St. Francis At Work (Assisi, Italy, June 1995)

In June of 1995, Elizabeth and I took a long trip through Tuscany and Umbria. One of the highlights was Assisi, where we went through the Basilica of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals (not to mention of Italy and of the environment). The frescoes in the Basilica were awesome, and we were saddened two years later, while we were in Rome, to hear of the devastating earthquakes that destroyed some of the most important frescoes there (they have evidently been restored well).

At one point, there was a huge commotion in the parking lot. Some idiot had left a little fluffy white dog in the car while going off to tourist. A big crowd gathered, and eventually the rescue service came and broke in (by shattering a window--I assume the rescue guys are all from Naples). Everyone then gathered around the dog, to give him water and comfort him, since he was pretty overwhelmed by the heat in the car. I tried to express to a couple of my fellow gawkers, in English, and broken Italian and Spanish, my sense of the irony of the dog's rescue in the parking lot of the saint who protects animals, but I got nowhere.