Changes

Since our last visit to Maine, there have been some dramatic changes down at the little cottage on the water near Jim and Mary's house - where KS&B have stayed in the past. The owners have put in a large septic system and that entailed excavating and putting in some large tanks and a leech field, and all that eliminated a lot of canes and bushes that formerly screened the cottage. Everything is more open now. In the first photo below, the shed on its side, which is next to the cottage, was blown over by the wind last October.

Looking up the hill behind the cottage. None of these structures were visible from this spot before. 

The view from behind the cottage. Again, this was all closed in with bushes, etc., before. 

               View from the beach - this is unchanged

The view from beside the cottage. This is unchanged. The ridge of chips in the foreground was part of an erosion barrier. The owners have invited J&M to help themselves, to use for mulch for their garden and yard. 

   Mary, Jim and Ellen, on the beach, with a neighbor's house in the background. 

A trip to the Farnsworth

Saturday, we went to one of our most favorite art museums - second only to the Hallie Ford museum in Salem, OR - the Farnsworth in Rockland, ME. We got there at 3:10pm, and learned it closed early that day - at 4pm. But that was ok because (1) several galleries were between shows and closed and (2) they gave us two free passes for the next visit. So we essentially got in free. There were four galleries open, two of which were of special interest: Louise Nevelson and a special exhibit devoted to Andrew's Wyeth's painting, Her Room. Both these artists have a long- standing relationship with the Farnsworth. The Nevelson exhibit featured not only outstanding examples of her sculptures, but also several wonderful photographs by Pedro Guerrera, who was given extraordinary access both to her and her work. He is perhaps best known for his work with Frank Lloyd Wright. The Wyeth exhibit featured the original painting and many studies relating to it.

      A view of the Her Room exhibit

      The original Her Room painting 

         One of the Her Room studies -- notice the shells on the window sill. 

       Louise Nevelson by Pedro Guerrera

An early Nevelson using found objects 

Found wooden blocks painted black

(The blue rectangle is an unavoidable reflection).

A more monumental set for a theatrical production of Orfeo et Eurydice.

       A piece inspired by a wedding

There were some other finds as well. I loved the serenity of this 1901 landscape by Roy Homer (related to Winslow Homer ? Don't know.)

              Penobscot Bay, Maine

I also loved this sketch of the interior of an old meetinghouse by Andrew Wyeth. 

Trip to Maine

Our trip yesterday went well until about 5-6 pm when it started to rain, and then got into mixed precipitation, poor visibility, etcetera. So the last two hours or so were sort of a strain for Ellen. We got to Jim and Mary's at about 8 pm. The driveway was icy so I wore my cleats just to unload the car. I was glad I had brought them!  J&M didn't get back from their dance till almost 11pm. They were slowed by weather too.

Coming over, we stopped for gas and a truck pulled in the other side of the pump and I found myself looking out the car window at a huge, very enticing sandwich! Trucks didn't used to be the murals they are today. I can't help but wonder if there might be a down side to that. 

         View at the gas pump

Later, we stopped at the WPF bread outlet - beautiful loaves and great-tasting bread. 

Some kind of fruit and nut bread - like blueberry walnut or something like that. I love that kind of bread!

  Chocolate bread - it's good, but almost like cake. We didn't get any.

Today - Owl's Head, ME

We 're heading to Jim and Mary's. The weather looks good. They won't be back from dancing until 10pm tonight, so we're in no hurry. We'll stop at the L.L. Bean discount outlet in Concord. Haven't done that for years. We'll also make customary stops at Bob's Clam Hut and When Pigs Fly bread outlet in Kittery. We love going to Maine.

Library Time

Monday, Ellen and I went to Amherst in the afternoon. I went to the Amherst College library (the Robert Frost Library), and Ellen went to the Amherst Cinema. She saw Ladybird, and then we joined up for a 4:20 showing of I, Tonya, which we both liked a lot. It was both dark and funny. I remember the Nancy Kerrigan incident and how shocking it was. I don't think I felt a lot of sympathy for Tonya Harding at the time, but if this film is at all accurate about her background, some sympathy would have been appropriate.

My time in the Frost Library gave me an appreciation for the Wheaton College Library back in Illinois. It's a good library for sure, but for what I am doing, Wheaton's holdings were superior. But the fun of being in the stacks is running across something you weren't looking for. In this case it was this book: 

     Festschrift for Norman Gottwald

Gottwald was a professor at Andover-Newton seminary back in the 60's when I was a grad student at Brown. In 1963 or so, he was a visiting professor at Brown in Religious Studies, teaching introduction to the Old Testament, and I was his graduate assistant. I graded student exams and papers, led discussion sections, and fielded student questions in Gottwald's absence. I enjoyed working for him, and I respected the way he had integrated his political activism (this was, of course, the era of the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement), with his scholarship in the Old Testament. Wikipedia identifies him as an "American Marxist Biblical scholar." His magnum opus in that regard was a 900-page tome titled The Tribes of Yahweh, which was ground-breaking in terms of socio-political analysis of Israel's tribal origins and organization. I was touched to "reconnect" with him through his Festschrift. It contains a number of very interesting essays. If he is still living, he will be 92 this year. 

                Norman Gottwald 

Back into singing

This week, we have four rehearsals on four consecutive nights: Tuesday- River Singers; Wednesday- Concert Choir; Thursday-Hallowell; Friday-Dummerston Choir. This is good in one respect - it is keeping my voice in better shape . Disuse leads to excess phlegm.

Today, however, we have come to Notthampton to see Mimi and Tamar. 

Tamar has a new pet: a Chinese dwarf hamster, named Rory. 

Rory's house: 

Mimi fell off her bike Monday and suffererd a mild concussion. So she is under orders to not use her brain very much for a while (e.g., she can't play in the band - it requires too much concentration). She finds this frustrating.

         Ellen and Mimi

And of course, there is Theo. Good dog !

We 'll leave soon for our concert choir rehearsal.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Down comes the tree!

One of the things we did not have the time to do before we left on our trip was to take down the Christmas tree. (See post for Jan. 1st, 2018). It was a particularly large and beautiful tree, and pretty fresh. The living room was quite cool the whole time we were gone (because of those blankets), so it had dropped scarcely a needle. But it came down today. I can remember at least one other year in my life when the tree was still up around Valentine's Day! If I'm not mistaken, liturgically  (in many Protestant churches), Epiphany lasts until the day before Ash Wednesday, which is next Wednesday. So we're ok .

                        Before

                    After

Nice time with Ben

Today, Ellen and I went down to U Mass and went to a lecture with Ben and then had supper with him at one of the university dining rooms. The lecture was given by Jim Sipes, on  Creating a Geospatial World. I'll report more fully on the lecture tomorrow, but it had a lot to do with autonomous electric cars. To his credit, Sipes at least takes climate change seriously.

We had a good meal. I had a very tasty stir-fry, where you assembled the ingredients yourself. We learned a lot about Ben's courses. He is really enjoying himself. He especially likes Computational Physics. Hard but fun! He is also taking English Comp, and described himself as an "aggressively average" writer. We enjoyed our time with him. 

 

          Ben at dinner at U Mass

The "stir-fry station." You assemble ingredients and staff cooks them while you watch. 

Our faithful, sad-looking Impreza

Our Subaru Impreza was purchased in May of 2013. So it will be 5 years old in 4 months. We have made many cross-country trips with it, and it has over 180,000 miles on it. Mechanically, it has been very dependable. We did have to put in a new clutch in 2016.  Otherwise pretty much routine stuff. But the front bumper is a piece of junk. It has cracked repeatedly - it is all plastic and gets esp. brittle in cold weather. On this trip part of it actually blew off somewhere between Lusk, WY and Chadron,  NE !! 

                                            Broken bumper!

So, what next?

We're home!

We have once again arrived home safely from an extended road trip: 5926 miles! We are deeply grateful! Thank you, God, and all our family and friends who followed us with prayers and good wishes!

We took I-80 from Clearfield, PA to I-81 near Scranton; then up I-81 to Binghamton, NY; I-88 to Albany, NY, US 7 through Troy to Bennington, VT, US 9 over the Green Mountains (snowy up there) to Brattleboro, supper at Chelsea Royal Diner, groceries at Hannaford, then home by 8:30pm. John had come in earlier to turn on heat in the bedroom and build a fire. We put up blankets before leaving to seal off most of the house to protect the plumbing, and now they funnel the heat into the bedroom, so we are cozy. Tomorrow we'll take them down, and the Christmas tree, which is still up. It looks great! 

                           Up over the mountain at dusk

 

                             The blanket system 

Clearfield, PA tonight

We left Bartlett this morning pretty early (for us) - a bit after 8:00a.m. Looking at weather forecasts, we decided to stay south of the Erie, PA area, and took I-80 due east from Chicago into PA and as far as Clearfield.

On the way we stopped at travel plazas, of course. One was clearly very new and modern:

                   A very modern, all glass, dining area

                           We like Popeye's red beans and rice

Ellen drove over 650 miles today, but we got here by 8:00pm, which is our usual time to stop. We are in a Rodeway Inn. (We actually stayed here in this same motel in 2015, but had forgotten about it). Our host is a very genial man, whom I take to be Pakistani, who has been owner here for 10 years. I asked him if he enjoyed being here, and he said, "Yes, except the winters!" He formerly lived in Arkansas, near Texarkana, where I lived in 1941. So we shared our Arkansas experience for a bit.

We should be home by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

Martin Marty

Yesterday (Saturday), Ellen and I took the train into Chicago, and then a cab to the University Club at 76 E. Monroe (near the Art Institute), to attend a conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Martin Marty Center of the University of Chicago, and the 90th birthday of Martin Marty himself. I knew Martin Marty 62 years ago as a seminarian at the U of C. Marty was a graduate student assistant to Prof. Jerald Brauer, American Church historian, with whom I took a couple of courses, and I have been aware of Marty's subsequent career as a preeminent historian of religion in the public realm. He has been prolific as an author: over 35 books and hundreds of articles. He is also just a lovely human being, not at all full of himself. The conference assembled a dozen or so of his students, each quite notable in their own careers, to offer papers and reflections on issues relating to the mission of the Marty Center:  "the public understanding of religion." It was a stimulating afternoon, thinking about what "public" means, what, if anything, is "unique"  about American religion, and can we foster American diversity and pluralism in today's politically divided climate? I had a brief opportunity to speak to Marty and remind him of a group of my friends, and he remembered us all. Ellen and I had been in this building before, years ago, to attend a lecture by our friend, art historian Roger Hull. But the space we were in yesterday was new: two stories had been added to the building and we were sitting on what had originally been the roof! It was a pretty posh space now.

                Martin Marty being interviewed by a former student. 

                             The conference room we met in

The lounge and bar area of the new space, with a fine view of Lake Michigan. 

Jerry took our picture before we left. Bow ties are in honor of Marty, who always wears one. I'm holding one of his books, and Ellen is holding the invitation to the conference with his picture. My bow tie was one my brother, Stewart, used in his barbershop quartet.

Crossing the Chicago River on our walk back to Union Station. It was windy! 

Wheaton College Library

Friday, I got up in good season and made the half-hour drive to the Buswell Library at Wheaton College; got there by 9:30a.m. Why did I go? Well, I'm re-visiting my 1966 doctoral dissertation, The Old Testament in the Gospel of Luke, and I have been aware that recently there has been a little upswing in the number of citations of my work in books and articles. Sort of amazing after 50 years! Wheaton is the closest college to Bartlett with a good biblical library, plus Rob went there, and I had never seen the campus. I had a great time. There were hundreds of books in the stacks about the Gospel of Luke, and in the four or so hours I was there, I found 15 relatively recent ones that cited my work, some extensively! And mostly favorably (though a couple were mildly critical). And that was just scratching the surface. One of them was an unpublished dissertation from 1995 that was housed in Special collections in the Billy Graham Center, a huge building which includes a museum devoted to the life of Billy Graham (Wheaton is an evangelical Christian college). Not my usual environment! The opening pages of this 1995 dissertation by Thomas S. Moore discusses my dissertation at length! Totally amazing!  So I guess you could say I was on to something. Pure luck.

                             The Billy Graham Center

Friday evening we went to the Costello's for a Crockett-clan gathering. A very nice event. They live in Algonquin. Brendon has just made the decision to leave Fed Ex and take on opening a Chicago branch of a Cleveland-based company started by a brilliant Pakistani Muslim immigrant. Big opportunity and big risk. Two of the partners of the Pakistani founder are Irish Catholics, like Brendon. He was very impressed with the whole ethos and values of the company. 

                     Going into the Costello's house 

                                            The Crockett clan 

Fort Dodge to Bartlett

Thursday we awoke to a very cold, clear day. The driving along Route 20 east was great - the only problem was having the sun before us, but it was high enough and enough to the south to not be a big problem - the visors helped. We had time to stop to see Betty Remley in Anamosa (my old home town from high school years ) and we learned that she had celebrated her 100th birthday on Dec. 22nd! She had had a recent fall, like me, and like me, been badly bruised. But she took it all in stride. A remarkable person!

 

                              Me with Betty Remley

We crossed the Mississippi River at Savanna, IL and arrived at Bartlett at about 5:15. 

 

                           The bridge over the Mississippi 

                                                 The River (through the bridge slats)

                              Looking back at the bridge