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.