Madness indeed

March Madness got even crazier tonight when Duke got sent home by Michigan State. It was a close game all the way. with numerous ties and lead changes, but this time Duke was not lucky at the end. Michigan State managed to pull out a one-point win. Virginia is the only #1 seed left in the tournament. One of the final four teams is Texas Tech. I think it's the first time they've been in the final four. That's the school that Paul's wife, Jenny, went to. So we can root for them. Disappointed Tar Heels fans can take a little comfort from Duke not making it to the final four.

That's basketball!

The 'Heels were overwhelmed by Auburn last night. Auburn scored 17 3-pointers - the most 3-pointers ever scored against the 'Heels in Roy Williams' 16 years as coach. Two 'Heels players had the flu but were playing anyway. The final score was Auburn 97, UNC 80. It was sad to see, but that's what can happen. In another game last night, Duke got lucky for the third time - Virginia Tech could have put the game into overtime in the last second but missed an easy layup, so Duke advances to the Elite Eight with a 2-point win - their 3rd close call in a month -  and the 'Heels go home. The basketball gods are cryptic!

Meanwhile, Ellen feels better today, which is what is really important. We'll be singing at a funeral at Guilford this afternoon. No game to watch tomorrow!

I've been working on the program for A Moment for Peace which is a First Friday event in Brattleboro, April 5th. I'll be teaching a group of songs from an Asian hymnal, Sound the Bamboo. One of the songs is a Taiwanese hymn titled Watch the Bush of Thorns, by Chun-ming Kao. Here is what i have to say about Kao:

Chun-ming Kao was born in Tainan, Taiwan, June 6, 1929, and graduated from Tainan Theological College and Seminary. He was a dissident under the Nationalist Kuomintang government in Taiwan, urging the government to respect human rights, hold national elections, abolish martial law and declare Taiwan an independent country. He suffered a long period of political and religious persecution including imprisonment from 1979-84. His Christ-like demeanor throughout his suffering earned him immense respect, and the text of this hymn, which draws on the image of God making herself known in the "burning bush," reflects his "theology of suffering."

 We don't have hymns like this in our hymnals:

Taiwanese hymn

 

Chun-ming Kao and his wife, Le-tin Li

Coping

I just cancelled my reservation for Saturday and Sunday night at Princeton theological seminary. Ellen has developed lower back pain which is going to make a trip to Princeton impossible this weekend. It is most painful when she's sitting. It's not so bad when she's lying down or standing up or walking. But driving is about the worst. She is very disappointed. I hope she's going to get better and if she doesn't this weekend , she said she will go see a physical therapist. Meanwhile she's cooking, etc., which involves standing and that's ok. But I am not used to seeing her wincing. I'm really feeling for her! 

We have gone to a couple of Hallowell sings, and we have a Hallowell leaders meeting coming up in just an hour or so.

I spent the morning today at the Subaru dealership while the car was being worked on to the tune of almost $500! Potholes had done a number on our steering and suspension. Oh well !  I was able to make good use of the time because I brought quite a bit of work with me. 

Sunday in Maine

We went to church with Jim at the First Universalist Church in Rockland. Mary felt she was coming down with a cold with a scratchy throat and was at the contagious stage, so she stayed home. She and Jim were in charge of coffee hour, so Ellen filled in for her. Mary had made a coffee cake Saturday evening - it was a pot-luck coffee hour, so many others brought snacks as well - and Ellen took care of cutting the cake into nice-sized portions before the service. Jim meanwhile was also on tap to hand out bulletins and help take up the offering. It was a "hymn sing" service, so there was no choir or sermon. We sang a lot of good hymns, several of which were unfamiliar, from the Unitarian hymnal. Some of the hymns had been chosen by the lay leaders of the service, but many were called out by members of the congregation. We all agreed that it was a satisfying selection. One of the selections was The Blue Green Hills of Earth, which is familiar to us from  the Paul Winter Missa Gaia. That was requested by a man ahead of us in the pew who turned out to be Roger Moody, who is author of a book Jim had lent to Ellen to read while she was there at the house, a book about the history of Maine logging and logging boats titled, Logging Towboats and Boom Jumpers, The Story of O.A. Harkness.  It's a fascinating book which is particularly interesting in describing the "boom -jumping" steel-hulled boats that could actually climb on top of a bunch of logs in the water and ride over them. Who knew?

Sanctuary of the First Universalist Church of Rockland, ME

An old boom-jumper

Of course, we bought a New York Times and worked on the Spelling Bee puzzle, after we got home. It was a bit unusual this week - the 3-pointer was "renewable," which tells you what the letters were. We both managed to get 19 points, which is genius level. The only word I thought of which Ellen missed was "newel" as in "newel post." Ellen got a couple I didn't, including the obvious "newer" which was stupid of me because I had "renew," "renewal" and "renewable." Why didn't I have "newer?" The brain is an odd thing! We both missed the Times' "bwana" and "wannabe." We didn't feel too bad about that.

The highlight of the afternoon was the Round 2 game between UNC and Washington. UNC won handily. Washington was no pushover - a tougher team than Iona had been, but UNC performed more consistently against Washington both defensively and offensively, and ended up winning by 21 points I think. They will now play Auburn in the Sweet Sixteen next Friday evening. We also watched the Duke game against Univ of Central Florida (UCF). Duke won by 1 point. UCF almost exactly replicated UNC's experience in the ACC final: both teams were behind by 1 point in the final 14 seconds, both had two missed shots in those final seconds and thus lost by one point. No commentator that I have read has pointed out this similarity, or commented on how lucky Duke has been. If UNC had made one of those baskets they would have won the ACC championship and Duke might not have been a #1 seed in the NCAA. If UFC had made one of those baskets, Duke would have gone home. UNC and Duke could meet each other a fourth time this year in a championship. Both will have to get by some very good teams to get into the championship, but that is not impossible. If they do meet for the championship I think it might be for the first time in NCAA history. That would be an epic game. And having beaten Duke twice this year and lost a third game by only 1 point, they could win, Zion Williamson notwithstanding, We'll see!

We ended the day watching an old P.D.James mystery, Devices and Desires, featuring Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgleish, going back to 1991 - available on YouTube. Compelling story and  it brought back a lot of memories.

We are now in Bath and on our way home. 

Later:

We are home, we've warmed up the house, and are now cozy in bed. 

Tomorrow I have an appt. with my dermatologist and on Thurs. an appt. for the car with Subaru. 

Maine excursions

This morning Jim, Mary and Ellen were working with a couple of guests in making ID name buttons for a Contradance Festival next weekend. They were using button-making machine, which is sort of cool.

Then this afternoon, we all went to Hope, ME to (1)an art show Jim had mounted in January at the Hope Library, which is still up, so we got to see it, and (2)a sugar house called "Sparky's" which was part of state-wide "Maine Maple Days," where you could see the sugar-making operation and get some free samples. On the way back we stopped at the Rockland Coop and I got Marshmallow Root and Protein Powder.

Sugar-making in the 1950s in Dummerston

The old-fashioned buckets

Sugar-making in Maine in 2019

The sap tank

Maple goodies for sale

The poster for Jim's show

One of our favorites

Another favorite

The Tolles Cottage on Cape Porpoise, ME

In Maine

We are at Jim and Mary's place in Owl's Head.  We are about to watch UNC play Iona University (New Rochelle, NY) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. A 1-seed against a 16-seed - it should be an easy win for UNC but you can never take a team for granted. Last year, a 16-seed team beat Virginia in the first round - first time ever.

The trip over was messy - rain and snow, foggy, lots of getting splashed by trucks.  BUT, I had bought new windshield-wipers, and they are great. I splurged - $50 for the pair - and maybe it will be worth it.

On our way over we stopped at Antioch University in Keene, where John works, for a lecture by Katherine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, who was lecturing by Skype (or something like Skype) - what is now called a "low-carbon" lecture - i.e., does not involve  the lecturer flying to the audience.  Her image was projected on the wall. She was an engaging lecturer, and was particularly effective in summarizing research on why people hold the views they do on climate change and global warming. Two basic ideas - political identity overwhelms scientific facts,* and hardly anyone  (both Democrats and Republicans) thinks climate change will affect them personally even when they admit it will profoundly affect others.  Dr. Hayhoe still holds out hope that we can do something to reverse the trend of global warming without giving up our American  highly consumer-oriented way of life, at least not right away. John asked the final question and he questioned her on that. Her response was that she recognized the problem - she realizes that her relatively modest lifestyle still requires "four planets" to sustain (and we only have one) - but that initially, in order to engage the apathetic public into making changes, we have to go after the "low-hanging fruit" like recycling, solar farms and electric cars, and not overwhelm people with draconian measures right off the bat. Sacrifices can come later.

Well, maybe.

(*This is not entirely fair. Democrats get the scientific facts completely.Their political identity predisposes them to listen to science. Republican ideology flies in the face of scientific facts even when those facts are staring them in the face. Theirs  is essentially a belief that combating climate change will curtail individual freedom, lead to stronger government and cost too much, and thus it must be denied. Some evangelicals believe that a loving God would not allow it to happen. On the other hand, a few others believe it presages the end times, and trying to reverse it will only delay the second coming).

Dr. Katherine Hayhoe

Back to the game:
The Heels trailed by 5 at the half! But now they are up by 17 with 4 minutes left.

Later:

They won. They'll play Univ. of Washington Sunday eve.

Good report

I had the endoscopy Tuesday afternoon. It went well, and Dr. Potash reported to Ellen that he found only a moderate constriction in the esophagus which he dilated, and no inflammation or cancer. So that is a good report. I personally never saw him - I was asleep by the time he came into the room and by the time I was awake in the recovery room he was long gone. My new med for anti-acid is working well - better than the omeprazole did - and I am eating normally.

All of that esophageal stuff has pretty much dominated the past 10 days, but we have had time for a few other things. We  had lunch with Katie and Savanna, and I went to the Shutesbury, MA library and borrowed a couple of books by Richard E. Kim (a Korean author who lived in Shutesbury until his death in 2009); then we went to see Max Feinland in Grease at Northhampton High (high energy); we went to a vigil for the Christ Church, NZ massacre; we went to a Blanche Moyse Chorale concert Sunday afternoon - music of Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms - a lovely program; we went to Tom and Nancy's Ragle's house Sunday evening and watched The Wife on their screen - and ate popcorn. Fun!  I went to River Singers rehearsal last night but didn't try to sing, just listen. Tomorrow is Hallowell rehearsal and Friday we'll go to Maine for the weekend. So life goes on.

Shutesbury Library - small but charming. 

Kate Judd, rabbi,  and Javed Chaudri, Muslim,  at the Vigil Sunday

More on Richard E. Kim in a later post.

TWTWTW

This has been quite a week!

Sunday night, my esophagus started misbehaving. Things just weren't going through well. It was a miserable feeling. Saw a doc Wed. had a barium swallow test Thurs., saw my gastroenterologist Fri., got a new med, will have an endoscopy next Tues. Already doing better. Maybe a combination of an intestinal bug and a flare-up of an old condition of ulcerative esophagus going back 11 years or so. Glad to be feeling better

Today we came to K&S's for munch and are at Feinlands tonight for supper and then a show - Max is in Grease and Northhampton High.

More later!

Clarification

Let me clarify something I said in a previous post. I mentioned that I had heard a rumor in the hot tub at the pool that Hampshire College might be closing. I've checked that out by looking at the student newspaper at Hampshire and watching a video by Hampshire College President Nelson. The story seems to be that the board has voted to accept a much smaller class in the fall of 2019, a reality which will be accompanied by significant layoffs of staff and faculty this spring and summer. Hampshire is also pursuing the possibility of a "strategic partnership" with another institution to preserve its long-term viability. So, the college is not closing, but it clearly is dealing with serious financial challenges. The president, in her video talk, mentions both the shift in demographic of college-age students, and also the fact that Hampshire has never had a large endowment. It has no reserves to help it weather a difficult time. It sounds like they're hoping they can find someone who does have a lot of money that they can partner with, but who knows where that will lead. 

Do kids still send cards like these ?

Going through archival paper files I ran across these cards Shirley sent her mother when she was a girl - back in the 1940s.

 Hand-made Mother's Day Card (some flowers have dropped off):

\

                             

                   Birthday Card:

I love the message: "Every inch on this wool is 50,000,000 bales and 50,000,000 bushels of my love for you. The needles stand for hugs and kisses."  So sweet!

The last ten days

Well, let's see. My last post of substance was Feb 27th - so it's been ten days! I can't even remember what happened on some of those days. But here are the main events of these past ten days;
    1) My 86th birthday on Saturday
    2) Church in Guilford Sunday morning
    3) A meeting of the congregation after church to discuss Lise's announced retirement and the
           process for finding a new pastor.
    4) Another meeting at the Guilford church later on Sunday featuring two members of the
           Abenaki tribe, talking about the Native American heritage in Windham County.
    5) Dummerston Town meeting on Tuesday
    6) Ash Wednesday  service on Wednesday
    7) Windham-Union Association meeting Thursday morning
    8) Dummerston Church Choir rehearsal on Friday evening.
    9) Two Tarheels basketball games - one on Saturday and one on Tuesday.

    Mixed in around all of that were first of all a lot of attention to the wood stove to help get the house warmed up (it was COLD when we arrived home and has remained cold ever since - I'm sick of cold weather!), three trips to the pool (Ahh ... the hot tub!!), some shopping errands, some lazy mornings reading in bed (we can get the bedroom cozy with the electric baseboard heat), listening to the Cohen testimony (mostly on the radio), and at least three trips to the Putney Library to transform paper files into .pdf files using their scanner (which works essentially like the one in Alpine, WY where I "digitized" a box of files while we were there in January-Feb.). One thing we have NOT done - our Christmas tree is still up! Just no time yet to take off the decorations and take it down.

    I had a lovely birthday party, with John and Cynthia and Katie and Savanna here at the house. Ellen prepared a delicious supper, and made a marvelous carrot cake for my birthday cake (we sent some home with K&S but I've had several pieces since - YUM!!). Katie&Savanna gave me two fountain pens for my birthday - Savanna is a fountain pen aficionado. She herself has a large collection and she also reviews them for fountain pen magazines! So she gets sent free ones to review. I also love fountain pens, I only have a couple of them, and I am thrilled to get them. John and Cynthia gave me a CD of Celtic chants from the Hebrides islands - very unique music which reminded me very much of songs I've heard Emmy Miller sing which come out of Appalachia. I think there is a direct connection there. So I got some really cool gifts!

Ready for my birthday supper

Happy Birthday to me!!

Cynthia and Katie eye the cake!

    Sunday was a full day! We sang in the choir at the morning service - Andy Davis directing - and then attended the meeting afterward. Lise had just announced her plan to retire in 2020 by letter a few days earlier. This is huge. She has been pastor at Guilford since 2000. She also wants the church to adopt a new process for transition to a new pastor, called, informally, the "overlap" model, in contrast with the "interim" model. Under the more traditional "interim" model, the pastor sets a date for retirement, and the church finds an interim pastor who takes over the Sunday after the old pastor leaves. The old pastor basically "disappears" - gets out of the way - and the interim pastor leads the church for a year or two while a search committee goes through a process of reviewing candidates for a "settled" pastor - one who presumably will stay for several years. The interim pastor assists in the process, especially by helping the congregation to clarify its goals and mission as a church and clearly communicate to candidates what they are looking for in a new pastor.

    That is essentially what happened when Shirley and I retired back in 1997. Allyson Platt took over as the interim the Sunday following our last Sunday, Shirley and I "disappeared" by taking a trip south, and Allyson led the church for a year while the search committee looked for a settled pastor. Allyson was very well-liked, and many, if not most, would have been happy for her to stay on as the settled pastor. But under the "interim" model that is not allowed, because it unfairly skews the search process. Then two things happened: Shirley died unexpectedly six months after we left, which plunged the church into grief. And the church committee presented a candidate for the settled pastor position who turned out to be a not a good fit for the church. This led to a difficult year, that pastor voluntarily left, and there was another year or more of no consistent pastoral leadership before Lise finally settled into that role. This seems to have "soured" the church - at least many members -  on the "interim" model. Other churches, it seems, have also had similarly negative experiences with the "interim" model. So the "overlap" model has emerged. It has been around for a few years (and is promoted in a book titled Elephant in the Boardroom). Under this process, the retiring pastor announces her retirement with a good length of lead time, the church gears up and goes through the search process before that retirement date, there is no "interim" pastor, and the candidate who is presented to the congregation as the "settled pastor" is identified before the old pastor has left and actually arrives at least a week or even longer before the old pastor actually departs - thus the "overlap" of the two pastors for a while, and the new pastor gets a good sense of what he or she is taking on, so to speak. The churches who have done this feel it provides for a smoother transition and no loss of "momentum." It is recommended only for churches where there are not divisive issues lurking beneath the surface, which seems to be the case here. However, it is a fairly new idea and there are not a lot of actual examples of it out there in the world. So there is a bit of the unknown about it. I am intrigued by it but also see potential problems with it. We shall see! It was a lively meeting and quite a few people spoke on their feelings about it - there seems to be a strong preference for it at the moment.

    The afternoon session with the Abenaki folks was  fascinating - much of it had to do with evidences of ancient indigenous settlements at the juncture of the West River and the Connecticut River, in Brattleboro, in particular some possible petroglyphs made by indigenous people which were flooded when the Connecticut River was dammed at Vernon and  are now under water but have been seen by divers, one of whom was at the meeting and had photos. I was largely unaware of this.

The presenters at the Abenaki history session

    Town meeting is always great. Such a heart-warming example of democracy in action. Much time was spent debating expenditures which were paltry in size - a few thousand dollars - less than 1% of the total budget - but with high symbolic significance: e.g., the preservation of farmland, the presence of a public library in town, etc. I spoke a couple of times. The votes went as I hoped they would. We got to hear from our representatives in the state legislature who are all very principled and articulate and accessible. There was a good lunch, served on reusable trays (last year I helped get them off of plastic plates, cups and table service). The one problem --- all the offices we voted for by paper ballot were unopposed. In a sense the voting was meaningless - there were no contests. More people need to run for office. The school budget was passed  even though we are in the midst of a probable merger of our school with another being forced by the state board of education because of declining student enrollments statewide (Dummerston school enrollment has actually been flat for several years). This is being challenged by our town and others in court, but later this year our school may cease to exist as an independent town school, and our school board may be merged into a larger, regional board. This may have been our last Town School Meeting where we gather to vote on the school budget and other issues relating to the school.

Nader Hashim, legislator, addresses town meeting. Mike Mrowicki and Sen. Jeanette White are behind at left.

    This comes as other shocking developments have been announced - the college where I was on the faculty from 1982 to 1994, Southern Vermont College in Bennington, VT, announced this week it is closing this spring. And we heard the rumor that Hampshire College in Hadley, MA, one of the five colleges in the Amherst area (and the alma mater of Ken Burns) is closing. This really is shocking and sad. Something is happening in higher education which is alarming. More on that in later posts on this blog.

    The Ash Wednesday service was wonderfully somber. Again, there was a small choir, and we sang I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger which is hauntingly beautiful. My meeting with the Windham-Union Association Executive Committee was in Bellows Falls and it was a good meeting in the sense that I think I helped shape some decisions in a good way. I am sort of an eminence gris  on that committee. Our new treasurer is a woman whom I first knew as a girl when I was pastor in Dummerston in the 1950s. This was her first meeting, and she made a point to testify to how much I meant to her. That was gratifying.

Kurt Shaffter and Scott Couper at the WUA Meeting

    Wednesday night I stayed home so I could call choir members, I found that very few could come to a Thursday rehearsal so I had to call around and change it to Friday. Ellen brought me home after the Ash Wednesday service (which was early- at 5p.m.)  and then went back to town for the movies, Free Solo, about the  man who scaled El Capitan, in Yosemite,  without ropes - an astounding feat. It got the Oscar for best documentary.

    Last night I worked on getting music ready for the Dummerston Choir. Our anthem is set to a 12th Cent. Japanese tune, IMAYO, which I love. It too is very somber in a dramatic way which appeals to me. Sunday is, of course, the first Sunday in Lent. We also set our clocks ahead! Choir rehearsal is tonight.

    Saturday is the final game in the TarHeels regular season - they again play Duke, this time on the 'Heels' home court. They beat Duke on the Duke court two weeks ago - an upset - and Duke will be looking for a revenge win. But the "Heels will have home court advantage. The key issue is whether Zion Williamson will be able to play. Duke may be saving him for the NCAA tournament later this month. We are going to Clif and Eliza Bergh's place for supper and game. There is also a 90th birthday party  Sat. afternoon at the Grange for Suzanna Woodcock, whom I have known for over 40 years, going back to early Guilford days. There is always so much!

Limited access

I apologize to my faithful readers for long gaps between posts! Since coming home I find that When I try to upload a post from my iPhone to vividreports, I get an error message. Thus I can only do a post from my computer away from home, and those opportunities have been very limited. Tonight I am at a River Singers rehearsal. Since last week I have had a birthday, and lots of other things - I'll try to find time tomorrow to report on all that!

Waiting for rehearsal to begin in the Westminster-West church