We're in Maine

The past month has flown by! Quite a few things have conspired to prevent me from writing a blog report, but the main thing has been just plain, old-fashioned "too busy." Busy with what? Well, singing for sure. The Chorale is preparing an all-Schutz concert; the Concert Choir is preparing Handel's Israel in Egypt and River Singers is preparing a very diverse and beautiful program from all over the world -- and all these concerts fall into two weekends in May. I've been researching Schutz to prepare for writing program notes for that concert and I've been researching Handel Oratorios just for the fun of it. In a weak moment I agreed to co-chair a Chorale Strategic Planning Committee, and that group is already geared up and moving. The Dummerston Church Choir had a lovely rehearsal retreat - something we've never done before - in preparation for Palm Sunday and Easter music. Hallowell has been active too - several bedside sings, two memorial services and a workshop we helped lead in Northampton, MA.

I've continued to transcribe Shirley's Wellesley letters sent to her parents in 1950-51, to send them to Katie; that's been fun. I went on eBay and got Katie a Rolleicord camera, and she's excited to have that. She can develop and print the 120mm film in the darkroom there at SEMO. Her excitement over doing film camera work for her photography course at SEMO inspired me to get out the old Yashica and run a roll of film through it. When I opened the camera case, which had been stored unopened and clasped shut for several years in the basement, I was shocked to find a mouse nest! No mouse, just lots of shredded lens paper, shredded lens case and shredded camera case liner. How the mouse got into and out of a hard camera case is a mystery - a true locked-room mystery! But there was no apparent damage to the camera or lenses; just a mess. I got a nice shot of a surfer with the 300mm lens on the Yashica yesterday. Here it is:

Meanwhile, back home in Vermont it still looks pretty wintry: it's still snowshoe weather; there's still lots of snow. But they've been sugaring - it's cold at night but in the 40's during the day. It will be wonderful to finally have it be balmy for sure. A month from now it should be a different world.

Perhaps the biggest thing I've been involved in is what has brought us to Maine - final editing of the collection of stories I've been working on for several years. We're at that stage of looking at every letter, every comma, every bracket, to make sure it's accurate and consistent. Ellen is reading every story out loud, making suggestions for punctuation, formatting, etc., with me at the computer making changes. I'm also still inserting images both from my own archive and from the internet. I'm excited with the way it is shaping up. Here in Maine we're in our favorite motel - Sea Castles - where there are efficiency studio apartments at low off-season rates. There's a pool and hot-tub, wonderful walking on the Marginal Way (though it's been cold and windy). The UNC Tarheels (my favorite team) got as far as the Elite 8 in the NCAA March Madness tournament before losing to Kentucky, and so our noses haven't exactly been pressed to the grindstone. But we've made good progress on the book and we'll come home Tuesday with something close to a final MS. I'm hoping to have it ready to be printed and bound by May 24th, the anniversary of Shirley's death. It's a full life; we are blessed.

Love to all! Larry