Happy Birthday to faraday_writes and southindian

[fpb]

Friends are among the most precious things we have, and I have let mine pass by much too often. My new year's day resolution is to treat my friends, near and far, better.

An example: this year I sent NO Christmas cards. To anyone. In spite of that, I got three lovely ones from friends of mine, including a long and sweet letter about my recent loss, which managed to say all the right things and hit every nail on the head. You people know who you are, and you are wonderful. Thank you for existing.

Comments

[southindian.livejournal.com]

Dear FPB,

Thank you so much for your wishes! But I'm sorry my clumsiness made you wish me on the wrong day.

You see, I mainly created an LJ account to be able to read your posts, since you lock some of your more insightful posts to "friends only." I'm afraid, as a result, I never really filled in the profile properly. I think I only entered the year I was born in, so as to satisfy the minimum age requirements. I have updated my DOB now.



Yours in Christ,
SouthIndian

P.S. Incidentally, I read about these two people recently:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Giovanni_Barbieri
http://kmknapp.blogspot.in/2004/08/blessed-dominic-barbieri.html
http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/2010/09/voice-from-heaven-miraculous-voice-of.html

Are they perhaps distantly related to you? They seem to share your family name.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The name Barbieri is widespread across Italy, but my family belongs to one of two thick clusters of it - one in eastern Sicily, and the other, the Barbieris of the lower Po, around - mostly the south side - the mighty river Po as it approaches the sea. The Barbieris in question are found in the historical provinces of Verona, Ferrara, Modena and Bologna, and include many distinguished people. Guercino and St.Clelia certainly are of our lot; Cento, Guercino's home town, is within walking distance of Ferrara, where my grandfather was born. Other impressive Barbieris include Giovanni Maria of Modena, who was the first man (in the late sixteenth century) to make a scholarly study of post-Latin and mediaeval languages, and Ulisse, a remarkably pugnacious nineteenth-century anarchist who spent more time in jail than out but who also was a talented self-taught poet. On the other hand, Blessed Domenico/Dominic Barbieri was, according to Cardinal Newman, born in the Viterbo area, north-west of Rome and hundreds of miles away from my lot, and is very unlikely to be one of us.