Getting there

I'm at the Library again - Ellen dropped me off - and I am almost down to the bottom of my stack of papers. All that is left to copy are oddly sized papers, or torn papers, that won't go through the copier. I just tried to run pages from a journal that Shirley had kept during a trip with two other women friends to Man-O-War Island in the Bahamas back in 1977 - a wonderful journal that captures the ecstasy she felt being near, on and in the ocean, snorkeling and sailing and swimming. I had torn the pages out of a spiral notebook, so one side was the rough side I had torn out, and the opposite was smooth. I thought the copier would take the smooth side, but pages kept jamming. So I ended up taking a photo of each page.

Here is just a taste - one page -  of Shirley's journal:

a page of Shirley's Man-O-War journal

 "...Freddie Aubrey brought cereal, bacon & eggs for breakfast before we did some snorkeling. My mask didn't fit and I found a new one but it fogged up because I breathed through my nose so I canned that act and watched the fish with my natural eye - grey snappers, blue parrot fish and others in Rusty's fish book -- and a view of a Ray - looked giant under the water and so close - tried to take pictures.

  So off to the beach & the waves on the other side and the aqua blue and the sparkling sand - oh! oh! I jumped in  -- Rusty wondered if I saw the Ray behind me - not until I got out - a good thing. The sun is hot & we found a shade tree and the first people  -  a couple under a tree, old and brown - walked among the flowers -- hibiscus and bougainvillia - to the village...more people in the village ..."


Earlier at the library I made .pdfs of scores of letters from Stanley Whittaker, written back in the 1990s, mostly.  Stanley was an African-American man whom I got to know through Gail Lobenstine, a saintly woman in Brattleboro who had met Stanley at a community meal for the homeless that her church ran, and I eventually sort of "took Stanley on" when she no longer could, which involved supporting him both morally and financially for close to 20 years, much of which time he was in prison, but most importantly after he was released from prison, helping him with housing, transportation and work in his effort to reenter the community.  I marshalled some support for him through both the Guilford Church and the Dummerston Church and we finally got him through to the place where he was off probation and could make a life on his own. I lost track of him after that and I wonder how he is doing. Those letters tell quite a story.

While at the library I took a break and walked to the Valley Pharmacy for saline nasal spray and Fisherman's Friend throat lozenges. They had both at a very reasonable price, and when I walked in the door the pharmacist said, "Hello, Mr.Crockett!" Now that's how to run a good business!  I'd like to take the whole store back to Brattleboro in my pocket.

Back to the Library just in time for Ellen to pick me up.

The Alpine Library