Just in time

Ellen arrived at Charlie and Susie's home at about 5pm Thursday afternoon, and Charlie passed away at about 5am the next morning. We grieve his death, but no one can grieve his being spared extended hours/days of suffering. Ellen and Susie got little if any sleep during those twelve hours, but both were deeply grateful that Ellen arrived when she did. Now she is there to accompany Susie on her journey into a new and strange life without Charlie. I hope both are able to get some sleep tonight.

Charlie

                                                                Rest in Peace, Charlie!

Meanwhile, I had come up to the house late Thursday morning and had borrowed Andy's cell phone so that I would have some way to call for help if I needed it. But it turned out his phone didn't work up at the house. But not long after I got there, the mail arrived and I got the sim-card I had been looking for. When I went back to the Davis' for  supper, their son Arthur was there, and he easily installed the sim-card. So I now have a working cellphone with a new number. Ellen has the new cell phone with our old number.

Friday, I went up to the house again and got things ready for the Dummerston Church choir rehearsal that night. Several were not able to make it to the rehearsal, including our organist and accompanist, Mary Westbrook-Geha. So I sat at the piano and played parts. We had no altos at all (Ellen is our key alto), but we had two sopranos, two tenors and a bass besides myself. Everyone learned their parts and we sang the piece pretty well in 3-part harmony while I played the fourth, alto, part on the piano so everyone could hear how it fits in. We'll have Mary W-G to sing alto on Sunday. So I think it will go well.

I don't think I mentioned earlier that on Tuesday, March 3rd, Ellen and I went to Town Meeting, our annual New England ritual of democracy-in-action.  About 150 people showed up for the meeting, which was truncated this year because normally it is in two parts - one for the town budget and one for the school budget - but during the last year the state forced us to merge our school board with three other towns, because of declining enrollments, and the meeting for that unified district of the four schools (where Dummerston has only two representatives) is not until March 17th. So on the 3rd, we had only the town portion of the meeting. This is a real loss, and it is all being challenged in the state supreme court, but for now that's the way it is. We voted in the Vermont Democratic Primary on the 3rd - Super Tuesday. Bernie won that election, with about 350 votes in Dummerston. Joe Biden got about 160 votes in Dummerston and Elizabeth Warren was third with a few less than Biden. I think Bloomberg got about 50 votes and the rest were scattered. A Brattleboro Reformer photographer took a picture which has Ellen and me in the foreground, and a friend, Brownie Towle, the focus of attention. It was published in Wednesday's Reformer!

At Dummerston Town Meeting

Today, Saturday, I plan to finally take down our Christmas tree!   The needles are not falling at all, but it is pretty droopy. In the evening, I plan to have supper with the Bergh's (it's Eliza's birthday), and watch the UNC/Duke basketball game, the last game of the season, which could be exciting - after losing 7 in a row, UNC has now won 3 in a row. When they played Duke a few weeks ago, they were winning until the last seconds. So who knows? That's assuming the game will be held - at some point, the Corona-virus may cause games that put 25,000 people into one room to be cancelled.