A whole week with 7 adults who hate the not named president as much as I do--and a 2 year old we'll surely teach to hate him--what could be better than that?
This--a Trump-less week. No TV news, no radio, no newspapers.
For a whole week I experienced "trumplessness".
And it was heavenly.
In two more years, I pray and pray, 'trumplessness' can be all day every day.
I pray.
What joy that will be.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
You Couldn't Make It Up
Our trip to Oak Island was so great you couldn't have made it up.
Close friends.
Perfect weather.
An ocean only a little more wavy than a lake.
Great food. "The Big Fish"--a stuffed Red Snapper as the highlight.
Wine and beer and bourbon for those interested.
Lots of books to read.
Mimi and Tim and most of all, 2 year old Eleanor.
Silence and laughter.
No watching TV news!!!
A kite that went so high it ran out all it's string--300 feet at most.
Pelicans every morning and evening.
Gulls and sand-pipers a plenty.
No bugs except sweet singing ones.
The sound of ocean all the time.
A wondrous house with fine A/C.
Nobody on the beach after Labor Day.
How good could it be?
So good you couldn't make it up....
Glad to be home but full of memories and these memories last....
Close friends.
Perfect weather.
An ocean only a little more wavy than a lake.
Great food. "The Big Fish"--a stuffed Red Snapper as the highlight.
Wine and beer and bourbon for those interested.
Lots of books to read.
Mimi and Tim and most of all, 2 year old Eleanor.
Silence and laughter.
No watching TV news!!!
A kite that went so high it ran out all it's string--300 feet at most.
Pelicans every morning and evening.
Gulls and sand-pipers a plenty.
No bugs except sweet singing ones.
The sound of ocean all the time.
A wondrous house with fine A/C.
Nobody on the beach after Labor Day.
How good could it be?
So good you couldn't make it up....
Glad to be home but full of memories and these memories last....
Sweet Peas may take over the world
We got back from Oak Island last night. This morning, Bern told me, 'sweet-peas may take over the world'.
Before we left she had torn up a lot of the little blue plants because they had been taking over some other plants. She just tossed them on some dead brush in the area beside our deck which is, in essence, a pet cemetery. There are three dogs, four cats, a dozen or so guiena pigs, two birds and a rat buried in a ten foot by 16 foot area. She puts weeds she pulls there too, and cut grass. I toss corn husks down there and dead house flowers. I'd call it a compost area except the squirrels and chipmunks use it for Lord knows what.
When we got back, all the sweet-peas had found root again and are flourishing.
A hearty and spreading kind of plant.
The world could be taken over by worse things that those blue flowers.
Lots worse....
Before we left she had torn up a lot of the little blue plants because they had been taking over some other plants. She just tossed them on some dead brush in the area beside our deck which is, in essence, a pet cemetery. There are three dogs, four cats, a dozen or so guiena pigs, two birds and a rat buried in a ten foot by 16 foot area. She puts weeds she pulls there too, and cut grass. I toss corn husks down there and dead house flowers. I'd call it a compost area except the squirrels and chipmunks use it for Lord knows what.
When we got back, all the sweet-peas had found root again and are flourishing.
A hearty and spreading kind of plant.
The world could be taken over by worse things that those blue flowers.
Lots worse....
Thursday, August 30, 2018
While we're there
September 5th is our anniversary. It will come on Oak Island and we'll go out to eat to celebrate with Mimi/Tim/Eleanor and our friends.
It will be our 48th anniversary.
Lord Jesus Christ, how can that be? I'm still a young man and Bern's still the elfin seductress she's always been!
But wait, our son is 43 and our baby daughter is 40.
Oh, my Lord, it's been 48 years!!!
Some days it seems like we just met. Some days it seems like we're still young lovers. And yet the truth is clear--4 granddaughters...two of whom are near being young women--and we're still here, almost half a century later.
Who would have known?
How could we have known--14 and 17 when we met?
And here we are.
It's been a long ride and one I wish I could live again.
I love her so, and all she's given me. All of it.
Like any long ride, it's not always been smooth--but it has endured and endured and endured.
Thank God!!!
Truly, God, I thank you.....
It will be our 48th anniversary.
Lord Jesus Christ, how can that be? I'm still a young man and Bern's still the elfin seductress she's always been!
But wait, our son is 43 and our baby daughter is 40.
Oh, my Lord, it's been 48 years!!!
Some days it seems like we just met. Some days it seems like we're still young lovers. And yet the truth is clear--4 granddaughters...two of whom are near being young women--and we're still here, almost half a century later.
Who would have known?
How could we have known--14 and 17 when we met?
And here we are.
It's been a long ride and one I wish I could live again.
I love her so, and all she's given me. All of it.
Like any long ride, it's not always been smooth--but it has endured and endured and endured.
Thank God!!!
Truly, God, I thank you.....
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Soon, so soon....
Bern is in Brooklyn, looking out for Eleanor for two days since her day care is closed for a week. She'll be back at the train station in New Haven around 5 tomorrow.
I miss her more than I can say/ After all this time, being away from her is painful, even though we can go through a day with less than a couple of conversations. Just being in the same house with her is soothing to me. Who knew love could last so long, so deep?
But soon, soon...Saturday in fact, we fly to Myrtle Beach and go in the rental car to Oak Island with John and Sherry and Jack. Mimi and Tim and Eleanor will fly to Raleigh and drive to Oak Island from there.
And a week on the ocean surround by friends and family and food...lots of food...and not a little 'drink' as well.
How great that will be.
I have two days to write some stuff to tide you over until we get back on September 8. I'll try.
But a week away from my computer is a gift in itself.....
I may turn my phone off as well. I don't get email on it, at least and no one ever calls me.
No devices for a week---heaven....
I miss her more than I can say/ After all this time, being away from her is painful, even though we can go through a day with less than a couple of conversations. Just being in the same house with her is soothing to me. Who knew love could last so long, so deep?
But soon, soon...Saturday in fact, we fly to Myrtle Beach and go in the rental car to Oak Island with John and Sherry and Jack. Mimi and Tim and Eleanor will fly to Raleigh and drive to Oak Island from there.
And a week on the ocean surround by friends and family and food...lots of food...and not a little 'drink' as well.
How great that will be.
I have two days to write some stuff to tide you over until we get back on September 8. I'll try.
But a week away from my computer is a gift in itself.....
I may turn my phone off as well. I don't get email on it, at least and no one ever calls me.
No devices for a week---heaven....
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
MACK-dowell County
It's spelled McDowell, but how you tell if someone is from the southern most county of West Virginia is how they pronounce it. "MC-Dowell" isn't native. We natives say "MACK-dowell" and mean it. It's the "Mack" that matters to us. I don't know why. It just does.
McDowell County is where I grew up. It is 535 square miles. Rhode Island is 1214 square miles.. Nearly half the size of the smallest state--McDowell County, if you flattened it out, pushing all the mountains down, would be the size of Connecticut!
And it was where I grew up until 18 and off to college. And I loved it. So lush and green in the summer, so full of snow in the winter. So amazing in the 4 month spring and four month autumn--Winter and Summer were two months only. McDowell was farther south that Richmond, Virginia, but up in the 2000 foot mountains, so the seasons were much different.
But now...now, the county that had a population of 98,000 when I was three years old now has a population of 18,000, Try to imagine that.
And 39% of the people still left are below the poverty line.
And McDowell County, of all the 17,321 counties in the USA has the highest percentage of deaths from drug overdose.
Anawalt, where I grew up, had 1383 residents when I was 3. Today, it has 202.
Try to imagine the empty houses and boarded up houses and burned out houses left there,
Where I grew up, the building is gone. Like so many others.
This is where I grew up. I remember wondrous nature, incredible people, a perfect place to be a child.
And now....?
And now?
Coal died--and no matter what the President says, coal is not coming back, not deep mining, which is what fueled and fed McDowell County. Those mountains were full of coal--deep down. And deep mining is gone forever.
And the place where I loved to grow up is a shadow--a dim shadow--of that place.
(It is also the county in the 48 contiguous states with the highest average age and the lowest life expectancy. Ponder what that means....Only old people are there and they die younger than most people in the US. Astonishing. Deeply painful for me.)
That spot on the earth--all 535 square miles of it--was heaven for me as a child.
And now.....Lordy, the pain to know what it has become....
McDowell County is where I grew up. It is 535 square miles. Rhode Island is 1214 square miles.. Nearly half the size of the smallest state--McDowell County, if you flattened it out, pushing all the mountains down, would be the size of Connecticut!
And it was where I grew up until 18 and off to college. And I loved it. So lush and green in the summer, so full of snow in the winter. So amazing in the 4 month spring and four month autumn--Winter and Summer were two months only. McDowell was farther south that Richmond, Virginia, but up in the 2000 foot mountains, so the seasons were much different.
But now...now, the county that had a population of 98,000 when I was three years old now has a population of 18,000, Try to imagine that.
And 39% of the people still left are below the poverty line.
And McDowell County, of all the 17,321 counties in the USA has the highest percentage of deaths from drug overdose.
Anawalt, where I grew up, had 1383 residents when I was 3. Today, it has 202.
Try to imagine the empty houses and boarded up houses and burned out houses left there,
Where I grew up, the building is gone. Like so many others.
This is where I grew up. I remember wondrous nature, incredible people, a perfect place to be a child.
And now....?
And now?
Coal died--and no matter what the President says, coal is not coming back, not deep mining, which is what fueled and fed McDowell County. Those mountains were full of coal--deep down. And deep mining is gone forever.
And the place where I loved to grow up is a shadow--a dim shadow--of that place.
(It is also the county in the 48 contiguous states with the highest average age and the lowest life expectancy. Ponder what that means....Only old people are there and they die younger than most people in the US. Astonishing. Deeply painful for me.)
That spot on the earth--all 535 square miles of it--was heaven for me as a child.
And now.....Lordy, the pain to know what it has become....
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Jusr beween us
I met Bern when she was a Freshman in High School and I was a Senior.
On September 5, we'll have been married 48 years.
Josh met Cathy in law school in Brooklyn.
Mimi met Tim at Bennington College though they didn't become a couple until a few years later in Brooklyn.
The thing that brings all this together is meeting in school.
Kind of interesting, just between us.
On September 5, we'll have been married 48 years.
Josh met Cathy in law school in Brooklyn.
Mimi met Tim at Bennington College though they didn't become a couple until a few years later in Brooklyn.
The thing that brings all this together is meeting in school.
Kind of interesting, just between us.
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