'The Feast of the Immaculate Conception' Dec. 8, 1982

Today is December 8 'The Feast of the Immaculate Conception.'
I grew up Catholic, and when a union steward at the Boston Post
Office I put in a leave request for 1 day. It was to observe my
religious holyday:'The Feast of the Immaculate Conception.'

My leave request was turned down, and I took the day off anyways.
I thought that I may be being followed by the Postal Inspectors-
they called me to their office a year or two later to harrass me.


But, first, I took off 'The Feast of the Immaculate Conception' just
to teach people to have some courage. Post Office management was very
authoritarian. That's where the term 'Going Postal' originated. It was
mostly associated with Vietnam veterans, and in particular Marine Corps
Vietnam veterans, of which I am one.

Whenever I was threatened with a letter of warning or suspension i was like
'OOOH THAT'S REAL SCARY BOOO.' Then I'd tell the peckerhead that there was
nothing that they could do to scare me. I told them I was a Marine 'grunt' and volunteered for Vietnam twice. So, there was really nothing that they could do to scare me. Being shot at by snipers while being the radioman was a few notches up above their threats.

But people were afraid of their own shadows. So I put in a leave request
to observe my religious holyday:'The Feast of the Immaculate Conception.'

My leave request was rejected, and I was ordered to report for work. I told
them I was going to take that day off...and I did. They knew that I probably
didn't attend church regularly; I'll not comment on that as my relationship
with Allah-God is very personal...until the Judgement Day when he says look
at all the bad sh*t (not in those words) that Paulie did, or thought (I'm not
sure which is worse:)

But, I went into the Arch Street Chapel run by the Franciscan Brothers for about
20 -30 minutes and said some prayers. I did so because I didn't want God- Allah
to 'whack me' for using such a day as a pretext for taking a day off from work...
you know the odd accident...being run over by a car or anything...he can be tricky
and just waitin to even up the score with some fresh little pr*ck like me.

So i did actually pray...and ask for forgiveness, but also explained why.
And I have asked for forgivness every December 8th since...and will soon over
coffee.

What happened? I got a five day suspension, and beat it. I had a Constitutional
right to do what I did. And owe thanks to Cohen, and Orthodox Jew on the first
floor who heard about it. He was also suspended for taking off the Sabbath. He gave
me his leave request with the disciplinary notice he later got, and the withdrawal of
the Notice of Suspension.

In the 1990s the US Supreme Court took back that right; it does not exist anymore in the US.

The supervisor who I sat down with a the Step 1 hearing tossed out my suspension.

The next year he suspended me for threatening him with ...(over here-Ireland we'd
call it GBH...but actually what he claimed I said would constitute GBH +) and also
using foul and abubsive langugage.

I served the five day suspension and was eventually found innocent of the full charge;-

I got two or three more such suspensions...and each time they lost.

Me threaten supervisors? Why I wouldn't hust a fly;-

Coffee and ask4 forgivness.../and then mess around