he got married, and a nice woman, I didn't know it, but he was an alcoholic
We used to hit the bars all the time, I didn't think anything of it
But one of our mutual friends, Joe Varga, who was a skydiver and circus performer, he told me, he called me up, he said, Eric's dying
And I said, what?
And he said, yeah, he says, an alcoholic, Bob
I didn't even know, he said, Bob, he's been an alcoholic all his life
So he died when he was about 60, 65, I mean, he was a really good friend, we hung around together, and as far as his alcoholism was, it didn't seem to influence our relationship
Well, listen, Bob, I want to thank you, I got less than a minute before the Zoom locks me out
Thank Bob Boase for being on the show, I appreciate his time, I appreciate the insights known you for many years, and the wild side I did not know
And so now I know a little bit more about you, and I'm grateful that you did become a priest, because as I said, you were a mentor to me and to many, many thousands of people
And I know your social justice work has helped the world, not necessarily healed it, but I guess maybe that's not why we're here, we're just here to love God and do the best we can, huh?
Amen.
Alright, well that's our show, thanks again to Reverend Bob Boase, until next time this is Jay Rieck asking you all to please stay safe out there, and do your best not to hurt anybody.