A Great Loss!

Tony Barrand died yesterday morning. His daughter said that he died peacefully with his family around him. What an incredible loss! Margaret Dale is still living, but with an unclear prognosis. We are not sure if she is aware of Tony's death. She is also in Hospice care. They were an incredibly important part of the Guilford Church's life, especially in its musical life, but not just there. E.g., Margaret Dale initiated and led the annual Seder supper on Maundy Thursday. She made it possible for Tony to keep coming to church in his wheelchair as the MS robbed him of more and more functions (Tony was diagnosed with MS in 1986!). And he was so determined. What an inspiration! Pastor Elisa struck just the right note this morning - it was originally planned to be "holy humor"Sunday, with a lot of jokes. It was shifted to a celebration of joy and sorrow. Part of the service was an archival video of Tony singing the carol Candlemas Eve, which was a tradition in our church. Candlemas (February 2nd) is a holy day observed in England and many other countries of the world, that Tony brought into our church. It is the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, the 40th day after Christmas, a day when candles are blessed for the year; when Christmas decorations are taken down and replaced with boxwood. etc. Tony has sung this carol for years- decades, actually - going back to the late 1980s.

The Candlemas Eve carol that Tony always sang on the Sunday before Feb. 2nd.

Tony Barrand (1945-2022)

Thinking of Tony and Margaret Dale Barrand tonight

Tony and Margaret Dale Barrand are both dealing with serious health issues tonight. Tony is in Hospice care and Margaret Dale has multiple issues complicated by a fall. Both are in Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital. Their children were unable to visit them at first because of COVID but now can. However, visits are family only. We are so saddened by this situation and our hearts go out to them and their families. They have been such an important part of our lives and the Guilford Church going back decades. Tony has given so much of himself to the church as a singer, choir director, his courageous example in his chronic MS illness and his delightful presence and wit. Margaret Dale has given so much of herself as well through her teaching, singing, faithfulness and devotion. So we are thinking of them tonight with love and hope and gratitude.

Tony and Margaret Dale Barrand

Little errands

I came out this afternoon to do a few errands before we get our storm. I took some pictures to Peter Amidon that he needs, to make a video, I went by Jerome's place and left him a little money for groceries, I delivered a loaf of bread to Robin Davis from When Pigs Fly, and now I'm picking up a pizza to take home. Ellen has been enjoying a day in bed, reading; she might appreciate not having to fix supper. I'm also going to take a loaf of bread to Eliza. Then I'll go home and will settle in for what could be quite a storm. Tonight we'll listen to a Live Streamed Northern Roots Festival Concert - a unique Brattleboro event.

On our way home!

We left Owl's Head at about noon today. I was awake very early and was not able to go back to sleep, so I got a little extra sleep in the later morning. So now it's almost 3 o'clock, and we are in Kittery, at the When Pigs Fly bread shop. We always stop here and get bread. It's great bread.

When Pigs Fly bread outlet ***************************************** On our ride so far today I have been reading aloud from Dostoievsky's Notes from the Underground. I have not read this previously, and it is fascinating. It is clear that this course is going to be quite a trip! And why not? It's titled Uncanny Journeys! We had our class on Kierkegaard last evening. Phil Weinstein, our teacher, focused on an aspect of Kierkegaard that I DO understand, and did not deal very much with the parts of Fear and Trembling that go over my head. He focused on those portions that one can relate to experientially, and largely ignored the heavily philosophical parts. That was ok with me. He essentially asked us to try and call to mind a moment in our lives when we had to make a huge decision the outcome of which was unknown to us, a moment, in other words, of existential fear and trembling. He called to mind his own wedding day! Fair enough! It was a helpful class session, and gave us a sense of how the course will go. We did not get into the issue of gender - of whether Kierkegaard is more for men than for women. There were many thoughtful questions. And the class is pretty big. Over a hundred people. I'm amazed that there are that many people who want to tackle these difficult texts! LATER After When Pigs Fly, we stopped and got take-out at Bob's Clam Hut - just down the road. A Haddock basket with onion rings. It included. some slaw and fries - plenty for both of us. So we did our traditional stops that we almost always make when we come to Maine.

LATERIt is almost 6p.m., and we are in Keene - we've stopped at Michaels so that Ellen can get some colored card stock. We'll be home before 7p.m. - pretty good time considering we will have made three stops along the way. We'll be coming into a VERY cold house. Hopefully we'll be able to get the bed warm enough to sleep in! LATER STILL We are home and getting the house warm. We spent a lot of time first cleaning out the base of the flue where pellets of creosote collect which can eventually block air flow. It is ideal to do that job when the stove is cold, so we did. Unfortunately, the system someone designed to hold the hatch in place is the height of frustration to get back in place. We finally did it, but it was exhausting. Now we have a nice fire!

The frustrating hatch. The tricky part is holding the retaining ring exactly in place while you tighten the screw. It's a two-person job and even that is difficult. Ellen finally thought of using duct tape to hold the ring in place, and that was brilliant.

Another visit to the Farnsworth

I wanted to see Phil McKean during this visit and this morning we met him at the Farnsworth Museum - which we have done several times before. This is great - we love the Farnsworth - and we enjoyed our time there today. The highlight of today's visit was two rooms devoted to Betsy Wyeth - wife of Andrew Wyeth. Betsy Wyeth was a woman tres formidable. She recently died at age 98. She was a frequent model for Andrew, often served as his muse and critic, and devoted herself to all the artists of the Wyeth family (N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth), serving as a family archivist, historian, documentarian, writing books, producing films, etc. In addition she founded several organizations devoted to their art. One could go on. Since I get fatigued fairly quickly standing and looking at art, I spent part of the time there sitting in the art library, which is a marvelous place. I usually randomly select a book off the shelf and peruse it; today it was a book about Thomas Hart Benton. Benton is like the Wyeths in the sense that he too is associated with a region - the Midwest; (the Wyeths of course are strongly associated with Maine). But maybe that's where the aimilarities end. Benton is a "modernist" and a "structuralist," (I think), whatever those terms might mean. But all you have to do is put an Andrew Wyeth watercolor next to a Benton mural and you can see the contrast. I like them both. Benton was a highly controversial figure in his own time and still is today, I guess. Also, at a certain point, he was linked with Grant Wood (both "midwestern"), who was from my hometown of Anamosa, Iowa, and whom I have long admired. So anyway - a fun morning. We'll see Phil again later this afternoon at his place. Tonight is Kierkegaard. Wow - what a day!

A work by N. C. Wyeth

Portrait of Andy Warhol by Jamie Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth's last work

By Jamie Wyeth

A study of wicker by Jamie Wyeth

Betsy Wyeth in a work by her husband Andrew Wyeth

A Thomas Hart Benton self-portrait

From Benton's Indiana Mural at 1933 Chicago World's Fair

Benton and his wife, Rita self-portrait

Picnic on Martha's Vineyard (Benton did live and work in both New England and New York before settling in Missouri)

You never know what you might find

Today I was playing around on the Internet - I can't remember what the chain of association was - and I ran across the film that Katie Shay was the cinematographer for back in 2015. Oh - I remember - I was reading blog posts from the summer of 2015, that was it. And I ran across this post: Sunday, September 6, 2015 Columbia tonight We're in Columbia, MO tonight. We just had supper with Katie at the Flat Branch pub, which is a favorite place here but had one disadvantage - it's very noisy. It's hard to talk. But we did, a lot. We heard all about the film Katie has been making - she is the camera woman. Except for two boys in the cast, it's all women - all Stephens College students. She is very excited about it - especially because the Director - her friend, Aud Robies - wanted the camera work to be like that of the TV series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Katie has really nailed it. I Googled "Aud Robles" and found the name of the film: The Bike Thief and then I went to YouTube and found the film itself! It is about 12 minutes long and was Aud Robles "senior thesis." It's a neat little film, and at the end, this came up in the credits:

How neat is that? But then I saw this, which was even more surprising:

I had completely forgotten that I had contributed to the making of this film! *************************************************** I knew nothing about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which Aud Robles refers to as kind of a model for her film. So I looked it up. It was an extremely popular comedy sit-com back then, a very zany, I would say, manic production. I watched some episodes - it's crazy. But evidently Katie Shay knew it and was able to capture its style of camera work in her own. Amazing!

Snow in Maine

We are in Maine and right now, it is snowing. It's supposed to clear later today, mid-afternoon. We drove over yesterday for a visit with Jim and Mary. We left at about 12:30 or so, stopped at Walgreens to pick up some prescriptions, and came over without stopping - except for some MacDonald's french fries and a cup of coffee - with perfect weather, a lovely winter's day, and arrived at about 6:05p.m. I read Kierkegaard aloud much of the trip. We've just about finished up Fear and Trembling. We can say that we have read it, but I don't think we can say we have understood it. I could talk fairly intelligently about it, but it would be superfical. Much of it has gone over my head. Our class has the first session tomorrow night (Wednesday). Our instructor sent out a reminder, and he included a word about Kierkegaard which was sort of comforting: Dear folks, I know how hard it can be to read Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaard’s text moves in surreptitious, allusive, often unclear ways. No one masters it. You are likely to feel, while immersed, that you’re on a careening, unfamiliar vessel moving through choppy waters. You might well wonder what the captain has in mind! I can’t convert this particular uncanny voyage into a pleasure cruise. But I’ll do my best to shed light on the book’s fierceness—on why it will not unfold in a straightforward manner. Kafka once said, “I have experience, and I am not joking when I say that it is a seasickness on dry land.” We who read Kafka—and Kierkegaard as well—may be the lucky ones. Thanks to their writing, we can engage the profound unease at the heart of their subject—without undergoing the gut-wrenching wretchedness of real seasickness. And whatever your discomfort, it doesn’t approach Abraham’s trial, during his three-day trek to Mt. Moriah. I realize the above paragraphs don’t make Fear and Trembling likable. It isn’t likable. But I believe it matters, and I'll try to shed light on why. I look forward to our taking these matters on, together. All best, Phil************************************************ With the weather what it is today, I doubt that we will be going anywhere, though we might go out late this afternoon to pick up some kefir, which I forgot to bring.

Looking out the window - you can't quite see it, but it is still snowing.**************************** Last evening, we had a lovely supper that Ellen brought with us: Corned beef hash, squash, steamed cabbage, etc., and then I watched a Tarheels game on the computer while Ellen, Jim and Mary watched a TV program, a dramatic series set in Germany after WW II. The Heels managed to win the game against Virginia Tech - 78-68- and it was fun to actually see the players. I have been listening to the games on the radio up to now.

Today was better

The trip to the pool was better today. For one thing, I went after church thinking that it would close at 2p.m., which is what the card said = the card I was given when I joined. Sunday: Hours 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. But I found after I got there that it had been changed to 3 p.m. So I had plenty of time. The other thing is that there were few people there. I could use any facility I wanted to, for as long as I wanted to. So I wore myself out good and proper! Then I went to see Jerome, without any warning, and he seemed to be away. Then I went to the Dollar Store, which I discovered had become The $1.25 Store. I'm serious. Everything formerly a $1 now costs $1.25. A powerful evidence of inflation. It is still a bargain in most instances.

The new dollar!

Busy place

Today was not the day to come to the pool! I was able to do only one of the three main things I do - ride the bike. The elliptical and the hot tub were all in use. So it wasn't a complete bust, but disappointing. I need a flotation belt when I go into the pool itself and I didn't have that with me, so I didn't use the pool. My shoulders have made it almost impossible to swim - I just can't manage the strokes any more - at least that is how it seems. I'm not sure I can even remember how to swim. It feels risky. I might try it sometime and see what happens.******************+** It is still VERY COLD. But I had good talks via phone today with both John and Katie. So that in itself makes it a good day. Katie has started her new job with LivWell, a cannabis farm. She is working with plants - harvesting flowers. Her first day was Thursday. It is a 4-day week job. So she is off Fri-Sun. WE're hoping to see her for a long weekend in March. We'll be going to Maine next Monday for a visit to Jim and Mary. That will be nice. I'm reading a book Ellen put me on to by Simon van Booy - someone I had not heard of, but he is a GOOD writer. It is called Night Came With Many Stars.

Simon van Booy

Pretty Quiet

What with high COVID statistics and very cold weather we haven't budged very far from our spot by the fire. I have been reading Kierkegaard out loud to Ellen, I read an Alexander McCall Smith novel (two actually - # 20 AND 21 - in the Ma Romatswe series); I've gone to the pool, gone on the Dummerston Zoom meeting (Monday), the Retired Ministers Zoom meeting (Wed.), the CTS Wednesday Noon Reflections Zoom meeeting (Wed.), Centering Prayer Zoom session (Wed.), etc. Lots of Zoom! What would we do without Zoom! We've watched the evening news. favorite Masterpiece shows (E.g., Grantchester and Father Brown), watched a movie on Amazon Prime (Swallows and Amazons), and so on. A quiet week but a nice one. We almost went to Maine to visit Jim and Mary today thro Saturday, but Jim was having a procedure done on his eyelid today and it seemed not a good time for them to have company. Maybe next week.

Alexander McCall Smith*****************
There are four Tar Heels basketball games coming up in the next week. They are not being televised nationally, but I think I can listen to them on Chapel Hill radio on the phone. They were outstanding against Georgia Tech, and then totally collapsed against Miami. So we'll see which team shows up for these upcoming games.

Beloved

Church was special this morning in several ways. It was Baptism of Christ Sunday, and that theme was central to the service. When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened and God said, "Thou art my beloved son." The word that Pastor Elisa took out of the scripture was the word "beloved," and she developed the meaning of it very thoroughly and applied it to each of us. It was also the Sunday in which the officers and committee-members of the church were dedicated and commissioned. Ellen and I hold the role of delegates to the Windham-Union Association, so we were part of that. It was also the first time a new baptismal font created by Dwayne Johnson was used - it is very handsome. Elisa built into the service a new ritual - each person, both there at church and at home on Zoom, was to dip their finger in water and touch their forehead (perhaps making a symbol of some sort) and say, "I am beloved by God." For folks there, like choir members, she stood behind the font and held up a mirror. That was quite touching. So, once again, despite everything, a memorable service.

Church at Guilford this morning. The new baptismal font is visible in the center. The Davis family is in the forefront on the right. Andy was leading the choir.

Another deep freeze

We are in another session of cold, cold weather. The next week or more, the lows will be zero or below. We are going to tear through the woodpile and are not going to have a lot of incentive to go outside! But I will need to keep going to the pool - my primary method of exercise for the near future. I've been working on Spelling Bee trying to get to Queen Bee (ALL the words), but no luck. I think I'm close though. I'm well beyond Genius - I should say WE are - Ellen actually did the puzzle and got to Genius, but I did it om paper and had a second pangram and several other words. (She had four words I did not have). So combined, we were pretty good, and I've thought of a few more since. LATER -- I just had two hours at the pool. I had everything to myself - there were a few others around but they were doing their thing at other locations than the one I was using at the time. That makes for a good, safe time. It's five degrees outside. This evening I'll be listening to the UNC Tarheels play Georgia Tech on the radio - I can get WCHL, the Chapel Hill station, on the phone. UNC is doing well and they are predicted to win this game. Their star player is Armando Bacot, who double-doubles most games (over ten points and over ten rebounds in the same game). I think he is enjoying the status of ACC Player-of-the-week, and could end up being ACC Player-of-the-Year.

#5 - Armando Bacot
LATER STILL Bacot lived up to his reputation. He got 29 points and 11 rebounds - another double-double. UNC led by as much as 32 in the game and won handily at the end, 88-65.

#22 - Justin McCoy; #4 - R.J. Davis; #1, Leaky Black; #45 - Brady Manek; #13 - Dawson Garcia

Made it!

Ahah! The pool is open today! I just did a good session in the hot tub, on the bike and the elliptical. Right at the moment, I have the men's dressingroom to myself. It was not thus when I arrived, but I've been pretty much to myself the whole time after getting into my pool things.

I spent the morning figuring out how to get readings online for our Swarthmore class, which is titled Uncanny sojourns or something like that. It starts Jan 26th with Kierkegaard and then meets every two weeks and goes on to Dostoievsky and Nietsche in the next two sessions. I was able to download a .pdf file of the readings for those two authors. For some reason the .pdf file they offered for Fear and Trembling was only about 1/3 of the book, but fortunately I own the whole book, and the files for D. and N. look to be complete. So we are set for the next month anyway as far having access to readings is concerned. I also did some reading this a.m. - there is a stack of unread New Yorkers and Christian Centuries sitting on the hearth right by where I eat my breakfast (in cozy comfort!), and I usually read an article or two while I'm munching. What a life!*******************************LATER Now I'm home and Ellen is fixing supper. It's Friday night and we will watch not only the PBS Newshour but also Washington Week in Review - a Friday night "ritual."

Grandma Miller’s

We left the house a little after three to go up to Grandma Miller's. We got our usual muffins and chocolate eclairs. Yummy! Driving back we noticed that the light was still pretty good around 5 o'clock - good enough to take a photograph. That is encouraging!

Above: Jamaica, VT; below: Townshend, VT

Disappointed!

I decided to go to the pool a bit ago - I decided that the risk of NOT getting exercise is greater thnn the risk of getting COVID. But wouldn't you know - when I got there, I found it was closed - due to staff shortages. If I had bothered to read my "sover.net" email this morning, I would have known. The man who staff's the afternoon shift has a cold, and is at home, out of caution. He will be out five days and will return only after a negative COVID test. Others will fill in starting tomorrow, so I can go then. I'm glad they are being cautious. That is reassuring. We'll probably go to Grandma Miller's today for muffins and eclairs! Not exactly exercise, but hey, still good! ******* Yesterday I picked up Jerome and took him shopping. His car is not working (again!) and he needed groceries and some medicines. So that was something I could do to help. I think his car problem might be a frozen battery, but I'm not in a position to figure that out. I hope maybe his daughter's boyfriend can look into it - he is having to drive her to work, so it is in his interest to find a fix. Meanwhile, the temperature had moderated- it is about 35 degrees now - a lot better than 5 degrees! And Ellen has opened a new jigsaw puzzle - a very challenging, 1000-piece puzzle. That will take a while to complete!

The pieces of the puzzle

The puzzle picture - quilts!

Cold, cold, cold

We have been hit with an arctic blast! It was below zero this morning when I got up and it is only about five degrees now at 4:15 p.m. I've just returned from the Dummerston Church where I was using the back pew as a space on which to sort out the invoices and receipts from 2021. I had them all in a big shopping bag, stuffed full! Now they are roughly organized into file folders: relating to various financial institutions, health and medical costs; expenses for the house; auto; taaes, insurance, retirement income, etc. I think there are 18-20 folders alltogether. Some of the folders will need to be ordered into sub-categories for the purposes of income taxes. I didn't get a picture of the pew covered with piles of paper - too bad! I'll get one of the folders. It was not super-warm at the church, so I got a bit chilled there, but now I'm home by the fire and very cozy, despite the freezing temps outside. So grateful for our fireplace! I also just had a snack and a cup of hot tea. Warm inside and out. This week looked like an open week and we thought we might visit some folks. But the Omicron case numbers are so high that we are thinking it might be a good week just to stay home. I'm debating in my mind whether to go to the pool or not. Which is more important - getting the exercise or staying clear of COVID? Hard call.

Good guess. There are 18 folders in all. One of them is missing here however: the one relating to health and medicine. That's the biggest one by far, and there are too many items in it to fit into a folder. I'll need to organize that into subcategories and throw away what I don't need to keep. Then I think it'll all fit into a folder.

Last night, supper was Andy Davis Hash - a mix of roasted root vegetables and chuncks of sausage. It is delicious, and I thought it was sort of photogenic as well, along with the colorful fruit compote.******************************************** Meanwhile, last evening I found 5 more books in a box either by or about Kierkegaard. Plus, Works of Love arrived. That makes about 18 books in all (same as folders!). There are more books in my library about Kierkegaard than any other one person. If I take Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and Karl Barth as a group, I have about as many books relating to them as a group as I have about Kierkegaard.

Six more books about or by Kierkegaard! I don't think I'm going to read all these books, but I've already read more by (or about) S.K. in the paat week than I have for years - maybe decades. I can see why he fascinated me 65 years ago or so. He is a unique and compelling author. But both I and the world are in a different place today - though his critique of "Christendom" -- i.e., coventional, main-stream Christianity - is still quite valid, I think. What I really would like to figure out is what a Kierkegaard-like theologian would be saying today. I don't know of anyone like him today. I just yesterday read an article in The Christian Century by a woman who has devoted much of her life to Thomas Merton's writings, and even produced a documentary film about him, but who is now wondering if the time has come to "let him go." Merton is a white, cis-gendered male, and we need to be making room for other voices to be heard. The same could be said of S.K. But the reason people are still reading S.K. is because there is no one like him. Much of what he says is "out-of-date" for sure. But I think that much of it is also timeless, and has nothing to do with his race or gender or ethnicity, etc. It has to do with his seriousness. He took the question of "What does it mean to be a Christian" so seriously, that he had to admit he could not live up to his own standard! The question needs to be reframed today, but it is still a valid questiom, and we need people who can take it as seriously as he did.

An arresting sentence

I just ran across this sentence in Kierkegaard's Fear and Tremblng (Princeton Universty Press, 1952, p. 6): "The present author . . . writes because for him it is a luxury which becomes the more agreeable and more evident, the fewer there are who buy and read what he writes." This attitude, of course, is diametrically opposed to the culture of social media where popularity is everything, where one seeks to have the most "likes" and having what one has said "go viral" is the height of success. Why did K. say this? The context makes clear that he feels he is living in an age in which he is utterly "out of fashion," in an age "when an author who wants to have readers must take care to write in such a way that the book can be easily perused during the afternoon nap." In such an age, a book titled Fear and Trembling is unlikely to be popular! No less so today. I suppose there is a possible logical fallacy here. The Syllogism "A. Those who speak the truth have few listeners. B. I have few listeners. THEREFORE: I speak the truth," is fallacious: the fallacy of the "undistributed middle." If it read "All those who have few listensrs speak the truth; I have few listeners, I speak the truth" it would be logically valid, but the first premise would be highly questionable. Some of those who have few listensrs - perhaps the majority - are just boring, not "speakers of the truth." I can't imagine that K. was unaware of this fallacy. So I think he is expressing a feeling, not making a logical argument. But what he said gave me pause. It makes me all the more curious just what the class at Swarthmore (where we will be studying Fear and Trembling in a couple of weeks) will think of this work. Ellen was also speculating that K's thought seems very "male" to her. The idea of "standing alone before God" is not an idea most women resonate with. This brought to mind the work of Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice) and her critique of Lawrence Kohlberg's work (The Philosophy of Moral Development) on the moral development of adolescents which he claimed was universal in application but which she felt might work for boys but doesn't work for girls. The Swarthmore class is made up mostly of women. They are certainly the most vocal. We'll see!

Søren Kierkegaard

Boldly venturing forth

This morning, a Sunday morning, a church choir morning, was also a bad weather morning - freezing rain. But we went to church anyway. We were pretty sure our driveway would be no problem because there was a couple of inches of snow on the road before it started to rain, and we know from past experience that that only makes it crunchy, not slick. We were right. And we figured that the main roads woud be treated. We were right again. We had no trouble with travel, going or coming back. However, the parking lot at the church was treacherous - but Ellen dropped me off right at the door. Peter Amidon was surprised to see us - some other choir members had opted not to come. So we were glad we came. There were eight of us all together. One of our anthems was I Am Sending You Light, as sung by Melanie DeMore. It is beautiful - go to YouTube and search "Sending You light with Melanie DeMore and Julie Wolf. It is quite touching. It was the Epiphany service, and quite lovely. I took with me to church this morning 10 sets of CDs about The Magnificat of J.S. Bach. Our contemplative prayer group which meets on Zoom Wednesday afternoon had spent a Wednesday in December talking about Mary's song when she greets her cousin Elizabeth - that song is the text of The Magnificat. I told them about a lecture I had given with Blanche Moyse on The Magnificat 32 years ago at the Brattleboro Music Center, and that I had a recording of it, and also recordings of rehearsals and performances of Bach's Magnificat in D Maj. They were interested and I promised them a packet of CDs, which I delivered today. There are 3 CDs in the packet - the lecture/presentation; a rehearsal led by Blanche in which she meticulously works with the Chorale on the opening chorus - especially the word "magnificat." And thirdly, a complete performance of Bach's Magnificat in D by the Chorale with the Orchestra of St. Luke's (based in NYC) recorded on October 8, 1989 at Marlboro, VT. It's a nice set, which I packaged using card stock. It took me most of the day yesterday to make the CDs - 30 in all - and the packaging for 10 sets. But I had spent time earlier setting it all up and printing stuff out. So that was satisfying! This afternoon we have just enjoyed being home by the fire! It was Ellen's turn to do the Spelling Bee on the phone, but I did it on paper. I read aloud from LeFevre's book on Kierkegaard. Ellen has fixed a delicious brunch and supper. She is also making acorn ornaments by felting wool and attaching the balls to acorn caps we have picked up from the acorn harvest of our many red oak trees. The felting involves wetting the wool, so they are drying by the fire. Later, we will watch Around the World in 80 Days and All Things Bright and Beautiful on PBS. A nice day!******************************************* But boy, the Omicron Variant is causing havoc. I have had a runny nose, so I did a self-test this morning - negative. The test kit was different from what we are used to; not as easy to use, in my estimation. The ones we had earlier were from CVS, bought online. The ones we are using now we got free from the Vt Dept of Health - BinaxNOW, made by Abbott Labs. I guess it will get easier as I get used to it, but the way they have designed putting the swab into the test fluid is badly done, I think. It's unnecessarily complicated. However, John tells me that this brand is particularly effective in testing for Omicron. So maybe it's worth the extra effort.

Binax COVID Test kits

Ellen's acorns drying by the fire

The front and back panels of the CD set

Singing in the choir this morning (taken from the video of the service on YouTube).

At the Ragle's

Last night was our monthly movie night with Tom and Nancy Ragle. It proved to be really interesting. We had suggested Zorba the Greek as a film, but it was unavailable. Tom and Nancy suggested Resurrection, which we were unacquainted with but said, "sure," but they could not find it - it wasn't in the case where it should have been. They gave us a stack of possibles to choose from, and I chose a 1942 film, Random Harvest, starring Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson. I knew nothing about it, but it proved to be really very gripping and unusual. The plot centered on a man who became an amnesiac in the war, and his origins could not be traced, so he starts a new life, and eventually falls in love and gets married. He exists in this life for three years, has a child, and then he is in an auto accident which involves a blow to the head and he becomes his former self, with no memory whatever of the three years. In his "new" former life, he becomes a titan of industry and his picture in the newspaper comes to the attention of his wife from the three-year period as an amnesiac. She tracks him down and becomes his secretary - hoping to restore his memory of her. I won't reveal the ultimate ending. It strained credulity a bit, but it was well acted - Greer Garson was especially good as the wife. I learned later that the Resurrection storyline is about a woman named Edna Mae Macaulay "who experiences the afterlife for a brief time after a car accident that kills her husband. Then as she begins her long process of physical healing, she discovers that she has the ability to heal physical infirmities. While most people simply accept her gift, her lover (Sam Shepard) becomes mentally unbalanced and dangerous because she does not place the healings within a religious context." That sounds intriguing too - though perhaps controversial. Maybe we'll see that next time (if the Ragles can find it!). Random Harvest had an unexpected side-story. One of the minor actors was Bramwell Fletcher. When I saw his name in the credits, it brought back memories. In the 1970's, Bramwell Fletcher came to Windham College with his portrayal of George Bernard Shaw (like Hal Holbrook used to "do" Mark Twain). Through him I became aware of his wife, Lael Wertenbaker, author of Death of a Man, in which she talks intimately about what was then a very controversial subject - assisting the death of her husband, Charles Wertenbaker, who was dying of cancer. Not long after reading her book, I taught a course at Windham titled Death and Dying. Lael Wertenbaker lived in Nelson, NH, and I contacted her and asked if I could bring my class to her home to meet her and discuss her book. (Sort of a gutsy thing to do!). She said "Yes," and we did. It was a very moving experience for all of us, I think. While we were at the Ragle's, we enjoyed some Christmas artifacts they hed found in Germany - a Nativity Tower that rotates from the heat of candles that rises and turns a fan, and a wonderful little skating pond where the skaters are moved by magnets from underneath. Delightful!

Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman

Poster for Resurrection

Lael Wertenbaker

Bramwell Fletcher

The skating pond

The Nativity tower