My sister (now a Buddhist nun) having worked at The Catholic Worker's St Joseph House in New York City (pictured) for a while, and my New York family being the sort of devout Catholic family that put more emphasis on doing than talking, I too showed up on First Street one day, when I was about twenty, thinking that I would perhaps magnanimously volunteer for the day, or get into a long cool intense conversation with Dorothy Day, or be instantly hired as genius-writer-in-residence, or something like that.
I hadn't the faintest idea of what actually went on at St Joseph House, you see, and I was twenty, when anything might happen except pretty much exactly that which you thought might happen; which is how and why we grow up, I suppose.
In my case I found an elderly woman standing against the brick wall, looking stern and holy, and of course I immediately assumed she was Dorothy Day, as she looked grim and spiritual.
This is Saint Joseph House? I asked.
Yup.
And you are Dorothy Day?
Who are you?
Brian Doyle.
Welcome to Saint Joseph. Hungry?
Not so much. I am here to help.
Excellent. We need a dishwasher today. Can you wash dishes?
Yes ma'am. I am in college and I spend a lot of time washing dishes.
Excellent. Go in and tell them you are the dishwasher today.
*
This I did, thinking how cool it was to be commanded in life by Dorothy Day; I mean, Dorothy Day was clearly going to be recognized as a saint eventually, and I had gotten to talk to her, so clearly some saint dust had drifted onto me, which was a good thing, because I was then twenty years old, and had done some things that a little saint dust would really help out with.
For a minute, there by the door, I thought maybe this was going to be an excellent day, saint-dust-wise, because what if I bumped into Peter Maurin, that would be a major load of saint dust, despite him being French, but then I remembered that this was 1977, and Peter had been deceased for nearly thirty years, so I went in to the kitchen.
I lasted about an hour as a dishwasher. You wouldn't believe how many dishes come through the old lunch line at St Joseph. You think of the words lunch line, and you have the vague impression of a few cheerful and colourful raggedy souls who