asked Father Sebastian.“What?” I replied.“Ginger or Mary Ann?” he repeated, smiling. “You know, from Gilligan’s Island. Which one is your ideal woman, the glamour girl or the girl next door? Ginger or Mary Ann?”Ned was sitting with a group of black-robed monks in the rec room of their secluded abbey, enjoying a little relaxation after dinner before the bell rang for vespers. The rec room was the large common room located directly down the hall from the cloister gate, and aside from the monks’ private bedrooms it was the only place in the monastery that was off-limits to visitors. It was where the monks let their hair down.But only so far. This conversation was an exception. The monks didn’t usually talk so openly about women, or at least not in front of visitors. They were monks, after all. Actually, that was the only occasion during my three-week stay on which any of them evaluated the fairer sex so openly in front of me.“Well, wait a second,” I said. “What if you’re looking for something a little deeper and more nuanced?”This was a woman’s answer, or as close to one as I was going to come with these guys.
