Getting ready

We're moving into high gear here, getting ready for Tamar's bat mitzvah.  Paul, Jenny and Max arrive today - they flew into Boston last evening and will drive up today. Jim and Mary will come Friday, Wallace is coming from Swarthmore, Suzine from Boise - it is a real gathering. They are not all staying here but PJ&M will start out here tonight. Naturally, we want things to look nice. I've been using the area under the deck as a staging area for sorting, disposing, etc., and over the winter a lot of "stuff" had accumulated there. No more. I didn't think to take a "before" photo, but here is an "after."

All cleaned up!

Ellen has been hit with some sort of intestinal bug or something, and has felt lousy for a couple of days, but has been gamely cleaning and washing up also. She did give up preparing fruit and cookies for the reception. Julie was fine with that - there are good sources for such things. But Ellen is disappointed. Thank goodness she finished the tallit  before it hit!

Old negatives

I'm once again going through and scanning old negatives, inspired by Katie's visit. These are from two rolls: the first two are c . 1980, the two of John and Betsey are c. 1965. 

Phil McKean and Shirley

Tom McKean and Shirley

John and Betsey

John

These bottom two were taken when I was serving as an interim minister at the UCC church in Kingston, RI, during my graduate student years.

Right at the  moment, I'm waiting for Ellen to pick me up at the pool. She is running very late and I hope she's ok! She wasn't feeling very well earlier today.

Later:

She's fine. She got stuck in traffic! Even in little 'ol Brattleboro.

Morris Dancers

Memorial Day weekend in Windham County is traditionally Morris dance weekend. Dance teams, men and women, come here from all over the U.S. and Canada for what is called the Marlboro Ale.  It is a unique event, in its  41st year! It was started by our friend, Tony Barrand, who sadly missed it this year, probably the first time for him, because on top of having MS, which hasn't stopped him up to now, he fell and broke his shoulder, and is in the hospital. 

Katie, Savanna, and Brendon came up for it. It was cold and rainy but people dressed warmly and had umbrellas, so it was still a good crowd and a Wonderful event. There were at least 20 teams and each danced. Each team has a unique style. Some are very athletic, some intricately beautiful, some very funny. Pictures can't do it justice but here are a few:

Tallit & Frisbee

Today we came down to Northhampton to put the fringes - called tzitzit  - on Tamar's tallit. It is done in a particular way, involving specific knots, windings, and a simple prayer. Tamar, Ellen, Jerry and I each took a corner. Normally, we would have done this with Rabbi Ricky, but she is in L .A., and getting back just before the bat mitzvah, so we were following a YouTube instruction video! Ellen was created to do this sort of thing, but I was not, and I had to undo mine several times to get it right (lots of prayers!). Time was running out and I was behind, so I asked Ellen to finish mine. The tallit is beautiful and Tamar is happy. It will be lovely with her black and white dress.

     Jerry holding the tallit with tzitzit. 

Then we went to Max's Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. He is on the Northhampton High girl's team, BDU (Blue Devils Ultimate - he was she when the season started). Northhampton is an ultimate frisbee Mecca - there were teams from all over New England there, maybe 20 or more teams playing simultaneously. BDU was playing PVPA (Pioneer Valley Performing Arts school). BDU won 12-8. Max made two goals. But competition is not the thing. There is a very cooperative culture around UF, the teams help and encourage each other and at the end they seranade each other with songs created just for the occasion. It's neat to see. 

                Ultimate Frisbee

       Max in his BDU shirt

On the field - seven members on a team

            Final seranade

Return visit

As I mentioned in a previous post, Katie and I went to Harrisville, NH, ancestral home of the Townsend family. Kate Townsend was Katie's great-great grandmother. She was born on a farm in Harrisville (which was actually in Dublin when she was born - they moved the town line later). Kate's parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, going back to Revolutionary War soldier, David Townsend, Jr., are all buried in the Dublin cemetery. We went to all the places we went with John and Cynthia, but in addition went to the town library where Katie used her phone to scan pages of the Dublin Town History which covered the genealogy of the Townsends. Then we went to the Dublin cemetery and actually found all three generations of Townsends: David Milton and Helen (Kate's parents), Jonathan and Cynthia (her grandparents) and David and Tamesin (her great- grandparents). Kate herself is buried with her husband, Josiah Langley, in Manchester, NH, along with Florence Langley (Kate's daughter) and her husband, James Harris, Shirley's parents. That will be another trip. 

     David Milton and Helen Townsend

  D. M.'s father, Jonathan 

  Jonathan's father David, Jr., Rev. War

May 24th

Today is the 20th anniversary of Shirley's death. By great, good fortune, Katie is here and this morning, Ellen, Katie and I went to the cemetery where Shirley and our daughter, Betsey, (Katie's mom ) rest side by side. 

                              Betsey and Shirley

I read one of Shirley's prayers, from Be Present Here, which was perfect for the day, and we sat on the stone wall and remembered our dear ones while Gertie explored or lay on the wall in the sun. 

  Katie and Gertie on the stone wall 

Here is the prayer:

Almighty God, praise be for the morning, praise be for the light -- may we all shine! To be alive is to wait in your presence, absorbed in your power, abashed by your purity, and absolved by your compassion. You have given us our lives, O God, our time, our space and our place. We ask that as the hours pass we may keep as treasures the moments we spend with you -- changed and transmuted outside of time and space - a few moments when we lift ourselves into the realm of the spirit. You are here. We are here. May we be with you in spirit and in truth. We confess we find it very hard to see changes, but change is part of your world and your way. Help us to open our eyes, open our ears, and rejoice as your new spirit is felt and known. And in this place, where  we are so aware of death, knowing it can come so quickly, unknown and unexplained, help us to be aware that you are in the midst of every bit of our birthing, living and dying. Amen.

Her place in the sun

Katie brought Gertie with her and yesterday she spent the day with Elllen while Katie and I made a trip over to Harrisville - sort of a reprise of the one we made with John and Cyntha. Katie loved Harrisville, took hundreds of photos, loved exploring her Kate Townsend ancestral roots. More on that trip later. While we were away, Ellen worked on Tamar's tallit and had Gertie as company. It was a beautiful, warm day, and she got a picture of Gertie basking in the sun on the deck.

                Gertie sunbathing 

After Katie and I got back, we met John and Cynthia at Panda for supper. Good food, as usual. 

                 Let's dig in!

Katie filled in John on her new job at Adorama Camera where she will be managing their rental inventory, doing many of the same sort of tasks John does at Antioch where he manages the herbarium for the environmental studies department. 

                    Work talk

Today is the 20th anniversary of Shirley's death! Hard to believe. We'll be going to the cemetery later this morning. 

A wonderful concert

Our weekend was very satisfying. Sunday was especially so for me because I had much more voice. Saturday I was afflicted with a lot of phlegm during the concert, so while the chorus sounded good, I wasn't contributing much. Sunday, I was pretty much in full voice, and that felt good. 

     Our director, Susan Dedell. 

      The orchestra on stage at Persons

  Looking out from my spot in the chorus 

After the concert, we went to the Chelsea  Diner for supper with Katie and Savanna. We had a lot to talk about! 

And now, Katie Shay is here! She got in yesterday evening. I had a dental appt. this morning. The afternoon we all went to Amherst to the movies - we saw The Rider, which is a wonderful movie just in its own right, and all the more so in light of how it was made. 

Concert weekend

This coming weekend is the climax of weeks of rehearsal of the Poulenc Gloria, and the Mozart Vespers. We are performing at Persons Auditorium at Marlboro College, my favorite venue. We had our dress rehearsal last night, and it went well. I think it will be a fine concert. I am sitting on a stool, rather than standing throughout, and that works well. It is a special concert because our director,  Susan Dedell, is stepping down as director after this concert. She is much loved and we are all feeling the emotion  of this "last concert." Our "resident Rapper," Laura, delivered this rap last night:

Brattleboro Concert Choir Rap, Spring 2018

This is it, my Friends, you know it’s true

Most likely the crowning rap for me and for you

A joyous concert on tap up here

Sure to please even the finest musical ear

Poulenc, Mozart, what a pair!

Filling Person’s with music in the Marlboro, Vermont air

Lucky us to have had so many eves with Susan, right?

Melodious and intelligent instruction each and every night!

And a chance to sing her out with an incredible send off

The orchestra so sonorous, no one will be even tempted to cough

Basses, percolate, percolate, percolate, you know what to do!

The altos, tenors and sopranos will provide you with the glue.

Phrasing my friends, deep arches abound.

Lift your voices high with a joyous lovely flowing sound.

Open your hearts wide, this is your chance, NOW!

The moment is fleeting from the start to the final bow. 

Give it your all to honor our dear Susan with your best

For she has given us all a veritable treasure chest 

Of her time and talent these 28 years

If I think of it too much it will bring me to tears

So let’s do it up right! Be brave strong and bold

Embody the music!  There’s a story to be told.

And thank you, Susan, for your work with us all

We are each better for it.  In our eyes you are ten feet tall!

You are the best as we send you off for adventures unknown. 

Always singing and playing and striking the right tone! 

Thank you, Susan, thank you, I say it with glee 

Since we’ve already made our checks to the BMC!

Our local weekly, The Commons, ran a special article this week about Susan's departure:

But that is not all. Tomorrow morning we will be singing in a choir for the funeral of our friend, Nancy Miller. Ellen prepared two wonderful meals for Nancy's family this week.

Sunday morning, I will be presenting the annual Shirley Harris Crockett Award to a young woman in our church which will make it possible for her to attend Green Mountain Camp. More on that after Sunday.

And speaking of Green Mountain Camp, they just agreed to take my upright piano as a gift. I'm thrilled because I couldn't stand the idea of junking it. I'm paying for it to be moved and tuned, but it will have a good home! More on that later too.

And to round things off, I just ran across this wonderful photo of Shirley's mother, Florence Langley, and her twin sister, Grace, when they were young women (c. 1915). I think it just is so evocative of an era. Their dresses were probably made by their mother, Kate Townsend Langley, whose home in Harrisville, NH we visited last Saturday.

Grace and Florence Langley

Hidden treasures

Still going through books and weeding out library. I found The Flowering of New England by Van Wyck Brooks. Not about flowers! It's about literary flowering. It looks interesting. Not sure when or where I came by it. But tucked inside the book were a picture postcard and two notes, written by Brooks to a friend who was also an author, Edward Townsend Booth.  The two men were similar in their writing interests. The card was sent from France. It's dated July 28, 1951 or 1957, not sure which; probably 1951.  Brooks is staying  near the Chateau de Sache, where Balzac wrote Pere Goriot. The card is a photo of the chateau. An unexpected little treasure.

   Chateau de Sache

 

      Van Wyck Brooks post card

Sunday and Monday

Sunday was Mother's Day. I was leading choir at the Dummerston Church, and I had chosen to have the choir sing Bobby   McFerrin's version of the 23rd Psalm, which he dedicated to his mother, and uses the feminine pronoun throughout: "She makes me lie down in green meadows," etc., and also ends with a daring "Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter ..." That went fine. But Shawn was preaching on Psalm 139 ("Whither shall I flee from thy spirit..." ), and that provided the perfect opportunity to sing one of my favorite shape-note hymns, titled DANIELS, by Neely Bruce, which is a paraphrase of verses from Psalm 139.  The problem is that it has a wickedly difficult and very high soprano line, and my key soprano, who loves DANIELS  (we sang it at her mother's funeral) called in sick Sunday morning. So I had to scratch it at the last minute. But overall the service went well, and Shawn had a brilliant sermon. 

The rest of Sunday we took it easy doing the Spelling Bee puzzle from the NYTimes, and listening to Public Radio. But we learned at church that our friend, Nancy Miller, who had pancreatic cancer, and for whom we had sung at her home on Friday, had died early Sunday morning. Word had gone out that the family would appreciate meals, so on Monday, Ellen spent much of the day preparing food while I worked on books. We took the meal over at 5:30, but no one was home! We found a way to leave it in the frig, fortunately. Nancy was an orchardist, and her trees were in fantastic bloom! It was like her trees were honoring her. 

        Nancy Miller's orchard in bloom

On the way down her road, we had to stop to let a turtle cross the road! He was moving slowly, but he made it safely. 

        Old Man turtle!

Then Ellen suggested we go see the movie Chappaquiddick, at the Latchis, and I said, "Sure," so we did. Popcorn was our supper. We were in the small theatre #3, and who should come but Andy and Robin.  About eight people altogether - not a crowd. It wasn't a great film, but it was worth seeing. The Latchis has a lot of Grecian murals. E.g.:

We talked with Andy and Robin a while after the film and came home.

Harrisville, NH

Today, John and Cynthia treated Ellen and me to a trip over to Harrisville, NH, which is about an hour's drive away. There are many attractions there: it is a super-charming old NE mill town with stately brick buildings galore arranged around a lake and mill race; it is the family home of John's Townsend ancestors (a great-grandmother, and a gg and ggg grandfather all lived there); it has a very nice General Store which serves excellent lunches; and it is home to a very high-end wool Spinnery and weaving center: Harrisville Designs. It was raining lightly off and on much of the day, and it was a bit chilly, but we still had a great time.

First stop was the ancestral farm home  of Kate Townsend and her parents, David and Maria Townsend. Kate was Shirley's mother's mother. My granddaughter Katie is named after her. Unfortunately, in about 2003, someone tore down the Townsend farmhouse and built sort of a modernized replica. There are some remnants of the original outbuildings still there but not a lot. But the present owner was very welcoming and showed us around. Amazingly, we learned that he has a connection with friends in River Singers and plans to move to Vt this summer and wants to join RS this fall! Small world! 

Here is the house as it used to look and now:

     The original Townsend farmhouse 

                     Today

The previous generation, David Townsend's father, Jonathan, also built  a home in Harrisville, which eventually belonged to artist George deForest Brush and is on the National Registry. We went by there too:

   The Jonathan Townsend Farm

So that was all pretty interesting family history. Then we walked around Harrisville village, had lunch at the store, and went to the woolens mill. A great time! 

          Harrisville Public Library

       The Community Church

      One of many old mill buildings

Home of Harrisville Design store and weaving school.

     Looms in the weaving classroom 

The General Store, where we ate lunch

From the window of the "loom room"

FDR

Our trip to Hyde Park, NY to the Roosevelt Library and Museum last Friday was very interesting to me. First of all, I was born just two days before FDR became President. He is the only president I knew until I was 12 years old. Secondly, despite his flaws, I regard him as one of our great presidents, and his wife Eleanor is for me the most admirable First Lady of all time. Thirdly, Ellen and I have just read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, No Ordinary Time, and we were both eager to see Hyde Park. Fourthly, there are some personal connections with him through my father - not that my father knew him, but just that events in dad's life touched or were touched by Roosevelt's.

+++++++

Thus, for example, when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, my father was an Army chaplain, stationed in France. He was invited to preach at a memorial service for Roosevelt at a Protestant Church in Chateau-Thierry, FR. Years later, I visited that church and I got to stand in the very pulpit where he preached. Sort of a goose-bump moment.

The Reformed Church in Chateau-Thierry, FR

When I stood in the pulpit, I looked at these stained glass windows in the back of the sanctuary, depicting key moments in American-French relations. 

++++++

When you enter the grounds at Hyde Park and go to the Visitor's Center, you encounter this bronze representation of Eleanor and Franklin sitting together:

 

Eleanor and Franklin

When you enter the Museum, you confront this portrait of FDR, with a trenchant quotation:

We are not making progress!!

To be continued!

Hilltown Charter School music Fest

In the evening of grandparents' day we went to the music fest,  which was held in the big stone church in downtown Northhampton. As I posted last night, Tamar was in a smaller Harmony Group, but she was also in a rock group, and she played keyboard and sang the solo throughout the piece. We don 't really think of Tamar as a rock singer, but she did very well. She wasn't  used to having to virtually swallow the mike, but we were there early and got good seats down front, so we heard her pretty well, and could see her too. I made a video of the whole song, but there doesn't seem to be a way to post videos here. Here's a still of her other group after their performance. 

 

        Tamar is third from right

I also got a shot of this bit of art work by Tamar on display in the hall at the school:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial by Tamar

 

Hilltown Grandparents Day

Today is a special day for Tamar's school - Grandparents Day. This morning we sat in on two of her classes - Humanities and Science. Now we are at a local church where in an hour, there will be a school concert. 

Tamar in her Harmony group, warming up

        The larger picture ! 

This morning, we learned that Tamar and her class had done a project creating 19th century- style newspapers. Each created one issue of a newspaper specific to a place and time. Tamar's was the Redfield Revolution. Redfield is a real town in New York. north of Syracuse, but the newspaper name is fictional. It is dated April 12, 1855 (exactly 6 years before the firing on Fort Sumpter). Tamar had to research and write five articles on issues important to that place and time, like slavery and the Underground Railroad . 

     Tamar's Redfield Revolution 

In science, they were studying the 

"Cartesian Diver" phenomenon  which is all about density and bouyancy . Look it up!

   Tamar and her grandmother Doris examining the Cartesian diver.