My St. Christopher

According to Wikipedia, St. Christopher is the patron saint of many tradesmen, among which bachelors, transport specialists, (such as drivers or even mariners), long journeys, storms, gardners, and toothaches, in addition to being the protector of a few places, among which the beautiful island of St. Kitts, (also named St. Christopher's Island), the island of Rab, and the town of Vilnius, of Lithuania, and Brunswick, of the German region-state of Lower Saxony.

It may also be possible, Wikipedia says, that the real man on whom St. Christopher's legend was based and grew around, may have actually worked at one point in the Third Valerian Cohort of Marmantae of emperor Diocletianus' military, active at that time in Northern Africa, somewhere between current Libya and Egypt.

I have found out that in a Science Fiction genre movie directed by Mr. Robert Altman, named Quintet, which I am sorry to report I have myself not yet seen until now, although I will try to remedy this failure as soon as time and opportunity permits me, St. Christopher is represented by the character of a Latin spewing gambler, who rules over a future ice-age bound city.

I also just realized I had never particularly noticed either that Mr. Truman Capote's Holly Golightly receives at one point a St. Christopher medal as a Christmas present, and I am not sure if this was presented only in that particular novella, or also appears in Mr. Blake Edwards' ecranisation with the same title, but I will try to check on that as well.

The talisman of a St. Christopher's medal appears, I have noticed, in Wikipedia again, in so many familiar cultural cinematographic representations of different aspects of our real world named movies, that it can easily become quite understandable that at times we may not give it any particular notice, not even differentiate it from all the other possible talismans or good-luck charms most of us like, from time to time, to surround ourselves with these days, as, probably, always, or, at the very least, since the future, fortunately for most of us, remains unknown, in the "olden" days, as well.

Christopher Hitchens died these days. I had not even noticed that he had been ill for a while, because I had missed that news, when it may have possibly been reported, back in 2010, and even if I had heard those news, I would have probably not even tried to guess Dear God's prognosis, plus I really could not even have imagined Mr. Hitchens as possibly ill or ailing, since for me, he was one of the professionals I could only aspire to be able to emulate one day, never ill while on the job, especially not in regards to professional competence and ethics.

I noticed, watching a relatively recent interview of him taken by authentically candid Mr. Anderson Cooper of CNN, that Mr. Hitchens seemed to appreciate cartoonist Roz Chast and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, (or Pope Benedict the XVI-th). So do I. I had not known about this possible particular affinity, and I would be pleased to think that, even if I had known about it, this would still not have skewed in any way my particular admiration for Mr. Hitchens' love of books, a somewhat different type of love than perhaps mine, but love nevertheless, after all. RIP.