Joy Goodall remembers well her visit to Moloka’i in Hawaii, when she and Father James White rode mules to make the long, perilous journey to reach the beach where Father Damien ministered to the lepers of Hawaii.
“He (Father White) lied about his weight, and I lied about my age,” the longtime St. Bernard of Clairvaux parishioner said. “My husband said, ‘I can’t believe either of you is that stupid, but go ahead.”
Mrs. Goodall and her late husband Bernard frequently took the founding pastor of St. Bernard with them on vacation, but her ride down the face of a sheer cliff with Father White is one memory that definitely stands out. “I am smarter now, and I was crazier then. It was a dangerous thing,” Mrs. Goodall said.
“We had to sign a waiver that you couldn’t weigh over 200 pounds, which (Father White) did, and you had to be under 55, and I was well over 55,” Mrs. Goodall said. When she balked at filing a false statement, “Father White said, ‘Sign it.’”
Her mule’s name was Julia and was little; “Father White had a big one that was always way ahead, named Houlie, which means ‘white.’ It was a matter of three hours down, and three hours up. The mules were very sure-footed, but the trail was very narrow, and the rocks get slippery when it rains, and Moloka’i is in a rain forest. The mules would stop to eat orchids along the way.”
Turning around was out of the question, so the Tulsans swallowed their fear, made it safely to the beach and then returned for the three-hour ascent. Father White says the ride up was worse than the ride down, but they had no choice.
Besides great memories, Mrs. Goodall learned something else on the perilous pilgrimage: “You cannot scream and pray at the same time.”
